A Really Sad One

Dennis was red-faced, taut, controlled; he looked as if he had been packed into his skin. He recoiled slightly when I offered my hand in greeting, although he recovered well enough to manage a quick handshake. His wife Yvonne was limp and blonde. As we talked she leaned over to touch my arm often, for emphasis.

The trouble was that they had nothing good to say about Dennis’s father Donald.

‘He was a right tosser,’ said Dennis.

‘You can’t say that, though,’ said Yvonne. ‘What are you going to say?’

‘Why do we have to say anything? “There you are, draw the curtains.” That would do for me.’

‘Do you want the curtains drawn?’ I asked.

‘Yes, and that’s all I want. You’re not to say anything about him being a devoted husband, because he wasn’t, he was a violent bastard. I looked after Mum before he died, he didn’t lift a finger to help when she was ill. Nor was he a loving father. Do you know what he said most often to me, when I was a kid? “Get out of my way.” That’s what he said.’

‘He liked a drink, didn’t he,’ said Yvonne.

‘Yes, he was always in the pub. We were glad when he went, me and Mum, and sorry when he came home, but at least we could be in bed by then.’

‘Which was his local?’ I asked.

‘The Star and Garter on London Road,’ said Dennis. ‘He used to say he went there to see his friends. They weren’t friends, though, they were pub friends. He had no more idea how to make a friend than how to make a Christmas pudding. None of them came to see him in the hospital, not one.’

‘Maybe some of them will come on Thursday,’ said Yvonne.

‘For the nosh-up, probably,’ said Dennis. ‘So they’ll get a shock, because we’re not having one. I want him behind those curtains and that’s it.’

‘You don’t have to have anyone there at all, if you don’t want to, you know,’ I said.

‘We do have to.’ Yvonne was firm. ‘For our daughters. They need it, Dennis.’

‘So you tell me, woman,’ but his gruffness was softer. She caught it with a slight smile.

‘You know they do,’ she said. ‘See, Zinnia, our daughters got on all right with their grand-dad.’

‘Don’t know why,’ Dennis interrupted. ‘Bloody old sod.’

‘It was different for them, you know it was. He had mellowed by the time they came along. And they had strength in numbers. See, Zinnia, we’ve got twin girls, look, there’s their graduation photo. Dennis is right, he was a real old sod, but somehow they didn’t notice. He never raised a hand to them.’

‘I’d have punched his bloody lights out if he had, that’s why. And he knew it.’

‘Oh, give it a rest, Dennis, he’s dead now, there’s no point being angry,’ she said. ‘And it wasn’t just that, he cared about them, in his way.’

‘He was as bad to them as he was to everyone else,’ argued Dennis. ‘If one of them phoned him, he’d say “what are you phoning me for?”. And he never phoned anyone, it was always us had to phone him.’

‘The difference is, Dennis, they weren’t bothered. When he said “what are you phoning me for?”, they would just tell him. You’d shout at him, give him a piece of your mind.’

‘Oh, so it was all my fault, was it?’ He was redder, beginning to sizzle.

‘Don’t be silly, of course it wasn’t. But it got to you every time. Because of your history with him. The girls didn’t have the same history, and they’re different, it never got to them. And that worked on him. Look at the way he gave them bits of money now and then. He didn’t have a lot, but he paid for Holly’s suit when she got her job at the council, remember, and he got Robyn’s car fixed that time some prat drove into her in the car park.’

Dennis harrumphed.

‘Should I mention their names?’ I asked.

‘Yes, you must. They’re called Holly and Robyn because they were born on 24th December, our best Christmas present ever,’ said Yvonne.

‘Have you thought about music at all?’

‘No music,’ said Dennis. ‘And no flowers, and no religion. He said.’

‘He did, in the hospital,’ Yvonne told me. ‘He didn’t want a fuss.’

‘So you want a short, plain service?’

‘As short and plain as possible,’ Dennis said. ‘He doesn’t really deserve one at all. I wouldn’t bother if it was left to me. Just send him up there with the funeral director and close the curtains.’

‘Did he have any interests or hobbies?’

‘Just the pub,’ said Yvonne. ‘He used to play cribbage up there. That was all.’

‘There’s nothing to be said about him,’ insisted Dennis. ‘He was a right bastard and that’s all there is to it.’

‘He always kept himself clean. You could say that.’

‘You can’t say that! It’s ridiculous! That says nothing about him. Because there’s nothing to say.’

‘Let’s think about his life,’ I said. ‘What was his date of birth?’

We waded through some chronology: brothers and sisters, school, work, marriage, Dennis’s birth and marriage, the birth of his grand-daughters. That gave me something to start from. They were adamant that I should not use words like ‘love’ or ‘devotion’, and we agreed that ‘respect’ would be acceptable.

I managed to piece together a script, one of the shortest I’ve ever written. There are some forms of wording that I regularly reuse in situations where they fit, but every single phrase had to be rewritten this time. I made it clear in the introduction that it would be a short service ‘because Donald didn’t like a fuss’ (well, I could hardly say ‘because his son thinks he’s a tosser’). I took the theme of death enabling positive change, because I felt as if that might help Dennis, and came up with a nifty sentence about how a tree falling in the forest lets in the light that promotes new growth. But there wasn’t much to say.

Holly and Robyn were stunners with long hair and legs. They flanked their mother protectively outside the crematorium chapel. Dennis was trying for a careless, jaunty demeanour. He followed them down to the front pew. The women held on to each other for support, six hands clutching. Dennis stood slightly apart and looked up at the plain white ceiling throughout the short service. I glanced at him halfway through and saw his Adam’s apple rise and dip. I realised, then, that he was looking up to keep his tears from falling.