The way she felt this morning, it might have been her own funeral Sarah was talking about. What little sleep she’d got had been filled with nightmares, bones dancing in gowns of rotted satin, skulls that grinned and twinkled, Alexander doing things she’d rather not try to remember. He looked more dead than alive right now. She felt a qualm to be sending him off without her, but she couldn’t cope, and that was that. Her husband looked up from the boiled egg he was decapitating for his mother with the deftness that characterized all his hand movements. “Are you sure you don’t want to? Uncle Fred was always fond of you.” “I don’t believe he cared two hoots for me or anybody else, except perhaps you and Dolph, but that’s beside the point. The thing is,” she stirred her coffee with one of the old coin-silver spoons, trying to choose the right words, “Dolph says everybody will want to come here after the service. That means cleaning and food and sherry and so forth, and we’ve nothing ready.”
