Heathen/Nemesis

Fourteen

They had done all they could that day. The two women had risen early and begun the tasks which needed completion. Now, as night began to creep across the sky, they sat in the dining-room eating, occasionally glancing at each other and smiling.

Donna, wearing make-up for the first time in two days, looked pale and tired still but she also looked a little stronger.

There had been tears when they’d called at the hospital that morning to pick up Chris’s belongings but Julie had expected that.

His clothes were now upstairs in one of the spare bedrooms, the blood-spattered garments laid out on one of the beds until they could be washed. It was as if Donna needed to keep looking at them; despite Julie’s entreaties, she had returned regularly to the room that day to view the torn clothing.

Next to his clothes lay his wallet and his cheque book, similarly splashed with blood.

After the hospital they had travelled to the undertaker. He’d been helpful and sympathetic in his practised way, a fat, middle-aged man with too much hair that looked as if it had been dropped onto his head from a great height. He asked the relevant questions:

‘Open coffin?’

‘Cremation or burial?’

‘How much did she want to spend?’

The enquiries had begun to blur into one another; Donna had left feeling that she was no longer in control of events. The undertaker would arrange everything, he assured her. She need have no worries. As she and Julie had left another group of people had entered, doubtless to be asked the same questions. Death had become like a conveyor belt, it seemed.

From the undertaker’s they travelled to a florist’s and ordered the flowers.

There were catalogues full of suitable wreaths and arrangements. Wreaths for all occasions. Donna noticed, with acute poignancy, that one page was devoted to ‘The Death of a Child’. How terrible, she thought, for parents to be confronted by that particular ordeal.

Everything appeared ready now; there was just the funeral to come. The time Donna dreaded most. The awful finality of it all. At the moment, she knew the body of her dead husband lay in the Chapel of Rest. Once it was laid in the earth then it was as if he was to be wiped from her consciousness, not just her mind. All she had to look forward to now were memories.

Memories and pain.

And anger.

Donna pushed her plate away from her and sat back in her chair, exhaling deeply.

‘You okay?’ Julie asked.

‘I feel so tired,’ Donna told her. She smiled wanly at her sister. ‘I’m sorry, Julie.’

‘Go and have a nap, I’ll take care of this,’ Julie said, waving a hand over the dirty plates and glasses. ‘Go on. I’ll bring you a cup of tea up in a while.’

Donna thanked her and walked away from the table, touching Julie’s shoulder as she went.

The younger woman smiled and kept on smiling as she heard her sister’s footfalls on the stairs. The steps groaned protestingly as she made her way to the bedroom. Julie continued eating, looking first at her watch then at her plate. Eventually she, too, pushed it away, got to her feet and began gathering the utensils, ready to take them through to the kitchen.

As she reached the dining-room door she glanced across at a darkwood cabinet inside the room. There were a number of photos on it, each of them in a silver frame.

Photos of Donna and Ward together.

Julie stood close to them, gazing at the pictures for long moments. Then she reached out one slender finger and gently drew it around the outline of Ward’s face, a slight smile creasing her lips.

Then she did the same around the image of Donna’s face.

By then, though, the smile had faded.