At the Big Red Rooster

by William Taylor

  The next ski season is quite a long way off and well before then, according to Uncle Mick, there’s a helluva lot more of the outdoors – the great outdoors – for us to conquer. You see, Uncle Mick’s got this old school-mate up the Coromandel who’s just started up this scuba-diving business…

  A Man’s Estate

  THEY STRUGGLED THROUGH three verses of ‘Abide With Me’. A melancholy anthem. He knew the tune, recognised the first words and made a stab at joining in. He felt his voice falsetto on a minor peak of the tune’s second line and gave up. Not to feel entirely out of things he contented himself with a mute mouthing of the rest of the song.

  The seeming endlessness of the hymn coupled with the stifling heat of the trapped late autumn afternoon joined to serve the cause of his discomfort. He wore a brand new shirt. A hair-shirt, really. It prickled at his neck and along the inside of his arms. He felt captive within the solid rank of his male relatives, all older than he. He was within their ranks but not of them, his head a lone, dark intruder among the uneven ranging of their blonde curls, sparse locks, or, as in the case of Uncle Arthur, soft pink hide.

  The hymn ended and he sank with the others, grateful. He hoped they wouldn’t sing again. His eyes caught at the object that, so far, he had assiduously avoided; the dark and horizontal obelisk of his grandmother’s coffin. Again he felt a return of the constrictive, compulsive hammering of the pulse in his throat and dreaded again the approach of the duty that was to be his.

  ‘It would be nice… nice and appropriate,’ his mother had said, and so he was press-ganged into this serving. She had debated with his father, his uncles, reaching the conclusion that it was time that he, at almost eighteen, enter into the sadder aspects of man’s estate. Now, all because his father bore the cross of a bad back, here he was, about to carry one-sixth of Grandma’s coffin to its last resting place. It was unfair, really. His mother seldom moved with this degree of speed when it came to the matter of him sampling quite a few of the joys of man’s estate!

  Sitting was just about as hard as singing. Uncle Arthur’s bony elbow digging in on one side of him and on the other there was Fat Teddy’s fat thigh. A warm cushion that was nearly as bad as Fat Teddy’s stink! The stink of Fat Teddy’s body and Fat Teddy’s sickly aftershave was just about strong enough to beat out the stink of the funeral flowers.

  Once upon a long time ago Cousin Teddy, five years older, had proved himself an able teacher, mentor and confidant. Fat Teddy, it had been, who had shown him how to use a handful of wheat, a box, a stick and a length of twine and much patience in order to trap a harvest of sparrows. Typical of Teddy, too, when halfway through the pleasurable dealing to that harvest, to slip silently into the undergrowth to watch while he was left to face the wrath of female family – including this grandmother they were burying to day. Fat people, he discovered, could slip, slide, slither and roll away from unpleasant consequences very quickly indeed! Teddy, now, had grown not only fatter but into an object of envy and an embodiment of solid success. Good job – something in electronics – new car every year. When Fat Teddy took a girl out he sent her flowers first. And just as well, too. Hadn’t he read somewhere that judges in England always carried a bunch of flowers into court with them to drown out unpleasant stinks? And Teddy really was stinking worse than ever.

  The words of the minister made it through the stink. He tried hard to relate what was being said of the old lady to what now remained of her in the heavy wooden box. How was it this guy knew all this junk? He felt sure none of those close to his grandmother and present here today had ever set eyes on this preacher before. Did ministers hide away somewhere in their files biography stuff about all those likely to die who lived on their patch? Probably on computer. Press G for Grandma and out would come the goods.

  Must be a bloody crook computer. Could be no other reason for turning this hard old grandma into some sort of plaster saint. Had this preacher truly known the old woman he sure as hell would have consigned her straight to the flames. After all, this was one tough old bird who had kept the whole lot of them at bay until very near the end. Not until she lost her marbles did any of them get in close enough for the kill. Not that it hadn’t been done nicely, very nicely. Just so civilised.

  ‘She’ll be much happier in the rest-home.’

  ‘Such a lovely place, Sunnyglade. Always a proper certified nurse on duty…’

  The old girl had lasted six months even though the doctor had promised no more than three. She was a tough old bird, all right. Six months and Sunnyglade costing an arm and a leg! A pity, really, that there was nothing more that anyone could turn off. ‘Poor old Mum. No quality of life like this.’

  Oh, yes, a solid family indeed. Not the sort given over to unnecessary sentimentalising. Now, here was this preacher guy blithering on about what more precious gift could the old girl have left them all than generosity of spirit? Well, more than a few of his kinfolk were hoping and praying for something a helluva lot more substantial than bloody generosity of spirit! Generosity of spirit? Come to think of it, he hadn’t spotted too much of this commodity in his grandmother, either.

  ‘In my Father’s house are many mansions.’ Bit odd. How can God, even, fit many mansions into one house? ‘And let us celebrate today, rather than mourn, the loss of our sister, er…’

  Ho ho ho! Forgotten her name, eh? ‘…as much a solace for those left behind and grieving, bereft, as for she who we mourn this day and who has left us, moved on to her Father’s…’ On and on and on in the heat and the shifting spectrum of dust.

  Yeah. That’s it. Celebrate! More like it. Hit the bloody coffin nail right on the head. He saw again the smooth faces of his mother and her sisters, as outside the church they had smiled softly and juggled up the right words for the occasion. ‘So nice of you to come… ’

  ‘She would have liked it this way…’

  ‘All her old friends here…’

  ‘Really all for the best…’

  ‘Yes. In her sleep… So nice. In her sleep…’

  In her sleep? How did they know this? With the certified nurse like as not off having a cuppa or a smoke or a snooze, how could they tell that at some moment the old girl had not woken, alone, terrified, and with a last lusting after life had not fought tooth and claw against the inevitable black hole or whatever, had not struggled a last struggle against its threat and its invitation? Nah. None of them could know for certain.

  He longed for a cigarette and wondered at the reaction if he lit up right here and now.

  ‘She would have liked it this way…’

  ‘…always enjoyed a nice send-off,’ a wry smile.

  Yeah, right! Easy enough to enjoy another’s send-off. No bloody indication you wanted to enjoy your own! And then the uneasy mateship of his father, his uncles. And Fat Teddy. ‘You’ll be coming back to the house, won’t you.’

  ‘A cup of tea or,’ crooked smile. ‘Maybe something a bit stronger. Looks as if Bert could do with something a bit stronger before you get on your way. Good of you to go to the trouble.’ Back at the house, waiting, and in the care of old cousin Phyll who didn’t fancy funerals, piles of warm cream-cakes, soggy sandwiches and five dozen sausage rolls from the caterer down town. In the kitchen, bottles and glasses. Everything ready.

  ‘…think now of our sister, er… as once she might have been,’ and the minister inclined a respectful head in the direction of that section of his audience that seemed reserved for the old folks, the age peers of this sister. ‘Some of you, many of you, must have brought with you here today fragrant memories of the past and this sister in the full flower of youth… ’

  Youth? She had never had one, surely. Here he sat, he and half this lot seated here around him, all spruced up and all sprung quite directly from her, this old, old woman now dead and gone. Young? No, not her. How could anyone be expected to flesh out, give a life to this old cold corpse hidden away in folds of cheap satin in a shiny box of cheap wood with fake silver fittings?
It was only history that told him that she had indeed been young when she first came here. Sixty or more years ago, a bride, a destiny. Hopes and fears. Eight kids – and two of those still-born. Six hundred and forty acres and only about ten of those clear enough to make anything of. No road, just a track. No car. No this and no that. Next to nothing. Yeah. Just a chance that this could be grasped, understood.

  Was it any wonder that to him and to the other kids of the family that she had always seemed to be of flint, of some hard stone? She sure had never seemed to be of plaster. No plaster saint. Only the tough survived as long as she. Yeah, this could be understood.

  He had spotted outside the church the sprinkling of the old ones, her mates, as they had arrived in their ones or twos or in tow. Her cronies. They had looked lost, apprehensive. They looked almost as if they had no faith in the luck of this lottery that had placed her here today ahead of them. Probably today was little more than a reminder to any of them of the shrinking, the ebbing of their own respective spans. From just one or two had come a defiant spark, a grim grin at what was just around their own corners.

  ‘Still here, Alf, eh?’

  ‘Too right, Clarry. Never thought I’d be round to see the old tart off.’

  Why was it, he wondered, that it seemed to be the old men who couldn’t resist the impulse to put thought into words? For the most part the old women were quiet. Maybe all of them, old men and old women, did remember it all, those good old golden days when youth, fleeting friend, had been all on their side. Days when anything had been bearable because their years were few and their living had counted. Excepting his grandmother, and with her not often, he could not remember having looked really closely at old people. They looked sort of threadbare. They weren’t, of course. Not many of them, anyway. Most of them were as solidly suited as Fat Teddy. It wasn’t this at all. It was rather the stoop of a shoulder, the seamed texture of a sun-caught profile that hinted at the truth. It was more than simple outward appearance. It was almost as if they carried, these real oldies, a thin encrusting of mould, a sort of slowly encroaching growth of decay.

  Would this happen to him? Bloody stupid question. As long as one bloody hour follows another bloody hour, then so it must be. He shuddered and felt against him the stirring of Fat Teddy’s fat leg. How would his cousin look? Age would get him, too, and a bloody good job. All that skin and fat bagging, sagging, cheeks becoming chin and chest and stomach a distended bag of gut. Could a damn thing be done about it? Exercise? Run, jog, play sport. Healthy living? No booze no dope no tobacco no women? The clean life? The pure life? Teddy’s life? That one sure was a laugh. So what? Live, love and laugh. A good enough recipe. Well, it couldn’t hurt. Live, love and laugh? But wouldn’t that make it all seem to go even quicker?

  He drew himself back to the here and now. The preacher was off on something he seemed to find a satisfying diversion from the general confines of the service. Oh death where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy something-or-other? Crap from school? Did death have a sting? Sure as hell no sting after being stung. After you got stung there was sweet bugger-all. Could anyone, in their right mind, think that something had flitted away from this old body at the last knock? Had flitted away to join up with those five, ten or fifty billion others somewhere? Some vast limbo jam-packed with little wispy white things called souls, each one jostling for a millimetre of living space, an immortal place in the sun? Living space?

  If everyone in the whole wide world stood shoulder-to-shoulder they wouldn’t fill up the Isle of Wight. So they said. Why in hell the Isle of Wight? Why not some nice tropical island in the Pacific? For that matter, why not some overgrown iceberg up near Canada? Isle of Wight? Crap!

  Why should it be us that have the souls? Why us instead of some innocent rabbit, duck, deer or possum shot to smithereens before its prime? Shot by those who had the bloody souls! Well, crap on that. Course it was us. What deer or rabbit had ever invented clothes, planes, computers, had started wars, killed kids or written a Bible? Of course it was us had the souls, no matter how old, wrinkled, bad-tempered or stinking. Wars had been fought to prove it. Still were being fought to prove it. Nothing like a shaft of cold hard steel to persuade doubters of the existence of something, anything.

  Wispy souls.

  Why, then, all the fuss about what was left over after the wispy soul had taken flight? Surely if the bloody wisp had gone, the meaning had all gone, too, and all that was left would bear no more relevance to anything than would the body of a dead cow. Logic. Yep. This made sense. This was surely right for one of his family, his tribe. Not for this lot some mumbo-jumbo of a bright blue yonder. None of his lot were a sensitive, scented bunch of flowers… well, except for Fat Teddy. His lot were a here-and-now breed. His lot were an if-it-moved-shoot-it, if-it-didn’t-move-cut -it-down breed. Good guys. So, what the hell were they all doing here now? What was it? Custom? Convention? Fear? Any of these rather than any true belief in little wispy white things. The sense of purpose offered even in a meatworks held more truth for any one of them! So, why were they all here? Must be more than the promise of warm cream cakes and stale ale.

  What then to her children? He looked at them, as best he was able. Aging already themselves. Already a repectable crop of coronaries and ulcers. Probably no more to any of them than a nuisance, an impediment. They had bided their time. And all for what? A block of land held in trust and now requiring axing in six ways. It wasn’t that any of them needed whatever it would realise.

  They stood again. For one panic-filled second he thought the time had come. It hadn’t. Time for another dirge. This one he remembered from school assemblies. Walking through death’s dark vale? What about it, then? If all this crap about death having no sting, about it being some sort of glorious victory, if it were true then why in God’s name must the tunes sound so bloody mournful? He mouthed this one, too, looked sideways and caught his mother’s glance upon him. She offered a sweet and encouraging smile. Without thinking he winked. His mother’s mouth dropped and her eyebrows lifted. He remembered himself, flushed hot, took a steadying, death-defying look at the coffin and then shot his glance about him in a spot check to see whether he had been observed.

  The song ended and they sat for a prayer. He was a second too late in sitting and found himself perched for a moment, lop-sided, on Fat Teddy’s thigh and aimed perilously in the direction of Uncle Arthur’s lap. In fright he took the obvious course. He hadn’t been a front-row forward for nothing. He forced his bulk down between Teddy and Arthur. Teddy, indignant and ruffled fat rooster, nudged him cruelly in the ribs and the whole row was sent into a domino shuffle and half the prayer was got through before they all managed to settle.

  He felt hotter, more prickly, more red and sweaty and he longed for the relief of a cold beer. Any moment now. Any moment now the promised nod would come. Oh, God, what if they dropped it? What if he tripped and started a chain reaction and the coffin skittered off to God knew where? ‘Can you give me something to stop this coffin?’ his mind scatted to the old joke.

  What could he do? How the hell could he get out of this? Was there any escape route? None. Escape, anyway, would be worse, much worse. Course they wouldn’t drop her. Would it matter? Would the lid of the box shoot off? She’d look okay. He had seen her.

  ‘Would be fitting,’ said his mother, silencing any protest. ‘A last goodbye. We must view her, bless her.’

  ‘Why?’ His father.

  ‘A last memory. A leave taking.’

  There had been no pennies on her eyes. Another useless thing he had read. Wasn’t it the weight of the pennies that kept the eyelids down? More than likely they sewed them up these days. Just how could those who did this shit actually do it? Working away at cold, dead flesh, painting and pinching and poking it into some sort of a sleeping, almost-living pose? It wasn’t natural. It just wasn’t natural. Not the job and not the result, either. Not natural. Hair set and even wearing her specs. What the hell could she see through c
losed, dead eyes? Sure no place for pennies, anyway. And all the hard lines of long living somehow miraculously gone. Did they fill in the cracks with some sort of plastic putty, some sort of miracle poly-vinyl filler? Lying there, seeming smaller than in real life, good blue suit and all and looking almost as if at the touch of a magic wand she would sit up, shake off the dust of powder on her face and walk, gaunt as ever, down to the shops.

  ‘Lovely,’ his mother had whispered, not wishing to wake the dead. ‘This is how I’ll always remember her,’ and she had wiped an eye.

  ‘Me, too,’ had said his aunt, Edith. ‘It’s like they’ve rolled away all the years.’

  The men had stood apart, back and away from the women. He had stood with them, as one with them in a desire to get away from this place and back to the reality of living.

  ‘They done a great job and I for one don’t begrudge a cent of what they charge, they’ve surely earned it,’ Edith. ‘Though I might’ve liked her in her nightie a bit more. That nice one Fred’n me gave her last Christmas. Don’t think she ever wore it. Oh, she does look nice and, well, so sort of at peace with herself at long last.’

  ‘They are good here,’ his mother had said. ‘They say they do the best job in town. She had a good innings, as they say. A beautiful job.’

  How could anyone tell it was a beautiful job? Did they run competitions like for axe-men or hairdressers or possum skinners? And if they did run competitions, how the hell did they get the models?

  He gathered himself in and sat through the last minutes of the service. He felt his head swim. The heat? The flowers? He caught the eye of Fat Teddy but it offered no relief, comfort. Looked as if the fat bastard was flexing himself, almost, in a readying for the job near at hand. Looking forward to it? He caught a last encouraging look from his mother. Why couldn’t she have done it for him? Women could be pall-bearers. They’d do it much better than guys, anyway. Should be women’s work. They did the bearing into the world, so, why not out of it, too?