The cemetery car park was choked with cars. Everyone was patient though most of Caroline’s friends were not patient by nature. But this was a sad afternoon and besides that, everyone knew that something must happen to explain it all. Caroline may have been patient too, of course , but with her strange death in rural Eos, and the matter of the beautiful Amber and all those posthumous poems , everyone realised that maybe they had not known Caroline at all.
The local paper sent Jeff Jordan to mix with the mourners and see if there was any story to be found. Everyone was in black and a large movie screen was erected over by the brightest flower bed so that no one would miss anything as it happened. Caroline’s sun burnt, laughing face stared out across the new and old graves, weirdly more alive than dead, and drivers kept braking as they came into the car park and witnessed the sudden resurrection of their surprising friend.
Jeff liked the sea of black, it reminded him of some film with Cary Grant. What was it? There was once that time in Carnock of course, when that visiting reporter with the huge breasts, had complimented his Cary Grant chin. Her memory today gave him an immediate lift and he had to work hard to suppress his million dollar smile.
Caroline’s ex husband, three old family friends, her Aunt Mary, and her new yoga teacher Pintu had arrived together and were probably pretending forgetfulness. Jeff could have measured the spaces between each one with a child’s ruler. No one was speaking yet, not even into their very visible, hand held phones.
They had other things they really had to do after this service and they all knew privately, that Caroline wouldn’t mind because there were her three sons and daughter to look after everything afterwards, not to mention the mysterious Amber who had taken care of poor Caroline at the sudden end. Amber’s gold name badge shone in the May sunshine. It was shaped like a star. Every other badge was round and small, discreet enough for black lapels and silver coated for a touch of elegance. But no one else had a star like Amber’s. Amber’s fingers kept touching the star. They lingered there Jeff took note. As if…As if..what? It would come to him. He had all day.
Jeff could have found the wearing of the name badge a bit awkward, but Raymond the funeral co-ordinator at Happy Farewells Limited had managed to find him one as someone ‘back home from those early days’, when Caroline was just starting out. Besides which, Raymond owed Jeff . Raymond had a weakness for Jeff’s Underground Friendships’ column each Saturday and had found true love more times than anyone had the right to remember. Well, he couldn’t remember. That was the beauty of love. Dignified by the doors of the Rose Chapel, Raymond caught Jeff’s eye and winked.
Caroline was now looking much younger on the screen and was dressed in a Furry collared ski jacket surrounded by snow.
Jonathan Tyrell liked the look of Amber. Such a distracting mouth. He smiled at her tall, dark figure over the top of his bonnet as he listened to Pintu now on the phone, describing the last time she had seen Caroline in a full lotus position in her oversubscibed class with the waiting list.
Amber’s tears looked genuine Jonathan thought and she stood calmly by the side of Jenny Stilton whose beady gaze never left Amber’s face. Indeed when Jonathan briefly stopped smiling at Amber and checked who else had arrived for Caroline’s do, everyone it seemed was looking at Amber, even Stephen Taylor who had never chased a woman in his life. Who was she?
