We’ll be coming here anyway. Funerals take place on Saturdays.”
“What’s the alternative?” I asked.
“They can be scattered here, in the Garden of Remembrance, if you would prefer,” he said. “That way, you wouldn’t need to provide for a container.”
“Container?” I asked.
“If you wanted to take the ashes away, you would have to provide or pay for a container. Perhaps a box or an urn.”
“Oh,” I said. “No. Just have them scattered here, then. I don’t want them.”
“Right,” he said. “That will be all, then. I’ll send you an itemized receipt in due course.”
“Thank you,” I said. “That will be fine.”
He nodded to me, it was almost a bow, and then he walked quickly across to his car and drove away. I wondered if funeral directors laughed more at home than other people to make up for the solemnness of their work or whether they are so conditioned to having a sad disposition that they have difficulty letting their hair down.
I was left standing alone in the crematorium parking lot with that strange feeling of having mislaid something but wasn’t quite sure what, like when you leave a shopping bag on the counter and get halfway home before realizing it.
Perhaps it was a childhood that I’d mislaid, with loving parents, family holidays and happy Christmases. But was it my childhood that I’d lost or those of my nonexistent children? I stood next to my car and wept.
A few early arrivals for the next funeral spilled out of their cars and made their somber way over towards the chapel. None of them bothered me. Weeping in a crematorium parking lot was not only acceptable, it was expected.
Early on Saturday morning I went to see my grandmother. I told myself it had nothing to do with having been to my father’s funeral the day before, but, of course, it did. I desperately wanted to ask her some more questions.
Sophie had come to the front door to see me off, still in her dressing gown and slippers. As far as she was concerned, I’d spent the previous afternoon at Warwick races. I would tell her the truth, I thought, eventually.
“Give her my love,” she’d said as I’d left.
“I will,” I had replied, but both of us knew that my grandmother almost certainly wouldn’t remember who Sophie was. She might not even remember who I was either, but I was going early in the day to give her the best chance. My grandmother was at her most lucid when she was not tired, and, very occasionally, she would actually telephone me around seven in the morning and sound almost normal. But each day varied, and the good days were getting fewer, shorter and less frequent. It was an ever-steepening downhill run towards total full-blown dementia, with just occasional small plateaus of normality to break the journey. Part of me hoped that she wouldn’t survive long enough to reach rock bottom.
“Hello, Nanna,” I said, going into her room.
She was sitting in her armchair, looking out of the window, and she turned towards me. I went over and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“Hello, Ned,” she said. “How lovely.”
Today was clearly a good day. She looked very smart in a dark skirt, a white blouse with a line of small yellow-and-pink embroidered flowers down the center and a lavender-colored cardigan over it, open at the front. And she’d had her hair done since my last visit.
“You look beautiful,” I said, meaning it.
She smiled at me, full of understanding. How I wished it could last for ever.
I sat on the end of her bed next to her chair.
“How have you been?” I asked. “I like your hair.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Julie will be here soon.”
“Who is Julie?” I asked.
“Julie,” she repeated. “She’ll be here soon.”
I decided not to ask again.
“Sophie sends her love,” I said. A small, quizzical expression came into her eyes. “You remember Sophie. She’s my wife.”
“Oh yes,” she said, but I wasn’t sure she really knew.
There was a knock on the door, and one of the nursing home staff put her head into the room. “Everything OK?” she asked.
“Fine,” I said.
“Would you like some tea or coffee?”
“Coffee would be lovely,” I said. I turned to my grandmother. “Nanna, would you like some coffee or tea?”
“I don’t drink tea,” she said.
“I’ll bring her some anyway,” said the staff member with a smile. “She always says she doesn’t drink tea, but she must have at least six or seven cups a day. Milk and sugar?”
“Yes, please,”