Case Histories

"What about the funeral service?" Julia whispered. "He won't want anything Christian, will he?" Apart from a few feeble attempts on Rosemary's part to send them to Sunday school, they had been brought up without religion. As a mathematician, Victor considered it his duty to inculcate skepticism in his daughters, especially as he thought they were frivolous girls – apart from Sylvia, of course, who had always traded on being a bit of a maths nerd. After she left their lives, "nerd" was turned into "prodigy" by Victor and later still into "child genius" so that the longer she was gone the more clever she became, whereas, as far as Victor was concerned, Amelia and Julia grew more brainless the older they got. There was a time when Amelia might have argued with him, although it would more likely have been Julia who would have put up a spirited defense of "the arts" because Amelia found it difficult to counter Victor's hectoring style. Now she wasn't so sure, wasn't he right? Didn't they, after all, know nothing?

"And so what do you think?" Julia said. "He has left the house to us, hasn't he? Do you think he's left us any money? Christ, I hope he has." Victor had never discussed his will with them, never discussed money with them. He gave the impression of having none, but then he had always been miserly. Julia started airing her grievances about the family plot again, and Amelia said, "It would be quicker to cremate him, you know. I think it takes longer to get a burial certificate."

"But we'd probably be cursed for life," Julia said, "like women in Greek tragedy who don't observe the correct rituals for their dead father, the king," and Amelia said, "We're not characters in a play, Julia. This isn't Euripides," and Julia said, "No, really, Milly, it's bad enough that we don't love him," and Amelia said, "Whatever," and frowned when she heard herself sounding like one of her students.

Julia announced she was going to have a nap and she cradled her head in her arms on the grubby bedspread so that she looked as if she were making some kind of strange homage to her dying father. Victor's big hands rested on top of the coverlet, folded piously in a way that suggested he was prepared for death. It would have taken only the slightest effort for him to raise one of those hands and rest it on Julia's head, to give her a final benediction. Had he ever touched them in a kind way? A kiss, a hug? A tender caress on the cheek? If he had, Amelia couldn't recall it. "Wake me if anything happens," Julia mumbled. "If he dies or something." Julia was still a heavyweight sleeper, and she was as dead to the world as Victor within minutes. Amelia looked at the dark curls on her sister's head and felt a rush of affection for her that was more like a pang of grief.

Julia hadn't had much work recently. She used to work all the time, provincial theater, archly modern plays in tiny London studios and bit parts in television – underclass victims in The Bill and terminal patients in Casualty (she'd died twice in ten years), but now she never even seemed to be called to auditions. She had done some kind of corporate training video last year but it was for an oil company subsidiary and Amelia had been annoyed with her for doing it, saying that she "should have considered the politics of it," and Julia had said that it was easy to have "the luxury of politics when you had enough food to eat," and Amelia said, "That's a ridiculous exaggeration. When did you ever starve?" but now she was sorry because Julia had been happy when she told her about the job and she'd spoiled it for her.

Amelia had seen almost all of Julia's work, and although she always told her how "wonderful" she was, because that was theatrical protocol, she often found herself thinking that Julia wasn't really very special at all when she was onstage. The best thing she'd seen her in was a pantomime in Bristol, a generic kind of piece, probably Cinderella, where Julia had been cast as a dog – a black poodle with a lion cut and a French accent. Julia's shape, short and busty, had somehow been perfectly suited to the costume and she had caught a certain kind of Parisian arrogance that the audience loved. She hadn't needed a wig – her own untamed hair had been piled up in a topknot with a bow in it. Amelia had never thought of Julia as a poodle before then – she always imagined her as a Jack Russell. It seemed suddenly very sad to Amelia that the best role of Julia's career was as a dog. And that she didn't need a wig to play a poodle.