The Wake - Table of contents

The Wake - episode 3

But here’s the thing. People that came to the wake were going on as if I’d been bereaved, shaking hands with me and some of them kissing me and telling me they were sorry for my trouble. I was actually going along with it sometimes, mainly because I wasn’t able to hit the right mood between that and the distaste I felt for the whole thing.

You have to understand, a whole lot of the women in this town are like professional mourners, they come into wakehouses with expressions on them like Veronica wiping the face of Jesus on the way to Calvary and you have to go along with it or people will only be talking about you. This meant that most of the time I’d an expression of either resignation or desolation depending on who I was talking to.

And then the stressful conversations I had with the two undertakers — these guys put their faces right up to yours when they’re talking to you as if what they’re saying is really confidential when they might be only asking you where the toilet is or telling you what time the hearse will be taking Maud to the cathedral or exactly where the grave is located, the last bit being vital information of course because I as the chief mourner would be walking right behind the hearse all the way to the cemetery and God knows I might veer off and end up in the River Foyle like one of those horses in the Grand National that didn’t turn left at the Canal Turn and had to be pulled out of the Leeds and Liverpool canal.