01 June 2017
Ripples On The Surface Of The Pond
Reading your own death notice.
By Chin Chin
It is usual to say nice things about people once they are dead but this week’s reminiscences about Sir Roger Moore who played both The Saint and James Bond make it clear that he was quite an exceptionally nice man. He was certainly not stuck up or pompous, and even though some of his trademark anecdotes about his own lack of acting ability may have been designed to create an image, he was clearly able to laugh at himself. In these days when actors who believe that they have been traduced by the press try to muzzle it and then explode, lips frothing with impotent rage, when they fail to do so, that is something of a relief. I hope that Sir Roger would be pleased if he saw what has been said about him, but of course the tragedy is that he never will. Few people get to see how the world reacts to the news of their death. As it happens I am one of them.
It all happened because of a mistake in the alumnus office of my college. Someone of the same name had died in America and they got the two of us muddled up. The result was a death notice expressing slightly perfunctory regret and giving dates which made it quite clear that I was the one who had died.
I’m not all that good at reading alumnus magazines so the first that I heard of it was when a college friend of mine rang my wife. We had seen each other a week or so before and he was a little circumspect, understandably as the notice referred to “a long illness”. He asked rather carefully whether the family was well and waited for a reply. When my wife said that they were, the story came out, it apparently not occurring to my friend that, had I been dead, the family would still have been well, only smaller.
When my wife told me what had happened, I was a little nervous. Obviously it is not the sort of thing about which one would want to make a mistake so I checked the “deaths” column of The Times and also that of the Daily Telegraph. As a family we are punctilious about putting births, deaths and marriages in the newspaper and it hardly seemed likely that everyone in the family had been so careless as to wholly overlook my demise. No, the more I thought about it the more it seemed likely that, despite the evidence of the college magazine, I had in fact survived.
Well, that was good news in itself but it seemed to be an opportunity as well. Most of my friends thought I was dead and in due course I would have to undeceive them, but it seemed a shame to do so before the letters of condolence had arrived. My friends are not normally given to singing my praises but no doubt there would be plaudits aplenty of the sort which, unless I was one day resurrected, rather unlikely on the face of it, I would never get the opportunity to see again. A little pause before the great undeceiving seemed an acceptable luxury.
When I discovered about the announcement, it was only a day or so old. It was no surprise then that nobody had yet written. Obviously they would take a little time to collect their thoughts, and letters of condolence take time to compose properly. I imagined them ringing each other to chase down some detail. “Isn’t it true that he was unlucky not to get a first?” would say one. Actually it isn’t true at all but to those looking through the rosy lens of the condolence writer it would seem true, and into the letter it would go. Then there might be references to sporting prowess, charm, modesty, manners which put everyone at their ease. Always a little basis of truth of course but honed and polished like the words on a gravestone. Actually, some of them might even have ideas for that, a line of poetry, perhaps, or something in Latin. I believe the words cave canem are on a stone in Pompeii. I don’t know exactly what they mean but they certainly sound good and the Romans were a fairly heroic lot. It would be interesting to see what my friends came up with.
Yes, obviously it would take time before the letters started to come in, but no doubt they would begin to arrive shortly. So I thought for a day or two, but after a few more days, when nothing of the sort happened, I began to find the waiting rather depressing. Didn’t people write letters of condolence any more? Did they just wear black instead? Perhaps I should park my car outside their houses and watch them with binoculars. It was then that the obvious explanation struck me. People must have realised that I was still alive and that letters of condolence were unnecessary. That was how college grapevines worked. That must be why no condolence letters had arrived.
I held onto this idea until Christmas when the tally of cards received seemed to be lower than usual. That might be due to a change of fashion or perhaps it was because the post had become erratic. There were other possibilities too and one of them began to haunt me. Could it really be the case that when people picked up their pens on hearing of my untimely demise,they did so not to write a condolence letter but to cross me off their Christmas card list?
Well, I would soon find about that as there was a college reunion coming up. I normally enjoy these events, my bonhomie and backslapping having made me universally popular. Before long I bumped into somebody who hadn’t sent me a Christmas card that year and asked him why. “Oh I thought you were dead” he replied. At this point I lost my presence of mind.
“How did you feel about that?” I asked.
“It disturbed my breakfast” he replied. For a moment I nearly asked him what he had been eating because one would clearly rather have disturbed a full English than a mere croissant and coffee. Something held me back, however. Maybe it was better not to know but just to assume that the breakfast had been a magnificent spread with porridge followed by kedgeree and a rack of freshly made toast. I was beginning to learn the lesson that sometimes it is better to imagine how people will react to your death than to actually know. Unless, that is, you could arrange it yourself. The mediaeval custom of getting your estate to pay for masses to be sung in a chantry chapel, preferably with a short homily written by yourself, certainly had its advantages.
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