Just Last Night(46)
At the lectern, he coughs into a curled fist and looks up at everyone. The sight of him momentarily blurs in my tears as I blink them back.
“Morning,” he says. “I may only be thirty-four years old, but I’m going to guess this will forever be the toughest public speaking gig of my life. As a teacher, I include the time fifth years smuggled a dozen two-liter bottles of Magners Cider in on the last day of term.”
He gives a thin smile. It’s not as if audiences at funerals can give you much encouragement by way of laughter.
“What I’m about to read to you has been written by Susie’s best friend, Eve.” Justin squeezes my knee as Ed looks toward me. I would squeeze back, but I will primal howl.
Who are you, Ed? I never needed to rely on you more than now. The rug has been pulled from under me. I can’t imagine ever trusting you again.
“Eve was not only one of the people who Susie loved most in this world, and vice versa, she’s also very good with words,” he says. “We thought it fitting she say a bit about Susie from the perspective of her friends. Eve can write, I can read, so this is a team effort.”
He coughs again and I tense, waiting for my words in Ed’s voice. Whatever else, I’m very glad I didn’t try to read it myself. I wouldn’t make it through a sentence.
“Eve met Susie in primary school in the 1990s. The first photo of them together is in a nativity play. Susie was the Virgin Mary, always natural casting as a lead, and Eve was the back half of a camel. Always a natural to cast as a dromedary’s arse.”
Ed looks up and says: “Just to remind you again, Eve wrote this.”
He gets an actual laugh.
“There followed what was to become a notorious incident at Saint Peter’s C of E Primary, where the front half of the camel passed out and vomited into the head of the costume, and the back half of the camel struggled out and stood there dressed in vest and pants, and some vomit spray. Other children screamed. Susie Hart, ever the one to make lemons from lemonade, shouted, ‘Look, the camel also gave birth, like me!’ and incorporated it into the storyline.”
This too gets a ripple of amusement.
“From that day on, they were an inseparable duo. On the face of it, Susie and Eve were a total clash. Susie was the captain of netball, whereas Eve wore a fake bandage so she could sit PE out and read Sweet Valley High books.
“Susie didn’t much care for rules and would do anything for her friends. Susie was one of life’s winners, until a split second of horrendous bad luck took her from us. Yet she could never pass by on the other side. She strongly identified with the underdog, while being a straight-A student who succeeded at everything she tried to do. That was her particular magic. Eve remembers a time when a girl in their class was getting bullied for having cheap shoes and Susie not only stuck up for her, she bought the same pair and came to school in them the following week. When Eve said she was heroic, Susie shrugged it off and said: ‘Ugh, I just hate bullies. And anyway, I think I look quite good in gray patent.’”
Another laugh.
“That was Susie. Sardonic, audacious, confident, with a humanity and humor that always shone through. When Eve came to write this, she says she realized that all of Susie was contained in that moment, aged eight years old, when Susie anointed her as God’s vomit-covered baby camel. Confidence and compassion and a metric ton of sass.
“There’s no way to explain how much our group of friends will miss Susie, or how we can begin to calculate how much has been taken from us. From everyone. There’s something exceptional about friendships with friends you’ve known since you were young. They know all the versions of you. They know how you were built. They have a map for you. There’s a shorthand between you, and a love that is as strong as any blood tie.” Ed’s voice wavers and he pauses to gather himself.
“I’m going to read Eve’s summing up in her own first person:
“What I didn’t expect, after Susie died, was to feel this panic. A panic she’d be forgotten. Not her name, or her face, or achievements. The official things. The panic that her voice, the way she spoke, her attitude, all that was unique and specific to her, would pass into history. I wanted her to be here, and for her contributions and opinions to still be with us. That she is past tense feels so impossible, when she was so vividly alive. As I wrote this tribute, I asked myself, what would Susie say if she read it? Hers was the only opinion I wanted, and the only one I couldn’t have.
“I pictured her scanning through it, chin on hand, chewing the drawstring on that terrible rowing club hoodie she wore. She’d giggle at the camel anecdote, and say something about ‘God, do you remember that games teacher though? Put the “hun” into Attila the Hun.’ Then she’d say, at the end, mouth going a bit wiggly and wiping a tear: ‘Oh, you sentimental oaf, give me a hug. I’m not sure, it’s so sweet. Does it make me sound a bit like a cross between Mother Teresa and Samantha from Sex and the City though? I can’t even remember the shoes thing, are you sure? Oh well, if you say so. You can be my official biographer; you’ve got the job. Someone else can write the scandalous stuff about me singing “Happy Birthday Mr. President,” and then bunking up with him.’”
Ed pauses.
“. . . I hope I never stop hearing Susie’s voice or keeping her memory alive. So, the final line is delivered fully in the spirit of Susie Hart, as we knew her—Susie, you were always too much. But we wanted more. Thank you.”