Getting Over It by Anna Maxted Read Free Book Online

says. “How are you?” I tell him I’m fine. He nods quickly, then says, “We’re ready to embark on your father’s last journey, if we may. Do you wish the arrangement to stay on the coffin, or shall we remove it?” I’m stumped. “Er, what do people normally do?” I say. “Most folk prefer to take it off,” he says. “They often like to donate it to an appropriate hospital ward—in this case, the cardiac unit, “ he adds helpfully. How jolly for the patients. “Oh, fine, do that then,” I blurt. I become aware of a dip in the noise level, during which a woman’s voice exclaims, “I hope he’s not going to be buried over the other side. I hate the walk.” I turn and my heart thuds as I see that the dark Dracula-esque coffin has been rolled out of its hearse and six sober-suited men are slowly hefting it onto their shoulders. I stare at it in horror. This solid, ugly, stark token of death. Jesus! My father is in there. Dead. Cold. Stiff. Starting to rot. How long before the rigor mortis is softened with the stink of decay and—I am wrenched from my rotten thoughts by my mother, who storms right up to Uriah and shouts in his face: “Morrie’s cousin Stephen wants to carry the coffin!”
    Not by himself, surely, I say in my head. Cousin Stephen is about ninety-three and the height of a Munchkin. “Mum,” I begin, glancing nervously at Uriah, “we were supposed to sort—” Uriah stops me with a light touch on my shoulder. “It’s not a problem,” he says grandly. After a short flurry—and when I say short, I mean short—Cousin Stephen is promoted to a pallbearer. Uriah somehow organizes everyone into a long straggly line, eyeballs Luke into extinguishing his cigarette, and takes his place in front of the coffin, with the minister.
    My mother, Nana Flo, and I stand behind it. I glance at Nana to see if she might faint, but she has a strong, angry look about her, like she’s preparing for battle. My mother is trembling and her face is swollen with tears. I hug her and nearly collapse as she promptly relaxes her entire weight onto me. She clings with one arm and uses the other to keep her hat from whizzing off her head and spinning across the white sea of gravestones. I feel as if I’m acting a part in a film. It’s ridiculous! Today is a chill, blustery Wednesday morning. I should be sitting at my desk in an overheated office, slurping a double espresso and leafing through the Sun on the pretext of doing research. Instead, here am I, with a great troupe of people, in the bloody countryside, stumbling over the muddy earth behind a big brash coffin containing my dad, toward a freshly dug grave to bury him deep in the ground—bury my father—who only last week was cheerily celebrating the dropping of his handicap with fat cigars and a round of brandies for his putting pals in the Brookhill Golf Club bar. I wonder how Tina’s £195 shoes are negotiating the dirt.
    For the first five steps of the funeral march, the coffin is—thanks to squat Cousin Stephen—wobbly and uneven. Thankfully, Uriah’s men hoist it up and off Cousin Stephen’s short shoulder until he is actually standing underneath it. He is forced to be content with placing a nominal hand of support on its polished surface and our bizarre procession shuffles on. I glide forward like a zombie. Everyone is hushed and the only sound is a plane droning overhead and the wind whipping the soft feathery branches of the elderly yew trees.
    I feel sick. I am dreaming, and soon someone is going to wake me, tell me it’s a mad twisted nightmare, and I’ll open my eyes, and I’ll be in my warm soft bed and this surreal situation will vanish. Disappear. End. Stop. “ Stop !” roars my mother in a voice that God could have used to part the Dead Sea. Everyone—including, unfortunately, the pallbearers—jumps about a foot in the air and staggers to a hurried halt. Nana looks dumbstruck. “Good grief,” I say rather stupidly, “what’s