by Alex Bell
The coffin had just been lowered into the ground when something large and black fell from the sky to land right on top of it with a heavy, wet thud. The vicar broke off mid-sentence as everyone peered down into the grave, shocked, frowning, muttering ...
‘Oh my God,’ I heard my mother exclaim quietly at my side.
It was a dead swan - each feather raven black, its beak red and its eyes pink - right there on top of the coffin. I tilted my head back, blinking against the rain that fell into my eyes as I peered up into the dark clouds above. There was another blurred shape and a thump just a few feet to my left as a second black swan fell to the ground, its long neck twisted at a horrible angle on the sodden grass. Several people shrieked this time and automatically shied away from the bird. I found myself staring down at it blankly, cool raindrops running to the ends of my eyelashes and falling to the ground.
A third dead swan thumped down on my right. The ceremony over, people started to scatter, heading back through the rain to their cars and the reception that was to be held at the Town Hall. I found myself grinning manically. So it wasn’t real after all, then. This had to be a dream. Thank God. Thunder rumbled again, much louder than before - a great tearing crack as if the sky were being rent apart above us.
‘I think we should get inside,’ my mother said, raising her voice above the rain.
‘I can’t wait to wake up from this,’ I said softly, not really intending to speak aloud although I doubt she could hear me over the rain anyway. ‘I’m going to hold on to him so tightly. I’ll never take him for granted ever again.’
‘Come on, Jasmyn,’ Ben said, appearing at my side and gripping my elbow.
Without an umbrella my white hair was soaked through and sticking to my face. I brushed it back out of my eyes in time to see two more black swans fall from the sky at the edge of my vision. Ben took my arms and twisted me round to face him. He had no umbrella either and his dark hair was plastered to his head, raindrops dripping from the end of his long nose. It was only because he bent his head so close to mine that I heard what he said over the noise of the storm.
‘Don’t look at the swans. Don’t look at them. Look at me.’
I gazed blankly up into his face and for a second saw Liam there instead. Their features were so heartbreakingly similar that in that moment, when I looked into Ben’s eyes, I felt I was looking into the eyes of the man I loved. I felt numb - with cold, with grief, with shock - and all I wanted was to curl up in a ball on the wet grass and never move again. But Ben tightened his grip, denying me the sweet relief of giving up. Instead he turned and pulled me along beside him like a sleepwalker, away from the coffin and the black swans and the sodden graveyard ... and Liam, left behind on his own in the cold, wet earth.
2
Black Knight
I dreamt about the day of Liam’s death for weeks. But always, in my dreams, it would turn out to be a mistake, a joke, a ridiculous misunderstanding ... Liam had always been a joker, so, for a few moments, I could almost believe it when I dreamt that the hospital worker dropped me off at home and, instead of going into an empty house, I would go in to find him there, laughing, saying he couldn’t believe I’d fallen for it. Or I would dream that the telephone rang and it was the hospital saying that they’d made a mistake, Liam wasn’t dead, and I should come back and pick him up right away. How I hated those dreams.
Overwhelming relief, joy and gladness would rush through me and I would vow never to argue with him again, never to say another harsh word or waste another precious moment. But then I’d dimly realise I was dreaming and sickening disappointment would almost crush me. And then the dream would start all over again - this time I really was awake and the hospital really were calling to tell me Liam wasn’t dead ... Each time my mind would struggle with it, so desperately wanting to believe it, and yet I kept asking myself over and over again - Am I dreaming right now? Am I?
When the phone rang for real the day after the funeral, I opened my bloodshot eyes and my hand fumbled desperately around the bedside table. I grabbed the phone, quite sure in my mind that it was the hospital, and raised it to my ear, half-propped up on my elbows to say a breathless, rather hoarse, ‘Hello?’
‘Oh, did I wake you, dear?’ my mother’s voice said.
I closed my eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath and trying to thrust down the anger I unfairly felt towards her for waking me up like this, making me believe for a moment that it was the hospital calling to tell me Liam wasn’t dead.
‘That’s all right,’ I managed.
‘It’s one o’clock in the afternoon,’ she said, a little reproachfully.
‘Is it?’
‘Do you want me to come over?’
‘No!’ I said hurriedly. ‘No. Look, I just want to be on my own today. Please.’
‘All right,’ she said reluctantly. ‘The swans have been burnt. Did you know?’
‘What?’
‘The five swans that fell into the graveyard yesterday. They’ve been cremated. You know - in case they were carrying a contagious disease. The vicar tried to phone to let you know but he said you didn’t answer so he called me. He thinks they probably died of fright because of the thunderstorm, that’s all.’
‘Okay,’ I replied. ‘Mum, I have to go. I’ll speak to you later.’
I couldn’t have cared less about the dead swans right then and barely spared a thought for them as the next couple of months crawled slowly by. Suddenly I realised that it was getting dark in the evenings and cold during the day. It was now November. Autumn had gone. I’d missed it. Liam had been dead for two months and still it took an extreme amount of willpower just to get out of bed in the morning. The school where I’d worked as a violin teacher had allowed me to take the autumn term off but they would be expecting me back in January, which suddenly seemed much closer than it had before. I would certainly have to go back to work next year, for the bereavement benefit payment I had received would have run out by that time and - as everyone kept telling me - life moved on.
Mine didn’t seem to, though. I found myself dwelling on the arguments I’d had with Liam, bitterly regretting every angry word or spiteful comment - words that I hadn’t even meant at the time and so cursed myself for saying. I hoped he’d known I hadn’t meant it. I hoped he’d dismissed my words for the complete nonsense that they were.
Once, after a particularly heated argument just after we got engaged, Liam brought me flowers and suggested a truce. But I was still angry and not ready to make up. When he held the lilies out to me I threw them back in his face. Even as I did it I felt awful - disgusted with myself. But my guilt only made me angrier and when Liam stormed off, trampling the crushed flowers, I didn’t go after him. I just let him walk away - a petty act of nastiness that now I could never take back.
One of the things I found most difficult to cope with was that friends and family kept phoning me or turning up at the door, trying to help, trying to do things for me. I knew they had good intentions but I just wanted to be left alone and no one seemed to be able to understand that. In another month I was supposed to be going to California for a week in early December to stay with Laura, a friend who had emigrated to America last year. Liam and I had bought plane tickets to visit her months ago. When she phoned after the funeral I burst into tears and told her I couldn’t possibly still go, but she begged me to wait and see how I felt nearer the time. It was too late to get my money back on the plane tickets so I agreed, just to keep her happy, even though I had no intention whatsoever of going. The only time I really went out of the house was to buy food and even that was torturous - not the actual leaving so much as the coming back to an empty house afterwards. When I was away I longed to be back at home and when I was at home I longed to be away. I was trapped in a state of constant restlessness that never seemed to get any easier no matter where I was or what I was doing.
Friends and family members would turn up, trying to persuade me to go out for the day with them, s
aying that it wasn’t good for me to be all alone in the house. But I always refused to leave. The house was my haven. I couldn’t bear to see anyone who’d known Liam for they might try to talk to me about him, they might bring up old memories, they might drive the knife in and twist it even further. So I cut myself off from everyone as much as I could, and if I was having a really bad day then I unplugged the phone and stayed out of sight of the windows if the doorbell rang until whoever was out there gave up and went away.
Unfortunately, this didn’t work with my mother because she had her own key. There was no point in hiding from her when she would only barge in by herself if I did. One day, after two months of watching me wallow in misery, she came by to lecture me about all the things that still had to be done.
‘Done?’ I repeated stupidly. ‘What do you mean? I’ve done everything already.’
I had done the funeral and after that I had done all the tedious legal practicalities - gone to my bank and my solicitor, obtained all the necessary documentation to secure my bereavement payment, broken down into stupid laugher when I collected the death certificate, for it seemed such a silly thing to be given a certificate for ... I had arranged to have time off from the school I worked at, I had ensured that the mortgage continued to be paid every month along with the loan we had taken out to pay for the widescreen TV that had been a joint Christmas present. I had forced myself to do all those things before finally coming back to shut myself away in the house, like a wounded animal returning to its den to heal. What more could there possibly be still to do after all that?
‘You haven’t even started on the house yet,’ my mother said patiently.
‘I sorted out the mortgage—’ I began, but she cut me off.
‘That’s not what I mean.’ She hesitated for a moment before going on, ‘There’s his study and his clothes and all of his things still lying around. You should start clearing some of them away. See if his parents want anything. Turn the study into something else. Make a fresh start—’
‘Stop it! ’ I snapped, desperate to prevent her from saying even one more word. Deep down I knew she was right but I had already had to do so much and I couldn’t face doing any more. Just the thought of it made me feel hot and clammy and panicky - trapped, helpless and unable to breathe. I forced myself to hold it together.
I knew that if I lost it in front of my mother now, there would be no stopping her from coming over ten times a day to check on me. I refused, as calmly as I could, to pack away any of Liam’s things, for I feared it would be like losing him all over again.
But, a few days later, I began to think that perhaps she was right. At first I had been comforted by Liam’s clothes, had worn his shirts and felt close to him. But his smell had faded from them now and seeing them hanging in the wardrobe every day was a constant reminder that he was not coming home. When I realised I had worn my pyjamas all day just to avoid opening the wardrobe door I decided to grit my teeth and set to work clearing it out. It had never really been big enough for both of us anyway, so at least my clothes would no longer be creased and it would keep my mother off my back for a little while.
The first time I tried, I only managed to take one shirt out of the cupboard and drop it into one of the empty boxes standing nearby before I lost my resolve and walked away, unable to bear it for it just seemed so final. Instead I went into his study, so carefully preserved, and curled up in the large chair behind his desk, sobbing cowardly tears into the tissue clutched in my hand.
I had always loved the room. There were as many bookcases crammed in as would fit - all filled with books about myth, legend, history, superstition, folklore and fairy tales. Even the calendar on the wall still said it was September, as if the room were some kind of timeless bubble. Whenever Liam was home he would always be in here working on his laptop. He’d been away several times over the ten months we’d been married for he insisted on doing relevant research abroad where he could. I’d missed him when he’d been gone but at least then I’d always known that he was coming back. It had not been anything at all like this ...
A book lay before me on the desk, still open on the last page Liam had been looking at. It was one of those huge, ancient volumes, bound in leather and smelling of age and dry paper. He had been in the middle of a chapter detailing how to identify the devil’s familiars when they disguised themselves as animals.
It seemed that any black animal could be linked with the devil - black cats, black dogs, black swans ...
A horrible shudder went through me at the mention of black swans and the memory it summoned of them falling from the sky on the day of the funeral. Before that I hadn’t even known that there was such a thing as a black swan. The book went on to say that in ancient times villagers had killed black animals on sight for fear that the devil’s servants walked amongst them. The words sent a chill through me, although I tried to dismiss the idea for the superstition that it was.
I ran my finger over the page, feeling closer to Liam as I did so. He loved reading. And he loved folklore. The words on this page were probably the last thing he ever read. In fact, he was probably reading this right up until he got up to go and fetch me from work ... I closed the book and pushed it away. This was it. I had to get used to the idea that Liam wouldn’t be sitting here waiting for me any more when I got home. He was gone and that was that - no amount of crying was ever going to bring him back.
I picked the book up and found a gap on the shelves to slot it into alongside a book Liam had written himself about magical creatures. I took it out and opened it to the contents page to see if there was anything in there about black swans. There wasn’t, but there was a small section about magic swans so I flicked to the page and read it. Of course, I had read all of Liam’s books before, but I particularly liked this one for the fact that it was full of his colourful, whimsical illustrations of mermaids, yetis and faeries.
I flicked to the page about magic swans and reacquainted myself with the myth immortalised by Swan Lake of beings who were swans by day and beautiful women by night. Liam had also noted that, like mermaids, these swan princesses were said to possess magical voices with which they could enchant any human they chose - especially in swan form, when their song was said to be the most potent of all enchantments. But where mermaids and harpies used their silvery voices to lure sailors to a watery grave, it seemed that the swan princesses sang so that their true love would be able to find them however far apart they might be from one another. The book reassured me with its sweet interpretation of the myth, distinctly devoid of anything sinister or demonic.
The next day I tried again with the wardrobe and, this time, I made myself finish it, although it took me the entire day and was almost as difficult as the funeral itself. I could picture him in every piece of clothing that I packed away - every jumper, jacket and pair of trousers ... One of his shirts was stained with red wine where I had spilt my drink on him at a friend’s birthday party we had gone to just the night before he died. And his lucky jeans were ripped and still stained from the two parachute jumps he’d done since our wedding. He’d come to love speed and adrenalin rushes and had been planning on doing a skydive next. In the last year he had developed something of a daredevil nature where his hobbies were concerned and it seemed ironic now that I had worried a little about him dying doing something dangerous.
Finally I came to the bag of things I’d been given by the undertakers containing everything Liam had had on him when he’d died. The grass stains on the T-shirt and jeans made me feel sick as I remembered how he’d crumpled to the ground, half-dragging me with him. We’d been at the lake near the house, tossing stale bread into the water for the ducks and swans clustered by the bank. The water was painted golden by the low sun and there was a balmy warmth even though we were now coming towards the end of summer. Children ran about behind us, playing and eating ice creams from the omnipresent ice cream van, or else feeding the ducks like we were.
I can’t remember what Lia
m and I talked about as we stood there on that warm summer evening. I spent a lot of time afterwards trying to recall our conversation but found I couldn’t. It was eclipsed by the thing that happened next. He had been complaining of a headache all day but had taken some painkillers that morning and I had thought nothing more of it. He got headaches sometimes, but they were never severe and didn’t usually last very long.
When the birds had eaten all the bread we brushed off our hands and started strolling towards one of the benches. We were about halfway there when Liam stopped.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked, stopping too.
‘It’s this headache,’ Liam replied in a strange voice, both hands massaging his temples.
‘Take some more aspirin,’ I suggested.
‘I’ve been taking aspirin all day,’ he said. ‘It’s not ... helping.’
I started to say something else - I can’t remember what. Even then I wasn’t really concerned. After all, it was only a headache. But then he staggered, clutching at my shoulders to support himself.
‘Hey, are you okay?’ I asked sharply, suddenly very concerned indeed.
I’ll always remember the look he gave me. It was one of those funny, crooked half-smiles I knew so well - warm and reassuring despite the strange puzzlement in his eyes. But then he collapsed - folding up on the green grass and dragging me with him. By the time my mobile phone was in my hand, Liam was unconscious. He was still alive when the ambulance arrived but he died before we reached the hospital. I didn’t even get to do the hours of anxious waiting in the waiting room. The doctor explained to me that he had suffered a cerebral aneurysm. I stared at him blankly, waiting for more. That couldn’t just be it. It had all happened so fast. We had been feeding the ducks together less than half an hour ago. This was ridiculous beyond belief. Somebody must have made a most dreadful mistake ...