by Robert Ward
This is outrageous. I wonder who it is that’s killing me? I wonder if he’ll be killed too? I bet he survives. It might be a she of course, but I feel it’s a he. The timing of this thing must have been exact somehow. Fate, I suppose. Or is it the Fates? I suppose with so much movement in the world these things are bound to happen. Maybe we move too fast, that’s the trouble. Or maybe it’s too far. I’ve often thought that if you stay in bed nothing much can happen to you.
People can die at any time of course. Babies die, don’t they? What is it they say? Life is a lottery? I wonder if I’ve been good? There’s no heaven or hell of course. No rewards and no punishments. Nothing. I won’t feel or know anything, will I? I just won’t be any more.
If I’d had children I’d have left my genetic imprint that could have carried on down through the generations. But even that would come to an end one time. When the Earth dies. Which is definitely going to happen, apparently. But maybe before that happens we’ll have learnt how to travel vast distances in space and found other planets to inhabit. Energy and time seem to be the problems there. I’ll never know now, but neither will anyone else who’s alive today. In a hundred years or so from now, everyone who’s alive now will be dead. It’s just that it’s happening to me, now.
I wonder if it’s better to know beforehand, or for it to happen unexpectedly? A lingering death or a sudden one? I’d rather not have either, but I don’t seem to have any choice. But nobody does. Unless they choose to kill themselves. I can feel a song in my head, but I can’t make out the words or the tune. It seems very familiar though. It’s strange because I never sing. I should have sung more. Too late now, again.
Everything I did and said and thought, or didn’t, is all there is now. I can’t add anything to it. What I’ve done is what I am. I can’t change anything. And then I won’t be anything at all. It’s a pity, because I could have been something different. I wonder how much everything you do, like swatting a fly or scratching your cheek makes you what you are?
In the end, and this really is the end, I don’t suppose it matters. Any of it. It’s just something that is, or was, for no reason. There’s no point in me thinking about it anymore. There’s no point in anything at all now. I wonder if there ever was? That’s what more than anything annoys me. What the hell was the point of it all? I’m doing it again. Thinking about it.
Once, long ago, there seemed time for everything, but now the time has run out and everything hasn’t happened. I don’t suppose there would ever be enough time for that though. But there doesn’t seem to have been enough. It all just wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. Don’t let there be any pain.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Richard found that he wasn’t able to attend the funeral. He had intended to initially, but as the day approached he knew with increasing certainty that he couldn’t. What would be the point anyway he kept asking himself, Elizabeth wouldn’t be there, and the answer eased his conscience.
He blamed himself of course, because if she hadn’t been on her way to see him she’d still be alive. If only, he seemed to have said to himself a thousand times. It was the unreality of it that made it hard for him to accept. Because he hadn’t seen her for so long. But she had always been part of his life, always. He felt the loss of her terribly, profoundly, but it didn’t seem like the loss of someone real in a sense. It was as though she was something more than that. More than flesh and soul. He didn’t understand what he felt. No matter how many times he tried to analyse it, he never understood. It was pointless to try, and he knew it.
The day of the funeral, Richard took out the box in which he kept her letters and other little pieces of his memory of her, but couldn’t bring himself to open it. When he was in America he’d bought her a thin silver bracelet and was going to give it to her the day she was killed. He didn’t know why he’d bought it for her really. It was a nondescript sort of bracelet, though pretty, and she had always preferred silver to gold. He could have bought it for her anywhere and it had no value as a souvenir from a particular place, but at the time he just felt the urge to get her something. She would have liked it, he thought.
He held the bracelet in his clenched fist and hugged the box, which he had had on his lap, close to his chest, and started to cry. He wept bitterly, inconsolably, and his whole body convulsed with the sobs that came from the centre of his being as he rocked to and fro, wishing with everything he had that it was her he was holding.
The next day he woke late, having drunk himself into oblivion the night before, feeling too numb to be sick. He wasn’t sure if it was better to be alone or to have Miranda there with him. She could have distracted him a little, just by being there, but all her love and sympathy couldn’t have taken the pain away.
He had eaten very little since the day of Elizabeth’s death and he knew he was making himself ill, but he simply couldn’t summon the will to feed his body. It seemed, somehow, selfish. He drank almost enough to kill himself but could never seem to get drunk. He just suddenly became unconscious, as though he physically shut himself down, his system trying to preserve itself. When he woke again he began the process anew.
It was the second morning after the funeral when he woke after a very long sleep and felt strangely refreshed. It was four o’clock, but he hadn’t kept more normal hours for some time. He smoked, lying back on the bed, feeling how swollen and burnt his tongue was. He hadn’t been without a cigarette during his conscious hours for days. He shaved and showered and dressed to go out.
The decision was made on an impulse and he didn’t allow himself to change his mind. He set off while it was still dark outside and wouldn’t be light for some hours.
Long after dawn had broken the sky remained dark, laden with leaden clouds which banked up against each other and brought heavy rain with them as they scudded lowly above the cold wet cemetery. Richard parked his car just inside the gates and walked towards what looked to him like a fresh plot, though in reality it was hardly distinguishable now from many others. He was right though, and thought for a moment that he had been led to it. But he knew it had been a lucky guess, whatever had made him make it.
He was wearing a black raincoat and he carried a black umbrella. He should have opened it, as the rain fell in cold driving sheets one moment and then eased to fall in fat heavy drops the next, but he just held it in his hand instead, not concerned by the rain. The cemetery looked neglected somehow, though there was nothing about it that made it more neglected than others. They were all much the same he supposed, and neglect was probably part of their essence. Crows cawed and circled above, and he noticed how tall and old the bare trees looked. Quite beautiful actually.
He looked down at the grave, not allowing himself to think about the dead body a few feet below for more than a second. Of course it was at the back of his mind, but he did his best to keep it there. Now that he was here he began to wonder why he had come, and what to think about. People usually prayed over graves, didn’t they? Or said something to the hidden body, as though you were talking to the real person. But he didn’t have anything to pray to or for, and he knew Elizabeth wasn’t under the ground at his feet.
He threw his head back and let the rain fall onto his face and opened his mouth. The water tasted of nothing and he closed his eyes to stop being blinded. He felt like screaming, but didn’t. He then looked down at the grave for the last time. “Goodbye, Elizabeth, my love,” he said, to himself.
Nick and Morty emerged from their hut just as Richard turned away to walk back to his car.
“There’s an early bird,” Morty said, adjusting his cap to combat the rain. “We must have only just opened the gates before he arrived.”
“Which one was he at? A fresh one?” Nick asked.
“Couple of days,” Morty answered.
There were two graves to be dug that morning, though actually one of them only needed to be finished off, and they were keen to get on with the job so they could get back in out of the rain. Nick, who
’d had a late night, yawned and then wiped his eyes with the back of his wrist and stopped for a moment, leaning on his spade.
“You found yourself another girl yet?” Morty asked as he continued to dig.
“No luck,” Nick answered. “I wish this fucking rain would stop. No, no luck last night. She asked me what I did. I lied of course, but it still didn’t work.”
“Never mind. Another night tonight.”
The rain had made little mud slides in the earth they had piled up at the sides of the grave and the wind gathered in strength and buffeted against them. Morty took a rest also and turned his back to the direction the wind was coming from.
“Long ago, long ago…” he said.
“What?” Nick asked after waiting for a moment, expecting him to continue.
“Oh, nothing,” Morty said. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing does, you know. Come on, let’s get this finished and then we can get inside.”
They dug in the heavy wet earth, working up a sweat despite the cold and before long they felt they had done enough for now and could take a break. They hurried back to the hut and made some more tea and took out their sandwich boxes.
“I wish we’d finished it now,” Nick said. “But it was so fucking cold and wet.”
“Won’t take long when we get back. Then we’ll finish off that other. We’ve broke the back of it.”
Nick ran his hand through his greasy blonde hair and sat forward on his rickety chair and looked at Morty who was pushing half a sandwich into his mouth.
“You ever get fed up with this game, Morty?” he asked.
“This game?” Morty said, chewing. “Oh yes. All the time. Still, it’s better than nothing I suppose. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking you won’t be doing this when you’re my age, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Yes you were. But don’t worry about it, boy. If you are you are, if you’re not you’re not. Don’t think about it. We all have to do something.”
“I wasn’t thinking about that, honest, Morty,” Nick said. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”
The rain beat against the hut, driven by the now gale force wind and they abandoned any plans to continue work until it eased. Instead, they made more tea and sat facing each other, both sitting forward on their chairs and cupping their mugs in their hands.
“It’s just that you seem to have done so much,” Nick said, suddenly. “And I haven’t done anything.”
“You’ve time yet, boy,” Morty said, taking off his wet cap and wiping his bald head with a handkerchief. “Things just happen. All you have to do is wait.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Just wait. You think nothing has happened, but then you think back and there’s been a lot.”
“I’ve got a fruit and nut,” Nick said, breaking the bar in two. “You want half?” he asked, offering it to Morty.
“Yes, please,” Morty said.
It was an hour later before the wind and the rain had eased enough for them to go back to work, though the ground was sodden and the conditions were still uncomfortable. They set to however and by the early afternoon they felt they could take another rest. Morty thrust his spade deep into the soft earth, and Nick, taking his lead from him, did the same.
“Yes, the world has changed,” Morty said, turning and looking around him.
“How?” Nick asked. “I thought you meant some things stayed the same.”
“They do. But even so, the world has changed. You think the world you’re born into is how the world is and always should be. But it isn’t so. I try to explain to myself why the world has changed, but I can’t. It isn’t me that’s changed, and not the world, is it?”
“I don’t know,” Nick said.
“No, me neither.”
A little way away from where they were standing was the patch of ground where Elizabeth was buried. The cemetery was very quiet, with no visitors. It was too grey and cold and wet. The sky was still dark and threatening and the temperature had dropped again and there was a possibility of snow. The crows continued to swirl above and settle in their black prickly nests and then swirl again. The world seemed black and cold and not a place for things to live in, but living things seemed to survive in it, no matter what. It was a miraculous and terrible place.
Snow did begin to fall, and by the evening, when the Sun had given up its losing battle to break through the clouds, there was a film of white on the ground, getting thicker and colder and harder. The snowflakes floated down and covered the place where Elizabeth was buried and in the dark death of night, her grave and all those around it became invisible under the cold white beautiful carpet.
The sky then cleared, gradually, and within an hour it was cloudless, and stars sparkled in the inky sky above the cold earth.
Robert Ward was born in Liverpool and read Philosophy at the University of Sussex.
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Copyright © Robert Ward, 2015
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