When you turn forty, somebody should buy you a black tie.
 That’s what I’m thinking as I sit in Beans, cold cappuccino in front of me, waiting for Donnie to arrive. What I’m wearing is black trousers, a pair of beaten-up, old black Kickers, a white shirt and a black coat. What I’m not wearing is a black tie, when that really is the one thing I should be wearing.
 It’s just after 9am, I’ve just finished work, and I’m having a coffee to wake me before my lift to the crematorium arrives. Today is not a good day. Not a good day at all.
I’ve just turned forty-five. Donnie, he’s a few months behind me. Simon is a couple of weeks older than me. But he won’t beat me to forty-six. Simon has maxed out his age.
 Simon died a couple of weeks ago.
 Heart attack.
 Forty-five.
 That’s no age, is it? No age at all.
 I wasn’t expecting to bury or cremate any of my current friends just yet. I naively thought that wouldn’t happen until I reached my late fifties, my sixties even. My mother, she’s in her mid-sixties. She trawls the Mercury, the local paper, every week.
 “Just want to see if anyone I know has popped their clogs,” she tells me.
 I wasn’t expecting any of my friends to ‘pop their clogs’ just yet.
 Let me tell you about Simon.
 Simon is – was – this guy with the greatest smile ever. This smile, it enveloped his entire face. Even when he was just smiling it was like he was shedding tears of laughter. Simon, he’d given up alcohol a few years ago, so he’d just drink bottles of J2O, two at a time, emptied into a pint glass. Me, I’ve been battling the demon of drink for almost as many years as Simon has abstained.
 But Simon was never judgemental. He’d listen to one of my many tales of the trouble I’ve been in after a heavy session, and his face would crack into this smile, and sometimes it would be like he knew something I didn’t, as though he knew something good, or bad, was going to happen to me.
 What Simon never did say was, “You should stop drinking.” He’d say, “Yeah, I used to be like that.”
 I look up as somebody enters, but it’s not Donnie. I glance at my watch. It’s almost twenty-past nine. The funeral is at ten.
 I need a black tie.
 What can I tell you about Donnie, other than he’s always late?
 Donnie is taller than me, but then that’s pretty much a given. He’s taller than most people. And Donnie, he always has this massive toothy grin on his face, and he laughs enthusiastically when he finds something funny. Christ, it probably seems like I’m surrounded by people who constantly smile inanely. Believe me, that’s not the case. More of that later, I’m sure.
 As the door rattles again and Donnie steps in from the rain, what I’m thinking is that you’ll get to know him better. He’s wearing a checked blazer, these big, fuck-off spectacles, and a black shirt with a black tie. I abandon my cappuccino and get to my feet. Donnie, he’s smiling, just like you’d expect. We shake hands.
 I say, “I need a black tie.” I feel obsessed.
 Donnie strokes his own tie. “Cancer Research, dude,” he says. “They’ve got a whole box of them.” I guess it’s like this. A guy, he dies, and a few weeks later his clothes are bunged in the local charity shop, together with his black tie.
 His black tie, for moments like this.
 We stroll up the High Street. Donnie has an umbrella, but you’d expect that of him if you knew him. Really, you would. We don’t share the umbrella. We’re good mates, but no two guys are that close unless they’re dating one another. As it turns out, the Cancer Research isn’t open for another ten minutes but the British Heart Foundation shop a few hundred yards up the street is. Considering what Simon’s died of, it seems more poignant to step inside there. The old dear struggles to find a black tie. Eventually, she hands one over. It’s crumpled, spotted with a couple of blobs of what I hope is just snot from where its previous owner has been crying. But it’s black. And that’s all that matters.
 Donnie and me, we just make small talk on the way to the crematorium. He’s driving fast because we’re running late. We get there just a couple of minutes before the hearse and the big black car carrying Simon’s mum, and his brother and sister.
 I should tell you a bit more about Simon, Donnie and me. Simon and Donnie, they’ve known one another since secondary school. I didn’t know them back then because I went to the town’s public school. I met Donnie at Uni, where he was studying Art and I was studying English. We maintained our friendship, together with a handful of others, of which I’ll tell you shortly, when we came back to the home town we shared. Donnie, he managed to blag a gig in I.T., working for the local council. He’s still there now. Me, I joined the civil service.
 I’m not there anymore.
 I met Simon in the pub. He challenged me to a game of pool. He won but my excuse was that I was pissed. Simon, he just smiled that smile. He bought me a pint and we sat down and chatted. What Simon is – was – is a loner. Everybody knows him, they all say hello, but they don’t sit down and chat to him. They don’t – didn’t – really get to know him.
 Simon was softly spoken but he would talk to me as he ploughed his way through four pints of J2O. I can only imagine the sugar rush. Over the next few years, as my reliance upon alcohol increased, we became good mates. And occasionally Donnie would come out with us. Donnie, he’d tell us of his dreams of becoming a comic book artist, I’d tell them about my dreams of becoming a bestselling author, and Simon would discuss his dreams of travelling the world.
 He was the only one of us to ever fulfil their dreams.
 Anyway, I’m telling you this about Simon for a reason. When I talk about ‘us’, of course Simon is a part of ‘us’ where Donnie and me are concerned. But the bigger ‘us’, the half a dozen of ‘us’ who stayed in touch after Uni was over, Simon was never a part of that.
If Facebook is an indicator of popularity, then Simon was one of the most popular people on there. Christ, he had friends from Kenya, from Dubai, from the US. However, if the number of people who turn up to your funeral is an indicator of popularity, then he wasn’t a popular guy at all.
 But then I guess a funeral is not a popularity contest and as Donnie and me stand together at the wake, pint in our hands, what I can see is that the people here, munching on sandwiches, sausage rolls and Scotch eggs, are celebrating Simon’s life.
 I’m getting to learn more about this funeral malarkey.
 I should be an expert by now.
People are talking about happy memories. I suppose they’re trying to forget, or otherwise mask, the knowledge that Simon had been dead for three weeks before his body had been discovered. Today is not a time to discuss our guilty feelings, however, but believe me, I have those.
 Here’s how I found out about Simon’s death.
 I was asleep. I wasn’t at work. I was in one of those sleeps where you walk in from the pub and just lay yourself down on the first flat surface you come across. In this case, it was the hallway floor of my house.
 The vibration in my pocket had a strange effect on the dream I was having, but to be fair I don’t really want to discuss that. The ringing woke me so I answered it.
 It was Donnie.
 “Dude, have you heard about Simon?” His voice sounded tense. I dragged myself up into a seated position, gave a cough as a certain level of clarity returned to my mind.
 “What?”
 And then, there it was. “He was found dead least night.”
 My mouth dried up and I felt sick, but this had nothing to do with what I’d drank last night.
I couldn’t find any words.
 “Dude?”
 A whisper from me. “Yeah.”
 “Fuck.”
 That was how I found out that Simon had died. And now for the guilt part. See, four weeks before that phone call from Donnie, Simon had texted me. He wanted to hook up for a drink. He always called it ‘a drink’ even though in the common use of the word he didn’t actually drink. The text had come through one evening but I was in the process of getting pissed. I’d read the text, thought to myself that I’d text him when I’d sobered up, and then I’d pocketed my phone. And then I’d forgotten all about it. Extra shifts at work, drunken sessions at home, these all got in the way.
 So Simon texts me for a drink, and a week later he has a heart attack.
Today, as I try to force a ham sandwich down my throat – and believe me, I’m not really that much of a fan of ham – what I do know is that now is not the time to tell people I’m feeling guilty. I can’t exactly tell Simon’s brother, who doesn’t even know me but has told me he appreciates me coming today, “Never mind your grief. What about my guilt?”
 This is something I’ve not even told Donnie. But the thing is, I can tell that I’m not the only one here who’s feeling guilty. Everybody is feeling some level of guilt. We’re all carrying that particular burden. I can tell. Even Donnie, even the ever smiling Donnie, even he has a tear in his eye and a look of almost irrepressible guilt on his face. Of course, his reasons for not keeping in regular contact with Simon are more valid than mine. Donnie is a man who works hard. Some might say he works too hard. Most would say he definitely works harder than me. My last partner, she would definitely say that. She said it many a time, and she didn’t just compare me to Donnie. Her father, he worked harder than me. Her brother, he definitely worked harder than me. And her ex? Well, Christ, don’t ever get her fucking started on him.
These thoughts pass through my mind as I bite into a miniature Scotch egg.
 Donnie, he says, “When are you back at work?”
 “It’s my weekend off,” I tell him, talking while my mouth is full. The thing is, you can do that kind of thing in front of your friends. You don’t have to impress them with good manners. Though to be honest, I didn’t fart in his car earlier even though I desperately wanted to. I can’t be the only person who’s managed to successfully swallow a fart back up into my colon.
 “You look knackered, mate.”
 “Didn’t get much sleep last night.”
 I should explain my job. I work in health and social care. My shifts start at 3pm on one day and they finish at 3pm the next. From 11pm until 7am, I am ‘off shift’. I am paid to sleep at work in case any of the service users need assistance during the night. I managed to get my shift covered for today, but I couldn’t really sleep last night.
 Who could, with the funeral of a good friend coming up the next day?
 Incidentally, that may well be the last time I mention my current job. We aren’t supposed to discuss our work with outsiders. Suffice to say that I’ve been working for minimum wage in this way for the last two years.
 Donnie says, “Yeah, I was like that, dude.” Only, to be honest I don’t think he was. I don’t think his burden of guilt is as intense as mine. I shovel the rest of the Scotch egg into my mouth. Donnie, I know, has a meeting with his accountant soon. Me, I have a date with some beer.
 Lots of beer.
 As though Stella will assuage my guilt.
We shake hands with Simon’s brother. He still can’t remember who I am, but I don’t reckon that matters, does it? I came here for Simon. His brother, he has a similar smile, but unlike Simon I’m not convinced he knows something I don’t know.
 I don’t reckon he knows what’s going to happen to me over the next few weeks.
 As Donnie drops me off outside the Green Man, he says, “Dude, are you gonna be okay?”
 Me, I smile and shake his hand.
 I say, “If I’m not, let it be quick – like Simon’s was.”

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“Maggie’s Children – Chapter One”
Copyright © Shaun M. Stafford 2014