The morning of the funeral was difficult for everyone in the family. In Hayes they all set up in the living room. Jan on her iPad, Victoria on her iPhone and Darren on his pc. Emma had decided to attend the funeral alone from her bedroom. Darren and Victoria had made a lovely vegetarian lasagne and they had got in some cans of lager even though none of them liked it. They would toast Bill after the ceremony.
Darren had his short speech ready and had printed out the service for everyone. Their were now 32 people attending as Uncle Charlie, Bill's brother who lived in Australia, was logging in despite the time difference. His son was helping him with the set up. Also some of Bill's friends from the pub and a friend of Jans that had met Bill a few times would also attend.
Jan had insisted that they all got dressed appropriately out of respect and was wearing a very chic extra small black dress from Nicole Fahri. Darren had put on a clean white shirt and tie and Victoria had found a black tunic which was mercifully loose fitting and covered her growing bump. Jan aware of appearances had fussed around placing vases of flowers and moving ornaments around. She checked each person to make sure they would look their best on screen.
She went upstairs and knocked on her youngest daughters bedroom door.
'Emmy can I come in?'
'Yes,' answered a small voice and she entered the room.
She was shocked at the state of the bedroom. Emma had always been messy but the room was looking almost squalid.
'Look at your room you really need to get up of your arse and clean this mess up.' Jan said abruptly.
Emma looked expressionless at her Mum and said nothing. She was wearing her favourite navy Pajamas and Jan noticed they were hanging off her.
'Mum I just want to be left alone I'm not going to switch on my camera I'm just going to listen to the service,' she said.
'Oh Emm are you ok?' said Jan.
'I'm fine Mum it's just everything has got me down.I love you Mum I love all of you ok.'
Jan stood at the door and looked sadly at her daughter and thought to herself after the funeral she needed to confront both of her daughters and sort them out.
'Ok Emma I need to go back down love you sweetie.' said jan closing the door behind her.
In Camden Andy and Maggie had gotten up early. They were just going to use Andys pc and it was all set up in the living room. They were in the kitchen going through the details of the service.
The organiser from the funeral home had sent an updated list of attendees. They were both surprised at how the list had grown. Maggie had said repeatedly that under normal circumstances the numbers would have been much higher.
Andy had a lasagne from Tesco ready to go in the microwave and cans of lager in the fridge. Maggie had insisted on using a table cloth and her best china so Andy moved out the old table from Argus and had set it up in the living room by the balcony. The sun was shining which had pleased Maggie. He's got a lovely day for it she said.
Now back to the problem of what to wear. Her usual black funeral dress didn't fit and she had been quite depressed when that morning she had tried to squeeze into it.
'I didn't realise I've put on so much weight!' she cried.
She couldn't get the zip up and the whole back was gaping open. 'Mam you can wear it like that nobody is going to see the back.' Andy replied trying to be helpful.
'But it's all flapping open,' she said in a panic. 'I haven't got anything else and look at the state of my hair. Do you think I should wear a head scarf?'
'No. Not the headscarf.' Andy said quite sharply remembering his mothers face the day his father had died. Then Andy had a brainwave. I can use some duct tape I'm sure I saw some in the cuboard under the sink. Maggie looked doubtful but was desperate so she said to give it go, I don't have any options she thought. So he taped her into the dress and she sat down and waited for the start of the ceremony. They were all to log in on the link provided fifteen minutes before.
Bill had put some money aside for his funeral and had always said he didn't want a fuss. So they choose the Co-operative funeral care home in North London and chose the cheapest package. They had an in-house Zoom co-odinator called Julie who had been fantastic. Answering all their questions they had very little to do with it in the end as they just followed the format. It would be live streamed from the crematorium and was a short service that would only last the best part of thirty minutes . All in all it would take about one hour.
So they all logged in fifteen minutes before the start of the ceremony as requested. This was to make sure everything and everyone was in place.
Under each picture on screen was the person's name name. Maggie had peered at the screen unable to see each person as it was all too small for her failing eyesight. She hadn't wanted to wear her glasses but in the end Andy had rushed around and found them by her bedside. She hated wearing them but she had no choice. Even with the glasses on she couldn't really make out the people.
A lot of the squares were black and a few people kept coming in and out of the frame as they struggled to get their camera working. The co-ordinator introduced herself and went through the basics. She asked everyone to be careful of background noise and to turn their microphones off unless they were speaking or when the hymns were on. She spoke to the people struggling with technical difficulties and it was very tense and tedious.
Andy looked at the attendees in disbelief. Most of them looked dreadful. It looked like a display of the worst passport photographs imaginable with all these grim poorly lit faces peering out from the screen. Nobody seemed to have cared about what they were wearing except his own family with one person that looked like he was in his pajamas and a lot people wearing sports attire.They all looked at the each other blankly with gormless expressioms on theirfaces.
He saw Marion, Bill's sister, with a nurse in protective clothing standing beside her. Both of them were wearing masks. He saw Bill's brother Charlie from Australia looking tired and forlorn with his head in his hands. He looked frail but tanned wearing a red T-shirt and baseball cap. He looked looked like he had been crying. Tony and his wife sat there with bowls of snacks to eat.
An young oriental looking girl who must have been Ting Wei was sitting with a tissue to her face dabbing away the tears from her eyes. A couple of people you could just see the upper part of their head as the camera angle was in the wrong position. And a number of people were constantly moving in and out of focus and moving their pc to try and get in shot.
In short it was a bloody mess and very distracting.
Then the service began. A picture of a priest in an empty church with Bills coffin appeared in a bigger screen to the left. Somebody blew their nose loudly and you could hear Jan crying.
Maggie couldn't really see what was going on and everyone could see her face looming towards the camera as she moved forward to try and focus on the picture. Her orange hair and pale face looked quite a shock and in the background you could hear oh she looks dreadful. Maggie hearing the comment sat back quickly and didn't move for the rest of the service. She sat their uncomfortably with the duct tape digging into her back waiting for it all to end.
It was mostly a blur from then on and they all sang self consciously to the Hymns everybody distracted by eachother and more interested in either trying to make sure they were in shot or looking at the state of all the people. Just way too much noise and movement made the whole thing a shambles.
When Darren was finished his reading the doorbell rang and Spice barked like crazy. This made Maggie and Andy smile and ended up being the highlight of the sorry event.
'He's saying goodbye to Bill,' Maggie said.
At the end of the ceremony as Bill's coffin went through the curtain with the music playing, Maggie and Andy sat white faced and self conscious unable to even cry. Jan sat with Darren and Victoria all of them overcome with emotion and everyone could hear Ting Wei crying. A lot of the congregation had wondered who the beautiful young girl was.
Afterwards Julie the organiser appeared on the screen telling everyone they could now just chat and talk and serve the food and drinks and make a toast to Bill. More background noise as everyone shifted around.
Andy went into the kitchen and popped the lasagne in the microwave. Charlie in Australia had slumped forward with his head in his hands and was snoring loudly. His son came into the picture and prodded him.
'I'll get him back to bed - it's the middle of the night here. I've recorded it so I'll show him tomorrow. Deepest condolences from Australia,' he said.
The next twenty minutes were painful and awkward. They all toasted Bill with his favourite lager and each person got a chance to speak and offer condolences and then thankfully it was all over.
As they all signed off little did they know what was coming next. If they were grieving now what was to come was going to destroy them.