7 July, 2010
Hey mate, just a quick one to say, that I drove up to Golders Green Crematorium on Monday for Alan Plater’s funeral. Went more for you than for me, whatever that means. He said such lovely things about you and the Hull days.
My feet could hardly take me into that wretched place, the West Chapel, scene of agonising pain two years ago. I felt sick and faint and – the norm now – diminished.
But inside, the mood was altogether different from ‘yours’. Alan was nearly twenty years your senior, and had been unwell for a while, and in that context the shock must be different, the anguish less acute. Alan had asked for “music and the possibility of joy” and he got both. Incredible jazz and wonderful performances from his work. It is not for me to name names or give a review, but it was excellent. Nobody could have asked for a better send-off. Above all it was very writerly, both in its attendance and in its celebration of Alan’s prolific, terrific body of work.
It made me wish we had paid better tribute to your words, two years and three months ago. Which is of course to say, one second ago, one blink ago. Which is of course to say I am still there now and always will be, mate, beside you if I could, with you if I could, at that obscene grotesque portal, inscribed as if Latin made it better, as if Latin made sense out of nonsene, as if Death really were the Gateway to Life.
Dragging myself back into this world, this life, back across town, mouth dry at the wheel and eyes pathetically wet, the office, home… almost harder to carry on carrying on than not. Whatever that means.
Realised this morning that I had completely forgotten to pay the congestion charge for the trip and will now presumably be fined. Realised I’ve been congested myself and there is no one I can charge; I’ve been raging, raging, silently screaming for two days. Which is to say two years and three months. Which is to say forever.
x