The Perfect Widow. A.M. Castle

of it isn’t so great. My eyes seem to have shrunk from crying, while the lids are as puffy as the vol-au-vents which are already standing in serried ranks downstairs in the kitchen for the wake. Well, reception. Or aftermath? Whatever you want to call the ghastly gathering after the funeral, where we will all chat awkwardly until the alcohol kicks in. Then the laughter will suddenly ring out too loudly and we’ll be embarrassed again.

      Meanwhile, my children are in pieces and my mother-in-law has barely spoken since it happened. Because of the delay, you’d think things would be less awful. They’re absolutely not. By the time we get to the crematorium, I feel as though I’m floating about a foot above the scene, or six feet below it.

      Jill’s arm is round my shoulders, mine round hers, as we progress slowly up the aisle. The children sleepwalk in front of us. It’s like a negative of my wedding photos, all that white tulle and hope swapped for black and nasty pine veneer.

      Patrick is already here, as arranged. We meet at the top of the aisle, just like we did before. But this time I slide into my pew, leaving him in lonely splendour on his dais. The shiny coffin nailed down hard over his smart suit. Goodbye, my love.

      I planned the service down to the last word but after it’s over I couldn’t tell you a thing that was said, done or sung. I know the pieces complemented him, and our life together, and celebrated our children, our finest achievement by far – and I know they did the trick because I could hear the sniffs behind me from the congregation. Giles and Em too, they snuffle on either side of me, tiny soft creatures again, needing all the protection I can give them. Jill is on the end of the pew, back ramrod straight, knuckles white on the shivering service sheet.

      It feels right to be here, instead of in a church. We’ve only ever been fair-weather members of any congregation, only there for the jolly bits, not slogging it out every Sunday. The kids aren’t at church schools so, to put it bluntly, there’s been no need. The last time we were in one was probably Em’s christening, at Jill’s urging. She was too shattered to insist that we hold the funeral there. I’d feel bad about this awful municipal solution to Patrick’s death, but I really don’t have that much emotion to spare. I’m sure God, and Jill, have worse things to worry about.

      As far as I know, Patrick had never given a thought to all this – death and the rigorous tidying away it requires. But he would have enjoyed being centre stage, all eyes on him. People often say that, and I’ve thought how discordant it sounds, yet today it’s true. The full rows of friends, neighbours, distant relatives and vague acquaintances who have turned out for him. And quite a number of attractive women sobbing. That would have tickled him. He loved to cause a stir. If he’d been here, he’d have been so busy, up and down the aisle, a handshake there, a kiss, a look, a word. And turning, now and then, to give me that wink.

      I think about him as the recorded organ music starts up. It was loud and rousing during the hymns, filling out the gaps where we all blundered, after the first couple of familiar lines. I muttered along for form’s sake, while Giles and Em were hardly audible. What do you expect? They don’t do proper hymns anymore at school, even the posh places like theirs. If they sing, it’s all about dolphins, not Dear Lord and Father and forgive our foolish ways. Jill’s voice was husky, catching on cigarettes and grief.

      Now, the organ sound dribbles away, mild and meandering, ushering us out of the crematorium and onwards, to the rest of our lives. We shuffle obligingly to our feet when the celebrant, whose eulogy for Patrick gave new meaning to the word bland, gestures for us to go first. Once again, it’s a wedding march, except now Patrick is being left behind forever.

      On the way back down the aisle, where once I grinned from ear to ear, my veil thrown back, ring gleaming on my third finger, my prize the wonderful man on my arm, now I walk uncertainly with Giles and Em, glancing quickly at the friends and colleagues who don’t know whether to smile or not. There’s Patrick’s university friend, they shared a flat back in the day, after graduation. A group from our old firm – it all seems so long ago now. A few more recent clients – I dread the chats to come. The miscellaneous blondes – my gaze skates over them and they busy themselves with bags and tissues, darting out of my view like a shoal of silvery fish. And there’s Jen, kind and lovely Jen. Still gorgeous. Still with that idiot Tim. She gives me such a lovely smile. Ah, Stacy Johnson, my best friend, right in the middle of a row. She’s in bits. Of course she is. I try not to catch her eye. I really can’t afford to set myself off again. I need to hold it together.

      Then, in the last pew, I do a double take. The little policewoman. Not in uniform, but I recognise those bold, beady eyes, running over my face. She’s wearing a hoody and jeans. Not even black. Is nothing sacred? What is she doing here? It was bad enough that evening, her stare. But at my husband’s funeral? I hope the children haven’t seen or recognised her. I press them closer to me. Her gaze follows me as I pass. I do a mental tut. Here? Really?

      And I swish on out, the flawless skirt of my black crepe dress flowing around my legs.

       Chapter 7

       Then

      By my second day, I’d found a skirt that was within shouting distance of my knees, and I listened like an over-eager schoolgirl, lapping up everything Jen told me. Not that I needed much help to work out how the great bank of phones worked. Yes, it looked like something Lieutenant Uhura would have sat in front of in Star Trek, but I had mastered it in minutes. At least it wasn’t the olden days, when you had to plug in little wires and make a cat’s cradle, physically joining one call to another. That might have given me pause. Now it was just the flick of a switch.

      Reception was all about smiling, really. The name said it all. Receiving people, welcoming them, looking them right in the eye. And pacing yourself so you didn’t feel as though your face was going to split after the first half-hour.

      Where had I got the training for this? Ushering friends into our home? Ha. Don’t make me laugh. It had all been about keeping people out. ‘The busies,’ my mother called them. Not just the police. Social workers, top of the list. Then all the other undesirables. Relatives, not that they bothered much. Mum had successfully alienated all of them. Various complex grudges that I never really got the hang of, though I suppose everything boiled down to money and sex in the end. Women friends were the same. Sometimes she’d shout about it all, depending how far down the bottle she was. I learned to block out the noise. Then there were the more obvious no-nos – ex-boyfriends, retribution on their minds. Money lenders, occasionally. And, more than once, the bailiffs. Hard to stop them, though, after they’d stoved in the door. All of the above could fit more than one category, a Venn diagram with more circles than hell.

      So my instincts were to curl up, protect myself, hide from the light. But I was desperate for this to work. So I learned. And soon, I blossomed. Not in a showy way. Concealing my feelings was one of the very few transferrable skills my upbringing had given me. But I could pin on a smile brighter than the chrome of my fancy office chair when I had to. And I felt so much more at home at that desk, than I ever had anywhere else before. Including my actual home.

      Partly, that was because of Patrick.

      I couldn’t have told you what it was about him that clicked with every bit of my DNA. But it was as though a key had been turned, somewhere. Like a Chinese puzzle, my shrivelled heart was now open, ready to be trashed. I distrusted the feeling. Protected myself as best I could. But it was no good. I didn’t know his name, which floor he worked on, or anything else about him. Yet I was already his.

      As it turned out, the more I found out, the more I loved the idea of him. Or just loved him. I asked Jen, all casual, as soon as the lift had swished closed on him that morning, but of course she was no fool. Immediately, she warned me off.

      ‘He’s a bit of a player, Louise. You need to be a bit careful there. I’d think again, if I were you.’

      Whether it was genuine concern for me or not, I neither knew nor cared. All it did was make me keener. If that were even possible. Though those words of hers would come