I did not kill Angela, I know that, but I cried as if I did. I know that a phone call, a visit to Angela or an agreement to take part in one of her events would not have prolonged her life, and yet I cried as if it could have. I cried for all the irrational beliefs that stampeded through my head.
As Angela had been a generous contributor to the shop, Ciara feels obligated to attend her funeral and, despite Gabriel disagreeing, I feel I have even more reason. I had been hiding from Angela in the weeks before her death, I had shut her down so many times. We don’t often remember how we meet, we mostly remember how we part. I didn’t give Angela the best impression when we met, I want to say goodbye to her properly.
Her funeral is in Church of the Assumption in Dalkey, a picturesque parish church on the main street opposite Dalkey Castle. Ciara and I pass through the lingering crowds outside and go directly into the church and sit near the back. The funeral attendees follow the coffin and the family inside and the church pews fill. Leading the procession is a lone man, her husband, the man I spoke with on the phone. He is followed by crying family and friends. I’m satisfied to see he is not alone, that people are sad, that Angela is missed, that her life contained love.
It’s clear the priest didn’t know Angela very well, but he does his best. He has collected the core information about her, like a magpie drawn to shiny items, and he has a kind delivery. When it’s time for the eulogy, a woman takes to the podium. A TV screen is wheeled into the old church, wires and all.
‘Hello, my name is Joy. I would love to say a few words about my friend Angela, but she told me I couldn’t. She wanted to have the last word. As was usual.’
The congregation laughs.
‘Are you ready for this, Laurence?’ Joy asks.
I can’t see or hear Laurence’s response but the screen comes to light anyway and Angela’s face fills the screen. She is thin, clearly this was filmed in her final weeks, but she is beaming.
‘Hello, everybody, it’s me!’
This draws gasps of surprise, and the tears flow around me.
‘I hope you’re all having an awful time without me. Life must be dreadfully dull. I’m sorry I’m gone, but what can we do. We must look forward. Hello, my darlings. My Laurence, my boys, Malachy and Liam. Hello, my little babies, I hope Grandma isn’t scaring you. I hope to make things a little easier for you. Well, let’s move it on. Here we are in my wig room.’
The camera turns around, held by her, to survey her wigs. Wigs of various shapes, colours and styles sit on mannequin heads on shelves.
‘This has been my life for some time, as you all know. I thank Malachy for bringing this one home from a recent music festival,’ she zooms in on a Mohawk. She lifts it off and places it on her head.
Everybody laughs through their tears. Hankies flying, tissues being taken out of handbags and passed along the pews.
‘So, my darling boys,’ she continues, ‘you three are my most precious people in the whole entire world and I’m not ready to say goodbye to you. Beneath these wigs I’ve taped envelopes to every head. Each month I want you to remove a wig, place it on your head, open these envelopes, read my notes, and remember me. I’m always with you. I love you all and thank you for the happiest, most blessed beautiful life a woman, wife, mother and grandmother could wish for. Thank you for everything.
‘PS,’ she blows a kiss, ‘I love you.’
Ciara grabs my arm and slowly turns to look at me. ‘Oh my …’ she whispers.
The screen goes black and everybody, everybody is crying. I can’t imagine how her family feel after this. I can’t look at Ciara. I feel sick. I feel dizzy. I feel like there’s no air. Nobody is paying the slightest attention to me but I feel self-conscious, as if they all know about me, and what Gerry did for me. Would it be rude for me to leave? I’m so near to the door. I need air, I need light, I need to get out of this claustrophobic suffocating scene. I stand and steady myself on the back of the pew then walk towards the door.
‘Holly?’ Ciara whispers.
Outside, I suck in air, but it’s not enough. I need to move away, get away.
‘Holly!’ Ciara calls, hurrying to catch up with me. ‘Are you OK?’
I stop walking and look at her. ‘No. I’m not OK. I’m definitely not OK.’
‘Shit, this is my fault. I’m so sorry, Holly. I asked you to do the podcast, you didn’t want to and I practically forced you, I’m so sorry, this is all my fault. No wonder you were avoiding her. It all makes sense now. I’m so sorry.’
Her words somehow manage to steady me, it’s not my fault for feeling like this. This happened to me. It’s not my fault. It’s unfair. She’s offering sympathy. She hugs me and I rest my head on her shoulder, back to feeling weak and vulnerable and sad. I don’t like it. I stop myself. My head snaps up.
‘No.’
‘No what?’
I wipe my eyes roughly and charge towards the car. ‘This is not who I am any more.’
‘What do you mean? Holly, look at me please,’ she pleads, trying to meet my eye as I look around wildly, desperate to sharpen my focus, desperate to get things in perspective.
‘This is not happening to me again. I’m going back to the shop. I’m going back to my life.’
The skill I discovered when I began working with my sister, after the magazine I worked for folded, is that I’m good at sorting. While Ciara is a magnificent creature when it comes to dealing with the aesthetic, beautifying the shop and placing each item in a place of importance, I could happily, and do quite happily, spend long days in the stockroom emptying boxes and bin liners of the things people no longer want. I get lost in the rhythm of it. These actions are particularly therapeutic in the days that follow Angela Carberry’s funeral. I empty everything on to the floor, sit down and go through the contents of handbags and pockets, sorting the precious from the trash. I polish jewellery until it sparkles, shoes until they shine. I dust off old books. I discard anything that’s not appropriate: dirty underwear, odd socks, used handkerchiefs and tissues. Depending on how busy I am, I can be nosy and get lost in studying receipts and notes, trying to date the last use of the object, understand the life of the person who lived with it. I run the clothes through a rinse wash, I use a steamer to smooth wrinkled fabric. I treasure anything of value: money, photographs, letters that should be returned to their sender. As far as possible, I make detailed notes of who owns what. Sometimes the possessions will never be reunited with their owner; those who have dropped boxes and bags off without contact details are just happy to be rid of their clutter. But sometimes I manage to matchmake. If we don’t feel we can sell the product, if it’s not right for Ciara’s vision, then we repackage them and give them to charities.
I take what’s old and make it new and I’m rewarded by the belief that there is value in my work. Today is a good day to get lost in a cardboard box filled with possessions that became objects as soon as they were dropped into the bag. I lift a box of books from the stockroom and carry them to the shop floor. Again I sit on the floor, wiping covers, folding back dog-eared pages and flicking through the pages for bookmarks of value. Sometimes I find old photographs that are used as bookmarks; mostly I don’t find anything, but every find is important. I’m lost in this world of sorting when the bell rings above the shop door.
Ciara is across the other side of the shop battling with a disarmed and beheaded mannequin as she tries to squeeze a polka-dot tea dress onto its body.
‘Hello,’ she greets the customer warmly.
She is better with customers than I am. I focus on the products when given the choice and she focuses on the people. She and Mathew opened the shop five years ago after they bought it as a house on St. George’s