‘They’re all out of order, I’m afraid,’ Pat says.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say.
I say, ‘Oh!’ I hold a photo up. ‘The old army barracks.’
‘That’s right,’ Pat says. ‘You’ve been there, then?’
‘Yes, yes. Greg took me. We played there a lot.’
‘He liked playing there with Nolan too – Look at these.’ She takes some more ‘barracks’ photographs from the box.
Greg and Nolan inside one of the huts. Greg running with Nolan in between the huts. Greg and Nolan sitting on the long grass, eating sandwiches. And then . . . a photo that makes me gasp.
‘Oh, I love that one too!’ Pat says. ‘I’m going to get it framed.’
The photo is of Nolan. He is standing in the meadow behind the huts. All around him are flowers. Bright blue flowers.
‘The flowers come up like that every spring,’ Pat says. ‘Have done for as long as anyone can remember, apparently. Their perfume is . . . oh, it’s overwhelming. Did you ever see them?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I’ve never been here in the spring.’
‘They’ll be in full bloom now. You can see them on your way back if you like.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t want to see them.’
The flowers are hyacinths.
Greg cleaned the blood from his face.
I cleaned the blood from my leg.
Then we drove back to Elm Fork.
We didn’t say a word for the whole journey.
Bert asked us how the beach was.
We told him it was a bit chilly.
The next morning I said, ‘I think I’ll go home.’
‘Okay,’ Greg said.
He drove me to the station.
I got out of the car. Greg didn’t get out with me.
‘I best get back to Dad quick as I can,’ he said. ‘He’s looking a bit fragile this morning. You know?’
‘Yeah. Sure.’
‘Your train won’t be long.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll phone you.’
‘Yeah. Great.’
‘Bye.’
‘Bye.’
Pat walks me to my car. ‘That’s a Porsche, right?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘The 911 Turbo.’
‘You must be rich.’
‘I am.’
Pat kisses me on the cheek.
‘Drive safely,’ she says.
I get in the car and drive away.
I take the road to the coast. It takes me out of the way but I want to see it one more time before I go home.
The sun’s setting by the time I get there. For a moment, when I glance at the beach, I see something lying on the shingle, dark and still, like a dolphin or a drowned man. Two boys are kneeling, one on either side of the dead thing. They are rendered helpless by what lies between them. This feeling of helplessness is so strong that, even though I’m some distance away, I can still feel it.
EMBRACING VERDI
It was the morning we were burying Dad and, as I left the house with Mum to get in the funeral car, I saw a man on the other side of the street. He was on a motorbike and wearing a black leather jacket.
‘Who’s that?’ I asked, pointing.
‘I don’t know,’ Mum said.
‘Why’s he stopped then?’
‘People just do that! Out of respect.’
The car pulled away from the curb and Mum, tissue in hand, waved at the neighbours. I was surprised at how many there were to wave back. Even the old couple on the corner were by their front gate.
I was in two minds if I should wave too. It seemed appropriate for Mum to do it – especially with her tear-damp tissue – but, somehow, for me, I feared it might come over as a tad frivolous. I am, as they say (or, at least as Mum keeps saying), ‘the man of the house now’, so surely my tissue waving days are over (if they ever existed at all).
‘The sun’s come out!’ Mum said. ‘God’s watching over us today.’
She touched the silver crucifix Dad had bought her three years ago, just after he’d found out he was ill. He’d bought me one too. Today was the first time I’d worn it. I’m not a lover of jewelry.
I said, ‘The forecast says rain by midday.’
‘Oh, they always get it wrong. Mind you, your dad wouldn’t have minded. He loved a good storm.’
‘Dad?!’
‘Oh, yes. I remember we had a picnic with his mum once. And . . . oh, did it rain! A deluge! We all rushed back to the car. Not your dad. He splashed about in the puddles like a little kid. His mum called out to him, “You’ll catch pneumonia!” But he wouldn’t get in the car. He did make us laugh, though.’
‘Dad?!’
‘Why d’you keep saying “Dad?!” like that? Don’t you believe me?’
‘I just can’t imagine him doing . . . stuff like that.’
‘Oh, he was fun to be with when he was your age.’
We stopped at some traffic lights. I heard a motorbike revving and, a moment later, the stranger in black leather pulled up alongside. He had the visor to his helmet down now, so all I could see were his lips. He was murmuring something. Perhaps he was praying.
‘Are the other cars keeping up with us?’ Mum asked.
I looked behind. ‘Yes.’
Apart from the car for me and Mum, there were two others for Mum’s friends from the supermarket (where Mum worked four days a week) and the charity shop (where she helped out whenever she could). Mum had invited other people to the ceremony – mainly from the church choir – but they were all making their own way there.
I looked at the stranger on the motorbike again. His jeans were torn and frayed, which, though it may have been considered ‘the fashion’, I found ridiculous. Why deliberately damage perfectly good clothes?
I leant forward to see more of the biker. He looked in his mid- to late-twenties. His T-shirt, I noticed, though spotlessly clean, was ripped in several places. There was a tear just below his ribcage. The revealed skin was smooth and –
He turned to look at me!
I should have looked away, I know, but – for some reason – I just stared back. I saw myself reflected in his visor. Is this how I seemed to him? So small. So . . . distorted.
The traffic lights changed to green and we turned into the main road, heading for the flyover. For a while the motorbike kept up with us – or just behind – then, suddenly, it sped up and, weaving recklessly between vehicles, disappeared out of sight.
‘There’s someone with a death wish,’ Mum said.
I noticed something written on the back of his jacket. A single word in – what looked like – golden rhinestones: VERDI.
‘A death wish and vulgar taste,’ I said.
It took longer than expected to get to Manor Park Cemetery because a lorry had shed its load (microwaves, by the look of it), and there was a half-mile tailback on the motorway. I kept checking my watch. The funeral service – which I’d organized with Reverend Cole – was scheduled to last twenty-five minutes – the maximum time allowed at the crematorium – and every minute stuck in traffic meant a minute less in an already tight order of ceremony. I started to work out what we could cut. If we were up to five minutes late, we should lose one of the hymns. If it was nearer ten, Reverend Cole would have to cut his sermon in half as well.
When we eventually got to the chapel, Reverend Cole took me to one side and whispered, ‘We’ve only got twenty minutes, I’m afraid.’ I told him, ‘No problem. Lose He Who Would Valiant Be.’ Then I rushed to help carry the coffin.
Reverend Cole had – initially – been against the idea of me doing any pallbearing. The reason? His wife, the religious instructor at St Jude’s, my school, had told him that Mr Barkham, the gym teacher, had told her that I’d ‘pulled something’ in my left shoulder during a recent training session, and that everyone was very worried – in particular, the headmaster – that I wouldn’t be fit enough to take part in the upcoming East London Schools’ Swimming Compet
ition. But I’d said to Reverend Cole, ‘I have to be pallbearer at my own father’s funeral. It’s what’s expected. And, please don’t worry, I’ll make sure I don’t do any further damage to my shoulder. I won’t let anyone down.’
‘I’m sure you won’t,’ he had said, smiling. ‘You never do.’
The coffin was a lot heavier than I’d expected and, even though – at seventeen – I was, by far, the youngest bearing it, I was also the tallest, so I took most of the weight. At least, that’s what it felt like. I made sure I wasn’t carrying it on the ‘pulled’ shoulder, but as I walked down the aisle I had a growing anxiety that I was on the wrong side of the church. Surely, I should be on the side where Mum was sitting. Once the coffin had been placed on the bier, I rushed round to the right side (in both senses of the word) to bow my head. I stayed in that position for longer than was strictly necessary, touching my injured shoulder, as if to say, ‘Were it not for having an injury, I would have been on the correct side all along.’
I sat next to Mum and immediately started going over the eulogy in my head. I’d been struggling to write it for most of the previous week. The main problem was that, after the basic biographical stuff, I didn’t really know what else to say. I wasn’t sure what music Dad liked, what films he liked, indeed what things – if any – he had been interested in at all. It certainly wasn’t me. When I told him I’d become captain of the school swimming team all he said was, ‘Really? Oh!’ Mum knew I was having trouble and, a couple of days ago, she came to my room and said, ‘Why don’t you just mention something nice that happened.’
‘Something . . . “nice”?’ (I wanted say, ‘Our English teacher says we must never use the word “nice”. It’s far too lazy an adjective. Only “sherry trifle” can ever be “nice”.)
Mum went on, ‘Tell them about something your dad did for you. When you were young.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know. Think!’
I did think. I thought about nothing else. Finally – late last night – when I’d just about given up, I remembered when, one Christmas, we went to Victoria Park and, while we were making a snowman, I lost my gloves. Dad gave me his to put on. Big leather things that, on me, looked like boxing gloves. I can’t remember if we laughed about it – I don’t remember Dad doing much laughing about anything – but I wrote that we did anyway. In fact, I wrote we laughed and had a playful boxing match and I accidentally hit Dad on the jaw and he fell over in the snow and I rushed over to him calling out, ‘Dad! Dad!’ and just as I was starting to get really, really worried he suddenly sat up and went, ‘Boo!’ and I nearly jumped out of my skin and we both laughed louder than ever, and he carried me back home on his shoulders, telling everyone we met that I was the new Heavyweight Boxing Champion. Oh, what a very, very ‘nice’ anecdote that is, eh? Such a shame it’s ninety per cent fiction.
When I stood up to deliver the eulogy, however, (after singing our one remaining hymn, Onward Christian Soldiers) I couldn’t help worrying it was a bit . . . insubstantial for such an extremely ‘substantial’ event. But, as I told it (without hesitation or stumble), I was surprised to see it provoking tears – not just from Mum – but quite a few of her supermarket colleagues, and nearly all her – and my – fellow choristers. Their tears made me wonder if – for the sake of etiquette – I should be crying as well. I tried my best to produce a teardrop or two, but my eyes remained resolutely dry, and I couldn’t get my voice to crack no matter how hard I tried. How do actors do it?! As I came to the end of the eulogy, I settled for some corny ‘mime’ and rubbed imaginary tears from my cheeks. It seemed to do the trick because, after the service, Mrs Garnet, who is in charge of the church choir, said to me, ‘You are such a brave, brave boy. All that emotion inside you, and you tried so very hard to keep it hidden. Bless you.’ But I didn’t feel blessed. Or brave. Just relieved it was over.
As soon as Reverend Cole had delivered the committal – and the coffin had disappeared through the curtains to be incinerated – he looked at me and tapped his wrist watch. The next funeral party was clearly waiting to come in. I gave Reverend Cole an understanding nod and helped usher everyone towards the cars as swiftly as decorum would allow.
Mum said, ‘I wish there’d been more flowers. Look at how many the next funeral is unloading! It’s like the Chelsea Flower Show.’
‘It’s not our fault Dad didn’t have any friends.’
‘He didn’t want friends. He didn’t need them. He had us! Family. For some men that’s enough.’
‘But you just said – ’
‘What I meant was . . . we should have bought more flowers.’
‘Us?’
‘Yes! We should have . . . we should have . . . oh, I don’t know.’
I noticed the motorbike as we drove through the cemetery gates. It was parked next to the flower stall. I looked around for the stranger in black leather, but I couldn’t see him anywhere. Was he in the cemetery? He must be. Why else would he be here?
‘Stop fidgeting!’
‘Sorry, Mum.’
Everyone came back to our house for some food and drink. I’d already told Mum that I had no objection to mingling for about half an hour, but then I’d like to go up to my room where I’d remain until everyone had gone. I asked if she thought that would be acceptable. Mum said, ‘Of course. You’re amongst friends. They’ll understand.’
I took a bottle of Coke and some sandwiches upstairs and, as I closed the bedroom door behind me, felt a sense of relief verging on the euphoric. I removed my silver cross and put it back in its box. I liked the way it slipped snugly between its crimson velvet crease. I took my suit off and put it on a coat hanger. My shirt needed a wash, so I put it in the laundry basket. I was wearing my ‘best’ shoes, so I wrapped them in tissue paper, put them in a plastic bag, then put the bag on top of my wardrobe.
The weather was still warm and a little muggy – sunshine had persisted, despite the gloomy forecasts – so I put on a clean T-shirt and a pair of shorts. I only ever wear shorts indoors. For me, there’s something uncouth about adults wearing shorts when they’re outside. Well, if not uncouth then, at least, unsmart. On a beach, of course, such attire may be acceptable. But not in a city. I feel the same about men walking around stripped to the waist. I would never do that, even though – as I have been told many times – I have a very good physique. So I should. I train very hard.
I could hear Mum and her friends laughing downstairs. At one point Mum took them to the back garden to show off the decking Dad had done a few years ago. I heard someone from the supermarket say, ‘I wish my husband could do things like this. Our garden is a total tip.’ Mum said, ‘Oh, I married the perfect handyman.’
Perfect handyman?
One by one, as the late afternoon became early evening, the funeral guests started to leave. I was halfway through listening to the Evening Concert on Radio Three, when Mum called up, ‘Coast clear!’ I forsook Bach’s Cello Suite No. 5 (one of my favourites!) and went downstairs.
I helped Mum clear up – neither of us could relax if there was mess in the house – and then we both sat in the living room to finish what was left of the sausage rolls and cream cakes.
‘Don’t eat too much,’ Mum said. ‘There’s a swimming competition this coming Sunday, don’t forget.’
‘I’ll work it all off tomorrow.’
‘How’s your shoulder feeling?’
‘Fine.’
There was a film on the television – a western – and we sort of half watched it, half didn’t. It was nearly over when I said, ‘Dad liked westerns. Didn’t he?’
‘Oh, yes. His favourite film ever was a western.’
‘What one?’
‘Shane.’
‘I’ve never heard of it.’
‘Oh, it’s an old film.’
‘Why didn’t Dad ever mention it?’
‘He did to me.’
‘He didn’t to me.’
‘Well . . . perhaps
he thought you wouldn’t be interested.’
Later, back in my room, I thought I should pray before going to sleep. I didn’t pray at night very often, but after the events of the previous fourteen hours – indeed the whole ten days since Dad had died – I thought it not just appropriate but, probably, obligatory.
I knelt beside my bed, clasped my hands together and closed my eyes, just like Mum had taught me when I was a child. I thanked God for helping me get through the eulogy. I thanked Him for keeping the sun shining all day. I asked Him to look after Mum and keep her safe. I asked him to look after Dad in Heaven. Amen.
Then I got a notebook. I opened it to a new page and wrote:
Rain.
Shane.
Handyman.
The next day, Tuesday, I went to the local swimming pool at the Oasis Health Centre before school. It opened at seven o’clock, which meant I could have at least a hundred minutes of solid training in an empty – or near empty – pool.
I was the first through the doors and, although the staff knew me well, none of them, mercifully, mentioned the events of the preceding day. I was in my swimming costume, showered, and diving in the deep end within three minutes. I did the butterfly stroke to test how my shoulder would hold up. There were a few twinges at first, but they soon wore off. I changed to the breast stroke (my favourite), and imagined, as I always do, the water rushing – not just around my body – but through it, washing away impurities, rinsing away the dirt, the chlorine disinfecting every atom of me. This is one of the things that so attracted me to swimming in the first place. It’s the only sport where you finish cleaner than when you started.
I hadn’t slept very well the night before, so I was relying on the swim to revive me (as it always – invariably – did). The insomnia hadn’t been caused by any lingering anxiety about standing on the wrong side of the coffin (or, indeed, anything to do with Dad’s demise whatsoever), but by the sound of a motorbike – the motorbike – just after midnight. I was sure it had stopped outside my house. I’d rushed to the window, but by the time I’d got there it was disappearing round the corner at the end of the street. I could still hear it, though. It seemed to be circling, keeping a distance of one or two blocks wherever it went.
Flamingoes in Orbit Page 12
