A Funeral in Fiesole by Rosanne Dingli Page A

overlooking the lane leading down to the street. It was covered with creepers and weeds. Light from street lamps below helped my eyes adjust to something more than darkness.
    Revelations were the order of the day. First it was Suzanna turning up in a designer batwing outfit in deepest black, accessorized with brilliant red shoes. Mama would have loved her for it, even if it was less defiance or thumbing her nose at Italian convention than a stand for attention, but all eyes went to Suzanna’s feet. Why I kept thinking of those red shoes was not clear. It was more envy than annoyance. She carried it off.
    It was the first time I saw my nephew Tad during the weekend. I did hear his voice, though. He stood at the back of the church in a too-small threadbare school blazer, combing a nervous hand through his hair several times during the service. He disappeared soon afterwards and was absent at the reception, where we all were served tea and delicate English sandwiches, which some Italian guests regarded a bit curiously. Suzanna observed there might be a few Italian funerals adopting the strange catering after today. It was all about trends, she said. She should know, being such an entrepreneuse.
    My reading, and hers, went well. I read first, and when I listened to Suzanna, felt disappointed in my voice, my lack of elegance, and the altogether awkward figure I presented. It was partly to do with my mood, I suppose, my preoccupation about John, and my fear grief would overwhelm me in the middle of a sentence.
    Well, whether he ever existed or not, whether I believed in him or not, it was not my wall god Neptune, but Saint Paul, who was by my side as I read his letter to the Thessalonians, and I did not miss a word or mumble, or have to take a sentence from the beginning. It was when I stopped wondering why Mama had chosen the reading. It was the bit about church traditions, and without a doubt the mention of work ethics. Traditions, traditions – she held them, broke them, respected them, felt they were like anchors in her life.
    I was quite cool in the end, and looked up to see a blur of faces in front of me. The group was intimate, with only a few people there. I was surprised to see our old neighbours from Cornwall, the Edisons, who talked a great deal to Nigel and Harriet outside afterwards. Nigel said later they were staying in Florence and might pop up to the house in a day or two.
    To my utter surprise, Nigel read a long piece from one of my books, which he translated himself into Italian. It was not a great success in my opinion, but seemed well received, and I felt it satisfied him in some weird way, which was, I supposed, the main use for funerals apart from celebrating the life of the departed, and furnishing some sort of elegant, human conclusion to a life.
    Brod surprised me by faltering during his reading. He had to swallow hard and found it difficult to go on. The silence in the space when he paused was not embarrassing, but endearing. He surveyed the scene and seemed to take in the lilies, the candles, and everything he found – because we were all so unused to churches – a bit startling and awkward.  I think he too felt the sympathy awash in the church for him. His high voice was a touch too loud, but much more contained and more muted when he continued, and I felt for Grant, in the row of seats behind me, who felt as though he held his breath the entire time Brod was reading.
    Why Harriet wore such a drab coat and a French beret was beyond me. It was as if she went out of her way to make herself dull and dreary, in Suzanna’s words. She didn’t wear her usual lipstick, either, and went for a shade that blurred the outline of her lips to a wine-coloured smudge.
    It was a grey day and we all wore grey and black. If not for the splash of Suzanna’s red shoes, it was bleak and cold and grey, grey, grey; until Lori played her cello, which gave the proceedings a bit of a lift. Harriet had passed around cards