Monday: my grandfather's funeral

Two years ago, almost to the day, my grandmother died. Two lonely years where a very fine man diminished, more dependent than we ever could have imagined on a woman he frustrated and was frustrated by in equal measure.

I arrived at Warrington station not long after ten o’clock, cold and tired from an early start and no breakfast, and was met by my father, who took a circuitous route back to his childhood home, tacitly avoiding, I suspect, his sister’s society.

The funeral was at midday. Old men abounded, for my grandfather was a proud big cheese in the village of Lymm’s British Legion, and an ace bowler to boot. As we prepared to pursue the coffin, my aunt told my father that 24 months previous we had organised ourselves in the wrong order at the front of the Church, and that we must avoid the same mistake on this, our final chance to be a family of mourners. I sat between my elder brother and my mother, my father and aunt quite properly placed nearest the aisle. I did not tell my aunt that my father, as the elder child, should surely sit nearer than her.

The vicar spoke and spoke. My father appeared to cry for the second time I know of and the first in my presence; my aunt sobbed and her husband gulped. To my left my mother looked down; to my right, a shock: tears had formed in the corner of my brother’s left eye. They ran down his cheek. My mother wept to see my brother cry, and I brushed my hand against his leg, to let him know I’d seen and was next to him. But I was alone: my dry eyes unmatched, I concentrated on singing louder than my family could manage - on giving my granddad a rousing send-off. I wanted to pour my manly, tearless strength into my brother, to patronise him with my stoicism; but whoever told you that in the absence of emotion lay strength?

The vicar spoke at length on subjects provided by my father: on canals, and the seven generations of my family who had worked upon them, right back to Britain’s first; on the L- bridge, named for my granddad and his ancestors – “the last L- in Lymm”; on his part in the D-Day landings, and work for the British Legion; on his children and his love for them. Normal things: stare ahead, listen and stay stony.

On his grandchildren, of whom he was “in awe”. Awe. A short and simple word, but the only one which shook me all day. I don’t know whether it was the vicar or my father who chose it, but it summed up in a syllable the sense of love, pride and reverence I felt from the man. The reverence which made me feel uncomfortable and superior as a child; which smoothed the path to the easy condescension of my youth; which led to the guilt-tinged respect of early-manhood.

Still I didn’t cry. I don’t cry. I felt nothing. It was the same at my grandmother’s funeral, but then neither my father nor my brother appeared moved. Here I felt alone in my apparent indifference: alone, and lacking.

We drove to the crematorium in silence, and filed into the chapel. We maintained the order of mourners as before. Two old men stood at the front supporting flags. Bent by age and the weight of the brass poles, they bowed in silent tribute to my grandfather. I contrasted them to the cub-scout of my childhood: a sixer pompously bearing the fleur de lys into church, arms straight, daring myself to lower my proud burden an inch.

From behind me, as the curtains closed in front of the coffin, The Last Post sounded. I’d never heard it in its entirety – never experienced the pauses. I remembered my brave, dead ancestor as I heard it, before another memory, unbidden, ambushed me: that scene at the start of Austin Powers where he takes his first pee since being unfrozen, and every time you think he’s stopped, he starts again. As the music entered its second pause – and I realised there would be another – I had to concentrate only on not laughing; as it began again I snorted. I didn’t notice anyone noticing. It didn’t happen.

As I travelled home on a packed, late train to Euston, all that played on my mind was how I should wear my white shirt and plain dark tie to work more often, instead of my succession of pale blues and pinks. I read Youth, by JM Coetzee, and realised that I've got more than I knew to think about.