Luckily, after five heart-hammering minutes (his heart, not hers), Alison recedes and the church re-asserts itself. Neal is beached on his old island of normality, and remembers a funeral is about to begin. He has a glance round. The place is packed. He recognises a few faces from the old days. Half-blind Eddie, and Jen and Mick (Christ, he’s looking old!) and is that Mandy in a full-length fur coat?
An organ grinds down to its last echoing notes, and the northeast wind replaces it. This is the wind that’s responsible for the cloudless sky, but right now it seems too high a price to pay for blue. Too lonely a sound. Calum was not a churchgoer, but the minister lives in Calum’s estate and knew him as well as most. Knew that he hadn’t won big prizes at school or begun a fascinating career, or been known for his bag-piping prowess or any artistic gifts whatsoever. Nor had he been hilariously funny or heartbreakingly handsome. But a nice kid, everyone said. A really nice young man.
The minister is an old man, a very thin tall old man. Eyes hollowed out of his head, and dark, sad. He stands at the lectern and lets the congregation settle. Lets the coughs be coughed, the coats re-arranged, the bottoms and feet find comfy positions. Then he begins. His voice is low and deliberately gentle, as if he’s using it to actually touch them. First the ritual words, the incantations he doesn’t have to think to say, and he feels calm exude from these words that no one listens to. Necks un-crick. Heartbeats slow. Eyes look attentive, even cynical eyes, willing today to accept whatever version of existence he can give them. Hope is the thing.
He cannot remember how many funerals he’s taken, but death still takes him by surprise. He just can’t get used it. Every funeral like a first funeral. Lately, especially early in the day, he’s felt as if his edges are blurring a bit, his mind and heart not quite solid, so this funeral is more of a challenge. And already it is bleaker somehow than any funeral he can remember. Perhaps it’s simply the accumulation of these kinds of funerals. So many young men. Neal sees Alison’s shoulders quiver. Is she cold? Crying?
After the biblical balm, the minister is quiet. Tilts his head to one side and considers the congregation. Generally, they look hung-over, winter-pale, and there’s an air of unease about them. He sees that mainly they’re not churchgoers and they’re afraid. That the younger ones have little experience of death, and the older ones too much. The mother looks distracted, tense, brittle. He’s a fatherly man, this minister, so he scoops them all up in his mind, gathers them in like frightened children and holds them. He sighs, decides to scrap his prepared sermon. He almost always scraps his sermons these days.
‘Calum left us too soon, and there is no mending this,’ in slow deadpan voice. He feels the church heat up. Indeed, the temperature rises by five degrees. Two men take off their coats, a few women loosen their scarves. ‘There can be no possibility of seeing his face again, hearing his laugh, touching his hand. Sadly.’
Pause.
‘Calum loved to run and he will never run again. We will never see him run down the road again, or roll a cigarette again, or buy chips again.’ The church becomes even less chilly, almost humid with human dampness. Salty tears and sweat, warmed-up perfume and cheap teen deodorant. The minister, pacing himself like a conductor, senses all this and is glad. No use pretending there is anything to celebrate. A young person’s funeral is hellish, but once the ball is rolling, it can be cathartic.
‘But Calum will be loved and remembered, yes loved and remembered. That is what we can do now. Open our hearts and reach out to him, silently tell him. Say, “Calum, I love you.” Not loved, but love. Say it as many times as you like. There is no such thing as …’ He struggles here for a second. Excessive love? No, that isn’t true at all. ‘As wasted love,’ he says finally, on an exhalation.
He smiles at them. Not in a happy way, but inviting them to acknowledge mortality with grace. Like a host who is tired at the end of an evening, but who says goodnight wistfully, recognising there is still something sad about the end of anything.
The air in the church quivers, updrafts and downdrafts spin round each other. Dust motes dance. On an old stone relief of St Boniface, some particles of dust suddenly slide off and several dozen of these land on Alison’s shoulders and hair. She doesn’t shake them off because she doesn’t notice them. She doesn’t notice much of anything. She’s the only one the minister’s words do not reach. She sits like a statue and watches and waits for when she can leave the church. This is wrong. It is ridiculous to be here. It’s Wednesday. She’s meant to be doing the easy shift at work, she has a load of ironing on her bed, Calum has a dentist appointment she has to remember to hassle him about. Above the pews to her left is a stained-glass window, and it draws her attention now. Not because of the biblical scene, but because there is a piece of glass in it that’s more recent than the rest, and the light shines through it in a different way. As she watches, it grows in intensity till the rest of the picture is almost obliterated. It hurts to stare at, and this pain is a relief. Then the light dims and releases her. Must be a cloud, she thinks.
In the congregation there are many people who hardly knew Calum, though they’d known him all his life, and many who hardly know Alison. But there is a hard core of people who have dipped deeply into both their lives at some point. Near the front sit Alison’s sister and nieces, and her workmates, entirely in black. Further back are almost all of Alison’s former lovers. These men, if seated together, would fill three pews. There’s the one she’d dumped three months ago, Joe from Ardross, looking like he’s just crawled out of bed. He’d said he was gutted but forgave her within hours. Relieved, actually.
There’s a young blond woman in a red coat who Alison has never met. Zara has more right than most to weep and wail. She weeps and wails with convincing gestures and noise, before finally blowing her nose and running from the church. Her red high heels clatter loudly all the way to the door. Some turn to watch her go and can’t help but notice how attractive she is. How she manages to remain so, despite the tears. The door bangs shut, and some men’s hearts lurch after her.
Sitting shyly at the back of the church there is a couple who have not met Calum. In their sixties, plump in identical places, proof of a long shared life eating too much of the same fattening things. There is about a foot of space between them, and their faces are slightly turned away from each other.
On their way to his chiropodist appointment, they’d come upon the accident exactly six seconds after it happened. They’d been bickering again. The way he’d spoken to her earlier, so patronising, and she’d held her anger in till she felt articulate enough to attack him. The air had been thick with the usual hatred. Then suddenly there was the car crumpled up, steam rising from the engine and the sound of metal screaming still reverberating. They’d pulled over. They’d done what they could, which wasn’t much. Called 999. He swore and she prayed, both out loud and simultaneously, so it sounded like an obscene Gregorian chant. A Green Day tape was still playing, there was a hissing sound from the engine, but from the boy a terrible stillness. His body squeezed between the steering wheel and the seatback, a space not big enough for a body. As they’d stared at him, blood began to seep from various places, as if he was a sack that had punctured.
That was over a week ago, and not a single cross word since. Nothing seems important enough to argue about anymore. Now he reaches for her hand without looking at her, and she takes it. Both look straight ahead, and her eyes fill. Not for Calum this time, but because she’d thought she’d never feel this way about her husband again.
‘… drench us with despair, that’s what death can do. Just exactly as if it’s a liquid, a thick bitter … syrup. A molasses of melancholy. But life will continue, times goes on and I promise you,’ pausing to look directly at as many eyes as he can, to make this consolation personal, ‘the despair will be diluted. The darkness will waver and fade, and light will return. Let us kneel and pray for light. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name …’
The organ accompanies the final hymn, and the coffin begins its slow departure. The faces of the six pallbearers seem naked, though their features are composed. For many of the congregation, the coffin is a surprise. They’d not focussed on it before. But here it is, and incredibly it purports to contain the very same person they are all missing. It almost seems an unrelated coincidence that Calum is physically present, as well as in their hearts and thoughts. Between twenty and thirty people who are not habitual weepers burst into tears.
Neal is one.
While he’s been staring at Alison’s profile, half listening to the minister, he’s not thought of Calum. But now, unbidden, comes Calum’s smell – unwashed boy, Ribena, sweaty feet. Neal remembers the freckles on Calum’s nose, his gap-toothed smile, the way he used to laugh when tickled. Almost silently, with a girly squeak.
On top of these images comes the scent of hash, the damp walls, the coal fires of Brae Cottage, in fact a whole un-edited chunk of Neal’s past. And yes, there is even a soundtrack. Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here. He’d always liked that whole album, Calum. When he was a wee kid. We’re just two lost fish swimming in a fish bowl, year after year. And that very same Calum, that sunburned giggling kid, is now inside this dark box, with no air to breathe, not a single second left of life to live. Neal’s facial muscles spasm and he shudders, long quaking shudders that travel over his entire body but are worst in his chest and throat.
This is the first time Neal has cried since childhood. He’s … well, he’s ugly to look at. Embarrassing. He emits choking, whimpering noises. He tells himself, Jesus Christ, get a grip. It’s an ambush, like being wrenched out of a comfy armchair, but a very small part of him is grateful. Now he knows what it feels like to lose control, and he’s always wondered. Ah! To slip like this, now and then, into just being.
What People Need
The coffin is gone. Alison is nudged by her sister till she understands she is to leave first. As if it’s a wedding, she thinks. Not that she’s ever been a bride, or even been to many weddings. Weddings are not fashionable in her group. She stands and walks stiffly and carefully. She feels a long way from her feet. She nods to friends and relatives, and squints at faces that are not familiar, of which there are a lot. They are all noisy, yet subdued. She wonders if the noise is not actual, but atmospheric. Maybe their thoughts, their grief, their anxieties about death, are tumbling into the air. Maybe the air is a soup of emotional exhalations. Alison holds her breath. Feels faint, nauseous, numb, and is aware she’s out of synch on a day when it’s important she be in synch. She is, was, his mother, after all. She is the star, no matter how reluctant.
Outside, the pallbearers ease the coffin into the hearse, shake hands with the undertaker, and silently retreat to the east wall of the church. Avoid eye contact. They huddle as one holds a lighter for all their cigarettes. One of the boys, Finn, has never smoked before, but it seems bad form to not join in.
‘Totally and utterly sucks,’ says the one called William. A tall, stocky lad, more manly than the others.
‘Aye,’ says Finn, a pale skinny five foot four. Acne scars across his forehead. He holds the smoke in his mouth, then lets it out. The taste makes him want to be sick.
‘In fact, I’m kind of pissed off with Calum. Big time.’ William inhales expertly, blows the smoke out forcefully.
‘Me too. Big time.’ Finn is the shyest of the boys. Always repeats what the others say.
‘Yeah. It’s got to be the biggest rude thing ever, right?’ says one of the others, blowing a smoke ring. It rises impressively, then the wind whips it away.
‘Bastard,’ says William, and spits.
‘I know. I mean, what the fuck?’
‘Yeah. What the fuck,’ says Finn, leaning against the wall because he suddenly feels dizzy.
The old minister is watching them from the path. Knows he mustn’t go over, though with every atom he wants to. He watches till they throw clumsy arms around each other. Good. People need to cry. People should cry. Then he sighs and turns his attention back to the woman in front of him who claims to know what kind of flowers he should grow in his borders. He rocks gently on the balls of his feet.
‘Alison!’ says Neal. ‘Ali! Ali!’ he says when she doesn’t respond and continues on her tentative walk down the steps outside. She turns at last, sees him.
‘Is that you, Neal?’
‘Yeah. It’s me.’
‘Christ. Neal Munro.’ Blushing under the fake tan. Orange-pink.
‘Aye, well.’ He flaps his hands upward briefly.
She leans forward, grabs his arm. ‘What are you doing here?’ she whispers as if they’re alone, back in the past, and there’s something clandestine they have to discuss. One of her abortions? A drug deal? Neal used to fetch dope for her sometimes. He never minded. Quite liked feeling useful. And unlike her fellow stoners, Neal could always be counted on to bring it all home.
‘I’m here because, well, you know.’ Calum, he mouths. Something passes between his sore eyes and her dry eyes. A pulse.
‘Oh. Yes. Of course.’ She pulls him to one side, and people make space for them.
‘Do you still live in Strathpeffer? I can’t believe I never see you.’ She looks at him hard, though her eyes are glazed. He stops himself from correcting her. From saying that they have, actually, bumped into each other occasionally. At Tesco, at parties, on the High Street. Of course they have.
‘It’s so strange,’ she continues, vaguely.
‘Yes. It is strange.’ Strange indeed, this sudden sense of intimacy. Strange, the way the church had keeled an hour ago, when he first set eyes on her.
‘Just never give each other a second’s thought, do we. And here you are.’ She reaches out to him, but stops just short of touching his face, her palm open. His skin tingles where she might have touched it. ‘You look the same, Neal.’
‘Do I really?’
‘No, not really. The same! What are you like?’ She giggles, in an unstable, pre-tears way.
‘Look, Alison, I …’
‘What?’
‘Look, is, is, is there some kind of … tea later?’ he stammers. Flaps his hands again.
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’
‘Chrissie’s house. She’s doing the tea.’
‘Chrissie?’
‘My sister. Her house.’
He looks around, as if for clues. He can barely remember Chrissie, has no idea where she lives. It feels intrusive to ask. Everyone seems to be walking away or getting in cars.
‘Will you come?’
‘No. No, I don’t really know, I mean I think I’d better be going now. What about the … you know. The burial.’
‘It’s a cremation, Neal. No need to be there. What’s there to see? To do?’
‘Oh.’
‘I know, let’s go for a drink.’
‘A drink?’
He’s picturing Calum’s coffin entering the flames, witnessed by no one but strangers. Again, he looks around for people, her sister, her friends, maybe even a boyfriend. Surely the chief mourner will not be allowed to drift off. Sure enough, a posse of middle-aged women draws near. Alison hisses:
‘A drink, yes! Quick now! Where’s your car?’
As they push through the crowd to the car park, at first they leave a wake, then the crowd turns towards them, begins to plunge after them. Sixty-four people, including the minister and the pallbearers, watch Neal unlock the passenger door of his old Fiat and let Alison in. Only thirty recognise Neal, but when his car turns north, all sixty-four record this event for later dispersal.
Neal gets on the A9, shifts up to fifth. This is Calum’s funeral day, you should be at your sister’s, he keeps trying to say, but Alison is having none of it. She’s a fount of questions.
‘What do you do now? Still at the paper? Still married to Sally? Did you never have kids? Why on earth not? What do you think of these shoes? Do you remember the day we stole those Doc Martens? Remember how we use
d to always steal loo rolls from pubs? Hey, remember that day we hitched to Rosemarkie and got stuck at Munlochy till dark? Remember when we used to take the ferry to Inverness? I kind of miss that ferry, bridges are boring. Did you know I’m working at a call centre? Mad. But everyone’s working at call centres now, aren’t they. Call centres are the new Nigg. Hey, did you hear that Nigg might open up again? At least that was decent money, call centres are crap money. You hated working at Nigg, didn’t you? But imagine if Nigg hadn’t happened – you’d still be down in Glasgow, and I’d be this whole other person, probably be married to a farmer and entering jams into WI competitions. And Calum … well shit, Calum wouldn’t have been born.’
Neal tenses. It seems almost sacrilegious to say Calum’s name like that, out loud and matter-of-fact. She is the only person with the right to say his name just that way. Then a short silence.
‘Neal, this is a little weird, isn’t it?’
Yeah, he wants to say. Like an out-of-body experience. Isn’t there a reason we’ve lost touch? Who are you? But he just laughs instead, heart pounding.
‘I mean you and me,’ she continues, looking out the side window at the saturated winter fields. ‘But it’s great to see you, Neal. I think I must have been missing you for years and years, and not even known it.’ Pause. ‘Actually, what’s weird is not you and me in this car, but the fact it doesn’t feel weird at all and it should. It feels, well, it feels weirdly normal. To me, anyway,’ she concedes, a shade hesitantly.
And it is this note of uncertainty that ends the spell. He arrives back in his body with a jolt, followed by deep calm. Suddenly, nothing feels more natural than to be driving north for the sake of driving north, with an old friend who is grieving. He glances at her face, and it’s dear to him; it is, for this moment anyway, the right face. The rest of the world, all those people and things, his wife Sally – well, they can just bugger off. At least for the next few hours. He fully expects they’ll turn around soon, he’ll drop her at her sister’s house, and by eight he’ll be home playing Scrabble, drinking cups of tea and eating Sally’s banana bread. Alison just needs a breather before dealing with people. She’d often used him like that in the old days. Someone to be silent with. Or to chatter to, till the nonsense drained away.
If I Touched the Earth Page 2