Death be Not Proud

by C F Dunn

  “No, not yet.”

  He took off his coat, mirroring his action of that morning, and spread it over me.

  “Emma, your grandmother doesn’t want your mother to know.”

  “I won’t say anything.” Another minute passed. “What about Dad – can I tell him?”

  “That’s up to your judgment, I think; she didn’t say not to.”

  “Will she…” I couldn’t bring myself to say “die” without the choking sensation in my throat building again. “Will it be soon, do you think?”

  “Yes, I think so – in the next three or four months – but not before Christmas and, before you ask, she doesn’t want you to stay until she does; she wants you to get on with your life.”

  “But how do you know that, Matthew? She couldn’t tell you.” I twisted around to look up at him, but he contemplated the old stonework of the range of buildings behind us, with an expression I couldn’t fathom.

  “No.”

  “Well, how then?”

  He looked at me, coming back from far away.

  “In the same way that I know that your father’s left knee hurts with arthritis and your arm ached holding Archie, or that Beth has a bad back where she’s bruised a lower vertebra.”

  “And Archie’s tooth?”

  “No, that was obvious.”

  “You’re being obtuse again. I thought we were beyond all that. How do you know these things?”

  He breathed deeply, his chest rising against my shoulder.

  “It’s something I can do. I can tell when, and where, and how much someone is hurting. It’s very helpful in my job, as you can imagine.”

  I remembered the searing agony of the knife wound, the constant pain from my arm and ribs, and I thought that I couldn’t endure him suffering for everyone else.

  “But surely that means that you can feel everyone’s pain; how can you bear it?”

  “I’ve learned to be selective. I can shut off most of it so that it’s just a background… noise… for want of a better word, except where it proves useful as a diagnostic tool. Otherwise I would be overwhelmed by people’s suffering and I wouldn’t be able to focus on the person I’m helping at the time. I was always sensitive to other people’s pain before I altered – you might call it having physical empathy – but it seemed enhanced afterwards and has become more acute over the years. I don’t know why – perhaps I’m more attuned.” He drifted to a meditative close, unaware of me staring at him, horrified by this strange new dilemma.

  “Why didn’t you tell me before? Whatever this is, it’s a curse.”

  He looked at me directly. “No, Emma, no it isn’t; it allows me to help people. I’m glad I can feel their pain. It reminds me to… well… believe that I’m here for a reason; that I’m not just some incongruity with no right to exist. You once told me that what you liked most about one of your posters was that it depicted hope, and that hope is not futile – that there is redemption for those who believe.”

  I nodded mutely, miserably.

  “I have hope, Emma, that one day I will be redeemed – that I will be released from this life. If I can help people – just one person – I have justified my continuing existence and, if helping them means that I feel their pain, then so be it.”

  Emotion – already so close to the surface – began to break as I realized all the years of suffering he had been through. My voice cracked.

  “This… this is all the result of what happened when you were stabbed, isn’t it? That night when you were betrayed…”

  He put his fingers against my lips, hushing me. A small group of lads appeared from around the corner, sliding on patches of ice, whooping and noisily exuberant, cans of lager sloshing in their hands. They jeered when they saw us and Matthew’s back stiffened.

  “Not now, Emma, please; there is so much we need to talk about – that you need to understand. Wait until we have time to ourselves without distractions.”

  His eyes followed the group until they were out of sight, leaving the fag end of their cigarette smoke as a token presence. “Please?” He looked at me again.

  “When, Matthew? We never seem to have the time.”

  He rested his forehead on mine. “Then we will make time. Do you remember I promised you a trip into the mountains?”

  “Hmm,” I hummed doubtfully, remembering only too well what had happened last time we were in sight of them. He remembered too.

  “No – I mean right into them – not just in the foothills. I will take you into the heart of the mountains when we get back. I know someone who has a cabin there and I’ll take you – just you and me.”

  “And no bears?”

  “And definitely no bears,” he promised, kissing my forehead, letting his lips linger for a moment longer than he needed to. “Agreed?”

  “You, me and the mountains? And no bears? And you’ll tell me everything?”

  “Yes,” he said eventually, but heavily, as if a weighty decision had been made. I looked up at Browne’s Hospital without replying, wondering what lay behind the tenor of his answer, what more there was to know, and reckoned that, as much as I had to come to terms with his past, he possibly needed to do so as well, sitting here as we were.

  “Matthew, did you ever see these almshouses when you were… younger?”

  He glanced up at them, then back at me, puzzled. “Yes, they haven’t changed much.”

  “Doesn’t it make you want to at least see the land you came from?”

  “As I said this morning, it was a very long time ago.”

  “A long time ago yesterday?”

  He smiled. “Indeed.”

  We returned to the house as the air began to snap with frost. I felt cold through to my core despite being wrapped in Matthew’s big coat, the hems of which dragged the ground as I walked beside him, although I lifted them like petticoats. He had refused to take it back, saying that the cold didn’t touch him, and at last I began to understand the extent of the differences between us. Although I saw, through my own film of grief, that Nanna had come to terms with her mortality, nonetheless her imminent death and the effect it would have on my family still bore heavily upon me, and that was the sort of cold that no number of coats could dispel.

  My parents were watching the news when we entered the sitting room. Beth and the children had gone home after lunch, but Flora’s Barbie had forgotten a pink shoe, and it now sat forlornly on the mantelpiece. Mum began to get up when we went in.

  “Stay there, Mum, we’re going to get something to eat. Can I get you anything?”

  “No thank you, darling. I was just going to ask how Nanna is.”

  I suspected that really she wanted to know what Nanna thought of Matthew and he thought so too, because he apologized for not joining us, sitting down next to Dad with the excuse that he wanted to see the weather forecast for the morning.

  “How was she?” she asked as I made tea in the largest mug I could find.

  “Do you know, Mum, I think Nanna is probably happier than I’ve seen her for a long time,” I answered truthfully, the toaster popping and the inviting smell of fresh toast filling the kitchen. She looked relieved; her mother’s death would hit her hard, but it would be easier if she could look back and know that Nanna had been happy in the last months of her life.

  “And what about Matthew; did she like him?”

  I retrieved the hot toast, juggling it between my fingers until cool enough to handle.

  “I think you will have to ask her yourself, but yes, she liked him; she likes him a lot.” I smiled to myself, letting her see it as confirmation that what I said was true.

  “And Mum, I’m sorry if I seemed insensitive earlier – about Nanna’s room, I mean. I don’t think Nanna will mind, but if it upsets you…”

  “No, I’m sure it’s fine, darling; I think that it was just a bit of a shock with you returning to Maine so soon. I hadn’t expected that the two of you would get back together, but if it’s what you want, I’m happy f
or you.”

  Dad must have stuck to his guns and refused to budge, his stubbornness for once acting in my favour. She smiled bravely and I put my arms around her, my heart breaking just a little, knowing how hard it must be for her, and how hard it would get.

  CHAPTER

  11

  Revolution

  “Warmer?”

  I sat propped up on my pillows, the duvet pulled to my chin and the blue rug doubled around my shoulders. The fan-heater whirred at the end of my bed where I stuck my feet out in the flow of warm air. Despite wearing a dressing-gown and pyjamas, I couldn’t shake the cold that clung like a ghost. Even the tea and toast had made little impact.

  “Not really.”

  Matthew sat next to me, his long legs almost reaching the iron-and-brass footrest, and I snuggled into him. “But you could help,” I said with longing but without intent.

  “I think sleep would be more efficacious in your case,” he murmured into my hair. The skin of his neck felt cool, his scent of clean air untainted by sweat, and it occurred to me that I had never seen him flush with heat or shiver with cold. His skin always remained the same temperature, whatever he was doing, wherever he had been. Beneath my ear, his heart beat as constantly as a metronome – neither faster nor slower – as his chest rose and fell with the same regularity.

  “Tell me how you found out where I came from.”

  He didn’t say “come from”, which is what I think I would have said, but “came from”, distancing himself in space as well as time. I thought back to when I first met him and the impact he made on me then, before I knew what I knew now.

  “It was lots of little things,” I said ambiguously, “But mainly your colouring and then, of course, your name – although I couldn’t place it at first. I told you about my grandfather and his corn-coloured hair; do you remember?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  He had almost lost his temper. Now I understood he had done so because I had stumbled across a grave that he thought lay safely undisturbed.

  “And there were other things, such as your use of language – it can be quite archaic at times. And you still have an English accent, you know, even if it is tinged with American.”

  “Is it so obvious?”

  I knew what concerned him. If I had traced him back, then so could somebody else. “No, don’t worry. I think that it’s only because I’m tuned in, so to speak, and looking. I expect, to most people, you sound transatlantic. Flora and Alex both think you’re American, don’t they? And as for your use of language, you just sound old-fashioned, and that’s very…” I kissed the base of his throat and he laughed, “… attractive. But if you hadn’t been so touchy and secretive, perhaps I wouldn’t have kept digging. I knew something wasn’t quite right about you, of course – with your strength and speed and being able to pick up burning embers…”

  “Ah, yes – you saw that, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did. And then, of course, there was the bear…”

  “I should have killed it,” he muttered.

  “What – with your hands? Now that would have given the game away!”

  He shrugged sheepishly.

  “Anyway, there were all those minor incidents that added up to one big question. And you wouldn’t tell me what was going on, and that became just too much for me to cope with. One minute we were together, and the next you were gone. But I didn’t know why.”

  “And then you left,” he stated without any hint of blame.

  “Yes. I asked Elena to tell you when she saw you that I hadn’t left you – that I would come back, but…”

  “I didn’t see her,” he finished.

  “No, and Matias didn’t know to tell you either. When they phoned the other night and said you’d gone and that you’d been upset, I didn’t know what to think. I thought that you must have been so angry when I sent you the card that you…” My voice – which had been a whisper – now faltered.

  “I’m sorry, Emma. I wasn’t angry with you. I felt so relieved to get your message – I understood immediately. It came as a shock, of course, but the fact that you had contacted me at all, despite knowing the truth about my past – it meant everything to me. No, it wasn’t you who made me react when I saw Matias.”

  I waited for him to explain, but he didn’t. I raised my head to look at him, but again he had that distant look in the darkness of his eyes that I recognized.

  “Matthew?”

  He smiled, but it did nothing to lessen the distinct impression that he was holding out on me. “Just one of those complications. I will explain – when we get back. Emma, please tell me one thing that’s been worrying me.”

  “What?”

  “When we were together that last time, did I hurt you – physically?”

  My hand went involuntarily to my chest.

  He recoiled from me, aghast. “I did, didn’t I?”

  “No, no, you didn’t really. It was nothing.”

  Mortified, he asked, “What was nothing? Good grief, Emma! What did I do?”

  I had never heard him so shocked before.

  “No, Matthew – really,” I twisted onto my knees to face him. “It’s just that you kissed me quite hard – but it didn’t hurt,” I said hurriedly, before he said anything. “You didn’t hurt me; there were just a few little – tiny – bruises, here.” I held my hand to my chest, fingers spread across my breastbone. “And I was glad you did, because it was something of you I could carry with me, to remind me of you.”

  He no longer looked shocked but disgusted, and for a moment I thought he considered me depraved. He stared at where my hand lay spreadeagled, as if the bruises were still visible, then swivelled to the edge of the bed and turned his back, appalled. When he spoke, self-loathing filled his voice.

  “How could I have hurt you! How could I have been so intent on my own desire that I could have done that to you?”

  His dismay hurt more than any bruise he had inflicted. Leaning against the curve of his spine, I put my arms around his waist and my face against his lean, muscular back. His shoulders were taut under his shirt and shook slightly with tension.

  “It was my desire, too,” I whispered.

  He shuddered, “You didn’t hurt me.”

  “I know, but they’re all gone now – look – and you didn’t mean to, did you, Matthew?”

  I put my hand around the side of his face and tried to turn his head, feeling the rigid muscles in his jaw as he resisted my attempts to comfort him. I persisted and he looked at where my skin lay exposed in the “v” of my pyjama jacket. He touched the tips of his fingers to my breastbone as gently as a butterfly wing.

  “There, you see? Nothing – they’re all gone; there’s nothing to reproach yourself for.”

  “I forget…” he said so softly that I could only just hear him, “… how vulnerable you are, and how strong I am – how durable.” He sounded so dejected that I wanted to wrap him up and tell him everything would be all right.

  “If you weren’t, would you still be here?” I asked. “And then where would I be without you? Alone,” I answered my own question, “safe in my own little world with nobody touching my life, and I not touching theirs. And where’s the challenge in that? I can’t just drift through life. Mum said I must let happiness find me. Well, it has,” I said, looking at the source of it. “And anyway,” I added, “I like to live dangerously.”

  He scanned my face, before he chuckled, and the tension dissipated, the corners of his mouth tipping up again in just the way I liked and very close now, his lips just inches from mine.

  “There is something very appealing about you when you’re in one of your philosophical moods and you become quite adamant,” he mused. “I think it must be something to do with how your eyes light up…” He brushed my eyelids with his lips, “… or when you flush right down to the base of your throat…” and I quivered as he pressed his mouth into the hollow of my neck, “… or how your mouth turns down at the corners, just so�
��” and he kissed each corner very carefully. “I’ve missed this closeness,” he said. “I can’t begin to tell you how I’ve missed you. There’s so much we have to talk about – things we need to discuss.”

  “Such as our future?” I queried softly, hopefully – almost forgetting the immense length of his past that made a nonsense of my short life. Pulling away, he stood abruptly, scrubbing his hands through his hair and making it stand up at all angles. “Yes. Our future. But not now; not here; not yet, Emma. Not yet.”

  I squeaked with frustration and flumped back against the pillows, burying my face in my arms and knocking the fan-heater sideways in the process. Matthew switched it off before it could set fire to the bedding, and I peeked out at him. Folding his arms on the iron frame at the foot of the bed, he gazed at me, a half-smile on his face.

  “A little patience will stand you in good stead; it’s something I’ve had to develop over the years and it doesn’t come naturally to me, I assure you. I promised you we will talk about everything, when we are alone – truly alone – and undisturbed: my past, your past, our future.”

  I scowled at him half-heartedly. “I can’t wait that long.”

  “Yes, you can, and you know it, even though you would like to pretend otherwise. And anyway,” he came around to the side of the bed and ran a long finger from a point on my forehead, down my nose to my lips, until he made a full stop on my chin; “you haven’t finished telling me about how you tracked me down.”

  “And what makes you think I’m going to tell you now, when I don’t get anything in return?”

  He grinned cheerfully. “Because you want to tell me. Now, the question is, do I lie next to you, or do I sit in this chair over here?” He motioned to my grandfather’s campaign chair by the fireplace. I made a show of considering the two options before patting the empty space beside me and he obediently sat down.

  “Warmer?” he asked, as he put his arm back around me. “So, where were we?”