Ruby came in person on Monday morning, her face disfigured by news of the disaster that she was obliged to deliver. The details were almost irrelevant at that point. The single, solid, catastrophic fact that Cillian was dead filled Imelda’s world, leaving no space for anything else, whilst simultaneously reducing it to a cavernous void. But later she had contemplated Ruby’s every word with forensic obsession. She had tried to picture the events frame by agonising frame. The facts were that Cillian had been at his great-granny Fionnuala’s wake, having the time of his life, when he had dropped down dead. They had been his mother’s exact words when she had spoken to Ruby. Dropped. Down. Dead. Imelda had an indelible picture for each word. Cillian’s heart had failed – not to love, but to live. The faulty mechanism of its warm flesh and blood explained by a cold, scientific epithet. Imelda had stayed in the vardo with Grisha, seeking comfort in the last place that they had been together. She had tried to invoke him: the touch of his skin on hers, his breath on her neck, his voice, his laugh, his smile. These were all just memories now, which slipped in and out of focus, impossible to capture and command. But the two things that she was able to recall with painfully constant clarity were that he had invited her to go with him and she had declined, and that she had never told him that she loved him. Now, she could only hope that somehow, he knew.

As the bride and groom on the television screen made their vows to one another, silent tears spilled down Imelda’s cheeks and her hands fell to smooth her dress over her gently rounded stomach. Imelda thought that grief had scoured her hollow. But she had been wrong.

Chapter 52

Chapter 52

1973

‘Well, I quite like the tiara, but the dress is horribly dull. And what on earth is that bridesmaid wearing?’

Vivienne and Jeanie were watching the royal wedding at Vivienne’s flat. Since the incident with Madame Burova’s dog, their relationship had faltered a little. Vivienne had vehemently denied any wrongdoing and Jeanie wanted to believe her, but the shadow of doubt remained. The news about Cillian had rippled through Larkins like wind through a field of whispering barley. He had been popular with staff and guests alike, a larger-than-life character whose youth and exuberance made his death all the more improbable and painful to accept. Most had been deeply shocked and saddened, but Vivienne’s reaction had been strangely offhand.