Belfast

Belfast

An incorrect Haiku
Red gash lips, Black Curls, A tenner a year, Chain smoker - my Northern Ireland relative.

It was the first time I'd flown for ten years, I suddenly realised.
How sad that it should be to such a city for the funeral of my great aunt.

And how to describe her?

My mother tried. It was only us there; myself, two little sisters, mother and father, great uncle and second cousin (twice removed). Thank God it wasn't a Catholic service - they always seem to say something to annoy my mother. The Catholics imply a responsibility for the soul which she believes belongs to the individual as opposed to an intercessor. It's between her and God would be my mother's thinking - god help him. And there she was up on the podium making me cry with her 'it's only us then' .

It's never easy to travel and leave behind a young family. But death is often an event that has to be accommodated spontaneously.

Everything seemed to be going so well at the airport hotel - time for a dip, an expensive meal and then the inevitable giggling until my sister tried to get up from the table and started to cry. With pain. We managed to lie her down in the room - it was her back - some sort of nerve thing. I said a healing prayer out loud in the darkness as the three of us lay side by side listening for aircraft through the double glazing.

The felt up flight magazine kept my mind off the journey ahead as I sat in my rickety easyjet chair. My prayer seemed to have worked. No wheelchair was needed but back sister was still upset about the multipurpose tool kit she had chucked out at check in. Nail files, scissors and mini screwdrivers lay glistening and abandoned inside what had looked like a psychopathic slot machine. What could they possibly do with all those potential weapons of minor destruction? Donate them to hospitals? Orphanages? Scouts?

It had been a long time since I'd flown.

The terror of economy class take off was eased only by the ennui on the faces of the attendants and the fear in my little sister's hand. Some things never change.

Belfast would not be the place for questions. Hadn't I heard the one about the English folk who had wandered into the wrong pub?
Then what happened?
Don't want to frighten you.
Maybe we should just go straight to the crematorium
Don't be silly, my back's better - let's look at the shops.
Just don't talk about religion Ruthie - not today

We stopped for a moment in the bus queue - feeling like zombies. An equestrian blonde stood out from the short battered crowd of people around her. Definitely going somewhere else. We'd walked past a man fucking violently down the phone. I looked around at the misty hills wondering if leprechauns came north of the border at all.

A cab was found. Talk about hailing. He'd pulled up with skin like a four-sided cheese grater. Over excited, aggressive good cheer and much Jesus, Mary and Josephing (was he a Catholic then? Shut up). There'd been a bit of light-hearted ducking and diving of words between himself and the cab hailer (had he been a protestant then? Shut up). Belfast had been completely redeveloped and he'd show us.

We passed a beautiful bay - on a clear day you could see...Liverpool. Big hill to our right. There's a zoo up there. Where was the crematorium? (too late it was out) Lots of friends, apparently, lots of friends lost there. I could only imagine. Was it a Catholic crematorium then? (Shut up).

Everything's stuffy when you're wearing black - three sisters on our grim journey. We looked like sisters.

Into the centre - lots of money apparently. Looked like an empty Croydon. Karen Millen. A big painting of an army man with lots of flags - was it marching season then? (Shut up).

The sandwiches were large and well-filled in the empty arty cafe. Sorrow seemed to fill the girl's faces. A poster advertised a film club - so they've obviously got a few things going on here then (for the last time Ruth).

It was nearly time. Another taxi ride - rustling shopping bags full of ooh la lift and La Plumpe lip filler. We were too tired to care about it looking a bit insensitive.

Not many people on the streets - maybe they were all somewhere else.

Maybe they were all going to where we were going, we joked - our great aunt must have had many friends.

The sun shone hard on the bench by the entrance - waiting.

Our cousin had made up a pictorial history charting his mother's disintegration from Joan Crawford to very old Joan Crawford. The lipstick had fallen wider and wider of the mark until it just disappeared and that's when they'd known the end was in sight. As I fondled my La Plumpe contemplatively I thought about the nature of genetic makeup and wondered about the woman she might have been if they hadn't treated her post natal depression with electric shock therapy. The schizophrenia might have kicked in anyway I suppose - but look at her mother.

Our cousin seemed to want to talk about the art scene in Newcastle.Why hadn't he married? Perhaps he didn't want to pass anything on but surely he must love someone? Perhaps he loved someone right now and he or she was waiting for him in an arts cafe in South Shields. He was looking tall - nice voice. I used to follow him around like a little duckling.

What was it my friend was saying about funerals? That they can make people feel almost abandoned in that moment - that there's something about death that can open up a few things.

I could see the hearse arrive.

Did I mention that I hate funerals? They make me sick. A similar feeling of to taking a piano exam - that horrible anticipation. The gleaming black box waiting.

As I accidentally burst back into the crematorium coffee bar looking for the loo I reflected on the way we'd all sat around a formica table trying to be cheerful before the event. The giant's causeway was up the road - I hadn't realised it was on this side of the border - there was me not realising that anything beautiful was on this side (shut up - too late).

The service had been short and sad with mother paying my great uncle tribute for seventy years of loyalty - a lot of people would have run a mile and now he looked like he was about to fall over.

We ate a lot of sandwiches afterwards. I reached for another of the fine selection of Marmite, ham and chicken salad white squares individually boxed in Tupperware. There's nothing like living with a paranoid compulsively disordered schizophrenic to train you in the art of neat obedience.

We all stood alone under the seventies concrete crematorium shelter - wondering why anyone would need a shelter in a crematorium while simultaneously admiring the shape.

The journey home was unnecessarily long. They'd kindly dropped us off at the airport in the funeral limousine with two hours to kill. I took out my contact lenses and rested my head on my little sister's lap - temporary loss of vanity caused by the travel weary strangeness of the day. And we'd only gone for a day - a veritable baptism of soda bread and lipstick.

Were there many people there? My husband had asked in our later cosiness. No, nobody anywhere really.

They must have lived their life alone.

That or everyone was somewhere else.