It was October before we were allowed to bury Cal. The details of his funeral have always been hazy; the memory was too painful to be stored. I remember it in fragments, but large parts of it aren’t there, however hard I try to recall them. Perhaps, over the years, I made up things to close gaps in my recollection, but I can’t be sure.
I do remember being cold. Someone had forgotten to pin back the porch door. It banged in the breeze, punctuating Father John’s words, and sweeping debris into the space beneath the holy water font. As we entered the church, we trudged through heaps of confetti mixed with leaves from the horse chestnut tree that shaded the path. They resembled the stacks of useless things our father had started to collect, that were piled up in heaps all over the house.
You and I stood side by side, holding hands, as Father John’s loud, flat voice portrayed the altar boy, pious and quiet, not the Cal we knew, but the Cal who had been on his best behaviour for Father John – an aspect of Cal, I suppose, but not really him. Perhaps no one could have described him as he’d been when he was alive. In the time since his death, we had each misremembered him, elevating him to the level of the angels with true Catholic sentiment that did Cal no favours. He’d committed all the usual childhood sins. He’d smoked, as we all did, hiding it from our parents. He’d nicked sweets from shops. He’d sneaked into the pictures via the back exit to watch films without paying. He’d stolen a car when he was fourteen because the local boys had called him stuck up and no longer one of them now he was at grammar school; he’d had to prove them wrong. Dad had been raging when one of the neighbours had told him. ‘You’re lucky you didn’t get caught by the police. Do you know what happens when black boys get caught even bending the law, let alone breaking it? There’s no leeway for us, you get a record and that’s it, in and out of prison, the end of everything.’ Cal had managed not to do anything wrong since then. Dad’s fear and disappointment had been too much of a warning. I looked across at Dad as he sat at the end of the pew next to Mum. His last words to Cal had been spoken in anger, and regret was written in the blankness of his face. I thought of Lydia and wished, once more, that she and Cal had never met.
Lydia hadn’t been in the church but she was at the graveside. I didn’t want to see her, and yet I did, both at the same time. I still didn’t know if Cal had been attacked after he’d told her what I’d said or if it had happened before he’d had the chance. I hoped she didn’t know; she certainly gave no sign of knowing. You grabbed hold of her and gave her a tearful hug. There was a tremor in her shoulders as she hugged you back. ‘How are you?’ you asked. And then before she could answer, you asked the question that was uppermost for you: ‘How are you doing with the baby?’
‘I’m starting to show now,’ she said, though I couldn’t see it; I thought she’d actually lost a little weight. She was wearing a dark blue cotton coat that flared out above the waist, tailored to hide indiscretions.
‘You’re still pregnant,’ you said, squeezing her arm. ‘I was scared that after… that night… and having to be on your own, you wouldn’t be able to go through with it.’
Lydia looked at you with empty eyes. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been round to see you. My father wouldn’t allow me to come. He’s been confining me indoors like a prisoner. I’m a disgrace to the family, getting knocked up by somebody like Cal.’ She gave a hollow laugh, failing to see that although she’d used the words ironically, they were hurtful to us. Somebody like Cal? I couldn’t bring myself to ask exactly what she meant; she was carrying Cal’s child – a living piece of him – and I couldn’t afford to alienate her. She took a pack of cigarettes from her handbag and lit one with a slightly shaky hand, inhaling deeply before saying, ‘Dad said he’d never forgive me. Joyce was even worse. She was almost hysterical, said I’d burn in hell. How dare she? Adam told me his dad had said that she and Pa were shagging while Mum was still alive, fucking hypocrites. I thought they’d understand how terrible it was for me to be there that night, to see Cal attacked, to hold his hand as he slipped away from me, but all they can think about is themselves and how much I’ve embarrassed them.’ She paused – waiting for sympathy perhaps?
You were ablaze with it. You raised your voice, attracting the attention of some of the other mourners who turned to look at us. ‘It must have been so terrible for you, being there with Cal when it happened. I expect your father is just in shock about the baby. He’ll come round in the end.’
Lydia’s eyes filled with tears. ‘He won’t come round. He’s made that very clear. Cal and I were going to be married. How can I give up this baby when it’s all that’s left of Cal?’
‘Of course you can’t,’ you said. As you squeezed Lydia’s arm again, I saw that the people around us were staring. Cal’s death was the source of endless gossip from the neighbours. Had he dealt drugs? Perhaps he’d pulled a knife that night, or a gun. Perhaps someone had killed him in self-defence. He looked the part of a bad boy, in spite of his stuck-up ways and his grammar school education. Did you know that Vivian Bunting had been quite well off before she’d married beneath her? I’m sure she regrets it now. The son turned out just like his father. They can’t control themselves, they always wind up in trouble in the end.
Lydia held her hand to her belly and said, ‘You know, I’m not at all sorry about this, however much everybody wants me to be.’ Her eyes now sparkled with defiance. ‘They’re sending me away, can you believe that? I’ve been in such a state. I’ve lost Cal, but that doesn’t matter to them. All they care about is hiding me away somewhere.’
I tried to absorb Lydia’s words, feeling sick inside. ‘You’re going away?’ I said.
‘Pa says I can’t stay here, there will be too much gossip.’
‘Don’t go, Lydia,’ you said desperately, ‘we don’t want you to go.’
‘It’s no use. Pa won’t budge. I’ll have to come back for the trial so at least I’ll see you then. I’m a witness, I expect you’ve heard.’ Her voice dropped; there was a tremor in it. ‘They arrested a man – well, a boy I suppose, no older than us. Did they tell you?’
You and I nodded.
‘I don’t know if I can face it, going over everything again.’
‘You’ll manage somehow, Lydia, I know you will,’ you said, squeezing her hand. ‘I’m so pleased you came today. Cal would have wanted you to be here so much.’
‘What will you two do now?’ asked Lydia.
‘We’re going to university,’ I told her.
‘I didn’t think you wanted to go.’
‘We have to go,’ you said. ‘Mum and Dad were so proud to think that Cal was going.’
We were desperate to return hope for the future to our parents, the hope that had died when Cal had been killed. For their sake, we had to succeed, we thought.
We could see our mother up ahead, struggling to speak to the friends who had gathered to support us. Across the road, a newspaper photographer was taking pictures. Mum was wearing a red, hand-knitted jumper under a pinafore dress. She’d said she wanted to be nice and bright in memory of Cal – he liked to see her looking cheerful, she told us – but her clothes were incongruous, wholly unsuitable for the occasion; they made her look childlike and in need of care. Her lipstick was smudged and there was a circle of deep red blusher on each cheek that made me think of clowns. We should have stopped her showing herself up like that but neither of us had the heart, or the energy, to coax her to get changed, and I’m not sure Dad even saw that anything was wrong. The following day, Cal’s death would be headline news again, and pictures of the funeral would fill the front pages. Mum would look deranged. I wanted to warn her that we were being photographed, but I decided it would be kinder to keep her in ignorance. She would only worry about how she was behaving and whether anyone was seeing the cracks, and that would engender a self-consciousness that would make her seem more odd, not less. Dad was beside her. He had been almost silent since Cal’s death, as if words had been sucked out of him. Words couldn’t describe the way he felt, so he was losing his ability to use them, retreating to a place we couldn’t reach. We were afraid for him, even as he stood beside our mother, shielding her with arms outstretched, his posture seeming awkward and uncomfortable.
We walked across the well-worn flagstones that covered the grounds of the church, shading our eyes from the sun that streamed down from above its tower but gave little warmth. You looked worn out from crying. Lydia too. I couldn’t tell what I looked like anymore. It was as if I no longer saw myself, except in you.
‘We’re having a wake at the church hall,’ you told Lydia. ‘Will you come?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t face it.’
My breathing became shallow. I had to know if our brother had told Lydia what I’d said to him before he died. ‘Why did Cal go to see you that night?’ I asked, making my tone as casual as I could.
You looked curious. You wanted to know why he had gone out too.
‘He wanted to ask me something,’ Lydia answered slowly, as if she was trying to recall the exact details. ‘He seemed a bit upset, or angry or… I don’t know… but before he could say anything… well, you know what happened.’
Did relief show on my face? Did it seem incongruous? I tried to conceal it, but it must have been visible, because Lydia gave me a questioning look. But all she said was, ‘I’ll write once the baby arrives. I’ll send a photograph.’ She turned and walked away, seeming a little unsteady in real snakeskin shoes.
We joined our father and tried to fill the gaps his silences created, even though we had few words ourselves. Our mother also barely spoke; she seemed so hurt and lost as she stood slightly apart from everyone, failing to look at them, failing to connect. People were offering platitudes because platitudes were all they had: We are so very sorry; let us know if there’s anything we can do.
At the wake in the shabby church hall, our parents remained silent, only nodding slightly as other mourners continued to mutter their condolences. We took round sandwiches and little cheese biscuits on borrowed plates, with shy, forced smiles that shone through tears.
I think our mother was embarrassed by our school tunics (with white shirts and blue-and-green-striped ties), worn that day because we had no other sombre clothing. But she wasn’t embarrassed by their West Indian friends who spoke Patois – the melodic sound rang through the hall. Joe’s dad gripped our father’s hand and wept. Joe stood beside him, the hem of his trousers quivering as his legs shook from all the emotion he was trying to conceal. And then there was David, who had brought the news that Cal was hurt, wearing his threadbare coat. His green eyes always looked incongruous against his dark brown skin and made strangers stare in surprise. He was slumped in a chair asleep, a plate piled high with food untouched on the table in front of him. Each Christmas and Easter holiday, our dad had welcomed him to celebrate with us: ‘He has no one,’ he used to say. ‘No family. He has no real home.’ Dad had got chatting to him as he’d travelled on his bus. They’d become friends; they’d played dominoes in the café down the street. ‘He’s had nothing but bad luck,’ Dad often said. ‘Life can be so hard for people when they come to this country.’ David had wept at Cal’s graveside.
Perhaps if we’d been older, we would have been touched to see so many people sharing their grief at the death of our brother, but we were overwhelmed, as if we were obliged to shoulder their sadness as well as our own.
We had abandoned our serving task so people were helping themselves to tinned salmon sandwiches with slices of cucumber, Scotch eggs, crisps and pieces of the cake that Mum had made. It was very plain, as if an embellishment in the form of icing or buttercream would detract from the solemnity of the occasion and sully Cal’s memory. We each ate a slice with disappointment. Mum’s cakes were usually so delicious, rich and light, but this could have been made by anyone. It was dry and heavy. ‘Like Mum’s heart,’ you whispered to me, with your usual sense of the dramatic, but perhaps it wasn’t as silly as it sounded. Dad had insisted that no one would be allowed to go home hungry so he had spent as much as he could to give Cal a good send-off. We tried to celebrate his short life with rum and Coke. We knew our parents wouldn’t notice the rum part, not today, but there was no pleasure in it. We listened to other people’s conversations, wishing we could leave and be only with each other, chewing gum and reading a book, even though the idea of doing anything so ordinary was almost unimaginable. I think we wanted to see if we could still do day-to-day things or if life had really changed beyond our comprehension. We longed to put aside sadness if only for a few minutes but we could see the impossibility of that.
Once the guests had gone, we cleared the tables silently. You tipped leftovers into bins; I pushed back tables and swept the floor. Dad had stood straight and tall for as long as he could, but now that he could no longer be seen by friends and acquaintances, he allowed himself to stoop, bent by the weight of grief, wiping surfaces he had already wiped. His staccato movements contrasted with our mother’s slowness, but each response stemmed from the same bleak place. Father John came in to lock up and we began the walk home.
‘I feel so alone,’ you said to me, your eyes pleading, filling with tears.
I turned away from you.
Once inside the house, I fled to Cal’s room and closed the door. At the funeral I’d wanted to be with you but now I was beside myself with the need to be alone.
I looked at Cal’s possessions; there were model airplanes and Dinky cars from childhood, and the records and books he’d collected once he was on the verge of becoming a man. I sat on his bed, recalling the last evening of his life and the things I’d said to him. For the first time I allowed myself the awareness that if I had kept quiet, he would have stayed indoors. He wouldn’t have been out on the street, he wouldn’t have been punched, he wouldn’t have lost his life. Why had I told him about me and Lydia? Perhaps I’d thought that killing his happiness would ease my hurt, with the bonus that it would punish Lydia for choosing him instead of me. I’d been telling myself that I’d wanted to spare him misery further down the line, when, after a few months or years of marriage, he would have to face what Lydia was really like. But Cal had been right. ‘You’re just jealous,’ he’d said before he left.
I still hadn’t told you about me and Lydia or what I’d said to Cal. I’d tried, but the words had failed to come. Instead, I was now withdrawing from you; shame and guilt were making it impossible for me to be around the people I loved most. You didn’t ask what the matter was – you thought you knew; you thought it was grief, and that my feelings were the same as yours. I wished that was all it was, but I had caused Cal’s death, and the hopelessness I felt would never really leave me.
You and I had thought that Cal would always be with us, so we didn’t imprint his face or his words on our memories while he was alive in order to return to these at some point in the future when we would struggle to remember how he sounded or the way he looked.
Dead. I can’t take it in. Dead. I say the word over and over to make it real, even though the word stabs me so hard it makes me flinch every time I hear it. I am alone, so very alone. We stand at the graveside. Dead. People offer their condolences. I am wearing a pinafore dress and a red, hand-knitted jumper. Should I have worn black? Is wearing red wrong? A wake. We are at a wake. Am I awake? Is this a dream? It isn’t real, it can’t be real, yet I know it is. A punch? An unlucky punch? Dead? It was a car – a car – of course it was. Collision course. An accident, they said.
Dead.
I am cold. I am shaking with cold. I will never be warm again.