by John Bowen
“You’re not going to die, Father.”
“Don’t be a bloody fool. Of course I am.”
What a ridiculous thing to say! Mrs. Baker thought. When one had a stroke, one recovered, to have another stroke later, and another, and another. Luckily she had strength and patience, and would contrive to nurse her husband through these attacks. Of course, it would make him more helpless.
“My will,” the Colonel said, “it’s with the bank. One thing. I’ve asked to be buried somewhere in the garden. Better than cremation. Go back into the soil, eh? That’s the way. Call it a whim.”
“Justin——”
“No church service, or any of that rot.”
Charles said, “It would cause talk, Father.”
“Can’t be helped.”
“Not much fun for mother, with all the village people gossiping. Do you care very much what happens to you after you’re dead?”
“No.”
“Then?”
“I wouldn’t want anyone to think that I … that I was frightened, and changed my mind.”
“Then you do care?”
“Suppose I do. If I were a stronger man, Charles, I mightn’t care, but I do. Perhaps it’s only pride after all, and not self-respect.”
“Perhaps it’s only obstinacy.”
“Perhaps.” The Colonel stared at the ceiling. “I’ve seen plenty of obstinate old men in my time,” he said. “You might say that the army has more than its fair share. I’ve known men killed because of it. Because of some obstinate old man who wouldn’t admit he was wrong.”
“It would give mother pleasure, and do you no harm,” Charles said.
The District Nurse said, “Such morbid talk! Now come along, Colonel Baker. We’re not going to have you planning your funeral yet awhile, if you don’t mind. You’ll only end by depressing yourself, and everybody else as well.” She made a little bustling movement into the room, repositioned a glass on the bedside table, and returned to her knitting.
“Why do you ask me, Charles?”
“I don’t think you’re so obstinate, Father. Or so weak.”
“Getting round me, eh?”
“That’s right.”
“Send the vicar away then.”
Mrs. Baker pushed back her chair. It was a pity that sick-rooms made her nervous, but she would get over that. “I’ll do it,” she said. “I’ll apologise as best I can.” As she left the room, she said, “Don’t overtire your father, Charles.”
“I won’t.”
“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” the Colonel said.
“I’d like to.”
“Say something then.”
“It’s not easy to think of anything.”
“Strike an attitude, and say whatever seems right for it. After all, I’m striking an attitude myself. The old stoic on his death-bed. I get a bit frightened, you know. As long as I’ve got something to do, it’s all right.”
“Don’t be frightened, Father.”
“Easy to say. Not so easy to do. You try it. We used to say, ‘Keep the men busy, and keep them out of trouble’. Quite true. Stops them thinking. Once you start thinking about life, it’s hard to find much point in it. I’ve been an active man, you know. I’ve had to be. Couldn’t afford to think about life. Only—age slows you down. Makes things more difficult. I’ll be glad of death in some ways. It’s not just that I’ve become useless, Charles: I grudged that, as you know. But there’s more than knowing you aren’t any use to anybody. There’s the sheer bloody effort of it all. You’ll find that. You can’t escape it. Difficult to get out of a chair if you’ve been sitting there too long. Difficult to get to sleep at night. Difficult to stop coughing. Difficult to hold your water. Everything runs down—lungs, joints, kidneys—everything. There’s no doubt the old are often glad to die. I shan’t grumble if I’m spared the helplessness—don’t want that. I’m talking a lot, aren’t I?”
“Is it difficult for you?”
“No more than anything else. Keeps my mind busy. Makes me think I still have say … I’ll tell you another thing.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t tell your mother. Self-respect and all that. You need it to live by. Maybe I couldn’t have kept going without it. But when you’re dying, it doesn’t seem so much.”
“I expect the vicar is still downstairs,”
“No. I don’t want to die feeling ashamed.”
“You needn’t feel ashamed. It’s natural.”
“Not for me. Get me some water.”
Charles turned to pour his father a glass of water, but the District Nurse knew her duties, and was before him. “All this talking!” she said, but the Colonel sipped water from the glass she gave him, and replied. “I want to talk. I don’t often get the chance.”
“Chaps ought to finish well,” the Colonel said. “You make a sort of gesture. You make it for yourself. You make it for other chaps—if they’re watching, and if they care. You may be a bit frightened, but you don’t have to be ashamed.”
“No.”
“A man once said to me—it was in the Mess—we were arguing about something, and he said, ‘You think you’re important, but you’re not’. I said to him, ‘Everybody’s important’. I believed that then. It’s not true. Chaps are dying all the time, and it doesn’t make much difference.”
They didn’t fit into the machine, Charles thought; they were just bits—like you, Father—like your sons. But what he said was, “The cells of our bodies die, Father, but they get renewed. Our bodies go on without them, just as the world will go on without you. But when the cells were alive, our bodies needed them.”
“I suppose so. You won’t go away for a bit, will you?”
“I won’t go away. I’ve got something I want to tell you.”
“What?”
“That girl in London….” Charles glanced at the District Nurse, considered whether to lower his voice, and decided against it. “The baby…. You remember that Penny was going to arrange….”
“I remember.”
“She couldn’t arrange it. She couldn’t find the right man, and anyway it was too late. Penny’s going to adopt the baby, Father. It’s going to be born, and she’s going to adopt it.”
“And Julian?”
“She wants him to come home. Back with her.”
“Yes,” the Colonel said. “That’s his home. Not here. With his wife. And the child will live, eh?”
“Yes, Father.”
The Colonel fell silent for a while. Then he said, “Feeling a bit muzzy. Suppose I ought to rest. They say chaps live on through their sons. Do you feel that?”
“Not really.”
“Nor do I. Having children—going to Heaven— carving your name on the door of the bogs—everybody’s always trying to be immortal; it’s a lot of nonsense. I’ll tell you something. We live because we can’t help it, and we die because we can’t help that either. If we had any choice, we wouldn’t die, and we wouldn’t be born. Makes chaps feel pretty small sometimes. No choice. Only thing we ever have any choice about is how we do things. You know—doing it with style, and all that. That’s us—style. The rest is all outside, and we can’t control it. Chaps ought to finish well. I won’t keep you, Charles. I’ll go to sleep for a bit.” He raised himself in the bed, his heels magnificently together beneath the sheets, and said, “Draw the curtains, Nurse. I’m going to sleep.”
Charles said, “Sleep well, Father,” and rose to go. As he reached the door, the Colonel said, “I’m glad about the child. Don’t know why it should make a difference, but it does. Good-bye, Charles. Say something polite to the vicar.”
Then the Colonel closed his eyes, and Charles left him, The matter of the funeral arranged itself quite conveniently after all. Although the Colonel had specified that he should be buried in his own garden and not in the churchyard, he had not forbidden a religious service. The vicar, when the matter was put to him, said that he rather liked the idea actually. Some
how he said, it seemed almost nearer to the heart of things; hadn’t somebody written that you were nearer God’s heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth? And although the Colonel’s garden could not be described as consecrated ground, he was sure that reading the holy words of the burial service there would in some way consecrate it. So that, although there was inconvenience in a physical sense—in that the coffin had to be carried from the cottage to the church, and then back again to the garden —spiritually there was no difficulty at all. The affair attracted notice, of course, but it was notice of an approving kind, and a number of keen gardeners who read about the Colonel’s funeral in the local paper (where it was charmingly written up from notes supplied by the vicar) decided to do the same, and altered their wills accordingly.
The Colonel was buried beneath an almond tree, where a narrow path divided chrysanthemums from autumn broccoli. Only the vicar, the District Nurse, Mrs. Baker, Charles, Julian, two representatives from the British Legion and Mr. Sayers, the sexton, with Sam, his assistant, were present at the grave-side; Henry and his wife had sent a telegram from Bombay. The new earth beside the grave was damp with early-morning rain, and the path was damp underfoot, and fallen leaves lay on the lawn; the Colonel, if he were still alive, would soon be raking them into a pile, to burn when they were dry. Already, it seemed to Charles, the weeds must be gathering in the garden, mustering, calling the roll, preparing the invasion which would reclaim these ordered beds to wilderness.
They gathered round the coffin, Mr. Sayers and Sam on one side where the earth was piled up, the two British Legion men on the other, the vicar at the head, the family and the District Nurse at the foot. It was time to lower the coffin into the grave. “Ready now, if you please,” Mr. Sayers whispered, and the two British Legion men each took one end of the webbing straps which supported the coffin, while Mr. Sayers and Sam eased it gently forward. “Hold tight, if you please,” said Mr. Sayers, as he and Sam took the strain from their side, and the vicar, in his anxiety, stepped sharply backwards out of the way, and put his foot on a bronze chrysanthemum, breaking the stem so that it lay like a fallen plume beneath his foot. The coffin tilted, and seemed about to slide into the grave foot first. “Let her down there, if you please,” said Mr. Sayers to the British Legion man, who let his end down suddenly, so that the coffin lurched too quickly into the grave, and almost pulled Sam down with it. The vicar prayed. Each of the mourners stepped forward to sprinkle earth on the coffin, and Mrs. Baker dropped in a bouquet of autumn roses. The last words were said. The sun, which had been fitful all morning disappeared, as it seemed finally, behind banked clouds. A single raindrop gave the promise of others. There was nothing to do but tip the Legion men, go back to the cottage, and offer sherry to the vicar and the District Nurse. If only it were possible in real life for the curtain to come down sometimes, Charles thought; if only we didn’t have to go on all the time. There was his father put into the ground. There, as the funeral party left the garden, were Mr. Sayers and Sam, easing out the straps from beneath the coffin, and shovelling earth into the grave. But Charles and Julian and Mrs. Baker and the vicar and the District Nurse could not stop; the action was not over for them. They went back into the house for sherry. And soon something would have to be done about lunch.
*
It was just a mound of earth beneath the almond tree, showing where something had been buried. The bronze chrysanthemum still lay, broken, close to the mound. Charles picked it up. “I wonder what will happen to the garden now,” he said.
Julian said, “I don’t know. Mother might get a man in.”
Charles laid the chrysanthemum on top of the mound of earth. It was too short, and there was only one. “Looks silly,” he said. “There ought to be something growing.”
“There will be. Weeds.”
“Yes.”
A silence. The grass of the path was wet, and on the lawn the leaves were wet, and late raindrops still dripped from the leaves of the almond tree. The two brothers were framed, boxed in by the garden and the grey sky. Charles said, “Do you feel anything? I mean—I feel a bit flat. I do feel sorry, in a way, I suppose, and glad too —glad that he didn’t just go on having strokes and all that. But nothing urgent. Just flat.”
Julian did not reply. He was thinking, I killed him; and I don’t feel anything either. He had picked up the diary from the landing where it lay. Now it was at the bottom of his suitcase. Nobody else had seen it. He had killed his father, but he did not intend to marry his mother; he had a wife already, and was about, it seemed, to have a child also. A son perhaps. But I shall be the bad father, who is never killed, but only, “Missing; presumed dead”. “No, I don’t feel much,” he said. “Not as much as I ought.”
Charles said, “That holiday—did it work?”
“Not really. He enjoyed it.”
“Not you?”
Julian said, “Do you think you can change people’s natures just by sending them on holiday? It was a bloody stupid idea.”
“I didn’t really care if it worked for you. I wanted it to work for him.”
“Well, that’s all right then.”
Charles said, “Julian, would anything work? I mean —I don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me what happens to you. I’m sorry; it just doesn’t. But would it? Going back to Penny, for instance—will that work?”
“How should I know?”
“Aren’t you even going to try?”
“Try!” Julian said. “Try! Do you think I haven’t tried? I’m always trying. I spend my whole life trying. But you don’t get any credit for the times you resist temptation; you just get blamed when you fail. It’s not fair. No wonder I just give up sometimes. Look—what makes people the way they are? Circumstances. What you inherit. The way you’ve been brought up. What’s happened to you. And you are what you are. You can’t change. You know one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen? It was on a lavatory wall in Greenock. Somebody had written, ‘Is nobody queer in Greenock?’ Imagine the desperation of the poor sod who wrote that. What good would trying do him?”
Charles said slowly, “I don’t see that fairness has got anything to do with it.”
“What do you mean—you don’t see?”
“Who expects things to be fair?”
“I do. Everybody does.”
“No they don’t. Only kids expect things to be fair—kids and people who haven’t grown up. Like Shelley talking about God having made man wicked, and then punishing him for being so. Or Voltaire, rewriting Oedipus Rex to show that the gods weren’t rational beings, when for Sophocles that was just the point. Fairness is a human thing. We thought it up for ourselves. But when you go on about its not being fair that some people are what they are, you’re expecting Nature to be fair, or God, or circumstances, or whatever. But things aren’t fair. Why should they be? You just have to accept all that, the way it is.”
“Do you accept me the way I am?”
“I have to. It doesn’t matter much to me anyway.”
“Thank you for nothing.”
“But Julian, I’ve been thinking about this since father died. It was something he said about doing things with style. I mean—even if you accept all the preconditioning, even if you accept the fact that most of us behave in a pretty predictable way, and that we can’t help most of the things we do, you must allow some room for manœuvre, or there wouldn’t be any point at all. I mean— maybe you can’t help your compulsion or whatever it is, and maybe it’s right for us—well, for Penny anyway— to accept the fact that you can’t help it, but that’s no reason for you to accept it. You have to go on trying, and failing, and trying again. Otherwise there’s just no point. Otherwise you just give in, and nothing’s better than anything else, and even your fairness hasn’t got any meaning, any more. There’s got to be some point in being a human being. Do you see?”
Julian said, “What about you? Do you try?”
“I?”
“Yes. You go on about trying, and about
how there’s no point otherwise, but you never behave as if there were a point to anything. I know what you—what people —what anyone would think of me. What I think of myself sometimes. But at least I feel. I’m alive. But you don’t feel; you said so yourself. You’re just cold. Right from the beginning when I came home, you haven’t felt a thing.”
“I know. I’m having treatment for it.”
“What?”
“Yes. Things got so pointless, I tried to kill myself, but they pumped me out again.”
“Christ!”
“I’ve been going to a sort of Group Therapy thing.”
“Any use?”
“Not much. Gives me something to do two evenings a week.” Charles picked a leaf from the almond tree, and crumpled it in his hand. Insensitivity was only a matter of degree. Who knew whether the tree or the leaf felt pain, and could one care even if one knew? It touched nobody. He said, “I didn’t know anybody had noticed.”
“You can’t help noticing. Talking to you—it’s like playing chess or something. There’s no emotional reaction at all.”
Charles said, “Do you remember the story of Kay and the Snow Queen? It ends happily. Kay has a splinter of ice in his heart so that he doesn’t feel anything, but at the end, the splinter melts, and they take him away from the Snow Queen. I forget why it melts. Somebody kisses him or something; you know the way they do. The splinter melts, and he begins to feel again. It’s wrong, you know.”
“The splinter doesn’t melt in real life?”
“Yes, it does. Not often, but it still does. It melted when father was telling me—just before he died, when we were talking together, and he said that about doing things with style. It melted then. I felt—not sorry for him or anything like that—just with him … on his side. But it froze up again afterwards. Things change, but they change back again.”