The paramedics arrived swiftly. They set to work urgently, but I could see no response from Emma. I slammed the door shut. I said no one could leave until they'd saved my Emmie. They fought for more than an hour to revive her. It was too late. They pronounced her dead at '2024 hrs'.
The next day, a pathologist performed an autopsy. I can't bear to think of what he had to do to my beautiful Emma's body, but his work meant he could tell me why she'd died. He said a common flu virus had attacked her heart. Normally, this virus just travels round the bloodstream till it's zapped either by antibiotics or the body's own defences. But sometimes, rarely and unpredictably, it attacks the heart. The pathologist told me he'd only ever come across one other case. The victim then had also been a woman in her 20s. He told me that, once the virus had started attacking Emma's heart, nothing could have saved her. She could have been on antibiotics in the best hospital in the world, but she'd still have died.
One day short of five months since our marriage, and only ten days before Christmas, I buried my wife in her wedding dress. More than 100 people followed the horse-drawn carriage containing her coffin. At the cemetery in Codsall, my four best men - Rashed, Gavin, Adolf and Hughie - together with my sons Adrian and Vinney and my brother Michael helped me carry Emma to her grave.
We made our way through the cemetery at a solemn snail's pace. Each step brought me closer to the moment when Emma's body would disappear for ever. My sense of dread filled my feet with lead. The coffin, too, grew heavier with every second. I felt a stab of pain as I saw ahead of me the mounds of freshly dug earth that would soon cover my beloved Emmie. Slowly, we reached our grim destination. One day it'll be my grave too, but, as I helped lower Emma into the ground, I wished that day had come and I could have joined her.
Less than halfway down, the coffin came to a sudden stop. It wouldn't go any further. We realised the grave was too small. The funeral director blushed with embarrassment. Adolf said, 'Lift the coffin back up, boys.' The funeral director said he'd fetch a 'grave attendant' (which I believe is the new term for 'gravedigger'). But before he could do so, Adolf stepped forward and said, 'Forget it. It's not a good idea to bring us the fool who dug this.' Then he picked up one of the long-handled shovels lying on the ground and said, 'One of you grab that one.' Emma's uncle Jerry reached for the other shovel. He and Adolf took turns in digging away the excess earth on the grave's walls. Huffing, puffing and ranting inaudibly, Adolf looked up at me at one point and said, 'Typical O'Mahoney. She won't do what she's told.' After Adolf and Jerry had exerted themselves for ten minutes, the grave could finally receive my Emma. This mishap managed somehow to make bearable what otherwise could have been an unbearable moment.
All day, I had to tell myself to stay strong, not just for myself, but for my mother, my children and Emma's sister, Siobhan. I knew too that Emma wouldn't have wanted me to go to pieces in public. All day, I stifled my tears. The priest had warned me I'd find difficult the task of reading a tribute to my wife during the service. But I had to do it, because I felt that's what she'd have wanted.
After the burial, everyone went to the Royal British Legion Club near my mother's house. One of my Irish uncles, Paul from Sligo, stood on the same stage my father had stood on 30 years earlier and raised a toast to Emma. Then he sang a shatteringly moving version of my father's favourite, 'Danny Boy', the song we'd played at our wedding in memory of Emma's parents, my father and dead friends.
Only when everyone had gone home that night did I allow myself to break down. I walked crying through Codsall's empty streets and made my way back to the cemetery. In the darkness, I found Emma's grave and lay down on the thick carpet of flowers that covered her final resting place. Alone again with my Emma, I let my tears fall until I cried myself to sleep. My uncle Paul found me there at four in the morning. He lifted me to my feet, put his arm round my shoulder and helped me walk back to my mother's.
This grief is too deep for tears. The pain is physical, like somebody has punched a hole in my chest and is twisting and squeezing my heart. I've never felt so alone in my life. Emma was more than my wife. I loved and trusted her completely. She was my best adviser, my best barrister, my best psychiatrist, my best protector and, above all, my best mate. We went everywhere, and did everything, together.
Just a few weeks ago, when I finished Hateland, I felt like I'd brought to an end a whole rotten chapter of my life. I looked with optimism to the future - my future with Emma. And now that future is gone. I don't know how I'm ever going to get over this loss.
I'm not sure why I'm writing these words. I don't know if I should be sharing my despair with strangers. But if you've got this far in the book, then you've been living for a few hours in my world. Perhaps I just want to say: when you go back to your world, be kind to the people you love, because you never know when you're going to lose them.
Now I'm faced with another new start, another new beginning, but this time it's one I'm not sure I can make.
Table of Contents
Ode To Snap
Acknowledgements
1. Getting A Grip
2. Rivers Of Blood
3. Plastic Paddy On Tour
4. Brits Out
5. My Mate Adolf
6. Away Days
7. Steaming The Red Rabble
8. White Man's Heaven
9. Black Man's Hell
10. Funeral For A Friend
11. All Tattered And Torn
12. Disco Dave
13. Cuckoo Klux Klan
14. Bedsheets In Birmingham
15. Mummy Says I'm Handsome
16. My Little Soldier
17. Madly In Love
18. Bunch Of Quacks
19. Devil Dog
20. Burying The Past
21. Nazis Aren't Us
Afterword
Hateland Page 36