‘He’d do anything for you, wouldn’t he?’ she said, and I supposed it was true.
You’d do anything for anyone, I thought. I tried not to take advantage of your helpfulness, but you never seemed to mind. You’d water my plants (including the imitation ones); you’d take in my mail and empty my buckets when the rain came in. You put up shelves, collected shopping. Drove me to airports and stations. Picked me up again. For months, you kept me updated with Coronation Street, sending lengthy, detailed summaries that delighted me from my hammock in Langkawi. You were a writer, too.
Always the designated driver on wild nights out of the village, you never complained when we all got wasted and you had to remain sober. You didn’t drink. You didn’t smoke, or swear, or pick your nose, or do anything at all that wasn’t thoughtful, caring or funny. You were the straightest person I knew. You did have one vice, though, didn’t you? One which we could never have imagined.
There won’t be a funeral, your widow informs me. Who on earth would want to go?
It’s a simple question, with what she believes is a simple answer. Life, however – and death, as it turns out – are rarely simple, and I grapple with the question, and with the answer I’m not allowed to give. After all, and despite the news which has rocked me to my core, you were my friend.
They will try to erase every trace of you. But love can’t be banished as if turning a tap, and it won’t relinquish its hold without a struggle. Our memories are real, and you are the same person you were a week ago, a month ago, a decade ago. Plenty of us have different faces that we show the world. How many keep one secret, hidden from those they hold dearest? In a dusty, dark corner that they deny, perhaps, even to themselves?
There won’t be a funeral, then. You were a liar, a manipulator, a freak, a pervert, a monster!
But that is not all you were.
You were a husband, a stepfather, a brother; a councillor, a Scrabble player, a kind neighbour; a quiz master, a cat lover, and someone I trusted with my life. A unionist, a socialist; you were intelligent, informed and widely read. You knew right from wrong, black from white and you weren’t afraid to speak your mind. A hill walker; an author; a quietly warm soul, and the first I befriended when I moved to the village. You’d just arrived, too; our friendship was inevitable.
You took wonderful photographs on our long walks together; you saw the mountains as I do. We’d start from each end and meet in the middle. Occasionally, we nearly didn’t. Once, it was so silly, and so serious, that we decided to write about it: a work of (almost) fiction, told from two perspectives. You drafted your first chapter straight away; I didn’t read it. I would, when we’d both finished, but I never started. I would get around to it eventually; you weren’t going anywhere, were you? I never realised how much I relied on you, until now.
You were my confidante, the one I ran to when my world twisted out of shape. You shared my pain, my anguish and my triumphs. My rock, my anchor, you were always there with a mug of truly terrible coffee. I laughed, cried and put the world to rights on your cheap, hard couch, watching the soaps; we’d shake our heads; they were so far-fetched. I never dreamed that one day we’d be playing out the most outrageous storyline ever written.
And then, in the autumn of your life, you became a family man; at your wedding there were tears of joy. You adopted the role so naturally. You adored your grandchildren. But you loved one of them just a little too much, didn’t you?
One stupid, cruel and selfish deed shattered the reality of everyone around you. What stories did you tell yourself, to justify what you were doing? The life you enjoyed ended there; what happened next was merely confirmation.
I already miss you more than I can bear. And I can’t bear the reason you have gone. Crumpled by the shame and humiliation, you refused to stay and see it through. No excuses, no explanations, no ‘sorry’ – you left us to wrestle with incomprehension, confusion and a million unanswered questions weaving through our grief.
No funeral, then, for the most cowardly – or perhaps the bravest – act you’ve ever performed. Who on earth would want to say goodbye?
………………………………………………………
‘… and when they ask you if you knew me, remember that you were a friend of mine.’
Alan Parsons Project (1982) Old & Wise