Page 46 of Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests
Vivienne unzips her coat and drapes it over her lap, trying to ignore the dampness under her arms, on her lower back, behind her knees.
“It’s a nice church,” Cat whispers as they gaze up at the towering marble altar, which is guarded by two large displays of yet more lilies and peonies, outperformed only by the crucifix on the back wall.
Vivienne’s eyes are drawn to Jesus’s hip bone poking from his skin, such a touchingly human detail.
“It’s beautiful.” She nods, because really it is.
No matter what your thoughts about religion, there is beauty here.
The ornate yellow-gold tabernacle behind the altar, the intricate stained glass arching high above them.
But more than that, the comforting, reassuring atmosphere of the place is beautiful.
Here, sadness is welcome, grief is safe.
Looking around, Vivienne is surprised by how full the church is.
In the row in front, she sees three men around Tristan’s age—his university friends, she presumes.
A pale woman with dark, curly hair falling over her shoulders walks in alone and stands at the back, keeping her head down and hugging her long black coat tight around her, despite the rising heat in the church.
Then Vivienne watches as Susan and Tristan’s dad, Jim, make their way to the front.
Jim wears an old suit that must have fit him once but is now too large at the shoulders and too tight at the waist. As they walk down the aisle, Susan’s hand tucked into her husband’s elbow.
They could be any couple on their way to church, but instead they’re here to bury their only child.
The organ starts its low moan, and Vivienne picks up the sheet of paper that someone has left on her pew.
Order of Service is typed on the front underneath the words Tristan James Jones and the dates November 23, 1978–November 23, 2018.
Her eyes hover over Tristan’s date of birth.
It was the same month she lost her baby, the month of her first fugue state.
A familiar feeling of disorientation starts to creep through her.
Focus, Vivienne. She shakes her head slightly.
This isn’t the time to think about that.
Today is about saying goodbye to her friend.
She opens the order of service and sees the first hymn is called “Be Not Afraid,” not one that Vivienne is familiar with.
In fact, it has been years since she’s stepped inside a church, so not much is familiar to her.
Suddenly, a lovely, clear voice starts up from the back.
She spins around but can’t see anyone with a microphone, so she closes her eyes and listens.
“You shall see the face of God and live…”
Vivienne wonders what—or who—Tristan saw as he slipped away beneath the cold Thames water. She hopes he’d seen a face he’d loved in those final moments. Perhaps his mother, perhaps Ellie, perhaps a kindly grandmother.
“Come follow me and I will give you rest…”
She thinks about how unlucky Tristan had been in his life.
Brought up by parents who didn’t understand him, plagued by panic attacks, a relationship breakdown he never recovered from, scarred for life in a random attack, and continually exploited in his job by employers who didn’t seem to think he was worth paying.
Wherever Tristan is, and whoever he is with, Vivienne hopes against hope that he has found some respite, as he certainly never got it in life.
A silence falls over the congregation. Vivienne is still stuck in her thoughts when Cat turns to the back of the church.
“It’s here,” she whispers.
For a second, Vivienne isn’t sure what she’s talking about.
She turns and follows Cat’s gaze and sees it—Tristan’s casket.
Without a body, Tristan’s mother had explained that they would be burying some “meaningful items” inside, although she didn’t state exactly what.
Vivienne imagines childhood photos, clothes (his rock band T-shirts?), maybe some favorite books.
Vivienne thinks that perhaps she should have had that job, sure that she knew Tristan better than his mother.
The priest is walking slowly down the aisle, leading the dark wood coffin into the church.
Vivienne isn’t sure of the etiquette. She knows you’re supposed to watch a bride walking down the aisle (weddings again!), but are you supposed to watch a coffin?
Or do you bow your head, not looking directly at it, like it’s a vampire or Medusa?
Cat meets her eye, seemingly having the same dilemma.
Quickly scanning other members of the congregation, Vivienne turns to face the altar, clutching her hands together as if in prayer.
As the coffin is brought forward, an “oh” echoes out from the front row.
Vivienne lifts her eyes to see Jim pulling Susan into his chest. His own back lifts and falls with controlled effort as he whispers into his wife’s ear.
She hears the name Tristan whispered over and over.
As if they are trying to bring back their son with the force of their love.
One memory that had been unexpectedly brought back to life following that night was the feeling—not just the memory, it was more visceral than that—of being a mother.
Something about the experience had stirred it up, infused it with color and texture once more, as if it had happened just last week and not decades ago.
When James had abruptly ended their relationship, Vivienne put her daily nausea down to heartbreak, had presumed her thickening waistline was a result of weeks of consoling herself with sweet treats during her lunch breaks.
Finally, strange flutterings in her stomach lead to her consulting her doctor, who sternly confirmed the pregnancy and was taken aback by Vivienne’s joyful reaction.
As soon as she got home, Vivienne pulled out her special kitten-themed writing paper from her drawer and wrote to James, delivering the news with the flourish of lots of hearts and kisses, expecting him to jump in his car and drive straight over, perhaps stopping off to pick up some flowers for the mum-to-be.
But his response was silence, and as the weeks passed, Vivienne’s tummy grew along with her panic, and she had no option but to tell her mother everything.
What followed was a traumatic three months of tears, pain (mostly of the heart), and screaming arguments, culminating in a lengthy hospital stay, strong sedatives, and the death of Vivienne’s baby boy.
The devastating outcome was relayed to Vivienne by her mother afterward, as she’d experienced the first of her fugue states.
During her most recent hospital stay, her fitful sleep was haunted by vivid dreams that merged the fall with her ill-fated pregnancy.
She had to force herself awake in the middle of the night to escape the nightmares.
Vivienne breathes deeply and allows her eyes to rest on the coffin, now positioned in front of the altar.
The priest sprinkles holy water onto the wooden lid, and she watches the drops roll down the side and make dark circles on the carpet.
The priest then carefully places a white cloth over the coffin and slowly grazes the tips of his fingers across the top.
It’s a surprisingly gentle, tender gesture.
Even though she knows that Tristan’s body isn’t inside the casket, rather it is lying at the bottom of the Thames—somewhere among the mud and old coins—and yet she still pictures him in there.
Then she thinks of Stella, Matthew, Janet, Gordon, and Melvin too.
All of them reduced to husks, empty bodies, now rotting in the ground or reduced further to ashes of dust. And Vivienne thinks again of the seven of them gathered around that table at Serendipity’s.
Janet’s wine-stained lips and raucous laugh; Matthew’s perfect cheekbones and darker-than-dark eyes; Melvin’s strong handshake; and Tristan, silent and watchful, his wonderful qualities ignored by the others, Vivienne included.
Vivienne finds she can’t move her eyes away from the coffin, specifically the spot where the priest’s fingers touched the cloth.
The priest’s prayers wash over her, though she’s not listening to the words; the rhythm of his speech has a soothing effect on her, as if the words are bypassing her brain and speaking directly to her soul.
There’s silence, and then Cat is whispering her name.
“Vivienne, you’re up,” she says, and Vivienne drags her eyes away from the coffin and looks over at the priest, who has stepped down from his podium and is nodding at her.
Cat pushes a piece of paper into her hands, and Vivienne unsteadily gets to her feet.
Vivienne was as surprised as anyone to receive the letter from Susan asking her to do a reading at Tristan’s funeral, especially given their difficult moments at the hospital.
But Susan wrote that he’d spoken about her often and she’d been the last person to see him alive.
Something in this felt like an accusation, but Vivienne wrote back, agreeing to Susan’s wishes.
Her cheeks burn as she picks up her stick and leans on it heavily.
The hot, thick smell of incense fills her nostrils, confusing her, as she can’t remember seeing the priest waving one of those silver balls around.
Her knees and hips cry out, but she breathes out slowly and focuses on the rhythm of stick, foot, foot, stick, foot, foot.
Stepping up to the podium, she unfolds the paper and clears her throat, jumping slightly as the sound echoes around the church, through the speakers.
“ There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die…”