Song of the Dead

by Douglas Lindsay

  There are tears in his eyes. He looks strong, but suicide is so damned tough. Tougher than all the rest. It really is. Bad enough to lose a sibling to an accident or illness or murder, but with those there’s usually nothing you could have done. But with suicide you’re always left wondering. The phone call you never made, the argument you had, the visit you cancelled, the doctor’s appointment you didn’t do enough to make sure was kept.

  ‘Of course.’

  He shakes my hand again, and turns back to be with the family. I have no idea what I’m going to say.

  * * *

  Unusually, it seems everyone who was at the graveyard is now back at the house. What had seemed like a small crowd outdoors, now makes for a busy sitting room and kitchen.

  Not a great deal of conversation, and what there is, barely audible. No one has much to say. Usually, once the burial or service is over, people will relax, conversation will be had. Relatives who only ever meet at funerals and weddings will catch up with all the news.

  I don’t see that happening here. The sense of loss, of confusion, in Dorothy’s immediate family, seems to be infecting everyone. Even the few who I decide likely came down here from King Charles Street are saying little. Maybe there are some people from Vauxhall Cross too. The two organisations work so closely together, Dorothy might well have had friends over the river.

  I don’t know any of these people, but they stand out when you know what you’re looking for.

  That guy there, looking at his watch. Of course, he could be desperate to get back to any office in the city, but I feel like I know him. I feel like he’s me, ten years ago. The same eyes, the same look cast around the room, the same look that we give to every room of people, searching for anyone who shouldn’t be there, searching for anything out of the ordinary.

  I get a cup of tea, help myself to a plate of food. Three small sandwiches, a piece of quiche, two sausage rolls. The food of the bereaved. I walk over to the side of the room and place the cup down on a mat at the edge of a sideboard. Take up my position on the periphery. The guy who doesn’t really know anyone else there. The guy who feels slightly out of place. The guy who’s thinking about leaving the minute he arrives.

  What do I look like? An ex-boyfriend perhaps? Or a chancer who walked in off the street looking for a free sandwich? The funeral crasher.

  ‘Hey, how you doing?’

  Young guy. I knew it. One of my old lot. Trained to get information out of people at awkward social functions. Perhaps some of the low conversation was a few of them clustered together saying, who’s the guy in the corner, we need to find out. Make sure he’s supposed to be here. Hey, Matt, you’ve done the course, go and speak to him.

  Like I might be one of those terrorists, subverting the western world by eating sandwiches to which he’s not entitled.

  ‘Good, thanks,’ I say.

  ‘So, how d’you know Dorothy?’

  I take a bite of a sandwich so that he has to wait until I’ve finished my mouthful before getting an answer. He acknowledges my right to food and waits patiently, looking back over the small room. Bright wallpaper, unusual abstract pictures. Colours and shapes, impossible to do anything other than interpret what they might be. I don’t do art, so wouldn’t even try.

  Take some tea.

  ‘We were friends,’ I say. ‘You?’

  ‘We did some work together. So, how did…’

  ‘Where?’

  Slight pause. That’s not how the interrogation is supposed to go. It’s not supposed to be about him. It’s about me.

  ‘On an overseas development project. So…’

  ‘You’re DFID?’

  Another pause, then, ‘Yes, DFID. It…’

  ‘You’re not from Vauxhall Cross then?’ I ask.

  He gives me a look and then rolls his eyes, shakes his head.

  ‘Didn’t recognise you,’ he says.

  ‘I left while you were still at Oxford.’

  ‘Durham,’ he says quickly. ‘I didn’t think Dorothy knew too many of our lot.’

  ‘Drove from Tallinn with her last week.’

  Now there’s recognition. He holds my gaze for a moment, let’s his eyes drop, nods, touches my arm. Touches my arm…

  ‘Right. Sorry. That must have been pretty tough for you.’

  Looks back up, I answer with a slight movement of the head. He’s still nodding.

  ‘Right, OK, I should… yeah, good to meet you. Enjoy the, eh…’ and he indicates the food and turns to retreat to his comrades.

  Well that ended quickly once he’d learned who I was. I must be a thing. Someone they’re talking about. The guy who took the last drive with Dorothy. The guy who, quite literally, drove her to suicide.

  Alone again. Through the door I can see Dorothy’s mother. Sitting at a table, her eyes glazed over. I’m here to talk to her, but it’s not time yet. I’ll need to wait until she’s ready, although I doubt she will be today. There’s someone sitting with her, but neither of them is talking.

  I turn and look out the window. Grey December, not much snow lying out on the street. Some on the hedge across the road. There’s a bookshelf to my right, and I do that thing that people in my situation do the world over. No one to talk to, so you try to stay busy, so that you’re not just standing there, so you’re not drawing attention to yourself by your isolation.

  I could be talking to people if I wanted, you’re saying, but right now I’m looking at these photographs, or this painting, or these books on the bookshelf.

  There are two rows of books, all paperbacks, all with the spine broken in several places. Many of the usual suspects. Wolf Hall. A Prayer for Owen Meany. The Great Gatsby. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The Life of Pi. Midnight’s Children. Kidnapped. Dance, Dance, Dance. And then, there it is. Right in the middle. Waiting to be picked out. A thin paperback, one noticeable crease down the spine, the title of the book in red, the author’s name in black.

  The Song of the Dead by H Wakamoto.

  I stand and look at it for a moment. There’s a cup of tea in my left hand, a sandwich in my right. I put the sandwich into my mouth, but don’t immediately reach out to lift the book. I remember a line now, now that I’m standing here looking at this, but I don’t know where I’ve heard it before.

  The voice that I recall saying the words, was it Dorothy or was it that other voice inside my head, the voice that spoke the words, it finishes today?

  They creep up behind, to cut off my head,

  And all I can hear, is the song of the dead…

  Staring at the book, the cup of tea hovering just below my mouth, eating the last of the sandwich, I feel the hairs begin to stand on my neck. The Song of the Dead. This is her book. This is Melanie Waverley’s book.

  Melanie and my Dorothy, do they inhabit the same world? Yes! Of course they inhabit the same world! Don’t we all inhabit the same world?

  Someone taps me on the shoulder. Turning and taking a step away, I spill a little tea. Eyes wide with surprise, as though they’ve snuck up on me.

  ‘Sorry,’ says Dorothy’s brother, ‘didn’t mean to frighten you. I wondered if you could come and talk to Mum now.’

  I stare at him for a moment, then look back through the door into the next room. She’s still sitting in the same position, her head down, her eyes staring blankly ahead. I wonder if the family has decided that it’s time I speak to her, or whether she herself has asked.

  ‘Of course,’ I say.

  ‘Thanks.’

  He starts to walk through, and I follow him. I glance back over my shoulder at the bookshelf, but already I’m too far away to distinguish the writing on the spines of individual books.

  I pause for a last look. I think it’s still there. White, with red and black writing. On a bookshelf, where it ought to be.

 

 

  reading books on Archive.