Uncle Will's Last Testament .
Sarah looked down at the beloved old man and smiled at him through her tears. She would miss him so much. Life just wouldn’t be the same without her big, colourful uncle with his zest for life, his rough-diamond kindness, his wonderful eccentricities.
Uncle Will had always joked about not wanting to miss his own funeral, so ‘L and B Complete Funeral Services’ had made sure he didn’t. He lay in state in his own large sitting room, the coffin lid off and acting as a drinks table balanced on two stools. Just as he had wanted.
Leonard had done a wonderful job of making him appear as if he were asleep. Pratt’s had made her granny look like she was about to sit up and say ‘gottle of geer’. She’d never worn rouge and whoever had applied that orange lipstick must have had Parkinsons. But Uncle Will still looked like Uncle Will, but at peace. Leonard, however, knew differently. He had always picked up vibes, his granny said he had a gift. He wished he didn’t have it at that moment though, because he didn’t like to think of his friend not at rest. He sighed wearily, then called to his partner Barry to remember not to overstuff the vol-au-vents and Barry shouted impatiently back that he’d been in catering for forty years and knew how much stuffing to stick in a bloody vol-au-vent.
“Tempers are running high today. My nerves are in shreds!” said Leonard, holding a fluttering hand out to the side. “I should have had more than just a Crunch Corner this morning. I should have pastry to hand at all times with my blood sugar levels.” He sighed and looked down at the beloved figure in the coffin. “I just want to do him proud.”
“You are,” said Sarah, giving his sagged shoulder a comforting squeeze. “Lobster, salmon, champagne, caviar… you can’t get any better send off than this. You’ve done everything perfect for him, Uncle Leonard.”
Will and Leonard had been friends from school. Since the day when Leonard was ambushed on the way home by a vicious lot from two years up.
“Leave him alone, you bastards,” said Will, whose dog had died in the night and he was full of hurt and rage that badly needed venting.
“Make us!” said fat Vince Ogley. So Will did. Floored the lot of them in a blur of punches. Then Leonard thanked him by getting his dad to make him a coffin for Butch and their friendship was cemented. Will went down the mines at fourteen and Leonard took up his dad’s reins at the family undertaking business and still the friendship flourished. Their mutual interests kept it alive – fishing, reading, woodwork, rock-collecting. Will didn’t give a toss that his old pal was a poof. He fought his corner more than once, all because he’d got his old mongrel dog a coffin. Then one day, Will took a chance and turned his biggest hobby into a career and went off around the world collecting gemstones. Then he came back, found a wife who liked his gemstones, raised a family, then the wife ran off with the gemstones. Luckily she had never got her greedy hands on the motherlode that had been entrusted to Leonard long ago – to be given to Sarah, when the time came.
“Time to go, old love,” said Barry as their lads arrived to take Will to the church.
Leonard kissed his old friend’s cold forehead before they put the lid back on.
“By God, I’ll miss you,” he said.
“You be extra careful with him,” Barry whispered hard to the lads.
“Something’s not right. It feels like he died without doing something he wanted to,” sniffed Leonard, following them out.
“But what didn’t the man do?” said Barry, handing over his sunshine yellow handkerchief. “He went all over the world. He laughed, he lived, he loved. He crammed twelve lives into one… Which bit of what didn’t he finish?”
“I just can’t believe he’s gone,” said Sarah. “He was so excited about Christmas. He kept saying he’d got me something extra special this year. A little gem he’d found in America. Not that I care about the present. He was just so excit...” She broke down into sobs.
“You were his favourite. He liked getting you things, ” Leonard smiled. My sweet Sarah, he used to call her. He thought more of her than his own two brats.
Leonard shook his head at the thought of his friend’s two children – Gary, presently holidaying in Tossa (appropriately so) and saying he couldn’t get a flight back. Not forgetting the delightful Greta, the image of her snipey little weasel of a mother, whose first question at arriving at the hospital was, ‘So who is dad’s solicitor?’ All Will’s goodness had taken a knight’s move and come out in his sister’s child. My sweet Sarah.. Will used to worry about her. ‘Why can’t someone as lovely as her find a decent bloke?’ he’d ask. ‘I’ll find her one if it’s the last thing I do…’
It was a beautiful service. Leonard had bedecked the church in flowers - big bold, poinsettias that reminded him of his friend. Holly, Ivy and Laurel, Christmas reds and greens, but no whites. Will didn’t like white flowers – said they reminded him of funerals. The church was packed with ex-miners and diamond merchants, old friends and acquaintances. They sang Rock of Ages and the miners did a formidable descant.
Greta made a speech – a sweeping dramatic speech with no substance. She wept into a tissue, with a lot of noise and little moisture. Sarah’s speech was smaller, quieter but her words captured the man they had all gathered to miss: the Will who bust his guts at the Morecambe and Wise/Andre Previn sketch, who loved rocks and the earth, beans with marmite and Ella Fitzgerald. The Will who was there for anyone who needed him, whether it was an orphaned niece, or a boy being bullied.
The mourners filed back to Will’s house for a feast better than a crown prince’s wedding breakfast. Greta said she doubted she would eat a thing, but forced herself to partake of a bottle of Moet and half a lobster farm.
The ashes were bequeathed to Sarah. Will wasn’t one for sitting still in the earth – he trusted her to sprinkle them to the breezes on the heath… where he used to take Butch when he was a boy.
They ate and drank like kings, listened to Jazz and told stories about Will. It was an afternoon to celebrate a man’s life, not mourn a man’s death.
Then into the throng came a stranger - a beautiful tall man in a gorgeously big black coat. Handsome in a Rock Hudson way, something always guaranteed to take Leonard’s breath away. Despite the black, he obviously wasn’t a mourner, he looked too confused by what was going on to be that.
“Can I help you?” said Leonard.
“I have this as Will Walkerman’s house. Does he still live here?” said Rock in a very attractive American drawl.
“He did, son,” said Leonard. “Up until his heart attack five days ago.”
The guy looked genuinely upset. He held out a large square hand with nice nails.
“I’m Dan. Dan Peterson. I met Will in the summer over in the States at a gemstone convention. He made me promise to come over and stay for Christmas.”
He was staring at Sarah, who was staring back. In fact, her pupils were opened so wide they could have let a number 19 bus in.
“I can’t believe this about Will,” said Dan, shaking his head. “I only spoke to him last week, just to check he still wanted me to come. He said he had a very important diamond that he couldn’t wait to show me.”
“I’m his niece, Sarah.” She held out her hand.
“So you’re Sarah!” He smiled, took her hand and didn’t let it go.
They were still talking when the crowds had gone and the waitresses were scurrying around clearing up.
“He’ll have to stay at ours,” said Barry, nodding over at Dan. “Wouldn’t be right to send him back two days before Christmas.”
“Oh most definitely not,” said Leonard. “Any friend of Will’s is one of ours.”
He poured his lover a glass of champagne. Daft as it sounded, there was a new calm in the air, a peace.
“You’re smiling,” said Barry.
“Will’s moved on,” said Leonard. “And I’m pretty sure I know why.”
They tipped their glasses upwards, where Barry imagined Will in a heaven full of unpolished stones and Leonard saw him throwing sticks in the heather for a battered old dog. Wherever he was, he was happy now. Leonard would have staked his life on that.
“Be a bit squashed with Sarah staying with us as well. I’ll have to put him in the spare room,” – Barry paused as he took in the man’s substantial stature –“if he’ll fit in!”
“I’m sure he’ll fit in just fine,” said Leonard, looking across at the gem from America and his friend’s most important diamond. They were lost in each other – and the vibes were exceedingly good.
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