Is there a nicer place to walk than a graveyard in the rain? I’m pretty sure that the corpses prefer it as well – the sun isn’t much fun when you’re six feet under. At least with the rain they can have a little taste of the outside world as it comes seeping through the coffin top. It must be the only drink they get all week: a thimble of dirty rainwater, filtered through the mud. It’s not much of a life is it, being dead? I can’t say that I’m looking forward to it.
Large parts of this cemetery have just been abandoned to nature and my shoes are covered in mud where I’ve been traipsing my way through the mulchy slew of soggy wet weeds, nettles, black berries and barbed wire branches. I can’t move until the rain eases off so I’m trapped under a canopy of dripping trees, staring out over a battlefield of stone stumps, headless statues and angels with amputated arms.
Cemeteries always remind me of going to the zoo: people gawping at the creatures in their cages, and here I am, gawping at the corpses in theirs. What a lazy life they lead. No TV, no radio. No more flowers, no more visitors… no one gives a toss about them any more because too much time has passed by. That’s when you’re truly dead: when you’re not even somebody’s distant memory. When the passing years have flaked away your name you’re finished. There’s no coming back from that.
Brits are rather unadventurous when it comes to inscriptions. There’s never any angst or anger like Why? Why? Why her? Why my love? All their beloved mothers, loving husbands, darling little daughters… always in their hearts, their thoughts, their memories, forever missed, blah blah blah… but it’s the flowers that tell the true story. If they still have a vase of plants on top then they’re obviously being loved by someone. But if they’re disappearing under a spreading mess of weeds then let’s be honest, they’re forgotten. Take this tomb for William Taylor as an example. He’s been dead for twenty years but he’s still got fresh flowers on his grave. ‘To a loving husband’ it says, and I guess he was, because somebody clearly still cares for him (probably his mistress).
It’s a bit different for poor old Leon Dunin Wolski. No one knows you any more, mate. I’m sorry to break it to you but that’s the brutal truth. Not even the groundsman has stopped by in a hundred years. If I had a lighter I might have brought your candle back to life but I haven’t got a cigarette… so that’s it. Excitement over. You can go back to sleep now. I’ll tell you what I’ll do instead: I’ll put a picture of your tombstone in my review so everyone will know your name again… but you have to return the favour and put in a good word for me when I get upstairs.
This next one is surmounted by a framed marriage photo of them cutting the cake. It looks like a young couple in their twenties but the woman is already six feet under, all overgrown and forgotten. It doesn’t look like the groom has been around since the day she died, so I guess he’s found himself another woman already. It didn’t take him long to get over her death, did it? I think you’re better off without him, lady. You had a lucky escape there. Maybe you can get together with this guy next-door because apparently he’s the “liveliest guy in the room". I’m not so sure, though, because I’ve been standing at the foot of his bed for two minutes and he hasn’t made a peep, so either he’s asleep or he’s ignoring me. Or maybe he’s ill? Shall I call an ambulance? I know you’re down there somewhere, mate. You can’t ignore me forever.
As soon as people die they don’t want to know you anymore. Have you noticed that? Family, friends, neighbours, people you went to school with, people you knew for years and years – they move on and it’s as if you don’t exist all of a sudden. They have their exciting new lives to lead while you’re still stuck in a rut in yours.
It’s very quiet now. It’s just a low rumble of buses on the street outside, and me standing sodden in the rain.
If you enjoy this then try Highgate Cemetery (travel from West Brompton to Highgate by underground)
