I was invited to the funeral of a man I hardly knew. He was the husband of someone I’d met long ago when I’d briefly joined the local choir. We’d gather on Monday evenings to eat home-made flapjacks and tackle Handel’s Messiah. I liked the people there, I really did: they despised the Tories and did their recycling. But their woolly liberalism and cars matted with dog hairs didn’t fool me. Beneath the self-deprecation thrummed a ruthless ambition for their children and a networking system of nepotism and queue-jumping that would impress the ruler of Uzbekistan. Nowadays they’d be called the Metropolitan Elite, and blamed for Brexit. In those days I simply called them Smug Marrieds, whose offspring all seemed to slide into jobs at the BBC or top legal chambers without any trouble at all.
Having children who were stubbornly unachieving, I didn’t stay in the choir long. I could hardly remember Anna, the grieving widow. At that time, in Muswell Hill, the more goody-goody wives had a certain look: navy-blue outfits, velvet Alice bands and patent-leather shoes with little brass buckles. You could barely tell them apart.
Because of this, I nearly didn’t go to the funeral; it seemed intrusive to join people I hardly knew, who were mourning a man I couldn’t remember. But I needed to get out of the house. A roofer was fixing the leak in the kitchen extension and he was being laboriously flirtatious. I could see his heart wasn’t in it—I was far too old—but once he’d started he obviously felt obliged to carry on. I dreaded the creak of the ladder as he descended for yet another cup of tea. I also suspected he was ripping me off.
So I put on some suitably sombre clothes and drove to Golders Green Crematorium. The mourners were already filing in when I arrived. I didn’t recognise anyone, but that was scarcely surprising.
I sat down near the back. I could hardly see the coffin, or what looked like a display of photographs. Nor had I thought to pick up the order of service. So it took me a while to realise what had happened. We all rose for ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. Then we sat down again and a young man in army uniform made his way to the microphone.
‘We’re here to celebrate the life of Dawn,’ he said, his voice shaking. ‘My sister was taken from us far too soon. Her struggle against ill health and her bravery in these last challenging months have been a lesson to us all. Even when she lost the use of her legs she kept on smiling, because that was Dawn all over. She was the best sister in the world, and I’m sure there isn’t one of us here who hasn’t benefited from her kindness and generosity. I’d like to celebrate the Dawn we loved with a short poem.’
Heck. I’d come to the wrong funeral.
It’s easily done. They run a tight ship at Golders Green, in and out in thirty minutes, no hanging about. Surreptitiously, I checked my watch. There had been so little traffic that I’d arrived half an hour early.