I’d arrived late. Somehow I’d managed to get lost. To think I had the wrong crematorium and cycle to another one, only to have to cycle back. The small hall was overheated and stuffy. None of the people there looked like those I’d have imagined in Sabine’s life. Most were middle-aged and older, conventionally dressed. I vaguely recognized a handful from the Energy office, a few more from even further back when we’d worked days.

The speaker at the lectern was scrawny and balding, with a gray beard. He was reading an obscure text that, having missed the first part, I couldn’t make sense of. I didn’t think it was religious; there was no mention of God, although it addressed the listener as “Brother,” and had a religious tone.

I slunk into the back row next to Sherry and Earl. Sherry’s hair was still gray at the roots but the rest was ivy-green and shaped in a pompadour style. She didn’t look that different in her sixties to how she’d looked twenty years ago: still like an old child, pretty much. Earl’s hair was grown out into a statement Afro and he was wearing an olive pin-striped suit that comprised trousers with a sort of straitjacket. It wouldn’t have been right for everyone but he pulled it off. He passed me a hip flask. Assuming it contained vodka, I took a hefty gulp. It was so strong that I almost spat it out. He patted my back, more as if to say “well done” than to stop me choking. The afterburn spread through my body; I felt as if I were being illuminated. Sherry smiled while dabbing her puffy eyes with an embroidered hanky.

I stared at the dark wooden casket. Mauve lilies lay on top of it. I could almost hear Sabine say, The color of the old ladies’ hair. Her soft, low drawl. I thought of the satin inside the casket. Sabine laid out on the satin. Like a jewel. Not like a jewel: she’d been dead seven months. Like something unbearable to think of, that had nothing to do with her.

When the service was over, a few phrases of piano music tinkled through the air. Then it stopped. I realized it wasn’t a recording; there was an upright piano in the crematorium. I shifted to get a better view. The man who had been at the front adjusted the stool and started again. He played with a light, effortless touch.

The red velvet curtains at the foot of the casket parted.

The music was almost sentimental but not quite. Simple, repetitive, sweet, it seemed distantly familiar to me, though I couldn’t place it. I was sure I’d never heard it from Sabine. It wasn’t her type of music. I thought of my embarrassment when she’d bobbed her head to the start of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.