The funeral bus.

Reflections after my aunt's death.

As I came round the corner, walking to meet the cortege, a bus appeared, one of the old London buses you do not see anymore, with an undertaker’s livery. It stopped one street early. I gestured to the next corner. But the driver rolled the window down, looking like he had driven there, if such a thing were possible, out of the past, and told me this was the meeting spot for all the funeral vehicles. I carried on. When the cars arrived, the funeral bus would drive round too, to collect us all.

My aunt was a kind and busy woman. She always took every trouble to provide the birthdays, weddings, christenings, Christmases, Easters, anniversaries, and other occasions like the gathering after her funeral, with the fun and easy pleasures of hospitality. Whenever I was there, it was a house of chatter. The faces come and the faces go, a little older, a little more mature. Old ladies who used to appear round corners, to proclaim my hair a marvel they would have to pay good money for (I have to get it permed to look like that) are long gone now. No ghosts visit.

The bus was from the sixties. There was a cord, red, running above the seats, which I pulled, twice, gently, while everyone was getting on. I enjoy old transport. And how often do you see such a thing, and not in a museum? The bell still worked, ringing clear and bright.

As is usual at such events, many people knew me who hadn’t seen me since I was just this high! And I, in my turn, forgot some of the names of my all-too-rapidly growing first-cousins-once-removed. (These children grow like trees.) Some of them are reading Jane Austen now, or making AI emojis on their phones, which they never, ever, put down. The friendly conversationalists who I see twice a year were there, always a great pleasure to meet again. So was the wife of the man who checked my childhood teeth. He has cancer now. And so it goes, and so it goes.

I remember my aunt looking out through a gap in the brickwork when they renovated and extended the house, decades ago. I remember her telling me and my cousin to go outside after hours of video games. I remember her serving prawns and ham and trifle with enough sherry to make you giggle quite unexpectedly. I remember her always smiling when she opened the door.

My grandmother sat on the sofa here with my daughter when she was a baby. She told me off for being sullen. She left lipstick on my cheek and smiled. She poked my stomach and asked why I had put on weight. The babies are all growing now, and talking. The fish still swim in the pond. My grandmother has been dead for seven years.

My aunt was devout, and the funeral was in a Catholic church, but we sang Amazing Grace because we are blessed to live at a time when no-one cares about the denominational divisions of such things. At one point, I thought the girls in front of me were crying, and got out my spare handkerchief. Their water bottle was leaking. I was impressed with their composure, and enjoyed thinking of what my grandmother’s face would have looked like if she could have seen them dabbing at the spillage on the pew.

At one point, my sister (who is only ten) stood next to my first-cousin-once-removed, who I think looks nothing like “our” side of the family, and I was struck by how similar the two girls were. Old photographs were passed round, from the days when we all had the brighter blush of youth. There were probably more children in the house that day than I had ever seen there before.

Few of us live in my grandmother’s town. Few in my aunt’s. In my generation, we mostly came from various corners of London. We all knew this place when she was there. Her children far better than I. Some of the older children know it like that too. How will the younger ones remember it? What is left of us when we die are other people’s memories. I couldn’t bear to look at photographs of her after the service and put the funeral programme away. I have started patting people on the arm in moments of sadness.

She was always so kind, welcoming, and determined: she was the best sort of matriarch. She smiled a lot. She liked to hear news of people, and to bring you news of her own brood. She was a businesswoman, a pharmacist, a housewife, a granny, and a hostess. We played party games at New Year’s and watched fireworks from the conservatory. She used to do the Times crossword. She was forgetful. If a card arrived without being written, we always knew it was from her. She had a charming laugh. So many people were there to mourn her. The cliché was true, more true of her than most: she was the glue that kept the family together. She was golden.

As a young person, I found it bemusing, inexplicable, when my mother sighed and bunched her face at the sight of baby shoes. Yes, they were indeed so small. I could see that. O youth! I have growing children now and see it all quite differently. A few moments before I walked to meet the cortege, before I boarded the bus, I was dipping my nephew in the kitchen, up and down, up and down. Fourteen months, a cheerful chap. Up and down, and as he rose again, his whole plump body seemed to become a smile. My mother cooed over a pair of his little shoes. O I know, I said, Oh I know.

I hope my aunt’s beliefs are true, and that she has gone into a world of light. I hope they all have. For the first time, I want it to be true. I want to see them there.

For now, we must let their memories ring like bells. It is all we have.