Farewell, Uncle Jack
Jeremy Clarke
We buried Uncle Jack in the family plot in the City of London cemetery, Manor Park. east London, He joined his parents, William and Constance, and his grandmother, Rachael, who died in 1916 aged 78. There wasn't much of a turnout to see the old bachelor off, I'm afraid. Congregated on the Astroturf around the hole were me (£10,000), my boy (£500), my mother (f15,000), two of Uncle Jack's nephews (£30,000 apiece), and an elderly female neighbour who used to take him in a hot lunch now and then (nothing at all). The vicar, who must have been frozen with only his billowing cassock between him and the Arctic wind, kept it short. The speed at which he dispensed with the committal and then the Lord's Prayer raised the interesting possibility that in a previous life he was a horse-racing commentator, The lack of a respectful pause between his final 'Amen' and the first mourner logging it unceremoniously for the car, however, was not his fault.
Afterwards we gathered around two tables in a nearby pub. One of Uncle Jack's nephews was Uncle Frank, whom none of us had seen since he'd been ostracised by the family for reading the Daily Miiror at his mother's deathbed. Neither had anyone yet met the young woman Uncle Frank had bought on the Internet recently. We'd heard rumours, but disbelieved them. 'None of you have met Tanya. my Russian wife, have you?' he said, indicating the stunningly beautiful young woman standing beside him. That someone as young and attractive and apparently sane should leave Mother Russia to go to live with an aged reptile
like Uncle Frank in a flat in Ilford was surprising. We goggled openly at her, while she looked humbly down at her glass. Even Uncle Frank looked at her as if he couldn't believe his luck. Someone had to say something, so my mother said, 'Do you like England, Tanya?—She likes my money, don't you, dear?' said Uncle Frank, patting the back of her head.
Although Uncle Frank has been excommunicated, it still behoved us to welcome his new young wife into the family, and to offer her our sympathy should she be aware of the enormity of her mistake. It wasn't yet clear, however, whether she could understand or speak English. `So do you speak Russian, Frank?' I asked him. 'So far,' said Uncle Frank, 'I only know the Russian for "Get dinner pronto, otherwise punch up throat."' This was too much for Uncle Jack's elderly female neighbour, who was a gogo dancer during the war, and who hadn't met Uncle Frank before. 'What sort of a pig are you?' she said. I felt sorry for this lady because she'd been cultivating Uncle Jack with hot lunches for years, thinking he had no one else to leave his money to. So she was rather gutted when, with the end in sight, an obscure branch of the family (us) turned up, sold his house, and whisked the golden goose off to the West Country.
For a while she bombarded Uncle Jack with letters, which I read out to him, reminding him of the various services she had performed for him over the years, and offering suggestions as to how he might recompense her. These letters were a great puzzlement to him because he'd forgotten who she was. Then she came to visit him. She stayed with us for a week and spent every day on the nudist beach at the foot of the cliffs. One day I allowed her to take my boy and his half-brother down there with her for an afternoon. Uncle Jack's neighbour is far from comely, and when they came back my boy and his half-brother were unusually quiet. To this day neither of them will speak about it and my boy adroitly changes the subject.
Uncle Jack's other nephew (£30,000) had flown in from the Algarve. He avoids England nowadays, he says, because he hates everything about it, Everything, that is, except the beer. English beer was the only thing he's missed in the 20 years that he's been living in Portugal. It was a pity, then, that the second pint of bitter he'd ordered was flat. (The rest of us were drinking lager.) Not one to take flat beer lying down, Victor marched back to the bar and presented the offending pint to the barman. 'I've come all the way from Portugal for this pint of ale and it's flat,' he said. The barman held the pint up to the light and squinted at it judiciously. `Nah, mate, it ain't flat,' said the barman, handing it back. 'It's your rotten marf.'
Previous page
