Low life | 23 May 2019

The mental fruit of yet another sleepless night was that my mother was determined to arrange her funeral as quickly and as cheaply as possible. A friend had told her, she said, that the Co-op do a version called a ‘Simple Funeral’ for less than £2,000. Please would I look it up on the internet for her? The state-funded carer had been in and out already and she was washed and dressed and sitting in her electric recliner, wet hair combed back like a teddy boy, and in her eyes you could see her will burning brightly. I, on the other hand, had slept long and profoundly and was not yet fully returned from a very long way away. I was still in my pyjamas. A man galloping by on a horse, asked about it afterwards, might have thought it was my funeral she wanted me to arrange, not hers.

I got the web page up on her antique iPad. A Simple Funeral costs £1,895. I read out the more eye-catching selections from the ‘What’s included’ list. ‘If death occurs outside of normal working hours, you will be removed into the care of the Co-op, out of hours, at no extra cost,’ I told her. ‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘You will be prepared, cared for and dressed in a gown that matches the interior of your coffin,’ I said. Silence. Either the matching colour scheme was a matter of indifference to her or she hadn’t heard or comprehended. ‘You will be transported from the funeral home to the cemetery in a hearse at the appointed time of the service.’ ‘That’s good too,’ she said. I totally agreed. Her turning up at the church on the same day as everyone else would be a massive plus.

Before we got overexcited, however, I read out to her selections from the list of what was not included.