Silver Birches

by Adrian Plass

  “Oh, good heavens, no! I’m sorry, Mike. Of course I can see now why you would have thought that. No wonder you laughed. Sorry. I’ll start again . . .”

  I guessed that for him it was always a relief to return to the safe, familiar ground of having something to apologize for.

  “ . . . no, what I was meaning to say was that I’m terrified — yes, I think terrified is the word — of there being nothing after we die. Just lately I’ve even had trouble sleeping because of it. I lie awake, you see, just thinking about Julie and the girls and all the little things we do and say and feel, and I think to myself — what if it’s all rubbish that gets thrown away in the end? What if none of it really means anything? What if there is no God and no heaven and no being together again after we die? And I think, well, if there isn’t, I’d almost rather die now and stop all the pretending and the . . . the silly hoping.”

  His eyes widened and his voice quavered a little as he went on.

  “I can’t help it. At night, over and over again, I see my little girls’ eyes all big and round when they’re curled up in their bunks and I’m telling them about Jesus. You know, they look at me with such . . . such trust, and believe all the things I say. They ask me questions and I answer them, and they nod. We sing things together and pray. But the trouble is, I’m not sure that I believe what I say. I tell them Grandma’s safe in heaven and they’re going to see her again one day. But what if she isn’t?” His voice rose to a little crescendo, filled with the panic that must have been lying just below the surface for a very long time. “What if it’s all just a cruel, nasty joke, and at the end of all these things that seemed to mean so much there’s nothing? There are times when — when I want to go to a lonely place and just sort of scream and howl!” He collected himself with an effort and glanced around apologetically. “I don’t, of course.”

  The first line of that poem passed through my mind. “I took my daughter to the park last night . . .”

  “There is a heaven,” said Peter simply, after a short silence, “and Jesus will be there and so will you and your wife and your little girls and their grandma.”

  “Oh, yes. Yes!” Graham nodded vigorously, as though Peter had proposed a subtle, telling argument that successfully counteracted his fears. “Yes, of course. Thank you.”

  If there was one thing I had learned from contact with troubled people over the years, it was that spiritual problems are very often not spiritual problems at all. Losing weight, for instance, could be as effective in restoring a faltering relationship with God as anything that the folks at Grafton Manor were able to dish up. There was something else behind Graham’s dread of oblivion.

  “Graham, do you mind if I ask you something?”

  “No, David, not at all, of course not.”

  “What’s your worst worry about you and your family — your very worst worry?”

  Graham blinked, then hunted everywhere with his eyes, searching for an escape route that I suspected he didn’t really want to find.

  “Angela,” he said very quietly at last, “I wonder — do you think I might have a glass of wine, or — or whisky even, after I’ve said what I’m going to say?”

  Angela rocked back on her heels and spread her arms expansively. “Graham, the entire contents of the drinks cupboard is at your disposal if you really want it. I made the rule so I can jolly well dump it.”

  “Thank you. I, er, I don’t usually deal with things in that way, you understand.”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Right. Good. By the way, the things we say here this weekend, they are — you know — confidential, aren’t they?”

  We all nodded emphatic agreement. Or anyway, I thought privately, about as confidential as it’s possible to get with human beings. When Graham spoke again it was virtually in a whisper.

  “Sometimes I long for my family to die.”

  It was like one of those key moments in a film or a play when one of the characters says something that moves the proceedings in a radically different direction or on to another plane altogether. I hoped no one would feel bound to say anything too quickly in response to this extraordinary statement. They didn’t. Graham studied the floor and spread his fingers on the arms of his chair as he went on.

  “Sometimes — sometimes I imagine that I’m sitting at home reading a newspaper or listening to Radio Four, and a telephone call comes. When I answer it they tell me that Julie and the girls have all been killed in this bad traffic accident.” He glanced up and, lifting one hand from his chair, moved it in a gesture of denial from side to side. “Not — I don’t mean one where they’re hurt or injured. Nothing like that. They’ve just died instantly and at exactly the same moment — suddenly, you know, without even knowing that anything’s happened. No pain, no crying, no being afraid. Just — gone. The police stated that death was instantaneous — that’s what they say, isn’t it? And I get really upset and everything, and we have the funeral and all the people come to the house for . . . the get-together, and then they go, and I’m off work for a while with compassionate leave, and then it all settles down and I go back to work and I don’t get married again and everything’s all right.”

  Graham’s voice filled with emotion as he continued. He was entreating us to understand, to know what it felt like to be inside him.

  “You see, the thing is, if it were to happen round about now, if it stopped here, I wouldn’t have done too badly, would I? I mean, I’ve tried very hard and it’s been all right. I really have tried. I’ve tried beyond what I am. It’s all not too bad. Julie still loves me. That can’t go on forever. It can’t! The girls — my girls think I’m really special and funny and okay. They respect me.” He shook his head rapidly from side to side. “But they’re only little. One day they won’t. I know they won’t. How on earth could they? I’ve managed to hold it together up to now. If it ended today or tomorrow or next week I could be at peace for the rest of my life without ever feeling guilty, because it would just be a thing that happened. I could go to work during the day and sit quietly at home in the evening and — and feel sad and listen to the radio.” He raised his eyes and looked straight at me. “Do you think I sound like . . . like an awful monster, David?”

  I couldn’t help smiling. “No, Graham, I don’t. I’ll tell you what you sound like. You sound to me like a very good, very loving man with a very lucky family. You sound like someone who finds it extremely difficult to believe in himself as a husband or as a father. You sound like a man who just can’t believe that he’s done so well at the things he always thought he’d fail at. You sound like someone who’s got his faith wrapped round his fears and needs to do a bit of disentangling. And as a matter of interest, I happen to know for a fact that you’re very far from being alone in thinking the way you do.”

  “Graham, all that stuff about road accidents,” put in Jenny, “if you don’t mind me saying so, I think that’s just a fantasy, a sort of escape valve to stop you going off pop when you start thinking about the next thirty years instead of keeping your eyes on tonight and tomorrow morning. Fantasies aren’t usually about what you really want.”

  She glanced at me, then back at him.

  “Besides, if someone really did give you a choice between your wife and your beloved little girls being there when you get home tomorrow, or discovering that something bad had happened to them while you were away, which would you choose? I mean — look — suppose I really did have the power to make it happen. You choose. You can go home and find they’re all dead and gone, killed in that accident you were talking about, or you can have them running up and throwing their arms round you because you’re back. Think about it now. Think about their faces. Choose. Which do you want?”

  There was no need for him to answer. His face said it all. There was a new light in his eyes. It happens very rarely, but just occasionally the opportunity to confess has an almost instantaneous effect. If it had been a halfway reasonable thing to do, I think Graham might ha
ve shot straight out of the door, jumped into his car, and driven through the night to get to the people he loved. Good for him.

  “Such a — a relief!” he said. “So silly . . .”

  I braced myself. This time I knew what that glance from Jenny had meant. I drummed a troubled little rhythm on my knees with the flat of my hands before beginning.

  “Right, my turn. Earlier in the evening, while we were in the dining room, there were two bits of conversation that never actually led anywhere. One was when Angela asked me if I was willing to talk about Jessica if she talked about Alan, and the other was when Jenny started to say I’d at least begun to do exactly that up on the hills this morning — as well as the, er, stuff about her and me. I was just thinking, Graham, that losing someone you love as much as you love your family and I love my wife would be horrible — is horrible, when it really does happen. It’s just plain horrible. There’s nothing else to say. There’s no way round it, you have to go right through the middle of it. And believe me when I say that you don’t end up sitting quietly at home feeling a little bit sad but not too bad really. Fantasies dry up and disappear like . . . like that tissue Angela threw on the fire just now. The reality is you fall to pieces inside every day when you wake up and find that it wasn’t a nightmare after all.

  “Despite all the stuff I do in public I’m not actually that good at talking about how I feel to people I don’t know very well, and I came here on Friday pretty determined I wasn’t going to talk about my wife whatever happened, but I’ve changed my mind for all sorts of reasons. And anyway, I’ll have to if I’m going to be as honest as Graham has been about what scares me most.

  “So, okay, I suppose there are two things I fear most. I’m afraid of living without Jessica, and I’m afraid of living with God without Jessica.”

  I was aware that Angela had moved so that she was kneeling on the carpet beside my chair, looking up at me as I spoke, letting her arm rest against mine. Surrendering, I laid my face against the wing of my armchair and, for the first time in over eight months, let the words come. If it had been a film, and if there had been music, I think I would have cried like a baby.

  “I loved Jessica. I loved Jessica so much. I loved her voice and her walk and her laugh and nearly all the things she did. I loved being at home and in cars and supermarkets and trains and planes and bus shelters and anywhere else with her. I loved her serious sense of duty. And I loved the way she got so excited about enjoying things when she was convinced the time for enjoying things had come and was absolutely right. And I loved — I so loved her being in our house when I came back from being away, seeing her eyes sparkle just because I had come through the door, and wanting to know all about how it had gone and what the people were like and what made me laugh and what I’d had to eat . . .

  “I loved the fact that we belonged together and we were going to grow old together. I loved knowing that arguments were never the end. I loved the way we teased each other about fancying other people. I loved us praying together and loving God together and saying sorry and talking about what Jesus might have really been like together, and I really, really loved her face when she was asleep, especially late at night when she’d tried to wait up for me and dropped off in her armchair, and she’d jump up half awake and try to be all bright and welcoming when I came in and woke her up, even though she looked half-crazed and couldn’t quite work out where she was or what was going on. I look into the future, and with no Jessica beside me, my house and my life look so — empty and silent. It’s been frightening me very much.”

  The fire had burned low and needed to have more wood put on, but nobody moved. I took a deep breath.

  “When she died — she died of a sort of complication from chicken pox, you know — wouldn’t believe it, would you? Septicemia. Chicken pox. Kid’s thing. Sounds so stupid and trivial. When she died I went home and I sat in the kitchen, and I said to myself — right, you’ve been going around for years telling everyone what they ought to think about God. You’ve met loads of men and women who’ve lost people they love, and you — you’ve said things to them. Yes, well, go on! Say them to yourself. See if they help. The expert coach forced to actually run the bloody marathon. And I went and got a dinner plate out of the cupboard and deliberately broke it. Against the wall. I hated myself and I hated God. I hated myself for having a load of preset answers to all the questions that were flooding through my brain, all the same old questions that God gets asked by everyone. Why did she die? What possible good reason could there be for taking her away from me? Why did you give me a job that’s so hard to do on my own if you knew this was going to happen? Why didn’t you heal her? Why don’t you love me any more? Why don’t you exist?

  “I found myself hating God for being perfect — someone you can’t blame for anything, like a massive face of rock you know you’ll never be able to climb because there’s nowhere to put your hands or feet. I wanted him to come and be there, sitting at the table with me, visible and caring and real — someone I could touch.”

  “He was there,” said Peter, simply, “hanging on a tree for you, so that you could see Jessica again. He . . . he hung on a tree for me this afternoon.”

  Dear Peter. I was amazed at how my view of him had changed so much in the course of twenty-four hours. Despite everything I couldn’t help smiling at his reference to our birch-swinging exploits. It must have been rather puzzling for the others though.

  “You’re absolutely right. He was there. But I was badly wounded. God may be omnipotent — is omnipotent — but even he wasn’t able to actually be Jessica on that day. He didn’t try. He took her and then he stood back and waited for me to stop thrashing about and come back to him. I’m glad. I wouldn’t want that kind of magic. Grief is real.”

  I stopped, thinking what a relief it was to begin to discover what I really thought.

  “I am frightened about work. I was going to stop. It’s going to take me awhile to get back to the sort of thing I’ve been doing. One thing I don’t want is to end up trailing myself around like a sort of bereavement sideshow. I’m all too aware of the way Christian speakers recycle personal tragedy then offer it up as ministry — done it myself. Not any more. If I’m going to carry on I want to preach Christ crucified, not me having a tough time.”

  “Which plate did you break, David?”

  This was greeted with perplexity by the others, and the response took me a moment to think through.

  “You’re absolutely right,” I admitted, “I sorted through the cup-board to find an odd one she wouldn’t mind me smashing. Thanks, Jenny.”

  The answer to Jenny’s brilliantly insightful question was a vital aspect of my weekend away. But that was enough from me. Now I wanted to make it easy for Angela. I knew that super-competent characters like her were sometimes not good at the kind of show-and-tell that was going on here. When I touched her hair lightly with my hand she looked up and nodded.

  “I’ll, er . . . I’ll put more wood on, shall I?” offered Mike, who had been listening with unusual attentiveness as I spoke.

  “Oh, yes. Please, Mike,” said Angela. For once there was no smile, and her voice was abnormally quiet and controlled.

  Soon the shadows on the old kitchen walls, walls that must have witnessed every possible human emotion in the course of their long history, were dancing in time to the flames that sprang to life almost instantly from the seasoned logs tossed on by Mike.

  “I haven’t forgotten your whisky, Graham.” Without taking her frowning gaze from the fire, Angela lifted an arm and flapped the back of her hand against his leg. “Let me just say my piece and then we’ll all have one. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Of course, yes, of course — that is — of course not.” Graham hastened to reassure her. I was pleased and amazed to see how quickly he had slipped back into his earlier mood of contented relaxation.

  We waited.

  “Well, basically the bastard dragged my guts out,” said Angela at last,
still speaking in that low, mechanical voice, “when he drove out of here with that — that girl. I was still all attached to him — important parts of me. He dragged away a chunk of me that I really needed. Well, I mean, that’s not fair, is it? Because I need it if I’m going to go on living. It was my stupid fault, of course. I gave it to him. I joined myself to him. I don’t know how to get it back.”

  Her breathing started to escalate as she allowed the anger to rise in her.

  “He’s a horrible, treacherous, nasty little bastard! I’d like to take one of those logs and smash him as hard as I could with it! I want him to absolutely rot! I want — ”

  As she turned and looked up at me, her mouth turned down at the corners and her whole face crumpled like a little girl who is too tired to be cross any more and can only manage to cry. The anger in her voice became anguished, tearful puzzlement.

  “I thought we were so happy. I loved him. He loved me. I thought it was forever. He went off and left me. I’m never ever going to forgive him — not ever!”

  “Yes, you are,” said Peter, “because you want to be obedient and you’re a very, very beautiful person.”

  Extraordinary! On hearing this, Angela swung her tear-stained face round in Peter’s direction, stared at him in blank incredulity for a moment, then burst into such an explosion of laughter that most of the force went down her nose and Jenny had to leap across and rescue her with an ocean of tissues.

  “Oh, Peter!” gasped Angela, when she had scrubbed her face clean and recovered a little, “you are so wonderful, you really are. Not many people would be able to look at a venomous, swearing, unforgiving cow covered in tears and snot and see a very, very beautiful person.”

  She collapsed into giggles again, as did the rest of us, as much through relief as anything else, I suspected. Peter seemed a trifle bewildered, but he laughed as well, and there was little doubt that he enjoyed his rare excursion into the world of being thought wonderful.

  Angela announced that for now she had no more to say about Alan, wisely in my view. She would only have repeated herself.