The funeral was a quiet affair, with everyone more respectable-looking than Andy had expected, though the fellow who gave the service, which wasn't really a service — no prayers or hymns — was jollier than is normal on such occasions. He talked of Debbie's life and how full it had been. How full of life shehad been, and how they all liked her and what a good time they'd had together.
He did not refer to the fact that she was actually here, screwed down now inside the coffin they'd carried in.
Andy himself was acutely aware of that. It made him uncomfortably hot. He pushed a finger into his collar and eased it a bit, but felt the blood swelling in the veins of his neck.
It was the bulk of his own body he felt crammed into a coffin. How close the lid would be over his head. And how dark it must be in there when the chapel all around was so full of sunlight and the pleasantness of women in short-sleeved frocks, and a humming from the garden walks outside, of bees. The big-boned woman he'd spent a night drinking vodka with seemed very close: the heaviness of her crossed legs in the expensive-looking shoes, and her determination, which he had missed at the time but saw clearly now, to outdrink him. He wondered what shoes she was wearing in there. Then wondered, again, what Harry was thinking.
Harry looked very dignified in his suit and tie. Andy had last seen him in it at Dorothy's funeral, a very different affair from this. It was hard to tell from the straightness of him, and the line of his jaw, what he might be feeling. Andy looked more than once and could not tell.
It's his daughter, he thought. He's the father. Someone ought to have mentioned that.
But there was no talk of Debbie's family at all. Didn't they have families, these people? Or was it that they thought of themselves as a family? He couldn't work it out, their ties to one another — wives and husbands, mothers and fathers.
Still, it went well. People listened quietly. One or two of the women cried. People laughed, a bit too heartily he thought, at the speaker's jokes. They were private jokes that Andy did not catch, and he wondered what Harry thought of that. A couple of poems were read, by an older fellow with a ponytail who seemed to be drunk and swallowed all his words. When the curtains parted and the coffin tilted and began to slide away, there was music.
At least that part was like a funeral. Except that the music was another fellow singing to a guitar: Dylan' “Sad-eyed Lady of the Lowlands.” Andy cast a glance at Harry and laid his hand for a moment on the soft pad of his father-in-law's shoulder, but Harry gave no sign.
They drove for nearly half an hour to the wake, through heavy traffic, the city dim with smoke but the various bits of water they crossed or saw in the distance — the Harbour — brightly glinting. They stopped at a phone box and he called Helen, who was full of questions he found it hard to answer. He had really called — the idea occurred to him towards the end of the service — so that Harry could speak to her.
When Harry took the phone he walked away from the box and stood on the pavement in the sun, and only once looked back to see how things were going.
It was hot in the sun. Too hot for a suit. He was sweating under the arms and in the small of his back. Most of the passers-by wore jeans and T-shirts. It was a run-down neighbourhood of old factory buildings, with a view of wharves stacked with containers, and on the dirty waters of the bay a busy movement of ships.
He took his jacket off, hooking his finger into the collar and letting it trail over his shoulder.
He felt easier back in his own loose body, though he continued to sweat. He rolled his shirtsleeves, but only halfway.
At last Harry appeared. He pursed his lips and nodded, which Andy took as an indication that the talk with Helen had gone well. Well, that was something. When they got back into the car he remained silent, but his silence, Andy thought, was of a different kind. More relaxed. Something had broken.
When they got to the house and found a parking place, Harry, who had not removed his jacket, stood waiting for Andy to resume his. Which he did, out of respect. For Harry. For the fact that Harry thought it was the right thing to do.
The front door of the house was open and a crush of people, all with drinks in hand, spilled out on to the narrow veranda of the one-storeyed house and down on to the footpath. They pushed through, conspicuous, Andy thought, in their suits. People looked and raised an eyebrow. Maybe they think we're cops, Andy thought. It made him smile.
The hallway, which ran right through to the back door, was crowded. It was noisy in the small rooms with their tongue-and-groove walls, so noisy you could barely hear yourself speak. Music. Voices.
“Debbie's brother-in-law,” he shouted to a fellow who gave him a beer, and offered the man his hand. The man took it but looked surprised.
“Debbie's father,” he explained when, with just a glance, the fellow looked to where Harry was standing, towering in fact, in his pinstriped double-breasted suit, against the wall.
The fellow was fifty or so, in a black skivvy, and bearded, with a chain and a big clanking medal round his neck.
“Well, cheers,” he said, looking uncertain.
“Cheers,” Andy replied, raising the can.
He took a good long swig of the beer, which was very cold and immediately did something to restore him — his confidence, his interest. He looked around, still feeling that he stuck out here like a sore thumb; so did Harry. But that was to be expected.
This was it. Elsewhere. He was in the middle of it.
But he wished Harry would relax a bit. Trouble was, he didn't know what to do or say that would help. He had to tell himself again that Harry was a man standing in the hallway of a house full of people shouting at one another over a continuous din of party music, at his daughter's wake. He felt protective of Harry, most of all of Harry's feelings, but he also wanted to range out. All this represented a set of possibilities that might not come his way again. His own impatience, the itch he felt to move away, be on his own, see for himself what was going on here, seemed like a betrayal.
“Listen,” he said to a woman who was pushing past with two cans of beer in her hand and a fag hanging from the corner of her mouth. “Where can I get a drink for my mate?” He jerked his head in Harry's direction. “He's Debbie's father,” he told her, lowering his voice.
The woman looked. “Agh!" she said. “Here, take one a’ these.” Then, with lowered voice and a stricken glance in Harry's direction, "I didn't know that was Debbie's father.”
“It is,” he told her. “I'm her brother-in-law.”
He took the beer, thanked her, then carried it over to Harry. They stood together, side by side in the hallway, and drank.
“Thanks, mate,” Harry told him.
Andy stood,taking in the changing scene. People pushing past to the front door and the veranda. Pausing to greet others. Joking, laughing. More guests kept arriving, some with crates of beer. He still hadn't said more than a word or two to anyone else, but felt a rising excitement. He would move out and get into it in a minute. He was very will-ing to be sociable. It was just a matter, among these people, of how to make a start.
He was curious, considering the mixture, about who they were, how they were related to Debbie and came to be here, and increasingly confident, looking around, of what he himself might have to offer. He caught that from the eye of some of the girls — the women — who went by. Things were developing.
He had another beer, then another, lost track of Harry, got involved with one group, then a second — but only at the edge. Just listening.