Cremoria

I was sick in the morning. And at night. And most of the day, if I was being honest. Nerves, the doctor said. His hands shook. He should talk. He gave me Diazepam, but they were not good for you. Make you a junkie. I tried not to think about it. Feelings, like scabs, should have been left untouched.

Father Mullan was getting a bit deaf. Shouted at you, rather than talked. Don’t suppose there are any new priests coming through. That was probably why he was still there. Nobody else wanted to do it. People don’t really believe. I don’t tell him that. It was easier to let him go on with the amplified throat rumbling and mumbling about God from the pulpit he married us in.

Later on. He was so nice in the car going up to Dalmottar. Talked about the weather. We get a lot of weather in Scotland. Black suited Charlie's mum. She still had good legs. Looked younger than me. All that money. Probably wished it was me that died, rather than her son. I rested my head, against the window, a smudged Mantilla of black hair, curled into my thoughts. Finally we agree on something. Too late to change. Father Mullan's litany of sunshine and rain droned on and geared up a notch, at the top of Mountblow hill, as we neared the Crematorium, but was drowned out by our toxic indifference; falling into silence. He had never been married and would never know what it was like. At least that was a saving grace.

Charlie wouldn’t have wanted to be burned. It would have done something to his hair. He was like his mother in that regard. I thought about buying off the mortician and pushing Charlie’s mum in with him, a two-for-one deal. The undertaker would probably have thought me unhinged. There was also something in the back of my mind about Catholics not being allowed to be cremated. Some kind of dogma that God needed all of the body and bones; needed a full pack of cards to work from, in The Resurrection, on Judgement Day. Charlie would have liked that. He liked things to be in the right order and just so. His mother was worse. If I got the chance to cremate her I’d be picking out all the false face cards out of the urn, which made up her outlook on life, and hiding them away from God; burning them again if necessary.

‘After you.’

She made a big play of letting me exit the car first. There was a lump in her throat. It looked like a man’s Adam’s apple, probably the last thing she had eaten and she looked as if she’s going to cry. Must have been practicing for hours in front of the mirror to get that effect.

Fuck you, I wanted to shout, but Father Mullan was at my elbow so I simply nodded, tried to swallow my tears and whipped out a white hanky. In another life I was springing from a similar black car and flinging the posy towards a huddle of breathless bridesmaids. Now it was all dabbed eyes and snotty red nose.

The click of the limousine door opposite mine, was like a photo being snapped and warned me Charlie’s mum has made her exit. Chanel No. 5 creeped up on the outside of the bonnet in an expensive fog, as she readied herself to make an entrance, by fainting, or falling, or both. When the organ music swelled and played ‘Walk with me oh my God', there was an ungainly rush to be first inside, which suited my sharp elbows. I did not intend to let her win. Not again.

It was all as fake as her all-over tan. There was no organ, just some sad-bag of ancient songs sung by Harry Secombe and played on two ancient speakers that look as if they’ve been made by worker bees.

Charlie’s funeral was the final popularity contest. And victory was his. There was a good crowd of unturned heads in the pews, squinting out of the side of their eyes. In the rush for seats at the back, snobs from the mother’s side with their Ascot black hats have been watered down by normal people, whose feet drummed on the kneelers in anticipation of being outside and having a fly smoke.

Father Mullan had already done his abracadabra talk with and about God so he moved onto Charlie’s life. My fingers found their way into my mouth. I started biting my nails. Charlie would have hated that. He’d bought ‘Expert Nail Biting Solution,’ from Boots early in our marriage and drilled me in its use.

The lame golden curtains closed like a cheap vaudeville routine and it was back to Harry Secombe and live everlasting. They didn’t burn Charlie. Not right away. They did them in batches, like well-fired rolls. Even then the bones don’t degrade, don’t burn. They needed to place them into a kind of tumble dryer with ball bearings. That broke the bones up. Sifted with a sieve. Then they had a nice floury self-raising substance to give to the nearest and dearest. I left him to her. It was only fair.

His mother and me stood together at the exit, with the wind at our back, like programme sellers, where they stacked the missals and hymn books and the junk- feed of death.

People looked me in the eye. Avoided my eyes and squeezed my hand. Danced a Ginger Rodgers or Fred Astaire routine about me, as if they were cursed with escaping without paying. And some people hugged and kissed me on the cheek, their eyes swollen with the drama of it all. They all say the same thing.

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘I’m so Sorry.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Their lamentations reminded me that, no matter what I thought, he was really dead. He’ll not be there. Ever. I cried on cue, hugging myself and laughed like a mad woman with a runny nose.

When I got home and closed the front door behind me the only thing I could hear was my muffled heart beat. Condensation fell like tears down the walls in the back bedroom as if the house was adjusting to my presence. The dark corridors of the hall waited for footfall and the air tasted damp, fungal and brown, like the thoughts in my head. The box TV in the corner of the living room was lying with its flaps open, like elephant’s ears, waiting, to jolly me along. The front gate squeaked on its rusty hinges, opening and shutting in the wind, opening and shutting as if pushed by an invisible hand. I rushed to turn the TV on and programme my life.

I did not really know what was on. Some person shouted and screamed and the strains of canned laughter overcame the audience like mustard gas. I must have dozed on the couch. In my dreams I heard a chair scraping back, the pulling of a cord, the tightening of a noose. Something wakens and shifts; moving in my direction. A woman screamed and with a start I sat up and realized it was me. My hand jerked back, and I scrambled up, knocking against the side of the heavy couch.

Charlie’s Filofax peeked out from underneath one of the cushions. The gold lock on it was small, but effective. I could hear his voice very clearly telling me not to. Some things are best left. And I put it down on the little brown table near the window, beside a stack of unread food and garden magazines. A large hammer broke off the lock and the monogrammed cover. The Filofax lay open; left him naked.

The phone rung, startling me. The Filofax dropped from my hands. His mother wanted to know how I am. I laughed and laughed and laughed, until the phone went dead.