We're Not Strangers Anymore

Chapter Nineteen - Love And Loss

It was quarter to nine on a bleak Sunday morning, and Irene Broomer was standing in front of her only son's mirror. She fiddled with the collars of his plain white shirt, sighing disappointedly as she adjusted his tie. Today was an important day for the Broomer family, and Charlie was certainly feeling the first time nerves.
As if I haven't already got enough on my plate without having to get through Uncle David's funeral clear-eyed. Why did he have to leave us so early?
Three miserable weeks had passed by like slow moving vans, twenty-one depressing days that only seemed to get worse as Charlie progressed through them. His uncle's funeral had been planned extensively beforehand, from minute details like the number of sausage rolls at the wake right down to the expected number of people at the actual service, the Broomers had it all covered. Prior to his untimely death, Charlie's Uncle David had stepped up to the plate and had acted as a direct father figure to him since his dad's death.
David Johnson was the only brother of Irene, hence the close bond that all three of them shared. He fiddled with his tie, looping it around his finger.
I miss you already, uncle David. I hope I can make you proud.
But the loss of his beloved uncle wasn't the only thing on his mind. Jamie still hadn't turned up to school yet, and needless to say Charlie was worried. He couldn't worry too much, mind, he was already worrying about his mother's mental state as a result of his late uncle's death.
Jamie, I am so, so sorry, he thought as he tucked his shirt into his trousers. I'll come and see you once all of this has blown over, I promise.
Charlie had started to become obsessed with psychics on the television. When day turned to night he sometimes lay in bed for hours, wide awake, imagining that he was sending little messages to his best friend Jamie.
Suddenly he felt guilty. A reliable feeling of shame washed over him as he thought about his absent friend, despite the fact he knew full well that current circumstances prevented him from actually going to see his friend. Family deaths were important business, and he had learnt this when his father had initially passed. Charlie had become his mother's rock, she had once said, and she had become his.
A family death means that everyone comes together for support. I know that.
Irene Broomer walked into the kitchen and turned on the tap, filling the kettle halfway with water.
'Want a brew, Charlie?'
'Yes please, Mum, thanks,' he called back nervously, his voice decreasing in volume with each new word spoken.

The Broomers stood solemnly on the grass outside of Belgrave Cemetery, the town's only funeral parlour for miles. Charlie pulled his hands from his pockets and twiddled his thumbs, thinking about how the weather matched the general feel of the day almost perfectly; it had begun to rain.
There were roughly thirty people that had decided to show up in the end, and this made Charlie feel terribly uncomfortable.
He deserved more, he reflected. Much more.
Out of nowhere a hand dropped onto his shoulder. He turned around and to his pleasant surprise, it was his other uncle.
'How you doing, champ?' 
Charlie felt ecstatic.
'Hi, Uncle Pierce!'
Irene glanced him a quick look, staring him up and down judgementally before turning back to face the parlour's attached graveyard, shaking her head and sighing.
'And how are you bearing up, Irene?'
She ignored him again.
'Right,' Pierce sighed, raising his eyebrows somewhat sarcastically. 'I'll see you in there then.'
Charlie smiled up at him, and Uncle Pierce ran his cold hands softly through the thick lengths of his nephew's long hair.
'Oh, and Irene?' Pierce continued, sounding slightly broken.
'What do you want?'
'I know you seem to think that this was all my fault, but it wasn't, you know. I tried to stop him, I tried to save him, and.. well, I couldn't in the end.'
He exhaled through his nose and wiped his eye using his sleeve.
'I'm sorry that I wasn't good enough for your brother.'
'Not now, Pierce. Although, if I may so-'
She took a pause, and Charlie knew that this wasn't good news. Nothing positive ever followed from one of Mum's pauses.
'I never did quite approve of you and my brother. He was a strong man, an extremely proud man, and over the three years you were with him you just made him bastard miserable. I regret the day I ever laid my eyes on you, Pierce.'
He fired back with a simple yet hard hitting comment, one that held passive aggressive tendencies in the strangest way, and quite frankly Irene looked irate. But this wasn't the place for two people to kick off with each other. Not now. Not ever.
'Oh Irene, my sweet, kind Irene.. how the sun truly does shine down onto you, my dear. If only more of the world's people had your charm, wit and sophistication. Not to mention your blatant prejudice. Shame on you, Irene.'
He leaned in closer, smiling through the waves of bitter pain.
'Shame on you.'
She smiled a feint, dry smile and took Charlie by the wrist, muttering under her breath.
In a strange sort of way, Charlie felt quite sorry for Uncle Pierce.
He's done nothing wrong, after all.. why doesn't she like him very much?
'Come on son, nearly time to head inside now.'
As they walked through the double doors of the cold brick building, Charlie grew increasingly curious.
'Why don't you like Uncle Pierce, Mum?'
She paused, an uncomfortable look developing in the upper and lower parts of her face.
'Because he's a vicious, self-loathing queer,' she said, 'and he'll never be even a quarter of the man your Uncle David was.'
She bent down slightly and spat into a handkerchief, rubbing religiously at her son's cheek with it. After a few seconds she stood up, eyes full of repressed tears.
A minute later the funeral director stepped outside, coughing into his hand. Irene Broomer put her cigarette out on the brick wall adjacent to Charlie, throwing the remains of it onto the grass.
'If you'd all like to follow me,' the director announced formally, clearing his throat. 'It is now time to go in.'