‘Are you alright?’ said Mr Feeney. ‘What happened?’
I felt like I had just done a cross-country PE class, the ones where I ran to try to keep up with Ronan. He’d be able to talk no problem afterwards and I always struggled to string a sentence together with the exhaustion.
‘I don’t know, Mr Feeney. I don’t know what that was.’
‘No,’ he said, still on the ground with me. ‘No, it was a funny turn you had there, was indeed.’
‘I think maybe,’ I said, ‘I think maybe it was all the details or something. The timings. Just thinking … this time tomorrow … it’ll all be …’
‘Aye,’ said Mr Feeney.
‘I’m alright now,’ I said, getting to my feet even though my legs felt weak. ‘Can we do another few laps?’
‘Maybe you should take a wee break there, Brendan,’ he said, getting up, ‘the wife has some scones there, sure why don’t we …’
‘I’d like to keep at it, Mr Feeney, if that’s OK.’
He put his hands on his hips, looked back at the house and then back to me.
‘Are you sure this is OK for the’mara, Brendan? Would it maybe not be better for you to be with the family and be a part of the funeral in that way?’
‘I think … I think I might find it easier to do this, Mr Feeney. I think I might have to … I think I just … have to.’
‘You’re some man,’ said Mr Feeney. ‘Right.’ He walked round to the passenger side and I got back into the driver’s seat, closed the door, put my seatbelt on, started up the engine and did another lap of the funeral home.
‘Nicely done,’ said Mr Feeney. ‘Happy enough? Would you want to come a bit earlier in the morning for a wee reminder or will you just be comin’ along as planned with your parents?’
It dawned on me that I hadn’t talked to Mum and Dad about anything to do with the funeral, or if I had it was in one of my memory blanks and I had no recollection of it.
‘I think I’m happy enough, Mr Feeney, for arriving with my parents. What time?’
‘Well, up to you. Did you want to see Ronan at all in the morning – before?’
‘I thought it was … the McCoys said it wouldn’t be an open casket?’
‘No, that’s right, but they’ll be having a private moment with Ronan in the chapel of rest first thing. I’d say you’d … well, maybe you’d want that too? Sometimes it’s a nice thing for a friend to do a wee somethin’, maybe style the hair for him or something like that?’
‘Have you seen the state of my hair, Mr Feeney?’ I said with a half laugh.
‘Aye, fair point,’ he said and nudged me. ‘Sure look at my own! We’ll leave that to the experts, what do you say?’
‘I say that’s a good idea.’
‘Well, maybe there’s a wee somethin’ else you’d like to do or if you’d rather not that’s not a bother. Either way, we’ll be allowing Ronan’s mum and dad all the time they need up until quarter past nine and then we’ll get going.’
A van pulled up into the yard, entirely black, no windows. It was a vehicle I never cleaned. It was the one used to pick bodies up from the homes they died in or from hospital after post-mortem.
‘Is … Ronan here already?’ I asked.
Mr Feeney looked forward through the glass at the arriving vehicle.
‘He is, Brendan.’
The driver of the van, Vinnie, got out and spotted Mr Feeney and me sitting in the hearse. He raised a hand. He was one of Mr Feeney’s oldest employees; kind, quiet, well past retirement age but still did collections and embalmings because Mr Feeney said there was no one like him and that his manner for the job was one in a million.
When Mr Feeney said Ronan was there already I didn’t know if he meant in the back of that van or in the funeral home; either way, I didn’t want to stay.
‘I think I’ll go home now, Mr Feeney. I feel confident enough with the hearse.’
