The Life of Death

by Lucy Booth

  They’ve never had children. They’ve tried – Lord knows they were desperate. And it nearly happened more than once. But then the cramps and the pain and the blood. Every time, the cramps and the pain and the blood. The agony as their babies were taken in the darkest of nights by the local doctor. Barely more than a bundle of cells. Limbs partially formed. Thin, pink skin translucent. I watched as they cried – Angharad’s head tucked into the crook of his shoulder as he strokes her hair and whispers and lulls. Anything to take the pain away. But he can’t. He’s helpless. And then finally, after years of dashed hopes and sleepless nights, they accept their fate. They are two and they are strong.

  And then one day, Hywel doesn’t come home. The butterflies flit, as they do every day at ten past five. At twenty past, Angharad pops the kettle on the hob. At half past, the boiling water purses its lips to whistle, ready for a well-deserved cup of tea to welcome Hywel through the door and slake the coal-dust-parched throat. But today there’s no figure looming at the back door. No boots kicked off on the kitchen step and no dirty kiss, smearing her face with black marks as she laughs and chides.

  Today, Hywel doesn’t come home.

  She sits and waits for him at the kitchen table. Sits and waits. The butterflies have settled to a hardened knot in the pit of her stomach. The cup of tea she’s made for his home-coming sits cold and forgotten on the dresser, a skin forming on its surface. Every tick of the grandmother clock in the kitchen passage a whip crack. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Filling her ears and mind with every second he doesn’t return. As the minutes pass into hours, the fire in the range dies down and she sits, cold and alone in the dim light. And still the clock, it ticks and it tocks.

  And finally, finally at a quarter to eleven, there’s a knock at the front door. Nobody ever knocks at the front door.

  On that same cold October night, I’m up the hill. Up at the coal face both literally and metaphorically. While Angharad was baking, the mine was falling in. Collapsing in on the heads of the men below. And we all know that Hywel was in there.

  I’ve crawled inside, deep into the gut of the earth. To the ten men huddled there. Splintered wooden struts bar their way, the sound of coal settling slithers and snakes into their ears. I have seen to three of the men – wrapping them tightly in their coats and kissing their eyelids closed, their heads nestled one by one into my lap. I extract their crushed and crumbled limbs, right their heads on broken necks. But Hywel, Hywel holds me at arm’s length. Although he can’t see me in the darkness, he can smell me in the air – the musky scent Angharad sprays on the nape of her neck, that tangles in her hair as it drapes across his cheek. He pushes me out of the way. Just a nudge. Just enough to let me know I have no place here. Move on please, nothing to see. But the air is getting thin and it’s only a matter of time. I only need to sit and wait.

  A trickle of blood runs down his forehead and his body is twisted unnaturally, uncomfortably. He rests his head against the sheer face of coal and thinks of Angharad. Only of her. He knows she’ll be waiting, from the second the clock ticks past half past the hour and he doesn’t walk through the door. Knows she won’t leave the house until he’s back, until order is restored and he’s come back for her. He can see her sitting there at the kitchen table, small hands clasped in front of her, eyes fixed on the clock. Refusing to think the worst. She’s a stubborn one, his Angharad. He thinks of their wedding day. Of the home-made quilt on their bed, stitched together square by square in front of the fire in the parlour on cosy evenings spent in companionable silence. He thinks of the stew and potatoes waiting for him in the slow cooker and his stomach rumbles in the darkness.

  Up on the surface, an air of panic hangs over the scene. Rescue workers divide into groups. The task at hand is slow and laborious, success balancing on a knife edge. Too long and the little air they have will run out, a suffocating carbon dioxide build-up to tempt each of them into a final sleep. Too quick and the roof falls in to crush and break the men below into a million little pieces.

  They work in silence. Lips tight in grim faces, skin grey in the fading light. Although the sky above is still showing vestiges of the crisp blue of an autumn afternoon, the shadow of the mountain has thrown the operation into a premature darkness. Lamps light the entrance to the mine, casting an amber glow across the hillside. The metallic ring of shovel against stone echoes out in the cold afternoon air, bouncing off the exposed rock faces on all sides. They work for hours. Painstaking, tiny advances. One shovel at a time.

  Down below the men can hear the movement above. Tiny chips of coal rain down on them, breath held with every flurry, anticipating a landslide. An eerie sense of calm pervades the space – these are hardened men in both body and mind, and they know the risks of the mine. They know that each day could be their last.

  As the hours pass, breathing becomes harder. Oxygen is running out and those still clinging to life are getting light-headed. Their eyes have become accustomed to the darkness and one by one they begin to see me. I am Martha, wife of Thomas. I am Dilys, mother of Gareth and Dylan. They’ve done everything together those boys – eighteen years of Dylan following Gareth’s every move. So when Gareth said he wanted to look for work at the mine, it was inevitable Dylan would be right behind him. And finally, I am Bethany, three years old and cuddling my father in that cold, dark and scary place. The only person I still haven’t appeared to, who still won’t even entertain the idea of my presence, is Hywel.

  ‘Whaaa … ?’

  A bright light shining in his face shocks him awake. A plastic mask bundled over his face floods his lungs with oxygen. He jerks his head back, knocking it against the cold, hard rock and wincing as a shooting pain slices through his neck where it’s bent in a most unorthodox fashion.

  ‘We’ve got one!’ Big hands work quickly to free limbs. Big hands, surprisingly gentle in their efficiency. The pain from a dislocated shoulder makes him pass out again. But not before Angharad flits across his mind’s eye – alone and cold at the kitchen table.

  At the surface, the first fingers of dawn are reaching out across the mountain peaks. The crews have worked tirelessly and relentlessly. And only Hywel has made it this far. The others follow him lifeless on stretchers out of the rubble of the mine entrance – a solemn procession shrouded in pink blankets blackened with coal.

  The first ambulance takes Hywel – blue light flashing, bell ringing, bouncing back louder against the hard lines of slate and slag heap. Behind this first vehicle, his colleagues are carried in a silent cortege of flashing blue.

  More lights – fluorescent tubes shuttle overhead as the hospital trolley sweeps along pea-green corridors and faces crowd above him.

  ‘Fluids.’

  ‘Oxygen.’

  ‘Nasty bump to the head.’

  ‘Angharad … ?’

  ‘Ward 6B.’

  ‘Fracture of the right tibia.’

  ‘Administer chloroform.’

  ‘Angharad … ?’

  He passes in and out of sleep. So very, very tired. Coughing up thick, black phlegm. Lids heavy, eyes gritty. Mouth dry, teeth furred. His limbs feel like they’ve been set in concrete, his head as though he’s been abandoned in a February fog. I watch him through the window to the ward. Watch as the nurses in their white peaked caps, with their starched bosoms, change his drip. As catheters are changed and slowly, slowly the colour returns to his cheeks. I watch as Angharad huddles close and grips his hand, chattering away as if he’s listening to every word. And he is. Deep through the opiate fug he can hear her chirp. Deep under that chloroform blanket he smiles to himself. Don’t worry, Angharad. He’s not going anywhere.

  And he doesn’t. For three days I watch and wait, wait and watch. As he clambers out from his drug-induced sleep and returns the grip on Angharad’s hand. As his lungs clear and broken bones begin to knit. When he wakes, Angharad’s stream of chatter stills to a calm pool of silence as she tucks him in and fetches his water. The hours between visits are inte
rminable in their silence, and yet the silence of her attendance whistles past in minutes.

  And so the days pass and I leave them be. Leave them to each other. Don’t worry, Angharad. He’s not going anywhere.

  *

  Tuesday, 23 September 1997.

  I’ve been checking in on Angharad for two years now. An ugly tumour loitering silently in her right lung, crouching over her days and waiting until it’s too strong to be ignored, too big to fight. Reaching its fingers through delicate tissue to grasp at each breath she struggles to take.

  She’s even more shrunken than usual today – a tiny figure, hollow-cheeked and bald-headed, bundled beneath the blankets. Even the cocktail of steroids designed to keep up her appetite has done nothing to strengthen her and the little weight she carried on her bones has dropped off. Now it’s Hywel who chatters – the man of few words has found them now, and they all come at once. A constant stream to ease and appease. With a countdown looming over them now he’s desperate to cram every word into whatever time they have left.

  She’s had good days and she’s had bad. The aching bones and nausea flood over her one day to be nowhere in sight the next. She shivers through the nights under clouds of duck-down before throwing the covers to one side to endure the unpredictable hot sweats. She doesn’t want to leave him, knows he’s got so many years left in him. But she’s tired. Tired of fighting her way through every day. Tired of fearing what the next day will offer up. Tired of the effort it takes just to open her eyes every morning. Tired of seeing doctor after doctor to be told of yet another encampment set up by rogue cells to mutate and replicate and kill.

  Hywel hovers over her, clucking like a mother hen. He’d give anything to take away the pain, to comfort her during those long, dark hours when even the feel of a cotton blouse against her skin is unbearable, and when sleep just won’t come. But he can’t. And without his power to protect, he feels useless.

  He is with her, as he always is, when I come to meet her. Sitting in the armchair next to the bed – a high-backed upright upholstered in deep red brocade, brought up from the lounge so she need never be alone. He sits and reads out choice pieces from the day’s papers. Never about death, or pain, or suffering. Never about the subjects on which she is now a qualified expert. But she loves the space fillers. The little stories that raise a smile and warm the cockles. The dog who’s learned to surf. The man who saw the face of Jesus in a slice of toast and proclaimed the Second Coming. The tiger weaning six piglets.

  As she lies and listens, so she coughs. This latest one started a few days ago, bubbling and gurgling in weakened lungs. Flecks of blood hidden in hankies. Wheezing breaths disrupting an already fractured sleep.

  Hywel eases himself up out of the chair to go and make another cup of tea. ‘Back in a jiffy, cariad. Don’t you go anywhere.’ She laughs, tears welling as the effort induces yet another racking, hacking cough.

  As he leaves, I brush past him in the doorway, a breeze from an unopened window. Settle myself into his chair, the sister she lost aged seventeen. A mirror image of the younger Angharad, conker-brown hair curled atop my head in victory rolls. The cat stares straight at me with wide, green, unblinking eyes. Leaps from the arm of the chair to the bed to settle next to her owner and fix me with a hostile gaze.

  ‘Angharad?’ I ask, a whisper. She’s settled back into the cushions, eyes closed against the glare of weak morning sunlight. As I speak, she can already feel the weight lifting from her chest, feel the lumps in her kidneys, in her liver, in her lungs, begin to dissipate and dissolve.

  ‘Marianne …’ She opens her eyes. Knows me straight away. ‘I always loved your hair like that … Could never do it myself …’ She reaches out a hand to wrap a curl gently around one finger. Looks down at her wedding ring and bites back a sob. ‘I don’t want to leave him, you know.’ Tears swim in her eyes to brim at the rim without falling.

  ‘I know.’ I reach forward to take her hand. Wrap her tiny fist in mine. ‘He’ll be all right, won’t he? By himself?’

  ‘He’ll miss you. Of course he’ll miss you. But he loves you so very, very much. He knows he can’t keep watching you go through this.’

  ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t give him children. There’s no one to look after him now. Who’s going to know how he likes his eggs? Who’s going to remind him that he needs to leave out the milk bottles?’ The first tear falls, snaking down her cheek into the crook of her neck. ‘But I’m so tired. And I hurt. Every day I hurt. A little bit more. Every day.’

  ‘I know. But it’s time to go now. One last sleep.’ I cup her cheek in my hand, soft as silk. Brush away tears with my thumb.

  ‘Look after him for me.’

  ‘Always …’

  And as Hywel comes back into the room, balancing tea and gingersnaps, the final pain seeps away and Angharad Williams fades to black.

  6

  STRAIGHT BACKS AND STIFF UPPER LIPS LINE THE graveside. In the murky light of an overcast morning, faces are as grey as the clouds above. With the first fat drops of rain comes a morbid bloom of black umbrellas. Even the birds don’t sing today, the only sound accompanying the minister’s words the low moan of a distant lawnmower.

  Tom stands towards the head of the grave, slightly apart from the throng. No umbrella. Dark hair studded with diamond droplets of rain. He stands close to the vicar, tucked in to shelter in his reassuring calm. His eyes stare intently at his shoes, shining black against the unnatural green of the astroturf that edges the grave. He counts the fringes of turf, the tiny holes stamped into the leather of his brogues. Anything to avoid looking at that box in the ground. The vicar speaks in a low hum, and with every word, as ash meets ash and dust becomes dust, Tom sags. The sags are barely perceptible, until it’s unclear how he’s managing to stay upright.

  But though his body sags, though his lips move with unspoken words, though his breath shudders and exhausted eyes are rimmed red, still there are no tears.

  They walk from the grave in silence, the mourning few. And still, in the distance, the lawnmower moans.

  Back at Kate’s mother’s house, Tom stands apart from the groups of people who huddle together for support and cast sympathetic glances in his direction. Through the fog, he can hear them exchanging their whispered concerns.

  ‘He’s lost weight. Is he eating?’

  ‘He’s not answered any of my calls.’

  ‘Do you think we should go over? You know? Say something?’

  He leans against the mantelpiece, next to a silver-framed picture of his wedding day, and stares into the middle distance. Unblinking. Knocks back a tot of whisky, wincing at the burn at the back of his throat. He can hear the whispers. Can see the reluctance of each of those little groups to intrude on his grief.

  Friends of his, friends of Kate’s, who, despite years of inconsequential, mindless chat, are now unable to find the words. He lets the crystal tumbler hang loosely by his side – he’d give anything for one last inconsequential, mindless chat.

  A tall girl breaks from the ranks, comes over to lay her hand on his arm. Leans in to briefly rest her cheek against his and kiss the air by his right ear. He tries to fight the automatic flinch as skin meets skin, but she felt him go rigid and she blushes at the perceived intrusion. As she pulls back, his eyes are closed and Kate’s face dances beneath lowered lids as he breathes in the familiar perfume. Coco Mademoiselle. ‘A girl always needs a little Chanel in her life,’ Kate used to say.

  ‘Tom.’ The tall girl reaches up to tuck a strand of long, blonde hair behind her ear. ‘How are you, darling?’

  He smiles a tight, bitter smile that shows no teeth. Knocks back another tot of whisky. Watches the long earring that dangles to her shoulders swing against her neck. It was one of Kate’s. She’d asked Kath to wear them to the funeral, so a part of her was there. But Tom can’t take his eyes from it. Can’t forget how it felt when she used to lower her face above his late at night and the soft gold brushed his cheek.

&nbs
p; ‘Me? Oh, you know, Kath. Life’s pretty rosy at the moment. Couldn’t be better!’ Inside he’s screaming at himself. ‘Stop it! Stop being such a bastard!’ But the voice inside can’t connect to the mouth that forms the words.

  ‘Tom … I just … well …’ She’s lost for words. Kate’s best friend and even she doesn’t know what to say. ‘We’re all here for you. That’s all I can say, I guess. When you need us, when you want to see us … we’re all here.’ She nods her head towards the group she’s broken free from. A small gaggle of their uni friends who are watching the exchange warily, assessing his reaction to Kath before they make moves of their own.

  ‘Look, Kath. I … I’ve just got to go and talk to Kate’s mum, yeah? I’ll see you all later.’

  He pushes past her and skirts the watching group who gather round Kath to console her in her failed bid to bridge the gap. Ducks through the doorway into the kitchen and the bottle of Glenmorangie Kate’s mum thinks she’s hidden behind the brown rice and plain flour in the pantry. He shuts himself in there, crouched on the floor to take quick swigs through tight lips, while I sit high above, legs dangling over the edge of the shelf, and watch.

  7

  TUESDAY, 8 JANUARY 2013.

  It’s always a Tuesday with Hywel – always a Tuesday when I see him. Funny that. I like a pattern.

  It’s cold. Grey and cold. Bleak and grey and cold. A dank wet fog hangs over the town, swept in from the hills to tuck the residents up for winter. I’m spending the day with him, with Hywel. I want to be with him for every minute of today.