The Casualties

by Nick Holdstock

  The woman outside must have been standing still, because it was only after I’d spoken, in the quiet that followed, that her steps resumed. They approached, passed close by us, then quickly died away.

  When Father Robert spoke, he sounded uncertain. “Is there a problem with your health? Are you in pain?” he asked, and even this solicitous enquiry was somehow unconvincing. As if he, in his early forties (and presumably good health), could not yet fully believe in the idea of sickness. It was probably the same with old age: Although he saw it every day, because it had not yet happened to him, it was still as abstract a notion as grace is to most of us.

  I said that I was in good health.

  He coughed, then said, “You have worked hard. You should enjoy your retirement. You can learn new things, spend time with your friends.”

  I told him I did not have any.

  “What about your family?”

  “All dead.”

  “Look,” he said, and sounded annoyed, but for only an instant. The rest of his sentence—something about it being hard to adjust to retirement—had a be-reasonable tone. As if it were only obtuseness that kept me from agreeing.

  By then I was certain Father Robert could not help me. He was a man who was too far from death, who had probably never known love. And this made me angry. I said, “What do you think heaven is like? Every day you read about it, every day you speak about it. Is it clouds and angels sitting on thrones? Is it—?”

  “I do not know,” he said. And for the first time, he sounded genuine. As if heaven—unlike old age—was something he did not presume to know.

  He cleared his throat. “No one who is living does. Even if God told us, we probably wouldn’t understand. What heaven is like should not concern us. We must concentrate on the good we can do now.”

  “But how can we not think about it? Isn’t it what we live for? So we can be in a place with people we love for all eternity.”

  The shriek of an ambulance broke into the church. I thought of being hit by a car.

  “Perhaps,” he said, then stopped. As if, having thought the sentence, he was no longer sure. I did not mind: better he said nothing than more platitudes.

  But his final words were spoken in a different voice. His tone was surer when he said, “God loves us. All of us. He gives us our lives and so we must be grateful. Not just in our hearts, but in our actions. Maybe you are not the only one waiting. Maybe He is also waiting.”

  “For what?” I said, and my voice leapt, too fast and too eager.

  “I don’t know,” said Father Robert. “But you must be patient.”

  At the time, this seemed no answer. Afterwards I stood by the side of the road, watching the cars pass.

  Poor Mrs. Maclean’s love letters were written to a dead man. It is possible he was still living when she began their “correspondence,” and there was some other reason she did not send the letters—perhaps she lacked the courage, or, as in her sister’s case, the man was already married. However, her mention of having “been patient for fifty years” suggests he had been dead that long. Sam was of the opinion that the man had died in a plane crash. He based this conclusion on a photo he found in one of Mrs. Maclean’s bedroom drawers that pictured a man in an airman’s uniform standing by a row of planes. On the back of it was written, To Eileen, with love from Stanley, September 1954.

  Whether it was this man or someone else whom Mrs. Maclean was waiting for, what is certain is that she believed they would be reunited in heaven. This was the hope that made her live like a book with its pages shut.

  In the months that followed her confession to Father Robert, Mrs. Maclean began to act strangely. Whenever she met someone she knew, she always stopped to ask how they were. In itself, this was nothing new; she had always been polite. What pleased some, but unnerved most, was the intensity with which she asked. She seemed to care too much. They felt as if she were privy to some secret and terrible information regarding their fate.

  The other great change in her character was the compulsive way she tried to be kind. She gave up her place in queues for people in a hurry. If she got in someone’s way—in a shop entrance, or on a narrow stretch of pavement—she would insist that the other person go first, which usually led to the person insisting that she go first (partly because this was general etiquette, but also because she was an elderly woman), to which Mrs. Maclean would again insist they step through first, and perhaps this seemed comic the first time it happened, but soon people dreaded meeting her. It was easier to just push past her.

  There were other, more dramatic manifestations of her wish to be charitable. During the freezing winter of 2015, she called out to Alasdair when he was shivering under the bridge. At first he did not hear her faint voice above the sound of the river, but when a series of stones hit the water, he looked up. If he gave little thought to why an old woman who used to ignore him should now offer him shelter, it was because he did not regard it as any great favour, merely his due.

  For her part, Mrs. Maclean offered no explanation. All she said was “It’s not far.” Then she set off along the icy pavement, perhaps too quickly for safety. During the short journey he repeated what he always told her, that she should eat more seeds for her bones. But she was not listening.

  At home she led him upstairs to a room with a bed whose sheets were printed with roses. There she turned to him, as if to speak, but her mouth stayed closed. Only after a great effort did she say, “I hope you’ll be comfortable.” She left him, and after a moment he began to undress.

  He was about to get into bed when she returned. She did not seem to notice, or mind, that Alasdair was naked. She put down a mug and said, “I’ve brought you a hot drink.” From under the blankets he watched her staring past him, and he—who was often oblivious to the feelings of others—could not help noticing the pain on her face, its wrinkles merging into folds, her eyes like coloured glass. She brought her hand to her brow, then smoothed it down to her nose, as if shutting the eyes of a corpse.

  Given her obvious reluctance, why did Mrs. Maclean invite Alasdair into her house? Why did she pamper him? Not only with the hot drink, but also with breakfast, and then, when he was leaving, by offering him the crystal bowl she had been given as a retirement present?

  The answer was that poor Mrs. Maclean, in her desperation, had interpreted Father Robert’s suggestion that God was “waiting” as a kind of pact. She believed these acts of charity would encourage God to grant the mercy He had been withholding. She may also have been hoping that Alasdair would kill her in her sleep.

  The idea that she was trying to petition God is supported by her actions over the following months. She donated many valuable items to the charity shops on the street. And it was not just her possessions, but her time as well. In the late spring of 2016 she began volunteering in Sam’s bookshop, twice a week, for three hours at a time. She sat at the till while he worked in the office, but unlike other volunteers she did not read or even glance at the books. All she did was gaze straight ahead. Sam thought her expression was one of calm expectancy. Like that of a person waiting at a railway station who constantly sees trains go by but knows that someday one must stop. This was how she remained during those final months, right until the clear morning the following August when everyone’s train arrived. On that day, when she looked up, Mrs. Maclean must have smiled.

  6. The Ballad of Rita and Sean

  WHENEVER I DREAM OF COMELY Bank I am looking down from above. The roofs of the shops flow in a straight line until the road bends. Then there is the bridge, the river rushing beneath, and as my mind’s eye travels it names the streets, sees cracks in the pavement, holes in the road, so much detail it almost feels real. But because it is gone (which cannot be forgotten, even by my imagination), what I see is more like a stage. In this real-but-not-real place all the people I remember are always in the same spot, like actors on their marks. Alasdair is on the bridge, Mr. Asham is behind his shop counter, Toby is at the window of the
delicatessen. So rooted are they in these locations that it is hard to remember them elsewhere. Only with great effort can I shift Mr. Asham to Trudy’s house, put Sam in Sinead’s flat.

  This is also true of Sean and Rita, though they were late arrivals to the street. After April 2016 they were always, weather permitting, on the wooden bench at the entrance to the park. Even during that final winter they sat there under blankets, warmly dressed, like those people who queued outside shops for hours, days, in the hope of paying a reduced price for yet another object. But Sean and Rita wanted nothing except to stay as drunk as possible.

  Sean was tall with thick hair greying at his temples. His brown eyes were flecked with orange and seemed large in his face, like those of an owl, an impression strengthened by the way they held you even when he was slurring his words. His was an unpleasant gaze. It was a blade hovering over a cake, looking for where to cut. Sean could be so charming and funny that even after a few minutes of conversation you felt he was your friend. A day or week later, as you headed for the park, you would find yourself smiling in anticipation. But as you neared the bench, hand raised in greeting, you’d see his disdain. As you hurried past he’d say “Is it a race? Don’t fall and hurt yourself.” At his worst he spat at people, and once he threw a bottle at Alasdair. Sean did not like homeless people; nothing enraged him more than someone thinking that he spent all day drinking on a bench because he had nowhere to live.

  Sean was the reason most people avoided the couple. That they did so with regret was entirely due to Rita. She was short, very pale, at least a decade younger than Sean. Her hair was straw-coloured and wispy and piled on top of her head with such care that it was as if two birds had prepared it for their chicks. Though they had woven it with love—thinking of pale blue eggs that had to be kept safe, of nestlings with still-closed eyes and fluffy, useless wings—the nest they had fashioned seemed as fragile as the little birds’ heads. A gust of wind, the paw of a cat, and everything would be lost.

  Rita’s mood was harder to gauge than Sean’s. Whilst her face was not quite a blank canvas, the lines drawn there were faint. A mouth corner turned up or a tightness of the jaw was all you had to go on. Only at her drunkest was there more than a sketch. Then she had a wonderful, terrible smile that suggested something impossible had been achieved at monstrous cost. The smile stayed fixed for several minutes, till it no longer seemed a mark of pleasure, more a sign of agony, as if her lips were frozen in the rictus caused by certain poisons. It was a horrible expression that made any witness want to offer help.

  Sean and Rita rarely fought. He might raise his voice at her, but it never went further. Yet when Rita had a large purple bruise on her cheek he was immediately blamed. “The man’s a brute,” said Mr. Campbell. “That poor girl,” said Mr. Asham. “I hadn’t noticed,” said Caitlin. The matter was settled only when Sam said he’d seen her fall over.

  Sometimes Sean had good reason to be angry, because although Rita was a poor, pale angel, she was also clumsy. She was always spilling wine on his clothes or blanket, which was both uncomfortable and wasteful. She was also careless with matches. She liked to strike them slowly to see the lazy way the head of the match caught. She enjoyed all kinds, but her favourite were the long, thick ones used for lighting fires. There was plenty of time to watch the flame’s progress from initial flare to unsteady beginning; its calm maturity as it crept along. As the flame grew old it slowed till there was only a blue flicker at the end of a blackened line, and after that, just smoke. Sometimes she grew bored of one flame and dropped the match so she could light another. This was what led to burn marks on the blanket and, on several occasions, a fire.

  When Sean got angry with Rita, she would answer, in a very small voice, “But you gave them to me.” That this was true only made him angrier. He gave her a new box of matches every morning, one of several presents. The others varied, but always included a bottle of white wine, a mango or guava, and some chewing gum. Such casual, minor gestures proved he was in love. How she felt was hard to say. They were not a demonstrative couple. They never kissed, held hands, or said anything affectionate when others were around. There is no way to know how they acted when alone; whether they had a sexual relationship; if she thought of him as a life partner, a soul mate, or just a man she was fond of.

  Sam thought there was something special about Sean and Rita. They formed a unit so hermetic it was their own universe. They had no other friends, nor appeared to want them. They acted as if they were the last people on earth. Their love seemed to be the kind of all-consuming feeling that made people so selfish they forgot their friends and relatives, perhaps even their children. Was this potential inherent in all kinds of love, or did it spring only from people with a certain emotional history? Sam felt their relationship could help him with such questions.

  Unfortunately, Sean and Rita’s lives remained hidden in fog, like the special kind we called the harr that rolled in from the sea and stayed in the city for hours. This fog was thick, unmoving, above all capricious: one street might be submerged while its neighbour was clear. Though Sam was usually good at dispelling such fog, in Sean and Rita’s case he struggled. They never bought or donated books. None of his volunteers knew anything. Throughout May and June he tried to find out more, but with no success.

  It was desperation that made him approach them directly. His initial plan was to pretend to be a journalist interested in alcoholism. After asking a series of questions about their drinking habits, he would ask his actual questions under the guise of needing “background.” But this seemed too convoluted, too implausible. Instead he did what anyone did back then when they wanted someone to do something for them, or to them, that the person did not want to do. On a bright July morning in 2016 he crossed the bridge, walked the length of the street, and turned down the lane that led to the park. Sean and Rita were on their bench, both beneath the blanket, each wearing a hat and a scarf. Sean was drinking from a tarnished hip flask, Rita from a mug.

  “Excuse me,” he said. They looked up, and Rita had a sweet expression, as if she were waking from a dream in which rabbits hopped through a sun-dappled glade where bluebirds sang for joy. Sean’s face was less encouraging, but it did not seem hostile. He produced a slow yawn he covered with his hand. The sound seemed to surprise him. “Excuse me,” he said.

  Sam blurted his offer.

  “I’ll pay you if you answer some questions. Just a few.”

  The silence that followed was caused by neither shock nor dismay. It was the pause of a ruler who knows they do not need to reply. Though Sean and Alasdair disliked each other, they were alike in thinking of themselves as people of great worth. They spent more time on the street—sitting on benches and walls, leaning against fences and lampposts—than anyone else, and as a result they felt seigneurial, especially in their habitual spots. It was why Alasdair felt able to issue proclamations on people’s health. It was why Sam received no answer for ten seconds.

  Rita was the one who deigned to respond. She brought her hand to her cheek with a look of amazement, as if she thought his proposal a kind offer that made her heart beat faster. He wondered whether she had heard him correctly. She looked overwhelmed.

  “No,” she said, and her voice was hard. “We won’t. We don’t want to—”

  “Hang on,” said Sean. “What questions? How much?”

  “Just some questions about your childhoods. I’ll pay you a hundred pounds.”

  This sum of money would have bought twenty bottles of wine. But she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, and seemed very sober.

  “Why not?” said Sean. “If he wants to waste his money, let him.”

  “Because it’s none of his business.”

  “It’s a hundred quid.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We don’t need it.”

  “Please,” said Sean. He seemed close to tears.

  Rita sighed. “Fuck. All right.”

  “Thank you,” said Sam, but
she cut him off.

  “I don’t want to talk to you. Tell us your questions and we’ll write our answers down. Come back tomorrow with the money.”

  Sam did as he was told. This is what Sean wrote.

  Dad worked in a factory and Mum worked in a sweet shop. I had a dog called Goldie who had a red ball and we used to play until one day she could not get up because she had been poisoned. At school I was good at running and history. My best friend was a kid called Darren who other kids said was a bastard. He was the first person I kissed. The first girl was Susie Greene who lived next door and there was something wrong with her eyes. I’ve been with Rita for six years and she’s all I want.

  This was Rita’s answer.

  Mum and dad beat me every day and sometimes they made me get in bed with them and when I went to school the teacher made me stay late and what we did was our secret and on Sundays before Mass and sometimes after the priest would ask to see me in his office and I would smell the communion wine on his breath and every night I cried myself to sleep and finally when I was ten I went to the police and they took me in a room without windows and said do for us what you do for them and so I drank bleach and jumped out of windows and tried to chop off my head with an axe and finally got eaten by wolves. Then I went to heaven where Jesus healed me and gave me peace and I was looking forward to eternal life because heaven was really beautiful. It was this grassy meadow with a stream and everyone lived in tree houses and I knew that in heaven I would finally be safe, forever, and so I went and found Jesus and knelt down before him and thanked him and he put his hand on my head and said I bless you and I tried to say thank you again but then he put his dick in my mouth and said as it is on earth so shall it be in heaven and then my dad and my mum and all the teachers and priests and police and social workers were there and so I ran away from heaven I came back to earth and from then on I knew there was no escape and this is what my childhood was like and this is why I am a drunk. The End.