It was a strange day. We got to the funeral too early. My fault. So we sat in the waiting room – also the room holding the toilets – and watched the comings and goings of the party attached to the funeral before us, including the undertakers managing it all. Formal, rather stiff men in black coats and jackets and striped trousers. One wore a bowler hat. We heard one fart as he peeed.
He told me that his father had died soon after sicking up some dark, viscous matter. He wondered if it had been the five bars of chocolate he’d left in his care home drawer. He mentioned this to the paramedic. No, it was it cancer. He checked anyway and yes, the drawer was empty. He didn’t push the point. Yesterday he placed a bar of Cadburys on his coffin. Will it go in fire with him?
She was under when we arrived. Her beautiful blue eyes hidden, closed-up. She appeared to be trying to pull herself out of the sleep that the two syringe drivers had put her in. Morphia, keeping her under, giving her hallucinations and anxiety. She has to have it, else the pain would be unbearable. Neither of us recognised her. She is an old woman now. Though she is not and never will be. He sits by her bed, keeping vigil. He wears white. An angel, seeing another angel on her way (and not wanting to). Poor love. Poor loves. The son too, so polite, so warm, so uncomplicatedly good. All of them. I am awe of their love. I weep for them. And shouldn’t have done.
