Taking this into consideration, it was no great surprise that we got the wind knocked right out of our sails when a year later we got word from Merlyn that Lance had died quietly at his home after a long illness.
“What?” Oliver’s face went crimson. He turned with the phone in his hand and stared at me with a look that sent a sickening bolt of electricity straight through me, “When did this happen? Wait a minute! I just spoke to him! Did you know? Why didn’t he tell anybody? Oh, sweet Jesus. Poor Lance…I can’t bloody believe it. Did you call Alexander?”
When he hung up the phone, he turned to me. “Silvia, Lance has died,” He told me softly, “Pancreatic cancer, Merlyn tells me,” He shook his head, “Come here, I need you.”
I held him tight for what seemed an hour.
“I need to call Alexander,” Oliver mumbled, moving away from me. He looked at me for a moment, “It’s OK if you cry now, Love.”
I took his permission. I sat on the floor in the front room and I sobbed.
Oliver called Alex. I only heard the tail end of the conversation, “No, I guess he’d been sick a good while. Alex, are you telling me he had cancer before? I never knew that. He didn’t tell me. Well, certainly cancer can reoccur. Why are you asking me? I don’t give a fuck if I’m a doctor! He never told me anything about being ill! I don’t know the details! He told Merlyn a few weeks ago! Fucking phone Merlyn up then! Maybe he knows!” He took a deep breath, “I’m sorry. This is just so wrong. Yeah, well, I want to puke. Ok, Brawd. Ring me then. Oy, Alexander? I love you.”
He hung up the phone and wandered out into the garden. I watched him walk around mumbling at the trees and then he sat on the edge of the hill and hung his head in his hands.
I went out after a while and put my arms around him. “When you’re ready, Sweetheart.”
He patted my hand and stared up at the sky. “Do you need me?”
“No, Sweetie. I’m all right.”
He nodded.
Oliver did nothing for hours. I let him be. Sometimes it was best to just let Oliver alone when he was upset and allow him come to me when he was ready to talk.
He came in for dinner, but he wasn’t eating. Neither of us were. “I just spoke with Lance two weeks ago,” He said softly. “He never told me he was ill. His funeral’s the day after tomorrow. Alex and Lucy’ll ride with us to Caernarfon to pay our respects.”
“Of course.”
It didn’t seem real to me at all that one of us could have died. Not one of us Bennington kids. It didn’t sink in that any of it was actually true and not some horrible dream until we got to the church where Lance’s memorial service was being held.
It was very hard to take. There were dozens of people wandering about that none of us knew. They looked at us oddly. It seemed like they should be the ones out of place, not us. I caught myself looking for Lance in the crowd, as if I would see the top of his head cutting a path around the shoulders of everyone else and hear him call, “Silvia! How are you, Dear?” It was at that moment I caught sight of the coffin and him in it.
He looked so tiny lying there, like a child’s body with an old man’s face. Even with the work they’d done on him it was easy to see he’d suffered. His dirty blond hair had fallen out and the patches that were left had turned dark grey. He had deep set circles under his eyes. His once pudgy face was drawn, painted the wrong shade of peach and his teeth looked too large beneath his lips. He didn’t look like the Lance I’d known in life.
“Oh, my,” Lucy whispered what I was thinking, “Is that him?”
“It is,” Alexander’s voice was barely audible. He walked to his old mate and covered his frozen hands with his own. “Ah, Christ! Lance!”
“I can’t stand this,” Oliver looked away from the casket.
I took his hand. “I know, Sweetheart. None of us can. I can’t either.” My eyes stung with tears. I looked away and across the room, but I could not stop them from falling.
“I can’t look at him,” Oliver swallowed, “He looks so…so small.”
“He wasn’t very big, Oliver.”
My husband looked at me. His beautiful brown eyes glowed with tears, “He wasn’t small to me, Sil. To me he was always very big. He was always very, very big.”
Alexander embraced his brother, “This is rough, Boyo.”
“He looks so tiny. As if he was helpless all his life. Lance was not helpless. He was strong. He was…” My husband trailed off. He clutched his brother’s shoulders. His eyes were wide, almost wild, “This is Lancelot, Alexander! This is Lance Crosby! Lance Crosby can’t be dead! It isn’t right!”
Alex held tight to his brother, “But he is,” He whispered, a single teardrop fell from his eye. It clung to the dimple in his chin, “I wish he wasn’t, but he is. And, no, it isn’t right. There isn’t anything right about it. I hate this!” He hissed, “I fucking hate this!”
It was then that Lucy spotted Merlyn Pierce, who was standing against a far wall. We were all grateful to have a reason to walk away.
“How are you?” Merlyn hugged each of us in turn. We answered in generic terms, “You OK, Mate?” He directed the question to Oliver, who shrugged and looked at his feet.
“Just trying desperately not to snivel,” He didn’t look up. He tightened his face into a frown and closed his eyes, pinching back his tears.
The conversation ended quickly. People were gathering to listen to each other speak tributes to Lance. Alexander, Oliver, Lucy and I took seats in the second row of chairs with Merlyn and Penny behind us. Oliver held my hand as people clamoured up to speak of our old school chum. I knew my husband was thinking about anything he could instead of how his best friend’s body was lying in a casket not even thirty feet away. He stared at a beautiful spray of roses that Sandy had sent. They were yellow, pink, orange and blue. Happy colours that matched the ones Lance wore in his favourite scarf, the one we’d see him in every chance it was cold enough to wear it. I knew Sandy had done that on purpose. She had always been so thoughtful.
“…and I know my dad had loads of buds, too,” His daughter sniffed from the podium, “And some of his buds he’d kept since he was eleven years old. He told me a story about when his mum first brought him to Bennington, the school I attend now. He said he was afraid because he knew he would be smaller than the other boys and someone was bound to pick on him. And he was picked on, on his second day by an older boy. He said this boy was monstrous, had him by the jacket and he didn’t know what he was planning to do. But a set of twins came along and they started telling the boy off. This bully tried to hit one of them, but the other one jumped up on to his back. He held the boy down while the other twin pulled the boy’s pants so far up his bum that he cried. Daddy said he was never afraid again after that because he was never alone.”
I watched the memory of that wash over Oliver and Alexander. They exchanged bittersweet smiles. Merlyn put a hand on each of their backs. I hadn’t known that story, but it didn’t surprise me that it had happened.
When his daughter was done speaking, his wife asked if there was anything anyone else wanted to say. Alexander looked at Oliver, but Oliver immediately choked up and shook his head. “I can’t,” He said in a harsh whisper, “You do it.”
“I’d like to say something,” Alex called out.
“Please do!” Lance’s wife, Daneen, smiled sincerely, “Hello! Thank you so much for coming! Are you Alexander or Oliver? I can never tell.”
“I’m Oliver.” He waited a second, “Just joking. I am Alex.”
She laughed. “You do that to me every time!”
Alexander stepped up behind the podium. “I’m Alexander Dickinson. That there’s my brother, Oliver, if you couldn’t tell.” He pointed to us, “And his wife, Silvia, in the green dress. The pretty lady in the blue dress is my wife, Lucy. The other bloke’s Merlyn Pierce. We’ve all known Lance since we were little kids,” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and then back again, “That’s a true story a
bout what happened to Lance second day at Bennington. Mind, I did get hit a couple of times and so did Oliver, but somehow Ollie managed to get Sean Donnelly down to the ground and I didn’t know what to do, so I yanked his pants up to his ears,” Everyone laughed, “The band ripped. Poor guy. But I was happy to do it for Lance.”
“It was one of those things you don’t plan, how we got to be friends with Lance. There were too many first year boys at Bennington that year, so instead of two to a room, we got three. Poor Lance got tossed in with me and Ollie. Alphabet, yeah? Crosby, Dickinson, Dickinson. I remember Ollie and me, we were scared, too, but we had each other. Lance, he was all by himself. That first night my brother and I didn’t pay him much mind, we were putting stuff away and messing around, being cocky. Lance hardly said a word. I never thought about how scared he really must have been.”
“Next morning Ollie and me were trying to sort the way to class and we heard some codswallop happening on the other side of the wall. So off we go to take a look and there’s some big meatball of a kid picking on the bloke we shared a room with. Ollie starts after him by himself, says, ‘Leave ‘em alone, you…’ mind, I better not use the word he did. Anyway, we marched right over and picked a fight. We were eleven and we saved Lance from a third year, we did. But we did more than that. We landed him in detention with us, second day!”
Everyone laughed again, even Oliver. Alexander paused, scratched his cheek and continued, “And it wasn’t the last time, either! We got Lance into all kinds of mischief. We had him rubbing soap on windows, turning off the hot water on people in the showers. Sneaking in and rearranging the furniture in Professor Wilkins private quarters in the middle of the night so he’d wake up and be all disoriented. That was interesting.”
Oliver high fived Merlyn. Another ripple of laughter swept the room.
“We got Lance’s mum called for nicking candy a couple of times,” Alexander continued, “Poor Lance might have been better off without the likes of us, but we loved him. I loved him like he was another brother.”
He drew a deep, shaking breath, “Lance Crosby shared a room with Oliver and me for seven school terms. He was there for my wedding to Lucy and came down when Ollie’s and my kids were born. He was our best mate. But Lance Crosby was really everyone’s mate. He didn’t have a temper, never said a mean word. He knew what it felt like to be the little guy literally, but he never tried to make himself look bigger by making anyone else feel small. Instead he’d sit up all night talking about your problems. He never mentioned his own. I never met a person who didn’t like Lance. You’d have to be mental not to. He was the best bloke I ever met…” Alexander trailed off, “I could stand here forever and never run out of nice things to say about him. But all I can think right now is how I’m supposed to ring him on Wednesday because I’ll be in Caernarfon and we were supposed to meet for a pint. I was looking forward to it.” I could see Alexander choking back his tears, “And I know I’m not the only one that’s hurting, so I’m trying not to be selfish about how much I already miss him or about what I’d do to be able to sit with him and have that pint. Any one of us here would do the same for just one more hour with Lance. My brother, he can’t even talk right now and if you know my brother, that’s a rare event. And it’s a shame, too, because I know Oliver’d have given a much better speech than I am.”
Alexander glanced at the casket, “But Ollie did say something that made a lot of sense. He said that to him, Lance Crosby was never small. To Oliver, he was always very, very big. I have to say that if you knew him at all, you knew that was true. For his immense sense of humour and his fierce kindness, for his infinite honesty and his unwavering friendship and the fact that he was always there when you needed him…always, always there,” Alex trailed off again. He hung his head for a moment and then spoke, “For those things and many more, Lance was the biggest man I’ve ever known. We’ve all suffered a blow I don’t reckon we’ll ever be able to measure,” He glanced again at the casket, “Lancelot, my old friend, you will always be loved and missed. You were never small. You were a giant in our lives, Boyo. And that’s how Ollie and I’ll always remember you. As a giant. God bless you, Lance Crosby, and grant you a journey of mercies, wrapped safely in an angel’s wings.”
Alexander was unable to contain himself. He walked off the platform and straight out of the building to our car where he broke down and sobbed. Oliver and Merlyn followed and sat with him in silence. Lucy, Penny and I let them be.
Lance’s wife asked us later if we would accompany them to the cemetery for a private burial that afternoon. “Lance loved you all so much. You were the brothers and sisters he never had. It would mean so much if you came with our daughter and me. You’re the only other family he has.”
We put our good friend, our brother, Lance Crosby, in the ground that day. None of us could quite leave him behind. When Daneen and her daughter had gone, all of us Bennington kids stood dumbly and stared at the pile of dirt that was now the home of one of us. It was Lucy who began to cry first and when she went, I crumbled. Alexander and Oliver held us, rocking in silent convulsions while Penny did her best to comfort Merlyn.
“I can’t stay here,” Merlyn sobbed, “I have to walk away.”
We followed him to a corner of the cemetery near our cars and we all stood in a huddle. The tears flowed unashamed until not one of us could breathe. Finally, Alexander spoke, “Damn it!” He said, “I should be able to dial him right now and get him on the phone!”
Penny reached up and petted his hair like he was a little dog.
“He was so damned tall!” Merlyn blew his enormous nose, “I’m going to miss him!”
“We all will,” Oliver said, “It’s going to be different from here on.”
“I feel like we should do something,” I glanced around at each of them, “Something to honour him. He’d be so upset if he saw us all standing around bawling over him. We should do something to celebrate him.”
“I agree,” Lucy lay her head against Oliver’s arm. “But what?”
Alexander turned toward the gravesite. He stood there for a moment before he began to sing the Bennington song, “Oh, Bennington, Oh, Bennington, our home away from home…” softly at first, “We see your fields before us…” and then he began to belt it out at the top of his lungs, “Oh, Bennington, Oh, Bennington…our home away from home…We see your fields before us…”
“We sing of you in united chorus,” Oliver joined him. “Oh, Bennington, through your halls we pass…”
Suddenly, without any type of communication, the twins hooked arms and began a folk dance that we had all been forced to learn at school.
Merlyn blew his nose one more time and joined their dance. “Oh, Bennington, our home away from home!”
And as quickly as they had begun singing, they changed the words.
“So take your ties and shove them!” Alexander bellowed to the next part of the song, keeping true to the tune.
“We’ve had it with your black jackets, too!” Oliver roared.
“Oh, Bennington, oh, Bennington, to hell with you!” Merlyn sang at the top of his lungs.
They swung each other in circles, laughing and shouting.
“Oh, Bennington, where our parent’s sent us…Because no one would pay to rent us…Oh, Bennington is like the zoo!”
“Come on, Sil!” Oliver cried, his face pink with life, “Lucy, Penny! Have a dance for Lance!” He pulled me in by my arm. Penny, who didn’t even know the song or the steps to the dance, joined in.
“Oh, Bennington, oh Bennington,” Lucy’s voice was off key and shrill, “Long will we remember!”
“Oh, Bennington, oh, how can we forget?” Sang Merlyn.
“Your detentions and your curfew bells!” Yelled Alexander as he spun me in a circle.
“Your lousy pumpkin soup that I threw up all over the wall in the West Corridor!” Oliver offered.
Merlyn burst out laughing. “Yeah, that was bloody disgusting!” He spun his
wife around. “How about the time we all got caught after curfew nicking apples and cakes out of the kitchen?”
“Lance was the only one who could fit through the service slot!” Alexander’s face was flushed, but he smiled brightly, “Remember how Ollie picked him up and stuffed him in headfirst?”
“And then he couldn’t get out so Alex reached in to pull him and his shoulders got lodged?”
They were laughing hysterically.
“Lance was tall enough! I don’t know why he thought he needed help! Boyo, wasn’t Professor Adkins completely bloody cheesed at us?” The three of them slapped their hands together in one giant high five, “Take the chorus, Silvia!” Oliver lifted me in the air and spun me around.
“Oh, Bennington, oh Bennington,” I cried, “Brothers and sisters in our hearts, oh, we shall never part…”
“Oh Bennington, where it smells like farts!” The Bennington boys rang out.
“Oh, Bennington, through your halls we pass…”
“Oh Bennington,” Oliver and Alexander shouted in unison, “You can kiss our ass!”
“Oh, Bennington, Oh Bennington, to hell with you!”
There we were, the six of us dancing a folk dance in the middle of a cemetery path, sing-shouting the Bennington song combined with lyrics the boys had made up as children so loudly our voices bounced off the stones. When we were through and breathless we stood around with our hands against our knees and laughed and fought to catch our breath.
“Good bye, Lance!” Penny called, “We’ll never forget you!”
“See you across the veil!” Oliver yelled.
“We love you, Lance!” Lucy and I hollered.
“You owe me money!” Merlyn shouted.
“Ah, forget him, Lance, give it to me!” Alexander bellowed.
And then, as people must, we hugged and kissed Merlyn and Penny good-bye and we went our separate ways home. We promised we’d get together soon.
After Forever Ends Page 55