Page 29 of A Village Theatre Murder
Julia rummaged in her bag and pulled out half a roll of humbugs, which she always carried for emergencies.
‘Thank you,’ the girl said again, taking them. She ejected one with her thumb and popped it into her mouth, sucking hard, releasing the sweet minty smell.
‘A bit of sugar always helps, at least superficially. I’m Julia.’
‘I’m Bethany.’
‘That’s a pretty name.’
‘Graham used to say that, too.’ The girl looked as if she would fall back into sobs.
‘I’m sorry, Bethany. It’s very hard, loss. Did you know him well? Are you a friend of Hannah’s?’
‘Yes, I knew him well.’ Her eyes welled with tears. She breathed in and out deeply to calm herself. The tears retreated. The humbug clicked against her teeth. ‘Hannah and I were at school together, actually, but I was the year above. We weren’t close. And then I was away for a few years, working in London. When I came back six months ago, Graham gave me a job at the shop.’
That’swhere Julia had seen her. She’d been outside the theatre one day, after rehearsal, waiting for Graham. She must have had a message or a delivery from work.
‘Ah, I’m sorry for your loss, Bethany,’ said Julia again. It always felt that all her training and years of experience were useless in the face of grief, which reduced us all to the simplest of phrases: I’m sorry. It’s so hard. It gets better.
Bethany was crying again. Her tears were running clear now. Most of the mascara had already been washed away.
‘I can see you were very attached to him. He must have been a good boss,’ said Julia.
‘A good boss? Oh, yes. Well, yes, he was, of course, people liked him. The staff. But…he…we…I don’t know what I’ll do now,’ the young woman said sadly. ‘I don’t know what I’ll do without him.’
She folded a fresh tissue into a stiff-edged triangle and swiped one last time beneath each eye, drawing the tears and what was left of the melted mascara from beneath the lashes, towards the outer edges of the eye. She looked at her face in the mirror and sighed, seemed to accept that was the best she could do, and tossed the tissue away in the bin.
‘Thanks for the tissues, and the sweets,’ she said.
‘You’re welcome. You take good care of yourself, Bethany.’
‘I will. I think I just need to go home and have a sleep.’
‘You do that. A sleep makes everything better.’
Bethany looked sceptical, as if she didn’t believe it for a minute, but thanked Julia again and went on her way.
Julia was pretty peckish. She and Sean had got back from the walk with just enough time to change and eat a piece of toast before they left for the funeral. She took a plate and joined the queue at the eats table. She surveyed the funeral foods up ahead – little sandwiches, sausage rolls, cream scones, chocolate cake – weighing up the options. A whispered conversation amongst the people ahead of her entered her consciousness when she heard the word ‘Bethany’. An odd coincidence, since she’d just met her. She leaned in a little, ears pricked.
‘Bit of a cheek after everything,’ muttered the young woman in front of Julia, shaking her head and setting the shiny blonde hair undulating.
‘Selfish!’ The response came as a quiet hiss of outrage.
‘She always did love a drama…’
‘It’s just not on.’
The whisperers stopped, the women looking furtively about. One of them caught Julia’s eye, and knew she’d heard them.
‘The sausage rolls look good,’ said the blonde at normal volume.
‘Don’t they just?’ her friend agreed heartily. ‘And I do love a sausage roll.’
‘Oh, me too.’
They moved off with their plates, which each held precisely one sausage roll and a carrot stick. Julia helped herself to a sandwich, a scone, a sausage roll and a few carrots, and was pleased not to be a young woman watching her figure. She moved off to the side to wait for Sean. She wondered what to make of the conversation she’d just overheard. What had Bethany done to outrage the two young women so? Julia knew all too well how asmall incident at work could get blown out of proportion. It sounded as if something like that must have happened.
Hector came and stood next to her, piled plate in hand. He stared contemplatively at the funeral crowd for a moment, then started speaking. ‘I was in a funeral scene once, onHot Press. How many such scenes have we seen on our screens? The weeping widow. The yawning grave. Often a mysterious figure in the background. And yet, andyet. Each time is thefirsttime, is it not? I tried to bring that awareness to the scene when I played…’
