They were dressed in black, all of them, because that’s how it was supposed to be.
Ravi’s fingers were entwined with hers and if Pip held them any tighter, they would break, she was sure of it. Crack in half, like ribs.
Her parents were standing on her other side, hands clasped in front of them, eyes down, her dad breathing in time with the wind in the trees. She noticed everything like that now. On the other side were Cara and Naomi Ward, and Connor and Jamie Reynolds. Connor and Jamie were both wearing black suits that didn’t quite fit, too small here, too long there, as though they’d both borrowed them from their father.
Jamie was crying, his whole body shuddering with them inside that ill- fitting suit. Face reddening as he tried to swallow the tears down, glancing across at Pip, over the coffin.
A solid pine coffin with unadorned sides measuring eighty-four inches by twenty-eight by twenty-three, with white satin lining inside. Pip had been the one to choose it. He had no family, and his friends . . . they all disappeared after the story came out. All of them. No one stepped up to claim him, so Pip had, arranging the whole funeral. She’d chosen a burial, against the funeral director’s professional opinion. Stanley died with his ankles in her hands, scared and bleeding out while a fire raged around them. She didn’t think he’d want to be cremated, burned, like his father had done to those seven kids.
A burial, that’s what he would have wanted, Pip insisted. So they were outside, on the left hand-side of the churchyard, beyond Hillary F. Weiseman. The petals of the white roses shivering in the wind from atop his coffin. It was positioned over an open grave, inside a metal frame with straps and green carpeting like fake grass, so it didn’t look like exactly what it was: a hole in the ground.
Members of the police force were supposed to have been here, but Detective Hawkins had emailed her last night, saying he’d been advised by his supervisors that attending the funeral would be ‘too political’. So here they were, just the eight of them, and most only here for Pip. Not for him, the one lying dead in the solid pine coffin. Except Jamie, she thought, catching his rubbed-red eyes.
The priest’s collar was too tight, the flesh of his neck bunching over it as he read out the sermon. Pip looked beyond him, at the small grey headstone she’d picked out. A man with four different names, but Stanley Forbes was the one he chose, the life he’d wanted, the one who was trying. So that was the name engraved over him, forever.
Stanley Forbes
June 7th 1988 – May 4th 2018 You Were Better
‘And before we say our final prayer, Pip, you wanted to say a few words?’
The sound of her name caught her off-guard and she winced, her heart spiking, and suddenly her hands were wet but it didn’t feel like sweat, it was blood, it was blood, it was blood . . .
‘Pip?’ Ravi whispered to her, giving her fingers a gentle squeeze. And no, there was no blood, she’d only imagined it.
‘Yes,’ she said, coughing to clear her voice. ‘Yes. Um, I wanted to say thank you, everyone for coming. And to you, Father Renton, for the service.’ If Ravi wasn’t holding her hand still, it would be shaking, fluttering on the wind. ‘I didn’t know Stanley all that well. But I think, in the last hour of his life, I got to know who he truly was. He –’
Pip stopped. There was a sound, carrying on the breeze. A shout. It came again, louder this time. Closer.
‘Murderer!’
Her eyes shot up and her chest tightened. There was a group of about fifteen people, marching past the church towards them. Painted signs held up in their hands.
‘You’re mourning a killer!’ a man yelled.
‘I-I-I . . .’ Pip stuttered, and she felt the scream again, growing in her stomach, burning her inside out.
‘Keep going, pickle.’ Her dad was behind her, his warm hand on her shoulder. ‘You’re doing so well. I’ll go talk to them.’
The group was nearing, and Pip could recognize a few faces among them now: Leslie from the shop, and Mary Scythe from the Kilton Mail, and was that . . . was that Ant’s dad, Mr Lowe in the middle?
‘Um,’ she said, shakily, watching her dad hurrying away up the path towards them. Cara gave her an encouraging smile, and Jamie nodded. ‘Um. Stanley, he . . . when he knew his own life was in danger, his first thought was to protect me and –’
‘Burn in hell!’
She tightened her hands into fists. ‘And he faced his own death with bravery and –’
‘Scum!’
She dropped Ravi’s hand and she was gone.
‘No, Pip!’ Ravi tried to hold on to her but she slipped out of his grasp and away, pounding up the grass. Her mum was calling her name, but that wasn’t her right now. Her teeth bared as she flew down the pathway, her black dress flailing behind her knees as she took on the wind. Her eyes flickered across their signs painted in red, dripping letters:
Killer Spawn
Monster of Little Kilton Charlie Green = HERO Child Brunswick Rot in Hell Not in OUR town!
Her dad looked back and tried to catch her as she passed but she was too fast, and that burning inside her too strong.
She collided into the group, shoving Leslie hard, her cardboard sign clattering to the floor.
‘He’s dead!’ she screamed at them all, pushing them back. ‘Leave him alone, he’s dead!’
‘He shouldn’t be buried here. This is our town,’ Mary said, pushing her sign towards Pip, blocking her sight.
‘He was your friend!’ Pip snatched the sign out of Mary’s hands. ‘He was your friend!’ she roared, bringing the poster board down with all her strength against her knee. It broke cleanly in two and she threw the pieces at Mary. ‘LEAVE HIM ALONE!’
She started towards Mr Lowe, who flinched away from her. But she didn’t make it. Her dad had grabbed her from behind, pulled her arms back. Pip reeled up against him, her feet kicking out towards them, but they were all backing away from her. Something new on their faces. Fear maybe, as she was dragged away.
Her eyes blurred with angry tears as she looked up, arms locked behind her, her dad’s calming voice in her ear. The sky was a pale and creamy blue, pockets of soft clouds floating across. A pretty sky for today. Stanley would have liked that, she thought, as she screamed up into it.
