Vic Bettany.

Vic Bettany.
b. 1948 – d. 2011

When I entered the public house of mourning through the back door, a jackdaw enshrouded in fog cawed discordantly, clashing with the strains of Amazing Grace floating out from inside. Now someone stirs the jukebox into life and the Stereophonics immediately begin to suffocate the piano's elegy.

    They'd all walked in suited and booted, shiny and black like ravens' beaks awaiting worms from the soil. Dull-eyed boys in falsely buttoned waistcoats began handing out crudités from a silver dish to the ensemble, greedily snatched at by fat hands. It seemed as though little expense had been spared in catering for this affair.

    Who was Vic Bettany? He never existed in my mind. My job was simply to serve the double vodkas and coke respectfully. People will be disgruntled when the complimentary food and drink run out, just like at a wedding reception or parents' evening or mandatory training event. The plan was for everyone to be too drunk to care by this point, but it's hard to say whether this will happen. The crowd could be the kind that are easily disgruntled. I'd best just smile and carry on serving.

    Despite this, I'm telling myself not to smile too much. He could have been a wife-beater or a child molester or a rapist or an abuser of animals for all I know. I have to pay my respects though. Perhaps. No-one would be any the wiser if I decided to curse and spit on his grave behind the bar. No-one's looking except for poor old Vic up in Heaven. Or down in Hell. If angels can look down on us from Heaven can demons look up from Hell?

    There are lots of people here. Did all of them know Vic Bettany? Do all of them know Vic Bettany? It doesn't seem as though anyone really cares right now. They're all immersed in conversation with each other about their plans, their weekends, their jobs, their children, their Xmas proposals. The hard part is out of the way, on with the drinks.
It's what he would have wanted, for everyone to have a good time. No one paying any attention to his infidelities, foibles or peccadilloes. They're more concerned with hiding their own. Vic Bettany's face has disappeared from their minds and now just a dull stone,  sterile urn, or blank casket remains. There's nothing left to exhume the truth from.

    Two rowdies from a pub further up the road burst in, ordering shooters, chasers and bombs in an aggressive manner. It's not long before I've lost them in the pre-assembled sea of violence; a whole crowd united in killing Vic Bettany. There are children here too, but no obvious parental figure to anchor them to the deceased. Maybe they're just friends of friends, or maybe they were already here, like me. Do they have a role to perform, or are they just passing through like Vic?

    I'm suddenly unsure if Vic is male or female. Vicarious Bettany? Vicious Bettany? Vicissitude Bettany? Victim Bettany? Perhaps I should raise a glass myself; whatever he or she was is now just a name carved onto the faces of these people and their pasts. Time will erode the edges; we must continue to run our fingers like needles through the grooves or else what is it all for? There has to be more to it than a free lunch and unnecessary small talk.