waded through the swamp of bureaucracy with the help of the solicitor who had been recommended by the local authority. My memory of it is hazy because of what I suppose must have been my confused mental state, and anyway it all feels like a very long time ago.
There was no clarity before the funeral, which was another thing that seemed to happen more or less on autopilot; only later did I learn that Harriet and her parents had made most of the arrangements. I had never met Harriet’s mother and father before this, and I recall that it was a revelation to me to learn on the day before the funeral that they had returned from Singapore, where her dad had recently takenup another new job with the embassy. There seemed at the time to be nothing memorable about them, or perhaps they simply faded into the background of the fog I was groping my way through. I had no reason to believe that I would get to know them both so much more fully later on. When in the following weeks it occurred to me to ask questions such as “Who chose the coffins?” the answer was invariably “You did” – but I can say with certainty that I had and still have no recall of having done so.
My memory of the funeral feels exactly as it would if I had seen it in a film rather than attended it myself. I have a series of ill-defined images of haggard-looking people traipsing past me, all of their faces a slight variation on a theme. I saw the many anxious glances in the direction of Roger. People are afraid of the unknown and, as no one was fully aware of the extent and type of the problem with Roger, no one knew quite what to expect of him on an occasion such as this. Did he “get it”? Did he know what was going on? Would he embarrass us all at the service itself?
My dad had one brother, Uncle Jim, and my mum had one sister, Margaret, neither of whom had been around Roger and me much for our entire lives, and both of whom attended the funeral with their spouses. Both Uncle Jim and Aunt Margaret did the “anything we can do” routine, but in a manner which positively pleaded for there to be nothing.
I must have been responsible for choosing the music, because the order of service lists a lot of my parents’ favouritepieces. All this was long before the days when anything goes at funerals, but I had asked Roger if there was a particular tune which he would like to have played as we said goodbye to the people who had brought us up and taken care of us for all these years. He thought for a moment and then said “What about ‘I Do Like to Be beside the Seaside’?” My reaction was to smile, and I was about the find a kindly way to say that that wouldn’t be appropriate, when Harriet interrupted.
“What a lovely idea,” she said, and reminded me that I had told her it was a song we had sung in the back of the car when, as kids, we used to head off to the coast on picnics. “It’s a lovely way to remember some of the happy times that you and Roger had with them.” And so it was that, after a couple of mawkish pieces by Mozart and Handel, the tiny chapel was filled to the rafters with the uninhibited sound of Reginald Dixon on the mighty Wurlitzer. After some audible gasps of surprise from the mourners, traces of smiles began to spread across hitherto grim faces, and the simple significance of the song lightened the load.
“Well done, Roger,” I said, and put my arm around him. Roger shrugged his shoulders but smiled anyway. The poor fucker didn’t have a clue what I was getting sentimental about.
The police had the sensitivity to wait until a few days after the funeral before the questioning began. Two detectives, both men, came to the flat while Roger was away at the day centre. One was a “DS”, who introduced himself as Detective Sergeant Peter Wallace. The other a “DC”, DetectiveConstable Steve Pascoe. They explained that in a case such as this one, where the cause of the fire was undetermined, they were obliged to make
There was no clarity before the funeral, which was another thing that seemed to happen more or less on autopilot; only later did I learn that Harriet and her parents had made most of the arrangements. I had never met Harriet’s mother and father before this, and I recall that it was a revelation to me to learn on the day before the funeral that they had returned from Singapore, where her dad had recently takenup another new job with the embassy. There seemed at the time to be nothing memorable about them, or perhaps they simply faded into the background of the fog I was groping my way through. I had no reason to believe that I would get to know them both so much more fully later on. When in the following weeks it occurred to me to ask questions such as “Who chose the coffins?” the answer was invariably “You did” – but I can say with certainty that I had and still have no recall of having done so.
My memory of the funeral feels exactly as it would if I had seen it in a film rather than attended it myself. I have a series of ill-defined images of haggard-looking people traipsing past me, all of their faces a slight variation on a theme. I saw the many anxious glances in the direction of Roger. People are afraid of the unknown and, as no one was fully aware of the extent and type of the problem with Roger, no one knew quite what to expect of him on an occasion such as this. Did he “get it”? Did he know what was going on? Would he embarrass us all at the service itself?
My dad had one brother, Uncle Jim, and my mum had one sister, Margaret, neither of whom had been around Roger and me much for our entire lives, and both of whom attended the funeral with their spouses. Both Uncle Jim and Aunt Margaret did the “anything we can do” routine, but in a manner which positively pleaded for there to be nothing.
I must have been responsible for choosing the music, because the order of service lists a lot of my parents’ favouritepieces. All this was long before the days when anything goes at funerals, but I had asked Roger if there was a particular tune which he would like to have played as we said goodbye to the people who had brought us up and taken care of us for all these years. He thought for a moment and then said “What about ‘I Do Like to Be beside the Seaside’?” My reaction was to smile, and I was about the find a kindly way to say that that wouldn’t be appropriate, when Harriet interrupted.
“What a lovely idea,” she said, and reminded me that I had told her it was a song we had sung in the back of the car when, as kids, we used to head off to the coast on picnics. “It’s a lovely way to remember some of the happy times that you and Roger had with them.” And so it was that, after a couple of mawkish pieces by Mozart and Handel, the tiny chapel was filled to the rafters with the uninhibited sound of Reginald Dixon on the mighty Wurlitzer. After some audible gasps of surprise from the mourners, traces of smiles began to spread across hitherto grim faces, and the simple significance of the song lightened the load.
“Well done, Roger,” I said, and put my arm around him. Roger shrugged his shoulders but smiled anyway. The poor fucker didn’t have a clue what I was getting sentimental about.
The police had the sensitivity to wait until a few days after the funeral before the questioning began. Two detectives, both men, came to the flat while Roger was away at the day centre. One was a “DS”, who introduced himself as Detective Sergeant Peter Wallace. The other a “DC”, DetectiveConstable Steve Pascoe. They explained that in a case such as this one, where the cause of the fire was undetermined, they were obliged to make
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