whiskey for breakfast

We went to a dear, dear friend's funeral this morning. L. had an unexpected heart attack three weeks ago; he was hospitalized for a week, home for a week, and died suddenly last Monday night--60 years old, just retired last summer.  They should have left for a six week holiday in New Zealand today. He and his wife B. were our very first friends in Perth when we moved here eight years ago. Initially they were our next door neighbors, the best neighbors anyone could ever have, providing emergency services through two appendectomies, honored guests year at every single birthday party we've ever had for Sara and Mark, first-footing us with whiskey and coal and gifts every Hogmanay that we've been here and always the first to wish us happy anniversary after midnight when the new year arrives, acting as surrogate grandparents (B.'s generosity is mentioned in the author's note to A Coalition of Lions). They met each other thirty years ago through Scottish country dancing. At their son's wedding in 2005 someone described L. as "the kilted gentleman who appears to have castors on his heels." The funeral hymn was "Lord of the Dance," which had also been sung at their son's wedding (and, coincidentally, used as music in ours).

 

They always walked into town hand in hand. It's hitting Sara hard; she's never lost anyone she knew so well, and she's known L. and B. since she was two. It's hitting our next door neighbor of the last six years, whose own husband died of cancer two years ago. It's such a hole. I walked into the local post office and the postmistress greeted me with, "Isn't it terrible."

 

I had a handful of amusing Scottish anecdotes I wanted to post, like how in the Kingdom of Fife (that's actually the county's official name) angry men still go at each other with swords (and golf clubs), or how there are white stags haunting the moors, or how I gave the "Lassie's Reply" at the flying club's Burns Supper, but then three days later L. died and I just lost the inspiration.

 

I have a book that he borrowed; he liked it so much he read it twice, and annotated my own marginalia in it. It's called Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday. Among other arcane allusions in the novel, L. recognized a reference to his dead brother, who used to write under the pen name "Kingfisher" (the reference had jumped out at me, too, but for different reasons); and to my facetious and self-referentially obscure "LET'S KILL THE FISH" scribbled on page 273, L. has written in response, "Real fishers return fish to the river."

 

Drinking before noon isn't usually my style, but they were passing out the Water of Life at the reception after the service, and the Kilted Gentleman on Castors taught me to drink my whiskey neat.

 

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The haar, the ubiquitous North Sea mist that only affects the northeast coast, came down over the hills and settled over Perth for the afternoon. We walked home and went back to work for several hours, and then after Sara and Mark came home from school we went over to see B. There we consumed wine and beer and fairy cakes and malted milk balls, and the in-laws chatted in Czech, and Mark built a helicopter out of Lego with the least proficient speaker of English, who was well more than nine times his age.  Then the next generation, i.e. me and Tim and G (L & B's son) and his wife M, and Sara, went out in the dark to walk the new springer spaniel puppy and ended up in the Cherrybank Inn, our very local pub. There was some moment where Sara was on the floor of the pub cuddling with the dog and the rest of us were drinking beer from the local brewery, except M who has acquired a taste for perry, and it felt… so right. Not fun, or happy, but right. A long, hard day, ending properly.

 

The L household all went out to eat in town. We went home, feeling blue still, and invited our other mourning neighbor over to continue the wake with us, which she and her children did. It's after 9.00 p.m. now and all three families are back in our respective houses, very close together on the same road. It's sad and terrible and wonderful to be so close together on the same road.