by Cj Flood
But to brick someone, Eye? That’s messed up.
‘But Punky cut someone!’ I say out loud. ‘What’s the difference?’
I remember Trick’s lip, exploded, his ear ripped at the top where it should join his head, and the bloody tissue in his pocket. I remember Sam’s hair, thick with blood, and I regret cuddling Trick, and then I’m back to the unforgettable thing, the thing that is at the beginning and end of every thought, which is that it really doesn’t matter if I hugged Trick or not, or if I told Dad about Punky’s knife.
Because Sam is never coming back.
I lie in the corn den nestled against Fiasco, not always certain if I’m sleeping or awake, and then I jolt from somewhere warm to heartache, and Fiasco’s gone, and Mum is standing over me.
Sun shines through her short hair which is messy in that way that has nothing to do with fashion, and her eyes are swollen and sore-looking. She’s wearing Dad’s wax jacket over Sam’s clothes, even though it’s already getting hot.
Fiasco wags her tail treacherously, comes to lick my face.
‘Poor old girl must have been hungry,’ Mum says. Her voice is empty. ‘She been out here with you all night? She ate a whole tin of food just now.’
Mum passes me an apple, and pulls Dad’s work flask from her pocket, and sits in Trick’s corner. She pours out hot chocolate. I don’t know who she is. Her face is so straight.
‘Got brandy in it,’ she says, almost apologetic, and holds the lid out. I take it, amazed at how the milky brown liquid swirls, and how the steam floats up, and how Sam will never again taste a thing as delicious as this.
‘We shouldn’t have done that. In there. I shouldn’t have asked you that. Your dad’s right. It wouldn’t have made any difference. If you’d told me. If I’d come back. Nobody knew Sam was going to die. How could they? It doesn’t make any sense.’
She takes the lid back and refills it, and passes it to me. She swigs from a small bottle of brandy in Dad’s pocket. Her whole body trembles.
‘He’s angry with you now, Iris, but he won’t hold it against you. Me, maybe. Not you. He loves you.’
Why isn’t he out here then? I want to ask, but my tongue has swollen to the size of an adder. It blocks my throat.
‘Loves me too, I suppose.’ She shakes her head. ‘No suppose about it. He just doesn’t always know how . . . He loves you and your brother so much. He cried when you were born. Both of you. Couldn’t believe he was lucky enough to get a boy and a girl, in that order.
‘He told everyone that’s what he wanted, when we were expecting you. “A frilly knicker,” he said. I didn’t want to curse it, and I didn’t mind, as long as you were healthy, but he told everyone, he didn’t care. “A frilly knicker, or we’re sending it back.”’
Mum looks around at nothing, but her voice comes a little bit back to life as she talks.
‘All the other men steered clear of the baby phase, but not your dad. He loved it. Nappies, winding, the lot. Let you crawl all over him. Took you everywhere when he wasn’t working.’
She looks up. It’s another one of those blue and white days. The bright clouds move fast.
‘We were happy then, you know. The four of us. I wish you could remember it.’
I drink the last of the chocolate. It’s so sweet. The brandy burns my throat. It feels good in my veins.
‘You’ve broken his heart, not telling him things, and he doesn’t understand. You’re still his little girl. But I . . . It’s different with us. All those conversations we had. I know the way you felt about him, Iris. About . . . Trick.’
She swallows in the middle of saying his name, and I want her to stop talking for once because I feel so guilty, but she doesn’t. She never does.
‘You didn’t do anything wrong, Iris. Yes, you shouldn’t have lied, or snuck out behind his back, but you’re thirteen now. Fourteen nearly. He forgets what that’s like. He’s so old-fashioned! You only did what teenagers do. And this boy. Trick. He was there for you. I know that.’
I wipe my eyes.
‘You’ve got that to deal with on top of everything else, on top of losing your brother. But your dad doesn’t think like that. He knows you wouldn’t lie about what happened, no matter what you thought of this boy. If you held things back . . . He knows you loved your brother. Of course he does.’
I want to talk, to get some of what I’m thinking out, but I’m so scared of saying the wrong thing and, anyway, she won’t stop.
‘We’re so different, me and your dad. Always have been. That’s why we liked each other so much at the start. See, I don’t care who’s responsible. Because nothing can be done about it. It won’t stop me feeling guilty and it won’t bring Sam back. He isn’t coming back. That’s all I care about. That’s all I’ve got room for. But your dad, he wants to do something.’
‘I just feel so sick all the time,’ I manage.
‘I know you do, baby,’ she says, and she pulls me to her.
‘No. I mean . . . I feel so sick.’
‘Look at me, Iris. You’ve got nothing to feel guilty about. Do you understand? Sam was your brother and Trick was your friend, but what they did had nothing to do with you. You don’t have to choose. Just because me and your dad couldn’t live together, didn’t mean you had to stop loving one of us, did it? Doesn’t work like that. Love doesn’t work like that.’
It is like a giant thing has let go from round my neck.
She screws the empty lid back onto the flask, rubs her hands over her face and scratches her head, hard and all over. She strokes her hands across Sam’s Adidas Stripes. She looks at me and looks at me and looks at me.
‘The only thing we can do now, the only thing, is be honest with each other. We have to tell each other how we’re feeling, and be honest, and get through this. That’s all we can do, Iris. I mean it. That’s all we’ve got.’
She takes my hand, and rubs her thumbs against my fingers, and I dare myself to speak, to say what it is that’s making me sick.
‘I’m so angry with him, Mum, for starting it. He knew Trick was my friend. And he started on him, for nothing. No reason at all. And Trick was scared, Mum. He didn’t know what he was doing. They were all on him. He was a mess when I saw him. Afterwards. He was coughing up blood. He waited all night, here, this was our place. His mum and dad left and he waited to see me. To give me his address. And I didn’t even know if he’d made it home, but he did.’
Mum is looking at me, chewing her top lip, and I can’t carry on. Her blue eyes are wintry.
‘It’s just so hard to hear, Iris. It’s like you’re saying . . . It’s like you’re saying he deserved it.’
‘I know,’ I say, but I don’t stop talking, because she’s right. All we can do is tell the truth, and see what’s left. ‘But if Sam had lived I’d forgive Trick, I know I would, because he didn’t want any of it. And what’s the difference? Really? He’d still have smashed my brother round the head with a rock. What he did would still be the same.
‘It shouldn’t have happened, none of it should. But I just can’t understand why Sam started on him, Mum. I don’t understand why he did it. Why did he do it?’
I don’t really know what I’m saying any more, and I feel so far away from things, and then Mum wraps her arms around me.
‘I’m so sorry that I left you here by yourself. That you’ve been trying to cope with all this . . . You’ve got to talk to your dad, Iris. You’ve got to make him see . . .’
She can’t talk any more, and it’s strange to hear her cry, because all my life I’ve never seen it, and now she can’t stop.
‘I thought you’d be all right,’ she chokes out. ‘I thought you’d all be all right.’
For some reason then, I remember how Sam hated to be laughed at, and all of the times I did it anyway, because I wanted him to feel stupid, and I wonder how anybody can be cruel to someone they love. How can anyone do anything but love each other and be kind when at the end of it all, waiting quietly, sur
e as the dark at the end of the loveliest day, is only this?
Forty-two
The night before Sam’s funeral I slept in his bed. At some point, Dad walked in. He didn’t expect me to be there. I could smell the whisky and fags on him. He backed out of the room slowly. I hoped he hadn’t thought somehow that Sam had come back.
I have a black linen dress to wear and new black leather ballet shoes. Matty and Donna brought some things round for me to choose from. In the end, they chose for me. I didn’t care. Matty tied a black ribbon round my hair, so it was off my face for once.
‘You’re so pretty,’ she said, fiddling with my curls, and I knew she meant she was sorry about everything.
The sun’s only just come up, but I put the dress on and sit on my bed. I feel like somebody’s sister in a play about a funeral. I wait. Dad gets up too early as well. I can hear him in the shower, and I think about Trick at my window. How Sam opened his eyes in hospital and saw nothing.
On my wall, the girl that is meant to be me stands on a hill before a storm. She looks out at a buzzard that rips a baby rabbit into the sky. The drawing seems threatening now, like a bad omen. I love it. It makes me think of chocolate pancakes. I lie down and pull the covers over my head.
At nine o’clock, Tess and Benjy arrive. Tess has more brandy. She pours three glasses.
Dad isn’t down yet. Mum knocks brandy back. She’s wearing sunglasses, but no one’s mentioned it. Benjy is wearing black trousers and a white shirt, and his hair looks wrong in a side parting.
If it was him who’d died, Sam could have worn his clothes. If it was me, Matty could wear mine. Mum could wear Tess’s or the other way round. It’s like we’re all in costume, and I get the urge to laugh, and then I’m sad because I wish we’d had time to organise something better.
Mum takes her sunglasses off for a second, and her eyeballs are pink. Her eyelids are puffy. She says she’s wearing them in the chapel.
‘They’ll think you’re making a statement,’ Tess says.
‘Screw ’em,’ Mum says. ‘They make me feel better.’
Tess nods into her glass. She tops Mum up.
It’s almost time, and Dad still isn’t down.
I find him sitting on the end of his bed with his head in his hands. The way he turns his head to me, like a toddler or an animal, makes me run out of the room.
‘Mum. You need to go and see Dad.’
She necks her brandy and goes upstairs.
Benjy has been stood by the Aga looking lost. Tess walks over and gives him a cuddle.
Mum’s older brothers arrive, Uncle Martin and Uncle Tim, with his wife, Aunty Paula, and my two little cousins. They’ve been driving since four and the kids are bickering about something. They won’t stop. After a few minutes, Tim shouts at them to go outside. They run out, and a minute later we hear them laughing.
Tess asks pointless questions and Uncle Tim looks grateful. Benjy tries to catch my eye.
Mum and Dad come downstairs. He walks through the door first. He’s in his funeral suit. He’s wearing his thin black tie. Mum’s hand is on his back.
She makes a weird noise when she sees her brothers. They hug for a long time.
Unbelievably, though it’s what we’ve been waiting for, the hearse arrives. It’s half past nine, time for school assembly, and a stranger in a suit gets out and waits by the glossy black car we’ll go in.
In the back of the first car is a shiny mahogany coffin that I can’t think too much about. It’s surrounded by flowers and cards and notes. School held a disco to raise money for a wreath. Sam’s nickname, Dancer, is spelled out in yellow chrysanthemums. Tess and Benjy and my uncles and aunty look through the windows at the arrangement but me and Mum and Dad just get in the car.
The stranger has teeth like a row of cigarette ends, and when he ducks his head to talk to Mum through the window I can’t help staring at them. I can’t help wondering what they smell like. The cars pull off, and then we’re in the funeral procession.
We sit with our hands on our knees.
A woman with a pushchair stops and bows her head as we pass and I love her.
Inside the funeral car is grey leather. It’s a smell you can’t forget. On one side, Mum kneads my hand, her rings crushing against the bones of my fingers. On the other, Dad looks like he’s going to puke. I want to hold his hand.
The trees kiss overhead, and then we are at the crematorium.
Forty-three
Our car rolls onto the white-stoned car park, and the noise of the tyres is magnified like when Mum left, and I picture Sam running his fingers over the stones, and then the man with the fag-end teeth opens the door for us. Mum climbs out, then me, then Dad, and it’s so unusual being at a family event, just us three.
Pretty much everyone I know stands outside the chapel. Matty is on her tiptoes, looking for me. She holds a bunch of white flowers, and her eyes are like Mum’s, and I remember how everyone used to tease her about wanting to marry Sam.
Behind her, Donna holds a hanky to her nose. She rests her head against Jacob. They each rest a hand on Matty’s shoulders. Austin stands on his own to the side of them. Fraz, Billy Whizz the rabbit catcher, the pig farmer and Big Chapmun stand together, looking itchy in their suits.
Some of Sam’s teachers and Miss Ryan, the Head of Year, stand near the back of the group. Most of his form and all his gang are there, as well as some kids from other years. The popular girls, who play netball for the county, clutch at each other as Dad and the other pall-bearers walk over to the hearse. Ally Fletcher who went to the cinema with Sam once starts to cry.
Fraz pats Dad’s shoulder, and Benjy’s dad, Steve, squeezes Benjy’s arm. Mum’s brothers Tim and Martin go up together. They all take their places, then pull the coffin out of the hearse, and it’s so weird because you can’t tell it holds the body of a boy.
He wasn’t even sixteen, but his coffin’s the same size as a man’s would be.
It’s not just that he was young, but because it was so sudden. No one should die the way he did: that’s what the faces here say.
I think about him, in there, with all that space, and I want to stop them. I want to open the box and climb in with him. I want to wrap him up in a duvet. I can’t bear the thought of him being cold.
Father Caffrey comes out of the chapel to meet the coffin. You can see the pall-bearers communicating with each other, very serious and quiet, about when to lift and when to walk. They begin their slow march into the chapel. Benjy’s smaller than the rest, but he’s in the middle so it doesn’t matter. He insisted.
Mum and me follow them in. Her thumb rubbing at my fingers makes my bones ache.
I see Leanne out the corner of my eye as I walk past the crowd. She’s sobbing, those gut-wrenching tears I can’t do any more. A man with tattooed knuckles wraps his arm around her, looking like he would do anything if she would stop.
There must be a hundred people walking behind us but I don’t hear any footsteps. The chapel is cold and it reminds me of Sam’s ward. It smells of elderly breath. I want to get out of there.
The intro of ‘Tears in Heaven’ plays as people file into the pews. Father Caffrey stands at the lectern, serene, nodding at people. The guitar yanks at something deep in me, and for a second I can almost understand what we’re all doing here.
The men place the coffin down on the platform at the front left of the chapel, and make their way back to their places. Dad shakes beside me. I hold his hand. It’s limp in mine.
Mum sits rigid with her sunglasses on. I can feel her straight spine beside me. Tess is next to her, then Benjy, and then his dad, Steve, on the end.
Father Caffrey lets the guitar fade out. He waits a few seconds to speak. People shift and sniff. The wooden pews creak and the air feels full, because for once everyone is paying attention.
Father Caffrey talks but I don’t know what he says. I look at the order of service. Sam’s face grins out at me. I took the picture. It’s right befor
e school started back last year. Mum’s about to tell Sam to calm down because he’s just poured a pint of water over Matty while she was sunbathing. Benjy is laughing somewhere out of shot. Sam’s hair is really long. It curls onto his forehead, and in front of his ears. You can just see Matty’s bare feet in the background.
Tess goes up to read a poem, and it doesn’t really matter if it’s beautiful or not because I’m holding this picture of Sam, and he looks so delighted, and where is he now? I can’t look at the coffin, or at Tess. I keep my eyes on the photo, I don’t look away, because it really is getting to be unignorable, the fact that my big brother is dead.
‘. . . nothing now can ever come to any good,’ Tess says, and her voice breaks, and she walks back to her seat. Benjy puts his arm around her.
Father Caffrey invites Mum to the stage, and she stands up, then sits back down. Tess takes hold of her face, and Mum leans in to her. The two of them whisper together, and then Mum shakes her head. She pats Tess’s arm, takes a huge breath and walks to the stage. She unfolds a piece of paper, and looks out at the chapel from behind her sunglasses. Tess was right. It does look like a statement. I want her to take them off.
While she scans the first line, Tess slides across the pew, and takes my hand. She drapes her other arm around Benjy. Her fingers are icy and she smells of incense.
Dad is coming back to life beside me. He pulls himself up, and sits tall in his seat, and watches Mum. He squeezes my hand between both of his.
‘I don’t think anyone can imagine how it feels to be . . . here,’ Mum says, and there’s a strange rhythm to her voice. There are pauses where there shouldn’t be. She swallows. She shakes her head from side to side, rubbing her lips over each other. You can just see where her eyes are behind the shades. She looks at me. I want her to sit down.
‘The last few days of Sam’s life, he was surrounded by his family, and his godmother, and his best friend, and I know that he took comfort from having everyone who loved him most with him, when he breathed his last.’