The Pre Wae

THE PRE WAKE

Prologue

"When I first found religion I hoped my life could be fulfilled. When I met the woman who was to become my wife I knew that a sacrifice was necessary. She did not quite see God as I did, but she too sacrificed enough to overcome the doubts she held. Time came when I was called upon to do my duty and my wife threw herself into meeting her calling and life was good. A child came and went and I was free to answer higher callings but this time my wife decided to follow her own calling. Far too soon our child was taken from us in his prime and my wife and I came together once more, knowing the only bond between us was broken, a bond that only the greatest of sacrifices could mend. Heaven help us." Extract from the diary of Robert Sullivan, Bishop of the Diocese of Sandburg.

***

THE PRE WAKE

It was dusk by the time the limousine that had collected us from the airport dropped us off by the front steps of my son John and his wife's isolated mansion. Actually, the mansion had been in our daughter-in-law's family since they built it 150 years ago. To think Pauline and I were worried about gold diggers when our workaholic self-made son sold off his businesses for billions six years ago! He was 39, the business he built bored him and he told us his aim was, "to search for a bride". Then we discovered that the one woman who stole his heart was not only a lovely person inside and out, but she was rolling in so much "old money" that she could regard his billions as "chump change".

I asked her once what her family invested in and, with that tinkly crystal chandelier chuckle that would invigorate a dead man, Adrienne Eldrake-Sullivan said, "every business that has ever been, Robert, then we reinvest the dividends in everything that is to come. Our investments are so spread, that if every major industry or top 100 global businesses collapsed without a trace overnight, we would hardly suffer a scratch."

The driver carried our overnight bags to the door. At the steps, Pauline stumbled but I held onto her arm to prevent her falling. She buried her face in my chest, her grief still too much to bear. It is a terrible thing to see a mother's only child taken from her while she still lives but way past her own prime. If the limo driver didn't know the family he might have regarded us as an odd couple. I was a big man, six foot four tall and completely in proportion, Pauline was five foot two and still cute as a button, even though we were both only a year or two shy of our mid-sixties. The driver wouldn't know that she had been a church minister for five years and for four years before that served Christ as a parish curate, while I had been a bishop now for almost a decade. Pauline hadn't worn a dog collar today, but with mine worn on top of a purple shirt and my large contemporary design pectoral cross in solid silver, I looked every inch the bishop I was.

Even before the driver could yank the antique bell to signify our arrival, a tiny but attentive young housemaid opened the door and ushered us in. The driver dropped the bags in the hall, saluted us and left, pulling the front door shut behind him, leaving us in the dim, guttering candlelight, while the infiltrating wind swept to every corner of the hall until sighing, finally starved of momentum by the closing door.

The quick staccato click-click of stiletto heels heralded John's widow Adrienne's arrival across the highly polished tiled floor. It was six months since we last visited and I had always quietly appreciated her looks, conveying both class and animal sensuality. This time she literally took my breath away with the glow of her utter other-worldly beauty. Stunning and surprising was the least of her look, especially at such a time of great loss.

"Pauline, honey, look," I cooed to my wife, as I gently prised her away from the desperate comfort of my chest.

She turned her tear-stained face away from its haven and was struck dumb for what seemed like hours, as Adrienne's welcoming smile grew wider until she could hold back her infectious giggles no longer.

Breaking the spell of silence, Pauline asked in a breaking voice, "How far along, Addy dear?"

"Five months," she smiled, "but I've really only been showing for a couple of weeks or so."

Pauline broke off from me and embraced our daughter-in-law. Now they were both weeping, yet wreathed in smiles, with Pauline full of questions that came in such a torrent that Adrienne allowed them to wash over her unanswered.

"There's more," Adrienne added when Pauline ran out of steam, "in the main hall there are 25 members of my family, then you, my dear Bishop and Polly, make 27 and," she 'framed' the extremities of her 'lump' with an elegant thumb and long slim forefinger of each hand, "this brings our family up to 29."

"Twins?!" Pauline and I exclaimed at the same time.

She nodded with the broadest of smiles, rubbing her stomach.

"Did John know?" Pauline asked

"Yes, Polly, Mother, he knew."

Pauline's spread hand tentatively joined her rub, her face a picture of wonderment. Adrienne grabbed her hand and forced her to rub her tummy harder. While Adrienne's eyes glowed with an inner light, Pauline's tears continued to flow.

Adrienne glanced at the watchful maid and almost imperceptibly tossed her head. The maid instantly set off out of the hall on a pre-arranged errand.

"Come, both of you, into the library," Adrienne insisted gently, "neither of you are emotionally ready to be greeted by my over the top family yet. We will refresh you with hot tea and some sandwiches. You need to keep your strength up before the Pre Wake reaches its most emotional point," she glanced at the delicate gold watch on her wrist, it had to be solid gold, thinly plated gold overlaying a silver core simply wouldn't do at all, "in about five hours."

The library was just across the entrance hall, to the left of the grand staircase. Adrienne, an inch and a quarter short of six foot without her heels, led the way, pulling my wife, a full eight inches shorter, to the library doorway.

Adrienne looked a vision, as if she was going to a high class restaurant or chic charity ball, in her black stiletto high heels, her ankle-length black silk evening dress slit up the side all the way to the top of her impossibly long and impressively shaped thighs. The dress was sleeveless and the vee-neck back plunged almost down to the base of her spine, the front neckline leaving little to even the dullest imagination. Even with her baby bump, she looked ready to party ... and I really couldn't get my head around this 'pre wake' thing of theirs at all.

OK, I get a part of it. I can trace my Irish roots on both sides of my family since we came to this country during and after The Famine. I get the idea of funeral wakes, really I do, and can accept that the heavy drinking makes you forget the maudlin, eventually, and by the time the corks start popping, the funeral is over, the spirit has departed, the husk consigned to the deep, dark earth, the first sods tossed onto the pine or oak planking. There is a sense of finality, of leaving the dead world behind us and facing the rest of our lives ahead to continue living.

And Adrienne was dressed apparently to party the night away, even though her loving husband, our son, was probably lying in state in an open coffin somewhere in this magnificent mansion, awaiting the finality of his burial tomorrow. I had officiated at hundreds of burials, including both my parents and Pauline's mother, but this would be the most emotional of all of them.

When she rang me the day before yesterday with the sad and unpleasant news of John's sudden passing, Adrienne explained that her family had a long history of celebrating a much loved deceased family member with a Wake during the last evening three days after the death and on the eve of the final ceremony, signaling the change in state from life to "whatever you feel comes after life".

Adrienne has long protested that she is an agnostic and often pulls my leg about being the alter boy who intended going all the way to the top. I had asked if I could officiate at the interment tomorrow, but she said no, her family had that covered, but if I wanted to help take some small part at the time she was sure that I would not be denied.

I noticed that all the mirrors in the entrance hall were covered over with black cloth, rather like they do in Jewish families when there is a death in the household. So perhaps their traditions were not that far removed from what other religions would consider the norm.

Inside the well appointed library, full of rare and ancient tomes, here were a couple of serving plates of sandwiches on a side table, covered from drying out and curling by glass domes, plus a pair of bone China cups and saucers by the side. The door reopened behind us and the same maid were saw earlier brought in a tea tray containing a teapot, pot of sugar cubes and jug of milk. She left the tray on one end of the side table next to the cups and disappeared just as quietly as she arrived.

"Are you not joining us for tea?" I asked Adrienne, noticing there were only two cups.

"No, during the Pre Wake we fast," she smiled, "completely, you could even say ... religiously." She never could resist a small dig at me, I suppose. She may well have bantered similarly with John during their near six years of courtship and blissful matrimony.

Adrienne wasn't to know that when Pauline and I met up at the previous to last airport, Pauline had announced to me that she was both resigning her ministry and filing for divorce from our marriage on grounds of my abandonment of her. Since I had been appointed Bishop of Sandburg, we had stayed apart, me in my bishop's palace in downtown Sandburg, and Pauline in her curacy in our small home town of Tanglewood, before the appointment to her own ministry in Otterborne City. I had been mortified by her announcement and couldn't rise to comment. How could she spring this on me between hearing of our son's death and still en route to his funeral? The final leg of our journey had been a quiet one, each enveloped in a whirlwind of thoughts and considerations.

"Part of the tradition?" I asked, referring to Adrienne's fast.

"Yes, tradition is everything in my family," she nodded, "by following a known and practiced procedure or a ritual exactly to the letter, makes dealing with what is happening later ... somehow easier to face."

I nodded. I understood ritual. Why we do things a certain way, why religious services are carried out now as they have evolved over a thousand years and beyond, why ambitious bishops move on hoping a lowly curate would change her mind and follow him in her own good time. It is all part of coping with what curve balls life throws at us.

"So, tell me more about the tradition?" I asked.

"Yes, of course. My guests did not have as far to come and are already here in their glad rags and getting into party mood, and it is because they love John, not because they do not know him. They are intoxicated by the occasion, as I said before, we do not eat or drink during the Pre Wake. John was the best of men and he has touched all our lives. Everyone in my family agrees that losing him to the insidious cancer that was eating him up from within was not the end that we would wish on the man I love more than I do my own self. But I owe you an explanation, because I know our Pre Wake appears strange to those who have not experienced it before."

"So, have you had to go through many Pre Wakes?" Pauline asked, pouring milk into both tea cups. Almost out of habit she is taking care of my tea, even though she has determined that we are completely broken as a married couple.

"No, as you know, my parents are still very much alive, as are all my aunts and uncles, but those that have attended Pre Wakes have always insisted that outsiders make it ... well, awkward."

"So you considered not telling us about it," I said bluntly.

"No, never!" Adrienne insisted, "you have every right to be here and, in fact, we needed you—"

"But you could have just invited us to the funeral tomorrow?" Pauline said, her voice falling away to a whisper, "you could have ... spared us this ... ritual."

Adrienne embraced Pauline again, "Polly, Bishop, you are both of you a second Mother and Father to me. And how would John have felt if you had been deflected from taking full part in his last ceremony of passage in his mortal existence? He is a part of my family too and he wouldn't have wanted to feel out of it at say, my uncle's Pre Wake, he loves my Uncle Toby almost as much as I do."

"Loved," I said.

"What?"

"You said John loves your Uncle, only it should be 'loved'."

"Yes, of course," she forced back a tiny tear, then put one hand on her heart and the other on her new bump, "but in here, and here, John is very much alive and as long as he is loved, he will always remain alive to me."

She slumped back into one of the library's easy chairs, and Pauline followed her, taking her hand and holding it in her lap as she perched on the arm of the chair.

"Come, Addy, tells us what this tradition is and we will see if we can join in this party." Pauline spoke cheerfully, but glared at me, and I took the hint.

"Yes, Adrienne, please tell all. I want to understand it. And, if we understand, it would be better to be a part of it than skulking away here in the library."

Adrienne sat up. "First of all the body must remain in the house where he died, or brought back home as soon as possible if it had been removed, to a morgue or hospital. Only in extremis would the lying in state take place anywhere else but here. There are no harsh lights during the three days before the eve of the funeral. As you see, we have turned the electric power off from most of the house except the kitchens, and that is only for the safety of the staff who are presently preparing the post mid-night feast. As I said before, we have fasted today from dawn and that will end at midnight. As for the lighting, that is why it is candles only for the whole of the three days and nights. The ... body ... is first stripped, washed and anointed with aromatic oils, then redressed in the clothes he or she liked best, much in the same way as mankind has done for millennia. It is all about our respect for them as they were when they were mortal."

"And our love for them," suggested Pauline. She had that faraway look in her eyes and I could imagine her mind full of images of John growing up as a child and young man and being cute. Oh, yes, he was always the cutest and handsomest boy around, in whatever company he found himself.

"Of course, love, lots of love. Nobody loved John like I do ..." Adrienne glanced up at me, "...did." She held up a hand as Pauline opened her mouth to say something, continuing, "While a mother loves her children unreservedly, and I am starting to understand that motherly love growing more with every day, the love between John and I was at such a physical and emotional level that transcends every other feeling I have ever experienced or even imagined in my wildest dreams. Think back to the first five years of your marriage, when you had John so soon into your own relationship."

Pauline and I quickly exchanged glances, but I was unable to read her response, while I hoped she couldn't read mine.

With no further comment from us, Adrienne continued, "The undertaker makes the ... box ... and John is carefully, reverently placed within it. He is put in a quiet place, with the lid open if possible ... and it is possible in this case. He is so beautiful, even in death." She paused, continuing, looking at Pauline, "Polly, sweetheart, you have to see him, see him as he is, and as he was."

Pauline sniffed, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. "It was all so sudden, only a week ago he told us that he had cancer, and that it was virulent, a terrible terminal illness, and just a few days later he was ... gone."

"He had known for months, Polly, and had spent time finding out about the treatments, the likely outcomes, the pain and lingering at the end, before he admitted he had a serious problem, not just to you, but he held back for a month or two in the early days to me too, the one person he should never keep secrets from."

"Is that why? ..." I pointed at her bump. She colored crimson prettily, nodded slightly, enough for us to know Pauline had assumed correctly.

"The prognosis gave us an incentive in bringing forward most of our life plan, so this essential part of our plan just got bumped up the priority list."

"So what you are saying is that John had virtually used up his life expectancy before getting around to telling us, his mother and father?" I asked as neutrally as I could force myself to make it sound. Now was not the time for rows or recriminations. They could come later if there was any residue of resentment.

"You could say that," Adrienne admitted, continuing, "so we now gather our little clan together. All of us in my side of our family know him well and love him for who he is, a person special to us all. And, rather like his Irish cousins who celebrate with a Wake after having said goodbye, we have a party while he is still with us and we can celebrate his existence rather than mourn his passing. It is a subtle difference but for many generations we have found this to be the best way for us to handle such a rite of passage of a particularly well loved one."

"I-I would like to see him one more time ... one last time." Pauline was hesitant, but resolved, "Is he in the ballroom?"

"No, he's in an ante chamber beside the ballroom, somewhere quiet so he can be at rest, yet near at hand for all to pay their respects as privately as they may wish. I'll come with you if you want. Then perhaps you could go to your room to freshen up."

I picked up that Adrienne had assumed we would be sharing a bed tonight. I suppose up until three hours ago I had assumed the very same thing. Sure, we had not formerly lived permanently under the same roof since I moved to the Bishop's Palace at Sandburg, but we had got together for annual holidays, the public holidays, birthdays and anniversaries as well as regular weekends. It may only be 45 to 50 nights a year, but for those nights I was expected to perform as a husband should and always rose to the occasion.

This last year, now that I came to think of it, Pauline had cried off on her birthday, for some reason now forgotten, and John had cancelled two invitations in the last four months for reasons of ill health that were now proved to be the case in the worst possible way.

"I think we should freshen up first," I suggested. "To come to the party in our travel clothes and then disappear to get into the glad rags that you insisted we bring, sends the wrong message about us and our feelings towards our son to everyone here." I moved from where I stood by the side table to where Adrienne sat and took her free hand in mine. "Six years ago, when our John introduced you to us as the woman he wanted to marry, I was certain then, and even more certain now, that it was a bond made in heaven. In a way, he moved away from our family a little and threw himself headlong into yours. Here, with you, who I am proud to regard as my dearest daughter, he committed himself wholeheartedly. Here he lived enwrapped in love, a love that I believe will be eternal, through into the glorious afterlife in Paradise to come. Through our grandchildren..." I rested my left hand gently on her bump, touching those lives that were to come, "we will be coming closer to you and your family. We are passing the baton of our futures into your hands, so your traditions must take precedence over ours."

Adrienne squeezed my hand in response. She had a strong grip and made me wince. I recalled the night that John was born and Pauline held my hand so tightly during her throes of labor, that I had to dictate my sermon that Sunday onto cassette tape and laboriously type it up using one-finger of one hand.