The Man Who Forgot His Wife (29 page)

Other cultures have developed traditions for coping with death, which involve a week of communal mourning – singing, dancing and religious observance. Western society, on the other hand, has decided that what the bereaved family really need is a huge in-tray of complicated admin. Suddenly I was responsible for all sorts of legal duties and organizational tasks that took me the entire week. I learned that I was the executor of the will, that it fell to me to register the death, book the cremation, choose the hymns and decide on the appropriate number of
vol au vents
and sliced carrots for the hummus dip.

Who was I supposed to invite to the funeral anyway? I settled on a tactic of writing to all the names that had not been ominously crossed out of my father’s address book. There was a very charming letter back from John Lewis explaining that there was no actual ‘John Lewis’ as such, and that no one from the department store would be able to come to the funeral. They sent me their condolences all the same.

And so a couple of weeks after his death I stood at the top of the sweeping drive of the 1960s suburban crematorium, ready to fulfil
my
duty as the chief mourner and only son of Air Commodore Keith Vaughan CB. The fact that my father had some special letters after his name had been news to me, although it was not an award I had ever heard of. It turned out a CB was like a CBE, but shorter. It meant that, for services to the Royal Air Force, my father had been declared a ‘Companion of the Bath’, which was an ancient honour bestowed by the king in the Middle Ages when it didn’t sound quite so gay. There was even a little medal, which I had found in the pitifully small shoebox of personal items that had been forwarded from the old people’s home. This box now lived under my bed in case I ever needed an Air Force service book, a wind-up watch or some regimental cufflinks.

I had paid the extra to be driven in a black car to the crematorium, just so that I had someone to talk to. Now the previous service had finished and the family was filing out of the chapel. They had obviously had a fantastic time inside, because they emerged laughing and joking and slapping each other on the back; a death in the family had obviously cheered them up no end.

The first of my guests to turn up were a couple of elderly ladies from the rest home where my dad had spent his last years. They looked the building up and down as if they were researching a venue for their own cremation. They shook my hand in a theatrically respectful manner and went inside to check out the action on the coffin-rollers. They were followed by a reasonably young man in an RAF uniform, who didn’t stop to talk and marched straight past without making eye contact. Then my heart lifted as I saw Maddy and the children approaching. The kids looked so smart, and seemed a little nervous as to what expression might be appropriate.

‘Are you okay, Dad?’ asked Dillie, giving me a hug.

‘Yeah – I’m fine.’

Maddy told me that I didn’t have to stand outside waiting for everyone and, once her parents had arrived, we all went inside to take our seats.

‘What did you tell the children, dear?’ whispered Maddy’s mother, conspiratorially, as they led the way inside.

‘I told them their grandfather had died, Mum.’

‘So that’s the story, is it? Shall we all stick to that?’

Our host for the afternoon seemed to be somewhere between the sympathetic parish priest and the bored bloke in the hi-vis jacket who directs the traffic on to the car ferry. He led the traditional mumbling of the hymns and did an impressive piece of reading from the Bible, in which he managed not to change the emphasis or note of his voice by one iota for the entire duration of the passage. I hadn’t found time to meet and discuss exactly how I wanted this funeral to proceed, so had requested in an email that we would require ‘the standard traditional service; I’ll just go along with whatever is the most popular format that you normally do.’ In retrospect, I should have checked exactly what this involved. Even if I had stopped to think about it for a moment, I would perhaps have guessed that this would include a speech from a close relative.

We sat down following the second hymn and my mind drifted off as he muttered another incomprehensible prayer, but then I could have sworn I heard the vicar say, ‘And now Keith’s only child will say a few words about his father.’ No – surely I imagined he just said that? But there was the vicar, stepping aside from the pulpit, gesturing to me to come up and share a lifetime of recollections of my dad, unaware that I had none. I glanced around and saw the elderly mourners looking at me in anticipation, nodding to me that the highlight of the service was indeed about to begin. I made eye contact with Maddy, who looked slightly panic-stricken on my behalf, but who was just as powerless to get me out of this impossible predicament.

‘So,’ he repeated, with a firm smile, ‘Vaughan, if you would—’

‘Oh no, I er … I can’t. I mean …’ I mumbled from my seat in the front row.

But I could almost feel the waves of expectation coming from
the
congregation. For the elderly faces staring at me, I sensed that this oration was to be a highlight of their social calendar. They clearly didn’t get out very much any more; a speech at a friend’s funeral was the best entertainment they generally got.

‘Obviously it can be very difficult,’ said the vicar.

‘You have no idea …’ I thought, and with everyone waiting and the vicar not taking the hint to skip to the next section, I felt myself slowly standing up and walking to the pulpit.

The congregation looked at me with the default smile of empathy. I took a deep breath. My legs felt unreliable behind the lectern as I gripped on tight.

‘What can I say about my dad?’

I gave a long, significant pause, which I reckoned bought me another second or two. One retired RAF colleague nodded meaningfully at this rhetorical question.

‘Dad! My old dad …’

There was a wheezy cough from the back row.

‘Well, there’s so much to say it almost seems wrong to attempt to sum it all up in a few minutes …’ an old lady sitting in the third row frowned slightly at this notion ‘… but obviously I’m going to have to,’ and the woman looked reassured. ‘He had a distinguished career in the Royal Air Force, rising to the very senior rank of Air Commodore and serving his country with such distinction that he was awarded a CBE. No, not a CBE, a CB. There was no “E”. Er, he was posted all over the world, but always wanted his family there with him.’ Time just to start making stuff up and presume it was true. ‘Because he was always a great father and a wonderful husband to my late mother …’ This prompted a few nods; there was a sense of reassurance that the tribute was now properly under way. Even if it had turned out that this last detail was wrong, I had felt it unlikely that anyone would dare to contradict me. I couldn’t remember going to any funerals, but I was pretty sure that heckling was generally frowned upon. I saw Dillie looking at up at me admiringly.

‘But he was a wonderful grandfather too. I remember on family holidays in Cornwall –’ I chuckled to myself at the memory of it – ‘he was always so patient with his grandchildren.’ This detail seemed to go down well; they were anxious to know exactly how this quality had manifested itself. ‘Like, he would always … be really patient with them …’

There was another cough.

‘He and my mother made very powerful home-made wine …’ A few smiles at that. ‘And he had a long and distinguished career in the Royal Air Force …’ I realized I’d already said that, and now was pretty sure I was completely out of things I could say about him. ‘He had some interesting sort of regimental cufflinks, and an old-fashioned watch.’ Then there was a long pause and I let out an extended sigh, shrugging and shaking my head slightly as if to say, ‘To be honest, there isn’t much else.’ I could feel a bead of sweat run down my back and I noticed my hands were shaking. In my internal panic, I could think of no other course but the lowest one available to me. I clutched my thumb and forefinger to the bridge of my nose and just said, ‘And I’m going to really miss him …’

It was all the more convincing for the fact that I had gone completely red in the face out of pure embarrassment, and now I bit my lip and shook my head. But in fact, having resorted to this posture, I realized that I did really miss him. He had always been so delighted to see me, and made the world seem such a positive place, lifting my spirits when I was supposed to be lifting his. Perhaps my emotions were more overt than I realized, because as I glanced up from behind where my hand rubbed my furrowed brow, I saw the ladies who had been the first to arrive clutching their tissues to their noses. An old couple who had apparently known me since I was a baby now wiped away a tear. And, directly in my eye-line, right in front of me in the front row, sat Maddy with tears streaming down her cheeks. Only my children were holding it together; in fact, they seemed rather appalled to see a
room
full of supposedly superior grown-ups totally losing control like this.

Witnessing Maddy being so upset like this suddenly flicked a switch inside me. ‘And one of the other things about my dad was that he really thought the world of Maddy,’ I said, looking directly at her. There was more I wanted to say and I started to speak with a fluency and feeling that had been absent up till now. ‘When he was in the hospital at the end, her regular visits were the highlight of his day. He pointed out her kindness and intelligence to me, as if to warn me against the risk of ever losing his beloved daughter-in-law. He was not to know that he was already too late. With him being so ill, we took the decision that he should be protected from the bleak truth that his own son was unable to hold a marriage together in the way that he had done in far more difficult circumstances.’

There was tension in the room, tinged with sadness at the news that Keith’s son’s marriage had not worked out. Only the municipal priest was not enthralled and noticeably checked his watch, clearly anxious to keep a regular supply of coffins feeding the furnaces.

‘Maddy brought his grandchildren to see him one last time, and I think we all knew then that he would never see them again. The kids were so grown-up about it, so affectionate yet gentle with him, and he refused to let a little thing like his own imminent death get him down. “How wonderful to see you all!”’ I said, impersonating him. “What a lucky man I am, to have such a wonderful family!”’

The crowd recognized Keith’s optimism and smiled at the memory. ‘“What a lucky man I am!” he said to us, with tubes sticking out of his body. “What a lucky man I am!” he said, through the pain and discomfort. “What a lucky man I am! Just to be alive for a few more days.”’

I was speaking with some passion now. I had stumbled on my thesis and was conveying it with a missionary zeal. ‘And maybe
the
best way we could all remember my father is for each of us to take that world-view away from this crematorium, and try to remember Keith whenever we are feeling a little bit irritable or sorry for ourselves. “My flight has been delayed; what a lucky man I am to have spotted a bookshop and a coffee bar where I can read!” “My wife and children don’t live with me any more. But what I lucky man I am to know them all, to be able to recall so many wonderful times together, and have so much to look forward to as they grow up ….”’

The vicar’s body language was suggesting my speech was almost at an end. A few more minutes and it felt as if he’d press the switch to send the coffin through the curtains whether I’d finished or not.

‘I know every bereaved son must think this, but believe me when I say, I wish I’d had a bit more time with him. I feel I should have got to know him better. It’s made me determined to spend every possible moment with my own family, to grab every memory that I can – even though I can’t be there as much as I would like, and Maddy now has someone else.’

‘No,’ interjected Dillie. ‘She dumped him.’

The heckle had not been a loud one: the children were in the second row. It was more a mumbled point of order than a public declaration. But I had heard her clearly enough, and then caught her whisper, ‘But they have!’ when Jamie chastised her for speaking out like that during the service. So Maddy and Ralph had broken up. Maddy avoided eye contact, but I looked at her mother and the undisguised satisfaction on her face confirmed that this was indeed the case.

‘What a lucky man I am!’ I said, but I didn’t qualify this with any further information. ‘That’s what I think. What a lucky man I am!’ And I sat down, trying to hold back a beatific smile.

Now I understood the therapeutic value of a funeral, because a curious sense of peace and serenity washed over me. The world seemed like a better place. ‘I’m glad to have been here today,’ I
thought,
as the coffin set off on its short journey to the sound of the Carpenters. They had been Dad’s favourite band, although in retrospect I realized that ‘We’ve Only Just Begun’ was probably not the best choice of song to mark an old man’s demise.

‘Don’t sing along, Vaughan,’ whispered Maddy behind me.

‘Oh. Sorry.’

Chapter 20

‘SIR, MR VAUGHAN, SIR
, why weren’t you in on Friday? Were you in the loony bin, sir?’

‘Are you having a lobotomy, sir? Were you being fitted for your straightjacket?’

‘That’s enough, Tanika.’

‘Have you been sectioned, though? Do you have a padded cell and shit?’

‘Tanika, Dean, you are both on a first warning. Any more disrespect and failure to focus on today’s lesson outcomes and you will be one step away from removal from this classroom, detention and a telephone call home.’

I had relearned the official script and was hoping that my most difficult pupils would recognize the magic words and instantly change their behaviour.

‘We never said nothing. You must be hearing voices, sir.’

‘Are you a serial killer, sir? Do you eat your victims?’

‘Second warning, Tanika!’

‘I’m not Tanika, though. Your memory’s gone all loopy again. I’m Monique, sir.’

‘That’s your last chance, Tanika.’