KALEIDOSCOPE / FAIRFIELD PARLOUR

Steve`s funeral was held at St.Raphael`s in Kingston, Surrey two weeks later on Friday 14th May.

It was a mild , but sunless day, as family, friends and fans gathered at 11AM for the Catholic service. We entered the church and heard Justin Hayward appropriately singing the phrase: "I know you`re out there somewhere..." Silence followed and then to the plaintive strains of `Bordeaux Rose´` Steve`s coffin was borne into the church by four pallbearers. It rested between four white lighted candles.

The interior of the church glowed with the diffused light that entered through the many, beautiful stained-glass windows. Ornate architectural features led from the golden cross at the centre of the altar to the high domed aquamarine ceiling. Beyond that the grey sky hung motionless -- and beyond that....

After the first hymn, the mysteries of the church service proceeded, understood by only a few in the congregation. The atheists admired the interior decorating and thought not of the old man in the sky, but of the young man who lay in a wooden box just a few feet away beneath his family`s wreath: a bass guitar fashioned in purest white blossoms, never to be played.

Steve`s twenty-four year old son, Ian, made the hardest walk of his life to the lectern and read from a scrap of paper whose trembling vibrations could be felt fifty feet away. The son`s simple, but glowing, eulogy reduced him and us to tears: his dad was kind and caring, his dad was easy-going and fun to be with, his dad was his best friend, his dad is dead.

At this point the surviving members of the band stepped forward with acoustic guitar, hand drum and uncertain voice and performed a song from far away and long ago: `Aries`

The applause carried the band back to their hard wooden pew where they sat numb and senseless, wondering where they were in the story of their own lives: is this the beginning, is this the end? One realised that lostness is forever. No-one spoke.

More readings from the book of dust. Steve`s twenty-five year old daughter collapsed into her mother`s arms. This was becoming unbearable. We all sang `Morning has broken` followed by a silent prayer -- and, again, the damned atheists just sat there thinking about Steve in the box, expecting him to jump out with a fag in his mouth and a big soppy grin on his face, telling us it was all just a fab joke, a ruse to get us all back together again.

And then they played Dire Straits` `Brothers in Arms` and the band visibly crumpled, not because they can`t stand Dire Straits, but because they were brothers in arms. More than that -- much more than that...

We filed out and as Steve climbed into the long, black hearse we noticed the grey Thames just across the road, wending it`s eternal way, oblivious to the busy being born and the busy dying.

At the Marsh Lane cemetery Steve was interred. England`s rich earth opened up like an abyss. Marilyn Monroe, during one of her mad moments, once asked a grave-digger if she could lie in the freshly-dug grave. He agreed, awed no doubt by the brilliance of her beauty and the darkness of her vision. She said later that the view of the sky from down there was just perfect. Before he went to sleep forever perhaps Steve glanced up and saw that the clouds were now parting, the sun promising something new. But for those of us who watched in terror there was little comfort as we said: "Goodbye..." And the ground was covered in dozens of exquisite wreaths, the colours blinding, the perfection of flowers awe-inspiring, the simple messages of farewell heart-breaking. Goodbye -- goodbye -- farewell... "See you in the pub upstairs."

Observing the peculiar rules of etiquette of the English wake, we all gathered (at Ian`s intimate flat) and balanced glasses of sherry and plates of small food and engaged in small-talk with total strangers: people we`d never seen before and would never see again. But all brought together by our having known one man. We reminisced and even laughed, recalling the life of our departed friend. The time he came to decorate his son`s flat and his wife, Sue, came later and found them both asleep on the sofa. The way he could never make up his mind if asked where to go for a pint. The periods of boredom he felt in his job as a chauffeur for film companies and how he would head for the catering truck and eat until he was fit to bust. The crosswords he enjoyed during the hours of waiting. His primitive style of bass-playing, so effective, so amusing to watch, his left leg moving with a life of its own, beating out an insistent rhythm to a different song to the one he was playing. His consistent good humour. Steve the boy. Steve the man. Steve the dad and husband. Steve the spirit...

With the sun now warming the verdant streets of Kingston we said our goodbyes and exchanged telephone numbers and promised to get together for a drink and knew we never would and cracked nervous jokes about other funerals -- probably our own -- and the men hugged self-consciously and kissed the women on the cheek and hugged some with more than platonic warmth and were startled by the flames of old loves that curled up from suppressed depths and some even took photographs and tried to remember not to smile as this was nothing to laugh about and others simply climbed into cars and drove away with just a look back through a closed window while others lingered and were momentarily disorientated and wondered where they were and how would they get home and when they got there would everything be the same...?

No -- not now. Not ever again. Hold my hand and tell me where we are. Lostness is forever.

"Memory and love and hope are the things that will endure..."