The landlady
She has known these boys for forty years. Their dads own restaurants on this same street. Their band played some of their first gigs in this very room. She hosted Seb’s eighteenth birthday and his parents’ thirtieth wedding anniversary. She’d never expected a wake.
She has already passed on her respects to Nimesh’s wife, to his beautiful children.
The young boy took himself off to the toilets and has not returned, but Maisie doesn’t seem to have noticed.
Grief is blindness. She stares into the middle distance, her daughter trying desperately to get her attention.
Viraj can’t seem to grasp what’s happening, needs Enzo to prop him up.
Sujani weeps on Helen’s shoulder. Smudge has not left his place at the bar, leaning on his elbows, Ryan sitting silently beside him on a stool that swivels slightly beneath him. They don’t say anything. They drink.
Behind them, Seb. The woman by his side is stroking his arm, saying something quietly in his ear, hovering not too close but not too far, not knowing how to make this better, not wanting to admit that she can’t.
To Seb, she isn’t even there. He tugs at his starched collar, at the black tie around his neck.
Then, he follows his godson’s lead and runs away.