“Dad.” I stopped him mid-excuse. “I’m asking for a few pots of tea, a couple of sandwiches, maybe some biscuits – what’s the big deal? We can give El a really nice…” My throat thickened over the word, but I forced it out. “…send-off. And you won’t have to pay. Not really. It’ll be a loan to me. Whatever it costs, I’ll give you back every penny, I promise.”
“Son, it isn’t about the money.”
“Good, then—”
“It’s the principle. Hosting a stranger’s wake?” He shook his head. “It’s just not the done thing.”
That was when I sent Mum’s pube sculpture flying. It smashed against the wall and bits of reed or whatever the hell it was made of ended up just about everywhere.
“El wasn’t a stranger! I loved him. He was my boyfriend. We laughed and told each other stories and held hands and went to the movies and argued and… And he was my partner, Dad, just the same as Mum is your partner, and I want to give him a final party, that’s all.”
“Dylan, it isn’t the same.”
I stared at both of them. “If you don’t know that it’sexactlythe same then you never understood us at all.” Hunching down, I tried to pick a few of the reeds from the carpet, but my stupid hand wouldn’t work. “Look,” I said, getting up, “I know you’ve saved for my uni stuff. Well, I don’t want it. I’m not going. So just give me a few fucking quid so I can say goodbye to my dead boyfriend.”
Mum ran out of the room crying; Dad hung his head and said nothing. So I told him he had a pube in his hair and went to my room.
I would’ve left home that night, except where would I have gone? To Mike’s maybe. Mumzilla would take me in, no question, but I didn’t want to bring all my crap to their door. Anyway, Mike was really sick all of last week, throwing up practically every time he took a breath. That last round of chemo really took it out of him.
But the simple fact is, I’m not as brave as you, Ellis. I’m too much of a pussy to leave home properly.
“Here we are,” says Carol gently.
We glide into a parking space at a proper funereal pace and all get out. It looks like we’re running late. There’s no one outside the crematorium chapel. Carol turns me to face her, brushes some fluff from my shoulders, and gives me a smile that’s all raised chin.
“You look very handsome, Dylan.” And she just can’t help it. She bursts into tears. “You’ll do him proud today, I know you will.”
“Mum.” Mike puts an arm around her shoulder and starts to guide her into the chapel, then glances back. “You coming, mate?”
“I will,” I promise. “Just give me a minute.”
He nods and they disappear.
The rain has stopped. It pisses me off. The world should weep its heart out today. I walk under the crematorium awning where the hearses pull up.
Yours is there, El. There’s a name card in the window, but it’s empty. I look over the cream-coloured building, built to resemble some peaceful country chapel. It’s all wrong. You should be taken to Hideous Beauty. Toourchurch. To our home. I’d carry you up those winding steps to the belfry and lay your body on the bare boards that used to groan and sing under us. I’d bring you handfuls of snowdrops, the ones that grow around the unreadable gravestones, and make a halo for your head. And then, once I’ve answered the questions that need to be answered – once I’ve found out who scared you so much and who left you to die – I’ll make a place for you in that tangled churchyard and place a marker that readsEllis Maximillian Belland nothing else. Because there is no lifetime to fill up the rest of the stone, no special dates and memories and achievements. All we have left ahead of us is ash and dirt.
I wander into the vestibule. There’s a half-open door with an easel beside it that states:Funeral of Ellis Bell. There’s a book of condolence on the opposite side of the room with a pen on a chain. I snap the chain and use the pen to insert an arrow symbol betweenEllisandBelland write above itMaximillian.
Then I take a huge breath and enter the chapel.
George Ezra fills the chapel. That deep, soulful voice that hums in your chest. It’s a bluesy, country tune with soul and twang and, most people would think, completely inappropriate for a funeral. I think it’s perfect.
Except it tries to force me back into the car:your finger reaching for the off-switch, killing the music before you start touching me.
No. I won’t go back there. Not yet.
So the tragic death of a schoolboy is clearly a draw. The place is packed. Carol and Mike have saved a space for me at the back and I start moving towards them. A few kids from school give me a couple of shy waves, which I automatically return. If they weren’t hanging around in the halls when I told Mr Morris I was quitting, or in that assembly where I made the mother of all scenes, then they haven’t seen me since the Easter dance. Mr Morris didn’t say much when I told him, just advised me to take whatever time I needed. I will. Because I’m not “commendable but unfocused” now, sir. I’m very focused indeed. Iwillfind out who pulled me out of that car and why they left Ellis to drown.
Morris himself is there with Mr Robarts and most of the other teachers – so many teachers that they must have shut down the entire school for the afternoon. Even El’s art teacher Mr Denman, who’s only recently back from sick leave, has shown up. He sits next to Miss Harper, who blows her nose and waves a very un-Harperish handkerchief at me.
A row or two from the front sits Gemma and the committee witches and at the end of their line is Ollie Reynolds. I note in passing that Ollie isn’t the boy clutching Gemma’s shoulder and handing her Kleenex after Kleenex. I think it’s Paul Donovan, but I can’t be sure. All those square-backed rugby boys look alike. Is that prejudice? Am I ruggerist? I’m pondering this question when a hand touches my arm.
“Dylan, would you like to come see him?”
It takes all my willpower to look up into that old-before-its-time face. El’s Aunt Julia is in her fifties, and is always pretty glamorous, but today she looks seventy. Her make-up and mascara have already run into deep lines and canyons.
In the weeks since you died, El, I’ve sat down a hundred times to call her, and each time I’ve cancelled the call before it could connect. What could I possibly tell her apart from that it’s all my fault? If you hadn’t been distracted by the need to comfort and reassure me, then the accident would never have happened.
