Sweet Contemplation (Part 2 of 2) (IP)

Ben raised his eyebrows slightly. ‘Okay.’ He’d been to the vegetable garden almost every day since Dad died. I knew what he’d been thinking. He was thinking it was his job now, his inheritance. I hadn’t gone near it, after the night I saw Mum.

          ‘Will you come with me?’ I asked.

          ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of there,’ he said gently. ‘I know it’s sad, it’s awful to think of him lying there – ‘

          ‘Don’t,’ I said.

          He leaned across the table and took my hand. ‘But it was his place, you know. Where he liked to contemplate. All that. I feel close to him there.’

          ‘Please come with me,’ I said, standing up.

          ‘Now?’

          ‘Before Mum comes down.’

          Outside it was warmer than it had been, a scent of spring hovering in the air. Mum’s daffodils and blue hyacinths were already out. Ben went ahead of me, down the terrace steps, over the lawn to the gap in the wall.

          I stopped a couple of feet away.

          Ben held out his hand. ‘Come on.’

          We went through the gap together.

          It didn’t feel scary. There was nothing strange. Nothing was not as it should be. If Dad could have chosen his last place, it would probably be here.

          ‘That’s odd,’ said Ben.

          I ignored him.

          ‘The ground’s all ruffled, as though someone’s been raking or something,’ he said. ‘There, in the turnip patch.’

          ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I said.

          ‘No, look.’ He crouched down and ran his fingers through the loose soil.

          ‘I said, ‘It’s probably just where Dad – ‘

          ‘No,’ said Ben. ‘It wasn’t like this yesterday. I know because I stood here, in the morning, before we all went… I left a footprint.’ He blushed, as if worried I would ask him why, on the morning of Dad’s funeral, he had stood where Dad used to stand. ‘The footprint isn’t here now.’

          ‘Some sort of animal,’ I said. ‘The Horleys’ cat.’

          Ben said, ‘The Horleys’ cat is about a hundred and two and hasn’t been out of the house for years. It couldn’t get over the fence.’

          ‘A dog, then,’ I insisted. ‘That German Shepherd up the road.’

          ‘Who got in how?’ said Ben. He looked up at me. ‘Did you see something last night? Was that what it was all about? Was someone here?’

          ‘No,’ I said.

          He knew I was lying. ‘Don’t piss about, for God’s sake. I can’t be doing with it. Not now. I’m holding on by a fucking thread here…’ A sob engulfed his voice.

          ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I saw Dad.’

          ‘What?’

          ‘I saw Dad. But it wasn’t Dad. It was something that was trying to be Dad. As though he wanted to be here, but he couldn’t. It was horrible.’

          Ben straightened up and stood looking at me for a moment, as if unable to speak. Then he said, ‘Did you say anything to Mum?’

          ‘No. Of course not.’

          ‘Good.’ He took a breath, and when he spoke his voice was deeply weary. ‘Because if you do, if you mention one word of this shit to her, I’ll never forgive you.’

          ‘You think I’m making it up?’

          ‘Either you’re making it up or you’re fucking delusional. Either way, Mum doesn’t need it right now.’

          ‘Then who did this to the soil?’ I yelled. ‘Not the Horleys’ cat, apparently, or the dog up the road. So who or what went to all the trouble of breaking into our garden just to scrape around in the turnip patch?’

          ‘I don’t know. But I do know it’s not…Dad’s ghost.’ He looked winded, as though he’d been hit.

          ‘Why would I make it up, Ben? Why would I do that?’

          'I’ve no idea. We’ll go with delusional.’ He glanced at the house. ‘Mum’s looking through the window.’ He waved. ‘I mean it. Not one word to her. Not one.’

          ‘Okay. Fine. I heard you.’  

          Ben and I have never really had the mysterious twin bond thing. I don’t think it’s meant to be as strong with fraternals as with identicals, and maybe it just missed us altogether. But being the same age, and having a lot of similar interests, I suppose you could say we’d always been a bit closer than the average brother and sister.

          I felt very alone, walking back across the lawn.

          When we got to the kitchen Mum said, ‘It’s Saturday,’ as though this was a revelation. She took a deep breath. ‘Put some music on.’

          We’d always been a Saturday morning music family. Dad’s choice first. Then Mum’s. Then it was a free for all as to whether Ben or I managed to get a CD on first.

          ‘What do you want?’ Ben asked her, and before there could be any awkwardness she said, ‘Madonna,’ as she always did, and there it was, established. Mum now went first.

          Uncle Simon and Auntie Ruth arrived mid-morning, and then took us out for lunch. On the way back Mum bought a big bunch of flowers and a couple of bottles of nice wine for the Horleys, and we took them round after Uncle Simon and Auntie Ruth left.

          As the afternoon went on, I began to feel sick at the thought of going to bed, with the vegetable garden and its disturbed soil waiting outside my window. At about five o’clock Mum said, ‘It’s okay if you want to come in with me tonight.’

          I could feel Ben’s eyes on me. ‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll be fine.’

          Mum looked concerned. ‘You know, there’s no rules for how to cope with this. We have to find our own way, and whatever we need – ‘

          ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘I think I was just, you know, flat out after yesterday.’

          ‘See how you feel,’ she said. I wondered whether she was offering for my sake or hers.

          We watched TV, I don’t remember what exactly, except it was something we wouldn’t have watched with Dad, because none of us was ready for that. At one point we laughed at something funny, and it felt like a relief, a bit of normality nosing its way through the strangeness.

          I felt lonely again when I went to bed. Ben’s room, like Mum’s, was at the front of the house. Mine was the only one that looked out over the garden.

I closed my eyes as I drew the curtains.

          When I jerked awake in the darkness there was a solid shape at the door.

          ‘It’s only me,’ whispered Ben.

          ‘What the hell do you want?’

          He sat on the end of my bed. ‘I guess I was a bit of a shit to you earlier.’

          ‘You think?’

          ‘Sorry. I just…I mean Christ, you saying you think you saw Dad…

          ‘Yeah well, I’m delusional, aren’t I?’

          ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I mean, I don’t know if I want you to be delusional or not.’

          ‘So why are you here?’ I asked, guessing the answer.

          ‘I want to see him.’

          ‘It wasn’t him like we know him.’

          ‘I’ll take what I can get,’ he said.

          I lay back down. ‘Do what you like.’

         I don’t know quite how long it was before I heard his sob. I got out of bed and went to the window. He was gripping the curtain, his shoulders heaving.

          The same figure, Dad but not Dad, flickering in and out, digging in the turnip patch.

          ‘Ah Jesus,’ Ben groaned.

          I slid my arm through his.

          The figure coalesced as we watched. It became a shimmer rather than the cacophony of broken pieces I had seen the previous night, rippling rather than fragmenting. More Dad, but still not.

          ‘What are you two doing?’ said Mum, behind us.

          Ben yanked the curtains closed. ‘We’re just looking at the garden. Dad’s garden.’

          He could not have sounded more unconvincing. Mum marched across the room and pulled the curtains open.

         She stood in complete silence for a moment, watching the rippling figure. Then she gave a quiet moan, not of horror or fear, but the deepest, deepest longing. Softly, she whispered his name.

          And Dad was there, standing solid, the light from the road like a muted spotlight. He was holding his spade, looking down at the turnip patch, and although we were too far away to see, we knew he would be slightly pursing his lips, slightly wrinkling his brow, as he contemplated, or planned, or did whatever he loved to do among living things quietly growing. Then slowly, peacefully, he merged into the night.

          We never saw him again.

          I don’t know. Mum reckoned he wanted to say the goodbye he never got the chance to say, and he needed all three of us there to be able to say it. After a while Ben started to read a lot about folie a deux, shared delusions. He said the ruffled soil in the vegetable patch was just a coincidence, because ghosts, or whatever word Mum preferred to use (she said ‘ghost’ sounded cheap and sensational), couldn’t move solid things. I said, ‘What about poltergeists?’ and Ben said, ‘Honestly, Dad as a mad poltergeist?’ and we both laughed, and it was okay. It has been ever since.

         I grow Sweetbells in my vegetable patch now, and Chantenay carrots. The house was sold years ago, and Ben and I have had the odd giggle at the thought of Dad popping in now and again to make sure new inhabitants grow their vegetables properly. Though I doubt he feels the need for that.  He knows he’s with me when I plant and harvest, and I’m sure he’s found a different way to be with Ben, who turned out to be rubbish at doing anything but the terrace.  Dad and Mum are together properly now, and somehow, despite the loss, that will always be the sweetest thought of all.