‘Daddy’s here in spirit,’ said Grace. ‘I can feel him.’
Alicia sighed with impatience. ‘For God’s sake, Grace, he’s dead.’
The sky is almost too enchanting for a day such as this, thought Audrey as she watched the coffin being lowered into the ground. Surely this is the kind of beauty nature reserves for saints. It was as if Heaven opened her arms to welcome him home. If she were sensitive enough she was sure she would hear the sound of angels singing and celestial trumpets. But there before her was the humble body of Cecil Forrester and no one but she and God knew the magnitude of his virtues.
Audrey released Grace’s hand and stepped forward, holding her silver head high with a dignity that had supported her through many tumultuous years and dropped a single white lily into the grave. She whispered a hasty prayer then raised her eyes to the shrinking sun that descended behind the trees casting long black shadows over the churchyard. It was at that moment that the colour suddenly returned to her cheeks and her fingers touched her neck in an effort to loosen the skin that now seemed to choke her. At first she feared he was one of Grace’s ghosts, for his silhouette was outlined against the sunset and he appeared to float through the trees towards them. She squinted her eyes in an effort to see him better. Then her heart plummeted taking her breath with it and for a moment she thought she might faint away. He had come. She bowed her fevered head and stumbled backwards to where Grace extended her arms to steady her. Interpreting the widow’s sudden wilting as a natural expression of her grief, the Vicar concluded the burial with a hasty benediction then tactfully left the family to their sorrow.
‘Are you all right, Mummy?’ Grace whispered to her mother. Audrey shook herself free and searched anxiously through the trees. Grace followed the direction of her mother’s eyes and frowned. ‘What do you see?’ she asked, bewildered because as much as she squinted her eyes she saw no one and spirits always revealed themselves to Grace.
‘Go and comfort Alicia, dear,’ Audrey said, patting her daughter on her arm distractedly. ‘I’m fine, I just need a little space,’ she added hoarsely, walking away with a purposeful rhythm in her step. Grace glanced at her sisters who stood the other side of the grave. Alicia had stopped crying. Her audience had dispersed so there was no longer any reason to perform. Leonora pulled a thin smile when she caught eyes with Grace and indicated with a shudder that it was getting cold and dark and was time to leave. When Grace reached them Leonora was staring across at their mother in bewilderment.
‘Who’s that man she’s talking to?’ she asked. The three sisters looked through the blue dusk at their mother who was standing some distance away at the other end of the churchyard, talking to a man they thought they recognized.
‘God knows,’ Alicia sighed, shrugging her shoulders. ‘But she better not be long, it’s cold.’ She pulled a cigarette out of her handbag and attempted to warm herself up by lighting it.
‘Do you know who he is, Grace?’ Leonora asked. Grace brought her long white fingers up to her lips where they traced the line of her mouth in wonderment.
‘That’s Uncle Louis,’ she replied slowly. Alicia exhaled with impatience.
‘Oh, I remember him. The mad uncle no one ever talks about,’ she said, clipping her consonants with efficiency. Alicia hadn’t the patience to dither or to think about anyone else but herself. ‘Let’s go over and find out if he really is mad.’
‘No, leave them,’ Grace said. ‘They have a lot of catching up to do.’
Leonora looked at her sister in puzzlement, but Alicia was only too happy to leave the churchyard and return to their mother’s house. She laughed throatily. ‘That’s fine by me. I’m cold. I really don’t care about mad Uncle Louis. Let’s go home and warm up. Aunt Cicely and Anthony will wait for her.’
When Louis Forrester stepped across the shadows towards her, Audrey felt the long years dissolve with the mists and placed a hand on one of the gravestones to steady herself. He wore a plain suit beneath a black coat and hat, which sat crookedly on his head, and he walked in the same unique way, with a slight dance in his step as if he were constantly hearing the melancholy rhythm of the tango, echoing still from another life, long ago when he was young and had someone to dance for. As he came nearer, Audrey recognized the gentle expression in his blue eyes and the longing behind them, barely disguised, as if at the sight of her he was no longer able to suppress feelings that had only grown stronger with the slow passing of time. And now, there he was, as if he had stepped across the decades, bringing the memories with him, in his smile and in his smell and all that had changed were the naïve expectations of youth, swallowed up into the deep furrows that marred his forehead.