Faith - Lesley Pearse [182]
During the funeral service Lena was on one side of her, Jackie on the other, both holding her hands. Looking at the coffin, that was neither mansized nor small enough for a child, was another sharp reminder that she hadn’t been paying Barney enough attention to notice how tall he’d become, or even to marvel that if he had lived he would have been going to a senior school in September. She did remember during the service that when she was Barney’s age it was the start of her realizing that as a Wilmslow she had no chance in life. She wondered whether if Barney hadn’t been snatched from her so young, he might have looked at her later, realized what she was, and hated her for it.
She was aware of the dozens of people in the pews behind her. Some she recognized as shopkeepers in Crail and Jackie’s closest neighbours and friends, but mostly they were strangers who had met Barney without her being around. She guessed they all knew she was a neglectful mother.
Tears coursed down her cheeks as they sang ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. It had been Barney’s favourite hymn, just as it had been hers as a child. He used to sing it to her in the car sometimes, and she could hear his clear, high voice inside her head.
Then finally the agony of the interment, with the birds singing, leaves fluttering in the breeze, and the grass so lush and soft around the graveyard. Even the mound of earth by the freshly dug grave was hidden from view with artificial grass and the dozens of wreaths and bunches of flowers. It was all so serene and perfect, but that made it even more obscene that a child should be buried on such a day.
Laura had made a daisy chain that morning to drop on to the coffin. Barney had loved making them and it seemed the perfect thing, far more relevant than shop-bought flowers. But although she’d wrapped it in damp tissue, it looked wilted and sad. Once again she hadn’t got it right and she silently apologized to Barney as she kissed it and tossed it into the grave.
If it hadn’t been for Jackie, she would have walked from the graveside and gone back to Edinburgh straight away. But suddenly Jackie’s arms were round her and they stood awkwardly with her plastered arm between them, crying on each other’s shoulders.
‘I couldn’t avoid him,’ Jackie sobbed. ‘He came right at me and the car rolled over and Barney was thrown out.’
Laura knew she must have cried solidly for two hours or more that afternoon in Sorrento as she examined every aspect of that terrible period, but even as she cried she knew this was the only way to exorcize her demons.
She would never forget Barney, and never forgive herself for not being a better mother, but as she walked back to the hotel she felt lighter and more hopeful. And she knew she’d taken the first step towards recovery.
Laura half smiled as she remembered the rest of her stay in Sorrento. As each day passed she got a little stronger mentally, and before long she found she could chat to guests, to Janet and Carlo, and have an occasional flirt with a waiter or barman.
She even tested herself by going to the beach and sunbathing near children, and found it didn’t hurt. There were countless small boys with dark hair and eyes, and as she watch them diving off the pontoons, lithe brown bodies glistening with droplets of water, it made her heart feel warm, not sad.
On each of her days off she made a point of going somewhere. A stomach-lurching bus ride along a road hewn out of the rock face, with hairpin bends offering sheer drops to the rocks below, just inches from the bus wheels, took her to amazing Positano where the houses clung to the side of a cliff. She caught the ferry to pretty Capri where she wandered narrow alleyways and peered into tiny exotic gardens set behind rusting gates. There were the wonders of Pompeii, a bustling market in Amalfi, and twice she went into Naples, wrinkling her nose at the squalor of the slums, yet captivated by the gaiety of the place.
So many ancient churches. She visited them all,