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Chapter Two

OLLY

Today is my father’s funeral.

I knew that this day was coming. We all did. The grim reaper has been hovering at our door for weeks and with every passing day we saw Pops slip further away from us, closer to that bugger. I find it incredible that an event that I knew was inevitable still has the power to wound me, spear me, surprise me. I want to run away from today and all its responsibilities. I’m not sure I have the strength to say goodbye.

I’ve often lamented my only-child status, but none more so than today. The weight of being his only child feels intolerable. So I’ll stay, I’ll help carry his coffin and I’ll watch them send his body to be burned. And somehow or other I’ll get through it.

I was with Pops when he exhaled his last long breath. I’m grateful for that. I was determined that I would be the last person he saw, before …

I hope he knew I was there. At the end, it was fucking crazy. We’d been warned that his breathing would get shallow in those last moments. Erratic. At first his exhalation was longer than his inhalation and, as morbid as this sounds, it was fascinating to witness. The gaps between each breath started to get longer and longer. There were periods of no breathing and this part freaked us all out many times. Almost comical. That’s awful, isn’t it? His family laughing, with more than a hint of hysteria when we’d think he was dead, then suddenly he’d bellow out another breath and we’d all jump sky high. Pops would have approved of our laughter, though. I fancied I saw a glimmer of a smile on his lips at one point when we tried to stifle our guffaws.

Evie, our resident encyclopaedia, told us that scriptures state that you must always ensure the individual is on his right, like Buddha was at his death, and this will give them a happy, peaceful mind. So we propped Pops up, telling him what we were doing and why. It made Evie happy, so Mae and I went along with it.

We took turns sitting with him, making a pact never to leave him on his own in his last days. Even Jamie joined in our unofficial, unspoken rota when he wasn’t in school. Although he was never alone with Pops. Evie on the other hand got to spend a lot of time solo with him, at her own request. She told us that she wasn’t scared, so we respected her wishes and let her do her turn.

In the end, it was on my watch when that last breath was exhaled and Pops left us. And you know the weird thing? I was as unprepared for that moment as I had been for my mother’s untimely demise. I’d thought about the difference between their deaths a lot over the past few months. Wondered which would be easier. With Mam there was no warning whatsoever, but of course we all knew what was headed our way with Pops. Well, now that both my parents are dead and I’ve experienced each option, I still don’t have an answer to that. There is something I do know for sure, though. Both options suck, both hurt like hell and both I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemies.

On one hand, the last few months before Mam died were pretty perfect. There were no shadows on our time together, we just got on about the business of living. And loving. And, boy, did we have a lot of love!

And I suppose in that alone I’m lucky, or at least luckier than most. Although she was taken so abruptly, I have no regrets about anything. Because nothing was left unsaid before she was snatched away from us. In our family, when I was a kid, ‘I love you’s were abundant and spoken every day. And that’s how we roll in my own family now too. I tell the children often how much I love them. My parents taught me well.

I push aside the fact that I can’t remember the last time I whispered any endearments to Mae. Or her to me.

While the last few months were tortuous in so many ways, watching Pops fight his illness, at least I got to say goodbye to him. I got to hold his hand and kiss his head fifty times a day, whenever I felt the need to do so. And towards the end, I won’t lie, that need was pretty much always there. When I wasn’t in the room with him, I fretted and missed him, so I would find myself making excuses to go back.

Another wave of grief assaults me as I ponder a life without kisses to Pop’s forehead.

The silence in the room mocks me. I expect to hear Pops say something smart. He always had this knack of knowing what I’m thinking.

I miss his voice. I’d do anything to hear it one more time. He’s not been gone more than forty-eight hours and already it feels like forever.

At least he died at home, surrounded by the people he loved most in the world, exactly as he wanted to, and for that I’m grateful. He had a smile on his face in those last moments. Maybe his faith hooked him up with Mam again as he said it would. I close my eyes and picture her in her blue dress, pulling him into her open embrace. Then, holding hands, leading him away from us to wherever their next adventure was about to begin. Tears blur my eyes.

I need to right the emptiness in the house. No matter which room I walk into, his absence is palpable from the silence therein. Even here, in our bedroom for goodness sake, where he had no business being, feels wrong. Mae said to me yesterday that she couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t in the house with us. And she’s right. We’d go off on our own sometimes, but when we got back, he’d be at the front door waiting, the sound of the kettle in the background whistling, ready to wet the tea.

The thought of being just the four of us scares me. I’ve never been here without him. I’m forty years old, but I feel like a child again, when Mam died and left me.

The urge to run is back. Fuck responsibility. I can’t do this.

The crushing reality is that I am just a fool standing in an empty room, looking for a man that is no longer here. And he’s not coming back. I collapse onto the edge of our bed and take several steadying breaths.

‘Come on, lad, pull yourself together.’ His voice whispers through the air towards me.

I close my eyes and lie back onto the soft pillows. I’m so fucking tired – bone fucking weary, truth be told. The last year, with the constant hospital visits, the chemotherapy, the cleaning up of sick and piss – it’s all taken its toll. And I won’t be sorry to say goodbye to that. Goodbye to the never-ending cancerous groundhog day, which had only one inevitable outcome for Pops.

And here’s the thing. I feel relief. And shame that I feel relieved of the burden of his illness. So many emotions mixed up amongst my all-consuming pain. It’s just … the man I long for is the healthy, vibrant Pops of last year. Not the shadow of a man he became in these past few cancerous-ridden months. Fuck me! The pain he was in! Nobody should have to live like that.

So yes, damn it! I’m glad he’s gone, if living like that was the only choice. A blessed release, that’s what Father Kelly said. And he’s right, it is a blessed release for him. For me too. It’s not just my heart that is in half today, it’s my whole body. What I’d give to climb under the heavy duvet and allow myself to sleep through this day.

‘How are you doing?’ Mae’s voice pulls my eyes open and I watch her walk into our bedroom. I sit up and lie, saying that of course I’m fine.

‘Do you need some help with that?’ She points to the tie that is hanging loose around my neck, waiting. She doesn’t wait for an answer, but walks over to me and places it under its collar. Over and around, under and over and she’s done, the perfect knot.

‘You look tired, Olly,’ Mae says, looking up at me. Her hand hovers beside my face, but she doesn’t touch me. I look at her and see the pain that I feel, mirrored in her too.

‘I just want to get today over and done with,’ I say. ‘I can’t get my head around this whole cremation choice. I was sure he’d want to be buried with Mam.’

‘Had he never mentioned it before to you?’ Mae asks.

‘No. He told me what he wanted to wear. He also told me to call Larkin’s, the funeral directors, when it was time. I just assumed it would be a burial. It never crossed my mind he’d chosen cremation.’

Larkin said everything was under control when I rang them. Pops had even paid for everything up front and arranged every last detail himself. I’m not surprised by that. Pops always did everything in his power to make things easy for me. Even down to arranging his own funeral service.

‘You know, it’s weird, but I thought he was getting better, you know,’ Mae remarks. ‘This past week or so, have you noticed that he seemed, more energetic or something?’

I had noticed it. He’d seemed stronger to me too.

‘He was on his laptop a lot. I thought that was a good sign. I should have copped on that he was up to something. He was organising today. Getting it all in order.’

‘It’s going be so quiet without him,’ Mae said.

‘Did you mind him being here all the time?’ I ask her. ‘I know you always said you didn’t, but it must have been difficult at times to have a father-in-law living with us.’

Mae shook her head vehemently. ‘I loved Pops. I always knew that you and he were a package. Pops and his mini-me. I’m going to miss him so much.’

A tear slips from Mae’s left eye and travels inch by inch down her cheek, leaving a white trail through her makeup. She wipes it away with the back of her hand and closes her eyes, to stop any further tears following.

She looks vulnerable and soft and before I allow myself to think and stop, I walk over to her and take her in my arms. I can feel her resistance, the tension that always appears in her body whenever I get close to her lately. But I remember Pops’ advice and don’t let her go. I hold her tight and stay silent. And then, at once, I feel her body relax and she moulds into my arms. Her soft breasts press in close to my own chest and our hearts seem to beat in unison. I hear her breath quicken or maybe it’s mine?

‘I miss you,’ I whisper into her hair.

‘What?’ Mae asks.

‘Mam, Dad, the car’s here,’ Jamie’s voice bellows out and Mae pulls apart from me. The moment, whatever it was, is gone. But her eyes meet mine and I recognise in them something that I haven’t seen for a long time.

Love? Or at least a recognition of the memory of a happier time. A spark of hope gives my grief blessed relief for a moment. All is not lost. I then feel crap that I’m even thinking about myself on the day of my father’s funeral.

‘Thank you,’ I say to her. I want to say so much more, but I don’t. I just put on my jacket.

‘For what?’

‘For being here. As long as I have you by my side, I can get through this.’

She looks away from me and murmurs, ‘It’s time to say our goodbyes. Come on.’

Damn it.

‘That was way cool,’ Jamie declares for the third time since we left the crematorium. ‘The way the coffin just disappeared behind the curtain. Pops would have loved that.’

‘It was creepy. If I die, please bury me,’ Mae replies, shuddering.

We are driving home to Wexford. To say it’s been a rough few hours is an understatement, but somehow or other we’ve gotten through two services. The first one was the funeral mass in Wexford. It was a packed church of family and friends, who were all there to say goodbye to a good man, who lived a good life. Then the second service in the crematorium was for just us family. Exactly as Pops requested.

I watched Mae and the children go through so many emotions during those two different ceremonies. I saw sorrow, heartache, desolation, anger and loneliness. I recognised each of them because it is how I felt too. But now, in our car, driving home, the energy has changed. Now there is an air of frivolity amongst us. I recognise it for what it is. It’s often the way when things are this serious, giddiness sets in at some point because the mind cannot take any more. It happened at Mam’s funeral. Pops and I had said goodbye to the last well-wisher and then Pops farted. A loud, rasping, wet fart. I giggled. And then I felt horrendous. I expected to get a clout across my ear from him for that. But he giggled too. Soon the two of us were making wet, loud, fart noises under our arms, through our mouths, any way we could. We put on a good old comedy act for twenty minutes or so, till we cried with laughter.

I realise now that it would not take much to set us all off. We all need a few hours respite before we face going home to a house that doesn’t have our beloved Pops in it any more. So we begin bantering away about death as if we hadn’t a care in the world. We could have been discussing the weather, such is our ease.

‘If I die, you can burn me,’ Jamie states. ‘And I want a super-cool urn for my ashes.’

‘You know, the largest urn in the world is in Tustin, USA,’ Evie says.

‘How big?’ Jamie asks.

‘It’s sixteen feet tall,’ Evie tells him.

‘Cool. Was it for a giant? Or a troll? I bet it was a giant,’ Jamie says in wonder.

‘Oh, without doubt a giant,’ Mae says with a smile.

‘You can get urns made in the likeness of people’s heads you know,’ Evie adds.

‘What?’ Mae shrieks. ‘That’s macabre.’

‘It’s true, Mam. I saw one of Barack Obama once on Facebook,’ Evie says.

‘Who the hell would want their ashes stored in a president’s head?’ Mae responds, looking mystified.

‘There’s a lot of crazy in this world,’ I chip in.

‘When I die, can I have an urn made into a spaceship?’ Jamie asks. ‘Or maybe one like Darth Vader? Pops would love that, you know. He loves Star Wars.’

‘He was more of an Obi-Wan Kenobi fan than Darth Vader,’ I murmur. ‘But, yes, he loved Stars Wars.’

And for a moment I allow myself a daydream where Pops can come back and talk to me in spirit like Obi-Wan could in the movies.

‘That would be cool,’ I whisper.

‘Less of the talk of dying please,’ Mae remarks.

‘Okay, but Mam, I’m not joking here. I will die if we don’t get some food into my body. I’m starving,’ Jamie complains and then, with perfect timing, his stomach lets a loud grumble out.

I look in the rear-view mirror and seeing the children smile makes my throat tighten. It’s been a tough few days. Damn it, a tough few months. Smiles have been few and far between. I shake my head to stop further tears coming.

‘I could eat something too,’ Mae says. ‘What do you think, Olly? Can we stop or do you want to get home? It’s been a rough day, so don’t worry if you want to just keep going.’

I peek in the rear-view mirror and Jamie is pretending to faint. Evie throws her eyes up to heaven, but I can see a hint of a smile on her face. Then I spy the golden archway ahead and a decision is easily made for us. We are an unlikely looking bunch queuing for our fast-food fix. Mae in her black trouser suit, Evie and Jamie wearing a mixture of dull greys and black and me in my good suit, with a black mourning tie. I loosen the knot and pull it off, stuffing it into my inside jacket pocket.

‘That makes all the difference,’ Mae teases.

With our food piled high on red trays, we sit down. Evie and Mae with their McChicken Sandwich meals, me with my Big Mac and Jamie with his Happy Meal.

Jamie pulls open his cardboard box of happiness and rummages for the plastic bag, eager to find out what the toy is this time. Mid-slurp of my strawberry shake, I pause. I feel a hand on my knee and look down to see that Mae has clasped it.

Time freezes again when I look up and see that Jamie is holding up in his hand a figurine of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

‘That’s freaky,’ Evie says, her eyes wide with surprise. ‘We were just talking about him.’

‘It’s cool,’ Jamie replies. ‘Look what he can do.’ He demonstrates his nodding head.

‘Just a weird coincidence, that’s all,’ Mae says, but her voice is trembling.

Not ten minutes ago I likened Pops to Obi-Wan Kenobi, wishing he could come back and talk to me. And now Jamie is sitting here with his figurine held in front of my face.

I look around and, I swear to God, I expect Pops to be standing there wearing a long brown hooded robe. ‘Fooled you,’ he’d say and laugh. Oh, how we’d laugh.

I look at the Wi-Fi symbol flashing on my iPhone. That invisible thing that connects us all, no matter where we are. Was this Pops’ way of reminding me to have faith? He said he’d find a way to find me.

‘It’s just a coincidence,’ I tell my family, feeling stupid for even contemplating such nonsense. ‘Eat up, it’s getting late.’

I don’t feel hungry any more. I play with my food a bit and wait for the others to finish up, then we continue our journey home. The mood has changed in the car again and we are all back in our own grief-stricken worlds. The welcome reprieve from our desolation, forgotten with the appearance of a small plastic toy from McDonald’s.

As the distance to our home gets shorter, the greater my anxiety grows. So I slow down. I’m aware of the irony that an hour ago I thought I’d never get home so I could take my God-awful suit off. Now I am doing everything possible to delay that first entrance through our front door. I look down at my suit and make an impromptu decision about its fate.

‘I’m going to burn this tomorrow.’

Mae nods. ‘That’s one option. Or you could give it to charity.’

‘Maybe,’ I say, but really, I want to be extreme. I feel justified planning a dramatic end to it, a symbolic burning of the pain I’ve endured today. Or something like that.

‘I burned a suit once before,’ I say.

‘When?’ Mae asks.

‘When I was a kid. My communion suit.’

All at once I’m seven years old again and I see Mam’s face and remember watching her discuss at length with Pops about what my communion suit should look like. Pops would nod and tell her that she knew best. He’d then chance a conspiratorial wink with me and I’d wink back, delighted with myself.

‘Was it awful?’ Mae asks me.

‘A three-piece ensemble, kind of a biscuity pale brown in colour. But it had a contrasting chocolate-brown trim on the lapel and the pockets. Pops joked I looked like a chocolate hobnob. Mam didn’t like that one bit. She wanted me to look perfect and no slagging of the suit was allowed.’

‘Sounds lovely,’ Mae laughs.

‘I know it sounds brutal and, in truth, it was, but at the time I thought I was the dog’s bollocks in it.’ I glance in the rear-view mirror, checking the kids aren’t listening to my cursing. Unsurprisingly, both have their earphones on.

‘I can remember begging Mam to let me try it on at least once a day. But she would shake her head no and it remained in a plastic cover in her wardrobe,’ I say.

‘She wanted it to be in pristine condition for your special day. I get that. I was the same for Evie,’ Mae says.

A pain so acute it makes me start hits me under my ribs. ‘In the end, I got my wish and wore it before the communion.’

‘When?’ Mae asks, smiling.

‘Her funeral.’

‘Oh, Olly,’ Mae says, and her smile freezes. I look away. If I see sympathy or pity, I’ll start to cry again. I chance a joke.

‘I don’t mind telling you, I didn’t feel in the slightest bit like the dog’s bollocks then. Took the shine off wearing it on my communion, too.’

Neither of us laugh at my lame attempt to lighten the mood. She reaches over and places a hand lightly over mine for a moment. ‘I’ll help you burn it.’ Then we drive in silence once more.

‘If you go any slower we’ll be in reverse,’ Mae remarks after a while, but she’s smiling as she speaks, so I know she’s not having a go at me.

I look at her and wonder if she has guessed why I am so reluctant to go home. These past couple of days, we’ve been kinder to each other than we have been for the past six months. It’s disconcerting and welcome all at once.