Читать книгу Blindside - Wilna Adriaanse - Страница 5

Ellie wished her mother would cry. Wet, noisy sobs, instead of the quiet sniffling next to her in the pew. She was dry-eyed too, but at least she wasn’t sniffling.

You could smell from a distance that her mother had been drinking, even though she had promised not to. She should probably have taken better care of her mom, but it had just been too much trouble.

You must look after your mom, she heard her dad’s voice say, and she looked at the coffin at the front of the church. She can’t help it. She’s not doing it on purpose, was always his excuse. And you’re all she’s got now, he continued in her thoughts. He had spoken to her a few times recently about the day he might no longer be around. Had he had a premonition, or had he just wanted to make sure she understood that she was responsible for her mother?

“Why didn’t we bury him out of a normal church?” her mom asked under her breath. “I don’t understand a word of what’s going on.”

“This was his church,” Ellie whispered back.

“Why is he sprinkling water on the cloth over the coffin as if it’s ironing that needs dampening?”

“Mom, it doesn’t matter.”

Her mother sniffed again. “Lord, how could he do this to me?”

There was movement around them and Ellie knelt.

Behind her, her mom whispered: “My knee hurts, I’m not going to kneel.”

“God of all consolation, help us to comfort one another in our grief, finding light in time of darkness, and faith in time of doubt.” Father Frank went quiet and Ellie sat down beside her mother again.

She had never understood why people took sedatives to get through a funeral. Now she realised it was because she had never been one of the mourners in the front pews. In the cheap seats at the back it was easy; here, it was another matter. It’s not like you wanted to be in the front row; you only realised the price of these seats the day you sat here. The view from here was totally different. There was no one between you and the coffin. And behind the coffin you saw the reverend, priest, or pastor’s mouth move, but nothing he said made any sense. Nothing eased the pain. No words calmed the tremor inside. She suspected it was that tremor that made one grab the pills, or a glass of something. If you could just get through the service without people hearing your teeth chatter. That was why the older generation had so many children, she decided. For this day. There was strength in numbers.

“Lord, for your faithful people life is changed, not ended. When the body of our earthly dwelling lies in death we gain an everlasting dwelling place in heaven.”

She heard the people behind them say “Amen,” but the word stuck in her throat.

The church looked and smelled familiar. As a child she often came here with her dad. To her mom’s chagrin. Not that her mom was a regular churchgoer herself; usually she just dropped Ellie off at Sunday school and fetched her later.

It was nicer to come here with her dad. There were statues and candles, rituals, fascinating to a child. He never spoke to her mom about church and religion, but one day Ellie asked him why churches look so different, and he told her about Martin Luther.

She remembered she had asked what symbolism was. And who was right.

He had scratched his head as he always did when he tried to explain something, or thought deeply. “It’s just man’s way of making things easier for himself. Religion is difficult as it is. You can probably compare it to a car. Some drive a Mercedes, others a BMW. Both drivers believe theirs is the better car, but if they drive carefully, they’ll both arrive at their destination.”

After that, Ellie had paid more attention to people’s cars.

Today the candles couldn’t warm her and the familiar faces on the walls stared back at her dispassionately. As if they wanted to say, today we can’t help you. She had never been this cold before, and couldn’t wait for the service to end. But Manie Ferreira, an old friend and colleague of her father’s, still had to deliver the eulogy.

He walked slowly to the microphone and planted his legs slightly apart. He put on his reading glasses and looked over the frame at the mourners.

“This is a hard day for me. As much as I like talking about John McKenna, I wish I didn’t need to today. I knew him for more than twenty years, and for most of that time we were partners.” He swallowed. “If I hadn’t been a year his senior I wouldn’t have been retired, and I’d probably have been with him last week. And I wouldn’t have needed to stand here today. Or that’s what I keep telling myself.”

He looked at Ellie and her mom. “We know how much we’re going to miss him, so we also know how big your loss is.”

Ellie listened as he spoke about her dad’s good qualities. Shared the odd anecdote. Thanked people on behalf of the family. She wrapped her arms around herself and thought of the newspaper headlines.

Veteran cop dies in hail of bullets at roadblock, the lampposts had announced the news the next morning. Alternated with Boks ready for Lions. On the next lamppost: President must explain again. Ordinary people did not get their names on lampposts. Only if your name was Steve or Joost or Julius could you expect to see it there. Otherwise, you remained an anonymous cop.

She rubbed her arms again. The bloody cold wouldn’t go away, and she was glad when the formalities were over at last and they could go outside. As she was leaving the church, she tried not to look at the organist. Her father had liked to stand in as organist. He came from a musical family. Put an instrument in their hands and they’d be playing it before long. She had liked to come along when he’d played the organ.

When she walked out into the sun, she put on her sunglasses. It had rained almost all of the previous week, but today was cloudless. The September sun was pale, yet it burned her cold skin. Somewhere a dog was barking and a lorry’s brakes hissed. The pepper trees in front of the church were green and dense and the birdsong was almost deafening. She wondered how the day could be so bright. Inside the gloomy church she had imagined that the sun had disappeared for a moment. Even if it was just behind a cloud.

“May angels lead you into paradise; upon your arrival, may the martyrs receive you and lead you to the holy city of Jerusalem …” Father Frank’s voice accompanied the coffin outside. When the hearse pulled away, with the coffin inside, they walked with the rest of the mourners to the adjoining parish hall. Ellie’s mother was still sniffing softly.

Inside the hall people approached them to sympathise.

“Such a good man …”

“We’ll miss him in the choir …”

“It must be an enormous shock to you …”

“And with retirement so near …”

“He was going to play at my funeral one day.”

The expressions of condolence were interspersed with remarks about her dark hair. After a while she felt tempted to say something inappropriate. You’d swear she was the only person on earth who’d ever dyed her hair.

Ellie listened and nodded occasionally. Shook her head when it was called for. She heard her mother’s thin voice by her side and smelled the conflict between the alcohol and the peppermints on her breath. She hoped someone would bring her mom some tea.

“I can’t believe he did it to me. But like my mother said all those years ago, he’s not of our church. If only I had listened then.”

The listeners made appropriate noises and Rika McKenna sniffed loudly and pressed her handkerchief to her eyes.

Ellie excused herself and fetched her mom a cup of tea and a sandwich. Her mother’s hands trembled when she took the cup, but Ellie was relieved to see her drink it thirstily and eat a piece of the bread.

Her father’s colleagues stood huddled against a wall. They looked awkward, as if they didn’t belong there. She was surprised to see how many of her own colleagues had come. They came over in groups to speak to her. Shook her hand. Brigadier Andile Zondi, her commanding officer, put her hand on Ellie’s shoulder. Clive Barnard, her captain, hugged her briefly, clumsily. Clive turned forty last year but today the deep lines beside his mouth made him look older.

She looked around for Albert, but didn’t see him anywhere. She wasn’t too surprised. His mother’s funeral had probably been the first and last funeral he had ever attended.

When Melissa offered to fetch her some tea, she declined. She knew what she needed, and it wasn’t tea and a sandwich.

Melissa linked her arm through hers and they stood like that quietly. If anyone knew how she was trembling inside, it was Melissa.

“Are you going home tonight?”

“No, I’ll sleep at her place again.”

“Want me to come with you?”

Ellie smiled. “Maybe you should go, and I’ll sleep with Antonie and the kids.”

“Maybe I should come and sleep at your place, and we’ll send your mom to Antonie and the kids. I don’t know who I’d feel sorrier for.”

Slowly the sympathisers thinned out. Ellie had to stop herself from sighing with relief when only Father Frank remained. She kissed his cheek.

“Thank you, Father. I’m sorry you had to do this – it couldn’t have been easy, but there was nobody else I could ask.” Ellie smiled. “Not that I had a choice. He always said that it had to be you, or just a cremation without any ceremony. End of story.”

The grey-haired man took her hands in his own. “I am very sad, and even a little angry with my friend, but I would have been hurt if you hadn’t asked me. I promised him long ago that if this day came and I was still around, I would do this for him. He could have made it easier by not dying, but then again, he was never a man for making things easy.”

Ellie nodded. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

He turned to her mom and took both her hands in his own. “He loved you very much.”

Rika McKenna made what sounded like a grunt and Ellie hurriedly said goodbye.

“Where are we going now?” her mother wanted to know when they were in the car.

“I’m going to drop you off at home. Aunt Vera will stay with you. I have to go, but I’ll see you a bit later.”

“I know you’re going to Joe’s. Why can’t I come?”

Please don’t bury me with tea and coffee, her father had written in a letter that he had put in a partly faded envelope along with his will. At the back of my sock drawer in my wardrobe you’ll find money – take the guys to Joe’s for a round or two on me.

The money had been there, and Ellie had wondered when he had put it there. Whether he had added to it over the years, as things became more expensive.

“It’s been a long day. You and I can go sometime, but not today.”

At home, her aunt and uncle were making tea in the kitchen, still in their funeral best.

“Come and have a cup of tea,” Aunt Vera said.

Ellie saw her mother licking her lips and knew she wasn’t going to stick to tea, but she couldn’t worry about that right now.