Seven

Esther Collingworth’s funeral was crammed to the brim with lavender. It seems odd that after seventy years, the only thing anyone recalled through their grief was her favourite flower.

It’s a nasty species, the lavender, so I suppose it was fitting. Up close they’re ghastly little things, yet from a distance the lavender fields seem so inviting. And there was no doubt that at the news of Esther’s death, everyone had shuffled back as far as they could go. The traditional bunches of white lillies were dotted with lavenders, the table was lain with a silky lavender cloth, and mourners all donned articles in various shades of purple beneath their black gowns and suits. To anyone else it might seem a competition deciding that she or he who incorporated the most lavender into their presence won the title “Esther’s Closest Friend”, and got to deliver the lengthiest eulogy.

Somebody had attempted to strangle the priest with a garland of lavenders, leaving the offending device dangling around his already cross-laden neck. He probably expected to be the funeral guest of honour sometime soon, and didn’t mind. The assembly was easily warded off with his jangling globe of insence, and sent scurrying back to the pews to leave him coughing in a cloud of lavender scent.

The speechmakers were then let loose on the unsuspecting assembly - each one first acknowledging their predecessors and agreeing with their sentiments, then moving on to how very much they’d miss her even though they’d only spoken to her once to borrow her blender and what’s more never gave it back, and then of course emphasising their sympathy for the beneficieries of the will. A woman completely painted in purple cried curses to the truck that hit her. I happen to know it was a very nice truck.

Meaningless words still bounced about as the miserable line of churchgoers filed past the coffin. Two cold dead hands clutched a bouquet of wilting lavender. Her wrinkled face was almost unrecognisable through the smile plastered onto it. Some brave soul had even rubbed lavender perfume into the clammy folds of skin. She’d always convinced me she had no middle name, and yet there it was staring me in the face - Esther “Hag” Collingworth.

I sound cruel. I know I sound cruel. What pains me is that I know others shared in my sentiments. Most everyone present that day had long hated her more than I. So much so that it didn’t seem right that anyone had turned up at all. Proof more than anything, one might suppose, that all is forgotten when death do us part.

This entry was written on June 27, 2007 by Alice Albert. It is about/includes mentions of hate, people. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.