My friend John deserved a better death. One you could tell stories about. A proper ‘Did you hear the one about…’ kind of death. Choking on a bee at a picnic, crushed by a circus bear, mowed down by a runaway piano on the high street, Laurel and Hardy style…

Put simply, a man who once rode a motorbike to Liverpool in a chicken costume should not have died in his armchair watching the weather forecast. I’m not sure he’d have chosen a golf club’s function room as the venue for his wake either.

I suggest this to Harry as we balance buffet food on paper plates, our old pal trio now reduced to a double act. He doesn’t react. He’s trying to brush egg and mayo off his tie and onto the plush red carpet without anyone noticing. That’s the problem with black funeral attire. Sandwich fillings cause trouble. I furtively check my sleeves for tuna debris.

“Do you know what I think, Dave?” he says, rosacea cheeks reddened by the heat of an imitation coal fire. “To make this occasion a bit more John, we should each have worn one of his favourite shirts. As a tribute.”

“Which one would you have chosen? The pineapple Hawaiian or the one covered in cartoon dicks?”

“Either. Perhaps everyone here should have worn one.”

I look around the room at the sombre suits and formal dresses, the stern portraits of former golf club captains spectating from their frames on the walls.

“He’d have liked that,” I say.

We haven’t worn the funny shirts, though. For one thing, because John’s daughter, Erin, who he hadn’t even seen for twenty years, arranged the funeral (‘Strictly Formal Attire’ demanded the dress code). And secondly, because deep down, Harry and I both know our limits. We might be a double act now, but each of us is the straight man. Moons that need a planet to orbit. A planet that wore loud shirts to weddings and funerals and roared out pub stories through his Merlin beard until the laughter ripped your trousers. John turned sixty-three this year. The same as us. He just never believed it.

Once we’ve exhausted the buffet, we begin exhausting the bar. Other people drift in and out of our conversation, commiserating and offering the same tired platitudes that we all wheel out at funerals. Many are old faces from school – grey and droopy versions of the fresh-faced boys of ’78. We reminisce about the long-haired rebel who climbed onto the school roof as an anti-Apartheid protest.

Then there are the rock music guys, his band members and college students, telling stories about acid trips, fruit markets in Holland and an unfortunate moment in an owl sanctuary. Across the room, Erin glares at us from under the wooden golf honours board. We’re laughing too loudly, but she doesn’t know the version of her father we do – John Deville, the punchline machine.  A wrecking ball, a raconteur, and, crucially, a counterweight to Harry and me.

Eventually, the receding grey ponytail and mid-life earring guys drift away, as do the blokes from the pub who make up John’s current friends, drinking buddies and regular audience. The hum of conversation becomes a mournful silence. A handful of estranged family members sit awkwardly on the comfortable chairs by the fireplace, and our double act perches on barstools, alone again, nursing whisky and uncertainty.

Harry’s staring into his glass, combover hair and wobbling jowls, eyebrows forever unruly. Despite the decades I’ve known him, when he next enters the pub, I cannot shout, Here comes the Tory. Make way for the landed gentry. One of you oiks give up your seat! Only John could get away with that.

And what’s Harry seeing in the whisky dregs? Maybe a scene where he can’t bring himself to refer to me as Dave, the social-working do-gooder, or yell out lines like, Lock up your kids and your lentils. Sandals here will have ‘em off you!

We make small talk until our glasses are empty. Harry suggests sharing a taxi, but I say I’ll walk. We both thank Erin, politely lie that her father would have loved the service, then leave.

The evening’s pleasant enough and I’m hoping the breeze will sober me up. Fifteen minutes of fresh air might help to clear my head, but my mind creates questions with every step.

Day to day, I manage a team of social workers – training them, supporting them, making crucial decisions. Hopefully, sometimes what I do saves lives. I’d like to think that, in my own way, I make a difference. Once this is over, though, who will I be? I retire in twelve months’ time. My job will be advertised online. Someone will take it. Colleagues will buy me cake and promise to stay in touch. But everyone knows that’s not what happens.

I never married. I have no children. Would anyone notice if I wasn’t in the pub on a Friday night? Back in the day, John and I both wore ANC badges. ‘Free Mandela’ and all that. We went to Rock Against Racism in Victoria Park. He never told me he was planning to scale the school roof. Probably because he knew I wouldn’t be brave enough to join him.

What stories will people tell about me when I’m gone? What traces have I left that people will remember and smile about? Have I done enough?

I cross the road slowly. Maybe there’s a chance that somewhere up the hill, two men are attempting to move a wheeled piano. Maybe it’ll roll down, with a fat bloke chasing it, and take me out on the way. That’ll be how I’m remembered.   

“Did you hear the one about the guy who got run over by a piano?” someone will roar in the pub. “The police said he’ll B-Flat.”

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Neil James is a writer from Stoke-on-Trent, England, and the author of ‘Stoke and I:The Nineties’ (Pitch Publishing).  His fiction has been published by Literally Stories, Cranked Anvil Press and Wensum Literary Magazine, amongst others. He lives at www.neiljameswriter.co.uk and can be found on Twitter/X @NeilJamesWriter.