Come Not When I Am Dead

by R. A. England

  “I know.” I have no right, I told you that, to make a point “will we be OK though?”

  “You are a child” he says to me “have you no understanding at all of what you’ve done?” It is time for me to be silent again. And the river bank has become a theatre. I look down too and I look away and my body moves slightly away from his and his hand turns on his knee and lightly holds mine. We were silent, our shoulders touching, swallowing, swallowing, swallowing my saliva, trying to make no sound. “I am sorry”

  “but I still don’t think you understand, do you?” and I don’t think I understand, but I understand this, that I don’t want to have to go through this again and I will not be in a position like this again. This, I do not like. “I’m sorry about Coningsby” he said to me and I put up my hand for him to be silent, I cannot talk about Coningsby. “I had no idea what was going on. I just couldn’t speak to you, I wanted some time to think. But I didn’t know that you needed me” and he put his soft and warm hand around my shoulders and I leant into him and buried my face there, pushing my eyes against the coarseness of his jacket, biting his collar “please love me again Charlie.”

  “I do love you, that’s the problem.” We made love there, as we lay, his body merging into mine, filling me with him. His love pumping into me. Our love was furious and wild and desperate as if our bodies were being torn from each other. Needing each other. Let it go on and on and this love I feel from him never end. And then afterwards we got dressed in silence, with shy smiles towards each other. “I love you. I’m sorry”

  “I know you are.” We brushed ourselves down and tried to pretend that it was a normal day for us, and with him smiling as much as he can smile now, we walked upstream. I do understand more. I understand that although he can’t always say what he feels, he feels it none the less. He feels as much as me, more than me, but his inability to communicate his emotions isn’t for lack of them. I will take care of him and I will take care of us. And then suddenly I realised that I was sorry, and I understood that I had almost destroyed something that was more precious to me than… that was precious to me.

  Hand in hand we walked past upper bend pool, past otter pool, past the owl pool where I released Bill, past the pool with no name and the nice beach. Our feet in time to each other, me unfamiliar to myself in my restraint, damning myself, blaming myself, and then when we got to the next pool, almost to the top, through our healing silence, we heard a cough. We both stood still, frozen on the spot. Then we trod on carefully, chibber, chibber, chibber go my insides, and as we crept nearer to the river bank, we saw two men, in waders, hunched up, backs bent, bodies forward, laughing, looking down at something. They shouldn’t be there. One of them held a torch and the other had something I couldn’t make out at first, I was squinting and slowly moving forward, getting angrier and angrier. Pent-up fury seeping through my pores. The one man had a pitchfork and they were examining a salmon, thrashing away on the prongs, blood drip, drip, dripping from it’s body into the water. Count the drops. And Charlie said “shit” under his breath. “Fucking bastards” I said softly, desperate to express myself, my whole body filling with heavy black fury. “Leave them Gussie” I felt his hand tight on my arm, his fingers pressing in to me, one, two, three fingers, trying to draw me back, “they’ll be trouble, they’ll probably leave it at that” and I did want to do as he said. I wanted to be good but I felt like screaming. I needed to hear my voice. I needed to feel passion, and I shouted, at the men, at anyone else who was there. “OI!!! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I shed my ungainly skin of repression, and a hundred skinheads all around me, a ghostly goading guard. “What’s it to you? The fat one with the torch said, too fast, can’t contain it and they mumbled something to each other which I didn’t hear over the conspiring murmur of the water, silver and athletic, a friend, definitely a friend, “It’s my river”

  “we’re just catching our dinner” the other one said

  “well, catch it at Tesco, but piss off from here” and I felt more pressure from Charlie on my arm, three finger tips I felt, one, two, three. And all I really wanted to say was please love me Charlie, please never leave me, please don’t punish me. Look after me. He was trying to draw me back again, draw me out of it all, looking after me but his drawing me back was pushing me on. I am lost. Think, think, think, I cannot think. “You on your own?” said the first man, so disgusting, so disgusting

  “piss off” I am ready for a fight. Coningsby is dead.

  “You shouldn’t talk to people like that you know, you stupid posh bitch” and there is no need for that and storm clouds clacked and lightning struck, and the men started wading, wide legged across the river, as in a dream towards my voice. Noise, splash, blooshing of the river, torch light everywhere but not on me. They got to the bank, and before the fat one had time to direct his feeble light at me, I kicked out at his face. My boot heel in his mouth. It was too lovely. I was the giant on the bank and they were rats trying to overthrow me with their numbers. They stood below me in the river and there was no way I was going to let them up towards me, frantic I was. And Coningsby was in my head and Charlie was in my head and my stupid affair with Edward and then all I knew was kick them down, kick them down, kick them down. Give me power. Give me air. Their hands trying to catch my legs, sliding off my mud. My boot almost came off. I was making them tired and I thought what part of me is playing this part of my life? Is this real? Am I spoiling for a fight? Am I scared of getting beaten up? Am I a lover or a hater or a fraudster? When do I feel? and then out of the blue, a voice “you’d better just clear off” it said and all of us were silent, I had forgotten he was there “Oh, la di dah” they said “who’s you then? You gonna make us?”

  “Fuck off you stupid gits” I shouted. I was a pole cat, a pine marten, a weasel and a stoat, bastards stabbing at salmon in the river, stupid bastards, and the knife in it’s sheath hanging at my belt was my teeth and my claws, I was wild-eyed and furious, I was everywhere and covered in prickles, covered in poison, I was a nasty little thing that really, no one would want to come near. “Oh, fuck off, we’re going” they talked to each other as they collected themselves, but I couldn’t hear what they said and then, they went. Just like that. All and then nothing.

  I stood on the bank, watching their torch light disappear, listening to their frooshing through the river get quieter and quieter, I heard stumbling and then a laugh, but they were going, going, gone. And Charlie was there, by my side “you’re a skinhead Gussie”

  “I don’t find that an insult” I am the cat that walks alone

  “It’s not meant to be, I mean you’re a scary, feisty thing and I’m proud of you.” But I am bad. And there is silence and I held my mouth together and raised my head in a short bob as acknowledgement but that was it and I turned around to leave the bank, but I turned away from him.

  The grass never grows that well in this part of the field. Even in high summer it is short and straggly and I am focusing on one long, tough and yellow grass stalk. I am looking at old, hard sheep pooh and the black soles of my wading boots. I am remembering when Charlie and I had sex here one time, in the middle of the field, and then, as I lay on the ground, on my back, in this same short grass and he stood to pull up his trousers, we saw a body come through the mist towards us and I scurried behind his legs to get dressed. Scrabbling like a feral cat, get out of the way, get out of the way and my legs are moving too fast for my body, my eyes fearful and all-seeing. Has he seen us? I don’t know, but there was no question of trying to kill him. I am worlds and worlds away and years and months away, I am swaying from my pivotal point, shaky and too high. I am sick and tired of my high horse. I am a trout on the river bank, flapping and flipping, trying in vain to flick myself back to the river. And no one will lift me and return me before I drown in air and utter hopelessness. “I definitely need a cigar now” and I was shaking. I am a terrier sometimes, a jack Russell, I am a whirlwind and I get swept up and carried off by m
yself. I am not full of the milk of human kindness. “Do you think they’ll go now?” my adrenalin had died down and I became worried, I was ashamed of my worry. I am terrified of being taken by surprise, being overpowered, being defenceless. “Do you think they’re waiting for us by the car? Do you think they’ll slash our tyres or follow us or something? I think we’d better go. I’ve got my hunting knife, what knife have you got?” and Charlie held out his empty hand to help me up, sad, sad eyes he has, eyes with sad, frightened, confused love in them, swimming with sharks not dolphins. I’m sorry Charlie, I am sorry.

  We started walking back, quietly, under cover of the trees, we would see them (if they were there) before they saw us. Charlie whispered stories to me of street fighters, bare knuckle fighters and dog fighters “how do you know?”

  “People tell me when they come in to surgery, but the dog fighting is bad, we’ve had to look at a few recently and put them down, it’s a nasty business” he says as we stumble and bumble over bumpy ground, going too fast in the dark. Hurry up, hurry up.

  “Charlie, you’re frightening me” stupid baby I am but I cannot help it and he put his arm around my shoulders and drew me closer to him. I hoped our dismal whispers would end and I tried to summon nice thoughts in to my head.

  When we got to the car the men weren’t there. We stood still and silent, we walked to the bridge and looked around but they weren’t there. Maybe they’d drunkenly drowned, we could call the unnamed pool after them ‘drunken thug pool’ or ‘drowned men pool’. But anyway, they weren’t there, or maybe they were poaching further down river, but we didn’t see them and I wouldn’t have gone through all of that again, not now. “It was all your fault anyway” I said to the back of his hair

  “how on earth could it have been my fault?” and he took my hand, because he is good and he was trying to make it better. God, I want to scream “because you’ve been worrying me and upsetting me. Because you’re not talking to me, because you’re frightening me, because you’re not yourself at the moment and I think you don’t love me anymore or even want me anymore.” His little newborn eyes are so, so sad and his soul is disabled “I just want to know. Why won’t you talk to me? What’s happened?” I am whimpering, I am that dog on the hillside again, but he looks down and he looks away “TALK TO ME. JUST BLOODY WELL TALK TO ME. PROPERLY. And Charlie, I’m so sorry Charlie, but please tell me what happened the other day. With the soldier” and I didn’t want to sully the night further by saying his name “did you hurt him? I don’t mind if you did, but please tell me what happened?”

  “I told him about us.”

  “I knew you would, tell me what happened.”

  “I do love you Gussie. Even after everything that’s happened I love you very much and I don’t want to lose you.”

  “Yes? Go on…” chattering, banging, battering in my head waiting for his words

  “Leave it for the moment” and I did, I will do anything he says. “I’m scared of what’s happening now” he said to his boots, to the grass and to me and I am soft skies just a presence and I will not interrupt him or frighten or question him to silence “I’m scared of what’s happening to us, to me, to my boys, I didn’t want the divorce to affect them, but it is, they’re crying at night about totally irrelevant unconnected things, but they weren’t like that before. I don’t know what to do. I just want to look after them.”

  I am quiet, I am the angel of the river, I offer balm and bandages “but you can look after them darling. You can give them love and reassurance. I am sorry Charlie for everything I’ve done. I am sorry.” And as we stand there, in tortured, agonised silence, Bill flies out of the trees to my right and lands on a branch just four feet away from me and just looks at me “I am the silent, dimpsy coloured, cloth-winged owl” he says “I see you when you don’t see me”

  “And I am love” I say “from my feet to my eyes I am love, all through these skies. I am hope and I am excitement and I am wonder and I don’t speak your language but I understand. I am passion, I am hope. I am wild and I roar my love. I am swift through the air and I smother you in caresses. I am trepidation” but I am happy. Bill is here, he looks at me, he tips his hat and then he is gone. I am glad these things cannot be harnessed.

  ‘But you remain in my heart, so tell me darling, is there still a spark? Or only lonely ashes of a flame, we once knew, should I go on whistling in the dark?’

  Chapter 18

  Charlie stayed at my house. We travelled home in the dark with a big, fat, unseen barrier between us that I am trying to pull down. I am frightened. He is upset. I show it by telling him and trying to make it better, although I’m the one who made it so much worse, he shows it by his hurt, frightened eyes and his gangrenous silence. We were half way home when I pulled the car over into a layby and put my hand on his knee, it is a butterfly on a cow’s leg and I don’t know if it’s felt. I am a doll in a doll’s house, I am sitting on a red velvet chair and I’m not real. I smile at him, that’s what he wants. I am soft, that is what he wants. But what do I want? I don’t know. “What happened Charlie with the man who was here, the soldier. Did you hurt him? I promise he means nothing to me”

  “you were going to marry a man who meant nothing to you?”

  “I wasn’t going to marry him, I promise, he did ask me but I wasn’t going to, I promise I wasn’t going to. Tell me. Please.” I wasn’t looking at him but at two badgers trotting down the road, together but separate, trying to get up the banks and going on down the lane again, making me smile with their lopsided pig movements. “I saw him at Jim’s when I was there Tb testing the cattle and I went over to say hello because he’s Jo’s cousin, I didn’t know then that you’d been lying to me.”

  “I am sorry”

  “I asked him how Jo was and he looked a bit surprised and then I asked him if I had got it wrong, and was he Jo’s cousin? and that’s when he told me that he was your fiancée.” I can say nothing I am still frightened that he will turn on me with hate and disgust and rejection. I waited for him to continue. “So, I congratulated him and said you were a friend of mine. I knew it wasn’t his bloody fault, I knew it was you, not him.” I am trying not to breathe, not to move, to be unseen and unheard and then my breathing becomes too laboured and exhaustive and makes too much noise. “I came back to the house with him and saw you. I wanted to rip your heart out then.”

  “I’m sorry. Charlie do you really love me?”

  “of course I bloody do”

  “but you don’t show it and I just felt it was all unequal, that I loved you and you loved your wife.”

  “Don’t be stupid Gussie, you know that is rubbish. There is no love there at all, no liking, no respect. There is nothing there at all. You have all my love, understand that now”

  “Why did you ask him to go fishing with you?”

  “because I wanted to spoil things for you.” I wanted to ask him if they’d had a fight, but I didn’t because then I would have to say that Jo was watching them and I think that would make matters worse, so instead I said “and did you tell him?”

  “Yes, of course I did. He caught a fish and I helped him bring it in and I told him then”

  “and did you kill the fish?”

  “What sort of question is that? What on earth does it matter? He killed it”

  “what with?”

  “With your grandpa’s priest if you must know”

  “and then what happened?”

  “Are you so worried about him?”

  “No, I just want to know so I understand and then it will be OK, but I’m not worried about him”

  “then I drove him down the field to the hut and we sat in there and talked, then I drove home and I suspect he drove to London or somewhere, but I knew he wouldn’t want to go back to you.” And then I wanted to ask Charlie if he’d said nasty things about me, and I don’t like thinking that he might have said that I was a bitch or anything, but I don’t think he would.

  When we got hom
e I didn’t want to go to bed right away, I needed to talk to him some more and I asked Charlie if he’d like to do a little rabbit shooting before bed. I got my shotgun from the bedroom and we went out together, Charlie is the torch boy and I am the trigger monkey. I will get a few rabbits for some pies and the skins I treat and am making a rabbit fur pillowcase for Gabriel. “He’s not a child” says Charlie

  “I know he’s not, but it’s a lovely thing to have isn’t it? I’d treasure that if someone made it for me. It’s like the teddy bear I had as a child made from poodle skin” but Charlie isn’t interested and I feel his head turn from me in the dark. He is trying. I am trying too, I am trying hard to be nice. I will make it better. At 11pm we had finished and were walking back, with the rabbits tied to my waist with binder twine, bumping against my hip bones with each step I took. It is chill, a clear delicious chill to the air. Autumn is nearer every day. The stars whispered a tune to me and the mud has dried and we were no longer sinking in with every step. Our wellies heavy on the ground and that is the only noise I hear “Cheese on toast with tomato ketchup? and Ovaltine?”

  “Lord yes, I’m starved” and I know I will look after him, always.

  “I will always look after you Charlie Farlie” and I reach up my hand and stroke the back of his soft thick hair as he walked before me to the kitchen. We ate and then we climbed the stairs to bed. We didn’t wash our faces or brush our teeth, we were as tired as ten monkeys fighting. We left the gun out of the cabinet because the Major had taken off the keys and we clambered in to bed together, aweary, aweary. We faced each other in bed and I stroked his cheeks and rubbed his temples, he is a funny creature. And we will make love, but suddenly we were both asleep.

  I dreamt I was brushing my father’s hunter ‘Thimble’ in his stable, he is a big dark bay horse and I have to get up on my tip toes to stroke his rump, I smell his distinctive horse body and I see every little shiny hair on his rump and all the slight grey dirt between and then he starts to push against me and I am being flattened into the wall, I start poking his flank, sharp little movements, poking and poking, to get him off me, but he’s not moving, he’s squashing me more and more and suddenly, BOOM! I wake up thinking he has broken my bones and I am aware of a draught in the room and the window is open, there is a space next to me in the bed and the duvet is turned back, I run my hand over the sheet and it isn’t warm.