The Last Laugh

by Tracy Bloom

  I have to get out. I have to make an escape but I’ve boxed myself in. I’m against the wall. Maureen and Jack, the burglar-cum-Spice-Girl-fancier, are in my way. Disturbing the proceedings, however, is still preferable to having to witness Emily’s last moment – I just can’t do it.

  The man at the front is currently reading a poem. I wonder if it was of Emily’s choosing or someone just picked out of a book entitled Good Poems for Funerals. I suspect the latter.

  I bend my head low and get up, squeezing past Maureen and Jack, muttering quiet apologies. There’s rustling as people turn round to try and work out why Geri Halliwell is bailing, but all I can feel is relief as I reach the aisle and turn my back on the poetry and the coffin and the flowers. I walk as quickly as decently possible in my high-heeled shoes to the door.

  Outside, I gulp in the fresh air and fall against a brick pillar. It’s started drizzling with rain and I can feel it flattening my beautiful blow-dried ginger hair with a blonde streak. I hold the backs of my hands out at my sides and feel the drops prickling my skin. Tiny sparks of feeling. I walk away from the pillar and feel the sparks on my face. It’s never felt so good to feel the rain, it makes me feel alive.

  Twenty-Three

  I wait in the car for Maureen. I soon see her appear next to the purple and yellow sign. She looks at me from across the car park then raises her hand as if hailing a cab. I get the message.

  ‘Well, I’ve given him something to think about,’ she says as she drops herself down in the passenger seat. I wait as she faffs around with the seatbelt.

  ‘Who?’ I ask.

  ‘Simon, Emily’s son. I told him that Emily might have lasted a bit longer if she hadn’t had him to worry about.’

  ‘Very thoughtful of you.’

  ‘Well, he’s such a waste of space. Always has been. It’s about time he felt some responsibility.’

  ‘For his mother’s death?’

  ‘Yes, why not? She worried about him day and night. I reckon he took ten years off her. So, are you glad you came?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what are you going to do about yours?’

  ‘My what?’

  ‘Your funeral.’

  ‘Jesus, Maureen! Who are you?’ I say, turning to face her. ‘The ghost of funerals yet to come or something?’

  ‘Would you rather I sat here and told you to be positive, everything is going to be fine? Is that who you want me to be? Or do you want me to help you tackle it head-on and make sure you do this thing properly?’

  This is not a version of ‘Would you rather’ I can say I’m particularly enjoying.

  ‘You choose,’ she demands. ‘I can do the pathetic holding-hands stuff if you want me to. Oh dear, poor, poor Jenny. How are you feeling, dear? Is there anything I can do, dear? It must be so awful for you. You are so brave. You just stay positive, dear, and everything will be fine.’

  ‘Stop!’ I shout, holding my hands over my ears. Bloody hell. Maureen can be so annoying.

  We sit there for a few moments not speaking. A hearse glides slowly past us.

  ‘I don’t want to go like this,’ I mutter.

  ‘That’s the spirit.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said, that’s the spirit. You’re right, you don’t want to go like this. It’s rubbish. Fine if you’re old and there’s no one left to really care. But you. No, this isn’t you.’

  ‘That’s the point, isn’t it, though? This isn’t for me, is it?’ I say, pointing out the window.

  ‘The car park?’

  ‘No, all of this. All of this funeral palaver, it’s not for me. It’s for the people you leave behind, that’s who it’s for. I won’t bloody be here, will I?’

  Maureen leans back in her seat, blinking.

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it like that,’ she says.

  Honestly she takes my breath away sometimes.

  ‘Fuck it then,’ she tells me. ‘Let’s not worry about the funeral. Shall we go?’

  No, she really takes my breath away.

  ‘Seriously?’ I say. ‘You drag me to a funeral for no reason!’

  ‘I thought it might help but you are exactly right. The last person who needs to worry about their funeral is the person whose funeral it is. And do you know what?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m not writing to Dorothy any more. Why should I care if she’s at my funeral or not? I’m crossing her off the Christmas card list as soon as we get back. All those years I’ve wasted keeping in touch. What was I thinking?’

  I shake my head and start up the car.

  ‘People should really have their funerals before they die,’ mutters Maureen. ‘They’re wasted on the dead. What you need is a going-away party rather than a funeral.’

  The words ‘going-away party’ float through my brain.

  Somewhere from deep in my conscious I hear a crowd shouting, ‘Jen-ny, Jen-ny, Jen-ny.’

  I slam the brakes on.

  ‘That’s it!’ I say, staring at Maureen.

  ‘What’s it?’

  ‘You are a genius. That’s it! A going-away party, I’ll have a going-away party.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A going-away party,’ I declare. ‘A going-away party, 1996 style. You’ve nailed it. That’s how I want to do it.’

  I grip Maureen’s hand excitedly whilst she stares back at me in shock.

  For the first time in days I finally feel like I have something to look forward to… whilst I die.

  Twenty-Four

  Being at a funeral has sparked a peculiar desire to see my mother. There’s a first. I drop Maureen off, thankfully now buzzing with thoughts of helping plan my party/wake rather than my funeral, then I drive over to my parents’ house, unannounced and without reason. I wonder what my mother will make of that. It will either send her into a complete spin or she will think of the first thing she can as a reason for escape.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asks when she opens the door. ‘And… and…’

  She’s looking me up and down, trying to sum up her review of my new look. I wince even before the words come out.

  ‘Why?’ is all she can say with a look of astonishment and disdain.

  ‘Do you like it?’ I ask defiantly. I can’t really answer the why question. She shakes her head.

  ‘You look like something from… I don’t know… Essex,’ she says.

  ‘Great,’ I reply. ‘Just great. You going to invite me in then?’

  ‘Er, well, yes, I suppose I could go and do some shopping. That would be handy. I’m low on teabags,’ she says, stepping to one side.

  ‘Oh, I can’t stop long,’ I say as soon as I’m safely in the hallway. ‘It’s just a flying visit.’

  I can see the look of utter confusion on her face. You don’t call in on my mother, you book an appointment or you respond to an urgent demand, in my case. Promptly or prepare for hell.

  ‘You have lost weight finally so I suppose you can carry off that kind of look,’ she mutters as I take my shoes off. ‘But maybe tone it down a little bit, hey? You don’t want people saying you look like mutton dressed as lamb, do you?’

  ‘Do you think I look like mutton dressed as lamb?’ I ask her when I straighten up. I’m feeling a bit dizzy, as the blood has rushed to my head.

  She nods. ‘A little,’ she says but she means a lot.

  ‘Cup of tea?’ I ask brightly.

  She stares at me. The confused look is back. I cannot remember the last time my mother and I sat down and shared a cup of tea and a natter. If ever. She turns without a word to the kitchen, her mid-height court shoes clacking on the wooden hall floor.

  I sit myself down at the kitchen table and watch as she flicks the switch on the kettle in silence and reaches up into an overhead cupboard for the teabags. I’m not sure why I’m here. It might be because, amongst the other revelations outside the crematorium, I also realised that, whilst everyone else will experience my death, actually the effect on me
is that I will experience everyone else’s death in one fell swoop.

  Come my passing, everyone is dead to me.

  All my relationships come to dust, gone. I must mourn everyone as I make some kind of attempt to prepare for the end. Including my mother.

  I think in the back of my mind I always thought that one day I would do something that she would be proud of, show warmth towards. We might even achieve a glimmer of a mother–daughter relationship. I thought we still had time to get there, that I would connect with her, but time is running out. That is what going to a funeral does to you.

  ‘I’ve been to a funeral this morning,’ I announce.

  She spins round, teaspoon in mid-air.

  ‘Dressed like that!’ she exclaims.

  I bite my lip. She could have asked whose it was. She could have expressed concern for my loss. She could have said a simple, ‘Oh dear’. But no, her instinct is to leap to me showing myself up as usual. I can feel tears prickle my eyes. I bite my lip harder.

  ‘Was it one of your gay friends from Greece?’ she asks, curling her lip and putting a mug down in front of me.

  ‘No,’ I gasp. ‘Whatever made you say that?’

  ‘Well, I can imagine one of them having, you know, a themed funeral.’

  I think my mouth must be on the floor. I don’t know what to say, I’m utterly flummoxed.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ I eventually say sarcastically. ‘He wanted the Spice Girls to be his pallbearers.’

  My mother sits down in front of me. She’s not listening to me now, I can tell. It’s not even registered what I just said.

  ‘The coffin arrived in the back of a pink stretch limousine. It was amazing,’ I continue.

  ‘Mmmm,’ she nods, looking into the distance. ‘Very classy.’

  Silence.

  ‘Do you know what kind of funeral you want?’ I ask her.

  She blinks several times. I suspect the subject of her own funeral has never crossed her mind and if it has she has skipped past it. She’s a healthy fit woman who prides herself on her healthy eating habits. She doesn’t intend to go anywhere any time soon and in any case my dad will go first, without question. That is the next family funeral everyone is expecting, not hers; there is no way she is going anywhere before she has been released by my dad’s death. It would be exceptionally rude of him to hang on much longer.

  ‘I prefer not to think about it,’ she says eventually. ‘But Antony has a copy of our wills. There’s guidance in there.’

  ‘Oh, he will be coming to your funeral then, will he?’

  I think she might slap me.

  ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Well, it’s just that he doesn’t bother to turn up to any other family stuff.’

  ‘He’s a surgeon, Jenny. He puts his patients first.’

  ‘Yep,’ I agree. ‘Particularly when he’s on his annual Caribbean Christmas holiday.’

  She falters. I watch every year as my mother asks my brother earlier and earlier if he will come and spend Christmas with them and every year he’s always just booked a holiday, but of course is gutted that he won’t get to share dry turkey and useless Christmas presents with his family.

  ‘He has to have a holiday some time,’ she says, staring down into her tea. ‘He always calls though, doesn’t he?’ she adds, looking up again. ‘As soon as he gets up, he’s on the phone to wish us all a merry Christmas.’

  He most certainly is. The worst part of Christmas Day for me is about three o'clock in the afternoon when Antony puts his duty call in. Mum comes off the phone flush with excited chatter about what the temperature is in the Bahamas, what’s on the five-course Christmas lunch menu and what’s in their Christmas cocktail that they are currently sipping on the beach, being waited on hand and foot. The call always seems to coincide with the moment I contemplate the mammoth pile of washing-up, Ellie and George wanting to kill each other and Mark and his mum falling asleep on the sofa. Despite the fact I’m the one who has cooked Christmas dinner for her every year since I’ve been married, my mother still insists on declaring that she wishes she could be with my brother on Christmas Day.

  ‘Yes, it really is terribly good of him to call us,’ I say. ‘It wouldn’t be Christmas without Antony ringing it in from the sunshine.’

  Christmas suddenly rears its head as a future event to dread or possibly one to not even be around for. Either way is depressing. Can you believe that? Christmas will not be an event high on my list to mourn. What happened there? How have I inhabited a life that doesn’t enjoy Christmas? I stare back at my mum. I want to tell her that she ruined Christmas.

  ‘I’m not cooking Christmas dinner this year,’ I blurt out.

  I might as well tell her. Either way I will not be living the Christmas hell I usually experience. If I’m alive, I’m going to make damn sure it’s a good one, and if I’m dead… well, they’ll have to sort themselves out, won’t they?

  ‘What do you mean, you’re not cooking?’ Mum asks me.

  ‘I’m just not.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I don’t enjoy it.’

  She blinks.

  ‘And you say every year I overcook the turkey.’

  ‘Well, you do.’

  ‘So what’s the point? I hate cooking it and you don’t like eating it. So let’s drop the pretence, shall we?’

  ‘But your dad likes it.’

  ‘He’d prefer sausages.’

  ‘You can’t have sausages for Christmas lunch.’

  ‘Antony has a barbeque every Christmas.’

  ‘That’s because he’s not here, he’s on a beach.’

  ‘I know!’ I say, slamming my fist on the table. ‘He’s never here.’

  She blinks again and looks away.

  ‘He visits when he can,’ she says quietly.

  ‘When did he last visit?’

  She looks up sharply.

  ‘I saw him in April,’ she replies.

  ‘You went to his house in April, I looked after Dad. When did he last come here?’

  She tries to hold my gaze.

  ‘August,’ she mutters.

  ‘Last August?’

  She nods.

  ‘Nearly a year ago. He hasn’t seen Dad in a year?’

  The truth is, I know exactly when Antony last came because Mum had me painting the spare room and then he said he couldn’t stay over. But I want to hear her say it.

  ‘He’s very busy,’ she says again.

  ‘Too busy to see his own dad in nearly a year?’

  She says nothing but her shoulders sag. I’m getting through to her, I can tell, but whereas I thought I’d get some joy out of my mother admitting my brother wasn’t the hero she bills him as, actually all I feel is sad for her.

  I realise her image of her surgeon hero son is her pride and joy despite its falsehood. It makes her happy, it’s her badge of honour that she has succeeded in life and I’m trying to rip it from her. I suddenly see her for what she is: a woman trapped in a marriage to someone she no longer knows. Her status as a bank manager’s wife has faded to nothing and she is desperately trying to grasp hold of the threads in her life that elevate her to something meaningful. Her only remaining status symbol, the most important thing in my mother’s life, is being the mother of a surgeon.

  She says nothing. She’s looking down into her tea, her mind fighting hard to work out the defence for her beloved son.

  ‘Why don’t you go to the Caribbean this year with Antony?’ I say.

  She looks up sharply.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she replies. I’m actually relieved to see her ‘my daughter is an idiot’ face return. ‘Your father can’t travel all that way.’

  ‘He can stay with us,’ I reply. ‘Or I’ll get him into Shady Grove for a couple of weeks – they do respite care there. He can go for some day visits beforehand, get him used to it.’

  My mum’s mouth is hanging open. She wants to tell me I’m being ridicu
lous – her default mode with me. She wants to tell me I’ve come up with another stupid plan that yet again shows the enormous intelligence gap between my brother and me. She is trying to think of a rebuke, but there is none to hand. This ridiculous idea of mine makes her want to cry with happiness, but because I’ve come up with it, something does not compute.

  ‘Antony is going to the Caribbean this year, isn’t he?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes,’ she nods. ‘He’s booked where they went last year – you know, the one with five pools and the swim-up bar.’

  ‘What’s it called, can you remember?’

  ‘Oh yes, I have the address because I sent Lucas a present last year. So hard for Antony to fit the presents in his suitcase so I post them so he doesn’t have to worry about it.’

  ‘Right, you go and find the address and we’ll get it up online, shall we?’ I say, taking out my phone. ‘Let’s just check they have availability before we call Antony.’

  * * *

  Five minutes later and the glorious blue sea of the Bahamas is filling my phone screen. I try not to feel sick with envy at the images of pure white sand and palm trees. I plug in dates for availability for two weeks over Christmas and heave a sigh of relief that there appears to be no issue, other than needing a second mortgage to secure a room. The money will not be a problem, I know, as Dad is a careful man who planned to be very comfortable in his old age, though sadly he didn’t get to enjoy it. It’s about time somebody did.

  ‘Ring Antony,’ I say to Mum.

  ‘What, now?’

  ‘Yes, now.’

  ‘He’ll be at work.’

  ‘He might not be. Come on and then you can get it booked.’

  She looks at me in nervous anticipation then gets up to fetch the phone.

  ‘Hello dear. I’m not disturbing you, am I?… No, everything’s fine, I just wanted to tell you something, that’s all. You know you’re going to the Grand Hyatt for Christmas again… Yes, well, your sister has come up with the most brilliant idea.’