Chapter Thirty-Seven
Kate
Who Wants to Live Forever by Queen
In the end, Danny's mum does come. To the funeral. She is a lonely figure on the back pew dressed all in black because she didn’t get the invitation that Sharon sent out to all Danny’s friends that – at his request – they should “dress to impress, or to distress the straights”, meaning the crematorium is filled with colour and sparkle and more hats than at a wedding.
I’ve watched a lot of queer men die over the last few years, but this is my first funeral for one of them.
It feels long overdue as I look around the room while taking a steadying breath.
With my inhale, it heals a part of me, knowing that one of my patients is having the farewell he deserves.
But on my exhale, I’m overwhelmed with sadness thinking about how not all of them had this: the colour, the community, the people.
Of course it begs the question, where were all these people when Danny was sick? Why didn’t they come to the hospital? Why did none of them come and say goodbye while he could still see, or at least hear them?
But I know better. Some goodbyes are harder than others. And some places are more uncomfortable than others, and sadly, I know Princess Diana Ward is one of the most feared places to be for most people.
And yet, it’s where I fell in love. That dark, devastating place is where I met the woman I hope to spend the rest of my life with. Not just hope, I plan on making it so.
It’s been two weeks since Danny passed and Sharon and I agreed to try and make our relationship work.
More than once I’ve thought about how that day’s date will feature in our future lives.
Will it be a day of mourning for Danny? Or will it be a day of celebration of our love? Maybe it will be both.
My life is very much now a vignette of the worst that can happen and the best you can experience, and so I can cope with that day being both. In fact, I think I will treasure it more because it is.
It’s a short service, which was also Danny’s request. I believe “No prayers. No hymns. A few speeches and some sad songs” was what he instructed Sharon to arrange. And that’s exactly what’s taken place.
A couple of Danny’s partying friends have stood up in front of his coffin and told us about his wildest nights out, about pub lock-ins, about dancing on bars and about impromptu karaoke nights.
The laughter echoed in the modern, white-walled room we’ve filled, although it was punctuated by sniffles and soft sighs.
Sharon’s hand continues to clasp mine tightly, our sweat mingling along our palms. Her other hand grips the sheet of paper that has prompts for her speech. I know she’s nervous. But I also know a nuclear bomb couldn’t stop her from standing up and saying what she wants to say to Danny.
But first is Deepak. He limps to the front, unaided, and although his suit swamps his emaciated frame, there is colour in his face again, accentuated greatly by the pink feather boa he has wrapped around his neck. I’m pretty sure it’s the one Danny gave him that night.
“I didn’t know Danny very long,” he begins.
“But what I knew, I think and suspect, was a reflection of the kind of man Danny was. He was fun. So fun. With what limited energy he had, he would crack jokes and be sarcastic and try and make the people around him laugh. I’m not surprised at all to hear about him instigating lock-ins in pubs and hijacking DJ booths and getting away with it.
And not just because he was so damn good-looking he could have gotten away with murder.
He just didn’t have a malicious bone in his body.
He had no time for that when there was music to dance to and songs to sing and laughter to be shared.
And kisses. I wonder how many of you enjoyed kissing with Danny,” Deepak looks around the crowd and there are soft murmurs and mumblings.
“I thought so. Danny gave me one of the sweetest kisses of my life. The nurses called it my kiss of life, because I should have been dead after what happened to me. But Danny,” Deepak turns to look at the coffin, “you gave me something to live for. Your sparkling brown eyes, your singing along to the radio, your sweet kisses. You made me want to live. So I will live for you. For as long as I can.” He turns back to face us all. “I hope you will all do the same.”
A door slams. I twist in my seat and see that Danny’s mother is no longer in the back row.
As I turn my head back to face Deepak, who has a hand on the foot of Danny’s coffin, I see countless tear-stained faces. Some smiling, some sobbing, some covering their faces with tissues. When I look at Sharon, she is ghostly pale and her eyes are brimming with tears.
“Are you okay?” I ask her the most stupid of questions as I squeeze her hand again.
She releases my fingers and stands. After only a quick, absent look at me, she walks forward to stand in the space Deepak has just vacated.
“Daniel Lewis Morgan was born…” Her voice breaks and it’s not just a small crack, a slight fracture, it’s a breaking open of something tectonic.
It’s destructive and catastrophic, and the next noise she makes is more a howl than anything.
Sharon’s hand rushes up to cover her mouth, to mute the noise.
The piece of paper in her other hand falls to the ground. Wearing the black suit I love so much on her body, she turns to look at Danny’s coffin and she reaches out to touch it. But then she lifts her fingers away again as if it just risked burning her.
“I should have…” She’s facing us again and forcing words out between sobs. “I should have danced with him.”
I grab a handful of tissues and rush up to her. I dab away at the tears and the snot covering her face.
“It’s okay, Sharon, it’s okay.”
She grips my wrists, stalling my movements. “I should have danced with him,” she says again but this time, it’s only for me to hear.
“I know,” I say. “I know.”
“Why didn’t I dance with him?”
“I… I don’t know,” I say and then I glance around the room, looking for the man from the crematorium who has queued up Danny’s chosen songs. I nod at him before turning to Sharon and making sure she has my full attention. “But let’s dance with him now.”
“What?”
The music starts playing and I slide one of my hands around her waist while my other finds her palm and slips inside the hold of her fingers. “Dance with me. Dance with Danny, now.”
She’s lost for words, but that also means she stops sobbing. Tears are still in her eyes but she looks at me with a stunned expression and lets me sway our bodies together.
We’re not dancing to the rhythm, to be frank there isn’t much rhythm at all to the swooping melody of Queen’s Who Wants to Live Forever, and I mentally tut at Danny for that.
But I suppose even he didn’t expect to have dancing at his actual funeral.
I also suspect he chose this song as a message for everyone here.
Because really, who wants to live forever?
Slowly, Sharon’s frozen frame melts into moving with mine.
She lets me pull her closer and there is effort in the way she holds me in return, her hand pressing against the small of my back.
Instinctively, both our heads turn towards the coffin and the tears on her cheek mingle with the ones on mine.
I’m wearing boots today so we’re the same height.
They’re my Lady Phantom superhero boots, hoping they’d give me strength to carry Sharon through this day.
But Sharon doesn’t need to be carried. And I don’t need to be a superhero. We are allowed to feel our pain and feel weak, even if that’s the furthest from what we really are. Today, of all days, we should cry and howl and hurt. And we can still dance while we do.
I only release Sharon’s hand once during the song, to wipe my nose on the back of my sleeve, and when I do, I see that we are not the only ones dancing.
Nearly everybody in attendance has stood and is swaying to the music.
Some in pairs, some in threes or fours, one whole row in the middle has their arms wrapped around each other, and then there are the brave ones who dance alone.
Deepak is one of them, his clasped hands placed over his sternum as if to hold his heart.
I smile at them all and then I look back to Danny, my skin pressed once more against Sharon’s.
And we dance. We dance together, and Sharon dances with Danny for the first time.
*****
There is more dancing at the wake which is held in a small pub one street away from Sharon and Danny’s flat.
I’m not overly surprised when more people show up than were at the crematorium, and I resist the urge to question again where they all were when Danny was in hospital.
They’re here now. And Danny would be the last person to judge them for it.
I also think he’d be the first to dance at a wake, which is probably why the dancing starts almost immediately and doesn’t stop.
I keep Sharon close throughout. I make sure she has regular sips of water, and that she eats some of the food she made for the occasion.
I hold her hand as she listens to story after story from vague associates, former colleagues and clubbing friends of Danny’s, most of which solidify what were my very first impressions of Danny; an outgoing, cheeky man with a huge lust for life.
But at one point Sharon excuses herself from a handful of Danny’s friends and she drags me with her to the toilet.
Part of me thinks she’s about to seduce me, to initiate sex like we used to do on the ward, but instead she sits down on the closed toilet lid and sighs so heavily it moves her whole body.
“He wasn’t just this fun-loving kid,” she tells me. “He had hopes and dreams and ambitions. He was a source of endless advice and reassurance. He cared about me. He cared about people. He cared about causes.”
I think about what Danny shared with me just minutes before he died. “I know, Sharon, you’re right. You’re absolutely right.”
“I love that all these people came to pay their respects but I feel like most of them hardly knew him. And that’s making me feel… uncomfortable.” She rubs a hand against her chest, just about the tops of her breasts.
“You knew him,” I step closer and I take over the rubbing. “You saw him for who he truly was.”
She looks up at me, her honey-coloured eyes searching and sad.
“And I think I did too,” I tell her tentatively as I reach up to loosen her tie and undo the top button of her shirt.
“I only got one night out with Danny,” I remind her, “and even that wasn’t as wild as the nights people out there had with him.
But I had many days with him. Days where I got to watch him biting his lip as he tried to do the crossword.
Days where I would hear him humming along to the radio.
Days where I saw how equally delighted he was to read a new edition of Men’s Health or Cosmopolitan.
Days where he would sit and twiddle his thumbs waiting for you to arrive. ”
Sharon’s smile grows at everything I say and fresh tears slip down her face. “Yeah, you saw him. You knew him,” she confirms.
“So it doesn’t matter what they say. Let them have their good time stories. We had the bad times with Danny,” I move a hand between us. “We were with him for that.”
“And now,” Sharon sniffs as she looks up at me, “now we’ll share our good times and our bad times.”
I’m stunned by the turn in the conversation, but not in a bad way. Not at all.
“Yes, Sharon,” I tell her, stepping between her open legs. “Now we get to share all our good times and bad times.”
She wraps her arms around me and yanks me closer, her head resting on my stomach. “I wish I could marry you,” she says.
“Maybe one day the world will catch up,” I say. “And when it does, we’ll be the first to walk down the aisle.”
“And kids? Do you want kids?”
I comb my fingers through her hair. “Have you been sneakily drinking whisky?”
“I’m serious,” she says. “I want it all. I want it all with you.”
“I already have it all with you.” I lean down and kiss Sharon on the lips. “I already have everything.”
“Well, fuck it, I’m greedy, I want more.”
I laugh at Sharon’s teasing tone as much as the words she speaks. “And I love that,” I tell her so earnestly, it feels like the words are made from stone. “I love this version of you.”
Sharon stands up and kisses me so tenderly it takes my breath away.
“I love every version of you,” she tells me as she pulls back.
We stare at each other for a long moment. I wonder what she’s thinking, what she’s feeling, but not enough to break the spell that is us just looking at each other with silly, sad smiles on our faces.
“Danny would be so proud of you,” I tell her because I can’t not share that. And I will tell her that for the rest of our lives together.
“I think he would be too,” she tells me, smiling and crying at the same time. “Come on, let’s go dance with him again.”
And hand in hand, that’s exactly what we do.