"Yeah," Lewis said after a bit. "Well, that's just the way it is, Prentice. You weren't to know." I heard Lewis sigh. There was something I wish I'd told him, too. Could have said, over the phone, end of last week."
I looked at Lewis. "Oh yeah?"
Lewis looked awkward. He crossed his arms and sucked at his bottom lip. He glanced at me. "Were you really that… you know; keen on Verity? I mean; are you?"
I kicked my heels against the sides of the grave, checked out a couple of tree roots we'd have to tackle before we could dig much deeper. I shrugged. "Ah, it was just infatuation, I suppose. I mean, you know, I'll always like her, but… all that stuff at New Year… that was… well, partly the drink, but… mostly just sibling rivalry; sibling jealousy," I said. We both grinned. He still looked awkward. This time, instead of sucking his bottom lip, he bit his top one.
I knew, just like that.
"You are getting married," I said, gulping.
Lewis looked at me with wide eyes. "She's pregnant?" I spluttered, contralto.
Lewis's mouth was hanging open. He shut it quickly. He wiped his face with the hanky; his eyebrows and eyes registered surprise.
"Um, both," he said. "Almost certainly." He rung the hanky out over the hole, but it didn't drip (still, though, we would leave a fair amount of sweat in our father's grave).
Lewis nodded and his smile was flickering, uncertain. I hadn't seen him look so unsure of himself since the time when he was sixteen and I almost had him convinced the Boxer Rebellion had been about underpants.
"Fooof," I said.
Seemed as appropriate as anything. I stared over at Jimmy Turrock, blinking.
Lewis was making a clicking noise with his mouth. He cleared his throat. "Wasn't exactly planned, to tell the truth, but… well; I mean, we both, you know; want it, so… And, well, you know how I feel about marriage and all that stuff, but… Fuck it, it just keeps things simple."
He sounded almost apologetic.
I shook my head and, turning to him with a big smile, I said, "You total bastard." I put my hands on my hips. He looked concerned, but I guess my grin must have looked sincere. "You total, complete and utter bastard; I hate you," I told him. "But I hope you're disgustingly happy." I hesitated, just a little, then I hugged him. "Obscenely happy," I said. Probably have cried but I was pretty cried out by that stage.
"Man." He breathed into my shoulder. "I didn't know how you'd take it."
"In the neck," I said, pushing him away. "Told mum?"
"Wanted to wait till after the funeral. Mind you, I was going to wait till then to tell you, too, so maybe Verity's spilling the beans right now."
"So when's the big event?"
"Which one?" Lewis smiled; embarrassed, I do believe. He shrugged. "We thought October, and the sprog thinks March."
I let out a long, shuddering sigh, head feeling a bit swimmy. "Marriage, eh?" I said, shaking my head again. I looked him down and up, hoisted one brow. "Think you'll take to it?"
Lewis grinned. "Like a lemming to water."
I laughed. Eventually I laughed so loudly I woke Jimmy Turrock, who looked at me — sitting on the edge of my father's grave on the day of his burial, guffawing away fit to wake the living — with undisguised horror.
Like a lemming to water. Lewis knew as well as I did the maligned little buggers are perfectly good swimmers.
James arrived back about mid-day. He was… well, pretty distressed, and all the fragile defences mum, Lewis and I had been constructing for the past few days — Lewis and I joking, mum staying quiet and keeping busy — crumbled. James seemed to blame dad, blame us; blame everybody. He was ugly with anger and he was like a racing outboard in the calm little pond we'd been trying to create; the house felt hellish and we all started snapping at each other. Outside, at the back of the garden, we could hear the council digger, excavating the rest of the hole. The engine revved up and down; it sounded like a machine snoring. James wished us all dead and ran up to his room and slammed the door. It was a relief to get back out to the grave and help Jimmy Turrock apply the finishing touches.
Then it was time to get showered and changed and wait for the hearse and the mourners. The funeral was suitably grim, despite the sunshine and the warm breeze. The words Lewis said over the grave sounded awkward and forced. Mum looked white as paper. James stood, mouth twisted, furious; he stalked off the instant the coffin touched the bottom of the grave. I threw some earth down onto the pale wood of the lid, putting back a little of what I'd helped dig out.
But it passed, and the people who came — a good hundred or more — were kind. We were busy in the house afterwards, feeding and watering them, and then that passed too.
My big brother and his intended asked me to be their best man the day after dad's funeral. I'd slept, fitfully, on the idea, but finally said yes. It had already been agreed between the two families that the wedding would be held at Lochgair. Lewis and Verity stayed another day after that, then left to go back to London so that Lewis could resume his gigs. He was almost ashamed when I saw him next, when he confessed that nobody thought his delivery had altered a bit; he was just the same on stage after dad's death as he had been before. The only thing he changed was that he stopped telling the joke about the uncle that dies in an avalanche on a dry ski-slope.
I told him not to worry about it; you had to be a different person on stage. The person he was up there would only change if he told a story about dad dying. Maybe a routine based on the idea of an atheist getting struck by lightning while climbing a church tower would be therapeutic for him, one day.
Lewis had the decency to be appalled at the idea.
Mum and I went through dad's papers, and were able, after Ashley's tuition, to work the computer and access the information it held.
Dad's will, which had been written at the time of Grandma Margot's death, had turned up in the strongbox hidden under the study floorboards. The strongbox had been no big secret; we all knew about it. It was just something to make any burglar's job more difficult. Mum had already seen the will when she had opened the strongbox the morning after dad's death, in the company of one of her friends from the village. She had only looked at the first paragraph, which confirmed that dad wanted to be buried in the grounds of the house. She'd been too upset to look at any more of it, and had put the will back under the floor.
So we opened the strongbox again, divided the papers, took a desk each, and looked at what we had. Mum had given the pile with the will in it to me. I read it first, and my heart sank after I'd scanned quickly through it and got to the end.
"Oh no," I said.
"What's wrong?" she asked from the main desk in front of the window.
"It's the will," I said, turning it over, looking at the last part again, looking over the page but still failing to find what I was looking for. "It hasn't been witnessed or anything."
Mum came over and stood behind me. She took the four handwritten sheets from me, frowning. Her skin was pale and her eyes looked dark. She wore black jeans and a dark blue shirt and her hair was tied back with a piece of blue ribbon. She handed the will back to me. "I think it's all right," she said slowly. She nodded. "I'll call Blawke to make sure. He'll need to look at it anyway." She nodded again, walked back to sit in her seat and started reading through the papers she had in front of her. Then she looked up at me. "You phone him, would you?"
"All right," I said and watched her bend to the papers again. She appeared to read for a few moments; I almost wanted to laugh, she seemed so unconcerned. She looked up again after a few seconds and just sat there, looking out through the open velvet curtains at the back lawn.