Case Histories

Julia said it demonstrated typically inconsiderate behavior on Victor's part, but Amelia said their father had probably deliberately planned it this way in case it turned out that there was an eternal afterlife and he might be forced to spend it with them. Amelia didn't really think this was likely – Victor was a staunch atheist and it wasn't in his stubborn, abrasive character to suddenly start hedging his bets at the end – it was just that proposing a contradictory viewpoint to Julia's came automatically to her. Julia was as tenacious (and as yappy) as a terrier when it came to disputes, so that they both constantly found themselves arguing the case for opinions that neither of them really cared about one way or the other, like a pair of bickering, jaded courtroom lawyers. Some days it felt as if they had returned to their turbulent childhood selves and any moment now would resort to the covert pinching, hair pulling, and name-calling of those earlier years.

They had been summoned. "Like attending the deathbed of a king," Julia said resentfully, and Amelia said, "You're thinking of King Lear," and Julia said, "What if I am?" and Amelia said, "You can only relate to life if you've seen it on the stage," and Julia said, "I never even mentioned fucking Lear" and so they were arguing before the train had even pulled out of King's Cross. Victor died a few hours after they arrived. "Thank fuck," Julia said, as they had been suspicious that Victor was trying to finesse them back into the family home to look after him. They both resented the word "home" – it was decades since either of them had lived there, yet they couldn't stop using the word.

Amelia said, "Sorry," but Julia was staring out the train window at suburban London passing by and didn't speak again until they were traveling through the full summer fields of East Anglia, when she said, "Lear wasn't dying, he was abdicating power," and Amelia said, "Same thing sometimes," and was glad they'd made peace.

They sat on either side of him, waiting for him to die. Victor was beached on his bed in what had once been the marital bedroom, a room that was still decorated in the overblown female style that their mother had once favored. Was Rosemary getting ready at this very moment to welcome Victor into the clammy soil of the family plot? Amelia imagined her parents clasping each other's bodies in a cold embrace and felt sorry for their poor mother, who probably thought she had escaped Victor forever.

And anyway, Amelia pointed out to Julia, picking up the argument despite her best intentions, neither of them wanted to be close to their father in life, so why would they want to be close to him in death? Julia said that wasn't the point. It was "the principle of the thing," and Amelia said, "When did you start having principles?" and so the conversation went downhill again, long before they had got round to discussing the more difficult topic of the funeral service itself, for which Victor had left no guidelines.

When had they decided to stop calling him "Daddy" and start calling him "Victor"? Julia sometimes called him "Daddy," especially when she was trying to cajole him into a pleasanter mood, but Amelia liked the distance that "Victor" gave. It made him more human somehow.

Victor's chin was bristled with white, and this new beard, coupled with the weight he had lost, made him unfamiliar. Only his hands seemed not to have shrunk – still huge, like bony shovels, brutish against his sticklike wrists. He suddenly mumbled something neither of them could make out and Julia cast a look of panic across the bed at Amelia. Julia had expected him to be dying but she hadn't expected him not to be himself. "Do you want anything, Daddy?" she said loudly to him and he shook his head as if trying to dislodge a cloud of flies but it was impossible to say whether or not he had heard them.

Victor's GP had told them on the phone that district nurses were coming in three times a day. "Popping in" was the phrase he had used, which made everything seem convivial and informal, but neither Amelia nor Julia had expected those adjectives would be applicable to Victor's death, as they certainly hadn't been applicable to his life. They thought the nurses would stay, but the minute Amelia and Julia arrived, one of them said, "We'll be off now then," and the other shouted to Victor over her shoulder, "They're here!" in a cheerful way as if Victor had been waiting anxiously for his daughters, which he wasn't, of course, and the only one pleased to see them was Sammy, Victor's old golden retriever, who made a gallant attempt to greet them, his arthritic hips moving stiffly as his claws clacked across the polished boards of the hallway.