All Hallows' Eve

  4

  The question the smarter amongst you may be asking is what on earth was a microbiologist doing on a debate show when the subject was religion. The answer is so simple it’s actually impossible to explain in one sentence. Therefore I ask you dear reader to bear with me as I swear that all will become clear in the end.

  After Henry Tomlinson hung up on his daughter he tried to return to the Indian epic drama which was blaring out from his TV, but he quickly realised that his heart was no longer in it. The conversation with his daughter kept echoing through his brain. He tried in vain to understand her but it was like trying to put a square peg in a round hole. Deep down he knew that his wife would have wanted him to keep going to church. At that moment he was unsure of the reasons why he didn’t go. Part of him said that it was because he didn’t want to have to face friends, family or colleagues and hear how sorry they were for his loss. The rest of him said that it was due to the fact that the last time he saw the vicar he swore at him. As the memory floated before his eyes he smiled, for the first time in quite a while.

  To say that funerals aren’t any fun is a massive understatement. Not for the person who died, not for their family, and usually not for the vicar leading the sermon. This unspoken truth creates quite a problem when the life the gathered masses are meant to be commemorating was a life devoted to hedonistic pleasure. How on earth do you do that memory justice?

  On that faithful day Henry was reminded of what it felt like to misbehave at school. Sat in the front row, sandwiched between his son and daughter, he couldn’t help but wish he was somewhere else. Yet somehow he had to find the strength to put on a brave face for his twins. Alan, tall and awkward like his dad, hair already thinning despite the fact he was only 31. There was no disputing ownership; he had the misfortune to be gifted with the Tomlinson family nose. When Henry was at boarding school, the other inmates christened him Griffin, due to the common opinion that his nose was shaped like a beak. Whereas Stephanie took after her mother. A fragile, slight beauty, her straight strawberry blonde hair only served to frame her face in youth. Her body so slim and slender, it was a scientific miracle that she already had two kids of her own.

  “June Margaret Tomlinson lived a principled, honest life.” began the priest. Henry swore under his breath, he couldn’t believe that Reverend Donnelly had got his wife’s name wrong, at her funeral for God’s sake. He felt Stephanie slip her arm into the crook of his elbow. When he made eye contact, she silently scolded him with a look which was like a photograph of his deceased wife. “A pillar of the community, a woman of God, a devoted mother and loving wife. Would everybody please rise for the singing of the first hymn.” It was a relief for Henry to be standing. As he stood he glanced around to see that the church was almost full. He felt hundreds of eyes bearing into him. In his imagination he heard a chorus of ‘poor bastards’ and ‘poor souls’. There was nothing he wanted to do more than get up and run from that church. And keep running, without ever looking back.

  It happened at the wake. In front of a house full of guests at least in a figurative sense. Henry stood in the corner of his kitchen, drinking what was quite possibly his 8th or 9th glass of wine, he had lost count a considerable length of time ago. He stopped in the doorway to his living room and saw a throng of strangers engaged in conversation, like absolutely nothing had changed. As if it was normal for all of these people to be in his living room. That was the thing he couldn’t fathom. The light of his life had gone. Yet everything continued. It was like throwing a stone into a river and not even seeing a single ripple on the surface.

  In the cold light of day funerals are a sadistic method of torture. Who on earth had the idea that the best thing for all concerned was to surround the sad and the suffering with far and distant friends? Each member of the group looking at others for some kind of guidance as to what exactly they should do or say. All the while the remaining family do their level best to hold it together until the last guest goes home. Sadness is like diarrhoea. The longer you hold it inside of you the more dangerous it becomes.

  As Henry stood in the corner of his living room, at the funeral of the woman he had spent the best part of 42 years with, two thoughts ran through his mind. The first was when are you bastards going to go home? The second was if another person approaches me and tells me how sorry they are for my loss I am going to punch them in the face. Thankfully Henry realised that he was sweating up a storm and decided to step into the garden to cool off.

  Residing in the village of Little Farker had some benefits. The sky was dark already, a clear night with stars which looked as if they were winking at the fools beneath. For the first time since he was in his early twenties he craved a cigarette. It felt like a blink of an eye ago. It was funny how life really did happen to people. He wanted to cry, to wail, to open the floodgates and let it out. Deep down he knew he couldn’t. Not yet anyway.

  “You know it’s funny to think that she is up there now with God.” Henry turned to see that Reverend Donnelly was standing beside him. In the moonlight the priest resembled an overweight balding dwarfish brown bear. Henry looked to where he was pointing and couldn’t help himself.

  “What? On the moon?” Henry muttered. The Father let out a wooden laugh.

  “Hah! Good one. I am sure that June loved your sense of humour.” Reverend Donnelly stepped in front of Henry, and stopped so that they were face to face. The evening shade did its level best to hide the grimace which was plastered on Tomlinson’s face. “You know she is in a better place now. Surrounded by people who love her. In time it will get easier.”

  “A better place. A better place! This is her place. Honestly what the fuck do you really know about her? You don’t even appear to know her fucking name. It’s Julie. J-U-L fuck it!” Henry pushed the priest out of his way, opened the garden gate and walked away from the wake of his dead wife.