I remember how happy Mum looked, too. She didn’t stop smiling all day – laughing and joking with friends of mine she hadn’t seen for years. At the end of the night, once Harv’s drum ’n’ bass onslaught was over, we danced together tipsily to one of her favourite songs – an old doo-wop track called ‘Life Could Be a Dream’ – and when it finished, she clasped me by the shoulders and told me, ‘I’m so proud of you, love.’ The memory bites so hard that I have to physically shake my head to remove it. I can’t let myself break down before I even get into the church.
We’re nearly there now: the car is purring slowly down the high street. Every single shop window is screaming with Christmas decorations: manic grinning elves and jolly potbellied Santas. I remember noticing this stuff first time around, too, and thinking how jarring it all seemed. It just didn’t make any sense to be surrounded by brightness and festivity on such a miserable, desperate day.
Finally, the car slows and comes to a stop. Up front, Simon takes a deep breath and meets my eyes in the rear-view mirror.
‘Here we are then,’ he says.
The funeral is taking place at the little church a few streets over from Mum’s house in Acton – a church that Mum and I had never even been into before today.
My stomach is churning and my throat is parched. I’m desperate to just get inside and get it over with, but there’s already a little crowd of people gathered by the church door. They’re family members, mostly, and a few of Mum’s friends too. They move towards me one by one, and I let them take my hand and tell me they’re sorry, or pull me into tight, breathless hugs. I let this weird, pointless procession of tears and apologies play out in front of me as if I’m not even part of it; just a spectator, watching from behind a screen.
Then, with a jolt of surprise, I spot Harv through the crowd. I’d totally forgotten he would be here. He’s standing by the big wooden door, hands jammed in the pockets of his suit jacket, looking uncharacteristically awkward and shy. He was away on holiday when Mum died, and even though we spoke briefly on the phone, this was the first time I’d actually seen him since it happened.
He’s changed a lot since 2010. The weight has dropped off him, and his face is all cheekbones and laughter lines. He looks like present-day Harv again. He catches my eye for a split second, then sort of grimaces and looks away. He clearly doesn’t know how to react, or what to say, and I can’t really blame him. There are no guidelines for this kind of situation. I don’t think either of us ever imagined we’d have to help the other through a day like this.
Our friendship – like most male friendships – has been built primarily on ripping the piss out of each other. For more than a decade, it has been nothing but banter and trivia and talking bollocks. And now, suddenly, Harv is standing outside a church, waiting for my mum’s coffin to be lowered into the ground, and trying to figure out what the hell he should say to me. I watch him squirming on the spot, wrinkling and unwrinkling his brow, and feel an intense rush of affection for him. Because despite everything, he’s still here for me. He’s always been here.
I walk towards him and he yanks his hands out of his pockets and wrings them together. He stares down at the ground, shaking his head and muttering, ‘Mate … Fuck … I just … Fuck …’ like a malfunctioning foul-mouthed robot.
And then, almost violently, he pulls me towards him and hugs me. This must have happened last time, but like everything else, I suppose I blocked it out. I hug him back, and feel the tears start to prickle in my eyes.
‘I’m so fucking sorry, man,’ he whispers. ‘I’m just … so, so sorry.’
And then he sniffs loudly and lets me go, shoving his hands back into his pockets again, and not quite meeting my eye.
When it’s finally time to go in and sit down, I take the exact same seat in the middle of the dark brown pew at the front.
Daff sits on one side of me, her hand clamped tightly in mine. Simon and Chrissie and my cousins sit on the other side, taking it in turns to shoot me sad, concerned glances.
It’s strange, once the service starts, the things I notice that I didn’t first time round. Originally I blanked out everything the vicar was saying; my brain was just white noise as I stared at the coffin behind him. But this time I find myself listening closely to his every word. Mum wasn’t in the least bit religious, so to hear him talking so earnestly about how she is ‘with God now’ just makes me angry. Because what kind of God decides to randomly rupture an aneurysm in the brain of a fifty-eight-year-old woman as she’s walking home from Tesco on a Monday afternoon?
I’m suddenly struck by the image of her falling – what she must have looked like laid out in the middle of the high street. I feel Daff pull me towards her, because all my steel and self-control is faltering now, and I’m starting to gulp and heave. Hot, salty tears are running down my face and I can feel Daff’s whole body shaking as she kisses my soaking cheek and whispers, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK.’
But it’s not OK. I am so angry, and I don’t know if I will ever not be. I am angry about what happened to Mum. I am angry at the injustice of it. I am angry at my dad for leaving us, for not giving a shit about us, for not even bothering to show his face today. But I am also angry at myself, for the terrible things I said to Mum before she died, which I’ve never told anyone about. And it’s so tiring being angry all the time, and not knowing if it will ever end.
Uncle Simon is at the podium now, telling everyone that I’ll be coming up to read a poem, and for one awful second, I think the tears will completely overwhelm me.
But then Daff grips my hand tightly, and presses her forehead against mine and whispers, ‘I love you.’ And somehow, I find that I’m in control again. Just.
Simon looks over at me, his brow furrowed with concern. But Daff gives my hand one more squeeze, and I think: I can do this. If I know she’s here, I can do it.
The walk to the podium feels like a hundred miles. The only sound in the church is my echoing footsteps. I look out at the sea of gloomy faces, but the only one I focus on is Daphne’s. I feel unsteady on my feet, and my stomach is roiling like crazy, but slowly, I start speaking.
‘I wanted to read one of Mum’s favourite poems,’ I say into the microphone. ‘It’s called “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman. Mum was always on at me to read it when I was younger. She was always on at me to read a lot of things but, being a typical moody teenager, I never listened to her. And then, a week ago, Simon and I were going through stuff at her house, and I spotted this on one of her bookshelves.’ I take the tatty Walt Whitman paperback out of my pocket and hold it up. ‘It’s not exactly in great condition, as you can see. And as everyone here will probably know, that’s typical for one of Mum’s books. Pretty much every book she ever owned has a cracked spine and dog-eared pages and is full of scribbled notes in the margins. She was proud of that. She used to say to me: “That’s how you know they’ve been properly read.”’
There’s a warm ripple of laughter at this, and for a moment it drowns out all the sobs and sniffs. I keep going.
‘A week ago I finally read this poem, and I can see that I should have listened to her all along. Because she was right: it’s brilliant. She was always right, really … about everything.’ I feel myself starting to falter, and I have to grip both sides of the podium. ‘I’m not going to read the whole thing, because it’s far too long. But the last stanza was where Mum had done most of her underlining and scribbling, so I thought I’d read that. So, here goes.’