“I don’t see how it can possibly grow,” said Tony. “It’s too cold.”

“It’ll grow,” said Charis, “as long as the buds aren’t out yet:”

“I hope it gets blight,” said Roz. “No, really! She doesn’t deserve a tree.”

Zenia’s ashes were in a sealed metal canister, like a small landmine. Tony was familiar with such canisters, and they depressed her. They did not have the grandeur of coffins. She thought of the people inside them as having been condensed, like condensed milk.

She thought there would be some sprinkling involved, of what the lawyer had referred to as the cremains, but the canister was not opened up and the ashes weren’t sprinkled. (Afterwards—after the service, and after her October-morning egg-cooking as well—Tony had occasion to wonder what had really been in there. Sand, probably, or something disgusting, like dog turds or used condoms. That would have been the sort of gesture Zenia would have made, once, when Tony first knew her.)

They stood around in the fine cold drizzle while the canister was planted, and the mulberry tree on top of it. Earth was tamped down. There were no final words said, no words of dismissal. The drizzle began to freeze, and the men in their overcoats hesitated, then wandered off towards their parked cars.

“I have the uneasy feeling that we’ve left something out,” said Tony, as they walked away.

“Well, there wasn’t any singing,” said Charis.

“So, like what?” said Roz. “A stake through her heart?”

“Maybe what Tony meant was that she was a fellow human being, said Charis.

“Fellow human being, my fat fanny,” said Roz. “If she was a fellow human being, I’m the Queen of England.”

What Tony meant was less benevolent. She was thinking that for thousands of years, when people died—especially powerful people, especially people who were feared—the survivors had gone to a lot of trouble. They’d slit the throats of their best horses; they’d buried slaves and favourite wives alive, they’d poured blood into the earth. It hadn’t been mourning, it had been appeasement. They’d wanted to show their good will, however spurious, because they’d known the spirit of the dead one would be envious of them for still being alive.