Bad choice of expression.

The service was so, so moving. Kathy clearly had a lot of friends, and they were so shocked at her just suddenly… being dead. There was as much disbelief as grief in people’s eyes. I don’t believe it was anything but an accident, and nobody else believed it either… but whenever something like this happens, you can’t help but wonder if it wasn’t an accident. There’s this little voice that says ‘what if she jumped?’ But really, so what if she did? She’s still dead.

The four or five people who stood up to speak, their voices trembling, clearing their throats and swallowing back tears constantly, talked of her lust for life, her adventurous spirit, her desire to excel.

No, there’s no way she’d have thrown herself off her roof.

One woman in particular could barely get the words out at all. Poor thing. She said she and Kathy had been best friends since childhood – I remembered Kathy mentioning her, briefly, in the pub. She was quite pretty, in that rather gummy sort of way. I thought she’d probably look a bit horsy when she smiled – although since I didn’t see her smile, I wouldn’t know for sure. She got about two sentences into her speech and just kind of crumpled. The church was completely silent, a deep heavy intense silence that even people’s quiet sobbing didn’t seem to dent, and we all waited for her to finish, like the agonising seconds spent willing a stammerer to get his words out; but she couldn’t. Her face turned redder and redder and eventually she shook her head, and fled back to her seat. It was awful.

The whole bloody thing was awful.

But there was one little part of me that – and I’d never admit this to anybody – felt oddly jealous. Imagine, being envious of a dead woman! But the love that all her friends felt for her was so completely palpable, and all the wonderful things that they said of her. I suppose everyone says nice things about you once you’re dead, but Kathy clearly was a very special person. It made me wish that I’d had more time to get to know her. It also made me wonder if people would say the same kinds of things about me, if I died?

As we all filed out at the end (family and close friends only were going on to the crematorium), they played ‘I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself’ by Dusty Springfield, because it had been one of Kathy’s favourite songs. At that moment I think every single person in the church felt the same, that now Kathy was gone, none of us knew what to do with ourselves, and that, even if we hadn’t known her well, nothing would be the same again.

Then I heard a voice at my shoulder. At first I didn’t register that it was Alex from the writing class; I was crying too hard.

‘Isn’t it terrible?’ he said. He looked a state too; really white and red-eyed. I didn’t realize he’d been matey with Kathy. I nodded, trying to get myself together but feeling the corners of my mouth pulling right down for another batch of tears. He handed me a clean tissue, and sort of twitched his fingers, as if he wanted to reach out and comfort me. I was glad he didn’t though – if anyone had touched me then, I think I’d have collapsed entirely.

‘It was nice of you to come,’ I said, then regretted it. It sounded like I was hosting the damn event or something. We stared at each others’ ravaged faces, and suddenly I felt relieved that he was there. I didn’t know anybody else there, and couldn’t face going back to the house for drinks, as her father had hesitantly invited everyone.

‘Do you want a lift somewhere?’ I asked, wiping under my eyes with the tissue and wishing I’d thought to wear waterproof mascara.

‘Thanks,’ he said immediately, not saying where. ‘That would be great.’

Later, in the car, once I’d calmed down enough to drive, Alex said that he and Kathy had had a drink after class a couple of times, and had met for lunch too. I thought it was odd that she hadn’t mentioned it, but I suppose that she probably didn’t really feel it merited a mention, him being a bloke, and all. He seemed edgy, biting his nails and staring out of the window, and then surreptitiously studying me when I was driving, as if he thought I couldn’t see him.

Turns out he lives quite close to me. I hadn’t heard of his street, but he said it was only about ten minutes’ walk away. Before I knew it, I found myself saying, ‘Come in for coffee, if you like.’ I thought that if I went home alone, I’d only sit and cry all afternoon.

He nodded, like one of those toy dogs who sit in the back windows of cars.

‘What happened to your wall?’ he asked, climbing over the pile of rubble to get to my front path. I hadn’t told him which house was mine, but he just headed straight for it, no hesitation. At the time I thought it was strange, but I was too strung out to dwell on it. I should’ve called him on it. I should never have let him into the house. I’m a fool.

So, as weird as I thought it was then, that he knew which house was mine, things started to get even weirder when we got inside. I showed him to the sofa and he sat down on the very edge of it. He still seemed really jumpy, but I put it down to the emotion of the funeral. I made some coffee, and took the mugs into the living room.

There was a long silence. Alex looked so strange then that all these thoughts starting running through my head: if he knew where I lived, was it him who followed me home that time after class? I’d suspected him of sending the card and leaving the flowers, but now I felt more certain. Perhaps he’d only come to the funeral because he guessed I’d be there! Maybe he bought the clothes too – he must have got such a kick out of seeing me wearing the damn things – I wondered why he kept staring at them. I hadn’t meant to wear them, not until I knew where they were from, but when I’d opened my wardrobe to try and find something suitable for a funeral, there they were, just perfect with my black jacket over the top…

I got up from the armchair and went over to lean – casually, I hoped – on the windowsill, willing Mrs. Roberts over the road to be in her usual chair at her own living room window. At least that way if he tried anything, it would have to be in view of Mrs. Roberts’ beady old eye. My hands started shaking, and a splash of coffee spilled out onto the carpet. I was really upset – my pristine carpet! – but I didn’t dare get up and get a cloth. I didn’t want to leave the safety of the window. I thought longingly of the Stain Devil under the sink, and then almost laughed. This guy is a potential nutter, and I’m worried about a tiny splash of coffee on my carpet? It would take the application of several dozen Stain Devils to get my life blood out of the same carpet, if Alex really did turn out to be a psychopath.

But somehow I thought that, however uneasy he was making me feel at that moment, he probably wasn’t dangerous. Probably. ….Although I was clearly in denial.

And then he said what he said, staring at the stain, not meeting my eyes, muttering almost coyly into his own coffee: ‘I’m glad to see you’re wearing your new clothes.’

My heart almost gave out. Even though I’d suspected him, it was a huge shock to hear him admit it. ‘What?’

‘Those clothes.’ He stopped, and smiled at me then, a big, ingenuous beam of pride, like I was his mother and he was waiting for me to say, ooh, what a clever boy you are. ‘They’re from me. I left them on your washing line as a surprise.’

I lowered my coffee mug onto the windowsill, spilling some more out. Then I reached back and grasped the glossy white sill with both my hands, to steady myself and to try and stop them shaking. I wished I could rip the sill off, and bash him over the head with it, because at that moment I realized that it had all been him: everything - the card, the flowers, the man who’d followed me home, maybe even him who was responsible for the underwear that I thought I’d accidentally ordered myself…