His mother was regarding him, an odd expression on her face. “Are you all right, dear?”
“It’s my grandfather’s funeral.”
But she’d followed the direction of his scrutiny. “Oh, I say.” She watched Taverner walk the gravelled path to the chapel door. “A little . . . mature for you, dear.”
“She’s . . .” He hesitated, but what the hell. His mother was a Service child. “First Desk. That’s why she’s here.”
“Well, she’s nicely turned out, I’ll give her that. But you ought to set your sights on someone your own age.”
“I’m not—”
“Or your own wage bracket. That’s Chanel she’s wearing.” She eyed her son critically. “Whereas, well, not to criticise. But where did that suit actually come from? A garage forecourt?”
“They had a surprisingly wide selection.”
“You’re going to need that sense of humour if you don’t start earning money soon. And who’s this?”
This was Louisa Guy, who saw them and sketched a wave, but went straight inside. River was glad to see her. She hadn’t known his grandfather, and hadn’t come because he was a Service legend: she’d come because River was a friend, and if River drew up a list of his current friendships, he’d be chewing his pencil once he’d written her name. But he was also happy she’d headed in. Friend didn’t necessarily mean he wanted her to meet his mother. There were some conversations you didn’t want to have.
And some you couldn’t avoid.
“A little more your league, dear.”
“She’s a colleague.”
“Like I say.”
“It’s a funeral, mother. Not a speed-dating group.”
“Just as well. You’re not exactly in a hurry, are you?” She wrapped both hands round his elbow. “But I don’t mean to pressure you. If there’s anything you want to tell me, just come out and say it. Your grandfather was an old reactionary, but I’ve always had very liberal views.”
“I’m not gay.”
“Well, if you’re sure.”
“And if I was, why imagine I’m fixated on Di Taverner?”
“It’s a not uncommon pattern. But don’t forget, dear. Liberal views.”
His sexual identity, income bracket and dress sense having been taken care of, River wondered whether they could now focus on the morning’s actual business. He looked away. Frost had rimed the headstones’ edges, and crystallised the bouquets that graced some graves; it had captured, too, a hundred spiderwebs, transforming them to works of antique beauty: jewellery fit to adorn the Egyptian dead. Not that the O.B. would have considered himself a Pharaoh. But he’d have enjoyed advising one; whispering strategies into the ear of power. That would have been his role whatever his era.
The lily his mother had placed on Rose’s stone had been glazed already by the light, and might have been sculpted there. River wished—he didn’t know what he wished. He felt an unanchored yearning; a desire that things weren’t like this. But he couldn’t wish his grandparents alive. He couldn’t face watching them die again.
He felt a tug on his sleeve: his mother. A taxi had arrived.
“And that’s him, is it?”
It did not surprise him that Isobel should so easily recognise a man she’d never met.
“That’s Jackson, yes.”
“I thought he was supposed to be some kind of master spy.”
“I’m not sure anyone’s ever decided what kind of spy he is.”
“A badly dressed one, that’s clear. Does he realise it’s a funeral?”
“I’m pretty certain it was mentioned on the invite.”
Catherine was with Lamb. She seemed grey, a creature of the weather. Funerals had that effect, unless there was something else going on.
“We should make our way inside,” he said. Just saying the words shifted something inside him: this was really happening, a memory he’d never lose. Today he was burying his grandfather.
They walked back the long way round, and passed the waiting grave once more. River had the feeling it should have had more to say for itself; should have been an empty, yawning terror. But it was only a hole in the ground, and that somehow made it worse.
Louisa had passed a man in a car up the road, perfectly placed to clock attendees, but if he was anyone to worry about the Dogs would have sorted him out. Though they were Dogs without a walker at the moment—she’d heard from Emma Flyte at the weekend. Louisa had been in the shower, and the call had gone to voicemail. Emma sounded pissed but against a quiet background.
I just got screwed. Does that make me a member of your club?
A pause, a swallow.
Yeah, well, anyway. I told Taverner to fuck off, so I’m now what they call looking for a new position. Should be fun.
Another pause.
So give me a call sometime. We can swap notes on what it’s like being booted out of Regent’s Park. It’s Emma, by the way.
Louisa had already gathered that much.
She wished she’d been there, to see Emma give Taverner the finger. Who was here, of course, duty-mourning. There were others she half-recognised too, faces glimpsed back in the day, riding the lifts to the Park’s top floors. If things had been different, River Cartwright would have been down the front; chief mourner and heir apparent. As it was he was loitering under a tree, with a woman Louisa supposed was his mother. He’d slip in soon, and make his way to the front, but it wasn’t like the great and good would be lining up to offer their sorrows. The way things might have been. A funeral a pretty obvious occasion to flip through that book of swatches.
But enough of other people’s problems. What should she do about Lucas Harper?
You were fucking Min. I’d have hoped that counted for something.
She hadn’t been, of course. Well, she had been, but that wasn’t what it had been about; she had loved him, he had loved her, they’d have shared their lives, or made the attempt, if he hadn’t died. So where did that leave her? Not in Clare Harper’s debt, that was certain. Addison. Whatever. So why was it niggling at her, this feeling that she’d turned her back when she should have offered a hand? Min’s boys had been a fuzzy image on the periphery of their relationship, part of his life she had no access to. She hadn’t hassled him to make introductions; had assumed that that would happen sooner or later, mentally filing it as an ordeal her future self would handle. And here she was: her future self. Niggled at by responsibilities a younger Louisa had avoided.
But Min’s son had left home, that was all, taking his savings with him. A bad idea, but at seventeen a lot of bad ideas had a certain attraction. Louisa could think of a few she’d had herself; Clare too, probably. But there was no doubt Clare was suffering. Louisa thought of the way she’d startled every time the coffee shop door opened. It was natural, to become paranoid at such times. She’d spend her nights awake, blurry with fear. It would be like grief.
Whose soundtrack started even as she had the thought; something grey and sonorous from the organ above. It seemed designed to mark time; not so much its current passage as those stretches forever gone. It made her think of Min, of course. She hadn’t attended his funeral. Too angry. If she had, she’d have met—or seen—Lucas; would have a mental picture of him based in reality, instead of imagining a younger Min; the same half-smile; the same look of concentration when sending a text or checking a score. She had a whole catalogue of images to flick through, from a relatively short time together. What would a lifetime’s memories look like? It was already too late to tell.