I walked home exhausted from the pub, changed clothes, stared at the dark end of my room.
Algie? Algernon?
I sat on my bed. What an idiot I was. Maggie was right.
Total idiot, you are Abes. You just threw yourself at him. I blew my nose. I needed Algie.
‘Algernon Keats? Where are you?’ He was here somewhere.
I just couldn’t see him. Finally I spotted a hand poking out from under my bed.
‘Miss Budde?’ His voice sounded thin and gravelly, far away.
‘Algie, what are you doing under there? Come out.’
Algie coughed violently. He was still lying half under my bed, his whole body trembling, his forehead covered in sweat.
‘Oh, you poor thing. Let me help you.’
He pulled himself out and sat up leaning against the bed.
‘What’s wrong, Algie? I know I’ve hardly seen you recently but I’m all right now.’ I’m all right now. ‘I’m going to spend much more time with you.’
‘Miss Budde. Tonight. Walk with me.’
‘All right, I will, Algie, but please, call me Rebecca, won’t you?’
‘Rebecca.’
The room was colder than I’d ever known it, my breath hung in front of my face, despite the warmth of summer. It was July the 24th, 1974. Poor Algernon, his hands were icy cold, his skin as pale as moonlight. He looked at me with his sad lovely eyes. ‘Rebecca,’ he said, slowly, softly. ‘Rebecca.’ The way he said my name nearly broke my heart.
We ate. I don’t know what.
‘Complete and utter bastards,’ said my father. ‘They have bombed the Tower of London and achieved what? Nothing at all, except misery.’
‘We’ll call Maggie tonight. See how she’s going with all of this.’
‘Yes, we’ll call her. I’m sure she’s fine. It’s a pity everyone else isn’t.’
‘Eat up, Rebecca.’
How could I eat? Everything felt sad.
I helped my mother with the washing-up without complaining. I went back up to my room.
Emily came in and bounced on the bed a few times.
‘You’re no fun anymore, Rebecca.’ She walked out again. I went downstairs.
Eight o’clock, still light. I felt nervous, skittish like a horse, something was coming my way. I didn’t know what it was and I didn’t want to know but I knew somehow that I couldn’t avoid it.
Standing on the dry dusty path opposite the house was Flora Shillingham. I walked over to see her, an awful feeling growing inside me.
‘Hello, Flora, I haven’t seen you for a while.’
‘Hello, dear.’ She stared at me, sniffed the air like a dog.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘Well now, dear, it’s one of those times.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s not well, is he?’
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘The energy’s changing, dear, and, well, it comes to us all.’
She bowed her head. She was waiting for Algernon. There was a crow perched on the balcony, cocking its beady eyes one way, then the other.
I will not come. I have seen this once before.
No, Augusta, I will not listen to you now.
‘No, Flora, not now, some other time—later, later in the year, or next year.’
‘No, dear, it has to be this way. He knows. He’s had his time. Come on now. Don’t start crying. Here he comes.’
Algie walked slowly through the gate and over the road to where we stood. I could see the effort straining his face, his skin white like fog, cold like frost.
No, don’t be silly, we’re just going for a walk, like we always have done, him and me, walking in the evening air.
He held my arm and I held his, barely able to feel his thinness.
I didn’t know what else to do so I patted the back of his thin cold hand. I swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the lump in my throat. For the first time I could see the lines appearing on his precious face, his slow measured steps scuffing the dust over his black boots. Flora squeezed my hand as we passed by, but I said nothing. She walked behind us, an escort through the trees.
As we walked, the world knew Algernon was dying. His bones felt light, like the bones of a fragile bird. The weight of his body against mine was lighter still. Sadness seeped through me. My heart ached, literally ached inside my chest. Through the midsummer wood, deep under the trees we walked. Every minute or so we had to stop so Algie could get his breath.
He was filling the place up with mist, with fog.
‘We don’t need to go on. Let’s stop here.’ His face was whiter than I’d ever seen it.
He shook his head. ‘Keep going. Walk.’ He knew where he wanted to go.
Flora stopped, waited, her look was tender, concerned, she was trying to make this as easy as she could but there was nothing easy about it.
Algie and I stumbled down the rocky path to the field.
Ears of yellow wheat leaned forward to touch his hand.
Swallows darted high above our heads. Home, they said, home, Algernon is going home. The sky lay over us, huge and dark and everywhere.
I opened the five-bar gate and closed it again behind us.
Algie sank back into me. It was enough. He could go no further.
I held him lightly in my arms, leaning against the gate. I didn’t know how to do this. ‘What do we do now? What do we do?’
‘Lay me down,’ he said. ‘Rebecca, lay me down.’
‘I can’t.’ I was still holding him, struggling with him in my arms. ‘No, Algie, no.’
‘Lay me down.’
Flora was nowhere to be seen, it was just Algie and me.
Sweat poured down his body he was shaking uncontrollably.
‘Help me with this. Please’.
I tugged his stick-thin shoulders from his jacket and he lay on the ground, chest rising and falling. Deep breaths in, slowly out. His hair stuck to his face. I pushed it away. Gently, gently in my arms like a dying bird. Trembling in his clothes: his shirt, his trousers, his so-familiar boots.
He whispered my name. Rebecca Budde.
I felt the weight of his thin body in mine. I was shivering now and could not stop.
He pressed his hands into mine. Now you are ready.
Tears and snot dripped down my face. ‘Not yet,’ I said, barely able to speak for crying. ‘Not yet.’ He took a huge deep breath and began to shake violently all over.
‘Don’t go, Algie, please. Don’t go.’
His large eyes looked at me, his breath came awkwardly.
‘This is my last unsung horizon. These are the last words I will speak.’ His chest heaved up and down.
‘It’s all right, Algie, shh, don’t try and speak.’
Another laboured breath.
‘It’s all right, my darling, shh, I will say them, Algie. I will say them for you.’
His chest rose up and down one more time, then he gave a last terrible shudder and was still. His hand clenched mine and stayed clenched, not moving. His chest did not rise again.
His fingers did not move. Trees bowed their great green heads.
Gusts of wind howled over the field. Cloud shadows fled across the grass. From the trees the crows called in melancholy voices to the sky. With every second that passed he slid slowly from my arms. I tried and I tried to hold him but my arms were shaking and small drops of rain pelted the ground. Tears ran down my face. For a second the world stood still. There was no one beside me. Alone and alone and alone. I buried my face in the grass and wept. Choking and gulping on sadness. I lay on his jacket for a long time, wet and crumpled on the ground.
How long I lay there I did not know. A strange light hung in the sky, a light growing from the corner, moving along the whole field. The breeze grew warmer and warmer, the light growing stronger, and there was Flora, in the middle of the field, arms outstretched, calling all the spirits of the earth to join me weeping in the corner of a field.