Page 35 of The Love Game

There was only one funeral directors in Swallow Beach.

The old doorbell chimed as Vi pushed the door open on Garland and Sons a couple of mornings later, and a short, balding guy in his thirties appeared behind the desk.

He favoured her with a small smile, welcoming and suitably sympathetic, clearly an expression he’d perfected across the years.

‘Can I help you?’

Vi swallowed, unsure if he could. ‘I’ve come about my grandmother.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Has she passed away recently?’

‘Well, no, not exactly,’ Vi said, biting the inside of her lip. ‘She died in 1978.’

‘Oh,’ he said, frowning, as well he might. His mind was probably racing, trying to decide if she was a crackpot. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’

‘Would you guys have been here back then?’ she asked.

He pulled across one of their suitably sombre leaflets and tapped the front. ‘Proudly serving Swallow Beach and the surrounding area since 1906, madam.’

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Then you might be able to answer my question. My gran died here in the town in 1978, and I’d like to know what happened to her body.’

The guy frowned. ‘Is it not on record with your family, madam?’

‘There isn’t really anyone I can ask,’ Vi said.

It was almost the truth. She could ask Della, but she feared the reaction it might provoke. Her mum called at least twice a week for a chat, but Monica was the one subject that had quickly established itself as off limits.

‘1978, the year of the winter storm,’ the guy said. ‘And what was your grandmother’s name, please?’

‘Monica,’ Vi said softly. ‘Her name was Monica Spencer.’

He inclined his head in a benign way and asked her to take a seat, and after some minutes returned bearing a large, dusty ledger.

‘My apologies for the wait,’ he said. ‘The archives are in the cellar.’

Vi didn’t let herself imagine what lay in the cellar of a funeral directors. It was cool in the shop despite the summer warmth outside, welcome respite in some ways, slightly disturbing in others. She watched as the guy, Stuart according to his nametag, turned the large parchment pages slowly.

‘Do you know the date she died?’

Vi hadn’t read that far forward in the diary. ‘Not precisely, but I know it was towards the end of July, beginning of August.’

He nodded, running his finger methodically down the neatly inked words, and then finally he stopped.

‘Monica Spencer,’ he said, reading her name aloud with an air of finality. ‘Yes, here she is.’ He looked up. ‘What is it that you’d like to know?’

Vi picked at a loose thread on the knee of her jeans, suddenly full of nervous trepidation. ‘Do you have a record of what happened to her?’

He read the ledger in silence, and then slowly raised his eyes. ‘We do, madam.’

‘And?’ Vi held her breath.

‘I’m sorry to say that her cause of death is listed here as suicide by drowning, madam.’ He consulted the notes. Blood tests showed a significantly high level of alcohol.’

It came as no surprise, but even so it was starkly saddening to hear it officially.

‘I expected it to say that,’ she said, because Stuart looked almost as distressed as she felt. ‘Does it say what happened to her body?’

He looked down again, nodding slowly. ‘She was cremated.’

‘Here in Swallow Beach?’

Stuart frowned, reading the entry. ‘It’s highly unusual. We’d normally have the mechanics of the funeral recorded here,’ he said, indicating a box in the ledger. ‘The cars ordered, flowers, readings. But in this case it seems the body was cremated privately.’

‘What does that even mean?’ Vi asked, dread rising in her stomach.

Stuart looked as if he wasn’t really sure what to say. ‘In basic terms, it means there wasn’t a funeral as such, just a disposal of the body.’

Vi’s face must have fallen, because he coughed and looked contrite. ‘Forgive my speaking in such bald terms. It appears that your grandmother’s cremation was conducted without fanfare,’ he said, trying to frame the same information in a more palatable way.

Vi dashed a rogue tear from her cheek. ‘I see,’ she said, even though she didn’t. ‘And her ashes?’

Stuart looked relieved to move the conversation along, returning to the entry concerning Monica’s death. ‘Ah.’

‘Ah what?’ Vi said, staring at him.

‘Listed as uncollected,’ he said.

‘No one collected my grandmother’s ashes?’

He shook his head, scrutinising the book. ‘I’m afraid not.’

‘So they’re …’ She could hardly bring herself to ask. Did places like this hold onto uncollected ashes indefinitely? Or did they throw them out after a while, unwanted and unceremonious? It was a terrible thought.

‘They’ll be here in the cellar,’ Stuart confirmed. ‘We will have preserved them safely, madam. It’s rare for remains to be unclaimed, but I’m aware of a small collection preserved in the cellar. I expect your grandmother’s is one of those.’

Relief washed cool through her body. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Could you check please?’

Stuart stood up. ‘Of course. If you’ll excuse me for a few minutes.’

Alone in the screamingly calm reception area, Vi tried not to dwell on the fact that her poor grandmother had been disposed of so insignificantly.

Why on earth had Grandpa Henry allowed it?

Even if he’d discovered that Monica had been unfaithful, Vi found she was furious with him for leaving Monica here alone for all of these years.

Stuart returned after a few minutes, a black plastic container in his hands. It looked too ordinary as he placed it down, Monica’s name and the date of her death recorded in typed ink on the label. A handwritten addendum had been added in faded green ink.

‘Request received from next of kin to retain ashes indefinitely.’

‘Is that it?’ Vi whispered.

‘It is,’ he said, in a practised, gentle voice. ‘Would you like a few minutes?’

Vi frowned. ‘Well, naturally I’d like to take the ashes, please.’

He nodded. ‘Of course, madam. Do you have the death certificate?’

Vi shook her head. ‘Of course not.’

He looked troubled. ‘But you are the next of kin?’

Again, Vi shook her head. ‘Strictly speaking, my mother would be the next of kin, but she doesn’t live locally.’

‘Ah, in that case, and regretfully, may I add, I’m unable to release the remains to you.’

‘But no one else is going to collect them,’ Vi said, tearful. ‘It says so right there on the label.’

‘So it would seem,’ Stuart said, trying to be helpful. ‘Could you speak with your mother, ask her to get in touch? Or if you can provide a death certificate and proof of your relationship with the deceased, that might be enough.’

Vi looked at the black canister, forlorn. ‘Could I have a few minutes alone after all?’ she said.

Stuart looked unsure, as if she might do a runner with the ashes. ‘Certainly,’ he said, after a beat. ‘Come this way.’

He led Violet through to a small, understated side-room with a low coffee table and chairs, obviously feeling more able to leave her alone somewhere she couldn’t easily abscond.

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ he asked, kind now.

‘No, but thank you all the same,’ she said. It wasn’t his fault he had to follow protocol. It wasn’t every day someone turned up to collect ashes forty years too late.

‘Just come through to reception whenever you’re ready,’ he said, confident now he was back on his usual ground. ‘There isn’t any hurry.’

He placed the black container down on the table and bowed his head over it momentarily, then left the room with a quiet click of the door.

Alone, Violet found she didn’t know what to say or do next. Should she pick it up? Reaching out, she closed her fingers around it and then faltered, drawing her hand back.

‘Come on Violet,’ she whispered, addressing herself in third person because she needed to be her own cheerleader. ‘Barty said you’re brave. Be brave now.’

Taking a deep breath, she reached for the canister for a second time, and this time she didn’t pull back. She closed her fingers around it, and then something unexpected happened. She burst into tears.

‘Oh Gran,’ she said, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.

‘This is all so hard. I wish you were here for me to talk to, I feel as if you’re the only person in the world who’d understand what I’m feeling.

Thank you for the apartment. It’s given me a place when I didn’t know where mine was, but I don’t know if I belong here in the way that you did.

’ She pulled in a deep, shuddery breath.

‘I love the pier, but it scares me. Did it scare you too?’

Far from feeling wary of the ashes now, Vi clutched the black canister to her, wrapping both arms around it and folding her body over it protectively, because this was as close as she’d ever be to Monica.

‘I know about T. And I have a good idea of how awful you must have felt too, because I’ve somehow managed to get myself into the same position. I love a married man too, Gran.’

As her mouth formed the words, her heart began to race.

She hadn’t acknowledged out loud to either herself or anyone else that she loved Cal.

She’d only known him a few months. Was it too soon?

Even as she asked herself the question, she knew the answer.

The truth was that she’d been a little in love with Calvin Dearheart from the first moment she met him, and now, after all they’d shared, she was a whole lot in love with him.

He made her laugh, and in that moment he made her cry her heart out.

Violet sobbed for her grandmother, left unclaimed here for forty years like a mislaid coat. And she cried for herself, because she’d come here to find out who she was and she’d ended up feeling more, not less confused. And most of all she cried over Cal, the man she loved and couldn’t be with.