without a leg for six months.’
‘Good luck with it, pal.’
He trundled away, leaving me with a guilty aftertaste. Had I been a bit blunt?
The lift was out of order so I climbed the stairs – see, Len, legs can come in handy at these moments? – and sat down in front of the TV to tackle my meal: rubbery chunks of reconstituted chicken floating like styrofoam in a fluorescent orange sea. I ate it straight from the box, staring at the television that was playing some pulpy sitcom punctuated by bursts of
synthetic laughter. But my mind was already engaged elsewhere: I was planning Mother’s funeral.
Because she’d died in hospital of an unknown cause, I’d been told Mother would have to undergo an autopsy. This would give me time to make suitable funeral arrangements. I thought about giving her a grand East End-style send-off: a big funeral procession with a jazz band, dancing, former lovers and husbands meeting at her graveside to exchange tearful embraces and anecdotes. She’d have liked that. But I found myself lacking in energy, too exhausted even to clear her room. Besides, I reckoned if I was going to keep up the pretence that Inna Alfandari was, in fact, my mother, then the fewer people who knew about the real Lily’s demise the better. I logged on and googled ‘burial rituals’.
I wasn’t sure what religion Mother had embraced at the end, if any. She’d certainly been through a few changes. Born into a radical East End family in 1932, she related with pride that her father, Grandad Robert, was a religious pacifist: ‘Religion was like opium to him. He was addicted to it.’ Her mother, my Granny Gladys, aka Gobby Gladys, had been a strident supporter of George Lansbury, the Labour Party leader in the 1930s, and his mild vision of Christian socialism. Ted Madeley, Mother’s first husband, had been a Methodist lay preacher, but apparently none of the sobriety and self-restraint associated with Methodism had rubbed off on her – or even on him, as it turned out. For a while, when I was young, she’d championed High Church of England like my dad, Wicked Sid Sidebottom, a lapsed Anglican. In her later years, she turned to the Catholic faith like her last husband, the Ukrainian Lev ‘Lucky’ Lukashenko, who had swept her off her unsteady feet in a blaze of candlelit romance; but after their bitter divorce, she was drawn to the peaceful Buddhism of the Dalai Lama.
Maybe she would have liked a Buddhist sky burial. That would be discreet enough, since our flat is on the top floor and Tecton had installed a communal drying area on the roof, which is now unused. I glanced out of the window. The sky above Hackney was overcast. A couple of grubby pigeons flapped by, but alas no vultures. Cremation or burial seemed rather run of the mill for Mother, and would be easily discoverable, but burial at sea left few traces. Brighton Pier would be a good location – Brighton was the scene of her honeymoon with Ted Madeley, her first real love, and maybe her last. These thoughts brought on a new bout of melancholia, and I cheered myself up by googling the protocols involved.
Next day, fortified with a breakfast of two Shredded Wheats, I cycled over to Islington to drop off my bulging carrier bags full of Mother’s stuff at the Oxfam shop. It was a Saturday and the shop was heaving. I pushed my way through towards the back door where you leave donations. On the left was the changing cubicle, beneath the drawn curtains of which a woman’s bare feet were visible. The toenails were painted mauve, the ankles were swollen with matching mauve-coloured scabs that looked like flea bites. Oh horror! Suddenly the curtain was yanked aside, and a plump woman in a baggy sweater and too-tight black leggings emerged. It was Mrs Penny.
I wasn’t quick enough to look away. We couldn’t pretend we hadn’t seen each other.
‘Hello,’ I said.
She looked utterly mortified to be discovered in such a downmarket setting.
‘Fancy
‘Good luck with it, pal.’
He trundled away, leaving me with a guilty aftertaste. Had I been a bit blunt?
The lift was out of order so I climbed the stairs – see, Len, legs can come in handy at these moments? – and sat down in front of the TV to tackle my meal: rubbery chunks of reconstituted chicken floating like styrofoam in a fluorescent orange sea. I ate it straight from the box, staring at the television that was playing some pulpy sitcom punctuated by bursts of
synthetic laughter. But my mind was already engaged elsewhere: I was planning Mother’s funeral.
Because she’d died in hospital of an unknown cause, I’d been told Mother would have to undergo an autopsy. This would give me time to make suitable funeral arrangements. I thought about giving her a grand East End-style send-off: a big funeral procession with a jazz band, dancing, former lovers and husbands meeting at her graveside to exchange tearful embraces and anecdotes. She’d have liked that. But I found myself lacking in energy, too exhausted even to clear her room. Besides, I reckoned if I was going to keep up the pretence that Inna Alfandari was, in fact, my mother, then the fewer people who knew about the real Lily’s demise the better. I logged on and googled ‘burial rituals’.
I wasn’t sure what religion Mother had embraced at the end, if any. She’d certainly been through a few changes. Born into a radical East End family in 1932, she related with pride that her father, Grandad Robert, was a religious pacifist: ‘Religion was like opium to him. He was addicted to it.’ Her mother, my Granny Gladys, aka Gobby Gladys, had been a strident supporter of George Lansbury, the Labour Party leader in the 1930s, and his mild vision of Christian socialism. Ted Madeley, Mother’s first husband, had been a Methodist lay preacher, but apparently none of the sobriety and self-restraint associated with Methodism had rubbed off on her – or even on him, as it turned out. For a while, when I was young, she’d championed High Church of England like my dad, Wicked Sid Sidebottom, a lapsed Anglican. In her later years, she turned to the Catholic faith like her last husband, the Ukrainian Lev ‘Lucky’ Lukashenko, who had swept her off her unsteady feet in a blaze of candlelit romance; but after their bitter divorce, she was drawn to the peaceful Buddhism of the Dalai Lama.
Maybe she would have liked a Buddhist sky burial. That would be discreet enough, since our flat is on the top floor and Tecton had installed a communal drying area on the roof, which is now unused. I glanced out of the window. The sky above Hackney was overcast. A couple of grubby pigeons flapped by, but alas no vultures. Cremation or burial seemed rather run of the mill for Mother, and would be easily discoverable, but burial at sea left few traces. Brighton Pier would be a good location – Brighton was the scene of her honeymoon with Ted Madeley, her first real love, and maybe her last. These thoughts brought on a new bout of melancholia, and I cheered myself up by googling the protocols involved.
Next day, fortified with a breakfast of two Shredded Wheats, I cycled over to Islington to drop off my bulging carrier bags full of Mother’s stuff at the Oxfam shop. It was a Saturday and the shop was heaving. I pushed my way through towards the back door where you leave donations. On the left was the changing cubicle, beneath the drawn curtains of which a woman’s bare feet were visible. The toenails were painted mauve, the ankles were swollen with matching mauve-coloured scabs that looked like flea bites. Oh horror! Suddenly the curtain was yanked aside, and a plump woman in a baggy sweater and too-tight black leggings emerged. It was Mrs Penny.
I wasn’t quick enough to look away. We couldn’t pretend we hadn’t seen each other.
‘Hello,’ I said.
She looked utterly mortified to be discovered in such a downmarket setting.
‘Fancy
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