The men’s ties appear tighter than usual, as I look along the pews either side of me. I wonder if at the thought of a funeral, they subconsciously pulled them tight as they dressed this morning, like a noose. And what crisp outlines these black clothes give us - the men and women – like sharp shadows on a clear winter’s day. Uniform shadows arranged in ranks; some come to mourn, others to judge; listening as the vicar attempts to draw an outline of the deceased. Better to give us all a can of white spray paint and let us draw our own outlines on the ground, like they do for murder victims in TV cop shows, arms and legs akimbo. This was how he fell; this was his shape; how he appeared to me.

And we would all draw different shapes! I would zoom in from Saturn and say ‘this is how appeared to me’; and then my mother would fly in from Alpha Centauri and say ‘No! He was like this:’ And people from all over this distant universe would congregate and paint onto cold flags-stones, until there was just an abstract mess of lines, that only provoked confusion and anger.

So for now we let the vicar do his job: this cracked vessel for God’s Power and Glory. Like a novice sculptor, he chips away at a lump of rock, looking to the audience for validation:

‘Have I got his nose right?’ he asks.

‘Too big!’ someone shouts from the back.

‘Well it will have to do,’ he huffs, and stops chiselling. We all stare at the lump of rock, bemused. ‘That’s not him!’ we think.

My throat aches from the tension. I’m determined not to cry. I know its fashionable these days to let it all out, but that’s not my style - although I know people are watching me closely, hoping for a display. God – how people love to wallow in it all! Maybe I should put on an act for them – really let rip. Throw my self on the coffin, beating it with my fists and eating the spray of lilies – or even more dramatic, wait ‘til the burial and throw my self into the grave. But no, I shall just sit quietly and try not to look at the coffin, or anyone else crying, because that will set me off.

Now the vicar dishes out the usual stock of slogans and catchphrases:

‘The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall no want…..’

‘A Mars a day help you work rest and play,’ I mutter.

‘He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters…..’

‘Norfolk Broads,’ I think, ‘Ho-Seasons boating holidays.’

‘He restoreth my soul….’

‘Heineken perhaps?

‘Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies….’

‘Christmas dinners - Bernard Matthew’s turkeys. Bootiful’


I stifle a snigger and a mourner looks across at me angrily.

I’m glad it’s a cold day; funerals don’t seem right in hot weather - they’re best served chilled. I wish it was frosty outside. I once went to a frosty funeral – it really added to the theatre of it all. Most of all I remember the women’s shoes: my Aunt stepping from a limo, black patent leather onto frosted grass. Then later her shoes again, and her daughter’s, beside the grave – her niece too: three pairs of black shoes, beaded with dew and the grass all silver around them….

I’d like to watch frost forming – see the moisture in the air forming dew; droplets becoming heavy and falling to the ground; droplets freezing on a blade of grass – time in suspension until the sun comes up. A low winter sun casts long shadows as men walk across this silver carpet, coffin held aloft on shoulders, leaving footprints of green. They commit their brother to the ground, and then walk away; following the newly-trod trail.

The sun climbs high. The frost melts….

Burial or cremation, people often ask each other. Cremation for me – seems more hygienic. I don’t like to think of my body slowly rotting in the ground. When I visit a cemetery I always wonder what state of decomposition people are in – especially if it’s a recent burial. Then I think wouldn’t it be awful to be a policeman or pathologist and have to exhume a body. With cremation it’s just ash – no going back - no chance of someone digging you up and cutting your head open.
 
‘Too late, Inspector! We opened the urn and scattered his ashes on the wind.’

‘To the four corners of the earth!’ the crowd shout, backing my story.

‘Oh the poetry – the symbolism,’ cries the Inspector, tearing his clothes off and rolling around in the mud. ‘I am that corpse!’ he cries and kisses me upon the lips, cold and earthy. But then he feels foolish and offers no protest as the men in green jump-suits wrap a grey blanket around him, helping him into an ambulance.

‘No more press conferences for you, Matey,’ I think, as they close the doors.

And now the coffin is being lifted onto shoulders, and everyone secretly holds their breath in case it is dropped. Would it bust open if it was dropped? A cheap coffin probably would. What would we all do? Would we rush over to help, as we do when a pensioner drops her purse and coins roll about the supermarket floor? But to lift a dead body? And what if it was a victim of a horrid accident? – perhaps a severed leg placed in the coffin – so that it has both legs, ready for the after-life. Mind you, if someone severs a leg does the undertaker sew it back on? Can you sew a leg on? Or does it have to be nailed, or stuck with gaffer tape?

Death throws up so many predicaments. I read somewhere that bereaved people often want to make love at the height of their grief. I wonder if this is true? Maybe a widow at some time has grabbed one of the pall-bearers and dragged him into the back of a Daimler; making love with tears in her eyes, snot on her veil,  little black hat all askew. Well, they do call the orgasm The Little Death; maybe it’s a way of dying for a moment, of getting closer to the deceased.

There’s a funny smell now – I can see other people’s noses twitching. I think it’s that old woman over there – she’s blushing and looks embarrassed; probably told herself that you should always go to funerals on a Full English, as it can be a long day. But now all that food is fermenting in her gut, because she forgot how uptight she gets at these occasions. Silly cow! Serves her right. I lean over and whisper to one of the ushers, informing him of the source of the smell. He looks at the old woman and wrinkles his nose.

‘OUT!’ he shouts. She blushes and gets up, shuffles along the pew, trying not to tread on peoples feet. A child holds his nose and tells his mother that the old woman smells of shit. ‘SSSSH’ hisses the mother.

This doesn’t really happen – well not the usher bit – but the fart happened. I made the rest up because I’m bored and the vicar is droning on and might as well be speaking in tongues for all the sense he’s making.

I’ll encapsulate the rest of the day for you, because you’re probably sick of the sound of me waffling on anyway. Oh yeh, you’re smiling and occasionally looking out of the window, or nibbling on sausage roll, but essentially you’re bored and I’ve had one too many and don’t know when to stop. So, just raise your fist – go on - punch me full in the jaw. Watch me fall over the back of the settee and knock the peanuts off the coffee-table. Feel better do you? I should bloody well hope so.

Anyhow, here’s the rest of the day:

Coffin conveyed safely to grave.
Lots of milling about,waiting for vicar to get his shit together
Gravediggers skulking about in the shrubbery, smoking and waiting.
‘Ashes to ashes; dust to dust’ – pure poetry
Handfuls of dirt  
Crying – lots of it.
No sex - not that I could see anyway.

Back to the wake and the carrion feast.
Too much Hock - acid stomach - puked.
I bored the tits off you.
You bored the tits off me.
We all bored the tits off each other.
Kids played up like kids always do.
The sun came out; everyone in the garden.
Uncle pissed on the rose-bed;
Had to, he said: women hogging the bog.

It got dark.
It got cold.
You left
They left
I left

She, was left alone.

And on a hillside a mound of earth began to settle:

A final exhalation.