Weak at the Knees by Jo Kessel Page B

Despite the fact that I’d been so angry with God for letting me down, for betraying me so blatantly and for not saving my best friend, I feel soothed by the priest’s words. I want to hate him, but I can’t. I can’t because if I turn my back on him now, I think I’ll feel even more lost and alone.
     
      Then my mind takes off on its own journey of memories with Amber, of innocent childhood playing. Mucking about on the climbing frame in her back garden, skipping with ropes, annoying her dog Pele, climbing trees, walking to the local shops to buy something for her Mum, going to the park, playing tennis, making Victoria sponges – hers were always much better than mine. Even though we used the same ingredients and went through the same procedure, putting the mixture in the same oven, mine would always end up sunk and misshapen whilst hers would look just like Delia’s.
     
    Hugo nudges me, telling me it’s time.
     
    “Danni Lewis, I think you wanted to say a few words?” the priest repeats. I must have missed it the first time.           
     
    I get up and go to the podium. I stand there and see everybody. Mrs. Slater, Mr. Slater, loads of family members that I’ve met at some time or another, my parents and lots of Ambers’ school friends, some of whom I know. Annalise and Nicki are both there. Simon Shufflebottom is with them. I wonder how he found out. Then I look to my right, to where the coffin is lying, the coffin strewn with blue flowers. And my voice chokes. I’ve prepared this huge big tribute to my best friend Amber but now that everyone’s looking at me I’m frozen to the spot and can’t seem to make my lips move. I look at Hugo who’s got this concentrated expression of encouragement on his face, willing me to do it. And I try. I start. In a weak, quivering voice that keeps cutting in and out.
     
    “I always called Amber my friend down the road. But she wasn’t just my friend down the road. She was my best friend. The most special person I shall ever have the fortune to kno-
     
    And that’s it. That’s all I can muster before breaking down into heaving, loud, embarrassing, public wails. I can see loads of people in the congregation have started blubbing now too so I don’t feel so bad. It doesn’t matter anyway because Mrs. Slater has come to the rescue, putting her arm around me, telling everybody about what a special friend I’d been to Amber, how inseperable we’d been since we were ten years old and how I was kind of like a daughter to her too. Now Mrs. Slater is blubbing as well and there’s not a dry eye to be had in the house.
     
    *****
     
    It’s the bit I’ve been dreading. They’ve turned Ella Fitzgerald back on. As the curtains close, swallowing up the coffin behind them, Ella croons to us, comforting us.
     
     
     
    There’s a somebody I’m longin’ to see
     
    I hope that he, turns out to be
     
    Someone who’ll watch over me.
     

Chapter Eight
     
     
     
    At first I felt lost without Amber. I didn’t know what to do with myself and couldn’t get a grip on life. For a couple of months I found myself aimlessly walking the streets of London, breathing in heavily polluted air, looking for answers. One time I managed to escape the traffic. I was standing in the middle of Hyde Park, staring at the Serpentine Lake, watching people rowing in circles, unable to steer their boats properly. I envied the fun they were having, the lightness of their experience, that they didn’t care they weren’t going anywhere. They were just going round and round, round and round. That’s how I felt. Like a hamster running in a treadmill, going round in circles, desperate for a break so that I could hop off and head in a new direction. “What do I do now Amber, what do I do?” I asked. Ever since I’d heard her speaking to me in the crematorium, I truly believed she was looking down on me, watching, trying to communicate the best she could. She didn’t tell me what