Gurriers (91 page)

“Look lads, nobody is ever in a big hurry to get to a funeral, but we owe it to Vinno to start movin’ now. Shy Boy, get yer bike outside, everyone else – make sure yiz use the jacks before we go. It’s gonna be a long time before we’re anywhere with toilet facilities an’ pissin’ in graveyards is frowned upon, especially durin’ funeral ceremonies.”

“Okay Shay.”

What Shay had said about nobody ever being in a big hurry to get to a funeral was certainly true. Our pack of six moved slower than any pack I had ever been in before, except the ones that were actually behind hearses.

Without prior agreement we all obeyed the speed limits, stopped at orange lights and yielded to motorists who wanted to get out or across in front of us. The only jostling for position was caused by reluctance to lead the pack and there was a palpable lack of conversation from the bowed heads at red lights. We truly did not want to get to where we were going.

There was a huge crowd outside the church when we got there, despite it being five past twelve with the funeral mass scheduled to begin on the hour. I supposed to myself that the reluctance to proceed with funerals must be universal.

The only times I had seen more bikes in one place was in Le Mans and at road races. We meandered our way over to where our workmate’s bikes were concentrated, with them dispersed in ones and twos among the mostly bikers and couriers, but with plenty of suited members including poor Paddy in his wheelchair.

Everybody from Lightning was there, including all the office staff. The company had closed for the day, with all calls diverted to Letter Express to cover for the day. They would be under severe pressure today, because most of their couriers were here also, though they were all sporting radios, which indicated their intent to go back to work after the funeral. Well, maybe after one pint…or two.

The family and chief mourners, as seems to be customary at funerals, were gathered closest to the church doors, receiving sympathies from the many well wishers with a stoic and pallid grace that was a credit to their collective mettle.

Naturally, they didn’t want to be here doing this either.

Then my gaze fell on poor little Aoife and my heart went out to her. It was the first time I had seen her without pigtails of some description, either standing up from the top of her head and falling to the back, which made her look adorably cute or pleated at the back, which made her look extremely well attended to. She looked very grown up to me, partly because of the straight hair, but mostly because of the expression on her face.

One would have hoped that a seven-year-old child might not have been fully aware of the situation, as children so often aren’t,
but it was painfully obvious that Aoife knew exactly what was going on. Her complexion was just as grey as the adults, her pout was not one of the cute kiddie pouts that children wear, but one of pain. Her little brow was furrowed in a way that doesn’t belong on the faces of the innocent and her eyes - bearing striking resemblance to those of her father - contained that piercing stare at nothing in particular that reflects true suffering in the soul that they window.

Sitting on my bike among her father’s compatriots, it was all that I could do to hold myself together as I looked at her, ready to give her a little wave if she looked back instead of having her see me blubbering.

As it happened, her mother took her by the hand and led her into the church before she noticed me. The composure left me as air would leave a balloon. My head and shoulders dropped as I exhaled then shuddered as I inhaled, tears rolling down my cheeks unchecked in testimony to the depths of my empathy with Aoife, the poor little angel.

Comforting hands patting me on each shoulder brought me back to the task at hand. I kicked the side stand down and raised my helmet to balance on my head. Sniffling thanks to the well-wishers, I eased the bike onto the stand and dismounted.

The bikers were the last to shuffle into the church, either filtering into the nearest benches of the spacious church or pouring out across the back wall and eventually down the rear of the side walls to remain standing for the ceremony.

I was one of the last to enter the church. I didn’t feel up to standing so I made my way down the centre aisle to find myself a seat, hastened in my quest by the beginning of the mass.

Not wanting to scooch past people, I kept going until there was a bench with nobody sitting by the aisle, which turned out to be ten benches from the back on the right hand side, beside Aidan of all people, who looked positively respectable in a good quality black suit. His true nature shone through, however, in the glare that he shot Ray and Naoise, who I hadn’t realised were behind me, as they climbed over me and nudged him to slide over a little to facilitate the three of us – all smelling of
drink – to sit together.

Once settled, my eyes couldn’t help but fall upon the coffin containing our comrade, perched atop the undertaker’s trolley at the front of the centre aisle where we had left him the previous evening before adjourning to the nearest pub. At first I pictured him there, all serene looking – despite the unnatural deathly colour of his skin – in the suit that I had only ever seen him wear for court appearances, just as we had seen him in the funeral home.

The disturbing image was soon replaced, by a powerful combination of will power and imagination, by one of him laughing, drinking and smoking, enjoying life while making life more enjoyable for all around him who had the very great privilege to call him a friend. These images, coupled with this train of thought, brought a slight wistful smile to my face, despite my heart feeling as heavy as a stone with the loss as the stranger on the altar droned on about what a good person our dead friend was. The smile disappeared, however, when my gaze was redirected by a head at the front bobbing, at the realisation that it was Natalie weeping in the midst of Vinno’s family. My thoughts immediately went to all of them and their loss, especially little Aoife.

And so the ceremony drifted by, preoccupied as I was with memories, loss and empathy with others.

All too soon – as everything is with funerals, such being the reluctance to get the loved one to the final resting place – the mass was over and it was time for the congregation to formally sympathise with the chief mourners. As if under some unspoken agreement the couriers went last, collectively waiting until most of the others had filed along the front row of the church seats, shaking everybody’s hand in sympathy and whispering heartfelt utterances of solidarity to those that they felt closest to.

I believe that the intention behind this supportive action is to brace the closest people to the deceased for the worst part of the proceeding for them – the actual burial; the entombment of their loved one, forever away from them. It is not for me to say how effective this process is; it can be a long, drawn out, affair,
especially at bigger funerals. However, all comfort must be welcome in peoples’ darkest hour.

When my turn came I delivered a well rehearsed (in my head), “I’m very sorry for your loss” to each of Vinno’s parents, coupled with a two hand clasp around whichever hand each extended – a much practiced routine for them at this stage.

Then, moving along, something similar for his brother and his sister and an “I’m so sorry Nat.” as I held both of dear, sweet Natalie’s hands, one in each of mine, for an extended pause of sympathetic eye contact. I offered my condolences to Jackie – Aoife’s mother – and a quick nod of respect to her boyfriend.

Then I was at Aoife, with my composure threatening to leave me at the very moment that I needed to hold it together. I patted her affectionately on the head and knelt down on one knee to be eye to eye with her, my left forearm resting on my left knee for support, with my right hand clasping my left wrist for extra steadiness, which were now feeling the effects of the morning cans and joints.

“I’m so very sorry that this is such a sad day, sweetheart.” I managed to prevent myself both from bawling crying and from toppling over as I said this, which was no mean feat.

Her distant stare was gone briefly as she made eye contact with me. “Thanks, Uncle Sean.”

It was so wrong for her angelic little voice to have to be forced out through such suffering.

“I’ll talk to you later, sweetheart.” As I stood up I kissed her lightly on the forehead, hoping that she wouldn’t realise that my teeth were clenched together to prevent an emotional outburst.

I scurried quickly along the side wall of the now nearly empty church and along the pew we had been sitting on to where we had left our helmets. I knelt on the cushioned kneeling board as if to pick up my helmet, put my left arm on the back of the pew in front, my forehead on my arm and cried, shudderingly silent, until I felt Ray’s hand on my shoulder.

I composed myself, gathered my belongings and left the church with my friends to be present, along with the hundreds
of other mourners, when the coffin was loaded onto the hearse for the last journey that Vinno would ever make. This was one of the moments that the chief mourners needed their friends, neighbours and relatives the most.

Vinno’s mother was supported on one side by his father and on the other by a suited man of similar age bearing a slight family resemblance to her – most likely her brother. This group of three were surrounded by Vinno’s brother and sister and many other mourners, lots of whom could have been described as having family resemblances to one or other of his parents.

Natalie was surrounded by her own group of supporters, some of whom were familiar to me from her cousin Gary’s funeral. Jackie had people around herself and Aoife, some of whom looked as if they might have been her relatives.

As for the couriers, we had each other. We stood together near our bikes, well back from the proceedings and watched our Number One being loaded into the hearse in a sorrowful silence, uncharacteristic in so many ways to this particular breed of wild adventurers, every one of us united in our determination that the guard of honour that Vinno’s funeral procession was going to get would be appropriate to his high standing in the courier community.

The hearse that Vinno’s coffin would be carried in was going to be followed by well over 100 bikes, ranging from scruffy “step through” working bikes to top of the range sports bikes and everything in between. There was even a Harley Davidson - an old childhood friend of Vinno’s whose two wheeled choices had led him down a different path.

The hearse left the church followed by the chief mourners’ car, then the many, many bikes and then other cars. The bikes, as if by some unspoken agreement, aligned themselves in a rough order of closeness to the man in the box. This seemed to be an unwritten rule among couriers for funerals. Of course, the couriers from Lightning were at the front of the cortege, with Ray, Gizzard and I leading the entire group.

Ray was on the inside on his RS, Gizzard the centre and me on the outside.

When the funeral went through the first intersection, Ray and I peeled off simultaneously for traffic control, with Shay joining me, front to back tyre, to halt the traffic from the right and Al joining Ray to do likewise from the left.

The traffic we halted was grand while the procession of bikes was going through, but got a bit touchy and revvy as we held them for the cars. We weren’t sure exactly how many cars were following the funeral, but we knew that we couldn’t keep the traffic stopped for all of them and get back to the front in time for the next junction. After about ten had gone through we waved our “thank yous” to the traffic we had held and nailed it along the outside of the funeral to the front, with Ray and Al jostling their way back over to the inside when we got there, just in time to repeat the procedure at the next intersection. And so on until the procession turned onto Sheelin Avenue in Ballybrack, to pass his parents’ house - the house where Vinno grew up - one last time.

The funeral procession had the attention of everybody that was on the street, as funerals generally do – even without so many motorbikes following them – but the noise of the motor-bikes had all of the neighbours that weren’t at the funeral at their front doors by the time the hearse stopped outside Vinno’s childhood home. Then it kicked off!

It started with some engine revving by a few bikes, which spread to just about all of us, until the noise was deafening. Then the Gizzard drove his Firestorm to the front of the hearse, where he had space for what he had in mind, hit the front brake hard and nailed the Firestorm in first gear so that the back wheel started spinning. Just as the tyre started spewing out thick white smoke, showing great skill and balance with both feet still on the pegs, Gizzard leaned the protesting machine at a slight angle to his left, causing the back wheel to move to the right - a movement that was arc-shaped because of the fixed position of the front wheel.

The Gizzard kept the wheel moving, following the arc, by a combination of wrenching the bars and leaning the machine – all the while keeping both feet on the pegs – until the arc became a
full circle. Then he repeated the process, barely visible through the smoke. A feet-up double doughnut perfectly executed. This inspired the rest of us to put some rubber down.

Everybody with a powerful enough engine and good enough front brakes did – or attempted – a wheelspin. The noise was deafening. The smell was overpowering.

The smoke engulfed all. Crowds of people appeared from all the neighbouring estates.