from the light,Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,Or wait the ‘Amen’, ere thy poppy throwsAround my bed its lulling charities;Then save me, or the passed day will shineUpon my pillow, breeding many woes;Save me from curious conscience, that still lordsIts strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,And seal the hushed casket of my soul.
I sat back down. Peter concluded the service. I watched the feet of the pall-bearers as they turned down the aisle. The left shoes crossing the right. Four pairs of feet moving in perfect time, like the beginning of a macabre dance routine.
My eyes slid up and reached one of the faces, trying to hide the strain it took to shoulder the coffin’s weight, struck by a grief it didn’t feel.
I looked at you and told you, ‘It’s all right.’
You said nothing.
Outside, five minutes later, and soft rain pattered on the large black umbrella that I held to shelter you and your grandmother. After a week of silence, your tears came, bringing Cynthia’s with them. Only my eyes remained dry, even though my heart must have wept. I’m sure it must have.
I still hear Peter’s voice.
‘We have entrusted our brother Reuben to God’s mercy, and we now commit his body to the ground.’ The pall-bearers lowered the coffin, releasing the black straps in steady motion. ‘Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’ The comfort of repetition, of ritual, did nothing to calm your sobs. ‘In sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ The coffin reached hard ground, settled, and was still. ‘Who died, was buried, and rose again for us. To him be glory for ever and ever.’ And then at last there was the collective ‘Amen’, spoken so low it seemed to come from the earth that would bury him. The earth that made us believe he was gone.
The police were going to do nothing to his friends.
‘He wasn’t forced up there.’
Such a primitive notion of force, and accident, and responsibility.
I never told you this but I went to see them. The boys. They hung around the disused tennis courts, so, after I had dropped you at the stables, I went to voice my feelings.
They were there. All except him, Denny.
I pulled up to the kerb and wound down my window.
‘I hope you’re happy,’ I said, leaning out. ‘I hope you had fun, watching him die. I hope you sleep the innocent sleep, knowing you are soaked in his blood.’
They stood there, behind the crossed wire, like thugs in a Bernstein musical. The shaven-haired boy with the sharp eyes made a rude gesture, but said nothing.
‘Murderers,’ I yelled, before screeching off.
And I didn’t leave it there. The next evening I yelled the same accusation. And the next, and the next, but I never saw him. I never saw Denny there. Indeed, by the fourth time, I couldn’t see any of them. I was yelling into nothing, accusing the air. Guilt had made them evaporate, I told myself. My words had moved them on. The strange thing is I felt no satisfaction at this. My heart fell when I realised they weren’t there, and my anger sank swiftly back to despair.
From his early school reports it was clear that your brother was not going to be a high achiever in an academic sense. There were none of the ‘outstandings’ or ‘exceptionals’ that always rained down on you, never a ‘pleasure to teach’ or a ‘joyous addition to the classroom’.
Reuben had no interest in books in the way you had. For him, reading never rose above the level of a necessary chore. He enjoyed my night-time stories of Dick Turpin and all those other old rogues, as you both did, but once he had heard one story he wanted to hear it again and again, whereas you always craved tales you had never known before.
I see him now, at the window, his finger making patterns in the condensation. ‘A quiet boy.’ ‘Easily led.’
Money, in this blind century, has become the measure of love. A crude outsider would tell me I exercised more care for you because, from the age of eleven, I paid for your schooling.
Yet what could I do? I could only pay for one of you – should you have both suffered for the sake of equality? Was it my fault the Mount was a girls’ school? Would it have been better to send Reuben, who had never shown any interest in his education? No, St John’s was the obvious choice for him.
Yet, of course, I must admit this was not the only extra-vagance I afforded you. After all, you wanted to ride, so I paid for a horse and for it to be at livery. You wanted to play music, and I paid for you to have violin and then cello lessons at the college. You wanted a cat, specifically a coffee-cream Birman, and I bought you Higgins.
Yet you were actively interested in these things. They weren’t acquired out of any fatherly overindulgence, or if they were I would gladly have shown the same indulgence to your brother if he had only requested such presents. Where were Reuben’s interests? I never had any idea. He wanted a bicycle and the one I bought wasn’t good enough. He wanted all this technological claptrap that he knew I wouldn’t allow before he asked. No, we must never forget it, your brother was not easy. Even in my grief I could not ignore this. Indeed, my grief required me to remember it very well, for I already knew how sentimentality can flood in and drown memories, leaving the true person beyond recall.
I wanted to remember him as he was. I wanted to remember his incessant screams through the night as a baby, his later tantrums, his insatiable appetite for jellied sweets. I wanted to remember how cross he got when you used to read from the same picture book together. I wanted to remember the rows he had with you, even the one where he tore up your sheet music.
I wanted to remember the way he used to sit and watch television, with his hand covering the birthmark on his face. I wanted to remember the cigarette incident, the shoplifting incident, the smashed vase incident. I wanted to remember the early Sunday mornings when you would both go with me to an antiques fair, and he would grumble all the way down the A1.
Yet the memories of him were always hard to relive and restore. When I thought of him a thought of you would swiftly arrive in its place. When I tried to picture you as babies, as your mother last saw you, I wouldn’t be able to see his screaming face. There was always just you, lying placid by his side, lost in your innocent unworded dreams. A dream yourself.
Now, that first day I opened the shop after his funeral. Your first day back at the Mount. I kept myself busy polishing the ewers and tureens and all the other pieces of silverware. All day I was there in my white cotton gloves, filling the shop with the smell of polish, my curved reflection staring back with manic eyes.
Customers came in and I scared them out of spending their money. I made mistakes. I gave people the wrong change. I dropped a Davenport jug. I was feeling dreadful.
‘Come on, Terence, pull your socks up,’ said Cynthia, helping out behind the counter. ‘You’ve got my granddaughter to feed.’
I know I used to grumble to you about how she scared away the customers with her witch’s nails and wardrobe and forthright manner, but really she was a great help.
zThen there was her special meal she was already planning for no specified purpose. ‘I’m inviting my old am dram friends,’ she said. ‘We’re going to the Box Tree. It’s
