All at Sea, page 12
We were still in Jamaica when I received a text from our builder, an unflappable Czech called Bago who the boys have renamed Bagpuss. His texts are normally economical two-liners, but this one ran to four paragraphs, and began: ‘There is an issue.’ My father was arriving at the house the following day, and Bago wanted to know what to do about ‘Tony’s plants in the barn’. Should he get rid of them, or did I have other plans for them?
I couldn’t think what he was talking about. Then I remembered. Of course. Months earlier, Tony had mentioned that he was going to grow a couple of cannabis plants in one of the barns. I had been doubtful about the plan, but there was no talking him out of it. ‘Oh Dec, half the county grow their own. It’s a piece of cake.’ What if he got caught? ‘Well, for a start, I won’t. And even if I did, Old Bill don’t nick you for a few plants. It counts as personal.’
In the event, it seemed to me to be more bother than it was worth. Tony was forever faffing about with plant food and disappearing off to the barn to check on acidity levels or something. I left him to it. After an inordinate palaver he harvested a disappointing crop of mediocre weed, and although he claimed to have worked out where he had gone wrong, and was sure the next crop would be a winner, I suspected this was the end of his horticultural experiment. We would be leaving for Jamaica in a few weeks anyway, so a second go at it would obviously have to wait, and I guessed the holiday gave Tony a good excuse to suspend operations without losing face.
Bago must have found the growing equipment in the barn. I had never even been in there to take a look, but imagined there must be a light or two, and perhaps a fan. If my dad came across it he would have no idea what it was, and wouldn’t care less even if he did. I texted Bago back telling him not to worry.
We have been home for a fortnight when Bago makes a joke about ‘the farm’. What does he mean? He looks at me in surprise. ‘You know, the farm.’ What farm? ‘Follow me,’ Bago says. He leads me out to the barn, through the gloom to the back, where I find a gigantic canvas tent. He unzips one corner, and I take a step back.
It is not a couple of plants; it’s a modestly sized cannabis factory. There are industrial-strength fans, blinding lights, a complicated-looking automated irrigation system, and those stainless steel ventilation flues you see outside kebab shops – and in the middle of it all, a small forest of bushy cannabis plants, practically as tall as me. Whoever Tony recruited to feed them while we were away has done a first-rate job. Though not exactly the sort of surprise Matt was worried about, it is so perfectly Tony that I laugh until I cry.
We zip the tent back up and I go and find Tom to ask what we do now. ‘Well hats off to Tone,’ he agrees, after taking a look in the barn. How much would the crop be worth if we kept it going until harvest time? We try to speculate, but keep getting the giggles and give up.
This is probably not the time, we reluctantly agree, for a Breaking Bad adventure, so I phone one of Tony’s friends in London who knows about these things, and ask him to come and dismantle everything and take it away. I would make an unpromising cannabis farmer under the best of circumstances. To launch a criminal career would be a particularly tall order when we have a funeral to organise.
7
If you believe in God, it can’t be all that hard to organise a funeral. The religious service observes rituals so long established that no one even notices the format unless something goes badly wrong. A secular funeral, on the other hand, is more complicated, and quite like mufti day at school. Once you dispense with traditional uniformity, you forfeit its power to protect you, and expose yourself to all sorts of scrutiny and judgement. Every choice, every detail, becomes a personalised statement of identity. When Tom volunteers for the job of organising Tony’s funeral, neither he nor I have begun to grasp what a minefield of taste and politics, race and class we will have to navigate.
The easy part is ruling out all the things we don’t want. I am not a fan, for example, of the rococo horse-drawn glass coffin, the ostentatiously elongated funeral car procession, the over-styled outfits that look like fancy dress, or any of the other showy bling of a contemporary east London funeral. Tom can’t stand the sentimental prohibition of ‘speaking ill of the dead’, which manifests as an injunction against anyone saying anything remotely meaningful or even true about the person they are burying. The curious convention of excluding young children, even when it is their own parent being buried, has always baffled both of us.
On the other hand, I have almost no idea what I actually do want. I love organising parties; I am really good at it. But I have never organised a funeral before, nor given a moment’s thought to how one might go about it.
Tom moves in with us for a month, and we become full-time events organisers – only without the unflappable calm I imagine the job usually involves. To invent a ceremony that will do Tony justice while so dysfunctional with grief that I still cannot make a phone call feels both impossible and imperative, and a degree of mania quickly sets in. There is no mobile-phone signal inside the house, so Tom sits in the garden all day, soldered to his iPhone, endlessly drawing up and revising lists. ‘Tom’s favourite game,’ Jake says when he gets home from nursery one day, ‘is sitting on a rock by the pond, talking to his phone.’ He is managing upwards of 200 calls a day, and developing the robotic glaze of a call-centre worker; I take him out a cup of tea one day, and overhear him actually haggling with the gravedigger.
(To be fair, grave digging turns out to be pricier than you might think. For reasons no one can explain, if we want a Saturday burial – which we do – we will have to pay double the going rate, which comes to £400. A career switch from record producer to gravedigger is an option Tom had not previously considered, but given the parlous state of today’s music industry we both agree it’s one worth bearing in mind.)
Every night, after the boys are in bed, we sit at the kitchen table and agonise over each of the day’s decisions, then go to bed and start all over again the next morning. We are making it up as we go along. The only thing this feels remotely like is the memory of organising our weddings.
As with a wedding, the first thing to find is the venue. The Roundchapel is an imposingly graceful Victorian former church just a few hundred yards from our old house in Hackney; the bar next door belongs to a good friend of Tony’s, who agrees to host the wake, where Tom’s ex-girlfriend, the DJ Smokin’ Jo, will play. A cut-and-paste eulogy by a stranger who never even met the deceased is another funeral convention I have never understood, so instead several of Tony’s friends, and his daughter, will talk about his life. I want to speak, too, but quickly realise this will be a problem.
I have always been surprised and mildly embarrassed by my enthusiasm for public speaking. I don’t enjoy appearing on TV, have never wanted to act, and the very thought of karaoke brings me out in a cold sweat. But oddly, when it comes to public speaking I have no inhibitions. The first audience I have ever felt incapable of addressing turns out to be Tony’s congregation – I don’t know why; I just know that I can’t – so I ask a friend to read words I can write but cannot read.
I had assumed the writing part would be easy, until I sit down and try. My advice to the other speakers was simple: just tell the truth and be yourself, but now I see this was easier to offer than to follow. I do not want to be sentimental, and I don’t want to lie, but I don’t want to offend anyone or put my foot in it either, which leaves surprisingly little narrative room to manoeuvre.
There is something else I also need to write. What people want and need, more than anything, is an explanation. Most don’t like to phone me, and the few that do get no answer, so they call Tom instead, and the question everyone keeps asking him is: how did Tony drown? It was reported in detail by every national newspaper, and it is rather confronting to learn that Fleet Street’s broadly accurate account was assumed by almost everyone to be a lie.
I’m not sure I will survive if I have to spend all afternoon at the Roundchapel retelling the story of his death. So instead I draft an account to be inserted into the order of service, with a note to say that we hope it will spare the need for anyone to ask me to explain how he died on the day. I worry that it will look like a passive-aggressive rebuke to perfectly valid curiosity, and feel queasy about writing about myself in the third person, but when I show it to Tom the only change he suggests is one that I hadn’t even thought of. ‘People keep asking me if he was drunk. So instead of saying he went down to the beach in the morning, be more specific – you need to say it was around eight-thirty a.m.’
The list of decisions to be made never seems to get any shorter or easier. Words are my department, but music is Tom’s, and every night we trawl my iPod in search of inspiration. I would like to play the Rihanna song ‘Stay’, but Tom correctly points out that it would sound tacky. Does that matter? Yes, I realise, it does. We don’t want hymns, but we do want their gravitas. In the end the only secular music we can find that feels dignified, unifying and authentically evocative of Tony is vintage reggae, and it is a happy surprise when we listen to ‘One Love’ by Bob Marley and realise it sounds just like a hymn.
Giles Fraser comes to see us in Kent. Giles used to be canon of St Paul’s cathedral, until he resigned in solidarity with the Occupy movement and became, in his words, ‘the Guardian’s pet vicar’. He has offered to officiate, so we sit in my garden and discuss the service, smoking and swearing excessively. I am relieved he doesn’t mind my prohibition on any mention of God, and mildly ashamed at my pride in his approval of our plans. I worry that I am turning Tony’s funeral into a public performance – but feel better when Giles explains why he has no worries about our secular format. It’s only when wankers die, he says, that you need scripture and ritual to fall back on.
When every detail of the service and wake has been decided, we are still only halfway there. Even if we have got everything right, and Tony’s funeral evokes some of his truth for all the people coming, there will be two for whom it will be almost meaningless. To Jake and Joe it will at best be just a load of grown-ups talking – and at worst an overwhelming crowd of strangers who Jake worries are angry with him for causing Tony’s death.
And so, after long deliberation, we come up with what I naïvely imagine to be a solution. We will bury Tony the following day, at a small country cemetery a few miles from our home, and invite only the people who are most important to the boys. There will be no formal ceremony at the graveside, because more words can mean nothing to them now. Instead we will sing ‘Amazing Grace’. I have to teach the words to Jake and Joe, and we rehearse in the car on the morning drive to nursery. Joe likes it and is keen to sing, but most days Jake refuses to join in. ‘I hate that song,’ he says angrily, and stares out the window.
During the month we spend organising the funeral, there are other, more unexpected challenges that vary from the comic to the macabre. Uncertainty about the appropriate dress code is generating so much anxiety, Tom soon reports, that he thinks we will have to specify one in the invitation. I think that would look mad; this isn’t a cocktail party. But it is a problem. In my family, you do not wear black to a funeral, and in Tony’s world you categorically do. I don’t want to confuse or offend anyone, but I don’t want to feel like a fraud either. I just want people to wear whatever they feel comfortable in. But no matter how many times Tom tells everyone this, they won’t stop calling for clarification. I am amazed clothes could matter so much. But I lose my nerve about the multicoloured dress I had planned to wear, and opt for black instead.
I hadn’t anticipated that organising a funeral would involve negotiating with HMP Belmarsh, until one of Tony’s colleagues gets in touch with a new problem. On his very first day at Kids Company Tony had been assigned a young man I will call Richard. Of all the youngsters Tony worked with, none drove him madder or tested his patience more severely. But he was the one Tony loved more deeply than any other, and if the principle behind Kids Company was surrogate parenting then in this case it was truly realised. Tony was the closest thing Richard has ever known to a real father. After yet another aborted apprenticeship, at a loss for what to try next Tony once brought Richard home and taught him to cook in our kitchen. I have been worrying about how Richard will have taken the news of Tony’s death, and know how frantic he must be to attend the funeral. The trouble is, he is currently on remand in Belmarsh for murder.
What would be the appropriate tone for an email to the governor of Belmarsh? If such a thing exists then I fail to strike it, because nothing I come up with cuts any ice. ‘Unless the deceased is next of kin,’ she replies, ‘we do not facilitate attendance at funerals.’ I know Tony would not have given up this easily, but can’t think what else to do – until I remember the Lib Dem MP Sarah Teather. She had emailed her condolences while we were in Jamaica, and like everyone else said if there was anything she could do then I must just ask. I can’t imagine she was thinking of anything along these lines, but after a quick Google establishes that there are Lib Dem ministers in the department for justice, I ask if she can persuade them to change the governor’s mind. I remember a former Tory prisons minister we met at Jake’s two years earlier, and although the connection is tenuous to say the least, I rattle off an email to him too.
Both politicians do everything they can, as does my local MP. I don’t even know who he is until I consult Google, and discover to my mortification that we now live in the constituency of Tunbridge Wells – not an eventuality my younger Hackney self could have predicted, nor a state of affairs I imagine will do me any favours when what I need is a politician willing to lobby for compassion on behalf of a south London murder suspect. The MP for Tunbridge Wells turns out to be a Tory minister who confounds all my prejudices. His efforts to talk the governor round are heroic, and though ultimately fruitless – Richard will not be allowed to attend – make me feel bad about slagging off Tories all the time.fn1
I get the impression that the governor’s intransigence comes as a relief to one or two people. Would I really, they venture tentatively, have wanted a prisoner in handcuffs under guard in the front row? Actually, yes, I would. For all I care, Richard could have come in an orange jumpsuit and shackles as long as he got the chance to say his goodbye, and I think Tony would have thoroughly enjoyed inconveniencing the prison service. Besides, it wouldn’t even have been the most bizarre element of Tony’s funeral. Not by a long way. That distinction would have to go to a local shopkeeper who tries to extort money out of me.
I send out an invitation to the funeral by group text from Tony’s phone, to every name I can identify in his contacts. This requires a fair bit of detective work, on account of his dyslexia and his friends’ obscurely tangential nicknames – Greeny Dani, Martin one whe, Iron Dresd, etc. When the group text has finally gone out, a reply pings in minutes later from this man I shall call W. ‘Hi mate any chance of that money u owe me please.’
What? I’m completely thrown. I call him on Tony’s phone. W answers straight away.
‘Alright mate, how you doing?’
‘Sorry, this isn’t Tony. It’s Decca.’
‘Oh.’ He sounds surprised. ‘Why, what’s up with Tone then?’
‘Have you not heard the news? Tony is dead. He died three weeks ago.’
I hear him gasp. ‘Look if Tony owed you some money, of course I’ll sort you out,’ I go on. ‘But did you not just receive an invitation to his funeral?’ If it didn’t reach W, how will I know who else it didn’t reach? ‘What text?’ He sounds bemused. So I send him the invitation again, and a few minutes later W texts back. ‘Just got that it was 600 he owed me I am so sorry to here that he was a good friend I will try and make it if there is anything I can do just text me x’
Tony hardly knew this man. They only met a few months ago; he has never even been to our house. How could Tony possibly owe him £600? For that matter, why would W lend a man he barely knows that much money? But who would make such a thing up? Another text arrives from W: ‘Sorry 4 having to ask 4 the money it’s a shock.’ I have to go and collect the boys from nursery, but am so dazed by this exchange that I get into my pickup and don’t even see Tony’s car until I smash straight into it.
Tom and I spend the next three days painstakingly re-texting Tony’s friends one by one, asking them to confirm receipt of the invite. It appears that everyone got it. But W texts Tony’s phone again, asking me for the money. Although over six foot, Tom isn’t particularly big, but he can be quite intimidating when he wants to, and one afternoon he goes to pay W a visit in his shop while I wait outside.
Tom emerges after a few minutes, and climbs back into the passenger seat. ‘The man’s a pathetic little prick,’ he spits. ‘As soon as I started shouting at him, the little prick goes to pieces. All he could say was, “I’m so sorry, sir, I’m so sorry, sir, it was just the shock. I was just so shocked to hear about Tony, I didn’t know what I was doing.” Forget about him, Dec, he’s just a twat.’
But a week later, the roofer who rents one of our barns happens to tell me about the morning he read of Tony’s death in his Sunday Mirror. ‘I couldn’t believe my eyes. Didn’t know what to do. I just got on the phone and started ringing everyone I could think of who knew him. The first one I called was W.’ W? Is he sure? The roofer looks puzzled. ‘Course I’m sure. I remember it like it was yesterday.’ Tony knew some exceptionally unpleasant people in his criminal career, but I doubt any of them would be capable of something as dark as pretending not to know he was dead in order to rip off his widow for a few hundred quid.
