Lisa Ballantyne - Guilty One

The chill bone of the discordant notes sounded in his head. Dead. Dead. Dead.

Daniel was unable to stay the night in Minnie’s aching house. He found a room in a local hotel, where he ate a too-rare steak and drank a bottle of red wine. He fell asleep with his clothes on, on top of the nylon covers in a damp room that smelled as if someone had died in it. He had phoned Cunningham, Minnie’s lawyer, from the road. As he had expected, the funeral was to be held in the chapel of the crematorium on Crawhall.

It was a Tuesday. Brampton was cooler than London, the sun banished by cloud. Daniel could smell the trees in the air and the unyielding green of them was oppressive. It was too quiet and people seemed to turn to look when they heard his footsteps. He longed for the anonymity, urgency and noise of London.

The doors to the chapel were open when he arrived and he was shown inside. The hall was just over half-full. The mourners were men and women of Minnie’s age. Daniel sat near the back, in the middle of one of the empty pews. A tall, thin, balding man in grey approached him.

‘Are you … Danny?’ the man whispered, although the service had not begun.

Daniel nodded.

‘John Cunningham, pleased to meet you.’

His hand was dry and hard. Daniel felt his own damp with sweat.

‘I’m so glad you decided to come. Come forward. Makes it look better.’

Daniel wanted to hide at the back, but he got up and followed Cunningham to the front. Women he recognised from his childhood, farmers who had worked market stalls with Minnie, nodded at him as he sat down.

‘There’re no drinks or anything afterwards,’ Cunningham whispered in Daniel’s ear. His breath smelled of milky coffee. ‘But if you have time for a chat after … ?’

Daniel nodded once.

‘I’m going to say a few words for her. I wonder if you want to also? I can speak to the minister?’

‘You’re all right,’ said Daniel, turning away.

He sat through the short ceremony with his teeth pressed so hard together that the muscles in his right cheek began to ache. There were hymns and then the minister’s practised words of kindness in a rounded Carlisle accent. Daniel found himself staring at the coffin, still disbelieving that she was actually inside. He swallowed as the minister called on John Cunningham to deliver the eulogy.

At the podium, Minnie’s solicitor cleared his throat loudly and read from a folded piece of A4 paper.

‘I am proud to be one member of the gathering of people here today in honour of a wonderful woman who brightened up all of our lives and the lives of many more beyond these four walls. Minnie is an example to us all, and I hope she felt proud of everything she achieved in her life.

‘I got to know Minnie in a professional capacity after the tragic deaths of her husband and daughter, Norman Flynn and Cordelia Rae Flynn – may they rest in peace.’

Daniel sat up and took a deep breath. Cordelia Rae. He had never known her full name. The rare times that Minnie mentioned her, she was Delia.

‘Through the years, I came to value her friendship and to respect her as someone who served others in a manner to which we should all aspire.

‘Minnie … was a rebel.’

There was a sputtering of teary laughter. Daniel frowned. His breaths were shallow in his chest.

‘She didn’t care what anyone thought of her. She wore what she wanted, she did what she wanted and she said what she wanted and you could like it … or just lump it.’ Again laughter like a carpet being beaten. ‘But she was honest and kind, and it was those qualities that led her to be a foster mother to dozens of damaged children and to become a mother again, in the eighties, when she adopted her dear son, Danny, who thankfully is able to join us here today … ’

The women seated to Daniel’s right turned to him. He felt the colour rising on his cheek. He leaned forward on his elbows.

‘Most of us here today know Minnie as a small holding farmer – we’ve either worked alongside her or bought her produce. Here again, she showed her care and attention in the way she looked after her livestock. The small farm wasn’t just a living, the animals were her children too and she nurtured them as she nurtured all others who needed her.

‘As a friend, that is my final impression of her. She was independent, she was rebellious, she was her own woman, but more than all of that she was a caring person and the world is so much poorer for the loss of her. God love you, Minnie Flynn, may you rest in peace.’

Daniel watched as the women who sat beside him bowed their heads. He did the same, still feeling the burn in his cheeks. One of the women began to cry.

Cunningham sat down and was patted on the shoulder by the woman who sat to his right. The minister leaned on the podium with two hands.

‘As we come to the committal, Minnie has asked that we listen to this piece of music which was special to her. The earthly life of Minnie has come to an end, and we now commit her body to the elements. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes and dust to dust, trusting in the infinite mercy of God … ’

Daniel held his breath. He looked around, wondering where the sound would come from. He knew before he heard the piano chords what piece she would have chosen.

Despite himself, when the music started, he felt the tension that his body held, release. The lilting, insistent steps of the music took him forward as he watched the curtains draw slowly over her coffin. Time seemed to linger and lag, and sitting there with strangers listening to the music that was so intimate to her and so intimate to him, he began to remember.

Moments in his life were pressed into being and vanished again, like the notes themselves. The A# note, and then the B note: he opened his mouth in shock as he felt his cheeks flush. His throat hurt.

How long it had been since he had heard the full concerto. He must have been a teenager when he heard it last: in his memory it was more painful, the discord sharper. Now he was surprised by the serenity of the piece, and how – in its entirety, finished, complete – both its harmony and its dissonance seemed exactly right.

The feelings that the music ushered were strange to him. He pressed his teeth hard together, right to the end, not wanting to admit to his grief. He remembered her warm strong fingers and her soft grey curls. His skin remembered the roughness of her hands. It was this that brought the tension to his body and the flush to his cheek. He wouldn’t cry; she didn’t deserve it, but some small part of him was yielding and asking to mourn for her.

In the car park, the sun had come out. Daniel took off his jacket as he walked to his car. He felt exhausted suddenly, no longer fit for the seven-hour drive back to London. He felt a hand on his arm and turned. It was an old woman, her face pinched and sunken. It took Daniel a moment, but finally he recognised her as Minnie’s sister, Harriet.

‘Do you know who I am?’ she said, her lips turning down, contorting her whole face.

‘Of course. How are you?’

‘Who am I then? Say my name, who am I?’

Daniel took a breath and then said, ‘You’re Harriet, Aunt Harriet.’

‘Made it up, did you? Found the bloody time, now that she’s dead?’

‘I … I didn’t … ’

‘I hope you’re ashamed of yourself, lad. I hope that’s why you’re here. God forgive you.’

Harriet walked away, stabbing her way across the car park with her stick. Daniel turned towards his car and leaned on the roof. The leaves and the funeral and the quiet countryside had set his head spinning. He exhaled, rubbing the moistness of his fingertips. He heard Cunningham calling him and turned.

‘Danny – we’ve not had a chance. Would you have time for lunch then, or a cup of tea?’