PART ONE.
It’s 7.22 am. New York is greeting me with all its very New York things. A tall person in a red coat and fuzzy hat comes out of the cold rain into the cafe and orders an iced Americano. They have a dog on a leash, and the dog is dressed in the exact same red coat, only dog size. I get a cake because, in my hurry to get back and write this thing, I forget I’m Not Doing Sugar. They are playing Tears For Fears Everybody Want To Rule The World in the cafe. Oh, the poetry of the eighties,
and is it any less relevant?
PART TWO
Fifteen minutes later, I’m back at my desk, thinking.
Last week my brother was out celebrating another year on this planet. He’s older than me, but we don’t feel the gap anymore. He said he would get so pissed that he wouldn’t even know his own name. I haven’t heard anything since, so I think I’d better call.
We are all trying to get through it. We are all trying differently. My brother is ex-army, leads with his heart, loves books on marketing and self-improvement,
is part of more Facebook groups than you could imagine,
laughs from the depths of himself,
always has a brilliant idea. My mum was a kid when she had him, so he called Grandma and Granddad Mum & Dad. The last couple of years was particularly hard for him because, in addition to losing them, he also lost his wife to a long illness. She was older than him, but that’s a different story.
I travelled Up North to where they were holding the funeral for his wife. I walked up from the train station, determined to be my brother’s family representative, his right-hand person. I wondered what things I would say when I saw him since I hadn’t seen him in years.
It was summer. I was too early, of course. It’s impossible to arrive on time, you’re always too early or too late. I was in a copper suede outfit because my brother forbade me to wear black. I took my time walking to the church, looking at the streets. Everything felt small and pinching. No one had arrived just yet.
Then came a group of hard-looking women asking me who I knew, i.e. who I was related to there, and later I laughed because my brother and I were the only black people in the church, the only black people around for miles, most likely. (Still, good of them not to presume, I guess?) They were really sweet in the end. I sat next to them, behind and to the right of my brother, watching him doing his best to stay afloat. After the service, I watched my brother some more and wondered what I could do to be useful. We went to the coffin holding hands and said our goodbyes.
We went to the wake. His late wife's friends were drinking beer, tequila, and beer again; it’s that kind of Up North town. Later I got chips and gravy (which you can only get Up North if I’m honest), and they were so good that I’m still thinking about them six months later. Well, it’s the easiest thing to process about the day. There were significant things, devastating things.
At night I took the train back to London, left my brother with his friends.
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