She stared at the coffin, laden with flowers. She had not wanted any flowers but Dorothy had insisted – anything except lilies, she had told the florist. Fiona glared at the polished casket that contained – she tried not to think of it – her father, her wonderful, funny, irreverent dad. How would she cope without him? Looking at the coffin only made her feel worse; she bowed her head. She was holding it together. She had to be strong, today of all days, for Jamie more than anyone.

She glanced to her right where Jamie sat, dressed in his sweatshirt and school trousers. He had refused to put on a smarter top, had insisted that Pa loved that sweatshirt with Dennis the Menace on it. He would wear it for Pa. He was looking up at the minister and seemed to be listening intently; he seemed, surprisingly, fine. And to her left was Dorothy. She also seemed to be coping, she had even heard her snigger when the minister was telling the story of Stru and Mark as students dismantling someone’s Mini and getting it in the lift up to the top floor in their halls, where they reassembled it. But her mum had been on sleeping pills since he died twelve days before. She seemed strange, not herself.

Fiona stared at the long drapes hung from the ceiling at either side of the coffin, the purple velvet cascading onto the floor. There was a dark brown curtain hovering over the bier. This one would soon shudder into place above the empty space when the coffin was lowered down below to be cremated. She took a deep breath, she could not bear to think of it. She focused instead on the two arrangements of flowers laid out on the steps in front of the coffin. They were beautiful, white roses and those other waxy flowers with the unpronounceable name. Who would they be from? They had stipulated no flowers in the announcement.

Fiona and Dorothy had disagreed about what to write in the newspaper. Dorothy had wanted, as well as “loving husband, father and grandfather,” to say that he had been adored by his friends and wider family. Fiona thought that was unnecessary, you were just meant to mention close family. Dorothy also tried to remove his date of birth, saying he had always been funny about his age. Fiona overruled that one, showing her dozens of other announcements, each with dates of both birth and death.

‘You’re making him out as someone who cared what others thought about him, Mum.’

‘Well, he was actually quite a vain man, you know.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’