Cogs and Wheels

As things sometimes do, it all started with a funeral.

That Billy was dead in the first place seemed most out of character. There are some people who are, well, so full of life, so much part of a place, that death must surely not apply to them. But it does and did, and Billy had died suddenly and unexpectedly, having only recently survived a serious illness.

Squashed into the last seat of the last pew at the back of the church, I’d glimpsed Jeremy as he carried his father’s coffin on his shoulder. And now, as we trickled out of the door, there he was, in front of me. I tapped him on the shoulder. “I’m so sorry about your dad, Jeremy”. He turned round to face me, puzzled for half a heartbeat, before his face split wide into a grin.

Twenty two years had passed since we had last seen each other. Jeremy was taller than the 17 year old I remembered, his shoulders broader, his face more masculine now, but the boy was there inside the man in front of me. Our words tumbled out in a jumble. He told me he was living in Australia, had been for four years. He ushered his lovely Australian fiancée Ursula over to meet me, his second cousin. They were to be married in a couple of months, he said. Billy had been the first person they’d told of their plans. By now, people were queuing up to offer their condolences, so we said goodbye and I slipped away from Jeremy and Ursula, promising that I’d be in touch.

I found him through Facebook and sent him a message a couple of weeks later when I knew they’d be back in Oz to receive it. And that’s where it all started I think. Since then there have been many more contacts through the ether. Among them Chris (living in Bali since the mid 1990s); Graham (London, a wonderful picture of him and his wife in silver disco gear at a music festival); Paul (now a lecturer in Bath); and today Sarah (with a new surname and back in Kent after 15 years living in London).

I don’t know if it’s because we have all just turned 40, or because it’s the beginning of a new year, or simply because everything that we thought we knew about our little corner of the world is turning on its head in front of our eyes. Or maybe the cogs and wheels and invisible threads that bind us were set in motion to draw us all back together by Billy’s funeral.

Whatever the reason, the last few weeks and months have seen me reconnect with old friends that I haven’t seen for twenty years. Twenty two years to be precise – more than two decades. A long time in anyone’s reckoning. But worth the wait.