They were two couples, lifelong friends. The wife of one had been dead a few months and the husband of the other had just died, and now they sat together at her dining room table. She asked for advice about the death notice; he had firm ideas about where to place “Professor Emeritus”. Her husband had been a world-class athlete. As he was dying, she had sung to him, and given him the advice of one of his coaches at Oxford. “When you’re on the last lap, even if you’re not going to win, come in smooth.”
They remembered when they were young, their journeys across England, two couples crammed into the tiny car, singing as they drove. After they’d swapped memories, they sang together, tunefully, sitting at the table in the late winter sunlight.
At the funeral, the old friend paid tribute. He told the story of the car journeys, and finished off in style with a song. The son made introductions, spoke respectfully about his father, and noted the professor had been a good father to his sisters.
One daughter of the late professor sang beautifully; the other told a brilliantly authentic anecdote. She was dyslexic and had never been a reader, until she discovered a science fiction series that fascinated her. She’d kept this from her father, until one day he asked what she was reading. When she reluctantly showed him, he led her to a cupboard with a secret stash of the very same series. She realised they weren’t as different as she’d thought. They’d had a connection all along.
It was a day of cold sun and buffeting wind. Light poured into the chapel, on to the coffin (sustainable, for the planet) and over the speakers. After the ceremony, we followed the coffin out into the bright day.
I watched the son as he moved among the mourners. He looked tough, but his voice was soft and his manner was pleasant. He was a senior policeman. When his father was dying, he’d had to rush in from his assignment, investigating a murder case.
Watching the detective, I tried to picture him as a child. I remembered adjusting his sandal, and giving him a red box of raisins. Was this memory real? Did he recall it too? I know I was crying with terror as I possibly dispensed raisins, and helped him with his shoe. He was 5 years old and I was 7. He’d been sent to play at our family bach in the Waitākeres, and somehow we’d ended up, along with my 10-year-old brother, lost in the Pararaha Gorge.
The Pararaha has been described as a kind of trap: once you’re a certain distance in, there’s no going back. You have no choice but to negotiate its cliffs and fast river, its indistinct tracks and dense bush. It was a frightening day that seemed endless, certain to end in catastrophe.
Had he been too young to remember it? As a detective, perhaps he knew about memory, about children’s capacity to recall. Could we joke about the play date from hell? His father’s funeral seemed the wrong place to ask.
Two young couples long ago, driving across England in their tiny car. The two who are left are still singing. Their history swirls around them: memories, anecdotes, pieces of evidence. Life is a detective story, the picture still forming. You will ask new questions, uncover old memories. You will find a connection you didn’t know you had. When the singing stops, you’re still piecing it together. Life is a fiction series, a secret cupboard of revelations. It’s the case that’s always waiting to be solved.
