Nick Hornby - High Fidelity

High Fidelity
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Page 83 of 112
6/20/2006
The crematorium is in the middle of nowhere, and we leave the car in a huge, almost empty car park
and walk over to the buildings, which are new and horrible, too bright, not serious enough. You can’t
imagine that they’re going to burn people in here; you can imagine, however, some iffy happy-clappy
new religious group meeting for a sing-song once a week. I wouldn’t have my old man buried here. I
reckon I’d need some help from the atmosphere to get a really good head of grief going, and I wouldn’t
get it from all this exposed brickwork and stripped pine.
It’s a three-chapel multiplex. There is even a sign on the wall telling you what’s on in each, and at
what time:
chapel 1. 11:30 mr E barker
chapel 2. 12:00 mr K LYdOn
chapel 3. 12:00 —
Good news in Chapel 3, at least. Cremation canceled. Reports of death exaggerated, ha ha. We sit
down in the reception area and wait while the place starts to fill up. Liz nods to a couple of people, but I
don’t know them; I try to think of men’s names beginning with ‘E.’ I’m hoping that an old person is
getting the treatment in Chapel 1, because if and when we see the mourners come out, I don’t want them
to be too distressed. Eric. Ernie. Ebenezer. Ethelred. Ezra. We’re all right. We’re laughing. Well, not
laughing, exactly, but whoever it is is at least four hundred years old, and no one will be grieving too
much in those circumstances, will they Ewan. Edmund. Edward. Bollocks. Could be any age.
No one’s crying in the reception area yet, but there are a few people on the edge, and you can see
they’re going to go over it before the morning is over. They are all middle-aged, and they know the
ropes. They talk quietly, shake hands, give wan smiles, kiss, sometimes; and then, for no reason I can
see, and I feel hopelessly out of my depth, lost, ignorant, they stand, and troop through the door marked
chapel 2.
It’s dark in there, at least, so it’s easier to get into the mood. The coffin is up at the front, slightly
raised off the floor, but I can’t work out what it’s resting on; Laura, Jo, and Janet Lydon are in the first
row, standing very close, with a couple of men I don’t know beside them. We sing a hymn, pray, there’s
a brief and unsatisfactory address from the vicar, some stuff from his book, and another hymn, and then
there’s this sudden, heart-stopping clanking of machinery and the coffin disappears slowly through the
floor. And as it does so, there’s a howl from in front of us, a terrible, terrible noise that I don’t want to
hear: I can only just tell that it’s Laura’s voice, but I know that it is, and at that moment I want to go to
her and offer to become a different person, to remove all trace of what is me, as long as she will let me
look after her and try to make her feel better.
When we get out into the light, people crowd around Laura and Jo and Janet, and hug them; I want to
do the same, but I don’t see how I can. But Laura sees Liz and me hovering on the fringe of the group,
and comes to us, and thanks us for coming, and holds us both for a long time, and when she lets go of
me I feel that I don’t need to offer to become a different person: it has happened already.
Twenty-Six
It’s easier in the house. You can feel that the worst is over, and there’s a tired calm in the room, like
the tired calm you get in your stomach when you’ve been sick. You even hear people talking about other
stuff, although it’s all big stuff—work, children, life. Nobody’s talking about their Volvo’s fuel
consumption, or the names they’d choose for dogs. Liz and I get ourselves a drink and stand with our
backs against a bookcase, right in the far corner away from the door, and we talk occasionally, but
mostly we watch people.