The Wrong Funeral
It was the luckiest mistake I ever made.
This is not a crowded category. Most of my mistakes have arrived carrying invoices.
The email said Wednesday.
I entered Thursday into my calendar.
So, at eleven fifteen on Thursday morning, I drove through the gates of St Jude’s in a dark suit, carrying no flowers and wearing the solemn expression of a man sent by management to represent human feeling.
I was there for Bernard Lowe.
I had never met Bernard. He had been a client of the firm, though not one of mine. My manager believed someone should attend.
In business, grief is generally assigned to whoever has no meeting.
The chapel was empty.
Behind it, beneath a jacaranda, stood a woman in black riding trousers and a white shirt. Her boots carried most of a paddock. One thumbnail had been repaired with electrical tape.
She held a small wooden box.
A chestnut horse watched from behind the fence, chewing the rail with calm disapproval.
“You’re late,” she said.
“I’m from Brisbane.”
She examined the suit.
“That explains some of it.”
“I’m here for Bernard.”
“So am I.”
There was a shovel resting against the tree. Beside it waited a hole of modest dimensions.
I looked at the box.
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
“Were you close?”
“Twenty-eight years.”
“That is close.”
“He knew where I kept the carrots.”
Rain moved softly through the leaves.
She opened the box. Inside was an old tea tin with Edinburgh Castle printed on the lid.
“Bernard disliked Scotland,” she said.
“Did he have strong views?”
“He was a horse.”
The chestnut behind the fence raised his head.
I looked at him.
“That is also Bernard,” she said.
“Two Bernards?”
“One late. One current.”
“Your family reuses names?”
“My father named them.”
“Did he have a limited imagination?”
“He was an accountant.”
There seemed no useful appeal.
She introduced herself as Eleanor.
I gave her my name.
Something shifted in her expression. Recognition, perhaps. Or disappointment managed with rural efficiency.
“Did Bernard ever mention me?” I asked.
“No.”
“That was very like him.”
“You didn’t know him.”
“I knew of him.”
“From where?”
“Accounts.”
She looked at me for several seconds.
Then she laughed.
It was not a delicate laugh. It arrived suddenly and made the current Bernard step away from the fence.
“Accounts,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Of course.”
That was the moment she understood.
I did not know this until later.
At the time, I merely thought bereavement had made her unusually perceptive.
I helped her bury the tea tin.
Eleanor said a few words.
“Bernard was ill-tempered, ungrateful and nearly impossible to catch. He bit a dentist in 2019. The dentist had it coming.”
She turned to me.
“Would you like to say something?”
“I didn’t know him.”
“That has never stopped anyone at a funeral.”
So, I said Bernard appeared to have been respected by those whose judgement mattered.
The current Bernard sneezed.
Eleanor handed me the shovel.
By midday, the rain had become serious. My shoes were ruined. Eleanor had mud on one cheek and a strand of horsehair caught against her mouth.
She made no effort to remove it.
From her coat she produced a silver flask.
“Whisky?”
“At a funeral?”
“He won’t report us.”
I drank.
It was excellent.
“There’s a pub in town,” she said.
“That sounds sensible.”
“You can buy lunch.”
“Why am I buying?”
“You arrived late.”
By then, she knew I had arrived at the wrong funeral and had begun charging me for it.
I admired the efficiency.
The Criterion was nearly empty.
Eleanor ordered steak, rare, and placed her riding crop on the table beside the salt.
The waitress looked at it.
Then she looked at me.
I allowed the evidence to remain circumstantial.
I ordered the same steak, although I usually preferred meat to have accepted its circumstances.
Eleanor bred horses on a property west of town. She had once been engaged to a surgeon.
“What happened?”
“I watched him reverse a trailer.”
“That ended it?”
“He blamed the trailer.”
She cut into her steak.
“Some faults are architectural.”
She asked whether I was married.
“Divorced.”
“Children?”
“Two daughters.”
Something in her face softened, then filed itself away.
“And you?” I asked.
“Widowed.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. He could be extremely tedious.”
“Could be?”
“He’s dead. It seems discourteous to exaggerate.”
I waited.
“He fell from a horse,” she said.
“Bernard?”
“No.”
“Did Bernard cause it?”
She lifted her glass.
“Which Bernard?”
Information, with Eleanor, was not withheld. It was made to earn its release.
The afternoon settled around us.
Rain darkened the windows. The publican lit the fire. Somewhere behind the bar, a refrigerator began making a noise of private distress.
Eleanor asked what I did for the firm.
“I explain difficult things to people who have already decided not to understand them.”
“That sounds well paid.”
“It sounds better than it is.”
“And when they still don’t understand?”
“We form a committee.”
She nodded.
“Humane.”
She told me the current Bernard was seven, disliked blue plastic and had recently destroyed a gate because a wheelbarrow had looked at him incorrectly.
“The late Bernard was calmer?” I asked.
“No. Older.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
She turned her wineglass by the stem.
For the first time, she appeared to have nowhere prepared to put the next sentence.
“The old one belonged to my husband,” she said.
I said nothing.
“He bought him before we married. Said a woman could tell everything necessary about a man by the horse he trusted.”
“And could she?”
“Yes.”
“What did Bernard say about him?”
“That he was impatient, vain and good in bad weather.”
A smile appeared, but it did not survive.
“He was the last thing on the property that still expected my husband to come through the gate.”
The refrigerator stopped.
The room seemed briefly too quiet for commerce.
I looked at her hand. The electrical tape around her thumbnail had begun to peel.
“So today was not only about the horse,” I said.
“No.”
“And you knew I was at the wrong funeral.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Since accounts.”
“You let me keep going.”
“You were being kind.”
“To the wrong dead person.”
“To something dead.”
There was enough steel in her voice to stop the joke arriving.
I put down my glass.
“You might have told me.”
“I might have.”
“Instead, you made me dig.”
“The hole was already there.”
“That is not a defence.”
“No.”
She looked towards the fire.
“I had spent the morning with people who knew Bernard and could not think of anything to say about him except that he had lived a long time.”
“He had.”
“Yes.”
“But that was not the interesting part.”
“No.”
Her control failed then, though only by a fraction. Her mouth tightened. One breath arrived badly and had to be replaced.
I reached across the table and pressed the loose electrical tape back around her thumbnail.
She looked at my hand.
“That is very forward,” she said.
“It was becoming untidy.”
“Of course.”
She left her hand beneath mine.
The matter remained unresolved.
Later, the publican added another log to the fire. Eleanor removed one boot and rested her stockinged foot against my leg beneath the table.
I looked at her.
“You’re staring,” she said.
“I’m trying to establish whether this is deliberate.”
“Take your time.”
Her foot moved slightly higher.
The inquiry concluded.
Outside, rain struck the windows with the persistence of unpaid debt.
“You can’t drive back,” she said.
“I probably can.”
“You’ve had half my flask.”
“Less than half.”
“And most of that bottle.”
I examined the bottle.
It had failed to preserve my position.
“There are rooms upstairs,” she said.
“I noticed.”
“One of them has a lock.”
My eyes moved, briefly, to the riding crop.
Eleanor followed them.
“That’s for horses.”
“Of course.”
“Usually.”
The publican placed a brass key on the bar.
Eleanor covered it with her hand.
For the first time that afternoon, neither of us found anything useful to say.
She stood.
I followed.
The corridor light failed halfway up the stairs.
Neither of us reported it.
In the morning, I found Eleanor downstairs drinking coffee and reading the local paper.
She was fully dressed. Her hair was still damp.
My tie had been knotted around the riding crop, which leaned beside her chair.
There was no innocent explanation for this.
There was also no administrative need for one.
I sat opposite her.
“Is that necessary?”
“No.”
She turned a page.
My phone vibrated.
It was my manager.
Bernard Lowe’s funeral was Wednesday. Did you attend?
I read the message twice.
Then I looked at Eleanor.
She continued buttering her toast.
“The funeral was Wednesday.”
“Yes.”
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“You recognised the mistake at the graveside.”
“When you said accounts.”
I felt the embarrassment arrive properly then. Not because I had mourned a horse, but because she had watched me do it while holding the answer.
“You made a fool of me.”
“No.”
“You let me speak at the wrong funeral.”
“You said something decent.”
“About a horse I had never met.”
“That did not make it less decent.”
I looked through the window towards the wet street.
“What should I tell my manager?”
“That you attended.”
“I didn’t.”
“You attended a funeral for Bernard.”
“Not Bernard Lowe.”
“Nobody is perfect.”
I did not laugh.
The anger stayed between the coffee and the folded newspaper like an item neither of us had ordered.
“You could have stopped it,” I said.
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
She looked at me then.
“Because you stayed.”
Enough remained to keep the record honest.
I looked back at the message.
“For the file, this was a genuine accident?”
“Entirely.”
“You didn’t arrange any of it?”
Her eyes moved briefly towards the staircase.
“Not at first.”
The waitress brought coffee. Eleanor waited until she had gone.
“Have we met before?” I asked.
“Once.”
“Where?”
“A charity dinner in Brisbane. Six months ago.”
I searched my memory and found warm wine, auction items and a dispute involving pastry.
“You debated with a waiter,” she said.
“He claimed lemon tart was not a meal.”
“You became quite passionate.”
“I was hungry.”
“I remembered you.”
“Why didn’t you say so yesterday?”
“You were burying my horse.”
“That would have been inconvenient.”
“And less interesting.”
She slid the hotel receipt across the table.
An address was written on the back.
Below it:
Saturday. Seven. Wear boots.
“What happens Saturday?”
“You meet the current Bernard.”
“I’ve met him.”
“No. He has observed you.”
“Did I pass?”
“He didn’t bite.”
“Is that unusual?”
“For Bernard.”
She stood, pulled on her gloves and kissed me.
Briefly.
Not chastely.
Enough to make Saturday seem badly located in the week.
Then she left.
Through the window, I watched her climb into the horse float. The current Bernard looked out through the side opening, chewing the narrow end of my tie.
I never attended Bernard Lowe’s funeral.
My manager sent flowers on behalf of the firm. The invoice was disputed for three months. Bernard Lowe’s widow wrote back to say the lilies had been lovely, although she had no idea who we were.
On Saturday, I drove west in boots bought for the occasion.
I carried a small brass plaque.
BERNARD, THE LATE
Eleanor read it twice.
“You’ve labelled him like office equipment.”
“Your father was an accountant.”
“He would have approved.”
We fixed the plaque beneath the jacaranda.
The current Bernard stood at the fence watching us. When Eleanor stepped away from the grave, he gave a low call into the paddock.
Nothing answered.
She placed her hand against his nose.
“He still does that,” she said.
“Calls for him?”
“Yes.”
I looked at the grave, then at the horse beside us.
One Bernard was dead.
One Bernard was hungry.
There was room for both.
Eleanor took my hand.
“You were wrong about the funeral,” she said.
“I was wrong about several things.”
“You’re shorter than I remembered.”
“So, you mentioned.”
She led me towards the house.
I had gone to the wrong funeral and, for once, arrived where I was required.
Eleanor had expected someone taller.
She kept me anyway.