Page 98 of Husband Material
“I’m so sorry,” I said finally, falling into cliché and platitude.
“Don’t be.” Oliver shrugged. “While, of course, I regret that we didn’t have any kind of reconciliation before…before he…well…before that became impossible, what I mostly regret is that I didn’t say it years ago.”
That also hung there for a little bit.
“Too much?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Not even close. I mean, I’m just glad you’re not feeling guilty.”
“Oh, I’m feeling guilty as well. But I’m rather hoping that will pass.”
There was ring of finality in his voice. And I suppose that was all you could do with grief: stick it out until you got used to it.
Oliver squared his shoulders in a stiff-upper-lippy, pull-yourself-togethery sort of way. “In any case,” he went on, “given how brilliantly our wedding planning is going, I don’t suppose you’d also like to help me organise a funeral?”
"DAVID BLACKWOOD," SAID OLIVER, "WASa loving husband, a devoted father, and an absolute demon on the golf course. We all remember him as a fair and generous man, even if he didn’t always suffer fools gladly. I remember when I was, perhaps, fourteen we went to this restaurant somewhere in Berkshire, and the menu was all in French and”—he adopted a posture of studied relaxation—“well, anybody who knew my father would know that languages werenothis strong point. So when he ordered what he thought was a fillet steak and the waiter brought him fish, the poor fellow got quite the earful. Of course, the manager was very apologetic, and I seem to recall we actually got a free bottle of wine by way of apology. I remember quite distinctly when we got home and I looked it up and discovered thatfilet de flétandid indeed meanhalibut fillet, he looked me squarely in the eye and said:Well, it just goes to show, Oliver. It always pays to stand up for yourself.
“And that was…that was a lesson he always tried to pass on to both of his sons. And that’s”—a pause, and I couldn’t quite tell whether he was really choking up or doing a very good job of faking—“that’s how I’ll always remember him. How I think he’d always want toberemembered. As a force of nature. A man who fought for what he believed in, who demanded respect andalways received it. Even if it sometimes came at the expense of an otherwise blameless flatfish.” And here there was another of those appropriate laughter pauses. “He was a provider, a caregiver, and a role model, and I can truly say that neither I nor Christopher would be the men we are today without his guidance. And on the subject of Christopher, I shall now surrender the lectern to my brother, who will read David’s favourite poem, ‘If.’”
There was a pause. “Well?” Oliver stared at me. “What do you think?”
“Fine?” I wasn’t sure what else to say.
Oliver frowned. Then started pacing around my flat. He’d done quite a lot of pacing over the past week. “Fine? It’s my father’s eulogy. It can’t just be fine.”
“I mean,” I tried, “maybe you could tell a different story? That one makes your dad sound like a bit of a cock.”
“Not to the people who’ll be at the funeral.” Oliver slumped in a way that was almost a sigh. “He used to tell it himself all the time. And if I left it out, Uncle Jim would be bound to come up to me afterwards and demand to know why I didn’t tell the halibut story.”
I tucked my feet under me on the sofa. “Oliver, you don’t have to do this.”
“I absolutely do. A funeral isn’t like a wedding. You can’t just say,Sorry, got cold feet, enjoy the party.”
“The eulogy, Oliver. There’s no reason you have to speak. There’s the vicar, there’s Uncle Jim, there’s Christopher. You dad isn’t going away unmemoralised.”
“And you don’t think”—Oliver was frowning into the middle distance—“if the vicar, Christopher, and Uncle Jim all say something and I pointedly don’t that won’t seem deeply personal?”
“People will just assume you’re too upset.” I tried to catch his eye. “If anything, it’ll read as a loving tribute.”
“My mother would never forgive me, even if she believed me. And Christopher would never believe me, even if he forgave me.”
This funeral stuff was hard. Not the logistics. They were pretty straightforward, I guess because it wasn’t supposed to be the happiest day of anyone’s life. But playing this constant game of emotional politics—where I wanted to support Oliver and Oliver wanted to support his family and Oliver’s family wanted him to stand up and lie his arse off about what a great guy David Blackwood had been—was exhausting. Especially because I always felt I was losing. “Okay,” I said. “But you’re allowed to think about yourself as well.”
“It’s a three-minute speech.” At this point, I wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince me or convince himself. “That’s three minutes out of my entire life.”
I sat on my hands to stop myself from getting all frustrated and gesticulatey. “That’s not how negative experiences work. And you’re a lawyer. You don’t need me to tell you that.”
“Your point is well made, but this isn’t a trauma, it’s an inconvenience. I’m going to say some things I don’t entirely mean—although to give myself credit, I don’t think anything in the speech is strictly untrue…”
“Yeah,” I couldn’t help interrupting, “you got a lot of mileage out of ‘wouldn’t be the men we are today.’”
Oliver gave a sassy little nod. “Thank you. I’m glad you noticed. But nevertheless, all I have to do is to stand up and pretend for a very short period of time that my relationship with my father was less complicated than it actually was. That’s what everybody has done at every funeral that has ever happened.”
I stared at him in his black suit and his black tie. He’d got that faintly hollowed-out look he got when he’d been at the gym more than was probably psychologically healthy for him. “Butdon’t they also say that funerals are, you know, for the living? And you’re…the living.”
“Yes”—he nodded—“and so is everyone else.”
“Yeah, but there’s, like, a…” I pulled my hands out from under my arse and did the balancing scales mime. “Like, you’re doing something that hurts you a lot that might help other people a little bit, and that’s like giving blood but giving all of your blood. And, yeah, you might save two people’s lives but you’d be dead. And if you give a little bit of your blood…” I suddenly realised I’d run up against an analogy that, for most of our lives, neither of us had access to “…whenever you’re allowed to—”
