This story was commissioned by Jan’s friend, Simon Puttock, for a collection of stories featuring LGBT+ characters, Same Difference, published in 1998.

As the young woman moved away from the lectern Tom glanced at the service sheet and nudged his brother.

‘You’re on next.’

‘Give her a chance to sit down,’ Stephen said. ‘We don’t want an unseemly scuffle in the aisle.’

The aisle was narrow; the chapel itself was narrow. Tom felt as if he were sitting in an aircraft and was for a moment so lost in a vision of a funeral on a Boeing 737, with the coffin on its little trolley being wheeled down the cabin by a stewardess, that he missed the moment when Stephen rose darkly beside him, nodded to the girl who was on the way back to her pew, and walked to the lectern. It was a plain oak reading desk, not a bloated bird such as the eagle in St Leonard’s, at home, or the pelican in the cathedral; and Stephen was wearing a suit and tie, not cassock and surplice, but as he smiled down at the congregation and drew breath before speaking, he looked surprisingly like his father, their father. Tom had not noticed that before, although he knew how similar the voice would be.

‘Good morning,’ Stephen said, pleasantly, as if addressing his students in a lecture theatre. ‘I’ve come here today to say goodbye to Anthony, not only on my own behalf but on behalf of three other people who could not be with us today.’

You said ‘today’ twice, Tom thought. Stephen had turned and was looking at the coffin as he spoke the name of his dead friend. Unhurriedly he faced front again.

‘First I speak for Mary Revill who has known him longer than any of us, except for his family. She is working in New Zealand and could not be here. Second, for a man in Moscow who never met Anthony but felt that he knew and loved him when first encountering his works as a translator, and became his friend through their correspondence.’

Tom waited to hear who the man was, but Stephen was preserving his anonymity. Surely it was safe nowadays for a Russian to admit that he read and admired an Englishman’s books? But if that Englishman were gay

‘… and thirdly …’ And the Russian?

Thirdly. He had never heard of Thirdly. He had never heard of Mary Revill, come to that, and had a brief unworthy suspicion that Stephen was making them up as he spoke, along with the nameless Muscovite. Everyone else who had taken a turn at the lectern had spoken from notes, even the young priest who had never met the dead man anyway.

Tom had never met him either, had never known of him until the morning last week when Stephen had put down the telephone and said, ‘Anthony’s gone.’

‘Anthony?’

‘Anthony Slater. He was my supervisor at Cambridge. We kept in touch. He became a friend.’

‘You never mentioned him.’

‘To you? Why should I?’ There must be many people that Stephen never mentioned to Tom, or to Mum and Dad, for a variety of reasons, although when Tom visited him in London he had made it quite clear from the outset that David, the man who shared his flat, was not merely his flatmate.

‘What did he die of?’

‘You mean, did he die of AIDS? No, he came out late, bless him, even to himself, forewarned and forearmed. He died of cancer. Tom, remember, gay men still die of other diseases. Being a prey to one doesn’t make you immune to others.’

But a lot of the mourners were wearing red ribbons.

‘And we don’t have a monopoly on it either,’ Stephen said.

He had finished speaking. Tom noticed with a shock that people were laughing quietly and wished he had paid attention to whatever his brother had been saying that could comfort and even amuse the friends and family of a man dead at forty.

‘OK?’ Stephen slid into the pew beside him. ‘It was fine. There’s a hymn next.’

‘I know. I helped him choose the music.’

‘He chose it?’

They rose to their feet.

‘Of course. He planned the whole thing. He said that the one advantage of knowing that you were about to die was the fun of arranging your own funeral .’

‘This is a Christmas carol.’

‘I know, but it was his favourite. Shut up and sing.’

With the July sun brazing them through the little plain glass windows, the congregation stood and sang In the Bleak Midwinter, words by Christina Rossetti, music by Gustav Holst. It was the last item. At the end they remained standing while the clergyman prayed; six darkly-suited men bore the coffin down the aisle to orchestral music that clanged from a sound system somewhere behind a curtain.

No one seemed to be leaving. ‘What now?’ Tom said.

‘Home,’ Stephen said. ‘The burial’s just for family, but there’s coffee and sandwiches laid on for us odds and sods. We’ve got time for a bite before we go.’

‘Where?’

‘Here.’

In a tiny space at the back of the chapel a table was laid with snacks, and two women were pouring tea and coffee from Thermos jugs. People stood about nibbling, sipping, chatting; it was all so like the refreshments served after morning service at home, with Mum being Mother; it was all so normal.

‘Coffee?’ Stephen passed him a cup with a sandwich and a biscuit wedged in the saucer, and turned to speak to a young man with red-rimmed eyes and a bitten-in lip; he had been weeping, or trying not to weep.

‘Erik.’

‘Steve.’ Erik raised a dismal smile. ‘I begged him not to have Bleak Midwinter. He knew how I-’

‘And he said it was his party, he’d choose the music. Yes?’

‘Yes. Well, I hope he enjoyed it.’ Erik looked round uncertainly, as if sure that Anthony must be somewhere about but unable to locate him.

‘He ought to have done. It was exactly what he had arranged.’

‘He enjoyed it.’ Erik’s smile became firm. ‘He was here. I could feel it. Everyone could.’

Yes, he was here, Tom thought, in the coffin. He remembered how Stephen had turned to look at it when he said his goodbyes, almost as if that were the only place that he could be.

The murmuring figures shuffled round him, juggling teacups as they shook hands.

‘Were you a friend of his?’ A puzzled-looking woman, trying to place him.

‘No, I came with my brother.’ He pointed out Stephen. ‘They knew each other at Cambridge.’

Stephen, as though aware that he was being watched, turned. ‘I think we’d better push off, Tom. You know what Mum’s like. If I’m half an hour late getting you back she’ll be imagining motorway pile-ups.’

‘In this weather? You’ve been driving for years.’

‘In any weather. I’ve said goodbye to everyone. Are you ready?’ As they came out into the car park the cortege was leaving, a hearse with the wreath-crowned coffin, two undertaker’s limousines and a number of private cars.

‘You’re very quiet,’ Stephen said, when they reached the main road. ‘Did it get to you? I thought it was rather jolly, as funerals go.’

‘It wasn’t what I expected,’ Tom said.

‘Oh? And what did you expect? Throngs of keening queens and a pink hearse?’

‘No … I just thought … there’d be more men there.’

‘More men? Tom, there was never anyone but Erik. I told you, he left it a little late.’

‘But it was mostly women.’

‘His mother, two aunts, two sisters, nieces – he had a family, for God’s sake, and friends. Did you think they’d all cut him off when he came out?’

‘No. I didn’t even know him.’

Stephen was negotiating traffic at a junction. ‘I know you didn’t. It was good of you to come with me but it was selfish to have asked you. I just needed company there and back. Suppose it had been my funeral, what would you have expected? Or Julie’s? Julie’s had more blokes than I’ve had haircuts. Do you think they’d all turn up?’

‘I hope not, there’d be a massacre.’ Their sister Julie did not confine herself to consecutive boyfriends but ran a string of them, like polo ponies, so that if one flagged a fresh substitute could be brought on at the end of the chukka.

‘If anyone could bring a vicarage into disrepute it’d be her, not me. It’s a good thing we’ve both moved out. What about you, Tom, are you going to be a credit to the family?’

‘What’s Erik like?’

‘Not at his best right now, poor love. The last few months have been very heavy. He nursed Tony almost up to the end, till he went into the hospice. And Anthony was hardly at his best either, not surprisingly. Now Erik really is having a hard time with his family. None of them turned up today to give him moral support. His old man rants about self-indulgence and moral turpitude – don’t you just love that phrase? – while his mother tries to be sympathetic and believes deep down that all he needs is the love of a good woman and he’ll get better.’

‘Better?’

‘Cured. They’ve not been a lot of help to him when he needed it most. Fortunately Tony’s old mum is very fond of him. He’s staying with her at the moment.

‘Do you really think Anthony was there – at the funeral?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Do you?’

‘Do Ithink Erik believed that Anthony was there with us? No, but he hoped it, of course he did.’

‘And you?’

‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with P.’

‘You what?’

‘Don’t you remember,when you and Julie were kids and we went out in the car, we all sat in the back with me in the middle to keep you two apart, and played I Spy and The Parson’s Cat. Go on, guess.’

‘Pub.’

‘How right you are. Good heavens, we’re slowing down, I’m losing control, the wheels are turning left -’

‘I always preferred The Parson’s Cat,’ Tom said, as the car rolled into the forecourt of the Tudor Rose. ‘I used to think it was our cat. This is horrible. Can’t we go back to that last one, it’s only about half a mile.’

‘I want a drink now. I don’t care how horrible the surroundings are. I’m going to corrupt my little brother and buy him strong drink.’

‘I’ll be able to corrupt myself in nine weeks,’ Tom said.

‘Don’t spoil my evil fun. What do you normally drink these days?’

‘Officially?’

‘I know what you drink officially, I wouldn’t wash my socks in it. Unofficially.’

‘Grouse.’

‘Spoken like a gentleman. Christ, it is horrible.’

‘There’s a beer garden round the back, three picnic tables on a concrete slab.’

‘Grab a seat then. I’ll bring it out.’

Evidently the Tudor Rose was horrible enough to deter customers, for Stephen was back in minutes, carrying glasses.

‘Is that a treble?’

‘In your dreams. A single with half an iceberg in it. There’s degrees of corruption.’

‘What’s yours?’

‘Spritzer, and don’t go lah-di-dah at me. I’m driving, remember.’

‘Do I ever go lah-di-dah?’

‘No. Cheers. But you were about to go something. What’s biting you?’

‘Do I look bitten?’

‘You look chewed. Let’s have it. Something I said? Something I did?’

Tom sucked at the whisky, so drowned as to resemble the official lites he was allowed at home. Stephen sighed, stretched, and took a nip of his spritzer. He was a vodka man when not behind a wheel.

‘You didn’t think he was there,’ Torn said at last.

‘Anthony? As it happens, no. But what makes you say so? And why does it matter?’

‘You looked at the coffin.’

‘Did I? Yes, so I did. Didn’t the others?’

‘No. It was when you started to speak, you said, “I’ve come here today to say goodbye to Anthony”, and you turned right round to look at the coffin – as if that’s where he was.’

‘That is where he was, old son. Unless they’d filled it with hardcore and removed the corpse for some nefarious purpose.’

‘And you didn’t think he was there with you – with us – in spirit?’

‘Like Erik?’

‘Erik wanted to believe it, you said.’

‘I see. I see. I do see.’ Stephen stared into his drink the way pensive people do in television plays. He lowered his head and peered at Tom through it. ‘How very bubbly you look,’ he observed.

‘You don’t believe it.’

‘I want to.’

‘But you don’t.’

‘No,’ Stephen said, slowly. ‘Truly, Tom, I do want to. But it’s gone, I’ve lost it. I’d like to have it back but somehow I don’t see a great religious revival for Stephen Drewery.’

‘When?’

‘Quite recently.’

‘It wasn’t that woman -’

‘The radio lady who leaped out of the bushes shrieking that homosexuals were a threat to the family, the Church of England and the Balance of Payments? No, it wasn’t her. Idon’t know that it was anything in particular, no reversing light on the road to Damascus. I just woke up one morning in the middle of the Te Deum and wondered exactly what I was doing there. And then I started to wonder how long I’d been going through the motions. I really couldn’t tell.’

‘But if Christians aren’t supposed to be gay -’

‘Supposed by whom? If you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and died on the Cross to save mankind, you included, it makes no odds if you’re as queer as a coot, you’re still a Christian. There’s no built-in circuit breaker.’

‘Erik?’

‘Erik’s far too woolly-minded to be a Christian. Crystals, yes; Christ, no. He believes in an afterlife, that’s all. Breeze in the trees, wind on the heath, brother, that sort of thing. One-ness with nature, not one-ness with God. That’s how he can hope that in some way Anthony was floating around at the funeral, not actually there, but aware. Having a whale of a time in an ethereal way.’

‘And you?’

‘Anthony was in the coffin, as you so acutely observed. He’s dead. That’s it. I do not believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. I believe that man invented the afterlife because we feel we’re entitled to a bit more of what we fancy. Then we divided it into heaven and hell because the afterlife would be no fun at all if just anyone could get in. Hell is a useful invention for controlling civilians; toe the line or you’ll pay for it later. And it has all the hallmarks of an afterthought. There’s no hell in Genesis, is there? If God created heaven and Earth, why didn’t he run up hell at the same time?’

‘Look, thanks for the drink and all that,’ Tom said, ‘but you could have told me this in the car. I wouldn’t have gone apeshit and torn the steering wheel out of your sinful hands, would I? Why the drama?’

‘No drama,’ Stephen said, ‘but this is serious, Tom. I want you to promise not to say anything to Dad.’

‘Why should I say anything to Dad?’

‘Well, you talk to each other, don’t you? Does he confide in you? It might come up in the conversation.’

‘It might,’ Tom said, ‘but he doesn’t talk about you – oh, of course he does, but he doesn’t discuss you. Not with me.’

‘It could happen because, if not with you, he does discuss me, makes like he’s proud of me. It’s not quite “my son the faggot” but “my son the academic – no, madam, he isn’t married yet, nor is he likely to be. Kind of you to ask.” When I first told him, he was very quiet for a moment, then he said, “Well, Stephen, there are many worse things to be than gay,” and I could see he was thinking like mad to come up with just one. But since then he’s never let me down once. He’s really stuck his neck out about gay clergy, and that hasn’t done him any good in the parish; or with the Bishop. You know our Bishop, Tom. And when homophobic old bats catch the public ear he’s stood up in the pulpit of his own church and denounced them. You’ve heard him. He’s actually converted himself, Tom. He hates the thought of what I am, what I do, but he’s made himself believe that it’s all right because – well, what I said just now. I was quoting him. “If you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and died on the Cross to save mankind’s collective soul, you are a Christian. There are no exceptions.” And he prays night and day that God will agree with him when it comes to the crunch. So you see, don’t you, what it would mean to him if he discovered that I’d lost my faith. I couldn’t do that to him; could you?’

‘Can you live a lie?’

‘Don’t be so mealy-mouthed -’

‘I’m not being mealy-mouthed. Imean exactly that. It will be living a lie. Going to church when you come home, agreeing with things you don’t believe, saying Grace at meals – the choir -’

‘Tom! Shut it. Shut up and think. I didn’t just come out, he let me out. He opened the door for me, just by being what he is. I didn’t know there’d ever be another door, but there is, and I can’t slam it in his face.’

‘I shan’t say anything. Shall I swear?’

‘Now who’s being dramatic? Finish your booze and let’s hit the road.’

‘You know what?’ Tom said, as they walked back to the car, ‘he was so relieved when I brought Justine home the first time. Him and Mum. Relieved. They just about lit up.’

‘I can imagine. And do they know you’ve got laid?’

‘They must do.’

‘And although they ought to disapprove of your moral turpitude, they don’t. No, if you go to the bad, Tom, they’ll cheer you all the way – just so long as you go straight. Know what I mean?’

(c) the Estate of Jan Mark. All rights reserved.