by James Bailey
As I try to overtake a couple, I don’t see the bike coming down the slope onto the river path. And the cyclist doesn’t see me either.
The next thing I know the bike crashes into me, and I fall, splayed out across the wet concrete floor. The coin and my phone tumble out of my pocket as I fall over, smashing down onto the ground as hard as me.
Crap.
I yelp out in pain. Thankfully, nothing feels like it’s broken. A crowd gathers around to check that I’m OK, and the cyclist keeps apologizing, helping to lift me to my feet.
I reach down slowly to find the coin and then my phone, my ribs aching as I do so. As I pick up my phone I notice the screen is completely cracked.
My heart pauses briefly as I press the button on the phone to check that it’s solely superficial damage. The string of messages and missed calls that I’ve been avoiding appear on the lock screen. They are all from Mum. I read the top text. It’s short, and it’s blunt. My heart now stops.
“Pap is in hospital. Come home now.”
35
I stagger away from the scene of the accident and return Mum’s calls. She warns me that the prospects aren’t looking good, and I need to get home as quickly as possible. There is no time to find Lucy, to make amends.
I leave Paris more quickly than the tears can drip from my face.
The journey is a blur. I grab my belongings, check out of the hostel, and buy a ticket for the last flight out of Charles de Gaulle Airport. It’s meant to be the busiest airport in France but at 10 p.m. it’s almost empty. The cleaners are milling around, the shops are shutting. I’m sitting by a family of four, all wearing Mickey Mouse ears, the two young kids half-asleep. I didn’t think I’d be following Jake and Jessie home on the next flight. When they asked how much longer I’d be staying for, I hoped it would be longer than a few hours.
“Mesdames et messieurs . . .” A muffled announcement is made over the loudspeaker in French, which I wait to be translated. The groans hint at what’s about to come.
“Ladies and gentlemen, passengers on easyJet flight EZY6224 to Bristol, this service has been delayed by approximately forty-five minutes. Please check the monitors for updates on your flight’s progress.”
No. No. No. Do they not realize I need to get home now?
I stand and pace up and down the terminal. An employee reaches up to pull down the metal shutters at the last shop open. I catch sight of an advert for duty-free Toblerone, which triggers a thousand memories. It was Pap’s favorite chocolate, and he’d always have a supply hidden to the right of his armchair, which he’d secretly share with me, breaking me off a triangle when no one was looking.
My mind, like a VHS player, starts rewinding and replaying more grainy childhood moments. Joking around, playing crazy golf in Weston-super-Mare, inserting penny coins into the slot machines at Clevedon, looking for our lost football in the local park, our trousers stuck to the sweaty plastic seats at the County Cricket Ground, Pap jumping in the stream to rescue my mini fishing rod from floating away. The video pauses repeatedly on a freeze-frame of his face, smiling, laughing. I can’t process the thought that I may never see that face again, never talk to him again. What hurts the most is knowing he will never see me make anything of myself.
“Excuse me, sorry, do you speak English?” I rush over to the woman closing up the shop.
“A little bit,” she replies, with the shutters now halfway down.
“I know you’re closing, but is there any chance I could buy a Toblerone?”
“Sorry, we are closed,” she says curtly.
“Please? I’ve got the money here.” I hurriedly dig out a five-euro note from my pocket and shove it into her hands. “It’s for my grandad, he’s in hospital, and I would like to give it to him when I go and visit him, that’s where I’m flying to now. . . .”
“OK, there you go.” I don’t think she understands but wants to get on with closing up. She takes the money and passes me a bar.
With the Toblerone in my hand, I walk toward one of the electronic noticeboards, hoping for good news.
An hour delay.
How is it getting longer? Is the plane going backward?
I take my phone out of my pocket to check if there’s any more news from Mum. Nothing.
Is no news good news?
Or bad?
I contemplate ringing her but I don’t want to disturb her, and I’m not sure I want to know the answer. Instead, I scroll down the list of recent calls, and click on Lucy’s name. I want to apologize, I want to explain to her what’s happened, where I’ve gone. But most of all, I just want to hear her voice. It goes straight to an automated answerphone message. Either she has her phone off or she’s blocked my number. Either way, it’s clear she doesn’t want to speak to me.
Two hours later than scheduled, we eventually board the plane. The flight seems to last an eternity. There is heavy turbulence, and the plane ducks and dives, sending the air stewards flying. As I cling to the armrests, I struggle to contain my emotions and my tears. The other passengers must think I really hate flying. Fortunately, most are fast asleep. I fidget and think the whole way until we land in Bristol, all of the events of the previous week racing through my head. The excitement in Munich, the despair in Amsterdam, the car journey with Jesus, the joy at finding Lucy, and now Pap.
I sprint from the plane through the long, winding terminal, fortunately having no trouble with Passport Control this time as I make my way out. At this time of night the officials seem more interested in watching the clock than looking at my passport. The woman barely glances at my photo before handing it back and waving me through.
I continue on, barging past the sleepy holidaymakers returning from an assortment of destinations. As I turn around the corner, I see the usual lineup of expectant faces and taxi drivers. I see an old man with gray hair, and although he bears no resemblance facially to Pap, when a little boy runs up to him I struggle to hold back the tears. I look away, to my right, at the other side of the hall, where the departures board stands, where I stood with Jake and Jessie almost a week ago. It seems like I have been gone far longer. So much has changed. Why did I ever think this would be a good idea? Why did I listen to what a coin said?
I exit through the same revolving doors that started all of this, and I walk out into the cool breeze of the starless night. I set my watch back one hour, wishing I could put it back one week.
I spot Mum’s car parked up in the express drop-off car park. It’s quiet at this time of night, with only a few cars around.
I bundle my backpack into the back seat and open the passenger side door. Mum immediately takes my hand. Her eyes are red and sore.
“I’m sorry, Josh . . .”
I don’t really hear the rest.
I REMEMBER READING an article that claimed children witness over twelve thousand deaths on television by the time they are just twelve years old.
We should be prepared for death when it happens.
Immune, even.
But seeing Bambi’s mother die on screen is not the same as experiencing death for real. Not in the slightest.
I don’t know what to say. We sit in silence for what seems an age, as the last of the holidaymakers drive off, leaving us completely alone. The car park is now desolate.
I don’t cry, I don’t know how to feel. I’m just in shock.
“I didn’t want to have to text you, but you weren’t picking up your phone,” Mum says, almost talking to herself now. “I’ve been trying to call you all day.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I had my phone on silent and then I meant to call you back,” I lie. I realize that if there is any form of heaven, and if Pap can look down on us, the first thing he saw was me treating Lucy badly and now he’s seeing me lying.
“It just all happened so quickly. Apparently, Pap has been ill . . . sorry, Pap was ill, for some time. Cancer . . . but he kept it to himself and didn’t tell anyone,” she stoically explains.
I think
back to the last few times when I saw Pap and wish I hadn’t been so fixated on my own issues so that I could have seen his. I feel awful that I never called him back when he wanted to wish me a happy birthday. I missed my last chance to talk to him. That’s it now. Forever.
“Are you OK, Josh? You’re being very quiet. Tell me how you got on. How was your trip?” Mum asks, trying to change the subject and divert our attentions to something more cheerful. She doesn’t realize that this is equally as raw.
“Yes, it was good, thanks,” I lie again.
I don’t want to discuss everything that happened. I don’t want to burden her with anything else, and I don’t want to talk through it myself. Certainly not now. Not yet.
I feel guilty that, in spite of Pap dying, Lucy keeps popping into my head. I hate that I can’t get her out of my mind when I should be thinking about him. It’s as if the memories of her have been recorded over the VHS of Pap.
“Look who it is!” Mum excitedly shouts, interrupting my thoughts.
I’m not sure what I am missing. I can’t see anyone.
“Who is it?” I ask, confused.
“It’s Pap.”
Oh God. She’s lost it.
If I thought I was struggling to cope, then I didn’t even think about how she’d be feeling.
“What do you mean, it’s Pap? Are you OK?”
“The pigeon, I think . . . I think Pap has come back as a pigeon.” She points at a haggard, fat pigeon hobbling along the tarmac beside the car, confused by the airport lights.
I don’t say anything and allow her to continue.
“OK, I know it sounds a bit mad, but when I left the hospital, all of a sudden a pigeon came and landed by my car and just looked up at me. And now here he is again. He’s following me.”
“This does sound a little bit mad, Mum,” I say, trying to sound compassionate.
“I phoned Graham when I was waiting for you, and he said that it could well be him. Apparently, you can change into any type of animal,” she replies, almost defending herself.
“If he’s come back as a pigeon, does that mean he did something bad in his life? Surely that’s a demotion from being a human?” I interrupt.
“Graham says that this may just be a holding animal, and he may transfer again, or a few times, before he finds another body he’s comfortable in.” I’m sure Graham must have been thrilled to get a call at this time of the night about pigeons.
“What do you think he’d be?”
“Maybe a panda, or a polar bear?”
We sit in silence again, as Mum stares at this pigeon, and I think of Pap as a polar bear.
“What about you? What would you be?” I ask eventually.
“I’m not really sure, but me and your Nan have agreed on a sign so when either of us dies we’ll be able to communicate and know if there’s an afterlife or not.”
“What do you mean? Like switching the lights on and off at a certain time?”
“Obviously I can’t tell you, silly, it’s secret.”
If my knowledge of Christianity is limited to my one confirmation class, then my grasp of reincarnation is even smaller. Pap’s not been dead for more than a few hours, and this haggard pigeon looks much older than one day old. I decide to leave it.
As we both stare at the pigeon, waiting for it to give us some mystical sign, or to stop cooing and speak to us, it is joined by a friend. The two swiftly fly onto the metal fence and they begin to do what I can only presume is the pigeon equivalent of making love. If it is indeed Pap, he doesn’t seem to have wasted any time in finding a new partner.
“Don’t tell Nan,” I say to Mum, holding her hand. “Shall we go home now?”
She finally steers her gaze away from the pigeons.
“Yes. Can you see if there’s a pound coin in the front there?” She points to the glove pocket in front of me.
“How long have you been here for?” I reply, sorting through the collection of CDs and sweet wrappers, looking for some change as she drives toward the electronic barriers.
“I don’t know. I was probably waiting for you for about thirty minutes, and how long have we been . . .”
“Mum, did you not see the prices?”
She looks at the blue board next to the barrier, illuminated by a couple of spotlights.
Up to 10 minutes = £1
10–20 minutes = £3
20–40 minutes = £5
40–60 minutes = £20
1 hour–24 hours = £50
She winds down her window and stares at the ticket machine screen, which confirms the fee.
“Surely that must be a mistake,” she says.
“How much does it say?”
“It’s fifty pounds! That can’t be right!”
She looks at me, completely shocked.
Mum, who has managed to keep herself together while breaking the news of Pap’s death to me, finally breaks down into a flood of tears. As I lean over to give her a hug, I start to cry too.
36
It is strange inviting people to the funeral of a person they thought was already dead.
As I call around the neighborhood, everybody seems more surprised that Pap was still alive a week ago than shocked by the fact he is now no longer. A few people even think they have already attended his funeral. Mrs. Biggs, for one, vigorously insists she remembers reading his obituary. So it seems a bit hollow when she follows this up by saying, “He will be sorely missed.”
To be fair, it must be hard to keep track of whose funeral you’ve attended when funerals seem to happen on a weekly basis in the village. With the average age of Cadbury being approximately seventy-four, if there’s one thing that Cadbury does well it is funerals. Aside from the WI market held in the parish hall, a funeral is the perfect chance for locals to socialize and get free food. Many bring doggy bags so they can bring home food to keep them going until the next one.
In contrast, I’ve never been to a funeral before. Mum decided I wasn’t old enough to go to Uncle Edward’s; I wasn’t born when Dad’s parents died; and we didn’t even have a burial ceremony when my fish died. We simply flushed him down the toilet. Dad told me at the time that’s what you do with goldfish.
I panic on the morning of the funeral when I realize I don’t have a black suit to wear. Since getting back from Paris, everything has been hectic, and I’ve spent most of my time trying to write something to read at the service, or contact Lucy without success. In the end, Mum decides to pick up one of Pap’s black suits when she goes to collect Nan. It feels extremely weird going to a funeral wearing the clothes of the man you are burying. It feels even worse considering Pap was about a foot shorter than me.
“He’s not going to need it anymore,” Mum says, which I can’t argue with.
The black limousine picks us up at 1 p.m. It seems slight overkill, given the church is only a five-minute walk away and we can hear the church bells from our garden, but “tradition is tradition,” as Mum says when Dad argues we could save money and walk. As well as my first funeral, this is also my first time in a limo, but it’s not in the circumstances I was hoping for. Dad is shuffling around on the leather seats, trying to get a better signal on his portable radio as he tunes into the BBC Bristol football commentary. He doesn’t do earphones, as they “don’t stick in my ears,” so we’re all listening to it. He’s got a tenner on City to win, and they’re already trailing one–zero. He’s in a bad mood today, caused by the fact that the funeral has clashed with the game and that they bought Pap’s Christmas present last week and didn’t keep the receipt.
Mum, meanwhile, is staring out of the window, tapping her forehead repeatedly, trying to spot the pigeon flying past. She is presumably expecting Pap to attend his own funeral. I feel if he does, he might be slightly disappointed. It almost seems cruel giving him a church service, considering he hated both the Church and people.
Nan, in complete shock, is dressed up as if she’s going to Ascot on a jolly outing. Her hat is touchin
g the roof of the car, and her smile is as wide as the limo. She is trying her best to hide her true emotions. She starts to cough and solves the problem by shoving a Werther’s Original toffee in her mouth, which I fear is going to choke her.
I fidget with the printed A4 copy of my speech. My sweaty fingers stain the corners and crease it. As we take a bend, in front of us I catch sight of the hearse with Pap’s coffin.
I look away, trying to pretend this isn’t really happening.
“Are you OK?” I whisper to Nan.
“Yes, Josh. Aren’t the flowers so beautiful? Mary has done a fantastic job. . . .” Her voice stutters and shakes, and she quickly wipes away a tear before anyone can notice it.
“I’ll just drop you off here, if that’s OK, and then will come and collect you afterward,” the chauffeur interrupts.
The journey really was only two and a half minutes long.
He pulls up outside the church, behind the parked hearse, letting us out before driving on to find somewhere else to park away from the double yellow lines, probably farther away than our house. The church is quaint and traditional, and small enough that the congregation can hold hands around its circumference on Mothering Sunday. It’s weird to think that two weeks ago I was exploring a cemetery with Lucy, and now here I am at a funeral.
As we undo the latch on the wooden gate and walk through the graveyard toward the church, I notice the fresh mound of earth piled in the corner. His headstone won’t be ready for a few weeks, but there is a plot for Pap alongside the graves of other family members I never knew.
I take a deep breath in, and out.
This is the moment everything hits home, seeing the hole in the ground. I reach across and take hold of Nan’s hand as we walk on, as much for my own benefit as for hers.
Despite barely knowing Pap, Madeline is positioned on the door, greeting everyone with service sheets. She’s not only the self-elected village mayor but also apparently the church warden. A few stragglers are still stumbling in on walking sticks, and there is some commotion caused, unsurprisingly, by Beryl and Desmond.