I came out of school - it must have been a few months later, I suppose - after one of those days when everything had gone right, and there weren't many days like that. We'd had extra playtime because two teachers were away with the flu. So there was lots of time for football and hopscotch and marbles in the playground. No sums, no spelling tests, no dictations, no standing in the corner. Best of all, there was Maman waiting for me at the school gates when I came out.
Although I was pleased to see her, it was odd, because there was no reason for her to be there, none that I could think of anyway. I mean, there was no smog, so she couldn't have been worried about me crossing the road on my own. And she wasn't coming into school to see the teachers because I was in trouble, not so far as I knew. Maybe she'd come by because she was on her way to the shops and we'd stop off at the Milk Bar in the High Street, and I'd have a chocolate milkshake? Now that would be good! It had happened before once or twice.
As it turned out, that is exactly where we were going, not to the shops, she said, but straight to the Milk Bar, which was fine with me. Milkshakes were always a rare and real treat.
Maman seemed strangely distant somehow as we walked along. I was prattling on about how good was when the teachers have flu, how the boys' toilets were flooded so we'd had to use the teachers' toilets, and that was great because there was a wooden seat, and a lock on the door, the paper was soft...but I could tell Maman wasn't listening to a word I was saying. All the way down the street she hardly spoke, which wasn't like her at all. I remembered then that she wasn't smiling when she first saw me running across the playground towards her. And Maman always smiled and hugged me after school, always.
The milkshake was cold and long and gave me a headache because I drank it through the straw too fast. I stopped drinking for a moment and glanced up at her. She was looking down at me and I knew from her eyes that she was about to tell me something she didn't want to tell me.
"It's about Auntie Martha, Michael," she began.
"What?" I said. Maman rarely called the Aunties - either of them - by their proper names. I knew already what was coming.
"It is difficult for me to tell to you, cheri, but you have to know," she went on. "You know Auntie Martha had her operation a while ago, pn her lungs. Well everything seemed to be all right. She was getting better..."
"She's died, hasn't she?" I said.
Maman nodded. "In her sleep last night, that's what Auntie Mary said on the phone this morning. Very peaceful. I'm so sorry, Michael. You liked her a lot, didn't you? And I know she loved you. She was very proud of you, you and your Papa. She was a sweet lady, always kind and thoughtful. There's a funeral the day after tomorrrow, in Folkestone, but you don't have to come, if you'd rather not."
"I'll come," I told her. I didn't finish my milkshake.
I had never been to a funeral before, I didn't know what to expect. I certatinly hadn't expected a huge church packed with people, hundreds of them, the ladies in hats, and the men, stiff in dark suits and black ties, their hair slicked down. Some had to stand all the way through the service because there was no room for them to sit down. I could hardly believe it, all these people there for my Auntie Snowdrop. I sat im the front pew between Maman and Auntie Pish, with Jasper beside her. The coffin rested on trestles only a few feet away - all of us together for the last time.
I kept thinking how wrong I had been to assume that my two funny old Aunties knew almost no one in the world except us. Certainly we had never met anyone else at their house when we came on our visits, no friends, no other relatives. They didn't talk of anyone else either. There weren't any other relatives that I was aware of anyway. Now, here were all these people, and all of them Auntie Snowdrop's friends, a whole church full of them. I had imagined she lived a solitary and cheerless sort of existence with Auntie Pish, behind the white picket fence of their little house by the sea, with only Jasper for company, and the gulls that wheeled over the chimney or sat on the heads of the gnomes in the garden and cried to the wind.
All through the hymns and songs and prayers - we sang 'Down by the Sally Gardens' for her - I couldn't take my eyes off the coffin. It was so close to me that I could almost reach out and touch it. I was sure that she was lying there and listening to everything. And I was sure she knew I was there. I had to say something. I could only think of one thing to say and I spoke it from my heart, silently, my eyes closed.
I thanked her for all the snowdrops she'd given me, and promised her I'd keep them in my diary, pressed there forever so I wouldn't forget her. As I sat there, I kept seeing her, clear as clear in my mind, her hand still waving to us as we drove away after that last visit.
When the churcj service was over, everyone gathered around the grave, Jasper was there too, lying at my feet, head on his paws. I stood there between Maman and Auntie Pish. Auntie Pish had her arm around my shoulder and I could feel she was trembling. I looked up into her face and saw that she was crying. I had never imagined that Auntie Pish could cry. In all the faces I saw around the graveside that afternoon, there was such warmth and love for Auntie Snowdrop. I felt sadder at that moment than ever before in my whole life, and maybe ever since.