The Funeral. Second instalment.

He went back to the day that Mary had received the invitation from her cousin Brenda, requesting her to travel to Devon, to join in an extended family celebration for Brenda's seventieth birthday. When Mary read the letter at the breakfast table, Mike, without giving it a second thought, had instantly put his foot down and said they were not going.

'Why do you want to traipse all the way over there for that kind of thing?' he growled, 'as usual,your family must have everyone dancing attendance on them,' he continued, as he spread a generous dollop of marmalade on his toast. As far as he was concerned that was the end of the matter, in his house, his word was law, that's the way it was and that's the way he wanted it to stay.

Without saying a word, Mary abruptly stood up from the table; her chair loudly scrapped the floor as she angrily pushed it away. She sharply pulled her navy blue cardigan tightly around her generous bosom, and then clattered the dishes off the table and over to the sink, slamming closed the door of the press under the sink, after she had discarded the used tea bags. Mike looked up from his morning paper, he noticed the short abrupt angry movements and he knew she was in a tear but he didn't know what was wrong with her.
'Yerra,' he thought, 'what ever it is, she'll have to get over it.' He shrugged his shoulders and returned to reading the sport's section

Mike's wife of forty years, much to his surprise and against his expressed wishes, had travelled to England to attend the family celebration. The morning after the party Mary had collapsed and died suddenly. She had come down to the kitchen in the early hours of the morning to make herself a cup of tea, obviously she had taken a bad turn and had collapsed just inside the kitchen door and although not dead on impact, she had died before the medical team arrived. Her cousin Brenda had heard the crash, she had rushed down the stairs, ran into the kitchen where she had found Mary lying on her side in a heap on the floor. Her face was grey in colour and her breathing was noisy, in fact Brenda thought she was snoring. She knelt beside her, gently brushed her hair away from her face and softly whispered,'are you all right?' She didn't get a reply and Brenda drew back in horror when she saw the expression change on Mary's face. Her mouth twisted open, her lower lip became slack, her nostrils dilated and her chest heaved suddenly and out of rhythm as she drew her last breath. Brenda was afraid. She put her hand up to her mouth and watched in horror as she saw Mary's face go still. She saw the colour drain from her face and the grey became white. She had never seen anyone die before, but now she knew she was seeing death steal over Mary's face.

The emergency services were called, they filled the kitchen, chairs were pushed back and the kitchen table was shoved against the wall. Their equipment was scattered around the floor and the room became too small for all the people standing around watching the resuscitation. the team worked on mary for half an hour but gave up when it was apparent that nothing could be done.

Brenda then phoned Mike and between sobs and sighs she told him the bad news. Mike was shattered. Putting the phone back on the receiver he called the family and listened in sadness to their shocked gasps and cries of disbelief to the news of the sudden death of their mother. By the law of averages, Mike should have been the one to go first but surprisingly Mary had got the call, leaving Mike to muddle on. He passed his shaking hand over his bald head as he pulled out a kitchen chair and rested his small fat frame carefully on the hard seat. In shock, he bent his head into his large hands and went over the events leading up to this dreadful news.