EXERPT FROM 'IT IS WHAT IT IS' ('ON SNAKES & OTHER STORIES', BY YRSA DALEY-WARD)

 

 

I SAW DAD FOR THE LAST TIME ONE HOUR AND FORTY-SEVEN minutes ago when I took one final look at the still body in the open casket. The complexion was duller but it looked just like him. The greying hair, broad nose, black lips. His expression solemn, as it was in life. He never smiled at us.

The church deaconess was in my ear, going on and on about how good he had always looked in a Trilby and asking what would become of his collection, especially the navy one with the pink felt ribbon. I promised to be sure to contact her if I needed any help clearing the clothes and agreed that the church was a great place for charity to begin. She wanted to know what I was going to do with his good winter coat and green cashmere sweater. She mentioned that her youngest son and my father probably wore the same size.

I had been feeling quite blank up until then but suddenly felt an irrepressible urge to laugh out loud. Mrs Harrison has always been tactless. Ever since I was little she has gotten away with these ill-timed requests because she is one of the oldest members of the church. And the lady picks her moments. When Lemar Campbell died of a brain tumour, Mrs Harrison asked Lemar’s mother right at the graveside for his walking stick. Just as they were singing Shall We Gather At the River, and sprinkling the very first shovels of dry earth onto the casket. It had been a beautiful, very ornate walking stick with a gold handle and tip, but still.

I will not be sorting through his clothes or dealing with anything at all. She is welcome to anything and everything. So far as I am concerned, anyone can have what they bloody well want.

I’m very, very sorry. I really can’t remember this morning particularly well. I am tired all the time lately, but am not sleeping properly at all. I have taken to drinking a mug of chamomile tea with honey or sometimes warm milk with nutmeg before bed. Nothing works. When I do drop off, I keep having strange dreams in which neither of my parents are dead and they are both shouting over each other, trying to explain themselves. Pleading with me, trying to make amends.

“One at a time,” I say to them, feigning exasperation, but secretly glad of the attention. “Calm down, both of you. One at a time.”

Anyway, this is what happened. I still can’t believe it really. But it is what it is.

The sermon drew to a close. The final hymn had been sung and the minister urged us all to give our hearts to Jesus. We said a final prayer and a small stream of people clad in their blackest mourning clothes were filing out from the back rows towards the front to the pay their last respects to my father. Mr and Mrs Baptiste were talking at me about how gentle a person he was, how funny, how frank and how good and I sat there wondering why we had been so deprived of the person that everyone thought the world of when Levy goes over and does the craziest thing.

Levy goes over and spits in the coffin.