Awake

 Awake: A Wake

     The bar was full of strangers dressed in black. I looked at the barmaid. Was she also new? Or familiar? (I had been away six weeks and my jet lag was yet to wear off.) I looked at her full in the face, from quite close up, which combined to render her face almost featureless, and completely unfamiliar.

     Mind you, that was always a problem for me –– I only had to look at a face intently, deliberately, and it ceased to seem familiar. Faces are so arbitrary; faces and names. If only people looked like their names! " Hello Beefy, you seem in good form today". Messers Loud, Acerbic and Peaky! Or Percy, for that matter.

     Words do the same thing for me. I can write a number of words correctly as long as I do not think about the spelling. But if I lose my nerve, they suddenly appear unfamiliar, unlikely, meaningless; and there is no way I can infer the correct spelling; or their correct meaning. In that respect I share one of William Spooner's problems. Once, when reading his own sermon in New College chapel, he came on the word 'misléd'. "Do not be místled", he read; then doubted himself, and the sense was irretrievably lost. Nothing for it but to repeat the exhortation and press on. 

     I think the barmaid is the one they call 'Liv'. I used to call her “Lev” for a while, like a Russian; until H told me it was short for Lavinia. If I could ask her to show me her profile, I might get more certain. I hate calling people by their wrong name. It makes me look so stupid. I suppose I am, in a way. "Your spectacles“ I murmur, in a half hearted attempt to explain my hesitancy, touching my own in case she did not grasp what I meant by 'spectacles'.

     “A wake", I said. She nodded. 

     "I’ve only been in the village 10 years" I said, looking over my shoulder at the crowd.  

      Liv leant forward slightly and said in a quiet voice "I think the deceased was called Jenkins."  

     I was certain that I did not know the deceased, nor any of his folk. I was impressed at the consistency of the black dress code. I have been to some half-dozen of my own family funerals and never wore a shred of black. Nor did most of the mourners, as far as I can remember, except at the burial of cousin Jean at Lilliesleaf in the Scottish Borders. Yet black is certainly the uniform dress in this Northamptonshire village. From the empty plates, and the cheerful conversation, it would seem that they were recovering from their numbing sense of loss, and beginning to enjoy meeting members of the family not seen in a while. Little groups. In each, one person talking, the others listening. 

     "Still awake! Just got back" I said to Liv. 

     "Mexico?" she said, tentatively. 

     "Yes." I agreed. I like Liv.