What A Man Does.

The front of the desk is high. Weirdly high. I don’t really understand what function this towering edifice meets, but I’m peering at this official document laid out on a surface that makes it difficult to see it properly. The most important information is glaringly obvious though. In stark, black ink, the words CERTIFICATE OF REGISTRATION OF DEATH bellow at me, a dozen contradictory thoughts bouncing around my brain, a dark shadow in the corner of my vision, that flits like a malevolent faerie, a gleeful Lady Macbeth, pouring poison and telling me it’s honey.

Looking back, I realise it’s odd that I was asked to do this. Why am I the one going to register this? I know now that I have been carefully stage managed out of the house, under the pretense that one uncle can’t remember dates and the other has terrible handwriting. Keeping me busy. Making me feel useful.

The thing is though, I don’t want to feel useful. I want to feel my grief, in all its fucked up, contradictory, infuriating glory. I want to be in my room, alone, but the house is full. Or I want to be walking, aimlessly, just to be somewhere else on my own terms. In the weeks following the funeral, I do this a lot. I walk miles, seeing where I end up.

Anyway, here I am, dutifully giving date and place of birth to a professional, but not unsympathetic, registrar, while my uncles, perhaps inevitably, do most of the talking and writing anyway.

There’s a pub across the road, and my mum’s brother says he needs a pint. We go into the lounge, all wood panelling, heavy dark wood tables, brewery names emblazoned on ashtrays, beermats, mirrors and driptrays. There are no windows. The artificial light somehow succeeds only in making the place feel darker. We’re the only customers.

“What ye havin Martin?”

“Just an Irn-Bru Jim”

“Mark? Ye wantin a beer?”

I give a slight chuckle, “aye get me a Budweiser”

Jim heads to the bar, and I shout after him, “I was kidding, just a Coke’s fine”

The tray that comes back from the bar has on it a pint of lager, a straight whisky, a can of Irn-Bru, and a bottle of Budweiser.

“I can’t drink that Uncle Jim”, I say, panicked, “I’m not 18”

“Away, ye’re wi me, ye can have one beer”

“Aye but what if somebody says somethin?

Martin cuts in, “Anybody says anyhin, and I’ll boot their baws”

I laugh, a genuine belly laugh, the first since it happened.

“I’m serious”, says Martin, “anybody says anythin, and they’ll get their head in their hands to play wi. You’re allowed a beer for fucks sake”

And I know what he means when he says I’m allowed a beer. The normal rules don’t apply now. Not in this moment. And I’m grateful for that small moment, as close to a hug as I’m likely to get from this gruff barrel of a man. And every bit as comforting as one.

And then it’s gone.

“Aye”, says Jim, “you’ve got to look out for yer mum and yer wee brother and sister now.”

Whether the inference is intended, I don’t think I could ever truly say one way or the other. He lost his father at a formative age, and, as the only son, was expected to step in to support his family.

It’s time to stop being a wee laddie.

This is What A Man Does