Page 241 - James Caan - The Real Deal

23 · The End of an Era

as if I was about to collapse. I have this clear memory of
desperately wanting to get to the hospital but being utterly
incapable of doing anything.
I was just so shocked. But he was having tests at 7.30 a.m. That
meant he was expected to live, didn’t it? No one had said that he
might die. It was the first time I had cried since Jemma had been
born and for twenty minutes the tears would not stop. Even
though Aisha was with me, I felt almost unbearably alone.
Eventually we swapped seats and Aisha took over the driving.
When we got there, the entire family was in tears and it really hit
me just how much I had wanted to be there for him at the end,
not stuck in my car on the North Circular. We had become so
close as a family that it seemed unbelievable that one of us had
now gone.
A doctor approached and asked what we wanted to do about
Dad’s body. Islam stipulates that you have the funeral the day a
person dies and, although we all knew this was what was supposed
to happen, none of us had any experience of losing a loved one
and none of us knew what to do. Should there be a post-mortem?
Should he be buried? Who should come to the service? None of us
had any answers, but we all had suggestions: there was a lot of
talking, but what was needed was action.
While we were having these discussions, I remember looking
across at Aisha. She was on her mobile calling the guests for her
birthday party and telling them it was off. What a way to spend a
birthday. We had been looking forward to this day for so long and
yet this was how it had turned out.
I called an old family friend who talked me through the protocol
of Muslim funerals. Firstly we had to sort out the paperwork. We
needed a death certificate from the hospital and some sort of
licence from the local council. The doctors gave us the number of
the nearest mosque in Walthamstow, and they put us in touch with
a nearby Muslim cemetery that had plots available. In such a

231