It's not the way you usually spend a Saturday - going to a funeral in Long Island, and yet, nevertheless, to a funeral I am going.
In a stretch limousine.
There are four of us, and it's raining. It's pelting water from the sky as though there's a prize for it. I swap my pink coat for one of my friend's black cashmere shawls, while she's in a 1950's clinched waist suit from the wardrobe department of Mad Men (via Dior) with a sable collar than cradles her shoulder like a mother's arm. The silver fox is in a dark suit and raincoat while another friend, also in black, whose silver hair is in a bob, wears a hat. Together we pick our way through the puddles on the sidewalk ignoring the row of cabs behind us which honk at the limo for blocking the narrow cross street, and we drive off.
Deerhurst, Long Island is an hour and a half away, but the ride is like being rocked to sleep in one of those big cushioned prams in which old fashioned, uniformed nursery maids used to push their charges round the park. I am falling asleep until our friend starts to tell us about the war of attrition in her apartment building between those who object to the Christmas tree and those who want a full creche complete with flashing star on the barn like it's a casino in Vegas. One of the residents said to her one morning: 'There are wreaths hanging in the lobby. Who put those goddamn things there? Jews don't like wreaths, they're offensive, who do we have to speak to in order to get the mother-fricking things gone!' (Religious and profane...)
''Then the next day,' she goes on, 'I come in and there's a dime store menora on the charger. I think to myself, oh-oh - this is going to be a problem, and sure enough, I'm riding in the elevator with Steve Abrams and he turns to me and says - "I'm a nice, ordinary Jew from from the Upper East Side who likes a Christmas tree - why the hell do I have to have a menora in my face when I get home?" So, I asked Arthur the doorman about it and he just shrugged his shoulders and said he couldn't tell me anything, but the next morning as I'm going out I see the dime store menora is gone and in its place is an antique silver one - so now we've got a Christmas tree, wreaths on the front door, evergreen bunting hanging from the awning and an heirloom menora the size of a side of beef - all we need is Santa on an elephant and we've got a parade.'
I can't believe anyone gets so worked up about a harmless Christmas tree and the religious implications of the wreaths escapes me. We're, nominally at least, Muslims, and we have a tree with a battered, one eyed doll called Paul dressed in a pink tutu (he's very gay) at the top of it, hand of Fatima candles and a baby Jesus from Mexico on the mantelpiece.
'Yeah, well look I tried to tell them that actually the tree is a pagan symbol that really has nothing to do with Christianity but was just mopped up by them as a way of getting more members but I know that isn't going to carry any weight. Especially when I discover that the fancy menora belongs to the Chairman of the Resident's Committee. But in the end I said we should get rid of everything and just have some nice neutral flowers and make the place look classy.'
I ask her if she won.
'Nah - the menora vanished. But we kept the tree. The stupid thing is I'm the only Christian in the whole damn building and I don't believe in any of that crap.'
The story takes us deep into Long Island where through the vertical rain I see us drawing up outside a small red brick church with firmly closed doors festooned with - you've guessed it - wreaths. There's a spire that looks more like a turret and blood red stained glass in the windows. It's all very Gothic. And deserted. Apparently, we're the first people here. We file into a pew half way up the echoingly empty church. The pastor who is having trouble lighting the pink and lilac (yes really) candles sprints up to us and hands us the order of service with a hymn on a printed sheet. The words 'don't believe any of that crap' ring in my ears as I look in vain through the hymnal for anything I recognise - and see with a heart that would have sunk if there had been anywhere further south than hell for it to go - that all the hymns seem to have been written after 1978. The church is an evangelical, born again, happy clappy one and it soon transpires that everyone, apart from us, the bereaved whom we are here to support and - in fact - the deceased whose daughter belongs to the church - have been born again (probably a bit of a bummer since it's too late to remedy it now that he's been carried in by four short square Italian men with rain glistening on their shoulders like dandruff.
We sing the first hymn. Nobody knows it except the pastor and one soprano with bad phrasing who happens to be standing behind me and hits the high notes right into my ear. The pastor conducts from the pulpit with one hand that is alternately praising the lord and punching out the tempo - a flat palm pointing upwards for anything at the top end of the register. That disposed off he begins on his sermon:
'All the prophecies are coming true and the signs are clear that Jesus will soon walk amongst us once again at the end of days. We the righteous who walk with the Lord and who love the Lord and who have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ his son as our saviour will soon be going home. We have nothing to fear, because Jesus is coming for us. Jesus is coming for all of you!' He spreads his arms wide to include the congregation - about twelve of us, half of whom Jesus is just not going to tap on the shoulder any time soon. He casts his eyes over us dubiously. We are so obviously sinners it's a wonder the floor doesn't start leaking flames.
To round things off we sing 'I Cannot Tell' to the tune of Londonderry Air - aka Danny Boy. I figure I'll give it a go - it seems the least I can do to join in with the spirit of things I don't believe in, but when I get to '...but this I know, the skies will thrill with rapture...' instead of 'but come ye back when spring is in the me-e-dow' and I give up. I just can't do it.
It seems crazy that less than twelve hours ago I was watching a waiter in a bow tie come upstairs to the drawing room with the first plate of appetizers at my birthday party- tiny lobster rolls and chicken wraps cut into slivers. A glass of champagne was placed in my hand. The table was set with a row of vases full of white anenomes and my friend's son arrived with his girlfriend, quickly followed by another son with his girlfriend as the room filled up with other guests - some of whom I've known since conception, others since last New Year in Brazil.
Then the rest of the appetizers arrived in waves - tiny lamb sliders, duck rolls, tuna carpaccio with mango on flatbread, teeny won ton parcels, ricotta with truffle oil, I was dizzy with them, and speechless since every time someone asked me a question I had something in my mouth. The main course was queen scallops and venison with diced saute potatoes, spinach salad and butternut squash. More champagne. Pinot Noir. Two birthday cakes and darn it - candles - and everyone sang happy birthday whilst circling the cakes. Except that they had to hold off as there was a speech to made which I got almost the way through before my friend started crying, and then so did I, and a few guests' tears were hastily wiped away (I think I have a gift for making people weep, but sadly I'm usually shouting at the time)... before finally they got to eat the cake.
My last memory was drinking Grand Marnier after everyone had gone.
Which was when someone carried up the presents.
I am jolted out of my avaricious reverie as Danny Boy comes to a resounding close on the badly played organ with 'the saviour of the world is King' to follow the coterie out of the church. It's still raining outside and the sky is a coil of dark, boiling clouds, so low they seem to be sitting on the roofs. I kiss my bereaved friend who rolls his eyes in wordless horror and make my way back to the car before I realise that I'm nearly climbing into the hearse which is, if anything, smaller than our stretch limousine parked in front of it. My hostess puts up her umberella - it's black with scalloped ruffles. Her husband turns up the collar on his coat which flaps behind him in the biting wind. Our other friend puts on her dark glasses and her silver hair glows in the gloom of the day. Her hat's at a jaunty angle. I wrap my borrowed black cashmere wrap around my shoulders with a theatrical flourish and in a sombre uniformly black line we pick our way over the leaf sodden lawn piercing foliage on the end of our heels until we are swallowed up into the creamy leather upholstery of the sleek black car whose door is held open by a man in a peaked cap.
Readers we are like something out of the Adamms Family.
We're creepy and we're kooky, mysterious and spooky...
And it's actually my birthday. It's not the most conventional way to spend the anniversary of the day you were born, but I don't think Morticia could have come up with a better way to celebrate it...
Da da da da, click click.
