Twenties Girl

“Would any of you like to speak about the deceased?”
Mutely, we all shake our heads.
“I understand. It can often be too painful for close family.” The vicar produces a notebook and pencil from her pocket. “In which case I’ll be glad to speak on your behalf. If you could perhaps just give me some details. Incidents from her life. Tell me everything about Sadie that we should be celebrating.”
There’s silence.
“We didn’t really know her,” Dad says apologetically. “She was very old.”
“One hundred and five,” Mum puts in. “She was one hundred and five.”
“Was she ever married?” the vicar prompts.
“Er…” Dad’s brow is wrinkled. “Was there a husband, Bill?”
“Dunno. Yeah, I think there was. Don’t know what he was called, though.” Uncle Bill hasn’t even looked from his BlackBerry. “Can we get on with this?”
“Of course.” The vicar’s sympathetic smile has frozen. “Well, perhaps just some small anecdote from the last time you visited her… some hobby…”
There’s another guilty silence.
“She’s wearing a cardigan in the picture,” ventures Mum at last. “Maybe she knitted it. Maybe she liked knitting.”
“Did you never visit her?” The vicar is clearly forcing herself to stay polite.
“Of course we did!” says Mum defensively. “We popped in to see her in…” She thinks. “In 1982, I think it was. Lara was a baby.”
“1982?” The vicar looks scandalized.
“She didn’t know us,” puts in Dad quickly. “She really wasn’t all there.”
“What about from earlier in her life?” The vicar’s voice sounds slightly outraged. “No achievements? Stories from her youth?”
“Jeez, you don’t give up, do you?” Diamante rips her iPod speakers out of her ears. “Can’t you tell we’re only here because we have to be? She didn’t do anything special. She didn’t achieve anything. She was nobody! Just some million-year-old nobody.”
“Diamante!” says Aunt Trudy in mild reproof. “That’s not very nice.”
“It’s true, though, isn’t it? I mean, look!” She gestures scornfully around the empty room. “If only six people came to my funeral, I’d shoot myself.”
“Young lady.” The vicar takes a few steps forward, her face flushing with anger. “No human on God’s earth is a nobody.”
“Yeah, whatever,” says Diamante rudely, and I can see the vicar opening her mouth to make another retort.
“Diamante.” Uncle Bill lifts a hand quickly. “Enough. Obviously I myself regret not visiting Sadie, who I’m sure was a very special person, and I’m sure I speak for all of us.” He’s so charming, I can see the vicar’s ruffled feathers being smoothed. “But now what we’d like to do is send her off with dignity. I expect you have a tight schedule, as do we.” He taps his watch.
“Indeed,” says the vicar after a pause. “I’ll just prepare. In the meantime, please switch off your mobile phones.” With a last disapproving look around at us all, she heads out again, and Aunt Trudy immediately turns in her seat.
“What a nerve, giving us a guilt trip! We don’t have to be here, you know.”
The door opens and we all look up-but it’s not the vicar, it’s Tonya. I didn’t know she was coming. This day just got about a hundred percent worse.
“Have I missed it?” Her pneumatic drill of a voice fills the room as she strides down the aisle. “I just managed to scoot away from Toddler Gym before the twins had a meltdown. Honestly, this au pair is worse than the last one, and that’s saying something…”
She’s wearing black trousers and a black cardigan trimmed with leopard print, her thick highlighted hair pulled back in a ponytail. Tonya used to be an office manager at Shell and boss people around all day. Now she’s a full-time mum of twin boys, Lorcan and Declan, and bosses her poor au pairs around instead.
“How are the boys?” asks Mum, but Tonya doesn’t notice. She’s totally focused on Uncle Bill.
“Uncle Bill, I read your book! It was amazing! It changed my life. I’ve told everyone about it. And the photo is wonderful, although it doesn’t do you justice.”
“Thanks, sweetheart.” Bill shoots her his standard yes-I-know-I’m-brilliant smile, but she doesn’t seem to notice.
“Isn’t it a fantastic book?” She appeals around to the rest of us. “Isn’t Uncle Bill a genius? To start with absolutely nothing! Just two coins and a big dream! It’s so inspiring for humanity!”
She’s such a suck-up, I want to hurl. Mum and Dad obviously feel the same way, as neither of them answers. Uncle Bill isn’t paying her any attention either. Reluctantly, she swivels around on her heel.
“How are you, Lara? I’ve hardly seen you lately! You’ve been hiding!” Her eyes start focusing in on me with intent as she comes nearer and I shrink away. Uh-oh. I know that look.
My sister, Tonya, basically has three facial expressions:
1) Totally blank and bovine.
2) Loud, showy-offy laughter, as in “Uncle Bill, you kill me!”
3) Gloating delight masked as sympathy as she picks away at someone else’s misery. She’s addicted to the Real Life channel and books with tragic, scruffy kids on the cover, called things like Please, Grammy, Don’t Hit Me with the Mangle.
“I haven’t seen you since you split up with Josh. What a shame. You two seemed so perfect together!” Tonya tilts her head sorrowfully. “Didn’t they seem perfect together, Mum?”
“Well, it didn’t work out.” I try to sound matter-of-fact. “So anyway…”
“What went wrong?” She gives me that doe-eyed, fake-concerned look she gets when something bad happens to another person and she’s really, really enjoying it.
“These things happen.” I shrug.
“But they don’t, though, do they? There’s always a reason.” Tonya is relentless. “Didn’t he say anything?”
“Tonya,” Dad puts in gently. “Is this the best time?”
“Dad, I’m just supporting Lara,” Tonya says, in affront. “It’s always best to talk these things through! So, was there someone else?” Her eyes swivel back to me.
“I don’t think so.”
“Were you getting on OK?”
“Yes.”
“Then why?” She folds her arms, looking baffled and almost accusing. “Why?”
I don’t know why! I want to scream. Don’t you think I’ve asked myself that question a bazillion times?
“It was just one of those things!” I force a smile. “I’m fine about it. I’ve realized that it wasn’t meant to be, and I’ve moved on and I’m in a good place. I’m really happy.”
“You don’t look happy.” Diamante observes from across the aisle. “Does she, Mum?”
Aunt Trudy surveys me for a few moments.
“No,” she says at last, in definitive tones. “She doesn’t look happy.”
“Well, I am!” I can feel tears stinging my eyes. “I’m just hiding it! I’m really, really, really happy!”
God, I hate all my relatives.
“Tonya, darling, sit down,” Mum says tactfully. “How did the school visit go?”
Blinking hard, I get out my phone and pretend to be checking my messages so no one bothers me. Then, before I can stop it, my finger scrolls down to photos.
Don’t look, I tell myself firmly. Do not look.
But my fingers won’t obey me. It’s an overwhelming compulsion. I have to have one quick look, just to keep me going… my fingers are scrabbling as I summon up my favorite picture. Josh and me. Standing together on a mountain slope, arms around each other, both with ski tans. Josh’s fair hair is curling over the goggles thrust up on his head. He’s smiling at me with that perfect dimple in his cheek, that dimple I used to push my finger into, like a toddler with Play-Doh.
We first met at a Guy Fawkes party, standing around a fire in a garden in Clapham that belonged to a girl I knew at university. Josh was handing out sparklers to everyone. He lit one for me and asked me what my name was and wrote Lara in the darkness with his sparkler, and I laughed and asked his name. We wrote each other’s names in the air until the sparklers went dead, then edged closer to the fire and sipped mulled wine and reminisced about fireworks parties of our childhoods. Everything we said chimed. We laughed at the same things. I’d never met anyone so easygoing. Or with such a cute smile. I can’t imagine him being with anyone else. I just can’t…