He came to a level strand of broken stone, scarcely more than a few inches wide. From the shapes made in the flowing water he guessed that it extended beneath the surface for the length of a cautious step before being carved away by the main channel. If Thomas walked onto that level then the water would pour over the top of his boots as it had done at the start of the path. Another step forward and he would flounder. The current would seize him in an inescapable grasp. Once that happened, he would be taken beyond choice. The water would do with him what it would.
He placed one foot in the river. The water that poured into his boot was icier than he had expected. He brought his other foot in line and stood motionless in the shallows with his hands by his sides. The current tugged lightly at his limbs like a tease. Just ahead of him it was deep and immeasurable, coursing unstoppably across rocks in turbid dips and whorls and dizzying patterns of foam and spume. The soles of his feet, his toes and his ankles became clamped within a cold so intense that they lost sensation. He began to be scared.
Like an intruder hurrying from a room, Thomas stepped back onto land. But as soon as he felt it under his feet he was gripped by panic that he could lose his balance and fall by accident into the river. He did not stop to pick up the bottle, but scrambled as fast as he could up the slope. Several times he slithered backward and hurt his hands as he grabbed at whatever was in reach. Dislodged shale slid after him down the rake.
Once at the top he stood several paces back from the edge. He was breathing convulsively and his legs were trembling. He really was a failure, Thomas thought bitterly. This was proof. He had even failed to take his own life.
He spread out his hands. The palms and fingers were stained a tribal red. One fingernail was torn and a few tiny stones were sticking to his skin from the climb. Thomas brushed them away. The rain fell all around. As the drops landed on his skin the red became watery and dissolved in widening spots.
The rucksack with the camera and his map and food and clothes and diary still lay at the side of the road. The bottle still stood where he had left it beside the Bleng. Rain dripped steadily from the branches of the nearest tree. Mist rose in the valley. Thomas put his hand to his head and discovered that he was still wearing the cap. He took it off and carefully placed it on top of the rucksack. Even the smallest movement now seemed significant.
Without fully knowing what he was doing he strode to the center of the bridge and paused with his toes against the concrete lip as if at the starting line of a race. His feet were warmer now but the rest of his body was cold.
The river seethed and thrashed beneath him as if it were alive. Spray rose upward in disintegrating clouds. He felt that he was obeying a law that he could not fully understand and yet could not escape. It removed responsibility for his actions. He no longer had to think.
Thomas stepped into the air and toppled forward.
For a moment it seemed to him that he paused in his fall, as if the spray were bearing him aloft, and then the river rose to meet him. From somewhere came the realization that his mind should be racing, but all he could frame was a simple phrase that blotted out everything else. What a fucking stupid thing to do, he thought.
The first thing that he hit was not water, but stone.
10
Alice sat next to Gregory in one of the rear pews. She looked down the length of the chill echoing room, over the backs of the heads of the other mourners, toward the coffin on its plinth. Soon it would be out of sight, lost to everyone’s gaze as it slid along rollers into the heart of the crematorium. She could not imagine what Thomas would look like inside that polished box with its brass handles. It was so impersonal, so everyday, that it seemed almost unbelievable that it should contain a body she had often made love to.
Gregory counted more than twenty people scattered around the chapel either singly or in tiny groups. He had only agreed to come because Alice had insisted that there would be no one there apart from herself and Richard Laidlaw. But it occurred to Gregory that everyone in the sparse congregation must have known Thomas to some degree, whereas he did not. And not only had he never met Thomas; he was actually rather pleased that he was dead and out of the way.
“I can wait outside,” he murmured in Alice’s ear. “I don’t belong here.”
“You can’t leave now,” she whispered urgently, and then took his hand and squeezed it in manner he found pleasurable. “Please stay,” she added, “not for Thomas, but for me.”
As Gregory waited for Alice to release her grip he slipped into an erotic fantasy on how else she could hold him. Meanwhile she gazed fixedly toward the man sitting on his own at the front of the chapel. Eventually she let go, and as she did she spoke quietly.
“That must be his brother.”
Then she turned her head and whispered so close to Gregory’s ear that the words seemed to be carried within a hot wind.
“Be careful what you say to him.”
“I don’t intend saying anything,” Gregory answered.
He thought uneasily that even though Thomas was dead it was still possible that he could disrupt everything. Gregory’s ambition would have been satisfied by now if his body had not been discovered. Or if Thomas had not carried a diary in his rucksack then he would not have been identified for a long time, and this funeral would not have been held for weeks or months. It could even have been so far ahead that Alice would not have found it necessary to attend.
But the police had easily tracked down Richard Laidlaw. The last communication he had received from Thomas had been a note quoting Alice’s name and address. At the time he had not even been curious. He had never considered that he might have cause to ring the number.
When he had phoned Alice about his brother’s death Richard had shown no indication that had been told about their separation, and she had not had the heart to admit the truth. In subsequent conversations Alice wondered if Richard actually knew what had happened, but if so then he never showed any awareness of it. Evidently the Laidlaw brothers no longer discussed such matters.
She had often thought of confessing, as she felt that Thomas’s brother had a moral right to know. But when she had discussed it with Gregory he had shrugged his shoulders and asked what purpose it would serve, so she had confessed nothing.
Now as she sat in the crematorium chapel Alice wondered if Richard would draw the obvious conclusion when he saw her with a male companion.
“If he asks,” she said to Gregory in a low voice, “make sure he knows we’re just friends.”
“If that’s what you want.”
“Of course it is.”
And for the immediate future that was true, Alice thought. She had decided that if she and Gregory were to become lovers it would not be until well after the funeral. Somehow or other that would be more honorable.
The service was muted, its religious aspect made equivocal by the indifference of the congregation. Although the Laidlaw brothers had been baptized as Anglicans, no one knew what Thomas’s beliefs had been when he died. When Richard had phoned to ask, Alice had replied that he had only ever talked about primitive ritual and memorial. Together they had agreed that an interest in polytheism was not a useful pointer for a modern committal, and Richard had therefore arranged a conventional C. of E. service.
An uninterested vicar announced that the deceased had been on the brink of academic recognition when he had lost his life in a terrible accident. As he spoke, Gregory studied the vicar’s bland emotionless features and sensed that few of those present, if any, felt a great sense of loss.
Two hymns were sung to organ music whose notes were drawn out for too long. Alice attempted to sing but seemed out of breath. When Gregory looked aside he saw to his surprise that she was crying. Unsure what to do, he stared straight ahead. The vicar’s amplified voice lifted above the murmuring congregation like a threadbare sail.
To Alice it was disturbingly appropriate that Thomas should have died in such a mundane and pointless accident. It was t
he summation of a life never fully realized. Briefly she considered the possibility that if she had not ordered Thomas to leave, and if he had not traveled north, then he could finally have had better fortune in a few weeks or months. Just what this good luck might have been remained undefined in her imagination. But a sense of guilt nagged at Alice; she had been the prime mover of this tragedy. Whether Thomas was to prosper or remain a failure, he certainly would not have trekked to Stockdale Moor if she had not ended their relationship.
Even as she thought this, she gained a little ease from believing that there must be a hidden purpose behind his death. It had not been just a simple matter of terrain and weather. Losses so tragic were never without consequence.
Gregory grew more uncomfortable as the service progressed. Any funeral reminded him of his wife’s death, but cremations redefined the memory so sharply that he had difficulty adjusting to the present. At the time he had been cushioned from grief by his own systematic recording of Ruth’s disease. This self-imposed task, this willingness to have his profession place its stamp on those last few weeks, had enabled him to cope in ways that friends found admirable. None knew, although some must have suspected, that he was photographing every stage in his wife’s slow decline.
Now, years later, as he observed the funeral of a man he had never met, Gregory had no need of the detachment a camera could bring. All he knew of Thomas was what he had been told. He did not even know what he had looked like.
Gregory should have been indifferent, and yet the progress of this Christian ritual, its reassurances and what he considered its absurd but touching promises of resurrection, were poignant and moving in ways that he did not wish to admit. So that when the curtains at last came together, cutting off everyone’s view of the coffin, he was eager to leave the scene as quickly as he could.
Outside the chapel most of the mourners dispersed quickly, as though unwilling to be asked the extent of their friendship with the deceased. Alice was almost the last to shake Richard’s hand. At first she could see little of Thomas in his brother, but after a few seconds she was able to detect a likeness in the shape of his face, the way that he stood, and his voice.
“I’m glad to meet you at last,” Richard said. “And I’m sorry that Tommy never told me anything about you. Especially since you’re the one who must be feeling his loss more keenly than anyone.”
Gregory, standing back, noticed Alice blink. He wondered if she had stifled an impulse to turn to him for reassurance.
Richard continued to say the kind of things commonly said at funerals—that it had been a great shock, that his brother had died tragically young. After this he seemed lost for words.
“Yes,” Alice said weakly, “an accident like that was the last thing that anyone could have expected.”
For a moment Richard looked as if he were about to contradict her, but then he looked directly at Gregory.
“And is this your friend?”
Gregory already knew how he would answer.
“Cousin,” he lied, shaking Richard’s hand. “I never met your brother, but Alice talked about him a lot. I came along to give her some support.”
“There weren’t many people here,” Alice said to Richard.
“No. After the police found Tommy’s diary I phoned every address. I didn’t know if it would be a friend or an acquaintance or what it would be. A few of the numbers were out of date. Some of the people who answered couldn’t even remember him. And some were colleagues who’d worked on contracts so had known him only a short while. That’s why I was really pleased that you could come. Tommy must have meant more to you than he did to anyone else.”
Gregory could not resist agreeing. “That’s right,” he said. “She was always talking about him—weren’t you, Alice?”
“I never stopped,” Alice said.
“I’ve organized a buffet at a hotel near here,” Richard told them. “Well, it’s a pub, really. I don’t think many people will be coming. Two have said they’d definitely be there but they sounded as if they go to funerals just to get a free meal. Look, will you and your cousin—”
“Gregory,” Gregory said.
“Will you come along? You can tell me more about how Tommy spent the last few months.”
Alice hesitated. It seemed desperately sad that there were so few people to reminisce about Thomas, but she knew that the closer she got to Richard, the more dangerous it would be. She had avoided telling him the truth, and now was not the right time to confess it. She had caused enough pain in her life. Perhaps it would be best if she left him believing that Thomas had died in a happy relationship.
Gregory rescued her. “I’m afraid we have to get back,” he said smoothly. “Demands of work and all that. Sorry, but I’m sure you understand.”
“Sorry,” Alice said in a hollow echo.
Richard nodded and then appeared to be considering what to do next.
“There are a couple of his things you should have,” he said. “I left them in the car. They’re nothing much, but, well . . .”
Alice swiftly waved a hand in refusal. She did not want her home to be invaded by mementoes of Thomas. She had already packed up everything that she associated with him.
“No, please,” she said, “they should go to his family. Honestly. I have some of his things at the flat—clothes, books, CDs. You should have them.”
“But you and Tommy lived together,” Richard insisted. “You know we hardly ever met. You were closer to him than I ever was. There’s no family left apart from me. You keep his things. What you don’t want, give to charity.”
“Are you sure?” Alice asked after a pause.
“Positive.”
She nodded. “All right. But I don’t want whatever was in his rucksack. Or any money.”
Richard was surprised. “But Thomas had no money—didn’t you know? His account was almost empty.”
“No, I didn’t know that.” Alice looked down. “All he had to do was ask,” she added.
She did not know if she had spoken the truth. Probably she would have resented continuing to support him.
Richard led them toward a car parked alongside a featureless wall of red brick. Suddenly Alice felt nauseous. Sweeping through her was the vivid realization that on the other side of that wall Thomas’s coffin was in place and ready for burning. The furnace door would be closed and a control turned. Within seconds gas jets would incinerate the wood and play upon his body like blowtorches. His skin would peel away like bark from a tree and his fatty tissue would bubble and ignite. Before it disintegrated his skeleton would glow dark as an X-ray against the incandescence. Smoke from his burning would flow from the chimney; she and Gregory and Richard would be breathing it in as they left the site. Soon all that would remain of the man she had once loved would be a scattering of bones being shoveled into a pulverizing mill.
She put out one hand to steady herself against the wall, but it was too far away and her fingers scratched thin air. The asphalt tilted on the parking lot.
Gregory reached out and steadied Alice before she fell. Inside her head there was a sense of lightness, of lifting from the ground. Scared of falling further, she leaned against him as if he were indeed a trusted cousin.
Concerned, Richard asked if she was all right.
“I’ll be fine,” she said weakly.
“I understand. You’ll take a long time to get over this.”
“Ages,” Gregory said drily.
“Don’t worry about me,” Alice insisted.
Richard waited a moment and then spoke in a rush.
“You can be honest with me. Before all this happened, Thomas and you were getting on well together, weren’t you? I mean, there weren’t any problems?”
Once again Alice wondered if, somehow or other, he had discovered the facts but had concealed his knowledge. Maybe the truth was evident in her face.
“You must have a reason for asking that,” she said.
“Do you mind the question?�
��
“Of course she doesn’t,” Gregory said.
“We were all right,” Alice answered, and then waited a moment. “Yes, we were all right,” she said again, as if repetition were a guarantee of honesty.
Richard was satisfied. “I thought you must be. I was pleased that Tommy had, you know, settled down at last. I never could. It’s good to know he was happy before he died.”
“Is there something we don’t know?” Gregory asked.
Richard pressed the key to unlock the car boot.
“When he was younger—when he was a lot younger—he had black moods. Severely black moods. It was easy to undermine his confidence. I wasn’t the only one who knew how to do that because a lot of us were guilty of it. It took Tommy weeks to get out of those moods—sometimes longer. When he was in them, he used to say things he shouldn’t have said. To make everyone else feel guilty, I suppose.”
Gregory expressed what was not being spoken.
“You mean he threatened suicide?”
“Often.”
Alice shuddered. “He can’t have done that. He didn’t leave a note.”
“That’s right,” Richard said, “he didn’t.”
“You told me that the police said there was food in his rucksack. That he must have slipped and fallen and hit his head while trying to fill a bottle with water.”
“That’s what it looked like.”
“The empty bottle was still there beside the river.”
“Yes.”
“Richard, there were still places that Thomas wanted to see. He was desperate to see them. It was an accident. There’s no reason to think anything else.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Richard said quietly, in a way that both Alice and Gregory took to mean that he was not completely convinced. He opened the car boot fully.
A Division of the Light Page 17