15

Jake drove down for the cremation, and he brought Dinah. I didn’t know what to expect, although I knew that he wasn’t going to burst into my mother’s house and congratulate me. He walked straight past me and saluted my mother on both cheeks. Then, holding her elbow, he led her into the study.

“I don’t know what’s eating him,” Dinah said. “He didn’t speak the whole bloody way.”

“Don’t talk like that in front of Gran. Please.”

“Sorry. He drove like a bloody maniac, too.”

“Oh, Dinah …”

“He did. Is everyone very miserable?”

I hurried into the study. It was all right. My mother was going through the catalogue of my father’s affections: “… I was just saying the other night, how fond he was of you, Jake. He was very proud of you, too, you know. Only last week, I can’t believe it now, but only last week he said, ‘Mame, we must go and see that film of Jake’s at the Odeon.’ Of course he hadn’t been out for three months, but that seemed such a sign of hope. And now …”

“Is there a drink?” Jake asked, not looking at me.

“Oh dear,” my mother said. “There they are.” She began to cry again.

“We can’t … get to the front door,” the undertaker murmured. “Could the gentleman please move his car?”

“Could you move your car?” I asked Jake.

I thought he was going to refuse, but he moved it.

“Could you see they get him down all right?” I asked. “I’m going to take her into the garden. She doesn’t want to see him go away.”

He didn’t answer. Dinah and I walked my mother over the lawn, through the shrubbery to the vegetable patch. My mother, in her hat, was still weeping. “He loved his vegetables,” she said. “We never bought a single vegetable until this winter, when he couldn’t manage it any more. Remember the strawberries, Dinah? You loved his strawberries,”

“Yes,” Dinah said. “They were super.”

“He thought you were growing just like your mother — he meant when she was your age, of course … Do you think they’ve … finished now, dear?”

“No,” I said. “Let’s walk round once more.”

My mother blew her nose, then again clung to Dinah. We bent our heads against the wind and started round the sprouts again. “She was a wild, harum-scarum little girl, though,” my mother said. “What was the name of that friend you had to stay that summer? Eileen, was it? George liked her, I remember. What was her name?”

“Ireen,” I said uneasily. “You could let this off for allotments, couldn’t you?”

“Ireen. That’s right. She wrote to your father, such a sweet letter. She said she wished her father was like him. George was so modest, he was quite angry with me for reading it. It only seems like yesterday, and now … He didn’t even say goodbye …”

“Run and see if they’re ready,” I told Dinah.

“Okay.” She ran like a woman, not a girl, with her knees together and her feet wide apart. Perhaps it was cruel, but I wanted her to cry, to be sorry. Had she loved him? Did she love anybody? Did she even love me? What would she say when I told her that I was pregnant again? Would she think it… disgusting?

“Don’t say anything to Dinah. About the baby, I mean. You won’t, will you?”

“Of course not, dear. But Jake knows, I hope?”

“Yes; Jake knows.”

“It seems so dreadful that he’ll have a grandchild … after he’s gone. He loved the children, you know. Oh, he used to get angry, he used to say you had far too many. But he always loved them, you know that.”

“Yes,” I said. “Come on, now. They’re ready.”

We drove to Luton at ten miles an hour, my father in his disposable coffin leading the way. There was no ashtray in the Daimler, and each time Jake finished a cigarette he wound the window down and threw the stub out. My mother had at last stopped talking. I had never seen Jake so pale, haggard. He sat with his back to the undertakers, his coat collar turned up, smoking with short, savage puffs. Dinah kept coughing. I daren’t say anything. My mother took my hand and held it tightly. At the crematorium there were a few relatives, all the office staff from the factory and three or four of the men; there were representatives from the Rotary Club, the Borough Council, and the British Legion. Dinah turned down Jake’s collar and he gave her a weak smile. In the chapel I stood between Dinah and my mother, but I was only conscious of Jake. “Fight the good fight,” my father’s good friends sang, “with all thy might, Christ is thy strength and Christ thy right…” Jake stood with his hands in his pockets. I felt that his hands and his teeth were clenched; that he was sweating. It could have looked like grief, but I knew that it was anger. “Faint not nor fear,” the Rotarians sang, “his arms are near, He changeth not and thou art dear …” My eyes burned with tears, but not for my father. My mother squeezed my hand. She was glad to see me crying at last.

The doors opened, the coffin and the wreaths moved slowly away into the efficient, unseen furnace. Dinah’s eyes were wide, her lips parted, she was shocked. We knelt, and the clergyman began some droning prayer. “Oh, why can’t he be quiet!” my mother whispered savagely. I wished Jake could have heard this. I felt him looking at me and turned quickly. He stared at me. I smiled. He turned away, covering his eyes with his hand. I had been apprehensive, now I was frightened. I prayed, but not for my burning father. Let it be all right. Make it all right. Stop him looking at me like that.

Immediately we got home, he left, taking with him the bewildered and profanely protesting Dinah. My mother said, “He seems so upset. I wish I could think it was because of George. But I suspect it’s something quite different.”