Part Sixty Two
After the traumatic events of the weekend, the Atkins household slid into a state of lethargic slump as dirty dishes were piled up in the sink , odd items of clothing were draped carelessly on the settee and empty bottles and glasses were left out on the coffee table. Both Yvonne and Lauren had got used to lying in bed till late as they went through a kickback from the intense strain of the leadup to, the 2 week trial itself and the shattering impact of Ritchie's death. Snatches of trial scenes weaved their way through their half awake, half asleep state first thing in their morning as John Deed's sonorous voice pronounced sentence on their lifestyles and they lay upon the hard bench in the visitor's gallery which mutated into an uncomfortable position on their beds.
"What's it matter, mum. It's only housework. As soon as we're clear of this, whatever it is, things will get straight," Lauren said lazily.
Together, they dreamed away the first few days between Ritchie's death and the funeral in a zomboid state as they felt that they were both convalescent but given time, would pull into shape. Yvonne stuck on the first clothes that came to hand although her makeup remained immaculate as she would not slip that far. Lauren slobbed around in jeans, T shirt and slippers watching daytime television.
"Isn't Trisha a know all pain in the arse?" Lauren joked. "If she was such a bloody good agony aunt, how come she's divorced twice."
"Probably got married to Charlie's long lost cousins," Yvonne joked which made Lauren laugh and spill her drink.
Cassie and Roisin breezed in at this moment, full of the sort of drive and energy born of the acute knowledge that on Saturday, the decadent life of swanning around Yvonne's swimming pool would be curtailed to the period of time that they could get baby sitters. This was summer holiday time which she could now see was a mixed blessing and different from her single days of complaining that the city shops were crowded out with all these schoolkids ruining her retail therapy.
"Just look at you two," Roisin breezed in. "I've seen the bottom of parrot's cages tidier than this."
"Leave it out,Roisin," Yvonne replied in a whinging voice. "We've been taking it easy.After last weekend, we needed a break… OK, Ritchie's funeral is coming up in, shit three days. Hey Lauren, have the bleeding undertakers been contacted." Yvonne's voice rose up the scale in growing panic."
"Sorted, mum," Came the reply as she started to shift the worst of the debris away.
"Well at least you two seem friends and that's the main thing," Cassie spoke earnestly."We were getting really worried about the two of you."
"We'll never forget you both for standing by us." Lauren turned round and gave each of them a hug and a kiss.
"Want a drink," Yvonne offered and went to pour a glass of wine. For herself and Lauren, she made two large mugs full of strong coffee. They needed something to kickstart themselves into life and start picking up the threads of the funeral arrangements. They were able to think of it as an event to be planned that was somehow distanced from them as they chatted amongst themselves. It was their only way of coping with the matter and they knew full well that the tears would come later .
The vague cloudy fogginess round Yvonne's and Lauren's minds cleared and they were able to chatter in a businesslike way about placing a notice in the local paper, that the church was booked and who would be coming to the funeral.
"You know what," Cassie joked. "At one time, you could have had Hollamby Undertakers Ltd to do the funeral."
"Oh yeah, I can just imagine bleeding hearts and sympathy from Bodybag and her coming along for the ride , charging double the bleeding price and all and that cow lying through her teeth saying how she had always been so fond of the Atkins family," Yvonne replied, derisively
Just then, Trigger's sharp ears caught the faintest sounds of a car coming to a halt outside and the door slam shut and his ears pricked up, his tail waved and he started barking.
"I'll answer the door mum while you talk with Roisin about the songs she's singing. I'll go along with anything you come up with," Lauren said in easy tones as she followed her lord and master. She answered the front door and a faintly nervous Karen waited outside, dressed in her Wing Governor's outfit.
"I've come to visit you to see how you're going on after things had quietened down a bit. Give you both time together on your own. Besides," Karen smiled faintly, "I was presented with a petition to take a half day off as I'd bawled out too many Prison Officers."
"Who might these be if you don't mind me asking," Lauren half smiled, offering a tentative olive branch.
"Di Barker and Sylvia Hollamby, my two favourite prison officers," Karen's smile was broader than before.
"Couldn't happen to a better pair," Lauren grinned. "Come in. Mum is in the lounge with Cassie and Roisin. You couldn't have come at a better time." Lauren gestured to her, graciously.
Trigger made a fuss of this extra human that he promptly rounded up to add to his pack at the far end of the house. Just when they came to the back room, they could hear the steel sharp notes of a guitar and singing that could only have come from Roisin.
There was a peculiar feel about the two songs that might have been the sort that an accomplished ballad singer with an exquisite finger picking style could accomplish and the size of the room added subtle echoes. The first song weaved words of a hope despite the heartache and wandering through a wilderness and a secular faith in Jesus no hymn could conjure up and the second song called forth the golden fields and the promises that life calls for. A tear came to Yvonne's eyes as the last delicate steel notes gently faded away.
"They're both beautiful, Roash," Cassie exclaimed admiringly.
"Better than 'Abide with Me' anytime." Yvonne joked. "Seriously, I can't decide. Don't know about you Lauren, but I'd go for 'there is a reason for it all', but it's bloody close."
Roisin's motherly way caused her to be acutely conscious of the sporadic laughing and joking going on between Yvonne and Lauren, that didn't seem right somehow. There was a tacit agreement between the two of them to keep things light so as to get their way through to the funeral which was like some huge milepost in space and time beyond which there was the unknown.
Karen sat politely feeling more relaxed and joining in the smalltalk and in a strange way, Yvonne whose taste and feel she could remember so vividly was diminished as if looking through the wrong end of a telescope to this attractive woman who, months ago, had grown to be such a close friend of hers. Was it only three short weeks ago that Karen had been invited round here for dinner and that she had lent her a pen so that she could write down her address. Stuffed down in the depths of her handbag was that scribbled note that had been the point of entry into Yvonne's world. While she was sat here in one of Yvonne's capacious armchairs, she chattered away to Yvonne as much as she had ever done here, or in the bar near the prison when Yvonne came to visit Denny. Lauren was gracious enough to exchange conversation with Karen and she reflected on how necessary it had come to be to win Lauren's approval. She made a mental note to ask Cassie and Roisin how they got the children to accept them while basking in the warmth and sympathy that came over from them. It seemed totally unreal that she had once locked them up on G wing as so much had moved on since then.
"What do we do about all Charlie's friends who want to pay their respects to Ritchie, Mum?" Lauren asked in despair at all the cocaine dealers, dubious backstreet dealers of cars with fiddled mileage clocks and ripoff repair jobs.
"We just tell them that if they carry anything illegal into the church, they get kneecapped," Yvonne said with a grimly taut face. "It's going to be bleeding hard enough on the day without any tosspot doing anything stupid."
Yvonne's thoughts were dragged to the nightmare of all Charlie's dodgy friends crowding round Ritchie telling him all the tall stories of how smart they were and Ritchie could follow in Charlie's footsteps.
"Right, mum. And what about these letters from long lost cousins that are wanting to come as 'funerals bring families together'. Look at the list there that I've written. I've not seen any of them since I was little. I suppose they've been too busy," Lauren said scornfully.
"They make their own way to the church and they can come."
"What do you want us to do on the day?" Karen asked quietly, "Make our way here first or go direct to the church, whichever you want."
"There's a funeral car and, if you want, the three of you could come with us," Lauren suggested quietly.
"If you don't think we'll be in the way, we'd be only too glad to keep you company," Roisin replied.
"Don't worry, you won't be in the way," Lauren's definite voice reassured Karen that they at least had some sort of a working relationship.There was a proprietorial way that Lauren was possessive around Yvonne that told her sharp senses that Lauren was not at the stage of bringing them breakfast in bed, only that things were getting better and that she ought to be careful not to push matters in that direction.
"And don't forget your guitar, Roisin and, if there's any real trouble, bring along a pair of handcuffs, Karen. Any sniff of anything like the Old Bill will scare the shit out of some of them."
For the first time in what seemed years they were able to laugh together briefly as one.
The formal sombreness of the mood was conveyed by Yvonne's most formal black outfit which was a million miles away from her normal generous splash of bright colours. It was shocking to everyone to see her so frozen with grief and the way her dark glasses blocked anyone off from seeing her eyes.
"It's all right, mum," Lauren slipped her arm into Yvonne's and walked her slowly down the wide staircase as if she was somehow old and frail. Yes she would laugh and love again , the smile would light her face and her supple body would part the waters of the swimming pool and reassure herself and everyone else that she was still young and full of the joys of life.
"I hope you like a good party, girls," were her very first words when she came onto G Wing and so decisively met her future, and Lauren's and Ritchie's. yes, it all started from that one day.
"We're all ready, Yvonne," Karen called quietly. "The car's ready outside whenever you're ready."
"Thank you," Came the answer and the smile at the thoughtfulness shown to her. At the back of her mind stirred the thought that her lover was there for her and that she was being a true friend. She needed that and her daughter and Cassie and Roisin all around her. A huge relief was that around her, everything was being taken care of. Yvonne fumbled in her bag for a much needed cigarette which she took a huge drag of. One last look in her mirror and she nodded to everyone dressed in their formal best.
Once in the funeral car, it was huge inside and very high up off the road as the driver sedately manoeuvred the limousine out onto the open road so that they could look down onto the fields that the hedges had always obscured. Somehow everything looked different today and they felt more as one than they had ever felt after all those days in court. This time, instead of being on the front row of the gallery as onlookers, they would be at the centre of attention, especially Yvonne and Lauren.
They chatted small talk to each other in spurts in between the long silences until they could see the church in the distance.
Yvonne clutched tightly onto Lauren's hand and her face drew tight as she saw the large black hearse ahead, parked outside the church. This was the moment she had been dreading starting to take shape.
"We're with you, Yvonne," Roisin's motherly voice oozed reassurance almost as if she were a child. At moments like this, the others felt that Roisin was the most reassuring and in command.
They stepped out onto the pavement when the pallbearers carried Ritchie's oak coffin in procession into the church, the only visible shape and manifestation of 'her little angel' which would make a brief reappearance only to be later moved out of her sight and reality.
Yvonne was flanked by Lauren and Karen on either side as they walked towards the church doors . Roisin held her black guitar case and walked with Cassie behind ,with downcast eyes and they all murmured greetings to anonymous well dressed suits and grave faces as they filed into the church.
Babs smiled her welcome at them as she turned round at the organ and an usher directed them to their place past stone columns and rows of ancient worn wooden pews right to the front and turning to the right. Henry could be seen rifling through various prayer books as he wondered, in his turn, what words from a bygone age he could ever say whom his testimony in some previous lifetime helped send him to the prison where he had ended his last days. The stately chords from the church organ, more magnificent than the small electric organ at Larkhall Prison, welcomed the increasing congregation which drifted in, and provided enough of a contemplative mood for everyone to face the solemn occasion. Roisin sat on the outside, her guitar resting against the pew, ready to sing her two songs when the time was ready.
Yvonne's long lost aunt bristled a bit when she saw the three strangers take pride of place immediately behind Yvonne and Lauren on the front row.
"We belong there with Yvonne. We're family. How come they've pushed in?" she started to grumble only to be told, under his breath, to shut it by her son. It was handier, being out of the limelight and not to feel so exposed or so he reasoned. Yvonne fought for control as the ceremony started and caught the eye of Henry, looking down from his pulpit with great pity at them. A fragment of her clung onto the comfort that, in the way he had been there for them all in the trial, he was there for them all right now. The silence of centuries hung heavy on them all as did the grief felt for so many confused reasons.
"Jesus said, I am the Resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he dies yet shall he live and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. We bring nothing into this world and we take nothing out. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."
Henry started in his formal tones, staring rigidly ahead of him through to the far entrance door to the church. Having witnessed the events at Larkhall prison, what else could he say about the young man whose girlfriend had severely tested his own Christian charity by exploiting his own foolishness so cleverly? Then he looked down at the congregation from on high, finding it so hard in what he said, to refrain from harsh moral judgement. John Deed's legal judgement in comparison was a comparatively easy affair, morally speaking, even if legally, it was anything else but simple.
"I have some personal knowledge of Ritchie Atkins shortly before he left this earthly life and I very much hope that he finds some release from his short and unhappily troubled life.It was a human tragedy that he chose a desperate way out of life's problems. The Lord God watches over all of us and I am convinced will especially protect the grieving mother and sister of Ritchie Atkins and God will surely grant them the strength in the months to come. I will add my own personal prayers for all of you gathered together," Henry finished on a simple, heartfelt personal note, looking directly at the group around Yvonne and later taking in with a glance at the rest of the congregation..
"Thank you, Henry," Yvonne added in a throaty choked voice, knowing how much he had tried in his own quiet way to help. Vicars as a class weren't a group that she had any time for but Henry's thoughtfulness touched her.
"And better than my own few slight words could say, I am inviting with Yvonne Atkins's wishes a good friend of hers, Roisin Connor to perform two songs that say as much about this day than any hymn does. You will not need to refer to the hymn books for this service."
Roisin picked up her guitar and her high heels clicked their way to the front of the church where she stood, spellbound for a second, by the height and seeming vastness of the space into which she was preparing to throw her voice and guitar in memory of the Richie that should have been, a mother's son and, most of all, for Yvonne.
The prelude of a circular delicate tracery of plucked steel hard guitar notes cast a shaft of light and hope into the darkness and sadness of those in the church congregation
"I've seen hard times, and I've been told,
There isn't any wonder, that I fall.
Why do we suffer, crossing off the years.
There must be a reason for it all.
I've trusted in you Jesus, save me from my sins.
Heaven is a place I call my home.
But I keep on getting caught up, in this world I'm living in,
and your voice it sometimes fades before I know.
Hurtin' brings my heart to you, crying with my need,
depending on your love to carry me.
The love that shed his blood, for all the world to see,
this must be the reason for it all."
Roisin's high strong voice melted its way through the chill atmosphere of the church and Karen looked up briefly at the ancient oak crossmembers which held up the church tower way up into the sky in the same way. She had memories of this when she was a little girl only this time the words said something for her life that she had lived up till now. Everything that day made those most sensitive to it contemplate their places in the universe, far away from the cares of the day to day jobs, the phone calls they had to make, the mobile phone that symbolised the modern at the ready switched on world that, one time in their lives, was switched off.
"Ain't the vicar going to ask us to sing 'Abide with Me'? It always goes down well at funerals," one of Yvonne's distant relations talked too loudly right behind Cassie who turned round and glared at the stupid old bat. She was ignorantly talking in the middle of the superb trailing sequence of notes that Roisin coaxed out of her guitar and Cassie was rapt with admiration with her woman who was out there playing her heart out. This was no performance but Roisin's dedication to Yvonne.
Henry, with great regret, asked the congregation to open their black prayer books and
turn to I Corrinthians verse 15, at which point the rear of the congregation fumbled their way through the unfamiliar volume. He read the assigned passage without great enthusiasm and did not feel that he carried the unquestionable authority as a vicar in his position up on high in his pulpit in the same way that he saw and admired in the imposing red robed presence of John Deed in the trial. Henry had to contend with the combination of the Church of England establishment in the background and the more narrow minded bigoted active members of the congregation. It was the tedium of the genteel arguments and petty politics that made him take the bold step of seeking out a different flock at Larkhall Prison and led him ultimately to Babs, his dear wife who was seated at the organ. It was almost with relief that he came to the end of his reading to introduce Roisin's second song and he sat back in hope of what her song could tell him of life.
The sunlight shone through the stained glass windows and reflected off Roisin's guitar as she sang and played her golden toned ballad to the congregation for those to listen if they had ears to hear with.
"Will you stay with me, will you be my love
Among the fields of barley
We'll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we lie in fields of gold."
Karen sat meekly at her pew, eyes downcast while Roisin plucked at the heartstrings of a brief relationship that had gone and another that was unfolding before her eyes while Cassie's misty eyes dreamed of a mature love that was hers and the woman who was singing to her as her eyes crossed with hers. At all costs, they all knew that the ominous wooden shape in the middle of the church spelt out the end of the earthly life of someone who some of them knew so briefly but whose weakness led to such terrible consequences that nearly consumed them in the flames. Roisin's own Catholic upbringing rose to the surface to wonder what fate or judgement lay waiting for Ritchie beyond the grave.
"I never made promises lightly
And there have been some that I've broken
But I swear in the days still left
We'll walk in fields of gold
We'll walk in fields of gold."
Yvonne's thoughts went out to the son she had once had and that brief hope that somewhere in eternity she and Ritchie would be reunited some day in the golden glow . She suppressed the cynical side of her that would have said 'some hope' as without that hope, what was there for her or anyone?
"You'll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky
When we walked in fields of gold"
In some sort of trance, Yvonne and Lauren led the congregation out of the church to the moment that they were both dreading. Both of them had a horror of the sight of an open grave and there, an impossible distance down, was the last visual cue of what had been Ritchie. All their family seemed to crowd them in however vaguely sympathetic they were. More than ever, it was the consciousness of their friends that gave them the strength to go on. Yvonne scattered the petals of a magnolia flower on the oak casket with the small brass plaque before the first drops of earth fell upon the open grave. Tears streaming down their faces, they both turned away from the sight.
"Are you a friend of Yvonne?" Yvonne's aged aunt asked her as they stood awhile at the church gate.
"Yes, I know her very well as do our friends," Karen replied with a straight face gesturing to Cassie and roisin who assumed their most respectable appearance they could muster up.
"You all seem to be very close," She replied, seeing the four respectably dressed women as well as Lauren, of course. "Well, I'd best be going. Funny, you only see the family together at weddings and funerals. It brings you closer together. It must be hard seeing off your own son this way, Yvonne having lost your Charlie as well," she said in her own version of sympathy that she was brought up in. There was a set way of doing these things which, in her day, would be followed to the letter, not all this new fangled stuff of that woman singing in church. Couldn't understand what she was singing but sometimes, you have to move with the times a bit.
"I'll hope to see you when you get married, Lauren. Mind you don't leave it too late for your poor old great aunt. None of us are getting any younger, are they Yvonne," she finished with her final homily to Lauren.
"Yes, I'll remember," Lauren said with a straight face.
"I suppose some of you have husbands to go home to so I'll let you go on your way," came the reply as the absentee matriarchal figure made her way towards her car.
"The driver is waiting, Yvonne," Cassie said in a subdued tone.
They made their way to the sanctuary of the limousine to take them out of there as the crowd had rapidly thinned. It was time for them to go.
After the traumatic events of the weekend, the Atkins household slid into a state of lethargic slump as dirty dishes were piled up in the sink , odd items of clothing were draped carelessly on the settee and empty bottles and glasses were left out on the coffee table. Both Yvonne and Lauren had got used to lying in bed till late as they went through a kickback from the intense strain of the leadup to, the 2 week trial itself and the shattering impact of Ritchie's death. Snatches of trial scenes weaved their way through their half awake, half asleep state first thing in their morning as John Deed's sonorous voice pronounced sentence on their lifestyles and they lay upon the hard bench in the visitor's gallery which mutated into an uncomfortable position on their beds.
"What's it matter, mum. It's only housework. As soon as we're clear of this, whatever it is, things will get straight," Lauren said lazily.
Together, they dreamed away the first few days between Ritchie's death and the funeral in a zomboid state as they felt that they were both convalescent but given time, would pull into shape. Yvonne stuck on the first clothes that came to hand although her makeup remained immaculate as she would not slip that far. Lauren slobbed around in jeans, T shirt and slippers watching daytime television.
"Isn't Trisha a know all pain in the arse?" Lauren joked. "If she was such a bloody good agony aunt, how come she's divorced twice."
"Probably got married to Charlie's long lost cousins," Yvonne joked which made Lauren laugh and spill her drink.
Cassie and Roisin breezed in at this moment, full of the sort of drive and energy born of the acute knowledge that on Saturday, the decadent life of swanning around Yvonne's swimming pool would be curtailed to the period of time that they could get baby sitters. This was summer holiday time which she could now see was a mixed blessing and different from her single days of complaining that the city shops were crowded out with all these schoolkids ruining her retail therapy.
"Just look at you two," Roisin breezed in. "I've seen the bottom of parrot's cages tidier than this."
"Leave it out,Roisin," Yvonne replied in a whinging voice. "We've been taking it easy.After last weekend, we needed a break… OK, Ritchie's funeral is coming up in, shit three days. Hey Lauren, have the bleeding undertakers been contacted." Yvonne's voice rose up the scale in growing panic."
"Sorted, mum," Came the reply as she started to shift the worst of the debris away.
"Well at least you two seem friends and that's the main thing," Cassie spoke earnestly."We were getting really worried about the two of you."
"We'll never forget you both for standing by us." Lauren turned round and gave each of them a hug and a kiss.
"Want a drink," Yvonne offered and went to pour a glass of wine. For herself and Lauren, she made two large mugs full of strong coffee. They needed something to kickstart themselves into life and start picking up the threads of the funeral arrangements. They were able to think of it as an event to be planned that was somehow distanced from them as they chatted amongst themselves. It was their only way of coping with the matter and they knew full well that the tears would come later .
The vague cloudy fogginess round Yvonne's and Lauren's minds cleared and they were able to chatter in a businesslike way about placing a notice in the local paper, that the church was booked and who would be coming to the funeral.
"You know what," Cassie joked. "At one time, you could have had Hollamby Undertakers Ltd to do the funeral."
"Oh yeah, I can just imagine bleeding hearts and sympathy from Bodybag and her coming along for the ride , charging double the bleeding price and all and that cow lying through her teeth saying how she had always been so fond of the Atkins family," Yvonne replied, derisively
Just then, Trigger's sharp ears caught the faintest sounds of a car coming to a halt outside and the door slam shut and his ears pricked up, his tail waved and he started barking.
"I'll answer the door mum while you talk with Roisin about the songs she's singing. I'll go along with anything you come up with," Lauren said in easy tones as she followed her lord and master. She answered the front door and a faintly nervous Karen waited outside, dressed in her Wing Governor's outfit.
"I've come to visit you to see how you're going on after things had quietened down a bit. Give you both time together on your own. Besides," Karen smiled faintly, "I was presented with a petition to take a half day off as I'd bawled out too many Prison Officers."
"Who might these be if you don't mind me asking," Lauren half smiled, offering a tentative olive branch.
"Di Barker and Sylvia Hollamby, my two favourite prison officers," Karen's smile was broader than before.
"Couldn't happen to a better pair," Lauren grinned. "Come in. Mum is in the lounge with Cassie and Roisin. You couldn't have come at a better time." Lauren gestured to her, graciously.
Trigger made a fuss of this extra human that he promptly rounded up to add to his pack at the far end of the house. Just when they came to the back room, they could hear the steel sharp notes of a guitar and singing that could only have come from Roisin.
There was a peculiar feel about the two songs that might have been the sort that an accomplished ballad singer with an exquisite finger picking style could accomplish and the size of the room added subtle echoes. The first song weaved words of a hope despite the heartache and wandering through a wilderness and a secular faith in Jesus no hymn could conjure up and the second song called forth the golden fields and the promises that life calls for. A tear came to Yvonne's eyes as the last delicate steel notes gently faded away.
"They're both beautiful, Roash," Cassie exclaimed admiringly.
"Better than 'Abide with Me' anytime." Yvonne joked. "Seriously, I can't decide. Don't know about you Lauren, but I'd go for 'there is a reason for it all', but it's bloody close."
Roisin's motherly way caused her to be acutely conscious of the sporadic laughing and joking going on between Yvonne and Lauren, that didn't seem right somehow. There was a tacit agreement between the two of them to keep things light so as to get their way through to the funeral which was like some huge milepost in space and time beyond which there was the unknown.
Karen sat politely feeling more relaxed and joining in the smalltalk and in a strange way, Yvonne whose taste and feel she could remember so vividly was diminished as if looking through the wrong end of a telescope to this attractive woman who, months ago, had grown to be such a close friend of hers. Was it only three short weeks ago that Karen had been invited round here for dinner and that she had lent her a pen so that she could write down her address. Stuffed down in the depths of her handbag was that scribbled note that had been the point of entry into Yvonne's world. While she was sat here in one of Yvonne's capacious armchairs, she chattered away to Yvonne as much as she had ever done here, or in the bar near the prison when Yvonne came to visit Denny. Lauren was gracious enough to exchange conversation with Karen and she reflected on how necessary it had come to be to win Lauren's approval. She made a mental note to ask Cassie and Roisin how they got the children to accept them while basking in the warmth and sympathy that came over from them. It seemed totally unreal that she had once locked them up on G wing as so much had moved on since then.
"What do we do about all Charlie's friends who want to pay their respects to Ritchie, Mum?" Lauren asked in despair at all the cocaine dealers, dubious backstreet dealers of cars with fiddled mileage clocks and ripoff repair jobs.
"We just tell them that if they carry anything illegal into the church, they get kneecapped," Yvonne said with a grimly taut face. "It's going to be bleeding hard enough on the day without any tosspot doing anything stupid."
Yvonne's thoughts were dragged to the nightmare of all Charlie's dodgy friends crowding round Ritchie telling him all the tall stories of how smart they were and Ritchie could follow in Charlie's footsteps.
"Right, mum. And what about these letters from long lost cousins that are wanting to come as 'funerals bring families together'. Look at the list there that I've written. I've not seen any of them since I was little. I suppose they've been too busy," Lauren said scornfully.
"They make their own way to the church and they can come."
"What do you want us to do on the day?" Karen asked quietly, "Make our way here first or go direct to the church, whichever you want."
"There's a funeral car and, if you want, the three of you could come with us," Lauren suggested quietly.
"If you don't think we'll be in the way, we'd be only too glad to keep you company," Roisin replied.
"Don't worry, you won't be in the way," Lauren's definite voice reassured Karen that they at least had some sort of a working relationship.There was a proprietorial way that Lauren was possessive around Yvonne that told her sharp senses that Lauren was not at the stage of bringing them breakfast in bed, only that things were getting better and that she ought to be careful not to push matters in that direction.
"And don't forget your guitar, Roisin and, if there's any real trouble, bring along a pair of handcuffs, Karen. Any sniff of anything like the Old Bill will scare the shit out of some of them."
For the first time in what seemed years they were able to laugh together briefly as one.
The formal sombreness of the mood was conveyed by Yvonne's most formal black outfit which was a million miles away from her normal generous splash of bright colours. It was shocking to everyone to see her so frozen with grief and the way her dark glasses blocked anyone off from seeing her eyes.
"It's all right, mum," Lauren slipped her arm into Yvonne's and walked her slowly down the wide staircase as if she was somehow old and frail. Yes she would laugh and love again , the smile would light her face and her supple body would part the waters of the swimming pool and reassure herself and everyone else that she was still young and full of the joys of life.
"I hope you like a good party, girls," were her very first words when she came onto G Wing and so decisively met her future, and Lauren's and Ritchie's. yes, it all started from that one day.
"We're all ready, Yvonne," Karen called quietly. "The car's ready outside whenever you're ready."
"Thank you," Came the answer and the smile at the thoughtfulness shown to her. At the back of her mind stirred the thought that her lover was there for her and that she was being a true friend. She needed that and her daughter and Cassie and Roisin all around her. A huge relief was that around her, everything was being taken care of. Yvonne fumbled in her bag for a much needed cigarette which she took a huge drag of. One last look in her mirror and she nodded to everyone dressed in their formal best.
Once in the funeral car, it was huge inside and very high up off the road as the driver sedately manoeuvred the limousine out onto the open road so that they could look down onto the fields that the hedges had always obscured. Somehow everything looked different today and they felt more as one than they had ever felt after all those days in court. This time, instead of being on the front row of the gallery as onlookers, they would be at the centre of attention, especially Yvonne and Lauren.
They chatted small talk to each other in spurts in between the long silences until they could see the church in the distance.
Yvonne clutched tightly onto Lauren's hand and her face drew tight as she saw the large black hearse ahead, parked outside the church. This was the moment she had been dreading starting to take shape.
"We're with you, Yvonne," Roisin's motherly voice oozed reassurance almost as if she were a child. At moments like this, the others felt that Roisin was the most reassuring and in command.
They stepped out onto the pavement when the pallbearers carried Ritchie's oak coffin in procession into the church, the only visible shape and manifestation of 'her little angel' which would make a brief reappearance only to be later moved out of her sight and reality.
Yvonne was flanked by Lauren and Karen on either side as they walked towards the church doors . Roisin held her black guitar case and walked with Cassie behind ,with downcast eyes and they all murmured greetings to anonymous well dressed suits and grave faces as they filed into the church.
Babs smiled her welcome at them as she turned round at the organ and an usher directed them to their place past stone columns and rows of ancient worn wooden pews right to the front and turning to the right. Henry could be seen rifling through various prayer books as he wondered, in his turn, what words from a bygone age he could ever say whom his testimony in some previous lifetime helped send him to the prison where he had ended his last days. The stately chords from the church organ, more magnificent than the small electric organ at Larkhall Prison, welcomed the increasing congregation which drifted in, and provided enough of a contemplative mood for everyone to face the solemn occasion. Roisin sat on the outside, her guitar resting against the pew, ready to sing her two songs when the time was ready.
Yvonne's long lost aunt bristled a bit when she saw the three strangers take pride of place immediately behind Yvonne and Lauren on the front row.
"We belong there with Yvonne. We're family. How come they've pushed in?" she started to grumble only to be told, under his breath, to shut it by her son. It was handier, being out of the limelight and not to feel so exposed or so he reasoned. Yvonne fought for control as the ceremony started and caught the eye of Henry, looking down from his pulpit with great pity at them. A fragment of her clung onto the comfort that, in the way he had been there for them all in the trial, he was there for them all right now. The silence of centuries hung heavy on them all as did the grief felt for so many confused reasons.
"Jesus said, I am the Resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he dies yet shall he live and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. We bring nothing into this world and we take nothing out. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."
Henry started in his formal tones, staring rigidly ahead of him through to the far entrance door to the church. Having witnessed the events at Larkhall prison, what else could he say about the young man whose girlfriend had severely tested his own Christian charity by exploiting his own foolishness so cleverly? Then he looked down at the congregation from on high, finding it so hard in what he said, to refrain from harsh moral judgement. John Deed's legal judgement in comparison was a comparatively easy affair, morally speaking, even if legally, it was anything else but simple.
"I have some personal knowledge of Ritchie Atkins shortly before he left this earthly life and I very much hope that he finds some release from his short and unhappily troubled life.It was a human tragedy that he chose a desperate way out of life's problems. The Lord God watches over all of us and I am convinced will especially protect the grieving mother and sister of Ritchie Atkins and God will surely grant them the strength in the months to come. I will add my own personal prayers for all of you gathered together," Henry finished on a simple, heartfelt personal note, looking directly at the group around Yvonne and later taking in with a glance at the rest of the congregation..
"Thank you, Henry," Yvonne added in a throaty choked voice, knowing how much he had tried in his own quiet way to help. Vicars as a class weren't a group that she had any time for but Henry's thoughtfulness touched her.
"And better than my own few slight words could say, I am inviting with Yvonne Atkins's wishes a good friend of hers, Roisin Connor to perform two songs that say as much about this day than any hymn does. You will not need to refer to the hymn books for this service."
Roisin picked up her guitar and her high heels clicked their way to the front of the church where she stood, spellbound for a second, by the height and seeming vastness of the space into which she was preparing to throw her voice and guitar in memory of the Richie that should have been, a mother's son and, most of all, for Yvonne.
The prelude of a circular delicate tracery of plucked steel hard guitar notes cast a shaft of light and hope into the darkness and sadness of those in the church congregation
"I've seen hard times, and I've been told,
There isn't any wonder, that I fall.
Why do we suffer, crossing off the years.
There must be a reason for it all.
I've trusted in you Jesus, save me from my sins.
Heaven is a place I call my home.
But I keep on getting caught up, in this world I'm living in,
and your voice it sometimes fades before I know.
Hurtin' brings my heart to you, crying with my need,
depending on your love to carry me.
The love that shed his blood, for all the world to see,
this must be the reason for it all."
Roisin's high strong voice melted its way through the chill atmosphere of the church and Karen looked up briefly at the ancient oak crossmembers which held up the church tower way up into the sky in the same way. She had memories of this when she was a little girl only this time the words said something for her life that she had lived up till now. Everything that day made those most sensitive to it contemplate their places in the universe, far away from the cares of the day to day jobs, the phone calls they had to make, the mobile phone that symbolised the modern at the ready switched on world that, one time in their lives, was switched off.
"Ain't the vicar going to ask us to sing 'Abide with Me'? It always goes down well at funerals," one of Yvonne's distant relations talked too loudly right behind Cassie who turned round and glared at the stupid old bat. She was ignorantly talking in the middle of the superb trailing sequence of notes that Roisin coaxed out of her guitar and Cassie was rapt with admiration with her woman who was out there playing her heart out. This was no performance but Roisin's dedication to Yvonne.
Henry, with great regret, asked the congregation to open their black prayer books and
turn to I Corrinthians verse 15, at which point the rear of the congregation fumbled their way through the unfamiliar volume. He read the assigned passage without great enthusiasm and did not feel that he carried the unquestionable authority as a vicar in his position up on high in his pulpit in the same way that he saw and admired in the imposing red robed presence of John Deed in the trial. Henry had to contend with the combination of the Church of England establishment in the background and the more narrow minded bigoted active members of the congregation. It was the tedium of the genteel arguments and petty politics that made him take the bold step of seeking out a different flock at Larkhall Prison and led him ultimately to Babs, his dear wife who was seated at the organ. It was almost with relief that he came to the end of his reading to introduce Roisin's second song and he sat back in hope of what her song could tell him of life.
The sunlight shone through the stained glass windows and reflected off Roisin's guitar as she sang and played her golden toned ballad to the congregation for those to listen if they had ears to hear with.
"Will you stay with me, will you be my love
Among the fields of barley
We'll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we lie in fields of gold."
Karen sat meekly at her pew, eyes downcast while Roisin plucked at the heartstrings of a brief relationship that had gone and another that was unfolding before her eyes while Cassie's misty eyes dreamed of a mature love that was hers and the woman who was singing to her as her eyes crossed with hers. At all costs, they all knew that the ominous wooden shape in the middle of the church spelt out the end of the earthly life of someone who some of them knew so briefly but whose weakness led to such terrible consequences that nearly consumed them in the flames. Roisin's own Catholic upbringing rose to the surface to wonder what fate or judgement lay waiting for Ritchie beyond the grave.
"I never made promises lightly
And there have been some that I've broken
But I swear in the days still left
We'll walk in fields of gold
We'll walk in fields of gold."
Yvonne's thoughts went out to the son she had once had and that brief hope that somewhere in eternity she and Ritchie would be reunited some day in the golden glow . She suppressed the cynical side of her that would have said 'some hope' as without that hope, what was there for her or anyone?
"You'll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky
When we walked in fields of gold"
In some sort of trance, Yvonne and Lauren led the congregation out of the church to the moment that they were both dreading. Both of them had a horror of the sight of an open grave and there, an impossible distance down, was the last visual cue of what had been Ritchie. All their family seemed to crowd them in however vaguely sympathetic they were. More than ever, it was the consciousness of their friends that gave them the strength to go on. Yvonne scattered the petals of a magnolia flower on the oak casket with the small brass plaque before the first drops of earth fell upon the open grave. Tears streaming down their faces, they both turned away from the sight.
"Are you a friend of Yvonne?" Yvonne's aged aunt asked her as they stood awhile at the church gate.
"Yes, I know her very well as do our friends," Karen replied with a straight face gesturing to Cassie and roisin who assumed their most respectable appearance they could muster up.
"You all seem to be very close," She replied, seeing the four respectably dressed women as well as Lauren, of course. "Well, I'd best be going. Funny, you only see the family together at weddings and funerals. It brings you closer together. It must be hard seeing off your own son this way, Yvonne having lost your Charlie as well," she said in her own version of sympathy that she was brought up in. There was a set way of doing these things which, in her day, would be followed to the letter, not all this new fangled stuff of that woman singing in church. Couldn't understand what she was singing but sometimes, you have to move with the times a bit.
"I'll hope to see you when you get married, Lauren. Mind you don't leave it too late for your poor old great aunt. None of us are getting any younger, are they Yvonne," she finished with her final homily to Lauren.
"Yes, I'll remember," Lauren said with a straight face.
"I suppose some of you have husbands to go home to so I'll let you go on your way," came the reply as the absentee matriarchal figure made her way towards her car.
"The driver is waiting, Yvonne," Cassie said in a subdued tone.
They made their way to the sanctuary of the limousine to take them out of there as the crowd had rapidly thinned. It was time for them to go.