liv | Mal Faloon 1979 - 2023 (Reply)

Yesterday

jack and I attended the funeral of my schoolfriend Mal.

This isn't going to be a proper obituary because Mal was very much a comet in my life. We had periods of intense friendship, every few years picking up our ongoing conversation about anything and everything, and much longer phases of hardly being in touch at all. But her early death from cancer seems deeply, deeply unfair as these things always are.

She joined the school I attended partway through sixth form, in the middle of the academic year because of fleeing domestic violence and needing to live on a houseboat. Compared to my very sheltered Cambridge private school life she seemed impossibly exotic, being an immigrant from Ireland as well as her weird living situation. We were more or less thrown together because it was somewhat hard for a newcomer to fit in to long-established friendship groups, and my social status at school was that I was accepted by most but not really part of anyone's inner circle.

And then most of us went straight on to university (it was that kind of school), and Mal didn't because a combination of family circumstances and poor A-Level grades. I happened to run into her while I was a PhD student because I attended a role-playing convention where she was part of the hosting team, and it was as if the years in between were mere minutes.

Mal made several attempts at university, I don't even know if she ever eventually got a degree. Mostly she was just excited to learn things, maths, psychology, geology, just incredible enthusiasm for knowledge and really awful luck in her circumstances and relationships. When things went wrong, she usually ended up back in Cambridge, and most of her life she ran a gemstone stall in the Cambridge market. I hardly know anyone from that sort of world, so I'm most grateful that Mal continued to be in my life. She sometimes came to my parties and got on extremely well with my generally very middle-class geek friends. Lots of people know her through SF fandom or similar geek hobbies, and she both fit in to those sorts of circles and massively stood out.

Another time we were close was after a relationship went badly wrong (violence or just generic awfulness, I can't remember) and she came to stay with me in Sweden. Originally for just a long weekend, ended up staying for weeks.

I know second-hand from occasional FB updates (she was never really a social media person) that she eventually found a partner who was genuinely good for her. She underwent treatment for cancer but as far as was visible to me seemed to be doing better, and she got married fairly recently. Anyway, the cancer got her in the end. I keep tripping up on the fact that she only got half a life. She went through some pretty terrible things even before the cancer. But also took squeezed more joy out of anything good that ever happened to her than most would manage even in a longer, more peaceful life.

The funeral was held at the lovely woodland cemetery where my grandmother is also buried. There were loads of people, very few of whom I knew. Judging by appearances I would have guessed a bunch of geeks, a bunch of market traders and Strawberry Fair people, lots of relatives (there were enough Irish attendees that they sang The parting glass at the graveside), and a bunch of Queer scene-looking folk. Lots I couldn't stereotype at a glance too, lots of people of all ages who were just devastated to have lost someone dear to them. There was a very competent and moving secular funeral; I don't know if the officiant was a professional or a friend or possibly both. Mal's three sisters were very much involved too, I couldn't hear all the eulogies properly because I was in the overspill crowd outside the chapel, but I could tell they did right by her. It's bad enough that her widow was bereaved after only a few months of marriage, and terrible that the four sisters who were always so close are now three.

Woodland burials use a biodegradable wicker coffin; Mal's was dyed in rainbow colours, and there was a bouquet of flowers made from the fabric of her wedding dress. Every funeral is awful but this one was as good as it could be, it felt like Mal was well remembered. I felt quite awkward being there, I hadn't been properly in touch with Mal for some time and I never met her wife, and wasn't confident I could recognize her mother and sisters. Plus secular funerals don't have a framework for how one greets the mourners. Anyway, I was there, and now I'm telling you about it.