by Helen Walsh
‘Shhh, now. Vincent wrote to us.’ He crooks his knee, drops down and wipes her eyes. ‘Where’s our Ellie?’
‘I think she’s sleeping. She hasn’t moved from up there. It’s …’ Once again, Sheila collapses into the well of his arms and surrenders completely.
Ellie stays there a while, not wanting to intrude upon the tender scene: her parents, finally united in their grief. And she feels it too now, the full paralysing gravitas of the night’s events. Vinnie is dead. Vinnie is gone. More than ever she needs her mummy and daddy. She descends the stairs and goes to them. Robbie squeezes her, buffering the violent quaking of her body with the tight clamp of his chest. She’s almost as tall as him now and her body is leaden with grief but he scoops her up in one easy swoop and carries her into the sitting room. He sits her on his lap, rocking her like a baby. ‘Shhhh now, little fella, I’m back now. Daddy’s back for good.’
There’s a brief lull in her crying, the faintest glimmer of hope in her hope-dead face.
The slight, sylph-like figure of Ellie Fitzgerald standing to arms draws tears from the crowd as the funeral directors haul out the coffin. She’s wearing Vinnie’s coat – his famous blue raincoat. Behind her Robbie stoops to whisper in her ear. She nods resolutely, her jaw set firm. She ducks under the front left corner of the coffin and takes her place. She’s shorter than the other pallbearers and the imbalance causes the coffin to list to one side, but she pushes on, her slender, resolute shoulders near buckling under its weight.
A small congregation huddles beneath a span of umbrellas outside the church gate. The low groan of thunder peals out across the washed-out belly of the sky. Ellie smiles, closes her eyes and is filled with such a deep, sharp stab of finality that she almost cries out in pain. She can feel him out there in the rain; she can feel him in the sharp wind gusting under her coat, his coat, slapping at her calves. Vincent. Her big brother, Vinnie. He’s out there.
Morbid, soulless music in the church. The sound of the pipe organ itself is deathly and austere. Sheila stays standing while the congregation sits – her gaze leaden and unfocused, her eyes shot forward in her skull. She becomes aware of her daughter tugging gently on her wrist and simply lets herself fall back. Her rump connects with the pew, jolting her from her maudlin trance, a fresh wave of agony crashing over as she remembers the reason she’s here. Vinnie is dead. He is gone. Her little man is gone for ever.
There is a brief silence at the end of each hymn where the damp, high-ceilinged room echoes with the sorry chorus of stifled grief. Ellie tunes into the muffled keening of a male, purling out from the far recesses of the church. Gingerly she edges her head round and scans the room. A young man – a boy, really – is crying his heart out, forefinger and thumb of his right hand squeezing his temples to try and make it all stop.
Father Bradley cranks up his croaky pitch a notch, tries to drown out the sobs. His eulogy steers the mourners further away from Vinnie and on towards Christ. It’s wrong. When he called round to go over the service, he sat there in earnest, scribbling notes while Sheila and Ellie regaled him with all that was special about Vinnie. The Father left with five pages of memories, and here he was condensing it down to this nonsense. ‘Vincent Fitzgerald was a responsible young adult with a brilliant future ahead of him. He was sociable, happy and well-loved.’
Only one of these assertions, thinks Ellie, is true. The bile is mounting. She waits for a lull then leans in to her mum. ‘Mum!’ she hisses. ‘Stop him. Please. Make him stop.’
Her mother looks up for an instant. Something enters her lifeless eyes, but then shrinks away like a shadow. If anybody is going to rescue this for Vinnie, it’s not going to be her dead-beat mother. Ellie scans the room. All these people here – they know Vinnie would have hated this. The group of quiet Asian men who arrived from Manchester bow their heads. The one who introduced himself as Abdul smiles meekly at her. Dan Roth and the crowd, these she knows – but there are so many others there. The Cohen sisters are there, with their broken, pretty mother. A beautiful boy is trying to console the lad who’s crying at the back. All these people – friends she never knew he had – all here for him. She’s glad in her heart, but she can’t let the priest spoil his memory. She turns to her dad. ‘Please. Dad. Get up and say something. For Vinnie.’
And Robbie is taken over by a wondrous certainty. They need him again – and he knows just exactly what to do for them. He squeezes Ellie’s hand and steps out into the aisle. Slowly, but with pride and fortitude, he makes his way up to the pulpit. The priest takes a step down, bows his head so that Robbie can speak to him.
‘I’d like to … sorry, Father, er … can I get up a moment?’ As soon as he’s said it, he’s aware of the cabaret tone. ‘Sorry, Father. I’d just like say a few words for our Vincent, please?’
‘Robert, yes – of course.’ The priest tries to look happy about it as he stands back to let Robbie pass, but his lips are pursed.
The room falls silent, scattered threads of conversation hushed down to speculative whispers. You can almost hear Robbie’s heart beating as he steps up to the lectern. He leans in to the little microphone, can’t adjust it and visibly decides he’ll do this raw. He wets his lips with the tip of his tongue, waits for every voice to fade to hush, then speaks. ‘My boy. Vincent.’
On hearing his name, and on hearing it uttered by his father with so much love and regret, Sheila’s knees go to jelly beneath her.
Robbie chokes back the emotion, goes to speak again. ‘He …’ He looks out at the congregation. Faces smile back at him. He takes strength, and goes again. ‘Me and him …’
He has to take a breath, steady the swell of his heart. He looks up at the church roof and mouths ‘I love you.’ He closes his eyes. There is not a sound, not a rustle of paper, nothing. He draws himself right up, takes a deep breath – and then he starts to sing.
Starry starry night
Paint your palate blue and grey …
Ellie doesn’t know the song, but she’s blown away by the plaintive beauty of her father’s voice. She knows his voice, of course, she’s heard him a hundred times, but this is something else. She bites down on her lip, grips hard on the pew in front and sits there, rocking.
Look out on a summer’s day
With eyes that know the darkness of your soul …
Ellie puts an arm around her mother and pulls her in close. Robbie breathes and lives every aching pulse of the words as though he owns them, as though he’d sat there that day on the prom with the wind howling round him and written Vincent’s eulogy: ‘I forgive you, Dad. I hope you forgive me.’
Now I understand.
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity …
Robbie spots Sheila gagging back her sorrow with both hands pressed to her mouth. She finds him with her tearful eyes. He holds her gaze, trying to communicate with his voice the strange sense of hope and liberation that’s surging through him.
Starry starry night.
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds in violet haze
Reflected in Vincent’s eyes of China black …
Sheila closes her eyes and listens to the words.
For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left inside
On that starry starry night
You took your life as lovers often do
But I could have told you, Vincent,
This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.
Robbie stays there swaying gently, eyes closed, detached from the spellbound awe of the room, as close to his boy as he’s ever been.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank:
The Society of Authors, and the patrons and judges of the Betty Trask Award for enabling me to travel to Malaysia. Jonny Geller, whose editorial nous at the very start helped shape the entire course
of this novel. Jamie et al at Canongate, the last word in publishing. Anya, my brilliant, zealous editor – and ally – for her absolute devotion to the Fitzgeralds. Peter Campbell, the original ‘thin gypsy thief’, for providing me with the soundtrack to Vincent. Dr Nick Roland, for his advice on facial trauma. Andrew Bennett, for use of his magnificent library. John McBride, for sharing with me his memories of factory life at Crossfields. Will, Deena and Carla – my dream team, for being there to pick up the pieces one grim afternoon in July, and dusting me down to fight the good fight again. Gladys Sampson, for my Sherlock Holmes lamp and indefatigable supply of scones, both of which helped burn the midnight oil those last few months. Jef Lambrecht and Sarah Jane, good friends I met along the way. Uncle Rasa, Aunty Shanthi, Joe boy, Thanu and Renuka; Aunty Malar, Seelan, Uncle Baby, Suzi, Usha, and all my KL kith and kin – far too many to mention – for being such wonderful hosts and for teaching me the true meaning of a pot party. Wesley Walsh, my favourite Monday distraction. And Leo, wondrous Leo, the perfect bookend.
And thank you:
Kevin, my frontline editor, my iron lung.
But it’s different in November, with you.
Also by Helen Walsh
Brass
First published in Great Britain in 2008 by
Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street
Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2009 by Canongate Books
Copyright © Helen Walsh, 2008
The moral right of the author has been asserted
The lyrics on p.189 are from ‘I Will Survive’; words and music by
Dino Fekaris and Freddie Perren © 1978 Perren-Vibes Music
Company/PolyGram International Publishing Incorporated, USA.
Universal Music Publishing Limited. Used by permission of Music Sales
Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.
The lyrics on p.192 are from ‘Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye’; words
and music by Cole Porter © 1944 (renewed) Chappell & Co Inc.
All rights administered by Warner/Chappell Music Ltd, London W6 8BS.
Reproduced by permission.
The lyrics on p.237 are from ‘This Charming Man’; words and music
by Stephen Morrissey and Johnny Marr © Artemis Muziekuitgeverij BV
& Universal Music Publishing Ltd. All rights on behalf of Artemis
administered by Warner/Chappell Music Ltd, London W6 8BS.
Reproduced by permission.
The lyrics on p.290 are from ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ by
Leonard Cohen © Sony/ATV Music Publishing. All rights reserved.
Used by permission.
The lyrics on p.342 are from ‘The Great Pretender’ by Buck Ram
© 1955 by Panther Corp. Copyright Renewed. Used by permission
of Music Sales Limited. All Rights Reserved.
International Copyright Secured.
The lyrics on p.353 are from ‘A Night Like This’; words and music by
The Cure. Reproduced by permission of The Cure and BMG Publishing.
The lyrics on pp.358–9 are from ‘Vincent’; words and music by
Don McLean © 1971 Mayday Music, USA. Universal/MCA Music
Limited. Used by permission of Music Sales Limited. All Rights Reserved.
International Copyright Secured.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on
request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 84767 613 9
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