Funny, warm and big-hearted were how the GH reader panel, made up of VIP Members, described By Your Side by Ruth Jones which was chosden as a Reader Favourite in the Good Books June Collection.
The panel loved this heartwarming story about Linda, who runs the Unclaimed Heirs department at the local council and is tracking down the family of Levi Norman, who lived a solitary life on the tiny island of Storrich.
‘I found myself laughing in one chapter, then emotional in the next,’ said one reader.
Read an extract below...
Prologue
The landlord could set his watch by it. Just coming up to 2 p.m. and the pub door opened as it had done on this date every year for the past six, letting in the old fella, coat buttoned up against the gusty gale outside and the dwindling Scottish light of a bleak winter’s day. With a welcoming smile, the landlord nodded and took down a seldom-used tumbler from the shelf. He pushed its rim against the optic, once, twice, releasing the dark amber liquid of a single malt. ‘There you go,’ he said, placing it on the bar and waiting as the man took out some coins from his pocket and handed them over.
‘How you been keepin’?’
‘Aye, not bad.’
‘You managin’ okay up there on yer own? You need help with anything?’
‘I’m tip-top,’ he said and raised his glass with a smile before taking it off to the chair by the fire. The bar was empty apart from a local electrician fixing some light fittings and two Danish hikers sat at a table poring over a map.
The landlord tried not to stare. But this enigmatic once-a-year customer never failed to pique his interest. In all the time the man had lived here, he’d barely spoken a handful of words to anyone.
He wasn’t rude, just quiet and mild-mannered and had a way of politely batting away chat. The landlord watched now as the man stared at the whisky, swirling it round, deep in thought. Then, muttering something under his breath, he surreptitiously raised his glass and drank. When he wiped away a stray tear, the landlord stopped looking. It felt like an intrusion, an invasion of the man’s privacy.
Fifteen minutes later the customer drained his glass, got up and took it back to the bar. Buttoning his coat, he headed to the door and the squally weather outside. ‘Take care now!’ shouted the landlord. The man raised his hand in response, heaved open the door and left the pub, never to return.
1
Linda
I’m late. Which is so unlike me because I’m usually such a good time-keeper. I thrive on routine and schedule, so being late discombobulates me for the rest of the day. Stopping at the lights on Massey Street, I examine my reflection in the rear-view. It’s not that I’m vain. I’m just checking there’s no jam on my cheek or toast in my teeth – remnants from this morning’s breakfast, and not a good look for what lies ahead. My eyebrows could do with a trim. Going slightly feral. Oh and Lordy, that solitary chin bristle has returned. The bane of my face. I’ve tried zapping it, plucking it, even snipping it with nail clippers, but it always, always returns. I’ve contemplated weedkiller. That’s how desperate I am.
Attempting now to yank it out between finger and thumb, my facial inspection is disturbed by an unnecessarily long beep from the car behind. ‘All right, all right!’ I shout. One of my pet hates – drivers who think that a micro-second shaved off at traffic lights will make the slightest difference to their journey. In less than three months I’ll be fifty-five, so my list of pet hates is getting longer.
I’m told they increase incrementally with age until full metamorphosis into grumpy old womanhood is complete. Well, that may be so for some, but not for me. Because I, Linda Mary Standish, will not be defeated by age. I’m divorced and single with a job that I love, and a grumpy old woman I am not. Nor will I ever be. I intend to live out the rest of my life at full throttle and woe betide anyone who gets in my way. Like the driver behind who’s now overtaking. His window is open and he glares as he goes. So I blow him a kiss and shout, ‘Show us your knickers, you sexy beast!’ His face is a picture.
Fifteen minutes later, I pull – actually, screech – into the car park of Boransay Crematorium with inappropriate haste, but the service begins in two minutes and needs must. Hatch open, a plain, unadorned coffin inside, the hearse is parked at the main door.
And standing straight as the crease in his black flannel trousers, silently awaiting my arrival, the undertaker nods at me as I approach.
‘Linda Standish,’ he says sombrely.
‘Fergus Murray,’ I respond.
We were in school together, me and Fergus. I wouldn’t say we were friends as such – we just inhabited the same educational landscape from reception class through to Higher Maths. And we still refer to each other by our full names. It’s an unwritten rule.
Even at the age of fifty-five. I’m not technically late, so I won’t apologize. Especially to Fergus flippin’ Murray. To me he’ll always be a hormone-fuelled teenager drenched in Lynx, with a light scattering of acne and a habit of self-consciously flicking his fringe.
For that reason I can’t quite take him seriously.
‘Shall we?’ I say with a sweep of my hand, and head inside.
As crematoria go, Boransay is rather pleasant. It lacks the harsh, utilitarian feel you get in some of them, and it’s tastefully done out. Soft light streams through a modern stained-glass window, accompanied by the gentle organ music now emanating from the speakers. Two pedestals either side of the catafalque boast huge cascading lily arrangements. They’re fake, of course, the lilies.
But they’re good-quality fake. So you’d be hard-pressed to know the difference, especially from a few yards away. I join the only other mourner in there: a small, neat woman at least twenty years my junior standing in the front row. ‘Hello,’ I whisper. ‘I’m from Boransay Council. Unclaimed Heirs Unit.’
We shake hands and she looks confused. ‘Unclaimed hairs?’
‘No, heirs.’
Hairs do seem to be a recurring theme this morning. ‘So, are you a relative of the deceased? Because we’ve been trying to track down the family.’
‘Gosh, no,’ she says. ‘I’m from the hospital. They always send someone if they can. Just out of—’
‘Ahem.’ It’s the unmistakeable throat-clearing of Fergus Murray.
Along with his colleague, Old Sam – don’t know his surname, I’ve just always called him Old Sam – they wheel the coffin towards its final resting place, respectfully transferring it from the gurney on to the catafalque. Old Sam removes the gurney and Fergus stands stiffly, hands behind his back, silently signalling to me to begin. I smile brazenly at him, which he’ll no doubt find annoying.
Smiling at a funeral director does feel a bit wrong, I admit.
Disrespectful, somehow.
I don’t mean when they’re out and about on their day off, wearing civvies and posting a letter or buying some lamb chops. I mean when they’re on duty: facilitating easy passage for the dearly departed as they journey from this world to the next.
Fergus is a fifth-generation undertaker who tried to swerve the inevitable family vocation and took up cycling instead. And I’m not talking bike rides in the park, I’m talking proper full-on professional cycling. He was rather good at it too. Commonwealth Games, Tour de France – he was even heading for the Olympics in 2004 till fate jumped in and knocked him off his bike. This resulted in a sharp exit from the international cycling arena and a slight limp. Which, fair play, he carries well. Gives him the air of a wounded soldier. I respect him for that. Yes, I respect him a lot. It’s just, ever since school he’s been one of those people who’s always got to be right. And consequently, someone you just want to prove wrong.
I tap the microphone to check it’s on. A pointless action really: I could whisper my words and still be heard. But it’s a habit of mine.
‘Friends,’ I begin, even though there aren’t any there. ‘We are gathered to bid farewell to Wendy Maria Taylor, who died peacefully on November the twenty-first.’ I say peacefully for decorum really. Truth is, she dropped dead drinking Diet Fanta in a transport caff just outside Crianlarich.
The service, if you can call it that, is predictably short. Less than six minutes in total. Still, it’s quality, not quantity at the end of the day, and nobody can say I’ve not given her a decent send-off.
I focus mainly on the early days – her job at the supermarket, her collection of matchboxes and her passion for baking. I’ve surmised all this from the cake tins, pay slips and matchboxes found in her home. I mean, I presume she was collecting the matchboxes, but maybe she was just a heavy smoker or a pyromaniac?
I avoid the phrases one normally hears at the funeral of a woman her age – ‘sorely missed’ or ‘beloved wife and mother’. I’ve developed a knack for that now. How to say something without saying very much. How to give the impression of a eulogy without really eulogizing at all.
Because it’s difficult to bid farewell to someone you’ve never met; hard to praise the virtues of a person whose name you first heard only last month; challenging to list the lifetime achievements of a total stranger and make it sound like they were your dearest friend.
Yes, it’s a difficult task.
But someone’s got to do it. And today, that someone is me.
Penguin By Your Side: The uplifting new novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author and Gavin & Stacey co-creator
