"'Ow the 'ell did yer manage ter do that, then?" Uncle Hobart complained.
Folding my arms, I looked heavenwards. Uncle Hobart didn't seem to realise how short my temper was getting these days, or perhaps he did but just didn't care. Either way he was getting closer to a thick ear with each passing moment.
"Never did nowt like that when I were ploughing," he told me.
Taking a deep breath, I began humming.
"What yer bleedin' 'umming fer, yer cretin?" he shouted at me.
I enunciated my next words very carefully: "So that I don't give way to these almost overwhelming feelings I'm having," I explained between clenched teeth. "Feelings that, were I to give in to them, would undoubtedly lead to my being charged with murder." I finished with a shout, my nose only an inch away from his. He belched and I was assailed by the smell of garlic and stale beer.
"Don't 'ave ter shout yer know," he replied. "I were only asking 'ow yer managed ter break the plough, weren't I?" he kicked the broken blade with his foot.
"I should have thought that was bloody obvious!" I replied angrily, pointing at the large rock sticking up out of the damp soil.
"A rock, eh?" He pursed his lips, then tutted. "Well, it can't be 'elped, can it? 'Appens to the best o' us, I suppose." Squatting down Uncle Hobart ran his gnarled old hands over the gnarled old rock and grunted. "It's a bleedin' big 'un though, ain't it?" he observed, rubbing his chin reflectively.
*
It had taken us the best part of the morning to dig around the rock with the JCB and the deeper we got, the more appalled I was at its size. "How're we going to get it out?" I asked scratching my head. "It's far too big for the JCB."
Uncle Hobart nodded, laying his fore-finger along the side of his nose. Then he winked and slowly pulled a small glass phial from his top pocket, holding it up for my inspection. I just looked dumb and shook my head.
"So what's that then?" I finally asked. "Gripe water? We going to burp it out?"
"It's Nitro," Uncle Hobart told me in a quiet voice.
I took a few steps backwards. "Nitro! Where the hell did you get nitro from!" I took a few more steps backwards.
"Off them French soldiers in the chateau," he told me proudly. "It were the least they could do, after the way that we 'elped 'em out, weren't it?"
I took a few more steps backwards and by now was having to shout to make myself heard. "But you don't know anything about nitro. You'll get us both bloody killed, you stupid old sod!"
Uncle Hobart's smile broadened. "Learnt all about explosives in the war, didn't I? In the demolition squad, weren't I? Best there were." He tossed the phial sky-wards and I threw myself flat on the ground, watching in horror as it arced and sparkled through the air. I only started breathing again after he'd caught it and replaced it in his pocket. "'Ere," he held out a pair of long-handled tongs, "'old this spike with these 'ere tongs and I'll do the 'ammering."
For the next five hours the field echoed with the sound of steel on steel as the spike bit slowly into the rock and I marvelled at Uncle Hobart's strength as hour by hour he swung the sledge with a faultless rhythm. Finally I pulled the spike from the hole for the last time and looked up at him. He smiled broadly, clicked his dentures loudly, then fell flat onto his face.
I tried the kiss of life of course, heart massage, even swearing, but all to no avail. I might as well have been trying to revive a side of frozen beef.
"Ah shit Uncle Hobart! Don't do this to me, not now," I moaned, kneeling beside his crumpled body. And I knelt that way for a long time, marvelling at how small he looked. He'd always seemed such a big man to me.
*
I tapped my foot in time to the music and smiled at Maggie. She smiled back, then raised her glass, chinking it against mine. "You know," she said with a meaningful look, "I could tell you a tale or two about your uncle, but I suppose a funeral's not really the place to do that, is it?"
"Oh I don't know," I replied. "I could think of worse places."
She tipped her head. "You know, sometimes when you talk like that, you really remind me of him."
I laughed. "Do I take that as a compliment or an insult?"
"It'sa complement," Makis said from behind me as he lay one of his huge paws on my shoulder. "He wasa the best."
I looked around the crowded room and marvelled at how many friends Uncle Hobart had made over the years. If I could say I'd made half as many at the end of my life, I'd count myself a lucky man indeed. Finishing my beer I opened another can.
Maggie laid a restraining hand on my arm as I raised it to my lips. "That's not the answer, Peter," she said quietly.
I tried to look at her but her face kept floating in and out of focus. "I laid him out you know." My voice was slurred. "It was him taught me how to do that. When we laid out Aunt Martha. Did you know that?" Maggie gently squeezed my arm and I felt tears forming in my eyes. "That's the way to go though, eh?" I snapped my fingers savagely. "Bang. Just like that."
She leant forward and whispered in my ear. "Come on love," she said, "come into the kitchen and I'll make us both a nice cup of tea."
Placing the empty teacup on the table, I smiled to myself as I thought about my uncle. "He looked younger somehow, after he was laid out in the coffin," I said, sotto voce. "Kind of comical though, wearing that tatty old coat and cloth cap of his."
Maggie lit a cigarette, waving the smoke away from her face. "What tatty old coat?" she asked.
"His old work jacket," I told her. "He never went anywhere without it. He loved that damned old jacket. He was wearing it when..." My voice cracked and I paused for a moment. "Well I thought it'd be nice if we cremated him in it." A picture formed in my mind's eye. Uncle Hobart standing before me, feet spread wide, forefinger laid along his nose, a small glass phial clutched tightly in his hand. "Oh sweet Jesus! " I breathed. "The bloody nitro!"
"What's the matter, Peter?" Maggie asked in a concerned voice. "You've gone very pale."
I pushed past her. "Hell I've got to phone the crematorium, right now!"
Maggie grabbed my arm, her forehead creased in a frown. "I know how much you loved him pet, but you've got to let him go. He's..." The rest of her words were drowned out by the noise of a huge explosion coming from the direction of the crematorium.
I stood stock still, my ears ringing with the noise, and just for one brief moment, I could have sworn I heard Uncle Hobart clicking his dentures and chuckling happily.