They wore black. Ewan’s parents had asked people to wear bright colours, spring colours, his favourite season they said, but the four of them wore black. They did it because Will said it was only right, they were his best friends. They did it to stand out and to stick together. They did it because Ewan’s mum was wrong. Spring was back to school and compulsory PE and heading for summer, which Ewan, pale-skinned and more bored with every year, had enjoyed even less. Those fancy family holidays where his parents fought most evenings and pretended to be happy most days, the too-hot beaches and the warm south European water. Ewan had thought Blackpool sounded great, Scarborough might be good. But he’d never been to either, his parents insisted on Abroad. Ewan had really liked winter, just as he liked rain and dark, serious, moody boy-music. He liked black and dark grey and polo neck jerseys and long-sleeved shirts and thick dark socks. His favourite outfit was his dead grandfather’s black suit. He’d been hoping to grow into it. And his mother was his mother, and she was really upset, and the Stirlings had every right to ask whatever the fuck they wanted – Will was very clear about that as well – but she was wrong about spring, they were wearing black. Besides that, it was spring now. Not so good then, was it? In the end Mrs Stirling wore black too. When she tried to put on the pale blue skirt and jacket she’d bought specially for the morning, the softness of the colour made her shake. Pale blue, baby blue, little boy blue.
The weather was overcast, a touch too muggy to have pleased Ewan particularly, but at least it wasn’t sunny. Will said that was OK. Andrea still wasn’t talking much, she let her makeup speak for her. Four thick dark lines sweeping across her upper and lower lids, light mascara, pale face, no blusher, no lipstick. It was a good look. A tight, drawn, cold look. Andrea was feeling pretty cold. Will wouldn’t hold her, refused to kiss her, pushed her away the night before even when she tried to offer him a blowjob. Andrea didn’t understand and Will couldn’t explain. They met at Sally’s house and walked the five hundred yards to the church. No one cried. Not then. Crying would have made it too real. Sally’s mother wanted to shake her daughter, wrench the tears out. She’d said the day before that if Sally didn’t let it out she’d make herself sick. Sally was sick, it didn’t make it any better. She and Andrea both reckoned they’d lost half a stone between the fall and the funeral.
Ewan’s mum and his big sister, step-sister, were greeting people at the door. His dad was already inside, talking to the vicar, sorting things out. Ewan’s mum smiled when they walked up. These were Ewan’s friends. His best friends. She liked that they were in black, had defied her ruling. She liked that they still had spirit. Mrs Stirling hoped Ewan still had spirit, but didn’t know for sure. She kissed them all, and then his step-sister Emma did too. Because her mother told her to, because apparently it was what she was supposed to do, stand at the door of a church she’d only ever been to half a dozen times before, waiting for the car that was bringing her little brother in a cherry-wood coffin that seemed way too big for him.
There were a lot of people to get in, loads of kids from school, kids who hardly even knew Ewan, Daniel reckoned, they just wanted a morning off, and a bunch of parents too. Will’s dad came, Daniel and Sally’s mothers, one or two teachers, no doubt sent to check that everyone who’d said they were going to the funeral really had gone. Eventually the vicar – who Daniel said was a priest, Sally didn’t know what the difference was – asked them all to stand and the family walked up the aisle behind Ewan’s coffin. Sally had never been into this church. Her own mum went to church a bit more than Ewan’s family; Sally went with her every now and then, but her mum’s church was plainer, cooler. White walls, clear windows, and the ceiling was lower – this one went too far up. And there was so much happening, stained glass windows, statues and over-full vases, pollen and incense. This church had too much going on. The church Sally went to didn’t have a dead Jesus either, up there on his cross, broken and bloody and bent. Given the circumstances, it was a fairly insensitive pose.
The priest said nice things, wrong things, things Ewan’s family probably wanted to hear. About him being good at school and a popular student and having some special friends – he looked at them when he said that and Andrea started crying. He said about Ewan wanting to be a doctor, except that he said Ewan wanted to be a GP like his father and even Ewan’s dad knew that wasn’t really true. But Dr Stirling was happy to hear it, happy for other people to hear it. Emma talked about her little brother, told some stories about when she was small and he was just new. Her voice shaking, biting her lip at the end of each careful sentence so she didn’t start crying. Not yet, not until after the good words. His uncle did a reading. Then the priest came back and talked some more about mysterious ways and many rooms. Sally had heard these stories before and she thought how lucky the priest was that he got to say things people already knew, words they’d learned in RE or had heard in other churches. Already knowing them made the words sound comforting, like they might be real. And then he commended Ewan’s body to God. Sally hoped there was a God. Hoped Ewan got to keep going. She wasn’t sure though.
They didn’t go back to the house and they didn’t go for a drink later that evening with some of the other kids from their class, they didn’t go back to any of their own places either. They went off, separately, one by one. Andrea asked Will to come back to hers but he said no. He went home with his dad. None of them ever talked about the funeral.
That evening, in bed, Sally remembered how the priest had also kept saying Ewan was a pure soul. He’d said it a couple of times. She figured he meant Ewan was a virgin. And that perhaps his parents had wanted him to say so, to let people know. But then she also wondered about that, because when they were leaving, saying goodbye, trying to avoid Ewan’s mum and dad, she’d heard Emma crying to her mate, about the things Ewan didn’t get to do. The things he hadn’t done yet and now wasn’t ever going to do, and how terrible that was. Sally wondered if she should have told them. That Ewan had said all along he wasn’t a virgin, had told them all about that girl in France, but even if he’d been lying about her – and Sally thought maybe he had been lying, maybe he would have been more in control yesterday if the French girl had really happened – but anyway, he wasn’t a virgin now, definitely not. So he had done that, and it had been OK. Sally thought it had been OK, good enough, better than what her sister had said. It had been all right. For him. And for her. So they didn’t need to mind about that, maybe he was a pure soul. Sally didn’t know what it took to have a pure soul, but Ewan wasn’t a virgin, he had done that. Maybe it was one thing they didn’t need to mind so much. But Sally didn’t say anything. Just in case. In case they didn’t want to know. Or in case they asked for her to tell them more.