April

April is the best time of year to dig a grave. Pick up a handful of earth, my dear, let it run through your fingers, and feel how soft it is. It’s not hardened from frosts or baked in the sunshine. Nature will respond to our interference and overcome our destructive activity. Spring is transforming the ground, shoots have started to grow, and they are swift to recover if they’re disturbed by our spades. I think that is the true power of life, our inability to exercise more than a moment’s control over it.

The hawthorn has turned green overnight. It was brown and spiky yesterday, but today’s warmth and light drizzle has sparked it into verdancy. It is stark, lush borders against the brown field. The hedgerow shows how unusual the field colour is for the season, how hard the farmers have worked to gain a semblance of control. It’s been sprayed, you see, poisoned, that’s why nothing is growing there. Chemicals, destroying anything that has self-seeded from last year’s crop, or spread from allotments such as mine. The farmers hate us cultivating our flowers so close to their fields. Truth be told, sometimes I’ve thrown poppyseeds over the fence, to mess with their attempts to destroy everything. Poppies can rest for years until the time is right to rise. That’s why they tend to cover graves, they like the disruption of churned earth.

While we’re gazing out, take note of the murder of crows, so many they’re shrouding that field. They are one large company, but they aren’t acting as a troop, each is pretending to be alone, roughly a foot away from their nearest neighbour. The crows, they want to be individuals, but to us, they look indistinguishable. I often wonder if we appear like that, making all that effort to be true to ourselves. I’ve come to accept that life has its path for you, and the best thing you can do is try to plant some flowers, so its route is colourful and pretty.

I try my best to plan my displays, soon I’ll have a better show than this, I hope you come back to see it, my dear. Early spring has been and gone already, and while the extending daylight brings out the green, we’re waiting for the warmth to wake up the flowers. So the main performance is not yet ready, but the warm-up act has finished. Those daffodils are hanging their heads, I should be dead-heading them while I’m nattering to you. It forces them to focus all their effort back into themselves. If the plant’s energy isn’t drained off, it will yield superior flowers next year. Everything has its cost, but there also needs to be balance. I don’t want daffodils stuck there like individual soldiers, however proud they may stand. They belong together in groups, like a family. But they can be moved, particularly if you are trying to disguise a recently dug grave in an allotment, as I was in April 1972.

Bear in mind, I hadn’t given any thought as to how best to dispose of my husband’s body before he died. I’m not sure it’s something most normal-minded people thought about back then. There weren’t all these detective shows that seem so popular now, I mainly watched programmes about cookery or gardening. Suddenly, I was faced with Frank’s untimely death, and I had a body to hide. Let me start my story there, my dear.

*******

Frank wasn’t the first corpse I’d buried, just the first human one, I’d buried a cat the autumn before. Interred it twice, unfortunately, as I didn’t dig deep enough the first time, and a fox exhumed it. Thankfully, I found most of the remaining scraps of it before the girls woke up, and I took care of it. So I knew that shallow graves were a definite no-no. Frank was probably too big for a fox to bother, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Once he was in the ground, I wanted him to stay there. Partly, because it would be hard to explain what a fox was doing dragging my husband out from between my raspberry canes, but mostly, because I didn’t want to have to explain to anyone how he came to be dead and needing burying in the first place.

Soft ground helps, but digging is only forgiving for the first foot or two. That’s why shallow graves are so tempting, and why you have to plan to avoid them. I dug the whole thing down to a foot deep all over, made sure the size was right and where my edges needed to be. Then, I deepened it, a layer at a time. This way, if I got too tired to continue, then at least it would be level. I didn’t want to end up with a deep end and a shallow end. I wouldn’t have known where best to place his head, I couldn’t imagine having to make that decision. In the end, I managed three and a half feet. The sweat was dripping from me by then, and the battery in my torch was fading. Not the deepest of graves, true, but sufficient for my purposes. Frank wouldn’t be disturbed down there.

What did surprise me was that there was not enough earth to fill it back in. I thought there would be soil left over, I was expecting to have to find places to hide it, to avoid having that give-away dome on the top of the grave like you see after funerals. I think they must bring extra in to create that effect, because I was left with an inch of dip. There wasn’t really anything I could do about it. I disguised it with an incline, so the outline of the grave wasn’t sharp, but otherwise, I left it like that. In time, I was glad I did. When nature takes its space back, it does so with such drive that, if it wasn’t for that depression in the earth, I’m not sure I’d have remembered where he was.

I planted rhubarb crowns on top of him. Everyone knows that once the crowns are in, you never move them, and you’ll have a bumper crop year on year. Frank didn’t like rhubarb, so I’d avoided putting any in before then. Suddenly, a fast-growing, permanent crop was exactly what I needed. I planted the rhubarb two days later, as soon as I could manage. I put a little handwritten sign there before that though. ‘Rhubarb,’ it said. No one could tell I hadn’t planted them at the same time as the sign went in, which was the same time as Frank went in. The crowns don’t peek out at first, they take a while to get bedded in. And the rhubarb was delicious. I lost count of how many crumbles my friends and family enjoyed, never knowing the fruit had been fertilised by my dear husband, Frank.

‘Never let good fertilizer go to waste’ was one of Gran’s mantras. She had a patch of land by her house, and she dotted fruit trees about the plot. Nothing fancy like you might see today, only apples and pears, as nothing else would grow in the English weather. Whenever she had an animal to bury, she always buried it near one of the trees. ‘Nature’s re-born this way,’ she’d say to me, and I’ve never seen or heard anything to make me think she was wrong. She might not have spent much time at school, but she knew her land, and she knew how to make things grow. She taught me well and, over the years, I’ve passed some of her wisdom onto others. It might not be the same information you read in books, or can see on that web thing of yours, but her wisdom has led me true, so far at least.

So, Frank was to become fertilizer. I took his clothes off before I put him in the grave. It wasn’t difficult, I sliced down the seams with a pair of shears. He’d only sharpened them the week before, lucky for me. He looked pathetic, lying there at the bottom of the grave, barely illuminated, as naked in death as in birth. I couldn’t throw earth onto him while he was looking at me like that. I got back in and turned him over. Somehow, it was much easier once he was facing downwards. I overcame whatever reluctance was left, and I heaped the soil on top of him.

*******

I hope you don’t find me too flippant, my dear, talking about Frank’s death so lightly. It doesn’t mean I didn’t care, I wasn’t as relaxed about it back then, I can tell you. But now, well now, what have I got to get upset about? It was twenty-seven years ago. I can remember it well, but only as images, like a series of pictures taken of a holiday. It doesn’t feel like something real that happened. I mean, look at me, I’m a middle-aged woman, wider of waist, greyer of hair, and slower of step than I was then. Who would believe I buried my husband in an allotment and covered his grave with rhubarb crowns? It’s so ridiculous, I have to laugh, have to make jokes about it all.

For instance, I cannot believe I left his clothes on the floor of the shed for as long as I did. No one would do that in those detective shows, would they? Not with all those forensics they have these days. How can anyone get away with anything anymore? Back then, you see, it didn’t matter so much. If someone had found his clothes, I’d have said I’d taken them there to sew back together, and who would have even cared enough to ask that? That’s what I did in the end, stitched them up and sent them off to the poor. There was a lot of life left in those trousers.

The other big difference between then and now, is how I would feel about leaving the girls. I left them alone in the house all night. They were only ten years old. I know people think we used to leave our children whenever we wanted in the seventies, give them a pack of crisps and a bottle of pop and they’ll entertain themselves for hours. Sure, it was a bit like that, but it still wasn’t the done thing to leave your children home alone all night, while you went off burying your husband. It worried me what people would think if they found out.

As it happens, burying him was the easiest part of that evening. I was alone at the allotment, I had the farmers’ fields around me for cover, so I didn’t have to worry about being disturbed, I could get on with it. And I liked digging, I still do, it keeps me fit. The hardest bit was getting Frank to the allotment, that proved far more troublesome.

*******

I couldn’t take too long to decide how to deal with my dead husband. He laid there where I’d pulled him up, half on and half off the couch, looking like he’d drank until he couldn’t stand upright, and then drank some more. The girls were tucked into bed, the night extended ahead of me. He had to be moved by morning. It wouldn’t have been fair to the girls to ask them to help, it would be tough enough for them without their dad. I refused to allow my thoughts to wander, telling myself I must solve the problem in front of me first. What do I do with Frank?

I was going to bury him in the allotment. That idea came to me within moments of commencing to crack this conundrum. It was the best place for him, and I could keep an eye out for trouble. I wasn’t entirely ready to let go of him, truth be told. I knew where I wanted to take him, and so, it meant burying him. My challenge was how on earth to get him there. I was pretty strong for a woman, I worked hard and wasn’t afraid to lift heavy things, but he was going to be a dead weight. Literally. It wasn’t going to be easy.

I tried to put him in a suitcase. Yes, it seems funny now, doesn’t it? I must have been close to panicking to think it might be a go-er. I couldn’t even get his legs in. I certainly wasn’t going to be able to bend him in two and zip the bag up afterwards, let alone haul it into the car. I struggled to lift the empty suitcase back up into the loft afterwards, but I persevered. It was important it wasn’t on show for the next few days, I’d worked that much out. My difficulty was that thinking was not something I did lots of, not about how to solve problems like this, anyway. I’d never felt so bad. My heart was thrashing, I thought my eyes were popping with all the pressure building up. I had a headache coming, which is not conducive to thinking problems through. I needed a cup of tea.

I was pleased with myself when I came up with the answer. After all, it wasn’t the first time I’d moved him when he wasn’t co-operative. The trick to it wasn’t to take his weight in my arms, but to balance all of him across all of me, and use my whole self to shift him. He wasn’t going to be of any help, but then, he never was. I tied Frank’s left leg to my right leg using the curtain ties. It was a shame, because I liked how they matched the lounge curtains. I’d dreamed of having them since I’d seen them on the telly. They were tasselled, golden brown with a geometric pattern of cream squares and chocolate circles. I thought they were the bees knees, so I was sad to have to use them in this way. But they were perfect for the job, they could almost have been designed with tying your dead husband’s leg to yours in mind. By the time I’d finished, we looked like we were about to run the three-legged race at the school sports day. I had to heave three times to get him upright, but then, as I took a step forward, so did he. I had to drag the other leg behind us, of course, but it was much easier than carrying him.

We left the house like that, taking our macabre dance one chasse at a time, step, together, step, my dear. We came through the front door with some difficulty, given it was too narrow for us to go out side-by-side. I had to wriggle and wiggle us over the threshold. I was holding him close to me, his head laying on my shoulder, it was the most intimate we had been for months. One last jiggle and we were out into the early evening air. The car was on the driveway, the passenger door already open. I was able to plop Frank in, backwards, drag his various limbs inside, and get the door closed. From the driver’s seat I re-positioned him, leant against the door, neck bent towards the window. To the undiscerning eye, he looked drunk, like he’d passed out on the drive home. My plan was working perfectly, so far.

*******

Despite all the trouble which resulted from this, I still believe it was the best option I had. I did consider putting him in the boot. If the tables were turned, and Frank was trying to stuff my body into the car instead, I’ve no doubt he would have stuck me in there. That way, I would be out of sight from prying eyes while he drove. It would have been tight, but I was slimmer back then, so he might have managed it. But that’s what all those who gasbag about such things forget, that it’s different when it’s a woman killing a man. Frank was bigger than the boot and I wasn’t strong enough to squash him in, not to mention, how would I have got him out again? It’s easy to think there must have been another way, but there really wasn’t.

Our car was magnificent, we were proud of it, bought back when Frank was earning more money than he was gambling away. One of those Austin Minis, a reliable motor, we’d had it for four years, before they became so highly sought after, we’d struck lucky and we knew it. Frank washed it every Sunday, and I brushed the carpets after every trip. Together, we made sure it shined like the day it left the factory. It looked so good, parked on our driveway for the neighbours to admire. We didn’t drive it too often, but I could get both girls in the back seat without them squabbling too much, and it didn’t guzzle petrol like those faster cars did. It was a lovely purple colour with silver trimmings and cream leather seats, the sort that stop by your shoulders. I was reluctant to put a dead body in it, but needs must.

The other thing I knew would cause me problems was that he’d soon start to stiffen up. I’d learnt from the cat fiasco that corpses stop bending after a while. There wasn’t any of this world wide web available for me to go asking it questions, nor did we have our own set of encyclopaedias across one side of our dining room like some people used to. It was a time when you knew what you’d learnt, and if you didn’t know, you took your best guess. So, I knew he would stiffen up, and that I wouldn’t be able to do anything with him if I couldn’t bend him, but I didn’t know how long it would take. He’d already been dead for two hours, so I was rushing. Now, I know I had more time, another hour or three before it set in, plenty of time to get him in and out of the car and lying flat on his back at the allotment. But I wasn’t risking it, I didn’t fancy digging a grave big enough for someone who was stuck sitting upwards. It’s important you appreciate what I was thinking, my dear, before I tell you about my close call, driving too fast with my dead husband in the passenger seat of our car.

*******

I drove away from our house, leaving the upstairs bedroom light on. I didn’t realise until I had pulled onto the road and, although it wasn’t great, I wasn’t going back to turn it off. If asked, I would pretend to have been up all night, my girls sick, I would look tired enough to carry the lie along. I drove away from our estate, one of those developed in the early 1930s, all semi-detached houses with their cojoined driveways and gardens, not as tightly packed together as some of the older ones, and better built too. I was making my way through the town centre when my heart jiggered out of time. A police car was flashing at me, to get me to pull over.

It was only the headlights flashing, no blue lights or sirens whirling, nothing that should panic someone with nothing to hide, simply a local officer wanting to chat. But I didn’t want to natter with a copper while Frank sat there, dead in the passenger seat. So I drew some deep breaths, and made sure the car drifted to a halt mid-way between two lamp posts, so we were hidden in shadow as much as possible. I wound the window down, an inch at a time, as the officer put his helmet on and wandered over.

“Ah, hello there Mrs Thompson, how are you this evening?” he asked, his voice booming through the night for anyone who wanted to hear to do so.

“Good evening Gary. I could complain I’m sure, but I’ll try not to bore you too much this late in the day.”

I’d called him Gary since the second time he’d come to my house after the neighbours had complained about our noise. I’d come to know him quite well since then. I was relieved it was him who had stopped me, but I wasn’t ready to relax yet.

“Well now, always here to listen to you, Mrs Thompson, you know that. Thought I’d seen Frank drinking early doors in The Royal Oak again. I was surprised to see your car out after he’d had such a skinful.”

I’m still proud of myself for what I said next.

“I thought we’d disturb the neighbours less if we argued in the car, you see, drive him around for a bit until he dropped off. I’m putting off taking him home as I’ll have to wake him up again.”

Gary bent a little more to look past me, seeing Frank with his head propped awkwardly against the passenger window.

“Ah yes, I see your problem. Well, he seems peaceful enough there, why not head back home and let him sleep it off where he is?”

“Great, I’ll do that, and I’ll tell him it was all your idea when he complains of a stiff neck in the morning.”

“You tell him that, Mrs Thompson, also say I’ll discuss it with him at the station if he wants to make a fuss.”

At least, he said something along those lines, he’d started walking back to his car by then, so I wasn’t sure at the time if I’d heard him right. But he left without taking a closer look at the corpse on the passenger seat, and that was all that mattered to me then.

My heart was beating so fast I thought I would lift into the air with the agitation of it all. I couldn’t decide if I was lucky that it was PC Gary Bowers who stopped me, someone who had some sympathy for me, or whether I was unlucky to come across a police officer just as I was driving my dead husband to his makeshift burial site. I wasn’t thinking about the longer-term risks, as I was terrified that the lost time would be the difference between a body which would lie flat in its grave, and one which would insist on sitting upright, now with a crooked neck. So, I checked I wasn’t being followed and then I hurried to the allotment.

I needed to plan how I would explain Frank’s abrupt absence and handle the enquiries when it became clear he wasn’t coming back. I needed a good excuse to put it off for a few days, to gain some distance from our encounter with Gary. I didn’t want him to become suspicious. I thought it through while I was digging. I would send a message to Frank’s boss to say he was ill, and then drive the girls to Mother’s for a few days. Frank will have done a flit, left me high and dry by the time we came home, without as much as a note to tell me what he was up to. Everyone would expect him to come back once he’d sobered up a bit and, of course, I’d forgive him for his sins again. It was not the world’s best plan, but it had the advantage of being behaviour Frank had indulged in before, and as it happens, it worked a treat.

*******

It may seem a surprise to you, but no one took that much notice. Simply, Frank didn’t come home and we all carried on as we were. The neighbours were happy to see the back of him, and there wasn’t even much gossip. People don’t take any notice, you see, not closely, as they’re too wrapped up in their own strife. We all do it, my dear, take a look around us, see what’s happened while we weren’t paying attention. The landscape changes overnight, one day it’s dull and lifeless, the next, it bounds and booms. It looks green from a distance, but I can see there, in the nearer parts of the grass path, there are clusters of daisies. They open when the sun shines, scattering grains of white rice against the green blanket. The dandelions are popping out too. No matter how often you chop them down, they will find a way to bounce back up.

That is why you don’t need to worry about hiding a grave in April. No sooner do you stop disturbing the soil than nature reclaims it, first turning it green, then to many other colours. At no other time does everything grow so fast. These seedlings here, they are all self-seeded, I didn’t plant a single one, but they are so tightly packed together, you’d never believe I dug this soil over a few days ago. I’ve no idea what they’ll grow into, I cannot think what could have scattered them, but I won’t go pulling them out just yet. I’ll wait until they have grown to about two inches tall, see if I recognise them. If I cannot be sure then I’ll assume they are weeds, and I’ll eliminate them.

In only a few weeks, April has turned my whole world green, as far as my eye can see. Everything, that is, except for the condemned oak tree. It stands there, solitary, separate from those together, nearer the horizon, where the trees foliage blends into one copse. The oak tree is not in leaf, nor is it in flower. Alone, it remains bare, gnarled against the pale sky with its wispy white clouds skimming by. It still stands strong, after all these years, despite having been judged and found wanting. It is doomed, denounced as a danger and destined to be destroyed. It is waiting to be knocked down but it is resilient and, for today at least, it endures.