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She's fine, he said, I dropped her off at the station this ot home, she's fine

She was okay with it all then, was she? she said, looking up at him

Yes, he said, she was okay with it

Oh, good, Eleanor said

Later, as she got into bed, she said, so, will you tell me about it? She sat up, the duvet held up to her chest, the pilloedged behind her back and her hair pulled round to one side of her head She looked up at him as he took his shirt off and folded it over the back of the chair

What do you want to know? he said

Just what it was like, she replied Who was there, what happened

Well they were all there I think, he said, all the faether I think, he said He leant against the wardrobe to take off his shoes and socks, rubbing at the cracked skin across the back of his heels

And was Tessa there? she said He looked up No love, he said, no Tessa wasn't there She pulled the duvet back from his side of the bed

Come and tell me about it, she said, I want to hear Was it a nice service?

He unbuckled his belt, slid off his trousers, and draped them over the back of the chair He swapped his pants for a pair of pyjama trousers from underneath the pillow, and he told her about Ivy's funeral He told her that a lot of them, the immediate family, had met at Donald's beforehand, and that Donald's wife had overloaded them with sandwiches and cake, and that this here Kate had first met them all

I picked her up from the station, he said She seeh People were saying she looked like her grandmother, he said, and Eleanor looked across at him with a doubtful expression

No, she said, I wouldn't say that Does she? Do you think so? He smoothed his thumb across her creased eyebrows

A little, he said, perhaps It's only natural, isn't it? She thought about it, shaking her head He told her about the service, that the minister hadn't seeeneral ter and full life but that people hadn't seemed to mind He told her that it had felt very warm in the church, and she se then, and she started to close her eyes He told her about the burial, about the corner of the cemetery which had tree

s along both sides and seemed to be well kept; that he'd spotted her Great-uncle Jarave nearby, and her father's of course, and that Donald had said her father's father's headstone was somewhere but they hadn't been able to find it He told her about the wake in the Crown Hotel, how good the food was and how people had kept buying him drinks