The Executor

by Blake Morrison

  I’d two excuses if Rachel asked: lack of time (I was about to go away on holiday) and surfeit of distress. But the former would sound lazy (‘we’re only looking for eight hundred words, Matt’), the latter wimpish, and both of them unprofessional coming from someone employed on a newspaper.

  I’m not sure how long I sat there. But by the time I returned to the office, I’d reached a compromise: I wouldn’t volunteer, but if Rachel or Leonie pressed me to write something, then fine. I sat at my screen reading the obit Tony had sent. He’d omitted to include the byline, but it read like the work of an academic, perhaps Aaron Fortune, the Australian who’d devoted a chapter to Rob in a survey of contemporary British poetry. I remembered Rob complaining that though the account was appreciative, he hated the chapter heading, ‘The Return to Formalism’. ‘That’s what they’ll put on my fucking headstone: Robert Pope, formalist.’ A reference to Rob’s ‘famously formalistic verse’ came up in the first para of the obit, so I changed it to ‘famously measured but quietly passionate’. Was his poetry passionate? Critics called him cerebral, but he denied it: ‘the deeper you feel, the harder it is to speak’, he used to say, quoting Orlando in As You Like It: ‘What passion hangs these weights upon my tongue?’ Certainly he had been passionate when I first knew him. His years in the US had only a brief mention in the piece, because they predated his first book, but I added a sentence about the influence they had, ‘both in generating ideas about poetry and in creating lasting friendships’. I sent the piece back to Tony with one important factual correction (it was Sussex not Surrey where Rob had grown up) and one further change (‘his last collection disappointed most critics’ became ‘his last collection received mixed reviews’). The best photo of Rob, I told Tony, was the one of him smiling when his third collection won an award; we’d used it before, so I knew the paper had it on file.

  The obit didn’t do Rob justice: how could it in two thousand words? Eight hundred words on the op-ed page would be inadequate, too, but as the afternoon wore on the idea of writing them became increasingly appealing. I sent a short email to Rachel, whose reply came back instantly: ‘Yes, Leonie told me you were friends with him, and it would have been great, but we’ve just decided to go big with a refugee feature on Saturday, so there’s no space.’ She’d copied in Leonie, who sent me an email: ‘Pity but with another 50 drowned in the Med I see her point. Why not take tomorrow off?’ She meant to temper my disappointment, but another part of me was relieved. I raised my head from the screen to find her looking at me. I smiled and mouthed ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Go now,’ she mouthed back, waving her thumb towards the exit.

  On the way to the Tube I stopped off in the park to phone Jill. I’d have felt inhibited calling from the office and, once home, I’d be mobbed. The bench I sat on earlier was occupied. I stood in the shade of an elm. What to say? My mind ran with clichés: shock and sorrow, no words can suffice, deepest condolences, so terrible when he still had so much to live for … What I really wanted was the detail: where? when? how? etc. But that could come later. What she needed was sympathy – from me, from friends, from anyone who’d known him.

  I’d two numbers for him. Rob/Mobile was the one I normally used. But this wasn’t normal. I called Rob/Home.

  Eight rings, then Sorry we’re not here: please leave a message. His voice, not hers. My eyes filled, hearing it. I hung up. Not here. Not anywhere.

  Leaves rustled over my head. Not the wind passing through them, but a squirrel sliding up a branch. I composed myself and called again, half expecting her to answer this time, but ready with a message when she didn’t. I’m so terribly sorry, you must be devastated, please let me know if I can do anything was the gist. I left my number in case she didn’t have it.

  The Tube carriage was half empty. Two men and a woman sat opposite, grey-haired, wrinkled, seventy-plus. It wasn’t fair to hate them for being alive, but I did.

  Walking home from the Tube felt strange, as if I were wading against strong currents again. The Severn bore or a line of breakers. Green water, crested with white.

  ‘Daddy, Daddy,’ the boys shouted, surprised to see me home so early. They were still finishing their tea. I kissed Marie, who was breastfeeding Mabel. She could tell something was wrong.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Rob’s dead,’ I whispered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Rob – he died.’

  ‘What died?’ said Noah, who never misses a thing.

  ‘A robin died,’ said Jack.

  ‘Not a robin, sweetie,’ Marie said. ‘A man called Rob, who’s a friend of Daddy.’

  ‘Poor Rob,’ Jack said.

  ‘Poor Daddy,’ Marie said.

  ‘What’s died mean?’ said Noah, to whom we had tried explaining the meaning of death only recently, while burying Jack’s hamster, and who had been preoccupied with it ever since.

  ‘It’s when a person or an animal goes away and doesn’t come back,’ Marie said.

  ‘Or a bird,’ I said.

  ‘They go to heaven,’ Jack said.

  ‘Maybe,’ I said.

  ‘They do. Mrs Binns told us.’

  ‘What’s heaven?’ Noah said.

  ‘Mummy will explain,’ I said, ‘I’m going to change out of these clothes.’

  ‘Can we play football?’ Jack said.

  ‘Give Daddy a minute,’ Marie said. ‘He’s upset.’

  ‘But can we, Daddy?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, close to tears, not from grief but gratitude. The kids had their priorities right. They wanted to kick a ball with their dad.

  We played in the back garden while Marie put Mabel down. Then I read to the boys while she made supper. She’d opened a bottle of red by the time I came downstairs – an expensive bottle I’d been saving for a special occasion.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, when I pointed that out.

  ‘No, that’s fine. It is special. It’s not every day your best friend dies.’

  ‘Best friend? Really?’ she said, dipping celery in the hummus while the potatoes boiled. ‘It’s not as if you saw him that often.’

  ‘We go right back. Went right back. What other friends do I have?’

  ‘Come on, love. I know you’re grieving, but … There are plenty of people you get on with. You were saying how much you like Mark.’

  ‘We get on because our boys do things together. It doesn’t go deep.’

  ‘And you’ve friends from your job.’

  ‘Colleagues.’

  ‘And the guys at the squash club.’

  ‘Opponents. That’s all. And I don’t play that often. You’re the one with friends.’

  Unable to deny it, she stood up to check on the potatoes. It was the same with most women: they met for coffee, talked on the phone, Skyped, texted, emailed, shopped together, socialised. Whereas the men only mixed through work or sport.

  ‘Rob and I talked about writing. I don’t do that with anyone else.’

  ‘Not with Leonie? Or what’s-his-name who helps with the pages?’

  ‘Chris. No. We only talk about subbing copy. It’s not the same.’

  ‘You’ll miss him, I understand that,’ she said, bringing the food to the table, the kind we like on summer evenings: smoked fish, new potatoes, green salad. ‘All I’m saying is, you do have other friends.’

  She passed the bowl and I scooped out a heap of mixed leaves with the tongs.

  ‘When’s the funeral?’ she said.

  ‘No idea,’ I said, shaking my head. I’d not even thought about it. Would Jill have made the arrangements by now or was it too soon? When my dad died, my mum took care of nearly everything. I was a child in these matters.

  ‘I daresay it’ll happen when we’re in Majorca,’ Marie said.

  ‘Christ,’ I said, ‘you’re right. I’ll have to come back.’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘Majorca’s not far. Two hours by plane. I’ll get there and back in a day.’

  ‘Fuck that. It’
s our first holiday in ages. We have a tiny baby. And your mum will be with us. It’s not fair on her. It’s not fair on me. There’ll be other ways to pay your respects.’

  ‘I can’t not go. I’m his literary executor.’

  ‘You’re a parent to three small kids. People will understand.’

  ‘Rob wasn’t a parent. I don’t think he would.’

  ‘Jill will understand.’

  ‘Makes no odds. I’ll have to do it.’

  ‘Don’t bother to come back, then. In fact, don’t bother coming in the first place. Rob’s obviously more of a priority to you than we are.’

  ‘You know that’s not true.’

  ‘Do I?’

  I backed off. We weren’t going to agree. But there was no point arguing about it till I heard from Jill. When my phone went at 9.15 I thought, Good, that’ll be her. But it was my mother, calling about the arrangements for the next day. It wasn’t the first time we’d been through them, but I suppressed any impatience: yes, I knew she’d ordered a taxi to Norwich Station; yes, I’d be waiting at Liverpool Street when the train got in at 6 p.m.; yes, I’d checked us all in for the flight and she’d be sitting with us, in the same row. She wasn’t forgetful, just anxious. Since my dad died five years before, she’d become increasingly dependent. That her mind was still sharp made things only tougher for her: with dementia she’d have been less conscious of how alone she felt and how hampered by her lack of mobility. I was tempted to tell her about Rob; she’d heard me mention him many times and would know what I was going through. But our experiences didn’t compare. She was widowed, lived alone, had no children to distract her from her grief, just me, her only son, whose voice and mannerisms (so she said) reminded her of my dad’s. Death wasn’t a subject we could share.

  The phone rang again after we’d hung up: it was Alec, from squash, looking for a game next week, when I’d be away. I’d opened a second bottle by then, cheaper than the first. By eleven, half pissed, I gave up and went to bed. Marie was already there but still awake. We’d not made love since Mabel was born, but we did that night, she (I suspect) out of pity, me seething with sorrow and this-is-what-life-amounts-to desire.

  I called Jill again next morning, going straight to voicemail again and repeating my condolences: could she please call me if she felt up to it, I added, since I’d be going away on the Saturday. It was the last day at school and nursery for the boys, morning only. After walking them there I looked after Mabel, while Marie organised the packing. Mabel had so far been a placid baby, but today she kept grizzling, which added to Marie’s stress: ‘Can’t you even manage her for one hour, Matt? For fuck’s sake, take her out in the pram or something.’ Mabel was screaming when we left the house, but dropped off by the end of the road. This would be a good time for Jill to call, I thought, just as she did.

  ‘Thanks for the message,’ she said. ‘Everyone’s been so kind.’

  Her voice sounded upbeat rather than flat. (It’s the second grieving stage, Marie said later: after the shock and disbelief comes the phoning round and organising stuff. The flatness comes later.) When I began offering my sympathies again, she cut me off.

  ‘You know what happened?’ she said.

  ‘No,’ I said. So she told me. (Of course she told you, Marie said. Only by telling it repeatedly will she come to accept it’s true.)

  He’d been off-colour for a few days, she said. And when he woke on Tuesday morning, he complained of stomach pains. He got up, nevertheless; it took a lot to keep him from his study, even on days (and there’d been more and more of those) when he didn’t feel like writing. She suggested porridge; maybe that would calm his stomach. He agreed to give it a go and sat at the table while she filled a Pyrex dish with water and oats. I’ll be late for work, she thought, as she stuck it in the microwave, but if need be I’ll cancel my first appointment. While the Pyrex dish circled round, he complained the pain was worse. All the more reason to try this, she said, lifting the dish out with her oven gloves and turning to see him topple from the chair and slump to the floor. She crouched beside him, putting her ear to his mouth, then his chest. Thank God, he was breathing, but his eyes were thick and as watery as the porridge. She called an ambulance. He was still alive when it arrived seven minutes later, but by the time they reached the hospital – she sitting in the back with a paramedic – he’d gone. They showed her to a waiting room while they tried resuscitation. Twenty minutes later they came through. If she hadn’t known already, she’d have guessed from their faces. I’m sorry, Mrs Pope, we did all we could.

  ‘They think it was an aneurysm of his abdominal aorta, not a coronary,’ she said. ‘And that he died of internal bleeding. The post-mortem results haven’t come through yet, but that’s what they’re saying.’

  Internal bleeding. Rob had always been so out there. It didn’t sound like his kind of death.

  ‘You’re probably wondering about the funeral,’ she said. ‘If he’d seen a doctor in the past month, it’d be easy, but a sudden death means a post-mortem, which complicates everything. Till the coroner signs the death certificate, there’s nothing I can do. You’ll be able to see his body at the undertakers, but I don’t know when that will be. You said something about going on holiday.’

  ‘Yes, tomorrow, to Majorca, for two weeks. But I’ll have this mobile with me. You can let me know about the funeral.’

  ‘Burial’s what Robbie wanted, not cremation. That may delay things, too.’

  ‘I’ll come back whenever it is.’

  ‘There’s really no need. It wouldn’t be fair on Marie and the children. All that way just for a short ceremony.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘I want to be there. You know he asked me to be his literary executor?’

  ‘I know he left a will with his solicitor, but I’ve no idea what’s in it. Until the funeral’s over I can’t even think about it.’

  ‘Of course. The executor thing is neither here nor there.’

  ‘A plain religious service is what I have in mind.’

  Whatever Rob thought about his funeral being held in a church, he’d surely have wanted one of his poems to be read. Some kind of eulogy would be in order too. Which someone would have to deliver. All this was running in my head. But I kept my mouth shut. It wasn’t the moment. He’d only been dead for three days.

  I took my time wheeling Mabel back (she could do with a nice long sleep), worrying I’d struck the wrong note with Jill and recalling three things in particular: first, that she’d remembered Marie’s name, though they’d spent very little time together; second, that she called her husband Robbie, when everyone else knew him as Rob; third that she assumed I’d want to see his body. Would I? There’d be no chance to now I was going away, but even if there had been I didn’t think I would. I’d never seen a dead body. And I didn’t want Rob’s to be the first.

  4

  In late April, halfway through my first year at Brandon, I rented a lakeside cabin for a week, partly because I’d barely left the campus since arriving, partly to get some writing done. When I mentioned it to Rob, he ridiculed the idea (‘Why would being next to a lake help anyone write?’), then invited himself along. I felt too flattered to turn him down. Despite the many hours we’d spent together by then, I couldn’t forget the gap between us – in age as well as status.

  The lakeside cabin was a two-hour bus ride from Brandon, then half an hour by bike. Our Walden week, Rob called it, who spent the bus journey mocking Thoreau (‘Total fake. His cabin was next to a busy commuter route. In twenty minutes he could be home eating his mother’s biscuits, and usually was’), before surprising me with his appetite for outdoor life. Little writing got done, but every day we’d swim from the jetty or take out canoes or hike through the woods or cycle by moonlight to the diner on the distant highway. His boyish enthusiasm was matched by a Boy Scoutish expertise, which included barbecuing chicken over a fire built from driftwood and twigs.

  He also surprised me with a love of prank
s. The cycle-hire place in town was small and only one suitable trail-bike was available – Rob settled for a lumbering old ladies’ bike with a basket at the front and a child-seat behind. He didn’t seem to mind. One afternoon we were cycling through the forest and came out in a glade overlooking the lake, where several families were having picnics, each sitting apart at its own table. ‘Watch this,’ Rob said, pulling up with a screech of brakes and looking round at the empty child-seat. ‘Oh, my God,’ he shouted. ‘The baby! The baby’s fallen out!’ He swung round and pedalled off in the direction we’d come from, leaving me to watch the expressions on the picnickers’ faces. What did they look like, he wanted to know when I caught him up: horrified, bemused or merely curious? I accused him of ruining their day. Not at all, he said, he’d given them something to talk about: ‘Intriguing your audience, it’s called: grabbing their attention and then tantalising them – don’t they teach you that in creative writing classes?’

  Little writing got done at the cabin, as I say, but there was a lot of talk about how to go about it and (Rob’s speciality) how not to. ‘I’m here to save you from all the crap you’re being fed on the MFA,’ he said. ‘Show don’t tell. Don’t do either. Be ambiguous and evasive: hide, camouflage, disguise. Write about what you know. No, write about what you’d like to find out. All the best stories are true. All the best stories are made up. Kill your darlings. God no, why the fuck do that?’ Having him around stopped me from getting on. But as he saw it, that was a mercy. Better to listen to him than to my tutors.

  On the last night, a Friday, after burger, fries and beers at the diner, we sat on the cabin porch, a row of citronella tealights on the wooden rail in front of us (the mosquitoes were terrible) and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s between us.

  ‘Here’s to exile,’ he said, chinking glasses.

  ‘It’s hardly exile,’ I said. ‘We could go back home any time.’

  ‘To England, yes. And I will one day. But Tennessee, no, I can’t go back there.’