Michael Tippett

I’m halfway through Mum’s eulogy when the heckling starts.

A woman laughs. She’s snorting, scoffing whenever I mention one of Mum’s finer virtues.

There’s forty of us packed tight in the function room of the Cricketers Arms. I say ‘function

room’ but it’s more a gloomy space at the back of the hotel, hot as hell and filled with the

ghost-stink of a thousand spilt beers. For all its flaws—and for all of Mum’s—she’d been a

regular here for years.

I tug at my shirt collar, free the heat trapped beneath. I’m sweating, mumbling, looking at the

photo of Mum next to her urn. Despite the heckling, I manage to get through my speech. The

crowd mingles. Meg, my wife, kisses me on the cheek. I’m patted on the back by cousins I’d

forgotten about.

I grab a beer, slip out into the tiny garden for a breather.

Of course, she’s there.

Sipping her middie and sucking on a cigarette with expert rhythm.

I join her at the bench. “What kind of a person heckles their own funeral?”

“C’mon, mate,” she says in her smoke-stained voice, “it was a bunch of crap and you know

it.”

“I was trying to be respectful.”

“Yeah, well, you made me sound like bloody Mother Teresa.” She looks at me, those brilliant

sapphire eyes set deep in her careworn face. “No one who knows me will buy that shit.”

I shrug, gulp my beer.

Playful squeals drown out a distant police siren. Children dash about the park behind the

hotel, giggling and chasing one another.

Mum smiles. “You were like that once. Full of beans. There was no stopping you.”

“Is that right?” I’m exhausted just watching them.

“You know, I was hoping before I went that you and Meg would pop one out. I was a shit

mum, Glen, we all know that. I wanted to make up for it by being a great nan.”

A heat hits my face. The glow from half a beer and a lifetime of resentment. “What makes

you think I’d let you anywhere near our kid?”

She winces, nods. “S’pose I deserve that. I made all the mistakes my oldies did. The same

bloody ones I hated their guts for. But I learnt a lot in that last year, mate. Rottin’ away in

that hospital. Sometimes the scab hurts more than the cut. You gotta let it ache,

mate…otherwise it’ll never heal.” She stubs her cigarette, places a hand on mine. “I love you,

Glen. I’m sorry it took being dead to say it.”

My eyes burn and I clench my jaw. I’m about to speak when I realise she’s no longer there.

“Hey,” Meg smiles from the doorway. “Will you be joining us?”

I look at her and the tears flow. “Yeah.” I make for the door, stop to kiss her on the cheek,

and step inside.