The Manticore

"As we ate, Beesty told me what had to be done. Odd, perhaps, because he's only a stockbroker and my father and I had always tended to write him off as a fool, though decent enough. But his family is prominent, and he'd managed quite a few funerals and knew the ropes. He even knew of a good undertaker. I wouldn't have known where to look for one. I mean, who's ever met an undertaker? It's like what people say about dead donkeys: who's ever seen one? He got on the telephone and arranged with his favourite undertaker to collect the body whenever the police were ready to release it. Then he said we must talk with Denyse to arrange details of the burial. He seemed to think she wouldn't want to see us until late in the morning, but when he called she was on the line at once and said she would see us at nine o'clock and not to be late because she had a lot to do.

"That was exactly like Denyse, whom as I told you I have never liked because of this very spirit she showed when Beesty called. Denyse is all business, and nobody can help her or do anything for her without being made a subordinate: she must always be the boss. Certainly she bossed my father far more than he knew, and he was not a man to subject himself to anybody. But women are like that. Aren't they?"

"Some women, certainly."

"In my experience, women are either bosses or leaners."

"Isn't that your experience of men, too?"

"Perhaps. But I can talk to men. I can't talk to my stepmother. From nine o'clock till ten, Denyse talked to us, and would probably have talked longer if the hairdresser had not been coming. She knew she would have to see a lot of people, and it was necessary for her hair to be dressed as she would have no opportunity later.

"And what she said! My hair almost stood on end. Denyse hadn't slept either: she had been planning. And I think this is the point, Doctor, when you will admit that I have cause to be nervous. I've told you my father was a very important man. Not just rich. Not just a philanthropist. He had been in politics, and during the greater part of the Second World War he had been our Minister of Food, and an extraordinarily able one. Then he had left active politics. It was the old story, not unlike Churchill's; the public hate a really capable man except when they can't get along without him. The decisive, red-tape-cutting qualities that made my father necessary in war got him into trouble with the little men as soon as the war was over and they hounded him out of public life. But he was too big to be ignored and his public service entitled him to recognition, and he was to be the next Lieutenant-Governor of our Province. Do you know what a Lieutenant-Governor is?"

"Some sort of ceremonial personage, I suppose."

"Yes: a representative of the Crown in a Canadian province."

"A high honour?"

"Yes, but there are ten of them. My father might suitably have been Governor-General, which is top of the heap."

"Ah yes; very grand, I see."

"Silly people smile at these ceremonial offices because they don't understand them. You can't have a parliamentary system without these official figures who represent the State, the Crown, the whole body of government, as well as the elected fellows who represent their voters.

"He had not taken office. But he had received the official notice of his appointment from the Secretary of State, and the Queen's charge would have come at the proper time, which would have been in about a month. But Denyse wanted him to be given a State funeral, as if he were already in office.

"Well! As a lawyer, I knew that was absurd. There was a perfectly valid Lieutenant-Governor at the time we were discussing this crazy scheme. There was no way in the world my father could be given an official funeral. But that was what she wanted – soldiers in dress uniform, a cushion with his D.S.O. and his C.B.E. on it, a firing-party, a flag on the coffin, as many officials and politicians as could be mustered. I was flabbergasted. But whatever I said, she simply replied, 'I know what was owing to Boy even if you don't.'