The Day They Shot Edward

by Wendy Scarfe

  ‘I saw them, Gran, in the garden.’

  ‘Ssh, darling.’

  ‘But, Gran …’

  ‘No, Matthew!’

  ‘But I did. I thought they were ghosts. Were they ghosts?’

  ‘It’s possible, darling. It’s possible. Now quiet, please.’

  Matthew was silent.

  ‘The man in the cigar-brown suit,’ said Gran.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Next time you see him, tell me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’d like to know.’

  ‘But Mother knows.’

  ‘No. She doesn’t. At least I don’t think she does. Just do as I ask, Matthew. It’s important.’

  ‘Shouldn’t Mother speak with him because of Edward?’

  Gran looked worried. ‘I don’t know and I wish I did.’

  Matthew felt the familiar world of the kitchen tilt towards the unfamiliar. Gran was afraid and she was not telling him something. Was it about the ghosts? But she had her keys to the shades. What sort of ghosts would frighten Gran? And his Edward, now he smiled like all the other gentlemen when he was with Mother.

  At the soiree he had felt alone and longed for home. Now at home he felt uncertain. What had seemed immutable had changed. Like light on the floor the familiar had dispersed, leaving memory and a sense of loss.

  Matthew dreamed. A shadow climbed through the window, balanced on the window sill with careful anxiety and then toppled on to the floor spreading darkness. The darkness crawled up his bed and as it advanced it coughed. He reached a hand to stop it and heard it choke. He knew he was killing the shadow but his hand, suddenly and brilliantly white in the black room, was empty.

  He screamed and woke, but it was not his scream echoing in the room but his mother’s.

  ‘Gran! Gran, quickly … Victor … blood … I can’t stop it … Quickly!’

  Then there were running steps and Gran’s voice quieter, calmer.

  ‘Matthew … ssh … Don’t wake … manage … the doctor … take the old bike.’

  ‘I haven’t ridden a bike for years!’

  ‘Stay here then. I’ll go.’

  ‘Oh, dear! Great heavens! You can’t! All that blood, look at my gown!’ Her voice rose hysterically.

  ‘Margaret, calm. We knew this … come now. You go. I’ll stay.’

  ‘Matthew. He could go.’

  ‘A little boy? This time of night? Certainly not. Better Victor die than risk Matthew being hurt.’

  ‘Yes, yes. I can’t think, so awful …’

  ‘Quick now,’ said Gran. ‘Take the lantern. If you can’t get the doctor get the priest.’

  ‘Priest! He’s not been to church … None of us …’

  ‘None of us but Victor will want to die in the church. You know that, Margaret. He said it several times.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But I can’t bear those black-gowned doomsday figures, all “Thou Shalt Not”.’

  ‘Victor has a lot of Shalt Nots on his soul. It’s his peace, Margaret, not yours. It’s kind to give him this.’

  ‘Kind! When has he ever? Round my neck, an albatross. All my youth … Our poverty … go to hell as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘Ssh, Margaret. Let him die in peace.’

  ‘Oh, very well. I’ll go. Damnation!’ And the kitchen door slammed.

  Matthew heard Gran hurrying about. The coughing which had ceased briefly began again. He crept out of bed, through the kitchen and into the parlour. The door to his father’s verandah room was open and a sickly trail of light fell like spittle across the parlour floor. He could hear Gran moving about in there, murmuring in a lifeless monotone. The coughing was intermittent now but the breathing desperate: the thin whine suffocated in congested narrow tubes, like the struggling gasp emitted from a mirror leaf when he folded it, stretched it taut and forced the air through its thinned passage.

  The struggle terrified him. Once, years ago, he had fallen into the river. Not where he caught yabbies but further along the bank where it dropped steeply into a dark pool. He felt again the water closing over his head sealing off light and air. His legs floundered without ground to stand on and his hands found nothing to hold.

  He came up, saw the sky dip into the river at eye level, saw the darkened red of the river gum water-logged in the flood and Gran’s hand which found and pulled him out.

  ‘Nearly lost you,’ she laughed. And as he shivered: ‘Bit of water won’t hurt you. Good thing you held your breath. Only fishes can breathe down there.’ He had gasped, sucked in air, ejected it, sucked it in again. Gradually his breath returned to automatic and he was no longer aware that he breathed.

  Now he breathed with his father, gasps which part filled his lungs but left those deeper recesses unsatisfied vacuums. His head felt light. The thin spittle of light on the floor broke up into tiny balls and like mercury slid wildly in all directions, catching the light, dazzling him.

  Gran, coming back, saw him swaying and white. ‘Matthew!’ She caught him, pulled him down into a chair and put his head between his knees. Her presence returned the room to normality, diverted his attention from his father. He breathed naturally, filling his lungs and the colour flowed back into his face.

  ‘It’s all right, darling. You know your father has been very ill for a long time now. There is no need to be frightened. Go and make yourself some hot milk but don’t touch the towels on the floor. I can’t do anything for you until I have washed. Go on. Off you go.’ And she pushed him toward the kitchen.

  He made his milk, cut himself a piece of cake and putting both on the table drew up a chair. He averted his eyes from the towels on the floor. They reminded him of the chopping block and the blood sprayed there after Clicketty beheaded a fowl. Clicketty did these things for them occasionally because Edward said it was a ghastly job, and he’d rather eat just vegetables than be the murderer. One chop from the axe and the head with its limp red comb, stringy like old Peter’s neck, fell to the ground. But the rooster, as if still alive, rushed about the yard headless, mutilated like the lizard without its tail but more horrible because blood stickied and stained its feathers. What should have flowed secretly and healthily inside burst out, distorting and dissolving his image of what was whole and alive.

  Then Edward snatched him up under one arm and ran with him up the path, beating himself on the chest and scratching himself under one arm, saying to Gran: ‘Here we are. The great gorilla and his little banana.’ And he’d made as if to peel and eat him until Matthew had giggled and screeched. But he remembered the old rooster and at dinner that night he had pushed his serving of chicken to the side of his plate. ‘I don’t feel well,’ he lied, and Gran looked at Mother and shook her head and neither had insisted he should eat it.

  Matthew drank and ate very slowly. It was lonely in the kitchen with the emptiness of night. He had noticed before how when people did things at night it was as if they were moving or working in empty spaces. Day activities filled everything but night had spaces never completely filled.

  The doctor came and the priest in black. They disappeared into the little room. Mother returned, her dress stained like the towels and the feathers of the beheaded bird. Shadows of exhaustion darkened her eyes so that their greenness looked like the centre of a bruise. She washed her hands, soaping up her arms, scrubbing her nails. She bathed her face but a rim of blood like a painful scratch hardened down the hairline of her cheek. She didn’t look in the mirror and was unaware of it.

  The doctor reappeared. He shook his head, took Mother’s hand, patted it and went away. Gran came out and also shook her head.

  ‘Should I?’ Margaret looked terrified.

  ‘No … the priest … leave them. There’s nothing we can do.’

  ‘Great heavens,’ Margaret whispered.

  Gran looked at her, sighed and shrugged a little. ‘It’s better. The priest will see him out. You needn’t go.’

  ‘No. I needn’t, need I?’ And she sank over the table, her hea
d propped on her hand as if she could no longer support it on her neck.

  Gran put an arm about Matthew. ‘You should be in bed, Matthew. It’s very late.’

  Mother looked up. ‘Matthew! What are you doing here? You should be in bed.’

  ‘Gran,’ he said, ‘Gran. What is it like in Father’s room?’

  ‘Don’t ask, Matthew. It’s awful, awful,’ said his mother and began to cry.

  Gran looked at her, angry. ‘Ssh, Margaret. We’ve done what we can. All living things must die sometime. It’s natural, not horrible, natural. It can make us sad because people don’t like things to end …’

  ‘That awful little room. For years now he hasn’t come out, just lain there, imprisoned. All that blood, all over the bed, all over him.’

  ‘Ssh, Margaret. Matthew’s too young.’

  ‘He doesn’t understand. How could he? He’s just a child. But to live with a dying man. I don’t know how I’ve not gone mad. We’ll close up that room, seal it, never go in there. I’ll only see blood. Even the ghosts of it would drip blood.’

  Gran smacked her hand. ‘Stop it, Margaret! Stop it! You’ll frighten Matthew.’

  But Mother couldn’t be stopped. ‘When we were married, he was so handsome—’

  ‘And later so full of drink.’ Gran’s bitter remark stopped her.

  ‘But he wanted to live, to be well again. He became a shadow of all the things he had been. It was as if there was nothing there, just words, words that meant nothing.’

  Gran soothed. ‘Yes, it’s awful when words mean nothing. When a whole life means nothing.’

  ‘Gran, where will Father go when he dies?’

  His mother answered: ‘To Heaven, Matthew. Everyone who dies goes to Heaven.’

  ‘Don’t lie to him, Margaret. We don’t know where the dead go. After life there may very well be nothing. Which means that since we only have this life we need to make the best job we can of it.’

  Matthew felt no sorrow for his father but his mother’s hysteria and Gran’s efforts to diminish the effects of her fear on him frightened him. When a person died it was different from an animal dying. When a bird died, a yabby or the little trout or the rooster, other animals did not gather around and weep and scream and remember the past or fear the future. The animal died and all other living things just continued. There must be something different about a person dying, something to do with afterwards—perhaps the nothingness, the blackness, the ghost that dripped blood or wept for things wanted and denied.

  Gran spoke to Grandfather. She had some sort of key to the shadows which clung to life, but what was Grandfather and where did he wander while he waited for her to call him? Did he rush about like the poor beheaded rooster seemingly alive but really dead? It was a ghastly image—the headless demented dead running always in circles.

  He could remember. He could wonder what would happen in the future. When you were dead did all this cease? Could you only run around in the same place, at the same time, like on Sunday night at eleven o’clock when you died? Was that nothing? To never remember anyone like Edward or Gran or Mother, to never wonder what would happen next? It was horrible. He shuddered. He longed for Edward to be there, to pick him up and run with him along the beach where the only shadows were those deeper blue streaks cast by clouds whisking across the sea.

  Gran pulled him up from his chair and put her arms about him. ‘It’s all right, darling. It’s truly nothing for you to worry your little head about. It’s better your father dies. His life had become nothing. And when there is only nothing it’s better …’

  She rocked him gently. ‘Come now, darling. Gran’ll tuck you up and sing you a little song. You’ll like that.’

  He nodded because he did not want to hurt her. But he shrank from listening to the sad Irish songs which wept around the room craving the dark night. There were too many shadows in his life. He longed again for Edward, for his light.

  Edward came in the morning, large and bulky like a heavy winter sweater dried and warmed before the fire. His step was solid. Matthew ran to him and Edward picked him up, slung him across his shoulder and then swung him back to the ground. Matthew held his hand and felt the bones and sinews of his wrist and the muscle that flexed his arm.

  Edward sat down and held him in the crook of his arm and Matthew leaned against him and smelt the saltiness of Edward’s jacket. Edward always smelt of the sea, although sometimes Matthew also sniffed the oiliness of ships on his hands. They were outside smells, the comfortable routine smells of the day.

  Gran and Mother were busy, mysteriously going in and out of Father’s room with bowls of water, towels and clothes. Edward asked if they needed help. Gran shook her head. ‘He isn’t heavy. There was nothing of him at the end.’ Matthew looked away, longingly, towards the door.

  ‘Then I’ll cut some wood. Come on, Matthew. I’ll cut wood and you can collect the eggs and pick some vegies.’ They went out together.

  ‘Let’s water the tomatoes, Edward.’

  Edward looked surprised: ‘If you like.’

  Matthew filled the can to the brim. ‘I can’t lift it,’ he said.

  Edward laughed. ‘Silly, empty some out.’

  ‘Won’t you help me?’

  ‘Of course.’ And Edward reached for it while Matthew stood firm, clinging to the handle, his little hand tiny beside Edward’s.

  ‘You let go and I’ll carry it.’ Reluctantly Matthew released his grasp.

  ‘That’s better. Now I can lift it. Otherwise I’d have to crouch down and hop along at your height.’ He laughed again and swung off while the water slopped from side to side in the can and occasionally flopped over the edge. Matthew trotted beside him. ‘Can’t I help carry it?’

  ‘We’ll be there in a second,’ said Edward, as he tipped the can so that water splashed along the row of plants. ‘Pick some, Matthew.’ Matthew, seeking the reddest of the fruit, twisted it off the bush and smelled the wet earth, wet tomato smell of the growing plants. He held it and saw the redness of its skin deepen the pink of his hand. It was as if he had held his hand up to the sun and seen the light shine through his closed fingers, rosy, delicate, infused with the life busily functioning inside.

  ‘Eat it, Matthew. Go on. Tomatoes are best off the bush.’

  But Matthew shook his head. He couldn’t break that surface, skin perfect, and watch the redness ooze out.

  Mother worked all day making black dresses for herself and Gran. ‘Black,’ Edward said. ‘Not for you, Margaret.’ And Margaret dabbed at her eyes. ‘My poor Victor. Poor Victor. We must be sad for him.’

  Edward looked at her bent head, got up and moved to the door. He stood there restlessly, hands hunched in his pockets, back to Margaret. Matthew hurried to be with him.

  ‘Are you going out, Edward?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Can I come?’

  ‘No. I’m going home. Gran, I’ll get some mates to be pallbearers. You’ll need them.’

  ‘Thank you, Edward. We’d be grateful.’

  Edward glanced again at Margaret. She didn’t look up but continued to jab the needle through the cloth, sharp, hard, cruel little jabs like pain—pain that wakes you in the night demanding your immediate and undivided attention.

  The church smelt cold and closed and old like books and letters shut too long in a cardboard box. It was silent, the silence of emptiness which stretched upwards to where the arched ceiling disappeared in wooden gloom. After the outside brightness everything seemed half-lit, diminished into semitones of colour. Except for the window behind the altar. It was blue, a blue that had the same quality blue as the green in his piece of silk. It was the violet blue of water where it shades from jade shallows, but this blue contained no shadows, no depths. This blue was all light. It was as if the sun had fallen into the sea and then risen upwards through the blueness until it became incandescent with light.

  The blue, he realised, was a cloak, which flowed from the shoulders of the central
figure, past her feet and outwards into waves and folds of cloth. Above the shoulders a face serenely pale, perfectly oval, gazed frozenly into the spaces of the church.

  ‘Gran,’ he whispered, ‘Gran. Look. It’s the Snow Queen. Isn’t she beautiful?’

  Gran took his hand and squeezed it. ‘It’s Mary, darling.’

  He didn’t know who Mary was. It was an ordinary name. ‘I didn’t think she had a name,’ he whispered back. ‘Gerda and Kay just call her the Snow Queen.’

  Gran wasn’t attending. The priest, in black, had entered. He had worn black to their house when Father died. Margaret was wearing black and a veil. ‘Do you think that is really necessary, Margaret?’ Gran had asked at home. ‘A black hat, perhaps?’ But Margaret looked sorrowful and patted the corner of her eye. ‘It’s different for me. I’m a widow now—a bride of death.’ ‘What rubbish! Don’t be dramatic!’ Gran had said sharply. Mother had pouted but went on fixing the veil on her hat.

  In front of them Edward sat with several of his friends, bulky men bulging out of their good clothes like cargo in the nets which swung it ashore. They wore black armbands. The priest spoke strange words: ‘In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti … perpetua lucent eis.’

  ‘What is he saying?’ Matthew whispered.

  ‘It’s Latin.’

  ‘What’s Latin?’

  ‘A dead language.’

  A dead language. Of course, Matthew thought. It wouldn’t be right to have real words for a dead person. His mother said that words had meant nothing to his father because he was dying. Now words were as dead as his father was. Real words belonged to living people.

  The priest sprinkled water on the coffin and then circled it waving a small gold casket. The smell of Margaret’s sandalwood napkin ring filled the church. It was a nice smell, better than the cold, closeted smell of earlier, but he preferred it when his mother opened the box, with the Indian lady and the deer on it, and the smell jumped out at her and she said, ‘Oh.’

  Edward’s friends carried the coffin and helped lower it into the grave. Gran and Margaret took him home before this happened.

  ‘That’s enough,’ Gran said.