Other children screamed. Susie Hart, ever the one to make lemons from lemonade, shouted: “Look, the camel also gave birth, like me!” and incorporated it into the storyline.’
This, too, gets a ripple of amusement.
‘From that day on, they were an inseparable duo. On the face of it, Susie and Eve were a total clash. Susie was the captain of netball, whereas Eve wore a fake bandage so she could sit PE out and read Sweet Valley High books.
‘Susie didn’t much care for rules, and would do anything for her friends. Susie was one of life’s winners, until a split second of horrendous bad luck took her from us. Yet she could never pass by on the other side. She strongly identified with the underdog, while being a straight-A student who succeeded at everything she tried to do. That was her particular magic. Eve remembers a time when a girl in their class was getting bullied for having cheap shoes and Susie not only stuck up for her, she bought the same pair and came to school in them the following week. When Eve said she was heroic, Susie shrugged it off and said “Ugh, I just hate bullies. And anyway, I think I look quite good in grey patent.”’
Another laugh.
‘That was Susie. Sardonic, audacious, confident, with a humanity and humour that always shone through. When Eve came to write this, she says she realised that all of Susie was contained in that moment, aged eight years old, when Susie anointed her as God’s vomit-covered baby camel. Confidence and compassion and a metric ton of sass.
‘There’s no way to explain how much our group of friends will miss Susie, or how we can begin to calculate how much has been taken from us. From everyone. There’s something exceptional about friendships with friends you’ve known since you were young. They know all the versions of you. They know how you were built. They have a map for you. There’s a shorthand between you, and a love that is as strong as any blood tie.’ Ed’s voice wavers and he pauses to gather himself.
‘I’m going to read Eve’s summing up in her own first person:
‘What I didn’t expect, after Susie died, was to feel this panic. A panic she’d be forgotten. Not her name, or her face, or achievements. The official things. The panic that her voice, the way she spoke, her attitude, all that was unique and specific to her, would pass into history. I wanted her to be here, and for her contributions and opinions to still be with us. That she is past tense, feels so impossible, when she was so vividly alive. As I wrote this tribute, I asked myself, what would Susie say if she read it? Hers was the only opinion I wanted, and the only one I couldn’t have.
‘I pictured her scanning through it, chin on hand, chewing the drawstring on that terrible rowing club hoodie she wore. She’d giggle at the camel anecdote, and say something about: “God, do you remember that games teacher though? Put the ‘hun’ into Attila the Hun.” Then she’d say, at the end, mouth going a bit wiggly and wiping a tear: “Oh you sentimental oaf, give me a hug. I’m not sure, it’s so sweet. Does it make me sound a bit like a cross between Mother Teresa and Samantha from Sex and the City though? I can’t even remember the shoes thing, are you sure? Oh well, if you say so. You can be my official biographer, you’ve got the job. Someone else can write the scandalous stuff about me singing ‘Happy Birthday Mr President’, and then bunking up with him.”’
Ed pauses.
‘… I hope I never stop hearing Susie’s voice, or keeping her memory alive. So, the final line is delivered fully in the spirit of Susie Hart, as we knew her – Susie, you were always too much. But we wanted more. Thank you.’
Ed closes his notes and steps down from the lectern.
People clap, which I’m not sure usually happens at funerals and which I will take to mean we did Susie justice.
Justin puts his hand on my leg, and says, in a strangled voice: ‘Perfect, Eve. Perfect.’
I barely hear the celebrant’s wrapping-it-up speech.
As we file out to the Twin Peaks music, all I can think of is Susie’s costume that said: She Is Filled With Secrets.
19
‘The quiche is really good, actually,’ Hester says, and I know it must be as she does not dole out praise