Mia cleared her throat. “Or you had fucked up parents, and this isn’t on either of you.”

The seesaw of recrimination and self-recrimination hovered briefly in the middle. And, for a moment, it looked like the Blackwood brothers might get off the ride. Maybe even leave the playground entirely. But, then, there was only so much you could fix with one conversation. Eventually Oliver said, “I’m sorry I ruined the funeral.”

Christopher seemed to be deep in a think space so Mia gave a laconic shrug. “I wouldn’t say you ruined it. It was more interesting than most eulogies. Besides, half the crowd probably weren’t paying attention and the other half secretly knew you had a point.”

“I think that’s overly generous,” replied Oliver with reflexive modesty.

“Easy there.” Mia put up a hand. “I’m not saying it was the St. Crispin’s Day speech. Just that not everyone who heard it thought you were a complete wanker.”

“That might still be overly generous,” observed Christopher, glancing up with a strained smile.

Oliver did something smile-like and tentative back. “Fuck off, Chris.”

The sky, which had been making passive-aggressive suggestions about rain all day, finally followed through, and a light drizzle began to descend on the courtyard. And for a while we sat there being wet and cathartically glum, but despite Oliver dropping a kiloton truth-bomb all over his father’s funeral, we weren’t done with social obligations yet. So I hauled myself to my feet and tried to hustle our little group in the direction of the cars. “Come on,” I told them, “we’re missing the death party.”

“I think they’re calling them wakes these days,” said Mia, taking Christopher by the hand.

As we walked away from the crematorium, Oliver turned to his brother. “How long are you in town for, by the way?”

Christopher cast him a slightly suspicious look. “A week or so.”

“We should…that is, if you’d like to catch up?” It wasn’t quite a suggestion, but Oliver’s voice sounded faintly hopeful.

After a moment, Christopher nodded. “That’d be nice.”

The four of us walked on in comfortable silence through the flower-strewn, not-too-corpse-factory-ish garden of the crematorium where even now David Blackwood’s body was being consigned to ashes. If I’d been in a poetic mood, I’d have said the rain made it feel like the sky was doing our crying for us. But this was Britain. Rain was just another fact of life. Like taxes. Or the other thing.

Chapter 34