It’s Granddad, I told Jason. He’s dead. Heart attack. Alison phoned me.
Was it on my birthday? His voice sounded raw.
No, the day after.
Did it take a long time?
No. He had a heart attack in the night and died just after he got to the hospital, she said. The funeral’s the day after tomorrow. They thought it’d take longer to organise. Do you want to come back?
Long silence. On the other end of the phone I heard sunshine and beer and girls and sand. I told him he should do whatever seemed best, and it’d be all right.
You’re going, though, aren’t you?
I’ll go, I said.
Alison had said she wasn’t sure there’d be room for me in the first car, with family. What with her, and Paul, and Mum, and the kids. Don’t worry about that, I said. I’ll take a taxi. Knowing she probably wanted to annoy me didn’t make me less angry. I saw myself walking in, standing at the back, leaving without anyone knowing.
In the end Jason said he’d come back. He got a ticket, but texted to say the train was late getting to London. Alison called right after. She said they’d been thinking (not Mum, not her, they) that it wouldn’t look nice if I arrived alone, so would I come to the house at 9.45 sharp to take the car with them? The kids were going to a neighbour’s house till afterwards. Was Jason coming? I said he was delayed, but on the way. He’d meet us there.
In the car, I sat in near silence. Mum was crying, angrily, and Alison was snivelling. Paul looked distracted, like the rugby was on somewhere. Through the tinted windows I stared at the things we passed. That pub that was always changing landlords and breweries, the Swan. The shop near our house, it used to be called Goblin. Now it was a Londis.
The drive was long. Mum had had her hair set. She looked old, and my first reaction was she’d done it on purpose. At some point I’d stopped noticing them getting older. They’d stuck in my head at forty-five or fifty, and when I saw them afterwards I felt surprised, then put out, as though they were trying to get my sympathy with their wrinkles and their white hair.
Alison had had her hair done too. When did Paul get so fat? His white shirt looked used, like it was his good white shirt. Alison’s outfit seemed new. Sweetheart neckline. I was wearing a black pencil dress and I liked my shoes. I’d got them in the factory shop a while ago. T-bars, with a conical heel. Viviana, if I remember correctly. Well, it’s not every day you go to your dad’s funeral, is it? What I really wanted to ask was if the casket was closed, but there was no one I felt I could ask.
The atmosphere at the crematorium was like a weird film premiere. A crowd was waiting outside, and we pulled up after the hearse and got out, very slowly, not really looking at anyone. I felt curious eyes on me. We filed into the small chapel and sat in the front row. Celebrities.
I couldn’t concentrate. I kept thinking how funny Dad would have found it – he hates churches. The priest talked about bringing him home to God. I thought about the body in the coffin, wearing a suit no doubt. Shoes on his dead feet. That must have been an operation. How many funerals must happen a day, and the schedule, and how they didn’t let you in till it was time for your slot, like the cinema. Did anyone try and sneak a double bill? I thought about everything, except Dad. And I waited for my son to arrive, kicking open the back doors like a cowboy, firing his silver pistol into the ceiling. It didn’t happen. Before long I was following the others as we touched the foot of the coffin, peeped into it. They’d put his glasses on. What was in there had nothing to do with my dad. I kept expecting to see him outside, with a joke and a plan. Then we went out, and walked to the grave. I threw a bit of earth on the coffin along with the rest, and that’s when I started crying.