A Song for Issy Bradley

by Carys Bray

  “That’s OK,” he says. “You knew. ‘To some is given the word of knowledge’—that’s what it says in the scriptures; you knew before I did. That’s OK. It’s no one’s fault.”

  “What’s the point of blessings then, Ian? What’s the point?”

  He is about to answer when he realizes her question is about more than blessings. “You know the point of everything,” he says. “To come to Earth and gain a body. To be tested and found worthy.” She sighs and closes her eyes. He squeezes her hand. “It’s—it’s been weeks, Claire. You can’t stay here forever. It’ll be Christmas before we know it. The children need you.”

  She opens her eyes. “Do you think this life is a short time?” she asks.

  “Oh yes,” he says. “The blink of an eye.”

  “A very short time?”

  “Yes.”

  “So when someone dies it seems like a long time to the people left behind, but it isn’t a long time at all.”

  “That’s right.” He knew she would understand eventually. He squeezes her hand again. “It’s just moments.”

  “You’d be OK if anyone died, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes,” he says with more confidence than he feels. “With the Lord’s help and an eternal perspective I’d be OK. But it’s unlikely that anyone else will die soon. Is that what you’re worried about? Is that what all this is about? Statistically it’s very unlikely. I can work it out if you like, if it’ll make you feel better.”

  “No, no, it’s OK.” She pulls her hand away from his and reaches out to touch his face. “You’re all right, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” he lies, turning to kiss her palm. She doesn’t move her hand so he grasps it and rubs it against his cheek. “I mean, I miss you.” He laughs—it sounds like something he should say on the telephone or write on the back of a postcard. “I’d like it if you’d come back. Any time soon would be good.” He tries to smile, to offer some encouragement. “But I’m all right. Everyone’s all right.”

  “And you’ll be all right no matter what happens, won’t you?” Although he is beginning to realize the answer to her question is no, he doesn’t want to disappoint her. “Yes, I’ll be fine.”

  He looks at her bare face. Her skin is oily and gray. She smells of sweat and bed, but he doesn’t care. These past weeks have been so lonely. Her hand is a stroke of consolation and a reminder of sex. He turns his head to kiss her palm again and she just watches, so he kisses the heel of her hand and then her wrist. She doesn’t turn away as he edges closer on his knees, already thinking about undoing his belt, about squeezing into the bottom bunk, squeezing into her. She isn’t saying no with her eyes. She isn’t saying anything. He leans under the roof of the bunk and kisses her cheek. It feels slick and buttery. He lets go of her arm. It drops onto the pillow. He places his hands over her breasts. They are smaller. She is thinner. He gets up and closes the door. Then he hurries back to the bed and peels Issy’s duvet away.

  Claire’s nightie is bunched around her waist and he can see the poke of her hips through her Temple garments. One of Issy’s teddies lies in the bed beside her. He places the little white bear on the floor and then he grasps the roll of Claire’s nightie and slides it up to her armpits. He does the same with her garment top.

  Her belly is crisscrossed by silvery stretch marks. She usually covers herself with her hands if he tries to look too closely, despite his insistence that he doesn’t care about the snags that lace her skin, but she doesn’t cover herself today. She’s the only woman he has ever seen naked and, even now, he is sometimes struck by the fact that he is allowed to look at all of her and experiences a burst of gratitude as he removes her clothes. He pushes his hands along the bumps of her ribs until he reaches her breasts. They seem sad, punctured. He covers each breast with a hand and pumps, as if he might reinflate her, but when he lets go they shrink back into slack pockets.

  If he can make her feel something else, he thinks, something besides her grief—if he can just wake her up a bit. They’ve never gone this long without sex. Even after the children, things were always back to normal within a month, and it’s not as if he can take care of it himself.

  He stands and unfastens his belt. He lets his trousers fall and kicks them off, steps out of his garment bottoms and folds them carefully. He doesn’t bother removing his shirt or his socks. He kneels back down, he’ll stop if she gives him the slightest sign, but she just lies there, bleached and cadaverous, arms flung back against the pillow. He hooks his fingers into the waistband of her garment bottoms and pulls them all the way down. She smells briny and sour. He folds the garment bottoms. Then he parts her legs and climbs onto the bunk. He leans over her, on all fours, taking care not to bang his head on the slats. She looks past him with empty eyes. There are goose bumps on her arms and he can see the knot of bone where her humerus and ulna lock. There is something about the lay of her limbs that reminds him of chicken wings and he is startled by a sudden remembrance of his mother, each Sunday morning before church, holding an inert, raw bird under the kitchen tap as she rinsed its insides.

  He closes his eyes and kisses Claire’s jaw and her neck. He doesn’t try her lips. Her skin salts his mouth and as soon as he’s inside her, he knows he isn’t going to last long enough to wake her up or make her feel much of anything. The warmth surrounding his penis, the friction of her indifference—it’s too much. He stops moving, holds his breath for a moment, tries to retrieve the image of his mother holding a decapitated chicken, but it’s no use.

  “Sorry … sorry … uh, uh … sorry.” He pants his apology into the hollow where her neck meets her shoulder and it blows back at him, hot and wet.

  He climbs off, one hand cupped around his seeping penis, the other supporting his weight.

  “Sorry,” he says again.

  He hurries to the bedroom door and opens it carefully. The landing is empty and he steps quickly into the bathroom. When he has washed himself in the sink he picks up a washcloth, runs it under the hot tap, and tiptoes back to the bedroom. He kneels on the floor and wipes the trickle of semen from between her legs. She looks straight up at the roof of the bunk. He isn’t sure whether she is shocked or just vacant. She didn’t ask him to stop. But she didn’t say he could.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I just, I’m …” She isn’t listening properly. “I didn’t think to—are you—have you been taking your pill?”

  He waits for a moment, scared, then hopeful. Another baby might bring her back to herself. Issy can never be replaced, never. But another child might raise Claire from the bed.

  She doesn’t reply and he can see that she has used up all her evening words. He puts the washcloth down on the carpet and gently slides her legs back into her garment bottoms. He tugs her top and nightie back down and then he lifts Issy’s bear off the floor and places it beside her.

  “I love you,” he says.

  When he picks up the washcloth it is already cold and a sluggish trail of semen glistens across its folds.

  – 20 –

  Lying Boy

  Assembly is always best when Mrs. Slade does it. She asks lots of questions and everyone thrusts their hands up and makes little bursting noises in the hope that she will pick them. Today she is holding a bag and it looks like she is going to do something fun.

  “What night is it tonight?”

  There’s a sound like wings as more than a hundred arms part the air.

  “Yes, Kyle?”

  “Halloween!”

  “That’s right. Halloween’s usually in half-term, isn’t it? But not this year.”

  Mrs. Slade talks about Halloween. She gets a funny mask out of her bag and asks for a volunteer to wear it. Then she produces a pumpkin-shaped bucket and talks about trick-or-treating safely with big brothers and sisters or mums and dads.

  Jacob has never been trick-or-treating. Two years ago, when he was really small, Sister Stevens did a Halloween party in the parking lot at church and it was completely ace. I
t was called Trunk or Treat because car boots in America are called “trunks.” All the children walked from car to car saying, “Trunk or treat?” and the trunks were open like mouths and full of candy, which means sweets. Last year there wasn’t a party because Halloween was on a Sunday.

  Today is Monday—Family Home Evening. Jacob will suggest that they all go trick-or-treating later, after Dad has given the lesson. There are some old costumes in the wardrobe that Mum made for dressing up and World Book Day. He can wear one of them and maybe it will be all right for Zippy to take him out, just once around the houses that ring the park.

  “Who knows what the day after Halloween is called?” Mrs. Slade asks. Hands shoot up again. “Yes, Abigail.”

  “The first of November?”

  “That’s certainly true, but I’m thinking of something else. The day after Halloween is called All Saints’ Day. And the day after that, the second of November, is All Souls’ Day. It’s a day when everyone used to pray for the souls of people who’d recently died. They used to believe that everyone who died wandered about the Earth until All Souls’ Day, when they finally moved on to the next world.” All Souls’ Day—Jacob’s never heard of it, never. It must be one of those things they do at school that they don’t do at church, like Advent, Lent, and Harvest. Sometimes it’s hard to work out how all the different bits of both worlds fit together. Once, he thought that the word “penis” was part of church because he’d never heard anyone at school say it—they said “dick” and “willy.” He asked Mum about it and she laughed and said he could say “willy” too, if he liked.

  “All Souls’ Day.” He whispers the words to himself so he doesn’t forget them: “All Souls’ Day. All Souls’ Day. All Souls.” All Souls—that means Issy too, doesn’t it? All Souls’ Day, when people who’ve died move on to the next world … or come back to this one.

  AT NEWS TIME Mrs. Slade asks everyone to write about What I Did at Half-Term. George Hindle writes, “I went to the Norf Pole and saw 100 pengwins.” Jessie writes about the cinema. Jacob writes:

  I waited on the stares for sumthing to happen.

  Underneath the words he draws a side view of a staircase with him sitting on the top. Mrs. Slade says it’s an unusual thing to have done during the holidays and she asks if he would mind telling her what he was waiting for.

  “It’s a secret,” he says.

  AFTER LUNCH, JACOB takes the Box of the Dead out of his desk. He flicks it open and touches the dry, curled-up dead things. None of them came back to life. Nothing happened, despite all his prayers, all his practice. But Fred came back to life, the prayers worked for him. Jacob isn’t sure why, maybe there’s something special about fish; fish are in the Bible, Jesus feeds them to people, the disciples catch them, and Jonah is swallowed by a big, whaley sort of fish. There must be special rules for fish.

  George Hindle pokes him in the back as he closes the glasses case. “What’s that?”

  “Nothing.” He shoves it back in his desk.

  “Mrs. Slade, Mrs. Slade! Jacob’s got a load of dead stuff in his desk!”

  Mrs. Slade is fiddling with the SMART Board. “Sit down, George,” she says.

  “But, Mrs. Slade, Jacob’s got—”

  “No I haven’t.” Jacob’s words are loud and he feels the lie spread straight to his face, where it burns his cheeks.

  “George, that’s enough. Stop making up stories and sit down, both of you.”

  George glares at Jacob. “Pants on fire,” he whispers as they sit.

  Jacob looks away. Lying is wrong. He has to tell the truth to Mrs. Slade or he will be in trouble with Heavenly Father. What’s the best way for him to tell her that there really are dead things in his desk? He can’t decide. She will be so disappointed in him. She’ll think members of the Church are liars and one day, when the missionaries knock on her door, she won’t want to learn about Jesus. She’ll say, “Jacob Bradley is a member of your Church and he tells lies.” And then she won’t be able to go to the Celestial Kingdom and it will be completely his fault.

  AFTER DAD HAS collected him from After-School Club, Jacob goes up to his room and says hello to Mum. She’s awake, but she doesn’t say anything back. He looks in the wardrobe. There’s a furry Dalmatian costume, a fairy dress, a Victorian child’s outfit that’s just an old school uniform with some holes cut into it, and a Harry Potter cloak with a red-and-yellow scarf Nana knitted. He decides on Harry Potter. He ties the cloak over his school uniform and wraps the scarf around his neck. There isn’t a wand so he goes downstairs, takes a piece of paper out of the printer, rolls it over and over, and finishes it off with some sticky tape.

  It’s dinnertime when the bell rings. Dad opens the door and Sister Stevens is there, wearing a Cookie Monster onesie. She says, “Coo-kie,” in just the right voice and then she says, “Happy Halloween.” She’s holding a big pot and there’s a lovely, meaty smell wafting out of it. She says it’s a special cowboy casserole for pioneers and she hands it to Dad. Then she dashes back to her car and returns with a pie and a shopping bag.

  “Pumpkin pie,” she says. “Especially for Halloween. And coo-kies.” She does the voice again and everyone laughs.

  “How’s Sister Bradley?”

  “She’s a little better,” Dad says. “Thank you for the food, it looks wonderful. I’m sorry you had to come out to deliver it on a Monday.”

  Sister Stevens tells Dad not to be silly. She says something about man not being made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man, which, she thinks, also applies to Mondays and Family Home Evening. Dad nods, thanks her again, and closes the door.

  As they turn to head down the hall Jacob glances up at the stairs and thinks of Mum, who is not “a little better.” Then he hurries to the table with the others and they all stuff themselves with cowboy casserole, pumpkin pie, and coo-kies until there’s hardly any space left for sadness.

  AT THE END of the Family Home Evening lesson, which is about patience, Dad asks, “Any questions?”

  Jacob likes to think of really difficult questions because it makes Dad happy to answer them: questions like, if you got baptized on the same day as other people, and you were the last one in the font, would you get dirty standing in the water that had washed away their sins?

  Today he asks another hard question. “Is it ever OK to tell lies, Dad?”

  “No, Jacob, it’s not. Always tell the truth.”

  “Even if you’re going to get into trouble?”

  “Yes.”

  Maybe he will have to tell the truth to Mrs. Slade … but then he thinks about Dad and the way he keeps pretending Mum is just a little bit tired. “Is it OK for you to tell lies about Mum?”

  “Jacob!” Zippy’s eyes go all googly and she shakes her head at him.

  “No, it’s a fair question,” Dad says and he thinks for a moment. “I was wrong. I think maybe it is OK to tell lies in certain, special circumstances. Abraham had to lie to the Egyptians. He had to tell them that his wife, Sarah, was his sister. He was worried the Egyptians might kill him if they knew the truth.”

  “Talk about moving the goalposts,” Alma huffs.

  “No one’s going to kill you for telling the truth about Mum, though, are they, Dad?”

  “No, but sometimes you can’t tell the whole truth, even if you want to; sometimes there are valid reasons not to be one hundred percent honest, but it doesn’t happen often.”

  Maybe it was OK to lie to Mrs. Slade about the Box of the Dead, then. It might be one of those times when it was best not to tell the whole truth, even though he wanted to. He tries another question.

  “Can I go trick-or-treating?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “But I’ve got my costume on and everything. Someone could come with me,” he suggests, remembering what Mrs. Slade said about safety.

  “Mum could go with you,” Alma mutters. “She could be a zombie; she wouldn’t even have to dress up.”

  “I beg your pardon? Would
you like to say that again, out loud?” Al shakes his head and Dad glares at him. “I don’t like Halloween. I don’t think it’s conducive to the Spirit.”

  “Everyone does it in Utah,” Zippy says. “Sister Stevens thinks it’s great.”

  “That’s not saying much—Sister Stevens thinks everything’s great.”

  “Alma Bradley, if you can’t say anything nice, you know what to do. I’m not prepared to accompany any of you while you knock on the neighbors’ doors, bothering them.”

  “Save that for the missionaries.”

  “Enough, Alma.”

  “Did you get anything for the trick-or-treaters, Dad?” Jacob asks.

  “No.”

  “We have to give them something—”

  “Look, I’ve got more important things to worry about than buying sweets for other people’s children. You’ll have to give them a cookie.”

  Alma snorts. “It’s not like we’ve got any nice cookies since Mum stopped doing the shopping. And they’re not getting any of Sister Stevens’s cookies, no way. ‘Trick or treat’—here, have a Rich Tea biscuit! Ha ha! That’s so bad it’s hilarious.”

  “There’s an easy solution,” Dad says. He gets up, tugs the curtains closed, and turns off the lights in the living room and the hall. Then he goes outside and returns holding the doorbell battery.

  “But, Dad, I really wanted to go trick-or-treating.” Jacob stands up and waves his paper wand at Dad, as if it might charm him into saying yes.

  “Come here,” Zippy says. “Come on.” She takes his hand and leads him out into the hall. She opens the front door and gently pushes him outside onto the step. “Knock,” she says and then she shuts him out.

  Jacob stands on the step in the deep dark. He turns round to face the road and the park. The dark is cool and velvety; it collects between the street lights, right at the tips of the trees where Issy might be floating about, waiting until it’s precisely the right time and the right day to come back.