Just Last Night(36)

“I don’t think Susie would’ve liked the thought of any of this. Imputing ‘liking’ things to her seems slightly mad, given the situation. There’s only least worsts. The least worst to her would’ve been cremation, in my opinion.”

I am horribly stung by being called “slightly mad,” which would be hurtful any time, but in this context is like he kicked me while I was on the floor.

Only a pass the size of his loss can stop me openly losing it, in return.

“Erm, OK, but I knew her well too, and I am sure she’d . . . want burial.”

“With all due respect—” Fin starts.

A phrase that only ever means “which is none.”

“. . . You can’t be sure. Did you ever discuss which method of disposal she’d prefer, should she die suddenly?”

“No, obviously not, but . . .”

“Right, well. Neither did Susie and I. But we aren’t a religious family, and we aren’t a burials family. My mother’s was something of an anomaly.”

Oh, of course. The fight. He’s rerunning it. People don’t change. Bastards gonna bastard, I hear Susie say.

I’m left uselessly opening and closing my mouth. Purely at a debating level, it seems to me Fin should’ve picked a lane—he says it matters he’d rather she was cremated, while also saying Susie would agree. Which is it? Especially as you two disagreed on what color the sky was, from what I can gather.

I hadn’t—stupidly, perhaps—expected him to pull rank. I feel as if I’m letting Susie down by allowing Fin to prevail, and that feeling is powerful.

“But . . . ,” I begin.

“If you want cremation, and you’re her surviving relative, then that’s what should happen,” Ed interrupts, with a pointed look at me that communicates let this go.

“Her surviving relative who’s compos mentis, anyway,” Fin says.

As I’m about to ask if he’s checked in on his dad, and what state he’s in, Fin’s phone rings and he says: “I’ve got to take this. Thanks for everything you’ve done. Call me if there’s anything else.”

He picks up his phone and says a brisk “Hello?” into it, puts his hand up by way of farewell, and strides away across the café.

We sit in stunned silence for a few beats. Ed with clenched teeth, me lightly seething, Justin quizzical.

“Well. He puts the strange in estranged,” Justin says. “Was it me, or was there some hateration and holleration in this dancery?”

“Not a complete mystery why he and Susie didn’t see eye to eye, is it?” I say. “Not up there with the Bermuda Triangle and who built Stonehenge. Fucking hell.”

“Ah dear . . . I don’t expect him to be cheerful,” Ed says. “That did seem unnecessarily confrontational.” He pauses. “But maybe he has particular reasons regarding not wanting a burial.”

I roll my tired, eyelinered eyes at Ed.

“Oh come on, Ed. Even you don’t believe that. That was about a show of strength. It was testing how it felt to get his own way, when Susie’s not here to stop him. He’s not even fussed she’s gone, from what I can see. He’s a monster. A walking Voight-Kampff test in spotless sneakers.”

“That’s the check to show whether or not you’re a replicant in Blade Runner,” Justin says to Ed and Ed says “I know!” indignantly.

“Should I have insisted on burial?” I say, doleful.

“Wait, that wasn’t you insisting?” Justin says, with a sly expression.

“You know what I mean.”

Ed shakes his head, emphatically. “No. Even if he’s secretly a robot, it’s his call. We’re only getting to do as much planning as we are due to Fin allowing it. He could be owning every last detail.”

“It’s only as he doesn’t want the hassle and didn’t know her. Can you imagine him having an insight on anything she liked since the ‘Barbies’ age?”

“Whatever the reason,” Ed says. “Don’t piss him off. You only have to tolerate him until the end of the wake and then you’ll never see him again.”

“Imagine. He might sack his dad’s funeral off entirely,” Justin says.

“Oh no, he’d come back for that, and you know why?” I say. “Little thing called being a sole living heir.”

“Unless his dad disliked him so much he wrote him out of the will,” Justin says.

“. . . And the unscrupulous long-lost son reappeared, when his father was infirm and mentally unsound of mind . . . and got him to change it?”

“Woah,” Justin says, and we boggle at each other at the eminent plausibility of this being Fin’s current, concurrent project.

“Alright you two, this isn’t an episode of Inspector Morse,” Ed says. “Concentrate on the tasks in hand.”





15


We decide, after Fin’s flourish of a departure, to sketch out the order of service before I go to the printer’s.

A Celebration (??) of the Life of . . .

“Are we going with ‘celebration’—yay, look on the bright side?” I say, looking skeptically at my own words. “I see no cause for optimism.” I add another question mark.