And I bet that shiny little toy isn’t your car. You couldn’t afford it on your salary. The woman who lent it to You (I know it’s a woman – it reeks of femininity – no self-respecting man would drive that car!) won’t be too pleased when the speeding offences start dropping through the door… Someone should teach You a lesson…
Careless with things and careless with feelings.
Careless Celeste – yes, that’s who You are.
*
When she got to the dual carriageway, Celeste felt liberated – she could breathe freely again. It was wonderful to be on the open road and to get out of London if only for a day. After the greyness of yesterday, the weather had cleared and today the sky was crisp and blue – cold but still – a perfect day for a drive into the Surrey countryside. This outing was no pleasure party. But the bright winter sunshine helped to make her mission a little more bearable.
She put her foot down, paying little heed to the national speed limit signs and the warnings of speed cameras at the side of the dual carriageway. She’d managed to lose the motorbike that had seemed to be tailing her as she drove across the Chelsea Bridge. Perhaps she was just being paranoid on account of the chance meeting at Heavana and the incident with her phone earlier in the week, but every time she checked her rear-view mirror, she caught a glimpse of a biker three or four cars behind her. Surely it wasn’t him? Could it be that he was paying someone to spy on her?
She dismissed the idea. It was ridiculous to think that the man she’d been avoiding for the last seven years was chasing her around London. Her fragile equilibrium had been upset by his return – that was all. In any event, now – thank God – the bike was nowhere in sight. She plugged in her phone and tapped on her music. Sound waves from her favourite hits bounced around the capsule of the borrowed Fiat 500, lifting her mood.
Celeste’s dated taste in music was a standing joke with her girlfriends. Her playlists were made up of tunes from the previous decade – U2, Oasis, Amy Winehouse, The Killers – she was a child of the noughties and could listen to these all day long.
‘You’re in a time warp,’ said Jessi. ‘Lost in the last decade.’ Jessi would never understand how truly she spoke.
‘I hate myself for being alive,’ Celeste had said to her therapist when she eventually agreed to speak to someone about her trauma. ‘I carry this dark secret everywhere I go like a millstone round my neck dragging me down into the deep. I was the one who deserved to die. Sometimes I just want to let the waters close above my head.’
‘You have suffered enough. Now it’s time to stop punishing yourself,’ her therapist had replied. ‘What you need to understand is that part of you died that day too.’ It was trite but it was true. Part of her had died that day and she didn’t want to move on.
Celeste knew very well that the little Fiat was Meghan’s pride and joy and it was unexpectedly kind of her to have lent it out for the day. Celeste had mentioned in passing when leaving Seventh Heaven the previous evening that she was skipping her Friday classes for a trip down to Surrey. This must have woken Meghan’s memory – Valentine’s Day was the blackest day in Celeste’s calendar.
Celeste had not set out to guilt-trip Meghan. She realised that Meghan had been preoccupied and distracted trying to keep up with the Valentine’s Day orders and she didn’t hold it against her. But it was clear that Celeste’s manager had wanted to make amends for her bad temper earlier in the day. Celeste’s compliance had played to her advantage – for not only had she worked through her lunch break, but she had stayed on until 8pm in the evening so that Seventh Heaven could cash in on sales of Valentine’s flowers to those who had left it to the last minute, or forgotten, or decided to buy on a whim, as they headed home after work.
In the end, Meghan had been quite pleased with the day’s takings and in the mood to be generous. Not all the bouquets of red roses had been sold, but enough to ensure she would make a decent profit. Perhaps Celeste was right, she’d remarked, people were trying to bring some colour and love into the cold, grey day.
As Celeste was gathering her belongings ready to leave, Meghan had held out one of the unsold bouquets of red roses.
‘Here, have these. We won’t be able to sell them tomorrow. They’ll brighten up your flat.’ Then on a sudden impulse, perhaps embarrassed by the insufficiency of her gesture, she had got her spare set of car keys from a drawer and pushed them into Celeste’s hand. ‘Here take my car keys too. You can borrow the Fiat for the day tomorrow. I won’t need it. I’ll be driving to Covent Garden in the van before the crack of dawn to buy the flower stock for the weekend and I won’t be back to the shop until 10am. Sue’s opening up for me. But you can come by and collect the car first thing, whenever you like – it’ll be in the yard at the back.’ She gave Celeste a quick hug. ‘Help yourself to more roses. Take as many as you like.’
*
By the time Celeste pulled off the dual carriageway, old feelings and memories had begun to resurface, triggered by the familiarity of the twists and turns in the route. Muscle memory took over as her mind wandered. Driving along the country lanes she was transported back to her adolescence and her mood became as dark as the lyrics of the Amy Winehouse song playing through the speakers… We only said goodbye with words… Unconsciously she sang along… I died a hundred times… Her soft, breathy voice was a shadow of the rich, raspy tones of the troubled, charismatic jazz-pop singer she had idolised in her teens.
Despite her heightened emotions, Celeste was struck, as she always was when visiting the county of her childhood home after living in ‘the big smoke’, by how vibrantly green everything was. The winter sun was low in the sky, at times blinding her vision as she rounded the bends. Although it was only February, as she drove to her destination, the grass and the fields and the hedgerows of Surrey seemed to encircle her in a tunnel of ever-changing hues of fluorescent green.
When she reached her destination, she pulled into one of the parking spaces outside the village post office. The village of Shearham looked just as picture-postcard-pretty and sleepy and dull as ever – exactly as it had looked on her last visit. It was really little more than a hamlet. The historic centre consisted of a handful of timber-framed and whitewashed cottages, and, of course, the pub and the church and the village hall, framing the inevitable village green where, true to tradition, they still played cricket matches on long summer evenings. Even without the cricket match in play, it was a quintessentially English scene. There was a red pillar box next to where she had parked her car. On the other side of the green, there was even an old-fashioned red telephone box that had a preservation order on it. She knew it no longer had a working telephone but over the years it had become something of a tourist attraction because it could be glimpsed in several scenes from television and feature films that had been filmed on location in the village.
Celeste walked into the post office and was relieved to find that the gossipy old postmistress was nowhere to be seen and a woman she didn’t recognise was serving behind the counter. She bought a small bottle of water and a jumbo-sized packet of jelly babies that she stuffed into the pocket of her coat before turning on her heel, ignoring the woman’s attempt to engage in friendly chat by cautioning her lightly not to eat them all at once.
Celeste went back to the car and took her floristry workbox from the boot. Meghan had given her the portable metal box as a Christmas present and was encouraging her to start putting together her own set of floristry tools – scissors, oasis knife, secateurs, deadhead snippers, rose and thorn strippers, binding wire, twine, tape, pins, pin holders, floral adhesives, sponges, cleaning brushes, gloves, pencils and the like – the list went on! – all the items that were required for day-to-day work as a florist.
‘I’m building up quite an armoury,’ Celeste had joked, when Meghan had checked over the contents of her box.
Celeste put on her sunglasses and pulled up the hood on her jacket to avoid eye contact or further conversation with anyone she
should run into and, armed with her workbox on one side and an armful of red roses on the other, she strode purposefully across the village green and up the cobbled lane leading to St Peter’s Parish Church. She swung the mossy lych-gate open with her hip and hesitated before making her way up the ancient brick path that skirted the nave of the church to the secluded part of the graveyard behind the vestry where the newer graves were located.
It took her a minute or two to identify the grave, as a number of new headstones had been erected since her last visit. Her eyes were drawn to the site of a very recent burial. It must have taken place only a few days previously because as yet not even a wooden cross had been erected to mark the grave. Instead there was a frozen mound of earth festooned with a blanket of flowers and floral tributes in the shape of teddy bears and hearts with a small plastic angel perched on the top. Hand-written messages, some in childish lettering, were pinned in among the dying flowers.
It was all too painfully familiar. Feeling as if she were intruding on private grief, she bent down to read them. ‘I love you Joey.’ The simple message was written in crayon, in big uneven letters on white card. The card was decorated with pink and purple hearts, and a small child’s figure drawings of a girl in a blue dress, holding hands with a little boy wearing bright red shorts. She guessed the drawing was by Joey’s big sister. A huge sun, blocked in yellow crayon, was shining in the corner to complete the picture.
A handful of toys had been placed next to the grave – a large blue teddy whose plush fur was already soggy and covered in mud, and an Action Man and a couple of toy cars. Overwhelmed by the pathos of the all-too-relatable scene, Celeste covered her mouth with her hand and stood stock-still staring at the fresh burial site.
Eventually Celeste recovered her composure and was able to locate the grave she was looking for. Like the others in the row, its headstone was made out of silver-grey granite, which was now mouldering and mildewed at the base. What singled it out as she approached was the inscription, carved in italic lettering on the reverse side of the headstone. She had chosen the verse herself, all those years ago, thumbing through the yellowed pages of a family Bible her grandmother had given her a few months before she died. Celeste had never opened the bible until the day after the party…
Blessed are the pure in heart
For they shall see God
Having chosen the words, she had closed the Bible and never opened it again.
PRESENT
5
I dare not follow You into the churchyard. But a copse of ancient oak trees gives me cover and a good vantage point. It’s amazing the detail you can see through the lens of a powerful digital SLR. I wouldn’t call it hiding. I have no concern about being seen by dog walkers or joggers. I leave my bulky camera bag close to the path. I set up my tripod slowly and deliberately in full view of any passers-by. I am beyond suspicion or reproof. It would be clear to them – and if anyone were to ask, I have my answer ready – that this spot is the ideal position for taking interesting angled photographs of the architecture of the church, veiled and framed by the branches of the trees.
I’m sure I’ll be pleased with the results. Today You are my black angel crouching down by the grave with the winter sunshine setting your hair aglow. These images will be so much better than the phone shots I stole from You surreptitiously at the club. Now I have time to compose and to frame, to crop and to structure, to sharpen and to soften, to capture your image and to blur the background. You are my subject and there are so many versions of You.
I move away from the camera. But You are just getting started – now on your hands and knees, scrubbing and weeding like a woman possessed.
You reach into your toolbox to take out a knife.
I slide my hand down the front of my jeans.
My eye to the viewfinder, my back to the path, I watch You. Slowly and painstakingly, you scrape the debris from the inscription on the grave, one letter at a time. My lens is angled side-on to the headstone so I can’t read the words. But it’s plain to see. You loved the person lying there.
I am jealous of that love. I can’t watch You any longer and I have to look away.
Finally, You get to your feet and stand with your head bowed and your eyes closed.
And it’s all that I can do to stop myself from crashing through the trees and scrambling over the wall and crushing You in my arms.
*
Celeste walked round to the front of the grave and knelt down on the grass. It was overgrown with brambles and weeds. Dry wilted remnants of flower stalks poked out from the grave vase at the base of the headstone and the surface of the granite was mottled and discoloured where the wind had blown the rotting leaves against it. She opened her floristry kit and pulled out an array of brushes and scrapers and tools. She felt guilty for having stayed away for so long leaving the grave uncared for and unkempt. She was angry too, with her mother, who lived only a short drive away.
She has no excuse for leaving the grave in this state, thought Celeste harshly. Unless being an alcoholic and chronically depressed and living with an intermittently abusive partner absolved her mother from all responsibility.
Celeste got to work on the grave, cutting away the brambles, weeding the grass and clearing the dead leaves and twigs from the grave vase and around the headstone. Then she started on the granite, scrubbing and rubbing where it was soiled and stained until it gleamed like silver, smooth and clean in the morning sunshine. Lastly, she got out her oasis knife, which had a long, hard blade, and carefully scraped off the black spores and debris from the gold lettering of the inscription. To complete her task, she took out a little pot of gold paint and a small paintbrush and meticulously went over the letters to touch up any spots of paintwork that had faded or peeled away.
‘There, that’s as good as new,’ she said out loud, satisfied with a job well done. ‘Now for the fun part.’ She cut the twine binding the bouquet of flowers and stripped away the thorns. She trimmed the ends with her floristry scissors and arranged them decoratively in the grave vase. She took the giant packet of jelly babies out of her pocket and propped it carefully next to the arrangement of red roses at the base of the headstone. Then she sat back on her heels, took out her phone and photographed the grave.
There was nothing more to do. She got up slowly and stood with her head bowed and her eyes closed. She tried to pray but her mind was a blank. Now that her task was complete, she was filled with a chilling sadness that seemed to rise up from the frost-covered earth, through her feet and her limbs, her pelvis and her heart, all the way up to the top of her head until her whole body and mind were frozen and numb with the tragic futility of it all.
When she opened her eyes, they fell on the date, 14th February 2011 engraved in the stone and yet more deeply in her heart. The passage of the years might dull the intensity of her distress but could not soothe the sickness and misery in her soul. Still, she couldn’t find the words for a prayer. The only words she could think of were: ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,’ which she said out loud over and over again, knowing that there were no words that could ever release her from the relentless pain and remorse.
*
At a loss what to do next but unable to leave and chilled to the bone, Celeste walked around the churchyard, reading the gravestones and imagining the lives of the people buried below her feet. In an attempt to block out her sadness, she noted with artistic detachment the etchings and carvings that made each memorial unique and special. Most of the graves were in a state of neglect. Almost all the metal vase holders were empty. The older graves were sunken and crooked and covered in lichen and moss. Some of the epitaphs and inscriptions were personalised and evocative, calling to mind the personality of the deceased. Most were generic and ritualistic. The local stone was so soft and friable that on many of the ancient memorials the words had eroded with time and Celeste mused that this gradual erosion was like the slow obliteration of the memory of the person buried beneath the groun
d. Her difficulty in deciphering the words seemed to symbolise the loss of that person’s identity as all living memories of the individual faded into oblivion.
Her gloomy thoughts on mortality were lifted by her observation that the inscriptions on almost all of the headstones began with the words ‘In Loving Memory’ before naming the dead person. Indeed, on some of the older headstones these three words ‘In Loving Memory’ were the only words that remained legible – the names had faded away into eternity – only the love endured.
She was reminded of something she had read. A book that one of her friends had given her, intending to cheer her up, about a high-powered city mum who tries to have it all before waking up to the understanding that loving relationships are all that really matter – in death ‘we are not defined by what we did or who we were, but by what we meant to others. How well we loved and were loved in return.’ She had found the book funny and sharp but also desperately poignant and moving. As she passed from headstone to headstone, reading the inscriptions – ‘In Loving Memory’ of a father, a daughter, a brother, a son – now she understood the author’s message more clearly. It was loving relationships that gave meaning to the lives of those who had died – not the fact that they were a doctor or a milkmaid or a mechanic or a blacksmith, not the fact that they were rich or poor. These things were not even mentioned on the graves. And it was the memory of the love itself that gave the living, the survivors, the courage and the strength to carry on.
Celeste could be philosophical but she was not forgiving. Her loving memory screamed out for atonement – she would never forget. Her love was strong and it was hot. She would never forgive herself and she would never forgive him.
No Smoke Without Fire Page 3