The old git wanted an Eastern European song, at his funeral, sung by his three dawters. Close harmony with discordant intervals. I drove my kid down to Brighton and dropped her off.
It was hot and sunny. Very hot and very sunny. Brighton was scorching.
I drove left at the Pier, towards the Marina.
Squillions of sunbathers and exhausting cars. I turned round and drove back past the pier onwards towards Hove.
Parked up and went to Marroccos.
It didn’t open till twelve so I reparked the car and sat on a bench until they let the punters in.
I sat alone at a table for two.
The smily waitress asked where I’d got my tan.
‘The garden.’ I said weedily.
I ordered a green salad and a bowl of rigatoni with a hot arrabbiata sauce.
The salad was huge.
Lumps of cucumber, a ton of olives and a bedding of green leaves. The waitress brought me olive oil, balsamic vinegar. Chile oil and black pepper.
By the time I’d finished the salad I didn’t need the rigatoni but the chef had already prepared it.
A big white bowl of rigatoni was placed in front of me, smothered in dark, red hot Chile sauce. I had on white dungarees and a white vest. I had to be careful not to sully my crispy white clothes.
I paid the bill and set off to the top of Brighton, a route I can drive with my eyes shut.
Before you could say ‘what are you talking about grieving messes with your brain,’ I was in a traffic jam. Three sets of traffic lights and sweltering sun. I put my sat nav on to take a different route.
Three different Richmond Roads presented themselves on the screen.
I didnt know the post code.
I knew it was the wrong way but I had locked myself into a nightmare.
I tried a different route and couldn’t get myself out of the mess.
Finally after an hour stopping and starting I turned the car round and drove up the hill away from the sea front..
I cried. I cried like I was being tortured, guttural gulps and blobby tears.
I spun the car round and re-found my equilibrium.
I arrived and parked up. The singers weren’t done so I sat in the house, in the garden, back in the car. The dawter came out and drove us off.
‘Ice cream?’ I suggested. We drove back to Hove and queued for two scoops of Italian glacé.
I ordered bluberry cheesecake and cherry and almond. Two walloping balls of creamy ice.
We sat down to lick the cones and watch the sea rolling in and out.
I hadn’t clocked how dirty the surroundings were. The ground littered with rubbish and old stains. Taking an ice cream in Spain or Italy or even Dorset, offers beautiful views. Sweet lickings takes patience.
The disgraceful nature of the surroundings affected my enjoyment. I couldn’t look anywhere that wasn’t grey and grubby.
We went back to the car, given my state of mind I should have known what was going to happen.
Carefully sliding into the passenger seat I miscalculated. Half the blueberry ice-cream flobbed over my crispy white kecks.
I cried.
Of course I did, controlling my emotions at the moment is like dancing on points.
My day had been spoilt by my waterworks.
That evening I was invited to attend an ABBA tribute band in a pub.
I hesitated but decided to go, be sociable, blow away the melancholy of the day.
I reapplied my lipstick and arrived as the band were setting up. I say band, two girls wearing acrylic dresses, wigs and shiny sequinned hats, were testing the PA. Loudly.
The audience was an assortment of women of a certain age. White cardigans and pink dresses. Women alone. Women with their white haired husbands.
Women with big eyelashes, women with handbags. A crowd gathered outside the pub, on the pavement and the entertainment began. Every body knew the words. Everybody joined in. Pointing their fingers in the air the crowd belted out Mama Mia, Money Money Money and all the other Abba songs we all know.
When ABBA arrived in the early 80’s snobs like me never admitted to liking them. But by golly, I have to admit that every single song is a winner. Every single one of those white cardigan mamas danced around their handbags. Women singing into each others face ‘Thank you for the music’
Men pressing their ageing groins into the bums of their wives.
Off I went again tears rolling down my cheeks.
Grafters on a night out. No pretense, no criticism just people having a singalong.
I stayed until it got dark.
I drove home and parked the car.
The cottages was empty I unlocked the door and toppled into an armchair.
I hadn’t accounted for the fact that as the days go by the grieving gets harder.
The reality has set in.
Being with swinging 70 years olds, listening to laughter and communal singing, being in a Benidorm vibe was both touching and foreign to me.
I had no one to share the experience with. Nobby no mates crumbled.
In the sitting room, up the stairs into the bedroom, the tears rolled and the kvetching continued.
I held his watch – a bad idea. I sat on his side pf the bed – bad idea.
And then it passed.
That was on Saturday.
It’s Wednesday and ive had to cancel a visitor as my left, nephrotic kidney is now playing up. I have to keep telling my body that I give it permission to heal itself. I have to fake it till I make it.
Dialysis was difficult. I await the chemist to get my painkillers in. or even antibiotics. if it’s a kidney infection.
I’ve run out of patience, sense of humour and any semblance of positivity.
This too will pass and I’ll be back to my old self.
Until then, to quote Lesley Gore
‘It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to
Cry if I want to
You would cry too if it happened to you-hoo……’