He lowered himself gently to her side and pulled her head onto his shoulder so that she could see tiny beads of sweat in a line down the center of his chest and hear his heart beating.

She closed her eyes again, and in the darkness she could feel the whole world revolving.

15.

"Lord, let me know mine end, and the number of my days: that I may be certified how long I have to live." mine end, and the number of my days: that I may be certified how long I have to live."

Bob lay just below the altar steps in a polished black coffin which looked like a grand piano from this angle.

"For a man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain."

There were occasions when George envied these people (the forty-eight hours between trying on the trousers in Allders and visiting Dr. Barghoutian, for example). Not these people specifically, but the regulars, the ones you saw up at the front during carol services.

But you either had faith or you didn't. No reentry, no refunds. Like when his father told him how magicians sawed ladies in half. You couldn't give the knowledge back however much you wanted to.

He looked round at the stained-gla.s.s lambs and the scale model of the crucified Christ and thought how ridiculous it all was, this desert religion transported wholesale to the English shires. Bank managers and PE teachers listening to stories about zithers and smiting and barley bread as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"O spare me a little, that I may recover my strength: before I go hence and be no more seen."

The vicar made his way to the pulpit and delivered his eulogy. "A businessman, a sportsman, a family man. 'Work hard, play hard.' That was his motto." He clearly knew nothing about Bob.

On the other hand if you never set foot in a church when you were alive you could hardly expect them to pull out all the stops when you were dead. And no one wanted the truth ("He was a man incapable of seeing a large-breasted woman without making some infantile remark. In later years his breath was not good").

"Robert and Susan would have been married for forty years this coming September. They were childhood sweethearts who met when they were both pupils at St. Botolph's secondary school..."

He remembered his own thirtieth wedding anniversary. Bob staggering across the lawn, slapping a drunken arm around his shoulder and saying, "The funny thing is, if you'd killed her you'd have been out by now."

"Behold I shew you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye..."

The lesson ended and Bob was carried from the church. George and Jean moved outside with the rest of the congregation and rea.s.sembled around the grave in a muggy, gun-gray light that promised a storm before teatime. Susan stood on the far side of the hole looking puffy and broken, with her two sons on either side of her. Jack had his arm around his mother but was not tall enough to carry the gesture off with aplomb. Ben looked strangely bored.

"Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery."

Bob was lowered into the ground on four st.u.r.dy hessian straps. Susan, Jack and Ben each threw a white rose onto the coffin and the peace was shattered by some buffoon driving past the churchyard with his car stereo turned up.

"...our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body that it may be like unto his glorious body..."

He looked at the pallbearers and realized he'd never seen one with a beard. He wondered if it was a rule, like pilots, so they got an airtight seal when the oxygen masks came down. Something about hygiene, perhaps.

And when their time came? Did working with all those corpses make them sanguine? Of course, they only saw people afterward. Becoming a corpse, that was the hard bit. Tim's sister worked in a hospice for fifteen years and still went to sleep in the garage with the engine running when they found that growth in her brain.

The vicar asked them to say the Lord's Prayer together. George said the pa.s.sages he agreed with out loud ("Give us this day our daily bread...lead us not into temptation") and mumbled through the references to G.o.d.

"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of G.o.d, and the fellowship of the holy Ghost, be with us all evermore. Amen...And now, ladies and gentlemen." A perky, scout-group tone entered the vicar's voice. "I would like, on behalf of Susan and the rest of the Green family, to invite you to share some food and drink in the village hall which you will find across the road directly beside the car park."

Jean shivered theatrically. "I do hate these things."

They moved with the tide of darkly suited people, chatting quietly now, down the curved gravel path, through the lych-gate and across the road.

Jean touched his elbow and said, "I'll catch you up in a few minutes."

He turned to ask her where she was going but she was already retracing her steps in the direction of the church.

He turned back again and saw David Symmonds walking toward him, smiling, his hand extended.

"George."

"David."

David had left Shepherds four or five years ago. Jean had b.u.mped into him on a couple of occasions but George had hardly seen him. It was not active dislike. Indeed, if everyone in the office had been like David the place would have run a great deal more smoothly. No jockeying for position. No pa.s.sing the buck. Bright chap, too. Brains behind the whole sustainable forest stuff which got them Cornwall and Ess.e.x.

He dressed a little too well. That was probably the best way of putting it. Expensive aftershave. Opera ca.s.settes in the car.

When he announced that he was retiring early everyone backed off. Sick animal in the herd. Everyone feeling a little insulted. As if he'd been doing it as a hobby, this thing to which they had devoted their lives. And no real plans, either. Photography. Holidays in France. Gold C gliding badge.

It all seemed rather different now that George had gone down the same route himself, and when he recalled John McLintock saying that David was never really "one of us" he could hear the sour grapes.

"Good to see you." David squeezed George's hand. "Even if the circ.u.mstances aren't the cheeriest."

"Susan didn't seem good."

"Oh, I think Susan will be all right."

Today, for example, David was wearing a black suit and a gray roll-neck sweater. Other people might think it disrespectful, but George could see now that it was simply a different way of doing things. No longer being part of the crowd.

"Keeping busy?" asked George.

David laughed. "I thought the point of retiring was that we no longer had to be busy."

George laughed. "I guess so."

"Well, I suppose we'd better do our duty." David turned toward the door of the village hall.

George rarely felt the desire to prolong a conversation with anyone, but David, he realized, was in the same boat as himself, and it was good to be chatting with someone in the same boat. Better certainly than eating sausage rolls and talking about death.

"Got through the World's Hundred Best Novels?"

"You have a frighteningly good memory." David laughed again. "Gave up at Proust. Too much like hard work. Doing d.i.c.kens instead. Seven down, eight to go."

George talked about the studio. David talked about his recent walking holiday in the Pyrenees ("Three thousand meters above sea level and there's b.u.t.terflies everywhere"). They congratulated themselves on leaving Shepherds before Jim Bowman subcontracted the maintenance and that girl from Stevenage lost her foot.

"Come on," said David, ushering George toward the double doors. "We're going to be in trouble if we're found enjoying ourselves out here."

There were footsteps on the gravel and George turned to see Jean approaching.

"Forgot my handbag."

George said, "I b.u.mped into David."

Jean seemed a little fl.u.s.tered. "David. h.e.l.lo."

"Jean," said David, holding out his hand. "How nice to see you."

"I was thinking," said George, "it would be a nice idea to invite David round for dinner sometime."

Jean and David looked a little startled and he realized that clapping his hands together and broaching the idea so gleefully was perhaps inappropriate on such a solemn occasion.

"Oh," said David, "I don't want Jean slaving over a hot stove on my account."

"I'm sure Jean would enjoy some relief from my company." George put his hands into his trouser pockets. "And if you're willing to take your life in your hands I can run up a pa.s.sable risotto myself."

"Well..."

"How about the weekend after next? Sat.u.r.day night?"

Jean threw George a glance which made him wonder briefly whether there was some important fact about David which he had overlooked in his enthusiasm, that he was vegetarian, for example, or had not flushed the toilet on a previous visit.

But she took a deep breath and smiled and said, "OK."

"I'm not sure I'm free on Sat.u.r.day," said David. "It's a lovely idea..."

"Sunday, then," said George.

David pursed his lips and nodded. "Sunday it is, then."

"Good. I'll look forward to it." George held open the double doors. "Let's mingle."

16.

Katie dropped Jacob off with Max and left the two of them playing swordfights with wooden spoons in June's kitchen. with Max and left the two of them playing swordfights with wooden spoons in June's kitchen.

Then she and Ray headed into town and had a minor disagreement at the printers. Ray thought the number of gold twirls on an invitation was a measure of how much you loved someone, which was odd for a man who thought colored socks were for girls. Whereas the ones Katie preferred looked like invitations to accounting seminars apparently.

Ray held up his favorite design and Katie said it looked like an invite to Prince Charming's coming-out party. At which point the man behind the counter said, "Well, I don't want to be around when you two choose the menu."

Things went more smoothly at the jeweler's. Ray liked the idea of them both having the same ring and there was no way he was wearing anything more than a plain gold band. The jeweler asked if they wanted inscriptions and Katie was temporarily flummoxed. Did wedding rings have inscriptions?

"On the inside, usually," said the man. "The date of the wedding. Or perhaps some kind of endearment." He was clearly a man who ironed his underwear.

"Or a return address," said Katie. "Like on a dog."

Ray laughed, because the man looked uncomfortable and Ray didn't like men who ironed their underwear. "We'll take two."

They had lunch in Covent Garden and drew up guest lists over pizza.

Ray's was short. He didn't really do friends. He'd talk to strangers on the bus and go for a pint with pretty much anyone. But he never hung on to people for the long haul. When he and Diana split up, he moved out of the flat, said goodbye to the mutual friends and applied for a new job in London. He hadn't seen his best man in three years. An old rugby friend, apparently, which didn't put her mind at ease.

"Got pulled over by police on the M5 once," said Ray. "Wing walking on a Volvo roof rack."

"Wing walking?"

"It's OK," said Ray. "He's a dentist now." Which was worrying in a different way.

Her own list was more complex, on account of far too many friends, all of whom had some inviolable claim to an invite (Mona was there when Jacob was born; Sandra put them up for a month when Graham left; Jenny had MS which meant you always felt c.r.a.p if you didn't invite her to things even though, in truth, she was b.l.o.o.d.y hard work...). Accommodating them all would need an aircraft hangar, and every time she added a name or crossed it out she pictured the coven getting together and comparing notes.

"Overshoot," said Ray, "like airlines. a.s.sume 15 percent won't turn up. Hold a few seats back."

"Fifteen percent?" asked Katie. "Is that, like, the standard drop-out rate for weddings?"

"No," said Ray. "I just like to sound as if I know what I'm talking about."

She gripped a little roll of flesh just above his belt. "At least there's one person in your life who can spot when you're talking b.o.l.l.o.c.ks."

Ray stole an olive from her pizza. "That's a compliment, right?"

They discussed stag and hen nights. Last time round he'd been thrown naked into the Leeds and Liverpool Ca.n.a.l, she'd been groped by a fireman in a posing pouch, and they'd both been sick in the toilet of an Indian restaurant. They decided to go out for a candlelit meal. Just the two of them.

It was getting late and their best man and woman were arriving for supper at eight. So they headed home, scooping up Jacob on the way. He had a cut on his forehead where Max had hit him with a garlic press. But Jacob had ripped Max's tarantula T-shirt. They were clearly still friends so Katie decided not to probe.

Back at the ranch she arranged the chicken b.r.e.a.s.t.s in a baking tray and poured the sauce over them and wondered whether Sarah had been a wise choice. To be scrupulously honest she'd been picked as an act of retaliation. A gobby solicitor who could give rugby players a run for their money.

It was beginning to dawn on Katie that retaliation might not be the best motive for selecting a best woman.

But when Ed arrived he seemed nervous mostly. A large, ruddy-cheeked man, more farmer than dentist. He'd filled out since posing for the team photo in Ray's office and it was difficult to imagine him getting onto the roof of a stationary Volvo let alone a moving one.

He was ill at ease with Jacob, which made Katie feel rather superior. Then he said his wife had been through four cycles of IVF. So Katie felt c.r.a.p instead.

When Sarah turned up she just rubbed her hands and said, "Right, then. This is my compet.i.tion," and Katie knocked back a gla.s.s of wine straight off, just in case.

The wine was a wise move.

Ed was charming and rather old-fashioned. This did not endear him to Sarah. She told him about the dentist who'd st.i.tched her gum to his a.s.sistant's rubber glove. He told her about the solicitor who had poisoned his aunt's dog. The chicken was not good. Ed and Sarah disagreed about Gypsies. Specifically whether or not to round them up and put them in camps. Sarah wanted Ed put in a camp. Ed, who saw women's opinions as largely decorative, decided that Sarah was a "foxy lady."

Ray tried to move the subject onto safer ground by reminiscing about their rugby days, and the two of them began a string of supposedly hilarious stories, all of which involved heavy drinking, minor vandalism and the removal of someone's trousers.

Katie drank another two gla.s.ses of wine.