A Stone's Throw (22 page)

He thought: You didn’t know very much about me, and now you’ve died, so that’s that.

For the rest of the service Will stood outside of things, as if he’d drifted some way off. He rose and sat at the correct times, and sang the hymns: ‘Fight the good fight’, he sang, and ‘Rock of ages, cleft for me’. He marked the course of the vicar’s voice, rising and falling. He looked round at his mother, who was dressed in her own kind of serenity and who struck him as looking stoical and beautiful. There was Henry, and Barbara, and there was Emma. Emma held her pallbearers’ gloves in one hand, her finger stroking and stroking the cheap black cotton. And beside him sat Cassie. She looked older than her twelve years, with her hair up and her sober dress. When he sat down, she took his hand.

‘You all right?’ he said.

‘I can’t believe he’s in there, It’s too weird.’ She didn’t cry, only kept tight hold.

When it was time for the eulogy, he took out his script, walked to the front, and spoke in a clear, steady voice. He captured George’s strengths and his passions, and was affectionate
about his oddities. He conjured up a man who had risen out of poverty to forge a life of prosperity and security; a man his wife, children, and friends, would all remember as enthusiastic, energetic, often exacting, and passionately fair. A man who kept his word, and kept the time (there was a kind laugh at that); who was a loving husband and father and a devoted friend.

He looked down at the front pew. Barbara was nodding and Henry was smiling as he spoke. His mother stared straight back at him, her chin lifted, her expression … he didn’t know what her expression was. Proud, perhaps; or defiant. Emma had her arm around Cassie’s shoulder and each of them was crying. He thought: at last I’ve got it right. First time ever. Bang on, and he’s not bloody here to see it. And he thought that if it were him in that long box, being cried for, then nobody would get it right.

Things were nearly over when Meg put her hand on his arm. People had eaten and drunk, and talked his father deep into the ground and most of them had left now. Barbara had gone to see her parents in the village. In the sitting room Cassie played Monopoly with Emma and Henry. Will went to find her, breathe her in as he used to when she was a baby. She had found from somewhere his old sailing cap, and when he kissed the top of her head, he could still smell the sea in it. He watched them for a minute, till he felt his mother’s hand.

‘Will,’ she said, nothing more, but he heard the appeal in her voice so he turned and followed her out.

They sat on the old bench in the garden, out of sight of the house. She looked very pale, and he wondered if perhaps she was falling ill.

‘I have to tell you something. Now George has died,’ she said.

She paused and he saw how her hands clutched and unclutched.

‘Is everything all right?’ he said. ‘I mean beyond …’ and he made a gesture that took in their funeral clothes, the death between them.

She didn’t reply immediately. Her hands were fists on her lap, and when she did speak, she looked ahead of her, to the drop in the sky where the sea began.

‘This is very hard,’ she said, her voice so quiet, it was as though she were speaking to someone else.

‘Mother?’ he said, because her breath was coming quickly now and she was biting her lip and still staring ahead, and he worried that she was ill; or that her mind had become overstrained in these last weeks.

‘Perhaps you could leave it till later,’ he said. ‘Till tomorrow. I’ll be here tomorrow. Or we could talk next time …’

‘No!’ She said it so fiercely, then more quietly: ‘No, now. You spoke about him well in the church. He would have been proud. And he was a good man.’

‘Yes,’ Will said.

‘We had a long marriage, and he was a good man …’ she said again, as though she needed to impress this upon herself.

Will rubbed at his face. He felt bleary, as if he’d just woken.
Questions blundered through his head: Had his father done something wrong? Was it the will? Or debts? Did he have a mistress?

‘And you have to speak to me first?’ he said, looking round at her. ‘Before Henry or Emma?’

‘Yes.’

She had always told her children to look at the person they were speaking to, and she always did so herself. But she didn’t – wouldn’t – meet Will’s eye now. Finally she continued.

‘You remember the story I used to tell about how I went to Africa in the war, to marry your father.’ It wasn’t a question, and Will waited. ‘I used to tell you about the ship, and how it was torpedoed, and the lifeboat, and George waiting for me. And how we got married immediately.’

‘Of course I do,’ Will said.

It was one of his earliest memories: sitting at the big, shiny table, listening. He saw himself, elbows planted high, and the light coming in through the windows, and the pale blue plate in front of him. His mother still had some of that china.

‘Everything I told you was true,’ Meg said. But she shut her eyes a moment and shook her head.

‘Mother?’ he said.

‘I can’t do this,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how to do this.’

Far off, near the house, there was the noise of a car on gravel, then voices, fading quickly.

‘It’s fine. I understand.’ He was coming out with platitudes because he didn’t know what else to say, but he couldn’t bear seeing his mother like this. ‘Leave it for now.’

She pushed his hand away.

‘No. It has to be today,’ and like someone jumping into icy water, she took a deep breath, shut her eyes, and went on.

‘I did something. Only once. It just happened the once, but …’

Will waited, shifting on the bench, which was narrow, and too low for him to be comfortable.

‘I was very young, travelling on that ship, and very lost. I can see that now.’

She spoke in quick, short bursts, as if the words were gathered under pressure.

‘I knew I’d lost my brother, of course – though I’d never stopped searching. But I didn’t know I’d lost myself too.’

Will had never heard his mother talk like this. Never. Not about anything, and he wanted her to stop, and he wanted her to carry on.

She caught her breath and then, abruptly, spoke in a rush as if to get it out quickly, before anything happened, before she couldn’t bear to.

‘I’m not trying to excuse myself. Because of you, I’ve never regretted what happened, not for a second. And I’ve never told anyone before. Not a single person.’

‘Because of me?’ Will said.

‘I met a soldier. I was lost in the ship; very lost, and he rescued me.’

‘A soldier?’

He’d have been in terrible trouble if he’d been caught … but he took me back to my cabin.’

‘So?’

‘He’s your father, Will.’

Nothing happened. Nothing moved, or exploded, or dropped to the earth. Will stood up and walked off a little way. He wanted to laugh. That was his first feeling. That it was so funny. Far out, over where the sea was, the sky was black with a storm that might never arrive. But it had coloured up the late afternoon sun, and all the trees were blocked in, each in a different light, as if each stood in its own kingdom. He looked at his mother. Her face was like a mask, all emotion hidden behind.

‘Is there any doubt?’ he said.

She shook her head.

‘And Father?’

‘He never knew.’

He looked down at his shiny shoes.

‘Are you sure of that?’ he said.

Everything was quiet. The birds had gone silent, and the air was still, windless.

Then: ‘You could have told me before the funeral. I feel like a fool. I stood up in the church today behind that shiny eagle as George Garrowby’s eldest son, and I did it very well. I know I did; I could tell when I looked at everyone sitting there.’

The brewing storm had moved further off now, over the sea, and the sky had cleared to the palest blue.

‘What was his name?’ he said.

‘Jim,’ she said. ‘Jim Cooper.’

Then she said: ‘I’m sorry.’

Anger flashed through him, electric, convulsive.

‘So you had your soldier on the ship, and then Father a few weeks later.’

He might as well have hit her; he saw her start, then square herself as if to acknowledge the blow.

‘It wasn’t like that,’ she said, but he didn’t want to know.

‘Ring on your finger, done and dusted. So easy,’ he said, and his words were stones, pelted one after the other. ‘Why did you have to tell me?’

He twisted away and put his hands to his head, as if he could shake her out. His ears were buzzing and he felt the headrush of vertigo.

‘He always loved Henry more than me. Right from the start, even in Africa. But it’s no wonder, is it?’

‘He loved you, Will. He was proud of you.’

‘And he couldn’t have borne it, could he? Knowing, I mean. His bastard son. He had to have everything respectable. In its proper bloody place …’

‘Stop it,’ she said.

‘… shined up nicely. Because that’s what he cared most about.’

‘Stop it, Will.’

Her voice was cold and when he turned, her fists were raised, as if she might hit him; as if she might rain down blows with her fists in a pantomime rage. But slowly she lowered them.

‘How dare you? We buried him today.’

And he watched her walk back up the garden and out of sight.

Maybe it was a long time, or maybe it wasn’t very long that
he sat there for, he didn’t know. But it was long enough for the sun to drop below the tree line and for his mind to settle. He was still angry – how could he not be? – but now mixed in with his anger was something else, something more difficult to name.

He found his mother where he’d hoped to. The greenhouse door was shut, but he could see her in there, head down, intent at something. He watched her. She must have come straight here from the garden; she wore an old tweed jacket of his father’s over her mourning dress, the cuffs bundled roughly, and as she worked, they dipped in the soil. Will shivered and rubbed his arms. He was cold. He opened the greenhouse door. It was warm inside with the steamy fragrant warmth of so many plants, so much green.

Briefly she looked up. He saw that she’d been crying, and wondered who it was for. For him? Or his father? For herself? He spoke to her profile.

‘I’m sorry for what I said earlier. About Father.’

She nodded slightly.

‘Well, it’s done now,’ she said, though he couldn’t tell whether she said it about his words, or hers. But he saw something relax in her face, and so he sat down in the old wicker chair.

‘And the soldier,’ he said. ‘I had rather know than not know.’

‘Yes.’ Gently she took a plant from its pot, seeming to cradle the mess of roots in her hand. ‘I know that,’ she said. ‘I do know that.’

‘But do you know the strangest thing, Mother? The strangest
thing is that already I’m not so surprised.’

He watched her fill round the roots, pressing the soil firm with her fingers. She was so gentle and he remembered how she used to put her hand to his head sometimes, stroke his hair to reassure. He looked away, stared at all the green. There was something on his mind that was hard to broach. His mouth was very dry and he licked his lips.

‘Here.’ Meg handed him a small lemonade bottle. ‘But careful,’ she said, as he tipped it up. A blast of alcohol lanced his throat.

‘You don’t like whisky,’ he said.

She gave a small smile.

‘George didn’t like me drinking it. Not a female drink. So I’ve always kept it in here.’

The whisky warmed him; he felt its Dutch courage. He watched his mother with her plants. Her hands were busy but she was waiting. He could see it in her.

‘Do you remember what you told me the day Benjamin died?’ he said.

The question had come unbidden. It had come from deep inside, forming as it rose and when he spoke it, it took him by surprise as much as his mother. She didn’t reply immediately. Just carried on with her plants. Will uncrossed his arms and laid his hands on the chair arms, as if an easier position might give him an easier spirit. The chair wicker was brittle under his fingers and he caught at a piece, lifted it till it snapped. Placing it in his palm, he closed his fist around it till the sharp ends pressed into his skin. Then he
waited, as he had waited when he was a boy, for his mother to help him out here.

‘I told you a lot of things then,’ Meg said at last. ‘Too many, perhaps.’

‘But you do know what I’m talking about, don’t you?’

‘I told you to live your own life.’

But he pressed her, because he had to now. ‘And you knew, didn’t you? You knew what he was to me.’

She spoke slowly then, and carefully. ‘You’ve kept your secret very close all these years, just as I have mine,’ and he saw her flinch at her own words.

‘Too close?’

‘I don’t know. But I do know that I was frightened to do otherwise. Don’t make the same mistake. You’re a father as well as a son, Will. You need to think about Cassie.’

Cassie ran along the field full-tilt. Her hair was loose from its clips, streaming out behind her. Behind her, Will came more slowly. As he walked, he pulled off his tie, coiled it round his fingers and put it in his pocket, and he opened the neck of his shirt. At the end of the field the woods began and the path dipped deep between the trees to the beach. Down here tree roots lurched across so you had to watch your footing, and branches reached down to clip the unsuspecting. When Cassie was little, Will used to carry her. He’d tell her stories of serpents rearing up, and twig sprites that might dandle their fingers in her hair, and she’d clutch his shoulders harder with her small hands and bury her face in his neck.

By the time Will reached the trees, Cassie was out of sight and he walked down the path on his own till he came to the beach.

The sea was calm and smooth, and the sun was low by now, throwing long shadows where it could. On the far side, some children still played in the stream, building castles, spading the water into tributaries, organising against the tide. He looked out to the thin lip of horizon, and back for his daughter. In the middle of the empty beach, Cassie stood with her arms out. She whirled them up and round, making a windmill, and stood still again. She looked happy there and then, not a care in the world.