Infinite Sky (27 page)

Tess asks pointless questions and Uncle Tim looks grateful. Benjy tries to catch my eye.

Mum and Dad come downstairs. He walks through the door first. He’s in his funeral suit. He’s wearing his thin black tie. Mum’s hand is on his back.

She makes a weird noise when she sees her brothers. They hug for a long time.

Unbelievably, though it’s what we’ve been waiting for, the hearse arrives. It’s half past nine, time for school assembly, and a stranger in a suit gets out
and waits by the glossy black car we’ll go in.

In the back of the first car is a shiny mahogany coffin that I can’t think too much about. It’s surrounded by flowers and cards and notes. School held a disco to raise money for a
wreath. Sam’s nickname,
Dancer
, is spelled out in yellow chrysanthemums. Tess and Benjy and my uncles and aunty look through the windows at the arrangement but me and Mum and Dad just
get in the car.

The stranger has teeth like a row of cigarette ends, and when he ducks his head to talk to Mum through the window I can’t help staring at them. I can’t help wondering what they smell
like. The cars pull off, and then we’re in the funeral procession.

We sit with our hands on our knees.

A woman with a pushchair stops and bows her head as we pass and I love her.

Inside the funeral car is grey leather. It’s a smell you can’t forget. On one side, Mum kneads my hand, her rings crushing against the bones of my fingers. On the other, Dad looks
like he’s going to puke. I want to hold his hand.

The trees kiss overhead, and then we are at the crematorium.

Our car rolls onto the white-stoned car park, and the noise of the tyres is magnified like when Mum left, and I picture Sam running his fingers over the stones, and then the
man with the fag-end teeth opens the door for us. Mum climbs out, then me, then Dad, and it’s so unusual being at a family event, just us three.

Pretty much everyone I know stands outside the chapel. Matty is on her tiptoes, looking for me. She holds a bunch of white flowers, and her eyes are like Mum’s, and I remember how everyone
used to tease her about wanting to marry Sam.

Behind her, Donna holds a hanky to her nose. She rests her head against Jacob. They each rest a hand on Matty’s shoulders. Austin stands on his own to the side of them. Fraz, Billy Whizz
the rabbit catcher, the pig farmer and Big Chapmun stand together, looking itchy in their suits.

Some of Sam’s teachers and Miss Ryan, the Head of Year, stand near the back of the group. Most of his form and all his gang are there, as well as some kids from other years. The popular
girls, who play netball for the county, clutch at each other as Dad and the other pall-bearers walk over to the hearse. Ally Fletcher who went to the cinema with Sam once starts to cry.

Fraz pats Dad’s shoulder, and Benjy’s dad, Steve, squeezes Benjy’s arm. Mum’s brothers Tim and Martin go up together. They all take their places, then pull the coffin out
of the hearse, and it’s so weird because you can’t tell it holds the body of a boy.

He wasn’t even sixteen, but his coffin’s the same size as a man’s would be.

It’s not just that he was young, but because it was so sudden. No one should die the way he did: that’s what the faces here say.

I think about him, in there, with all that space, and I want to stop them. I want to open the box and climb in with him. I want to wrap him up in a duvet. I can’t bear the thought of him
being cold.

Father Caffrey comes out of the chapel to meet the coffin. You can see the pall-bearers communicating with each other, very serious and quiet, about when to lift and when to walk. They begin
their slow march into the chapel. Benjy’s smaller than the rest, but he’s in the middle so it doesn’t matter. He insisted.

Mum and me follow them in. Her thumb rubbing at my fingers makes my bones ache.

I see Leanne out the corner of my eye as I walk past the crowd. She’s sobbing, those gut-wrenching tears I can’t do any more. A man with tattooed knuckles wraps his arm around her,
looking like he would do anything if she would stop.

There must be a hundred people walking behind us but I don’t hear any footsteps. The chapel is cold and it reminds me of Sam’s ward. It smells of elderly breath. I want to get out of
there.

The intro of ‘Tears in Heaven’ plays as people file into the pews. Father Caffrey stands at the lectern, serene, nodding at people. The guitar yanks at something deep in me, and for
a second I can almost understand what we’re all doing here.

The men place the coffin down on the platform at the front left of the chapel, and make their way back to their places. Dad shakes beside me. I hold his hand. It’s limp in mine.

Mum sits rigid with her sunglasses on. I can feel her straight spine beside me. Tess is next to her, then Benjy, and then his dad, Steve, on the end.

Father Caffrey lets the guitar fade out. He waits a few seconds to speak. People shift and sniff. The wooden pews creak and the air feels full, because for once everyone is paying attention.

Father Caffrey talks but I don’t know what he says. I look at the order of service. Sam’s face grins out at me. I took the picture. It’s right before school started back last
year. Mum’s about to tell Sam to calm down because he’s just poured a pint of water over Matty while she was sunbathing. Benjy is laughing somewhere out of shot. Sam’s hair is
really long. It curls onto his forehead, and in front of his ears. You can just see Matty’s bare feet in the background.

Tess goes up to read a poem, and it doesn’t really matter if it’s beautiful or not because I’m holding this picture of Sam, and he looks so delighted, and where is he now? I
can’t look at the coffin, or at Tess. I keep my eyes on the photo, I don’t look away, because it really is getting to be unignorable, the fact that my big brother is dead.

‘. . .
nothing now can ever come to any good
,’ Tess says, and her voice breaks, and she walks back to her seat. Benjy puts his arm around her.

Father Caffrey invites Mum to the stage, and she stands up, then sits back down. Tess takes hold of her face, and Mum leans in to her. The two of them whisper together, and then Mum shakes her
head. She pats Tess’s arm, takes a huge breath and walks to the stage. She unfolds a piece of paper, and looks out at the chapel from behind her sunglasses. Tess was right. It does look like
a statement. I want her to take them off.

While she scans the first line, Tess slides across the pew, and takes my hand. She drapes her other arm around Benjy. Her fingers are icy and she smells of incense.

Dad is coming back to life beside me. He pulls himself up, and sits tall in his seat, and watches Mum. He squeezes my hand between both of his.

‘I don’t think anyone can imagine how it feels to be . . .
here
,’ Mum says, and there’s a strange rhythm to her voice. There are pauses where there shouldn’t
be. She swallows. She shakes her head from side to side, rubbing her lips over each other. You can just see where her eyes are behind the shades. She looks at me. I want her to sit down.

‘The last few days of Sam’s life, he was surrounded by his family, and his godmother, and his best friend, and I know that he took comfort from having everyone who loved him most
with him, when he breathed his last.’

Dad swallows a strangled sound at this, and Mum looks at the ceiling. We’re all remembering the way Sam looked after his ventilator was turned off, how it was like he was gasping, though
the doctors said it was only a reflex.

‘Our gorgeous son – Samuel Thomas Dancy – named after our fathers, God bless them both, was a funny, talented boy. He was one of the school’s best strikers . .
.’

‘Danc-er!’ someone whisper-bellows from the back rows where the school lot are. There is laughing and shushing, and I love whoever it was who dared to do that.

‘Dancer,’ Mum repeats. She smiles. People shuffle in their pews. ‘He loved karaoke – was an even worse hogger than me – and that’s saying
something.’

Tess lifts her arms up in a silent cheer at this, and Mum nods at her. She is starting to sound a bit like a human.

‘And he drew the most beautiful pictures. Put your hand up if you’re lucky enough to own one of them.’

Mum puts her hand up slowly, and there is rustling in the chapel as people turn in their seats to see who else has. Me, Dad, Benjy and Tess have our hands up. We can’t help but smile at
each other.

There’s hushed laughter at the back again, and we turn round to see that almost the whole row of girls from the netball team have raised their hands. Some of them are blushing, and some of
them are laughing. Ally Fletcher is crying again.

‘That’s my boy,’ Mum says, very softly. She seems to be making it up as she goes along.

‘I’ve often dreamed of Sam’s first girlfriend,’ she says, and she looks over at where Matty is sitting. I turn to see her beaming back at Mum, wiping her eyes.

‘I wondered who would end up being his wife, the mother of his children. I wondered how this girl could ever be good enough for him, and I decided I would treat her as perfect, as long as
I could see that she loved him. I always knew Sam would make a good father, because of how he looked out for his little sister, Iris. Because of the father he had.’

Mum looks at me. She bites her top lip. She looks at Dad and they hold each other’s gaze for a few seconds.

‘Iris worshipped Sam from when she was little. She followed him around as he went on his important adventures, and she would stand up to anyone, however big, if she thought they’d
treated her big brother unfairly.’

She goes into the story of me charging at a bigger boy who’d pushed Sam over on the dance floor at a Butlins disco. Dad squeezes my hand. I can’t remember it. People laugh.

‘The two of them fought like cat and dog, but they never told tales. We could never get out of them who’d started what. And I’m so proud of the way they looked out for each
other.’

Mum looks at me for a few seconds, and I think of Sam telling Dad about Trick, the night everything happened, and how it’s just something else only Dad and me will know about this
summer.

Her voice cracks and she coughs and tries again.

‘Sam died too soon. In a way that will make people think of blame and justice. But he was my son. And I choose to focus on the happy times. The fifteen years I had with him were the most
beautiful years of my life. Please. Join me in celebrating Sam’s life. Remember him as he was. A bossy, happy, funny boy with more energy than he knew what to do with. Talk about him.
Remember him.’

Dad has bent his head to my hand, and I can feel his breath and tears prickling on my palms.

Someone claps, and someone else, and the whole room is clapping, and I feel like laughing and crying. I feel euphoric and ecstatic and heartbroken and distraught because Sam’s gone, but he
was here, and he was amazing, and he was my brother.

Mum comes to sit beside me, and it feels like her skeleton is vibrating when she hugs me.

Father Caffrey invites people to leave things with Sam should they want to. Matty puts an envelope on his coffin, and rushes back to her seat. A couple of the popular girls follow with notes and
a teddy, and then the football team place a centre forward bib in school colours next to Sam’s picture. I stay where I am. I said everything I wanted when he was alive.

Everyone settles back into their places and the thrashy guitar song Sam tormented us with all summer bangs around the chapel.

The red curtains around the coffin close with an awful whirring sound. I can’t look at them. I wish I couldn’t hear them. It’s a sound you can’t forget. I want to get out
of the chapel now. Mum and Dad and me leave fast with our heads down.

We stand by the door, at the top of the steps. People slow down to kiss Mum and Dad. They shake their heads and squeeze their hands. They don’t know what to say. I wish
Mum would take her sunglasses off. She’s so stubborn, and then I feel a hand on my back.

‘Iris?’

It’s Leanne.

She gestures me over to a table a couple of metres away. It is stacked with hymn books and pamphlets.