So she would not see Caroline again. As the first earth was cast, they stood huddled together a little awkwardly a short distance from the family.
"Christ I hate funerals," Cade said. "I wish they would do private burials. It can't make it any easier for them, having us all here. They don't even know us."
Francis Cade. Now Cade Chetwynd, aspiring actor. He had taken the name from one of their professors, more for the alliteration than the tribute.
It was Cade who had rung her, soon after she had arrived home, to tell her the news. Caroline had been killed in a diving accident. No more than a day after Jayne had seen her, from what she could work out. So unexpected and so terribly sad.
They watched as dark-clad figures, blurred with grief, were led away. No one should outlive their own child.
"I suppose we'd better head to the wake. Do you think we should give it another twenty minutes or so, or would they prefer we arrived as soon as possible and got it over with?"
It was the worst place for a reunion. But they stood together, six of the eight. Alongside Jayne and Cade there was John Lambert, the son of a prominent barrister, practically called to the bar from his cradle and already showing signs of his father's brilliance. Amanda Charles, very bright, forthright and a first class hockey player, currently worked in Westminster. Lucy Easterby-Jones, the ingénue of the group, was employed by a leading auction house. And finally Aubrey Fellowes, antiques lover and aesthete, who produced Arts programming for the BBC. Aubrey's waistcoat and cravat were the most sombre Jayne had ever seen him wear.
The only person missing was Rory Ellis, a former rugby blue, who now worked for an international energy company. He hadn't been able to make it as he was overseas as usual.
They had all done so well and she had done nothing.
Jayne found herself standing with Cade again. She had always been closest to him and he was the only one she'd stayed in touch with to some extent, he sent her theatre bills every so often and invitations to London.
"That's the brother," Cade said, indicating a young man with a round face and rather floppy hair. He was surprisingly tall, his face looked as though it would be better matched with a shorter figure.
"He's Harry, isn't he?" she said, remembering Caroline talking of her family.
"You were always brilliant with names. Go on, see if you can guess her name." Cade pointed to a thin, dark haired girl, rather pretty in a pointy-faced way, standing near Harry. "I heard her introduce herself earlier. You can have a clue. It starts with V."
"Oh Cade, I honestly wouldn't know," Jayne said. Her gift with names had become something of an in-joke, after a party game where she had matched names to faces with surprising accuracy. It was mainly luck, she thought.
Yet she found herself mulling over the possibilities. "Not a Venetia. Definitely not a Virginia. Probably not a Veronica. A Verity, perhaps, or a Victoria. Not a Vivienne." She rather hoped it wasn't Verity. It was a name she liked and somehow she did not like the look of this girl.
Cade raised his eyebrows. "You really are good. It's Victoria. Goodness, I wonder who that is, I didn't see him at the burial."
Caroline looked over to an even taller man than Harry, blond, with strikingly attractive looks. "That might be the cousin, though I can't remember his name. I do remember she had a cousin she was very fond of." More of a hero-worship in fact, though seeing him now Jayne could hardly blame Caroline for her cousinly adoration. Poor Caroline.
"If it only was possible to sever Victoria from him," Cade said. "He's far too beautiful to be wasted on her. She's his fiancée, from what I overheard."
"I imagine she would be a more than considerable obstacle then," said Jayne. "Besides which, how could you be sure if he..."
"If he's keen to bat for the Chetwynd Eleven?" Cade said. "Perhaps not. You'd be surprised though."
* * *
"We should have been meeting at a wedding, not a wake," Lucy said.
The six of them had gone to a local pub afterwards though no one felt like eating much. It was a long drive back to London, longer for Jayne with her train journey ahead, and being Saturday there was scant impetus to hurry back.
"Jayne saw Caroline in Greece, you know," Cade said. When he had phoned to give her the news, her first reaction was to try and deny it, to tell him that she'd only recently seen Caroline, that she couldn't possibly be dead.
"I didn't get a chance to speak to her though, I only saw her from a distance," Jayne said, fibbing slightly. She didn't want to open speculation as to whether Caroline had deliberately blanked her or not, or had water in her ears from diving. "I very much regret that I didn't manage to meet her again. It was near the end of my holiday and I had no idea where she was staying."
Cade turned to her. "I thought you only came back a few days ago?"
"Yes, that's right, it was the previous weekend, she was by the harbour. Such a small world."
There was a very uncomfortable silence.
"Jayne, Caroline was killed three weeks ago," Cade said.
"Oh but she couldn't have been," Jayne said automatically, without thinking. "It was on the seventh that I saw her."
"She died on the first," Lucy said. "It was on the order of service. Harry flew out there immediately afterwards to deal with all the official things and make the arrangements."
Jayne was flustered. Something must be very wrong, or she was losing her mind. But now was not the time.
"Of course, I am sorry, I'm hopeless with dates. I have all my weeks mixed up."
There was a show of sympathetic understanding but Jayne could feel Cade's eyes intent upon her as she looked miserably into her drink, her thoughts in turmoil. She felt she had embarrassed herself and somehow injured Caroline's memory. And yet she was quite certain of the date, it could easily be verified through the records of her booking arrangements or by her cousins.
For now the awkwardness dulled the enormity of the realisation. They moved onto other topics but the mood had started miserably and had only become worse now, so they parted ways soon afterwards.
Cade didn't drive and had declined a lift, choosing to take a train back despite the extra expense. He claimed he liked train journeys but Jayne knew that he wanted to question her. He knew her better than any of the others did, more than the girls even, though she and Amanda had been quite close once.
Cade bought his ticket and came to sit with her on the platform as they would be taking the same train for the first part of the journey.
"You see it looked like it could have been a seven, the writing was rather Italic, either that or I assumed it was a misprint," Jayne began.
"What are you talking about?"
"The date on the programme. I thought it was a seven. Obviously it was a one. Now I don't know what to think."
Cade spoke firmly. "Jayne, did you or did you not see Caroline alive on the seventh? Forget the programme, do you think that you saw Caroline the Saturday before last, not three weeks ago?"
"I don't think it, I did see her," Jayne said. "But of course I can't have done, can I?"
"There are only two explanations, or three, but I think we can discount Banquo's ghost. Either you were mistaken and saw someone that looked like Caroline, or you did see her and the date of death is wrong. Given that she didn't answer, the obvious thing is that you made a mistake and it was a total stranger. But I know you, you're precise and you're good with faces. So the theory I have is that you actually saw Caroline a week or so earlier, perhaps in a crowd, and forgot about it, then a slightly similar woman triggered your memory and somehow got superimposed with Caroline in your mind."
It sounded plausible enough.
"The others must think I'm such an idiot, so crass," Jayne said.
"Not at all. We were all shocked by her death. Coming back from holiday, with different time zones and things, anybody can get confused."
Train journeys were never the enjoyment that Jayne always imagined, remembering old films, with porters and private carriages and hatboxes. She sat across a scratched plastic table from Cade, there were newspapers and empty cups and sandwich wrappings strewn all over the place. A horrid grimy little window curtain was tied back with string, its clasp broken.
"You must come up and see my new play," Cade said. "It's quite fun. I'll send you tickets."
"I'd love to, thank you."
"You've been hibernating far too long. We've all been remiss. Let's make this a new start and keep in touch properly from now on. You're always welcome to stay."
Jayne smiled. "I've missed you, Cade. I'm sorry I haven't been there. I know we all promised to see every single one of your performances."
"Well, that was perhaps a promise too far. It's forgiven. But you'll come up and lunch with Aubrey and I. We'll reminisce. Drown ourselves in wine and nostalgia."
The train drew up at the station where Jayne had to change, and they parted ways.