LITMIR.BIZ

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Melanie had inherited her father’s appearance, although, unlike George, would never capitulate to fat. She was tall and strong-framed, with a broad face and abundant mouth, a big woman who strove to convert her handsome features to petite femininity. And she was, in large part, successful. But in rare moments of spontaneity, she would throw back her head and open the large mouth and utter a joyous bellow that did her father proud. As a large woman she was extremely attractive, but as a large woman trying to shrink there was less to please the eye. Indeed, to someone like Philippa who was small and olive-skinned, with dark hair and almost black eyes, the large blond features of her daughter were something of which to be proud.

      Philippa watched as Selwyn took a bottle from the sideboard and refilled his friends’ glasses. Throughout the exercise he did not stop talking; he chewed his words and spat them out, and with a mouth so muscular and a neck so anguine he had a distinct advantage over most other people. Philippa had never liked her son-in-law and was convinced that with a different man Melanie would have blossomed. Instead, since her marriage, the bright, outgoing girl had become a mask of social convention. Melanie responded to the dictates of fashion; she believed the current beliefs, purloined from the editorial of the daily newspaper, and was horrified at the latest horror campaigns – drug abuse last year, child abuse this; she did aerobics when aerobics were the rage and was now devoted to power walking; she wore her hair short three years ago, but shoulder-length today. Melanie seemed devoid of any interior and Philippa laid the blame squarely at the feet of her son-in-law. George had seen it differently. Selwyn Pryor was an astute businessman with the ability to transform an ordinary business into something special. Selwyn Pryor, said George, had the makings of a rich man.

      ‘But surely there’s more to a man than making money,’ Philippa had said.

      Of course there was, George had replied. Hadn’t Selwyn already proved himself as an academic? And hadn’t he been offered the safest conservative seat in the country? Selwyn Pryor could do anything, George said, but he’d chosen business, he’d chosen Finemore’s. Not that Philippa needed any reminding, for it was clear to her that business, or rather making money, had long been Selwyn’s major interest. George said she was too hard on her son-in-law, that creative flare in business suggested other virtues that would, in time, reveal themselves. But they had not. Selwyn’s was a personality of stucco, impressive enough, but hard and superficial; he was a man bereft of positive qualities, or so it seemed to Philippa. Others regarded him differently; even now, at his father-in-law’s funeral, he had a solid following; his friends were gathered around, content to let him talk, laughing when required, apparently happy to be included in his circle. People found him handsome, but not Philippa, he was too tall and angular, and his thick brown hair was styled too self-consciously and his nails manicured too carefully, and despite shaving twice a day, the beard always got the better of him. Then there were the silly blue eyes, Selwyn’s major vanity, two bright blue blisters set at the bridge of his proudly patrician nose. The appearance fitted the man, Philippa had long ago decided: he was driven by self-interest and looked the part.

      It occurred to her that with George now gone, Selwyn’s self-interest would gain momentum. Not that George had ever deliberately confined him, but the fact of George’s running a large business he had built from nothing, had placed clear limits on Selwyn’s ambitions. No such restrictions remained now. Immediately, Philippa’s thoughts turned to her oldest child: poor Gray, it would not be easy for him. Gray took a doctrinaire approach to life; long after Selwyn had raided the tomb and disposed of the loot, Gray would still be planning his strategy. As George used to say: Gray would make a living but Selwyn would make a fortune.

      She found Gray in the crowd and was pleased to see him with Finemore’s personnel manager. Not that a father’s funeral was an appropriate place to do business, but times ahead would be tough for Gray. Like Melanie, Gray had inherited his father’s appearance, but something had gone awry. He was tall, over six feet, but the shoulders were too narrow and the paunch too prominent; the blond hair was nondescript sandy, and the eyes were pale and limpid within a large pink face. He was thirty-nine, but had looked the same at twenty and would probably be no different at fifty. Except for the moustache. This narrow strip of vanity was the sort of decoration that required constant and delicate care, a moustache that was less a moustache and more a statement of character. Philippa had begged him to shave it off when it first appeared some five years ago and still hoped for its removal, but, so far, Gray had remained firm.

      And that was Gray, firm and solid, although a deficit in natural ability did not make him always reliable. Not that he was aware of any such deficit; Gray had an opinion about most things and was not shy in giving it. Like his brother-in-law, Gray was saddled with a bulky arrogance and a driving ambition, although was quieter about both than Selwyn. Gray was also entirely without humour which merely added ponderousness to pomposity. He would have made an exemplary Victorian, Philippa had often thought, but as a man of the late twentieth century he tended to try one’s patience. Children complain about having no choice in their parents, but parents don’t choose their children either, and can be extremely surprised at what they’ve produced. Philippa had never told anyone of the disappointment in her oldest child. It was not that she didn’t love him – what mother doesn’t love her children? – but Gray’s bloated sense of his own importance made him disinterested in others and insensitive to their needs.

      She watched as Gray shook hands with the personnel manager and moved off towards the bar. The crowd seemed to be swelling, although, as a liquor merchant’s wife, she was well-acquainted with the effects of free-flowing alcohol, the raised voices, the exaggerated gestures, people occupying more space. Death’s a party, Philippa thought, what a shame George had to miss it. As for Philippa, she wished they would all leave; after forty years with George and four crowded days preparing for his burial, she wanted to slip off her navy blue wool dress, wanted to let down her hair (wanted, in truth, to cut it off, the whole greying auburn mass that George had liked so much, despite having not touched it in years), remove her makeup, the stiletto shoes, the stockings, and sit quietly by herself in the empty house. After that, the years stretched ahead, empty of obligation and rich with dreams. She smiled at the thought and noticed Gina Ballantyne smiling back. A party, that was all. Gina had not spoken to George for months, not since George had commented on her facelift, in company, at a dinner party arranged by Gina and Barry to display her new face. George, usually so tolerant of his liquor, had drunk too much, or so he explained to Philippa afterwards, and out it had slipped: ‘Love your new face, Gina.’

      Having a dinner party to celebrate your new face is one thing, acknowledging this is what you are doing is quite another; Gina would have liked to do George damage. What she did, however, from her position at the head of the table, was smile her new-look smile and respond with a brittle thank you. Everyone else fiddled with their food, except Barry Ballantyne, an old friend of George’s and a man devoted to his wife. ‘What a rude bastard you are George,’ he said. ‘You’re the last person to be casting aspersions at someone else’s appearance,’ and he puffed out his small man’s chest and blew up his cheeks in an imitation of George’s bulk.

      Nothing to imitate now, Philippa thought, poor George’s bulk was being bloated by morbid gases and bountiful bacteria hungry for human flesh; as for Gina Ballantyne, she looked like a smiling cadaver. Her skin, so tight and smooth, appeared to be squeezing the substance from her; the skull so defined and the body pared back by exercise and diet was a welded sculpture of angles and joints.

      Philippa would have to go downstairs soon and join them. She had learned over the past four days that a bereaved wife was permitted only limited time alone, too much was considered unhealthy. Even now, she saw Evelyn, her sweet, dull daughter-in-law, approach Melanie and whisper to her. The two of them looked up at Philippa, Melanie nodded and moved towards the stairs, while Evelyn collected another plate of savouries for the mourners. But Philippa was not ready to be collected, not yet. She left the landing and slipped into her bedroom and from there to the bathroom and closed the door. She heard Melanie’s ‘Are you all right, Mother?’ and replied with a cheery ‘I’ll be down shortly.’ She slipped off her shoes, loosened her belt and sat on the enamel lid of the toilet. George’s toilet. For that matter, George’s bathroom and George’s house. All of it now Philippa’s: the six bedrooms, the four bathrooms, the three large entertainment areas,

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