Richard CurtisAlone and Sad
Back from Peter and Juliet's wedding, Jamie unlocked his front door and hurried into his living room. Another, slightly younger man came into the room at the same time from the kitchen.
`Hello!' Jamie said to his brother with surprise. `What are you doing here??
'Oh, I came round to borrow some old CDs,' Chris replied.
`Did the lady of the house let you in?’
`Yes.’ `Lovely, helpful girl. I came back before the reception to see if she was feeling better,' Jamie said. `Listen, perhaps we should take Mum out for her birthday on Friday. What do you think? I feel we've been bad sons this year.’
`OK,' Chris agreed. `That sounds fine - boring, but fine.'
Katya's voice came from the bedroom. `Are you coming back to bed, darling? Jamie will be home soon.’
*
By now, on the same beautiful winter day, Daniel and his eleven-year-old stepson were at his wife's funeral. AA crowd of about eighty people filled the church, all dressed in black.
`And now,' said the vicar, `Daniel wishes to say a few words.' Daniel stood up and faced the guests. Behind him was a large picture of his wife, as she was before she died.
'Jo and I had a lot of time to prepare for this moment,' he began. `Some of her requests were not very serious - I have not, for example, brought Claudia Schiffer with me to the funeral.' Even the vicar smiled. `But she was quite clear about other things that she wanted. My darling girl, and Sam's darling mum, wanted to say her last goodbye to you, not through me but through the words of the great, the wonderful, Bay City Rollers.’
The Bay City Rollers were a pop group who were popular with young teenagers in the 1970s. Their terrible song,`Bye Bye Baby', played loudly through the church.
And as the song played, more pictures were shown, including a twelve-year-old Jo dressed in a Bay City Rollers T-shirt. The guests smiled at the song and the pictures, while their faces showed their deep sadness.
*
That night, at Peter and Juliet's wedding reception, the guests were dancing. Mark was still filming.
Sarah, a friend whose phone never stopped ringing, sat down next to him and watched him with interest for a few minutes before she spoke.