Thursday, the day before his mum’s funeral, Joe-Nathan was solemn. He gave the day the notice it deserved. It would be understandable to anyone that a person would give reverence to the day they buried a parent; it was undoubtedly a singular day. Only one day in a person’s life could be referred to as ‘the day my mum died’ or ‘the day of my mum’s funeral’. But likewise, Joe was aware that there was also only one day that could ever be ‘the day before my mum’s funeral’; Joe wanted to pay attention to that too. For the same reason, he also liked to pay attention to exact times on the clock. Clock times such as 2.45 and 5.15 were given far too much attention, people were always rounding up or rounding down to the nearest five. Joe felt sorry for the 4.44s and the 9.03s, and was true to them whenever he could be. He simply could not understand why the times between the other times were any less significant than those divisible by five.
Work that day (the day before Janet’s funeral) at The Compass was quiet and straightforward: no confusing conversations, no fights or questions and no laughing that sounded like it came from an unhappy place. There was stacking and go-backs and some mopping of spilled lemonade, then lunch and other jobs that Joe felt completely at ease with. He was at the satisfying stage of making a pyramid display out of cans, when one of them dropped. He picked it up and turned it, observing the new dent, and he was reminded of the crumpled beer cans next to the sofa in Charlie’s front yard. Then Charlie came sharply to his mind. Joe looked at the store clock: 3.37 p.m. Charlie would normally be here, and he wasn’t; he was at home. Or perhaps he was somewhere else. But he was not here, and he should be here. Joe’s palms began to sweat; he wiped them on his jogging bottoms. Once again, he found it hard to swallow. He pictured himself pushing a go-back trolley with Charlie inside it, he imagined pushing it from Charlie’s house to The Compass Store, where Charlie belonged – right now – at this time between times not divisible by five. Joe felt uncomfortable, something like when the arnica cream was left by Charlie’s front door and Joe felt compelled to rescue it; he felt the same way about Charlie, only it was worse. Much worse. Maybe because Charlie was bigger. No, that couldn’t be right, Joe thought. It wasn’t because Charlie was bigger than the tube of arnica. It was because he cared more about Charlie. Joe remembered the section on friends that he’d read in his mum’s yellow book, and realised that even if Charlie did not think of Joe as a friend, Joe thought of Charlie as his.
FRIENDS
Friends are so important in our lives, and as with so many things that involve people, there are not always hard and fast rules. Friends are people, and people are all different, which means friends come in all shapes and sizes, and ages and personalities. You may think of some friends as more important than others. Some people have a best friend, but not everyone does. Friends can fall out or argue, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the friendship is over. Sometimes after a fight you simply need to say, ‘I regret that we fell out’. Sometimes, it’s more complicated than that. Much of the time, things may seem very easy with friends; other times, you may feel you need them more than usual. If you need help from a friend, ask them for help. Sometimes friends will need to lean on you more than usual. Friends will sometimes ask you for help (always help them) and sometimes they will only give you clues that they need help. Now and then you may just get a feeling that something is wrong with a friend, and when that happens, in my opinion, you should investigate – ask them more than once if they’re okay, if they need help. Sometimes you just have to leave friends alone because maybe they don’t want to be helped, and I don’t know why that is, but it happens now and then.
It may be that occasionally you’re not sure whether you can trust that someone is your friend. A lot of this you can work out by looking at how they behave towards you, the way they speak to you, and the way that they look out for you. But it isn’t always simple.
So, as I say, there are no hard and fast rules, but I am quite old and I’ve had a few friends in my life. I have even lost a few.
In my experience, the following is usually true about friends:
- Friends love you for who you are. They appreciate your differences, even if they don’t understand them.
- Friends will be there for you when you are in trouble, or upset.
- Friends will support you in your dreams and ambitions.
- Friends will tell you the truth, even if it hurts to hear it, because it is better to hear the truth from a friend than someone else.
- Friends have your back. They are always on your side..
- Friends keep your secrets. And you should keep your friends’ secrets. However, I believe there are some circumstances when a friend’s secret is dangerous and requires you to find help for them and you might have to tell someone in order to get that help. I’m afraid you will just have to work out for yourself when that is the case. But as a general rule of thumb, friends keep your secrets safe.
- Friends make time for you.
- Friends are always there for a shoulder to cry on.
- Friends make you feel better about yourself.
- Friends sometimes make mistakes (and sometimes you will). Sometimes you may need to forgive your friends (and one day, you may need them to forgive you).
Joe wasn’t sure how the rules of friends worked if only one person out of the two wanted to be friends. But his mum had said there were no hard and fast rules. And out of the ten general rules of thumb, Joe could say he was a friend to Mean Charlie on five points, and Mean Charlie was a friend to him on two. So, there was work to do, but by the end of the day known as ‘the day before his mum’s funeral’, Joe was determined to be a friend to Charlie on six points of the Friends’ rules of thumb, and not just five.