The Wrong Funeral. Driving slow as I could up the A1, I wandered aimlessly around the upsets tattooed on my memory. Some of these upsets from ages ago, some more recent. Like the upsets around my Father and his disease. Each trip saw my father decay a little more than the last. On my previous visit he buckled beneath the weight of a cardigan that seemed to swallow his body. His skin was becoming slack and he appeared to have acquired a larger man's moustache by mistake. He was too weak to fill the silence with even the smallest of chatter. On receiving his diagnoses my father insisted he could beat the cancer. When I was a boy he bought a set of false teeth at a car boot sale. He stood firm they were a snug fit, despite his gums becoming pussy and inflamed. They slipped all over the place when he ate or spoke and protruded beneath his tash, but my Father wore those teeth for four months. Eventually he conceded, with a trip to the dentist and bespoke dentures, the used ones were no good. He denied his disease was caused by smoking tabs. He insisted it was the vegetables he had eaten, or more specifically the pesticides they sprayed veg with. My father didn't eat fruit because real men don't eat anything sweet. Real men eat cauliflower boiled to a mush. Real men eat their veg with meat, cheap cut and leathery to the bite. I pulled off the A1 into the mist and towards my Father's house. I could feel the town like so many bad memories. Everything was as I'd left it, the first time (twenty years ago) and the last (three weeks ago). The uniform colliery houses lined up beneath the battleship grey sky that seemed always about to burst into tears. The smell of penicillin simmered in the drug factory and blew down wind. I wondered if my Father would reveal his secrets, about my brother Junior and what no one dared ask. I pictured my father, omnipotent in his final moments. I imagined how his death might bring us together. His newly acquired enlightenment would finally enable him to open up and reveal the diamond in the rough. My Father would tell me, "You know I love you son, I just couldn't say it before." I would say, "I know, I've always known." There would be tears. He would tell me how, "death comes to us all." He would say that, "now, right now, this moment will be the past in an instant. Savour each second you are alive." I knew too well my Father would never say those things, not ever. His final words would be used like all his other words. He would bitterly complain about "...Mooslims, the immigrints, shart lifters, old Mall next door who never done a bliddy day's work in his bliddy #life." I let my self into the house, chemical pine attacked my nasal passage and left a detergent taste in my mouth. Even a fog of cheap air freshener couldn't conceal the stench of death and tired chip fat. They'd managed to wrestle a hospital bed into my Father's living room. My brothers, Junior and Hector sat in camping chairs at the side of it. There was an empty camping chair for me - room for one more. All the old furniture was gone, to make space for the bed I guess. My Father lay attached to tubes and bottles, gurning quietly. "How are you Dad?" I asked. "How do you bliddy think?" He strained, without saying a word. Junior smiled at me, "It's good to see you Herm. Glad you could make it." Hector lifted his eye brows briefly and said, "alright Hermin?" "Alright." I said. Junior grabbed the sides of the camping chair and forced himself up, knocking over a tea cup by his feet. He touched me on the shoulder in a way that could have been welcoming or condescending, I wasn't sure which. I smiled at my oldest brother. "Would you like a drink, it must've been a long journey?" He said. Junior's providence raised questions. Why was he so tall? Why so dark? How come he passed exams and went to university? Why was he so different to me and Hector? Where did he get those pointed ears? Junior's ears was the joke that never went stale. Whenever Leonard Nimoy came on TV the family would become a pack of hyenas, screeching and whooping with delight. We would dance around Junior laughing our fingers at him. Even the dog would join in, bouncing and barking excitedly. Junior would always lash out, never at me or my Mother or my Father. Junior always attacked Hector. Most evenings the family deflated in front of the TV. My Mother and Father's moods would be lightened with chain smoking, tea or home made beer. Despite the light mood and nicotine ambiance, the TV could be cruel. Like when a documentary about African Bush Pigs came on. I looked at Junior who was staring intently at the screen, he was beginning to heat up. In a rare moment of charity (or self preservation) I decided not to draw comparison with my brother's ears and those of the the Bush pig. Hector didn't say a word but didn't need to, his broad smile was provocation enough. Junior glanced at him, then sprung like a gangly kangaroo, his face was a flashing siren as he screamed and windmilled Hector with punches. My Father had to intervene else Hector would have got blood all over the three piece suite. "Anything alcoholic in the house?" I asked Junior. "Yeah, I brought some wine. I'll go get it" He said. I sat in the camping chair next to Hector. "At least he's home. How's he been?" I asked him. "He was fine last night, he was sitting up watching bargain hunt but he got pretty bad through the night, so me and Spock there thought we'd best phone you." Hector said. That was the call that had been waiting for just over a year. My Father's death lingered like a grey cloud on route to a picnic. Every missed call, every flashing light on my answer machine could have been it. I was reluctant to make any plans in case death cancelled them on a whim. Death trumps all commitments. I glanced over at my Father. His opiate slumber seemed to spare him the agony drawn on his face. His dry lips curled around his toothless mouth as his fingers dug into the white hospital sheet, gathering it into a lump. I could feel Hector's glare, "Live every day as if it's your last eh?" he said. "Hmm", I agreed. It is widely speculated that hearing is the last of the senses to fade. I am not sure how anyone could know this. Whether it was true or not, discussing my Father while he lay next to me felt a little insensitive, but I wanted to know how long he had. If I'm honest, I really wanted to know how long I had to stay. The wall at the head of my Father's bed was haunted with photos, a montage of sixty odd years better forgotten. I was drawn to my parents wedding photo. My Mother heavily pregnant with Junior, My Father not smiling, my Nan stood behind scowling. My Grandfather didn't make the wedding. He was drunk or in the cells, or both - the story has changed with time. I looked at the school portraits of me, Junior and Hector, like mug shots of missing children shown so often on the news. Junior returned with a bottle of red and three mugs, "Dad doesn't have any wine glasses", he said. When Junior first returned from university he brought back wine. He had been gone three months and in that time his northern accent had completely evaporated. I asked him if I could try some. "Huh, this would be wasted on your pallet, it's not Water and Robsons", he said in his brand new London accent. Junior swirled the wine around his mouth, soaking up my parents admiration at the same time. The university had transformed my brother into royalty. He tipped the bottle into My Father's mug and then my Mothers. "This is really nice Junior" My Mother said, her face curdling slightly. "Indupitably." My brother said. "Indupitably", My Mother and Father repeated, looking at each other like they'd just won the pools. Junior swaggered over to Hector and poured wine into his cup. Hector gulped the lot in one go. He thanked Junior with a grudging nod. Junior handed me a mug of wine. He also gave one to Hector. "What's the plan with sleep?" Hector asked. "There's no point all three of us staying up." Junior said. "Shall we take it in turns?" Hector said. "Ok, you want to go first Heck?" Junior asked. "Is that alright?" Hector asked me. "Sure", I said. Hector pushed himself up from his camping chair, stretched and went off to bed. He took his mug of wine with him. Shortly after Junior went to University, Hector left my parents a note informing them he'd gone travelling to Mali, in Africa. He left no contact details. Hector asked my family not to try and find him. He would make contact in his own good time. "What'll the neighbours think? They might think we drove him away" my Father said, twiddling his thumbs around one another. "What if they think he's gone to prison?" My Mother said, smoking furiously on her tab. "If anyone asks, say he's gone to the Univarsity" my Father ordered, smoke bellowing from his mouth and nose. My Father may as well have instructed us to tell the neighbours Hector had been recruited by NASA to fly to the moon. Several months later, waiting for a bus my Mother bumped into Lance Stretch, who had gone to school at the same time as Hector. "By your Hector's lookin' thin like isn't he?" Stretch said. My Mother sprung to attention. "Have you been out to Africa then? You don't have much of a tan", she said. Stretch looked at my Mother and after a short pause said, "Eh? Are you off ya chump? What are you on about?"axfu "Hector's been in Africa for the last few months", my Mother said. "Well, I don't know about that. I saw him last week collecting scrap metal up the street", Stretch said, "and he was thin as a fookin rake. I thowt he had cancer or summick." My Mother stayed on the bus all the way to Newcastle and went straight round to the bedsit Hector lived in before his African adventure. The bedsit Hector still lived in. The bedsit Hector had never left. He'd not been to Africa, or anywhere else for that matter. After a big row from my Mother, Hector came around for his dinner that same Sunday. Africa wasn't mentioned ever again. Like Junior's providence, no one dared speak of it. I wanted to ask Junior if he shared my doubts that he was my Father's biological son. My Father might have been eaves dropping from his morphine coma so I decided against it. I suppose it didn't really matter anyway. My Father had not been much of a Dad to any of us, whether we shared his DNA or not. My ruminations were interrupted by the door bell. "That'll be the cancer nurse" Junior said. He got up and answered the door. I felt awkward on my own, with my Father. I should have been talking to him. His hearing was still supposed to be working after all. The nurse brought in the night air, it was a comforting, familiar smell that woke me a little. "How are we all doing?" She asked, rubbing the cold off her hands. "Not so bad", Junior said. "Ok, thanks" I said. "I'm just going to check his pump, make sure his catheter is ok and give him a quick freshen. You don't have to stay if you don't want to." I went out into the back yard with Junior. It was cold and the air was damp and smelled of penicillin. "Do we know how long he's got?" I was finally able to ask. "Hours or days at the most" Junior answered. My Father's advanced directive was to, "Stick a bliddy pillow ower me bliddy face if ah ever need anyone to wipe me bliddy arse forris." The nurse came out to us, probably fresh from wiping my Father's arse. "Lads, I think you should come in now" she said, "you need to be with your Dad." Junior stumbled past her. "I'll go and wake Hector", he said. The three of us stood next to my Father. The nurse gently stroked my Father's hair. She stroked his hair over his ears, his pointed ears. My Father had pointed ears. He had ears like Junior. The nurse didn't look at us. "He's gone" she said gently, to my Father. Hector placed his hand on his brow like he was trying to see something way off in the distance. He began to sob, his face screwed up like my Father's bedsheet. Junior closed his eyes and walked out of the room. I felt something inside of me, but I tried to fight it. Then it got too much, like someone was ringing out a dirty dish cloth in my eyes. The water had to come out so it came out and ran down my cheeks. I couldn't let the nurse see and so I followed Junior out of the room. "He's gone", the nurse said again, smiling gently at my Father. The Humanist Celebrant touched each of us gently on the shoulder as we entered the congregation. The room smelled of lavender and an organ respectfully filled the silence. We shuffled onto the wooden benches where pamphlets had been placed. Adorned with a picture of my father holding his fishing rod, the pamphlet detailed the running order of things. The organ came to a gentle stop and then so too did the whispering. The Humanist Celebrant took his place at the pew. He smiled and said, "Dud was a family man. If he wasn't mentoring his three lads, he was helping his niece, Hamble construct a flat pack wardrobe. He might even be sharing his wisdom down at the Dead Duck over a pint of ale and a fag. Mostly Dud would be remembered for his kindness, his generosity, his lust for #life. Most of all though, Dud was a family man." I looked around me to check who else was there. I wondered if I had wandered into someone else's funeral by mistake. Junior sat next to me in his fancy suit, occasionally dabbing his eyes, which looked to me to be already dry. Hector sat on my other side in a suit that once belonged to my Father. Yes, this was indeed my Father he was talking about. I had made it to the right funeral, only it was celebrating the wrong man. As I drove as fast as I could down the A1, it occurred to me that we never really skitted Junior's ears. I understood why now, my Father would never have tolerated it. To skit Junior's ears would be to skit his ears and that would never do. No, it was my lips they used to skit. My great, big lips. "Juju blowjob lips", they used to call me. I was smaller back then, so as much as I would scream and fight, I always came off worse. No, we never mentioned Junior's pointed ears. Why did I ever think that? I looked into my rear view mirror as the memories tumbled out and rolled down the motorway. Then I looked forward, at the road that sprawled back to London and I pressed hard, hard as I could against the accelerator.