studying.
Clare brought her plate over and sat on the armrest next to me. She stuck her hand deep inside her bag and brought out something covered in tissue, cupped gently in her hands. “I thought you’d be the nicest to me,” she said.
I leaned backwards slightly, watching the thing in her hands closely in case it was about to jump up and attach itself to my face. “What’s that?”
She unwrapped the tissue and showed me.
“Shit,” I said.
#
Seven days after my birthday and Alex’s deathday, we gathered in a cold crematorium that smelled oppressively of lavender and saltwater. Music piped out of the walls almost beyond the range of human hearing, producing an effect of uncertainty - a paranoia that perhaps some sort of odourless sedative was being vented into the room along with the music.
The guests unconsciously segregated themselves either side of the aisle into family and friends invited by me and Angela on the right, and friends known only to Jamie, rounded up and scraped into suits on the left. The room’s muffled quiet was punctuated by the brief exchange of sympathetic smiles and surreptitious stares directed at us, the immediate family, checking for signs of devastation.
I stood with Sabine, Angela and Clare in the front row, enjoying the feel of the carved wooden handrail in front of me. I had no uncertainty where my perceptions came from, I was one hundred per cent sure they were born of the quarter of a bottle of malt whiskey I had sipped my way through an hour before. Angela and Clare had gone on ahead to the crematorium while a funeral car with a silent driver took me to pick up my father from the home. We’d waited in the car park while I drank for twenty minutes before calling the reception from my mobile – ten metres away – to ask them to bring Dad out.
My mouth was dry, bitter, and one of my eyes wanted – in an amiable sort of way – to veer slightly to the right and peruse the fake marble pillar there, while the other fixed adamantly on the velvet curtains in front of me.
Clare started crying even before the music got loud enough to provoke the tragic effect it had been composed to convey. A woman in a badly-tailored suit and hair too short for her square face came to stand at the lectern and told us all to sit down. I sighed a full-body sigh and fidgeted on the pew, finding my breathing heavier and noisier than it should be. Someone shut the big double doors at the back of the room, which had somehow been engineered to close in the most respectful way possible: a single modest click. Angela leaned towards my ear, gestured to the empty space next to me and whispered worriedly, “Where’s your dad?”
I swivelled round and swung my eyes over to where my father’s fake hand rested on the very back pew, the rest of him obviously there too, standing as far away from the action as possible and grimacing at the backs of everybody’s heads.
I nodded at him, Angela sent him a supportive smile and we turned back to listen to the service, which was cut short in its prime by someone noticing the fact that the father of the deceased had collapsed, suffering his fourth stroke of the year. Unconsciousness spared him the crunch of his wrist fracturing as he hit the ground.
The two strokes before this one had been so miniscule that he’d gone about his day as normal, albeit with a headache and some blurred vision. Both had occurred in the nursing home – a little less mobility, a little more moodiness, a little further into confusion – bit by bit, each one pushing his brain one notch higher on the stairlift to uselessness.
The first had left him on the kitchen floor of his flat, covered in milk. He must have watched the spilled bottle fill the grout lines of the tiles as he lay there, listening to Angela stack his answer machine with messages.
Later, we watched the CT scanner rings rotate slowly around him and listened to the feedback of a tannoy somewhere in the hospital. The
Clare brought her plate over and sat on the armrest next to me. She stuck her hand deep inside her bag and brought out something covered in tissue, cupped gently in her hands. “I thought you’d be the nicest to me,” she said.
I leaned backwards slightly, watching the thing in her hands closely in case it was about to jump up and attach itself to my face. “What’s that?”
She unwrapped the tissue and showed me.
“Shit,” I said.
#
Seven days after my birthday and Alex’s deathday, we gathered in a cold crematorium that smelled oppressively of lavender and saltwater. Music piped out of the walls almost beyond the range of human hearing, producing an effect of uncertainty - a paranoia that perhaps some sort of odourless sedative was being vented into the room along with the music.
The guests unconsciously segregated themselves either side of the aisle into family and friends invited by me and Angela on the right, and friends known only to Jamie, rounded up and scraped into suits on the left. The room’s muffled quiet was punctuated by the brief exchange of sympathetic smiles and surreptitious stares directed at us, the immediate family, checking for signs of devastation.
I stood with Sabine, Angela and Clare in the front row, enjoying the feel of the carved wooden handrail in front of me. I had no uncertainty where my perceptions came from, I was one hundred per cent sure they were born of the quarter of a bottle of malt whiskey I had sipped my way through an hour before. Angela and Clare had gone on ahead to the crematorium while a funeral car with a silent driver took me to pick up my father from the home. We’d waited in the car park while I drank for twenty minutes before calling the reception from my mobile – ten metres away – to ask them to bring Dad out.
My mouth was dry, bitter, and one of my eyes wanted – in an amiable sort of way – to veer slightly to the right and peruse the fake marble pillar there, while the other fixed adamantly on the velvet curtains in front of me.
Clare started crying even before the music got loud enough to provoke the tragic effect it had been composed to convey. A woman in a badly-tailored suit and hair too short for her square face came to stand at the lectern and told us all to sit down. I sighed a full-body sigh and fidgeted on the pew, finding my breathing heavier and noisier than it should be. Someone shut the big double doors at the back of the room, which had somehow been engineered to close in the most respectful way possible: a single modest click. Angela leaned towards my ear, gestured to the empty space next to me and whispered worriedly, “Where’s your dad?”
I swivelled round and swung my eyes over to where my father’s fake hand rested on the very back pew, the rest of him obviously there too, standing as far away from the action as possible and grimacing at the backs of everybody’s heads.
I nodded at him, Angela sent him a supportive smile and we turned back to listen to the service, which was cut short in its prime by someone noticing the fact that the father of the deceased had collapsed, suffering his fourth stroke of the year. Unconsciousness spared him the crunch of his wrist fracturing as he hit the ground.
The two strokes before this one had been so miniscule that he’d gone about his day as normal, albeit with a headache and some blurred vision. Both had occurred in the nursing home – a little less mobility, a little more moodiness, a little further into confusion – bit by bit, each one pushing his brain one notch higher on the stairlift to uselessness.
The first had left him on the kitchen floor of his flat, covered in milk. He must have watched the spilled bottle fill the grout lines of the tiles as he lay there, listening to Angela stack his answer machine with messages.
Later, we watched the CT scanner rings rotate slowly around him and listened to the feedback of a tannoy somewhere in the hospital. The
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