I was sittin' in the bar, in the Empire Hotel
I was drinkin' for diversion, I was thinking for myself
Actually it was Miles's bar down on the Harbour - and I was with Tara, but the rest was true. And she asked me "Is he still alive?" It was mid-afternoon, somewhere towards the end of the first bottle - and I scented the psychic air and wondered. "I'm not sure - " and then we went on to discuss intuitive and psychic stuff and out of body experiences (hers!) and more completely irrational stuff that we'd both experienced.
The following morning, Friday, Paul's mother rang me and said, her voice breaking "I just wanted to tell you that Paul died yesterday afternoon." Family only funeral, the end. There are some people you spend time with, know for years, and they annoy the hell out of you - and there are some people who are there in the background, the elective affinities... and you should spend more time with them, because they have a lot of goodness to share. But it is the annoying people who ring you up and ask you for drinks, and the shy, kindly people who wonder if they dare. Actually, there are plenty of people one wants to see more of, like Paul, but they are busy and you are busy and life goes on.
I could have another burst of Hopkins here - Goldengrove always seems the right poem for deaths. I absolutely must have it at my funeral - along with Now be Thankful by Fairport Convention. I wasn't any sadder when I heard the news about Paul - the shock had come last Sunday - but I was sorry there wouldn't be a funeral to go to. Apparently he's being buried in his father's grave, somewhere in Sussex - East Hoathley? That name comes to mind - I didn't know it before, so it must have been what she said. The church website is unhelpful - but it looks a nice square towered sort of medieval church - a simple building serving a simple community. Where we all want to end our days perhaps. Nicer than a municipal cemetery. And there we are, he goes, buried far from most of the people who know him. How foolish we are in thinking a site, the spot of burial is somehow important. Needless to say I haven't been near my mother's grave in the last 3-4 years - yet there is something very moving about seeing people standing at a grave of someone who's been dead for years. My grandmother's grave was neglected after she died, although she'd been keen to far bella figura and kept my grandfather's grave well planted for years. But modern municipal graves are nothing... any my father hasn't even had a stone done for my mother. Why bother to be buried? If she'd been cremated, where would we have scattered the ashes? In the garden probably - very good for the soil - actually, apparently it isn't, human bodies are full of lead and mercury and not good for the soil at all.
I found myself imagining Paul's body - sunken, grey, the beautiful eyes closed for ever - and over the last few days, little glimpses of it, lying in a hospital bed have come to me. I think his mother must have somehow passed me the image when we spoke. He was so brave and good. Mark said, rather cruelly "What did he have to look forward to?" And objectively in material terms, he perhaps didn't have much - but one doesn't know the inner life - what his plans, his heartfelt desires were. He was only 55 - he must have had some idea what he wanted to do, what would fulfill him in the future. I don't think he had "given up" - like all of us he was finding the economic climate hard - but he had got going, found himself work as a carer (the most common source of work locally) and was finding that interesting - he told me stories about some of the people he'd seen - I think there's one on this blog somewhere.... have just hunted for it, but can't find it. I thought "I ought to talk to him more." Life is full of regrets.
I was drinkin' for diversion, I was thinking for myself
Actually it was Miles's bar down on the Harbour - and I was with Tara, but the rest was true. And she asked me "Is he still alive?" It was mid-afternoon, somewhere towards the end of the first bottle - and I scented the psychic air and wondered. "I'm not sure - " and then we went on to discuss intuitive and psychic stuff and out of body experiences (hers!) and more completely irrational stuff that we'd both experienced.
The following morning, Friday, Paul's mother rang me and said, her voice breaking "I just wanted to tell you that Paul died yesterday afternoon." Family only funeral, the end. There are some people you spend time with, know for years, and they annoy the hell out of you - and there are some people who are there in the background, the elective affinities... and you should spend more time with them, because they have a lot of goodness to share. But it is the annoying people who ring you up and ask you for drinks, and the shy, kindly people who wonder if they dare. Actually, there are plenty of people one wants to see more of, like Paul, but they are busy and you are busy and life goes on.
I could have another burst of Hopkins here - Goldengrove always seems the right poem for deaths. I absolutely must have it at my funeral - along with Now be Thankful by Fairport Convention. I wasn't any sadder when I heard the news about Paul - the shock had come last Sunday - but I was sorry there wouldn't be a funeral to go to. Apparently he's being buried in his father's grave, somewhere in Sussex - East Hoathley? That name comes to mind - I didn't know it before, so it must have been what she said. The church website is unhelpful - but it looks a nice square towered sort of medieval church - a simple building serving a simple community. Where we all want to end our days perhaps. Nicer than a municipal cemetery. And there we are, he goes, buried far from most of the people who know him. How foolish we are in thinking a site, the spot of burial is somehow important. Needless to say I haven't been near my mother's grave in the last 3-4 years - yet there is something very moving about seeing people standing at a grave of someone who's been dead for years. My grandmother's grave was neglected after she died, although she'd been keen to far bella figura and kept my grandfather's grave well planted for years. But modern municipal graves are nothing... any my father hasn't even had a stone done for my mother. Why bother to be buried? If she'd been cremated, where would we have scattered the ashes? In the garden probably - very good for the soil - actually, apparently it isn't, human bodies are full of lead and mercury and not good for the soil at all.
I found myself imagining Paul's body - sunken, grey, the beautiful eyes closed for ever - and over the last few days, little glimpses of it, lying in a hospital bed have come to me. I think his mother must have somehow passed me the image when we spoke. He was so brave and good. Mark said, rather cruelly "What did he have to look forward to?" And objectively in material terms, he perhaps didn't have much - but one doesn't know the inner life - what his plans, his heartfelt desires were. He was only 55 - he must have had some idea what he wanted to do, what would fulfill him in the future. I don't think he had "given up" - like all of us he was finding the economic climate hard - but he had got going, found himself work as a carer (the most common source of work locally) and was finding that interesting - he told me stories about some of the people he'd seen - I think there's one on this blog somewhere.... have just hunted for it, but can't find it. I thought "I ought to talk to him more." Life is full of regrets.
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