Christopher seemed to be deep in a think space so Mia gave a laconic shrug. “I wouldn’t say you ruined it. It was more interesting than most eulogies. Besides, half the crowd probably weren’t paying attention and the other half secretly knew you had a point.”
“I think that’s overly generous,” replied Oliver with reflexive modesty.
“Easy there.” Mia put up a hand. “I’m not saying it was the St.
Crispin’s Day speech. Just that not everyone who heard it thought you were a complete wanker.”
“That might still be overly generous,” observed Christopher, glancing up with a strained smile.
Oliver did something smile-like and tentative back. “Fuck off, Chris.”
The sky, which had been making passive-aggressive suggestions about rain all day, finally followed through, and a light drizzle began to descend on the courtyard. And for a while we sat there being wet and cathartically glum, but despite Oliver dropping a kiloton truth-bomb all over his father’s funeral, we weren’t done with social obligations yet. So I hauled myself to my feet and tried to hustle our little group in the direction of the cars. “Come on,” I told them, “we’re missing the death party.”
“I think they’re calling them wakes these days,” said Mia, taking Christopher by the hand.
As we walked away from the crematorium, Oliver turned to his brother. “How long are you in town for, by the way?”
Christopher cast him a slightly suspicious look. “A week or so.”
“We should…that is, if you’d like to catch up?” It wasn’t quite a suggestion, but Oliver’s voice sounded faintly hopeful.
After a moment, Christopher nodded. “That’d be nice.”
The four of us walked on in comfortable silence through the flower-strewn, not-too-corpse-factory-ish garden of the crematorium where even now David Blackwood’s body was being consigned to ashes. If I’d been in a poetic mood, I’d have said the rain made it feel like the sky was doing our crying for us. But this was Britain. Rain was just another fact of life. Like taxes. Or the other thing.
SO WAKES, HUH? THEY SUCKED. If funerals were easier than weddings because no one was expected to enjoy them, then wakes might have sucked harder because you sort of were. I mean, not in a Munchkin Village way, but in an “in the midst of death we are in life; the deceased would want us to be joyful” way. And that was a really specific mood. A really specific mood that was hard enough to achieve at the best of times, and even harder to achieve when the deceased had actually been kind of a dick and everybody knew it.
It was practically impossible to achieve when the deceased had been kind of a dick and everybody knew it, and his eldest son had stood up and said he was a kind of dick and everybody knew it, and now fifty people were united not so much in their shared grief as their shared determination to pretend that one particular thing had never happened. Which meant for Oliver the whole event was like a very low-key but ultimately merciful gaslighting as he went around his parents’ house shaking hands with the men, kissing the women lightly on the cheek, and saying, “Yes, a terrible loss, and so unexpected” roughly twelve times a minute.
Eventually he and his mother reached the point in their separate rotations where they couldn’t avoid each other without admitting they were trying to avoid each other.
Oliver’s hand tightened on mine in a way that at least hinted at panic. “Mother…” he began.
Before she went up on tiptoes to kiss him lightly on the cheek.
“Oliver, darling, don’t forget to pay the caterers.”
He gave the slightest of blinks. “I put through a bank transfer yesterday. It should clear within twenty-four hours.”
“Thank you.” And with a nod as slight as Oliver’s blink, Miriam Blackwood moved on.
“Walk?” I suggested because I could feel Oliver starting to vibrate beside me.
He didn’t say yes or no, but he let me lead him outside. The Blackwoods had a really nice garden, although I hadn’t had much chance to enjoy it the last time I was here. Not that I was going to have much chance now either, what with the drizzle, the fact I was at a wake, and the distress Oliver was radiating like a rubbish halo.
They were also middle class enough to have a gazebo, which seemed as good a place as any to shelter from the one-two punch of rain and social obligation.
“Have I paid the caterers,” said Oliver bitterly as we sat down on one of the little benches.