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dream they held hands waiting for the train together. He’d woken up crying but soon sank back into the numbness that endured throughout the funeral arrangements. He’d left most of the details to her parents. His mother-in-law seemed to think the choice of flowers was far more important than he ever could. Her parents didn’t seem to know about the separation, and, from the way most of the people there were looking at him, he didn’t think they did either. At least she’d been discreet about it. But that was Leanne: professional to the last. She wouldn’t have taken all her problems to work with her. She just left them behind in Bath.
    He took care not to look at Neugent and faced forwards again, unable to stop his gaze drifting towards the coffin. Sam could still feel the pressure of it on his shoulder. He wondered if his skin would ever forget the feeling of carrying his dead wife in a heavy box. He tried to imagine her body lying inside it, cut and stitched up again. He could just as easily imagine it filled with sand or with dozens of dolls or old mobile phones. Each set of imagined contents became more fantastical; all lacked any emotional impact.
    The worry that Lord Poppy would do something to wreck it all or pull him away plagued him, but he hadn’t heard from him or the faerie since he delivered Cathy’s painting. Perhaps Poppy had forgotten about him.
    “She was so young,” his mother-in-law said.
    She was sat next to him and Leanne’s father was sitting on the other side with an arm around her. He too was staring at the coffin. Sam realised it was the longest time he’d actually sat with Leanne’s parents. He’d barely made an impression in their life. His parents were in Australia. They’d offered to come but he told them not to worry about it. They’d never liked Leanne. It would have been awkward. His mum would only have baked two dozen cakes and urged him to talk about his feelings every five minutes. He didn’t have the stomach for either, nor for the way his father would have wittered on about his stamp collection to anyone he could corner.
    Leanne’s mother glanced at him, perhaps waiting for a response to her comment but Sam said nothing. There were no words in him.
    They shared the front row with the pallbearers. Aside from him and her father they were made up of cousins and uncles, some of whom he’d never met. They weren’t a close family and many of them hadn’t even been to the wedding. He was sitting in a room full of strangers at his wife’s funeral. As he tried to look anywhere but at the coffin he caught glimpses of people trying to point him out discreetly during whispered conversations. It made him feel like an exhibit at some grotesque circus.
    The man from the crematorium started the ceremony. It was non-religious, according to Leanne’s wishes, and bland. He finally stopped worrying that Poppy would find some way to interfere with it.
    Then it was his turn to speak. The paper was crumpled and soft in his hand. He couldn’t even remember what he’d written on it. Sam walked up to the podium, decorated with flowers lovingly chosen by another woman he didn’t really know, and looked out over the congregation. Lord Iron was sitting at the back, looking straight at him. He inclined his head towards Sam. What do you want with me? Sam pushed the thought aside and looked down at the paper.
    “Thank you for coming,” he started. His voice was too quiet and he leaned closer to the microphone. “I’m Sam, Leanne’s husband. I don’t know many of you, I’m assuming you know Leanne from work. She was… very dedicated and ambitious. In many ways you could say she was the exact opposite to me.” His awkward smile was reflected back at him from dozens of faces. “It didn’t used to be that way. In university we were… happy.” He felt a crackle in his voice and looked back down at the piece of paper but it was covered in gibberish. “Something changed. I suppose