I remember feeling just as clear-eyed about all this when I was still almost a kid — thirteen or fourteen — and sort of half assumed that you just got more gullible and religious or whatever as you got older, but if it’s happening to me I see no signs so far; quite the opposite. I think I was plain wrong there and the new explanation is I just lack the credulity gene.
I still have a vague feeling that there might be more to existence than can be experienced with our surface senses, so technically I guess I’m an agnostic, but nothing’s more guaranteed to bring out my inner atheist than listening to the witterings of a holy man who thinks all the answers are already there in some book, whether it was written millennia ago or last week.
However, lesson over. The Murstons have stood up again and I can see Ellie once more. Could I really have gone through with our own wedding ceremony, the whole religious performance, in a church and everything? Now I’m kind of stunned I even contemplated it, but at the time I remember thinking that, precisely because the religious side of it was meaningless, it was okay to go along with it. And if there was any sacrifice of principles involved, I was making that sacrifice for Ellie, and to keep her family sweet; not because I was frightened of them or anything, but to convince them that I was a man of substance and moral fibre, that I did indeed love their daughter, I took my responsibilities seriously and I could be relied upon to do the right thing.
Obviously my minutes-long dalliance in a loo with the lovely Jel slightly worked against the wholesome image I was trying to project.
Jel’s here too, with Josh and Mike and Sue. Mrs Mac actually seems to be crying. Anjelica appears plain and severe, in a very dark grey suit with a knee-length skirt. She catches me looking at her and gives me the smallest of smiles. I nod back and we glance away again, pretending to listen to what the witch doctor’s gibbering on about now.
I think I catch the sparse, hollow sound of the first handfuls of earth hitting the coffin lid. It’s the most genuinely affecting part of the whole ceremony. Perhaps the only one, apart from just the sight of two generations of Murston hard men shouldering the burden of a third.
The family troop back down to the ancient Daimlers and stretch Fords and Volvos, and the rest of us disperse amongst the gravestones to find our own highly scattered cars and minibuses, while the sky above us teases out its cloudy wisps from gold to streaked and filmy blue, as a light breeze picks up off the sea.
We’re back to the Mearnside Hotel (and Spa) for the post-funeral-ceremony cold collation, as it is so charmingly entitled. The old place rises resplendently above its green-smooth lawns, clipped topiary and sculpted, surgeoned trees, its towers and turrets looking like they’re trying to snag the last departing traces of the low cloud, reluctant to let it go. A hazy roll of mist, full banked along the coast, reveals beneath its hem the glowing white waves breaking on the sands in the middle distance, but obscures the sea itself.
Dad and I get here last because we had to drop Mum at her school: hardly en route, but better than trying to take more than one car to the vehicle-unfriendly cemetery. Similar problem here. We have to park on the driveway down to the car park.
‘Aye, bloody good turnout,’ Dad says, loosening his tie as we walk down to the main doors and the usual huddle of smokers. ‘Doubt mine’ll be as packed.’
‘Al, please,’ I say to him.
‘Think I’ll get buried at sea,’ he says gruffly, though he’s grinning.
‘Fine. I’ll expect a discount on the hire of the dredger.’ Dad chuckles wheezily.
The funereal equivalent of the reception-line thing they do at weddings had been set up at the doors into the rather grand, east-facing, firstfloor reception room where the after-funeral drinks and munchies are being dispensed; however, by the time Dad and I arrive the line of mourning Murstons has dispersed, which comes as a mighty relief, though it does mean we’ll need to seek out the family and do something similar impromptu later. For the moment they’re up at the buffet tables, progressing with plates, so probably best to wait a bit.
Anyway, Dad has nipped to the loo. He does this rather often these days, apparently, though he claims to see no need to invoke medical opinion on this new development; Mum’s a lot more worried than he seems to be and has told him she’s going to start timing the intervals between toilet visits if he doesn’t go to the doc’s soon.
