The funeral was awful. I don't mean that in a snobby way—everyone at school thinks I'm a snob, the way I talk and my stupid ice-cream name—but I'm not a snob. The funeral was awful because it was too soon. That was what the eulogies repeated—'too soon'. 'She was taken from us too soon…' Sky, Mel's best friend. 'It was too soon for her to die.' Miss Rowntree, there, looking absolutely stricken, and I'm sure the rest of our class didn't believe her. She always had it in for Mel. Whether she'd not put the numbers in their separate boxes in her maths book or she was a tiny bit late for registration, Miss Rowntree absolutely adored putting her down. Maybe she was sad because now she had to pick a new whipping boy?
Her family, though…Mum hates us crying in public, me and my brother Gideon, but she wasn't saying a word when Mel's mum and little sister got up to speak about her. Mel's mum couldn't put the girl down, and Jade—the sister—seemed so innocent and above it all. Big green eyes—Mel's eyes—stared down at the congregation, and she said it was okay because her sister was with the angels. I heard a few people start to cry at that point. I dug my nails into my palm so I wouldn't start.
I thought it was odd it was a religious service; Mel wasn't uber-Christian. I don't think she'd ever been to church in her (short, sweet) life, like most of the people I know. But we still go to that massive stone building just down Fosse Road for births, marriages and death. It's like it's not real until it's been sanctified by a doddery old guy with specs and grey hair. He let them play some of Mel's favourite music, along with the solemn hymns—they let you bend the rules a bit when a kid dies. Pictures of her with her three best mates showed up on the big canvas screen at the front of the church, and 'It's Raining Men' played in the background, and about 90% of the people who had so far managed to keep their emotions in check lost it.
Mel's stepdad had been weeping since the funeral began, fat tears leaking into his bristly ginger beard as he looked down at his shoes and shiny trousers. The song started to play, and his gaze went over to the white coffin at the front of the church, festooned with flowers—sweetpea and lilies and baby's breath and lilacs—over and over again. Jade held his hand, and Mel's mother in turn hugged them both—leaning like a willow tree, buffeted by winds from the North.
I was the last girl in my row. But as everyone was crying, quietly, I looked over into the aisle. I was trying to keep my eyes open, to make them burn and spill tears along with everyone else, and no tears were coming. A scent of something light and sweet and too lovely to be smelt just before the cremation of Mel's body came wafting into my face. I looked up, and there, clear as day, was Mel.
She looked brighter than I remembered, and she was already pretty vivid. She looked solid, but without shock—certainly not the way I would have looked if I'd attended my own funeral. I could see Sky's eyes skitter over our way, too—and then I blinked, and then she was gone. I put it down to nerves and sickness and disbelief that someone I knew was dead, and when they started playing 'Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves' I joined in with the weeping too.
I signed the condolences book, after the service and when Mel's beautiful coffin had been burnt away. Mel's mother asked me—me, out of all the people—'D-did…you know Mel very well?'
I had to be honest. 'No.' I set down the pen. 'But I wish that I had.' Again that delicious smell, and in the polished brass behind the woman I saw something like a kindly face and a murmur of words passing from the face's lips.
She nodded, as if that was all she had needed to hear, that Mel had been a beacon of hope in life, and she was too good for this earth. Miss Rowntree was behind me in line, and signed the book quickly—though Mel's year had the day off, she had other teaching to be doing. I let her reach the door before me, and turned to look at the church again before I left for another few years. It never changes—still the same stone, wet with tears of happiness or agony.
I walked outside, and saw that the lilac was flowering.