away, he makes a gift to me of his ethereal British army jacket.
‘To shield your modesty,’ he says, insisting as he departs that he no longer has a need for it.
Then a dawn breaks, that is marked by a ringing silence. Gone is the clattering, booming, jarring disharmony of war.The staccato guns have stopped firing. The crescendo of marching feet is stilled. The medley of horses’ hooves is muffled.The dreadful ululation is spent. My dead companions no longer come to see me, and the building above my head grows thick with quietude. I am thinning with loneliness, for dust motes and dried blood make for poor company. Curious, I creep out of obscurity. It is dusk. I alight on a curve of railing. I am aware that time has rolled by and all is changed. I stare down the skirt of the mountain at the harbour,Victoria harbour. I see it transformed, the dimpled sea freckled with crafts of every imaginable shape and size. Ribbons of road packed with cars and lorries and buses wind about the slopes. There are more buildings beaded with lights than I could ever have dreamt of—buildings so tall they seem to brush the clouds. I am blinded too by the shimmering pictures facing some of the tall towers, pictures that bounce out across the water, luminous sea snakes, electric colours that crackle and spit into the night. Lin Shui’s life is faded now, like an old book left in the sun and rain too long. Some days I allow myself to drift towards death.When I do, I think I see a small boy crouching in the shadows, an urchin with hair of spun gold, and skin that shines like varnished teak. He is barefoot and clad in black rags. I start to sink into the soporific infinite blackness at the centre of his eyes. And he stands and smiles, and opens his arms to me in greeting. Like a moth drawn to a flame, I am drawn to him. But always just before he enfolds me, I rouse myself and kick out.
My voice might be weaker but still it cries, ‘I am not ready yet. Not yet.’
Then one day the children come. Among them is Alice.
The one person you can reliably guarantee will be missing from a funeral is the deceased. Then why, at the funeral of Ralph Safford, did I have the distinct impression that two people were missing? I suppose that my charge, Lucy Holiday, the deceased’s sister, was largely responsible. I had been employed as a carer for Lucy for several years now. Childless, widowed, in her eightieth year and in fragile health, Lucy defied expectations, clinging tenaciously onto life. On the day of her brother’s funeral, Lucy, with her wisp of wild, white hair, and bright, periwinkle-blue eyes, was enjoying a rare moment of lucidity. She sat in her wheelchair alongside the pew-end, humming tunelessly to all the hymns, her eyes darting around the congregation, and alighting first on one face then another.
At length, she gestured for me to lean closer, and closer still, then whispered in my ear in her scratchy-record voice, ‘Ingrid, where is Alice?’
To which I naturally replied, ‘Who is Alice?’
She fidgeted with the fabric of her black polyester dress, and rubbed her matchstick legs before answering, and so long was she that I couldn’t help wondering if I’d lost her again.‘Alice is my niece,’ she said at last, on a rising note of triumph.
‘The daughter of your brother Ralph?’ I sought confirmation.
Lucy nodded her affirmation. I was puzzled. As far as I knew, Ralph Safford only had three children. I had met the family a few times since they settled in England four years ago. I recalled the first occasion being held at the Saffords’ home, Orchard House, at a party to celebrate their return from abroad. Besides this, Lucy had spoken of them, if not often, certainly enough for me to be well acquainted with their names. Jillian was the eldest, and Nicola the middle child, while Harry was the baby of the family. But of this ‘Alice’, up to now I had heard nothing. With Lucy’s customary fits and starts, I had also gleaned a little of the deceased’s life, certainly enough to whet my appetite for more. Here, it seemed, was no ordinary man. Apparently Lucy’s brother and his family had lived overseas, in the then British Crown Colony of Hong Kong, where he had been employed by the government. ‘A high-ranking official,’ Lucy had confided to me with a knowing wink, on more than one occasion, often adding enigmatically, ‘In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.’ Quite what this meant I did not know. However, it only seemed to enhance the impression that Lucy’s brother had been out of the ordinary. Apparently too, the Saffords lived at one of the most enviable addresses at the summit of Victoria Peak. This, Lucy had explained, was the highest mountain on the island, and was known locally simply as ‘The Peak’. I had also discovered that Ralph and his wife Myrtle only returned to England a year or so after Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997, though it seemed the children departed some time earlier. But of Alice, until today, there had been no mention. I was intrigued. However, the middle of a funeral service was neither the time nor the place to probe family history, unearthing who knew what skeletons. So when Lucy asked me yet again where Alice was, I did my best to bring the matter to a close for the present.
‘I expect she’s up at the front with Myrtle, your sister-in-law,’ I whispered. Then, without thinking, I added, ‘All three children are sitting alongside their mother.’ But to my relief Lucy gave another nod, and seemed satisfied.
The priest was offering up prayers now, and a bald patch on the crown of his head loomed somewhat indecently into sight. I could not help noticing that it was a surprising shade of mustard yellow, and gleamed dully with beads of perspiration.
I straightened up, and tried to concentrate on the proceedings once more.Though this was easier said than done, I thought, as the vicar’s nasal voice see-sawed on monotonously. But again Lucy beckoned me down to her, frantically flapping her crêpe-paper hand, freckled with age-spots, and roped with prominent, deep-blue veins.
‘Four,’ she said, and for a moment I was nonplussed.
‘Four?’ I repeated at a loss.
This time Lucy raised her cracked voice to its very limit. ‘Four,’ she huffed.And then,when I still looked blank,‘Four children.Ralph had four children.’ This last, she said so loudly that several heads turned to glare in our direction.
‘I’ll find out where she is later,’ I hissed, enunciating each word as clearly as I could, without causing further disturbance. Luckily at that moment the organ struck up, and though I could see Lucy was speaking again, her words were drowned out by a thunderous rendition of ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’.
And to be honest as the service went on, and, it seemed, Lucy quietened down, I let her supposed concerns slip to the back of my mind. Naturally, with a job like mine, funerals have a way of cropping up regularly. But for the most part these occasions have the sting taken out of them. The death of an elderly person who has lived their life to the full is both inevitable and, in a way, a cause for gratitude.They have managed to reach the end of the game despite the many hazards life would have thrown in their path. Bearing this in mind, my primary concern as a carer for those of advanced years is that my patients make a good end. And yet…and yet, the more times I witness death, no matter how peaceful it is, the less comfortable I am with it.These days, I can’t help wondering if behind that pallid face, those fluttering breaths, that seemingly limp body, a tussle with death is playing out, fuelled by regrets, opportunities missed, words left unspoken, and last but not least, the indignity of it all.
But for now I abandoned this unsettling train of thought, and cast my eyes around the beautiful old Sussex church. I took in the small sober congregation, clad in their suitably melancholy outfits. These faces were, I noted, no different from the many others I had seen at past services, obviously more unsettled by this grim reminder of their own mortality than distraught with grief at the passing of another. The prickle on the back of the
