Monday, March 08, 2004

The funeral: Friday, March the Fifth.

The funeral went as well as can be expected. The weather stayed fair. I drove my mum and Nur there, the vast fields of graves in Henley road cemetery. It was a busy day: funerals were being stacked in a holding pattern, and groups of mourners shuffled in one end of the chapel, out the other, and gawped at the floral tributes belonging to each of their dead. My relatives arrived carload by carload; Darren and Dean, Julie & Archie, Belinda & Julie, Jim, James, Mick, Lisa and Gary, Sophie, Vicki, Samantha; My dad�s cousins and other distant relations, the Gallantry diaspora; Plus various friends of my grandfather and our family. The hearse waited in line, then pulled up in front of the chapel, followed by a limousine carrying dad, Nan, and Aunts Penny, Sue and Julie. A respectful silence, punctuated by discreet sniffling, then we respectfully trooped into the chapel, a small place with a Victorian feel. The wall which contained the entrance to the furnace was wood panelled, the furnace door itself inscribed with the motto �Resurgam� (I will rise again?). The priest, or whatever he was, led us briskly and dryly through a half-hour service, punctuated by some of Grandad�s favourite songs, some prayers for the dead, and a hymn. It was all rather arid, until my dad, Penny and Sophie got up to say their bits, and left plenty shedding a tear. It was only when the priest said �and now we commit Harry�s body�, and a cheap blue curtain swished across to hide the coffin�s absolutely final journey, that I felt a surge of emotion. The final track played: Morecambe & Wise�s �Bring Me Sunshine�. Apparently, my aunts had considered �Always Look on The Bright Side Of Life� at first, but then thought about the next funeral party to come in after ours, and decided against it. We duly shuffled out, quick dry handshake with the priest, then a look at the flowers. Smiles broke out with the sunshine, which now began to dominate the sky. I caught up with a few relatives I hadn�t seen in a while, introduced (or re-introduced) them to Nur, said a few polite things. Then we all drove off to Twyford, to the Coach and Horses Inn. It had been a favourite watering hole of Grandad, who was often driven there to get pissed, then poured into a taxi several hours later. It�s definitely an �Olde-Worlde� kind of place, all blackened beams at head-breaking height, horse brasses and dodgy tiled floors. The last time I�d been there was about 1991, when dad had bought round after round of Carlsberg Special Brew, a drink I have hated since I chucked my guts up on it when I was fifteen. We got in, then Nur remembered to turn her mobile phone back on. Almost immediately, a message flashed up.
�I hate this,�she said to mum. �I�m always afraid it�ll be a bad message about my mum.�
�Well, look at it, anyway, we�re here if it�s bad,� said my mum.
She opened the inbox.
Here�s the message, translated into English:
Big Sister, we�ve given our mum to the earth. We lost her at five o�clock this morning. May Allah give us forbearance.
Fuck.
Dead and buried the same day as my granddad.
Nur collapsed, weeping and trembling in the corner. Of course, we knew the end was near; That�s why Nur had been in Turkey in the first place. It was just the strange, sad aptness of the day. Mum got her into the toilet, while several people offered to get her drinks. After the initial shock, however, she rallied, especially when she saw the reaction of my family. Within half an hour, we had arranged a flight back to Istanbul for her and pressed the money for it into her hand, then bought her enough Southern Comfort to keep her safely anaesthetized till she got back to Turkey. I, who was supposed to get pissed with them all, now given the duty of driver for the day, then sat back and watched my family get magnificently drunk, largely on very, very generous measures of gin and tonic. They laughed, they shouted, they wept, they embraced and said how much they loved each other, they sang badly, and again and again, they told Nur the same thing: We are with you no matter what. You are family, and we will do whatever you need. We stand together no matter what. We know you are brave, leaving your family so far away to come here with Paul, and that is a quality we admire almost above all others.
Detached by my sobriety as I was, I have never truly felt the sense of unity within my own clan with quite so much force as I did that day.
Towards four o�clock, we tumbled out of the pub, and headed for Sue and Jim�s place, where the drinking and eating carried on at a frantic pace. I eventually had to virtually carry mum and Nur to the car, which stank of gin. Mum was, amazingly, actually slurring her words, something I don�t think I�ve ever experienced before. I dropped her off, then got Nur to bed, she complaining of having a bad stomach. I�m not surprised; she�d drunk the best part of half a bottle of whisky. I collected Angus from a friend�s house, and, as we walked under a mild and starry sky along the bridlepath, I tried to explain to him that his grandmother had died and that his mum had to go back to Turkey again.
�Awww� was his only response.�You mean that You are going to look after me again?�
I got him some dinner, then he said he felt sleepy, and he went upstairs and fell asleep next to Nur, taking up the racer�s position, head up, legs flung like someone sprinting, one arm to the face, another behind, that seems so typical of him.
I went to the pub, and had a drink or five for Grandad.

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