Page 32 of The Tapes

TWENTY-SIX

There are posters in the entrance of the local Labour Club, advertising Rob Stewart for this weekend, then Stung for the Saturday after. Cheap tribute acts and cheaper bitter is more Dad’s scene. He’d have particularly enjoyed Marvin Gray’s Motown night next month.

It’s lunchtime and the bar is lined by half a dozen men who look as if they’ve been sitting in the same spot since Reagan was elected. There’s a pool table with ripped felt, a small TV on the wall showing Sky News, then a dartboard with pinprick holes dotted across the wall behind.

The guy behind the bar has a towel over his shoulder and points towards a door on the far side. ‘In there, love,’ he calls, and I follow the direction into the function room. This really is Dad’s scene.

There’s tinsel in the corner from a Christmas that I doubt was last year’s, plus the sort of bobbled, patterned beige wallpaper more fashionable during the three-day week. It’s so outdated that I’m almost certain I threw out a roll of it from Dad’s garage.

I have a clarity now I’m away from the crematorium. Of course Mum wasn’t hiding there. Of course she isn’t about to reveal herself.

Faith held my hand for the walk to the car, then asked if it was OK for her and Shannon to disappear off. I told her it was, knowing this sort of social club is barely for people my age, let alone hers.

Most from the funeral have made it to the wake. They head in with bowed heads, buoyed by the chance of free ham and pickle sandwiches, plus Fosters at happy hour prices.

Fosters .

I don’t even like lager and yet it would be so easy to get a drink.

Cheap. The barman wouldn’t even think twice.

I booked this place because Dad would end up here once or twice a week.

This is where his old-time crew hang around.

There’s a bookies’ next door, which helps.

I could’ve picked somewhere that didn’t serve alcohol but it’s not about me.

I won’t drink but that doesn’t mean I consider it.

It’s only as I say hello to one of Dad’s old workmates from his time at the quarry that I realise, properly, both Nicola and Faith have gone.

Nicola had to head off to work and there’s nobody here I particularly want to talk to, nor anybody coming.

I say a lot of hellos, over a bunch of waves and nods.

Harriet has gone, which is probably for the best. When it comes to people asking how she knew the deceased, it’s not easy to pipe up and say she was his mistress.

Allie Rowett’s here. She says a sheepish hello, but we said all had to on Wednesday. Her husband assaulted me and she kept quiet about it until after he’d died. None of that stops her tucking into a glass of house red, an egg sandwich, and one of the yellow French Fancies.

I do the rounds. Hello. Goodbye. Thanks for coming. Yes, it’s a great spread. Yes, it was a lovely service. Yes, it’s a shame. Yes, we’ll have to catch up soon. No, I don’t have your number.

The same conversations with the same kinds of people. Everyone means well, nobody manages to see that I don’t want to be here and I wish they’d all go away.

It’s probably not a surprise but I had no real conversation with my brother at the funeral.

I find myself standing next to the tea urn, filling my third cup because it’s better than alcohol.

My brother’s wife, Bridget, my sister-in-law, picks up one of the empty cups, smiles politely, then realises it’s me.

‘Eve,’ she says. ‘I was hoping to catch up to you. You look lovely.’

I know I don’t – and the damned sleeves still won’t sit in place – but I thank her anyway and return the favour.

Yes, the service was lovely. It really was a perfect send-off.

Yes, this was his favourite place. No, I don’t come here often.

No, I don’t know why there’s a poster for the 1984 Milk Cup final on the wall, nor do I know what that is.

‘Thank you so much for organising,’ she adds. ‘And for doing everything at the house. I know Peter can be a bit, um… hands off.’

That’s an understatement – but at least it isn’t only me who thinks it.

Bridget and I are standing close to the abandoned tinsel, each sipping our tea.

She’s so far out of my brother’s league that it’s baffling how they’re together.

Not only is she a nice, considerate person, but she has that sort of prettiness that’s borderline sickening.

‘He said you both had a chat at the house the other night,’ Bridget says.

I’d almost forgotten about Peter dashing upstairs, spending time in Dad’s room, flushing the toilet and then returning downstairs with something stuffed in his pocket.

‘I offered him one of Dad’s watches,’ I say. ‘He took it but didn’t seem too keen. I did say he could look around the house and take anything he wanted. I presume he brought home a few things?’

I’m such a good liar when I’m thinking about not drinking.

Bridget thinks. ‘There was something…’

She tails off because a small boy with a bowl cut trots across. He has a French Fancy, Bakewell, Viennese whirl and Battenberg all on the same plate. A perfect Mr Kipling tapas.

‘You can’t eat all those,’ Bridget says.

He looks up with dinnerplate eyes, reinforcing the fact that my brother and Bridget have fantastic genes. Even I want to tell him it’s fine.

‘Pick two,’ Bridget says.

‘Four?’

‘Two. You pick, or I’ll pick for you.’

The boy fingers the Bakewell, which feels like a good number one pick. His mum catches my eye with a gentle upturn of the lips. ‘Timothy,’ she says, answering my unasked question.

Their twins are called Timothy and Thomas, but I once joked to Faith they were Timothy and Tomothy – and now I can’t think of them in any other way. I certainly can’t tell them apart.

‘Where’s Thomas?’ I ask, just about getting the name right.

‘He had a bit of tummy trouble, so Peter’s gone to drop him at my mum’s.’ Bridget checks her phone then frowns. ‘I thought he’d be back by now.’

Timothy takes a nervous bite of the French Fancy but we all know he’s not giving up the other two cakes without a fight. Bridget catches his eye but is immune to his charms. She snatches the Battenberg and Viennese whirl from the plate and holds them in her hand.

‘We’re putting these back,’ she says.

‘I’ve licked them.’

‘Fine. I’ll eat them.’

Bridget gives me a what-can-you-do look as my nephew grins at the pair of us. Before I can ask what my brother brought home from Dad’s house, someone else Bridget knows steps between us. They do an air kiss.

‘Tell Faith I thought her reading was brilliant,’ Bridget adds, before saying her goodbyes, and moving to a different corner.

Timothy waits until his mum is out of sight, then makes a beeline for the cakes.

He snatches a mini roll, scoffs it in one, then gets down a pair of Jaffa Cakes in record time.

He flashes me a grin and then trots back to his mother.

I do the rounds again.

Oh, are you leaving? Great to see you. Yes, I do remember the time I played Lego on the floor of your living room when I was about five.

No, I don’t know someone named Alan. Yes, it’s a great spread.

Yes, it was a lovely service. Yes, it’s a shame.

Yes, we’ll have to catch up soon. No, I don’t have your number.

And on.

As the food diminishes, people finally begin to drift away. The room thins and it’s only really the egg sandwiches that are left. Anything with meat or cheese has long since gone, not to mention the cakes. Dad would be proud of his friends: the greedy sods.

I’m back at the tea urn, cup number six, when I realise a woman is sitting in one of the uncomfortable school-style chairs watching me. I expect her to look away as we make eye contact but, instead: ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

She’s probably late-fifties, though it’s difficult to know. Anyone older than me is decrepit, anyone younger should be banned.

‘Lorna,’ she says, standing and moving across to me. Her breath is cheap Fosters. We shake hands, though I have no idea who she is. Lorna knows it.

‘I used to know your dad in the old days,’ she says. ‘Think I might’ve babysat you a couple of times, actually.’

Clouds swirl. ‘You had a girlfriend,’ I say – and she laughs.

‘She’s my wife now – but yes.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

The grin widens. ‘I get it, hun. Not many out lesbians back then.’

It’s odd that this is why I know her. I remember her babysitting when I was six or seven, and Mum explaining that she had a girlfriend. Anything other than a man and woman baffled my young mind, even as Mum explained that sometimes women loved women and so on.

Different times.

‘I really am sorry,’ I say – but Lorna waves it away, holding up her hands to indicate the club.

‘Believe it or not, this was a safe space for me and my partner. I’d come after work most days – which is where I met your dad.

I ended up doing shifts behind the bar.’ She pauses a moment, then shrugs. ‘I guess it gets us all in the end.’

I assume she’s talking about death, though she seems a bit young for that. We’re already at the dying stage of small-talk and there’s a second of awkward silence before she asks what I do. Before I can answer, she quickly adds: ‘Don’t you work for Mark Dixon?’

‘How’d you know that?’

‘Your dad. I’m not here anywhere near as often as I used to be – and neither was he – but we ran into each other now and then. He’d always talk about you.’

‘Would he?’

This gets a confused response. ‘Of course. He’d tell me how his granddaughter was doing great with her exams and school; that you had a terrific job and were excelling. To be honest, I was a bit surprised, considering your boss.’

I’m so struck by the idea that Dad talked proudly of me that I almost miss the rest. ‘What about my boss?’

Lorna shrugs a little. ‘I mean, Mum always told me that if you don’t have anything nice to say…’

She grins in a way I know is asking for permission.

‘I quit yesterday,’ I say.

‘Sick of him then?’