by Peter Hey
‘Maybe you should calm down, Deano. Look, are you sure your Gran’s name was Dye?
The question made Dean falter. ‘Yeah, well, almost. Shame the selfish bitch has pegged it or we could just go and ask her. Hang about…’
‘What?’
Dean’s eyes glinted with enlightenment and relief. ‘That old war memorial in front of the church.’
‘The bronze thing we ripped out and had melted down.’
Dean’s head bobbed manically. ‘But, don’t forget, some do-gooder made a fuss and they put another one up. In stone or something. Something not worth nicking.’
‘So what good is that to us?’
‘What good it is to me, Steve, is that the old dear used to haul me down there as a boy to look at her brother’s name. And her brother’s name will be the same as her maiden name. Shit, but I’m a smart fucker! Talk about written on tablets of stone...’
In a matter of minutes they were in the lychgate of the church, just across the road from Dowley’s village green and its reminder of its mining heritage. They’d half-run, half-walked and the exertion had made them breathless. Steve lit a remedial cigarette and Dean snatched it to take an anxious drag before switching his attention to the replacement plaque.
A few weeks earlier Jane had stood in the same spot, tearfully recognising names from the First World War to whom Dean did not know nor care he was related. Her eyes had drifted lower, and she’d noticed something odd before being abruptly distracted by her first sighting of Michael, the local builder turned gangster, whose back and bulk had disturbingly evoked images of her father.
Had Jane’s emotions not been racing, she would have placed her fingers into the carved granite letters to make sure they were not distorted by shadows. She would have contacted the parish council to report the stonemason’s error. It was not to be. The discrepancy was forgotten. This version of history remained unchallenged.
Trusting the hardness of the evidence, Dean rapidly scanned the four columns of names, digging back into his memory of childhood visits with his grandmother.
‘I remember it was at the bottom left, under World War II. Here we go, Stevie boy – Atkins, Baker, Brown, Brown, Pye, Self, Skelton, Spencer.’
Dean’s shoulders dropped and he sank dejectedly to his knees. ‘Her name was Pye, not Dye…’