Sunday Best (12 page)

My new Sundays lay on the couch, and it was all I could do to recapture my excitement. Ignoring my mother, or my father for that matter, was no way of getting rid of them. That was becoming abundantly clear. If they would not pass out of my life, then I would have to disappear from theirs. And once again I had the feeling that a radical change was due in my existence. The thought gave me new hope, and I started to undress. I took off all my clothes, and after washing, put on my dressing-gown. I felt that it was the last male garment I was to wear for a long time. Then I started on my maquillage. Although it was going well, I took my time. My hand occasionally shook with excitement, so that I had to re-do my eye make-up a number of times. Even so, I was finished early, and all that remained was my clothing.

As I put on the first garments, the frilly petticoat and panties, my excitement gave way to fear, and I kept crossing to the window and lifting the curtain, as if in continuous dress-rehearsal for what had now become a dreaded debut. I trembled as I put on my stockings, and ham-fistedly hooked them to my belt. Occasionally I thought of foregoing the whole business. In my anguish I was aware that my sortie had assumed the status of an imperative, and that perhaps it might even be without pleasure. I was terrifyingly near ready. All that remained was the dress. I hesitated before putting it on, because I knew somehow that it was the final commitment. I looked at my open wardrobe, the trousers, jackets and shirts, my life's fiction. And I knew that whatever happened that day, that forged part of me had gone for ever. It was a terrifying revelation.

When I was fully changed and bewigged, I confronted my reflection and found it undeniably fool-proof. I was slightly disappointed. I had hoped perhaps for a loop-hole of giveaway. I had hoped perhaps to run a greater risk. But as I looked at myself, I knew that without doubt I was going to get away with it. My excitement was mixed with a slight vexation of spirit.

Once again I looked through the net curtain. People were coming out of the Johnson house, Mrs Johnson amongst them,
supported by my wife in her black do-gooding gear, and no doubt thoroughly enjoying herself. They all piled into cars that had meanwhile arrived, and I waited for them to drive off before taking to the streets myself. I was full of confidence, so much so, that I did not hesitate to use my front door for my exit. The street was empty, and I was able to pass down it without encounter. The crematorium was only a few streets away. When we had first considered buying our house, I had objected to this factor, but my wife, being a woman poor in imagination, had found this no adequate reason to look elsewhere. So as the crow flew, we were one minute from the chimney, but on foot, as a frail mourning gentlewoman, I could allow for a quarter of an hour. I took my time. Only guilty people hurry, and I did not in my case wish to spend too long outside the chapel before the service began. At the end of the street, I turned the corner and saw a group of people coming in my direction, and for the first time, I was afraid. The full meaning of what I was about spread through me like a sudden fever. I stood for a moment, unable to move. Then I realized, that standing still with no apparent purpose, of loitering, as it were, without intent, was only likely to draw attention to myself, and it was this fear of discovery that propelled my feet forward. It is hard to describe my feelings as I took these next few steps. Perhaps I felt as a child who walks for the first time, with that same mixture of excitement and fear. Of all my clothing, it was the underwear of which I was most conscious. I felt its contours as acutely as if it had been fashioned of straw. I stood still again, and looked around for some justification for stopping.

A taxi came in my direction, and for a moment I thought I would hail it for safety. But I was afraid of raising my voice to a volume stronger than mezzo-forte. Since my visit to the ‘Femina Boutique', I had undergone a good deal of voice practice, and I had learned my decibel limit, beyond which I would be discovered. My maximum, as I have said, was mezzo-forte, but I was more comfortable and more convincing in the piano range. It was a seductive level, and allowed for a certain authentic lowness in pitch, and a shout for a taxi would have been a certain give-away. So I passed the people by, trying to disguise my faltering step. But they did not look twice at me, and some of them perhaps not even once, and as I walked along the street, gathering more confidence,
passing and being overtaken by more and more people, I noticed that I was the object of no one's attention. On the one hand, this pleased me, but on the other, I was slightly disappointed that no one turned their head to look at me a second time. I felt that my elegant turnout was worth some acknowledgement.

I had reached the end of the street, and now only had to turn the corner that would lead directly to the crematorium. I could already see the cars as they slowed up to turn into the drive. I felt that if I could make that last hurdle, that entrance into the crowded courtyard outside the chapel, if I could worthily acquit myself in that course, then never again would I return to my old way of life. And it was this desperate ambition which steadied my passage, that carried me unnoticed through the throng, that led me straight past my unknowing wife and up to Mrs Johnson, whose hand I dutifully shook while murmuring my mezzo-forte condolences. And I stood to one side, alone in my beating black, and I knew that, for better or worse, I had committed myself to a course of action that would change my whole existence, and I was filled with such a joy, that for the first time in many years, I thought of my father without pain.

My solitary stance in the courtyard was not conspicuous, for there were many who stood alone in what seemed appropriate contemplation of life and death. Even my wife was holding her tongue, and I moved a little to place myself directly in her line of vision, and she stared right through me without a flicker of recognition. My joy was physical, and I wondered how I had managed for so many years to deprive myself of this quality of fulfilment.

Suddenly an intense quiet struck the gathering, a silence more acute, for it crashed not into a great rumour but into a murmuring. I looked around to see what had prompted this sudden stillness, and I could only ascribe it to the highly conspicuous arrival of the Cloth. Not the Cloth of the Chapel incumbent, but that of my very own, fighting a losing battle to retain what dignity the grand old Parsons had left him. His right eye was covered with a ham-fistedly tied bandage. Its tying had been more a labour of love than technique, and I thought it moist with Miss Price's tears. But despite his appearance, his unstained collar gave him passage, and he strutted through the crowd as if the courtyard were his domain, and that if anybody cramped him, they would be the
next for the fire. He managed a condescending smile, for after all, was not every flock his own? Beaten though he was, he looked like a retiring boxer who had made sure of at least half of the purse.

He was making for my wife. That was yet another encounter I had not envisaged, but I cared not what complications would arise from it. Yet my need to eavesdrop urged me to move closer. When he reached my wife, he shattered the silence with what I thought to be an inappropriately loud greeting. ‘Afternoon,' he said brusquely. ‘Your husband here yet?'

‘He won't be coming,' my wife said with a little surprise. ‘Pressure of work, he said.'

‘He'll turn up all right,' the Cloth said with confidence. ‘Gave him permission myself. Ought to be here by now.' He wheeled round to scan the gathering. Did he, or did he not pause for just one second on my frail person? I did not blink, but followed his gaze, and when it returned to my own, I managed with the greatest difficulty to refrain from smiling.

I heard a rustling at my side, and I looked down to see an old lady fumbling in her handbag. I noticed that all around me, bags were being opened in search of props, as a sign that the performance was imminent. In all my purchases, I had forgotten to list a handbag, and I resolved at the next opportunity to remedy this fault. I found myself examining the other women's wear. I already felt one of them, envying a scarf here, a pair of gloves there, offended by a twisted stocking seam, a scuffed pair of shoes. As a man, I had never entertained such thoughts. My indifference to clothing had been sublime. I marvelled that a new dimension of thinking was possible. I had much to look forward to, and I began to wish that they would get on with the business of dispatching my neighbour, to confirm with the fire, his death once and for all, so that I could get on with living.

The Cloth was still scanning the yard for me. ‘I wonder what's happened to Verrey Smith,' he said, almost to himself, and at the sound of that name, which over the years had echoed with such noble refrain, I started, for its time-honoured familiarity was suddenly shaken.

‘Verrey Smith?' I thought to myself. But its echo, which hitherto had resolved itself with sure assertion, now hung on the air like an interrupted cadence. I looked down on my
clothes, and whatever name they called to mind, it was certainly not Verrey Smith. I felt no sense of betrayal, no treachery to my past. Verrey Smith just did not fit any longer, no more than my trousers and jackets. I wondered what name would become me. I was overcome by a vast sense of freedom that I was able to choose my own identity. It was too important a choice to make casually and I decided to give it more thought, preferably in front of a full-length mirror.

The crowd was moving towards the chapel. I placed myself directly behind the Cloth and my wife, a position that heightened my excitement, and I resolved if possible to sit next to them during the service, in order to prolong my joy, while my neighbour, with bogus testimonial, was launched into the fire. The Cloth gave a last look around the courtyard, probably with thoughts of how to deal with me on the morrow, and I innocently followed his gaze, looking for myself, as well I might, for George Verrey Smith had evaporated. Of that, I was almost sure.

The chapel was small, but large enough to make the gathering look like a sprinkling. All of them seemed to concentrate themselves into two or three rows, close as relations, bound as they were by the common factor of mourning. So it appeared quite natural to seat myself between my wife and my Cloth, and my only problem was to conceal my excitement, a display of which, in this pre-oven climate, would have been most inappropriate. No sooner had we all settled ourselves than, at an unseen prompting, we all rose again, as the coffin was carried through the aisle. I cursed myself for having forgotten a handkerchief, and would have used my glove had I remembered to paint my fingernails. Being a woman was certainly a time-consuming occupation and I resolved in future to put aside a certain hour of my day to my grooming. I put my gloved hand to my eye, wiping away an imagined tear. Even my Cloth was armed with a large white square, which he applied to his bandaged eye, rather pointlessly I thought, since, if there were any mopping-up to be done, that part of his face was well catered for. And so we all dabbed and sighed away, all, that is, except Mrs Johnson whom I could see out of the corner of my eye, silent and imperturbable.

They laid the coffin on the table adjacent to the wall, and it lay there, bare of flowers, an object, cold, dead and
beyond anyone's pity. I had never been a promoter of cremation. Death was returnable to the earth, and if there were any hope of an after-life, I saw little point in having oneself chewed up beforehand. One should go to God whole, I thought, to give oneself every chance. There was little dignity in the fire, and an escape from mourning. It was quick and instant disposal that did not allow for the pain of bereavement. For those bereft, I thought, should mourn with ceremony, should devote themselves to keening, should make a cult of it almost. It was the least that the dead deserved. I was trying in my thinking to remain on an abstract level, not daring to particularize, because I knew that, sooner or later, I would think of my father. For he was already flooding my mind. I saw the brutal shovel of earth and my mother's hand trembling. Since he died, I have never been able to weep for him, I have rarely been able to recall him without pain. But now I loved him, and my tears were free. Perhaps it was my clothing that permitted this release. Perhaps I had to reconcile myself with my true identity before I could see him in the role of father. And, but for the location and the hemming-in of my wife and my Cloth, I would have got down on my knees and thanked God for my deliverance. But instead, I wept, and my tears had nothing to do with Mr Johnson. Now the need for a handkerchief, or some kind of wiper, became imperative, and I was bound to take off my glove. Moreover my weeping was audible, and I heard in its echoes the sobbing that belongs only to childhood. There was nothing I could do to silence it. My wife was looking at me and I trembled that I might be discovered. I was becoming quite central to everyone's attention, and I had thoughts of making a quick get-away. They were whispering behind me, questioning who I was, and I overheard it suggested that the late Mr Johnson had possibly kept a mistress. Their misjudgement flattered me, and gave me great confidence, and I was able to stem the flow a little, and take heed of what their Cloth was about to say about the dear departed. Bent in a solemn arc over his desk, he delivered, probably for the hundredth time, his cliché-riddled eulogy that varied only by change of name. Everybody, it seemed, who went through his parish fire, was a good husband/wife/father/mother, revered in his profession/occupation/career, cut down in his prime/after a good innings, but young or old, doctor or dustman,
would most certainly go to God direct from this parish, thereafter let us trust in him, i.e. God/their Cloth, and be comforted. And so they were, as the coffin, on invisible rollers, skated through the hatch and was no more.

I looked at the space it had left behind, an oblong-shaped vacuum, and grief struck me again. The gathering was dispersing, but I remained, and then and there, gazing upon that dreadful vacuum, I buried my own father.