Dead Gran

'Would you like another cup of char love?' shouted the toothy, wide-grinned nurse whose ears pricked up like a donkey's every time she spoke, one lobe blushing slightly redder than the other.

'No thank you', said my mother politely to the loud but well-meaning girl. She must have been working around the old and deaf for so long now that she automatically raised her tones no matter with whom she was conversing. My mother and I exchanged glances, fighting to conceal our snickers. We had always had this way between us. A glance from one was enough to set the other off. A mutual recognition of a moment, of poetic irony, of humour trapped in sorrow. She consolidated her hold of Gran's limp hand, kicking my shin to indicate that now was not the time for either of us to be horsing around.

Gran, or Nana as she preferred to be known, had been in the hospital for two days now. Of all the things which should have killed her off years ago- alcoholism, lung cancer, a broken, bitter heart- it was a fall down the stairs and a resultant broken hip which laid her low before us.

When I was emboldened enough to call her by the term Granny she would respond in her indefatigable way and slam me by answering: 'Fanny'. Whether she innocently intended to reproduce this old fashioned name or she purposefully meant to hint that I was a bit of a fanny or as close a thing to that unspoken female zone I'll never know.

One time, I asked her of the war:

'What do you want to go dredging that up for? What's done is done. Leave me in peace'.

On another occasion, I enquired of her days as a dancer. I was met with the same unassailable wall. That impenetrable fortress of a heart, that hidden life, cowering and cushioned within a fragile woman's failing physical form.

Gran had been a Bluebell dancer. At sixteen, she danced in London and kept a tatty leather autograph book signed by her co-dancers from the Hippodrome show.

'To Ruby with all my love, so sorry the season's over this soon, Viv Purman'. 'Angel, dancing with you sent me to paradise. Jack True' ' A proper grafter with the art and grace to match. You'll go a long way. Harry the Heart. x'

She was asked to go on tour. Outside of England: Paris, Vienna and Rome. Gran's father explained to his dreamy, flame-haired daughter that only prostitutes and women in league with the devil went abroad. In her whole life she never did leave the island. When my brother and I were still little my parents begged her to accompany them on our travels but Ruby had decided long ago that her father had probably been right.

I never met him but I imagine that my grandfather did not intend to die young, to let the cancer gnaw through his bones like a determined rodent and burn at his liver until it was reduced to the form of a putrid oil slick. A leaner diet, a gentler attitude towards the pipe may have prolonged his stay but Gran should not have taken it so very personally. She felt abandoned, deserted, worse than being left for another woman. At least then he might have come back, the finality would not have been so self-evident.

Finally, I enquired of her conversion.

Ruby was born into solid Irish-Catholic stock: seven sisters and one baby brother. Timing is everything and in November 1939, after a testing two year process of Hebrew lessons and exhausting prayer evenings she became a Jew. Ruby was either very brave or very ill informed as to world events. We used to joke about how my Grandfather must have taken to cutting huge, gaping holes in the newspapers so as to conceal the potential global threat to Jews. Here was our Nana, the least politically sophisticated being on the planet begging for entry into what might soon be an extinct race. Nobody knew how the war would fare. Mosley and his Blackshirts had made clear their feeling towards England's Jews.

Ruby must have been very much in love.

Her entire family, bar one member, severed all ties forthwith.

Gran never forgave my mother for her own departure or indeed for marrying back into the Catholic faith. Molly developed life-threatening pneumonia at eighteen but survived, meanwhile enjoying the three-month absence from home while at the holiday hospital. When she was discharged she packed her bags and left for London, for vibrant and excitable air, claiming it was just for a short while. Knowing she didn't mean it she said she would be back in no time at all. Molly never returned.

Uncle Malcolm did not recover from my mother's leaving. She found him on the south pier, half-heartedly spinning pebbles to the sea. He wouldn't look her in the eye. She choked at his sobs and explained that if she stayed she would have no life, that Ruby would drain it out of her. She had to go while she still had the strength. She promised to come back for him once his exams were over and she was settled in the south.

'I know she's not all bad but she's doing her level best to keep us both here. She doesn't want us to have lives of our own' said Molly. She took his drenched face in the cups of her palms and made him swear he wouldn't let Gran win.

The promenade had never seemed so desolate, the slot machines never more uninviting. The rain spat at him, the fierce wind tugged him this way and that. Why wouldn't Molly take him with her? How long before he could get out?

Malcolm never did get away. Until Gran expired in that yellow-rich room she held him on the tightest of leashes. From the safety of her southern hideout Molly pushed him to take driving lessons, to swim, to skate, to leave, to get married, to travel. Sad Uncle Malcolm knew it was too late for him, he could only have left had Molly made room for him when she went away. As a pup I thought he lacked backbone but I couldn't fully appreciate the struggle he was up against.

Ruby, a stalwart bridge between the siblings, an interpreter, spokesperson and public relations officer for her youngest boy, learnt of Molly's chipping interference.

'What do you know of our lives up here? You left! Why does he need to drive? To go where? A woman? A wife? What would he do with one of them? He gets everything he needs from me. I look after him and no woman could ever love him like I do.'

My mother applied undeniable reason to the equation. 'He needs his own life. His own family! Malcolm has to feel like he's living, he can't be waiting for you outside the bingo hall for the rest of his days. Daddy's dead and Malcolm can't take his place.'

'You don't know what you're talking about! You've always been a selfish stuck-up little madam with no inkling of family values! You were out the door before my Jack had even turned cold!'

Malcolm laboured away in a tailor's shop for forty years. When they decided Malcolm's services were superfluous to the requirements of the business the owner, Singer, shut up shop, shifting the enterprise to Birmingham's heart. Fearful of the level of redundancy pay he might have to fork out to such a loyal employee with an impeccable record of conduct and only two sick days to his name Singer vowed to make Malcolm's working life impossible. He was confident that Malcolm would never have the heart or even the notion to take legal action for constructive dismissal against a boss who had indirectly kept him and his wasting mother fed and housed for close to half a century. Together with Singer Junior they prodded and jibed at Uncle Malcolm, slighting and goading him, determined to break him. He wasn't a bad lad. They knew that much. A tad slow perhaps but friendly and efficient. Not a complainer and the Old Dears simply adored him. But times had changed. Nothing personal about the conspiracy but a slicker image was needed. Rising at five am, Malcolm pushed on for another year, commuting to the Midlands, returning exhausted. Molly begged him to sue or at least to let her have a word with Singer but Malcolm would have none of it and he resigned, citing Ruby's health as the motive for his exit. The subject of Uncle Malcolm's treatment at the hands of the Singers was the one and only topic on which my mother and Gran were in perfect unison.

*
Women had always been attracted to Malcolm's rambling ways, to his floppy schoolboy fringe and ruddy cheeks. Eve was the great love. A pretty just-qualified nurse with eyes of emerald marble. Strawberry-blonde locks, a slight scar on the back of her neck from a childhood incident. Slim and elegant with flour-soft skin. She wore long, patterned feminine dresses out of sync with emerging punk. A favouring of the Abba models over Westwood. Underneath those dresses: milky-cream thighs capable of making my Sad Uncle Malcolm reach plateaus of calm exultation he had never imagined possible. But never in his own home. They would sneak into Eve's quarters but Malcolm would never stay the whole night and when he got home Ruby would be up waiting for him. A strong and sensible girl, adoring of Malcolm's gentle manner she resigned herself early on to the closeness of the mother and son bond but was firm enough not to be broken down by Ruby's wicked tongue and general disapproval of the whole affair. Or so she thought. First came the remarks on her appearance, subtle enough to fly beyond Malcolm's ears, ambiguous enough to make Eve question herself. Whether such commentary on her was reproach or an old woman's careless speech or even a misunderstanding on her own part, it served to put Eve ill at ease. Doubts as to Ruby's long-term intentions soon dissolved. Ruby became openly hostile in her scorn. She invited herself along on evenings out. The two young lovers at the ice rink watched coolly by Mother Bates from the side, sipping at her over-brewed tea, eyes centered. Plotting, setting the course. On occasion, she linked up with them on the ice, gliding her portly frame between the severed couple. A look of love to her finest man. How wonderful this was. The three of them out like this. Just perfect. A sharp stare to her left, to the family-breaking harlot.

Eve was too shrewd to raise the problem with Malcolm, worried she might drive him away and knowing he was not strong enough to confront his mother. Her own game was to sit it out, to make Ruby understand she wouldn't be scared off by the knocks. Maybe Ruby would give up and come to accept this inoffensive child who wanted only good things for her boy.

Eve could not have been more wrong. She had not been told of the drinking and why the other girls had not hung around for very long. The calls to the nursing quarters always came late at night. At first she remained anonymous. Eve would be awakened by the resident porter at St. Anne's at about three a.m. with a loud and unsociable knock followed by:

'Phone'. It's for you! Some old crow.' Eve would be thrown into an instant panic. Maybe something had happened to her little brother, Tom, or to her parents or even to Malcolm. But a pattern was formed and eventually the porter was instructed to hang up on any calls taken for her at that hour.

The line would convey wheezed breathing, a low murmured incomprehensible cackle. As the caller seemed so distressed Eve would beg to know who was calling, was something wrong, had someone been hurt? Eve was not yet prepared to accede to the notion that these late night visits could be the work of Malcolm's nearest and dearest. The caller did not identify herself and promptly hung up.

On the third or fourth occasion Ruby made herself known. Eve had never heard such language from an old lady, never encountered so many vicious insults within the same sentence and never before had such venom been directed towards her. Ruby was paralytic. The drinking usually began once Malcolm had retired to his room. The alcoholic hate poured into the phone, along the wires, up the overhead cables, shaking the pigeons from their perch, traversing huge steel pylons, down the caber-thick poles, in search of its quest. The rank smell of one woman's bitterness, of her resolutely steadfast determination, flooded out of the plastic-green receiver and into Eve's tiny ear, spreading like lava into her well-meaning person and freezing her to the spot.

'Why are you doing this to me?' sobbed Eve but her cries only spurred the old tyrant on.

When Eve stopped accepting the calls, she also terminated her visits to the Guzman house and began to see Malcolm more infrequently. I cannot believe my uncle did not know what was happening but his constitution would not permit him to vocalise what he knew to be true. He mutely, but with good grace, accepted Eve's excuses of an overburdened work schedule, a problem with Tom and more regular trips to her aging parents.

This did not mean that the calls stopped. Ruby had to plough on while ahead. If anything, they became more than occasional and the poor porter had to suffer the drunken invective despite his nightly insistence that he had never heard of an Eve Nester. Eventually, the residence changed its number, listing it as ex-directory and Eve was severely reproached via vocal and written warnings from her Matron for the uncouth company she had taken up with.

Eve met with Malcolm one last time, recounting all that had taken place. He said that he understood, that it was too late for him to do anything about his life, that he had to accept what was in store for him, that he would always love her but that he could not come with Eve. He had already known what was coming from the urgency in Eve's usually docile voice when she had telephoned to make this last minute, hasty appointment. For once, Malcolm was the stronger of the two. He comforted her, stroked her hair, undid her plaits and kissed away her salty wetness. But the water kept coming and eventually she broke away from his embrace, quickly adjusting her green-felt beret before breaking into a conclusive run. She did not look back. Once again, Malcolm found himself on the south pier, spat upon by life's natural and conspiratorial elements.

*

I was very fond of Gran. She introduced me to drink. When she visited, there were times when my parents had to leave her to her own devices. They would not run the risk of her being found out of her mind and maybe even out of her clothes in their own neighbourhood. In the holidays, Ruby was indirectly entrusted to my care. There were no shops you could reach from the house on foot and Ruby couldn't walk too far anyhow. But there was drink in the house. And plenty of it! The day before her bus pulled into Euston Station the abundant mahogany drinks cabinet would disappear. My father and brother would carry the mobile saloon to the top of stairs. Dad would curse his alcoholic mother-in-law. My mother would beg him to be more understanding:

'It's an illness! She's sick and heartbroken! She doesn't really have a choice. Please try to understand.'

In the process a few bottles were always smashed and they tended to be my father's favourite tipples. I would giggle nervously. Standing on the sidelines I awaited my own passive involvement. The clanky iron loft ladder would be let down and the cabinet, chipped to a standard of high woodworm abuse from years of ritual movement, was hauled up into the attic for as long as Ruby stayed. My parents could not bring themselves to part with the bottles themselves for too long and the journey into the loft space was too much of a chore. For several summers following my eleventh birthday the drink found itself a cosy little home at the back of my Tardis-sized, snot-green wardrobe. My brother looked greedily on. Although he was the elder I was without doubt the more trustworthy. He would have fed the poison to her through a megaphone for the hell of it. I was instructed most carefully never to allow access to the source however desperate Ruby might plead. A giant padlock was placed on my door and a spare key ceremoniously presented to my little person as if Gran's survival depended on my good sense. If nothing else, my brother was prevented, for these short spates, from ransacking my room and slashing up my comics although he more than made up for these periods of respite once the borders were reopened.

I am pleased to say that such proximity between my bed and vast quantities of alcohol has never been repeated. Not even during those heady student days. Having Ruby to stay increased my parents' own longing for the silvery river. Often, they would barricade themselves in my room, separately or else one would come looking for the other. I would be in bed and they would sit with their backs against my radiator. Between large gulps I would make out Dad's complaints, my mother's pain. Once, while I lay tucked under the covers, trying to ignore their barely concealed conversation and get some sleep, everything went deathly quiet. Yet when I actually attempted to make some sense from the unexpected silence I heard the sound of a wet fish being slapped down on a soft receptive surface over and over, the noise of a pounding heart to the ear of a stethoscope, the hurry of clothes being removed in a hurry, at the excitement of a leap into the turquoise Aegean sea. Uneven, almost asthmatic, breathing. First measured, then quicker and quicker. I knew not to peek my head from beneath those sheets. Despite my curiosity I laboured to keep my innocence intact.

Ruby was not unintelligent. She came to know of the deal struck between my parents and me. A closer eye on my brother, Raymond, added protection from him and more severe punishments for him at least for the duration of Ruby's stay. Then there was the door lock and some extra bits of pocket money if at the end of the week Gran had managed to maintain seven uninterrupted days of sobriety. Ruby offered me a not ungenerous deal which took on a three day negotiation involving several counter-offers from both sides and the tweaking of certain points of the final accord. During the talks my grandmother subjected me to much name-calling and once or twice mentioned the chance of my getting to feel her back hand. Raymond was alert to our huddled conferences but never came to know of their content. Ruby was the only living person Raymond was genuinely terrified of. Ever since he learnt the word tramp off an American boy from school and used it as a term of non-endearment in a head-to-head encounter with Ruby he was convinced she had put the bad eye on him. Ruby had cursed her own grandson and Raymond stayed clear.

I knew I had nothing to lose by standing firm with Ruby as I still had the arrangement with my parents to fall back on whereas, with each hour that passed, Ruby was becoming more and more desperate for a drink. These were the terms we settled on sometime around 11am on Wednesday 9th July 1984:

The Seven Commandments

1. If she were to be caught I was to deny all knowledge. I had played no part in Gran's alcohol procurement mission. She would say she had stolen the key from my pyjama belt whilst I slept.
2. She was only allowed to drink small, measured levels. Enough to relax her but not so much as to ensure detection from my parents or to arouse Raymond's suspicion.
3. Only Vodka would be permitted. I had read that it had no smell.
4. Hearty meals, prepared by my good self, to soak up the drink.
5. Half of Ruby's weekly pension would be handed over to me. (I was called a thieving little shit for that one)
6. Ruby would protect me from Raymond even to the point of slapping him down. I knew my brother would more than make up for this once the holidays were over but I was prepared to deal with that when the time came.
7. Together with my best friend Darren, I would be allowed little tasters of the full range of drinks. I wished to acquire a taste. Gran said she didn't want me turning out like her (fat chance of that I said for which I had my ears boxed) but I suspect that it just killed her to watch Darren (whom she found incorrigible) and I take elegant samplings of her favoured Ports and Sherries while she was left the scraps of a neat and nasty vodka blend.

We got away with it. We actually got away with it. For three weeks over the course of four consecutive summers Gran and I (and sometimes Darren) sat up in my little room and locked ourselves in from the inside. Nobody overstepped the mark. Darren would have but I didn't let him. I never had to reel Ruby in either. She would take of her allocated shots and declare that she was done for the day.

*

She wasn't long for this world. My mother and I had been sitting to the right of the bed for over two hours. Malcolm was at home. A trip to the hospital would have proved too much for him. We'd had three char-breaks already and several boredom-relieving trips to the lavatory. The nurse continued to potter around my almost dead Gran and I noticed that my mother had nodded off in her white plastic perch chair. Her chin resting in her palm, a globule of wet lone-waltzed on the flesh. She woke herself up every so often rather than fall face-flat on the floor.

I stared at my lifeless relation. So much hate and bitterness had taken refuge in this pathetic body. I thought of all the times I had accompanied my mother to Blackpool, when the doctors had called to say that Ruby had collapsed dead-drunk on the street again. I thought of my walks on the wind-full heath in Bispham, the reward of a walkman and a Beach Boys cassette for the company I bestowed on Molly; and the hushed murmurings of the adult ladies whenever I was near.

All of a sudden Nurse Simone reached down to Ruby. Taking her left wrist in her hand she checked for a pulse. Very calmly, she replaced the wrist on the bed and walked over to us. I nudged my mother, urging her to wake up properly. The nurse cleared her throat and looked directly in my mother's wondering eyes. Then she turned her gaze upon me, as if I was entrusted with the role of strong filial rock. Nurse Simone seemed to be regarding us with pity and at the same time carried an air of inevitable doom about her. The words could not help but come out in those brash tones of hers:

'I'm afraid she's gone pet'. Nurse Simone reached past my chair to sandwich my mother's hands between the clamminess of her own.

Gran's eyelids had shut before her apparent death: from the drugs, the idleness or despair at socialising with visitors and staff alike; but Nurse Simone was trained at the Kildare school of Nursing and she gently ran her left hand over Ruby's eyes to ensure a soft farewell. Gran did not appreciate the disturbance. She jolted up for one last rebellion, her body raised and arched while convulsing. Her eyes were wide open, sucking in the landscape of the whole room and its subjects. Then she slumped back down dead. Her eyes remained wickedly open. This grotesque episode had caused Nurse Simone to bolt away, reeling from this unwanted visitation. Simone's flooded pupils implored my mother for forgiveness.

'I can't explain it! I swear she had no pulse, it must have been some sort of post-mortem spasm. I'm ever so sorry pet.'

At first I didn't know what the noise was supposed to meant. Was my mother sobbing from the loss, from all the hatred of the past? Then it dawned on me that she was trying to bury her giggles, her fist virtually rammed in her mouth to muffle the laughter. I unwrapped her fist and took her hand between both of mine and said:
'It's ok to let it out now. Please let it go Mum'. We should have expected nothing else of Ruby, a fighter to the final, the world's most formidable last-liner. We took a pin to the stale tension and we began to laugh out loud. Raucous, belly-full howls. My mother looked happy and peaceful. I hoped she would now be able to rest. And I wished the same for Ruby.
My mother wiped her eyes and, between breaths and chortles, she spoke to Nurse Simone:

'Don't worry yourself pet, I'm sure it happens all the time' Nurse Simone looked at her like she was half-baked and took to leave the room but my mother stopped her, addressing her rather abruptly:

'Excuse me Miss, surely you're not going to leave her like that. Can you please attend to my mother's eyes, surely you don't expect me to have any gold sovereigns handy?' Nurse Simone retraced her steps to the bed. She stared at the corpse with abject horror. She appeared to be muttering a kind of prayer under her breath. Before Nurse Simone had gone three steps my mother once again burst into furious laughter. Taking my cue, I emitted crazy-sounding shrieks of rapture. Nurse Simone scowled at us like we were the sickest family duo she had ever had the misfortune to come across and she hot-footed it out of the room. The door slammed and we heard her rushed footsteps and sobs echo from the adjoining corridor.

*
Malcolm was inconsolable. Released from a lifetime of torment he reminded me of that prisoner from The Shawshank Redemption, the one they labelled institutionalised. Left alone to fend for himself without the false comfort of imposed discipline and draconian rules he saw no reason to live, opting for the swinging from the rafters route. Thinking of that small Italo-American character and looking at Uncle Malcolm I had to wonder what there had been to live for when inside the inescapable labyrinth. What kept them going? The dream of escape without the horror of its reality? I hoped Malcolm would not share the little man's fate.

We didn't laugh in front of Malcolm. We got on with arranging the funeral, settling debts, clearing out the one bank account. My father dragged my brother up from London and we presented ourselves as a formidable family unit. Malcolm insisted that Ruby wanted a Jewish burial. We had already met with Rabbi Herschom at St Mary's Hospital. He had appeared very quickly on the scene after Gran had been officially pronounced. His bedside manner infuriated me. Herschom was more interested in my mother's links to the Jewish community in Manchester and the legitimacy of her Jewish claim than in acting as a pivotal role of consolation. On account of Ruby's Catholic start in life, we were told we would have to present her original conversion certificate, even for a mere Reform synagogue send-off rather than an Orthadox ceremony. Knowing Gran to despise all remnants of sentimentality we thought the task an impossible one but when we conveyed the news to Malcolm he simply opened up the middle drawer of the welsh dresser and brought out the pristinely maintained and beautifully embossed document.

*
Ruby hadn't left enough money to pay for her own burial. She wasn't far off though and my father agreed, without fuss, to settle the balance.

It may have been August and this might have been the seaside but it was a cold, blustery day. My mother contacted Ruby's one surviving and elder sister to tell her of her little sister's passing but Great Auntie Rose was too sick to attend the send-off. Rose and Ruby hadn't exchanged words in twenty-five years and she was the only member of her old family with whom Ruby hadn't in fact fallen out. She lived all of 200 meters away and when the subject of a visit had been broached Ruby had responded with characteristic rigour:
'Well, she knows where I am! She can come and see me, can't she!'
'She's five years older than you Mum and she's very poorly. You still have your health, thank God' pleaded Molly.

But that was the end of that.

The service was short, intentionally kept so by Rabbi Herschom who muttered a few insincere words about loss and redemption. The funeral did not seem particularly Jewish but, then again, I didn't know what to expect having never attended one before. I certainly hadn't realised funerals were such hard work. My father, a hired pall-bearer (Raymond had not wanted to dirty his new suit), Malcolm and I had to carry the coffin to the freshly dug grave, my poor left shoulder agonising under its crushing weight. I made an instant connection between the amount of money left behind by Ruby, the scale of my father's contribution and the stench of paucity surrounding this sorry event.

A substantial mound of earth surrounded the hole into which the coffin was to be lowered. The dirt lay heaped on the grave's eastern and western borders alike. The journey to the hole was short. Out of the service room of the synagogue, past a dozen or so ground inhabitants. Fortunately, we were conducted by the Pall-Man who, with his thick-set build and decades-old experience was able to compensate for the clumsiness of the rest of us. More than once did I feel my side of the wooden chest slipping from my feeble grasp and, to cap it all, the wind kept on trying to steal my skullcap. My mother had given pins to the others but had run out by the time she got to me. My hand would intermittently sail to my head to steady the round cloth (patterned in an alluring blue and white silk) and I would begin losing grip of my part of Ruby. Pall-Man was sensitive to each and every stir and shake and his composure remained absolute. He managed to steer us to the hole and, without major incident, we gently placed Gran inside her new home.

We spread ourselves around the grave to make it look (to ourselves) as if there were more attendees. We were a solemn and sorry bunch. My brother was plain bored, my father dutiful and my mother looked as if she just wanted the whole matter over with. Malcolm remained the most distraught. Herschom said a few final words which I did not catch. I was still paying a great deal of attention to my hat which the wind would not leave alone despite my inner pleadings. I caught the rabbi gesturing to me out of the corner of my eye and I looked up and towards him. He was definitely smirking and in his left hand he was holding a gargantuan metal spade which he thrust towards me. I had no idea what was going on until I saw the Pall-Man. To the other side of the hole he was already scooping up some of the earth, heaving it down onto Ruby's ceiling. It fell with a thud and to my right I heard my mother mutter: ' Go on! Dig!' All eyes were on me.

Surely this wasn't happening. Why was it always me? Why couldn't that lump of a sibling ever pull his weight? How cheap could the funeral have been?

I took the spade from Herschom which, thankfully, I was able to lift. I clumsily began to shovel small amounts of dirt onto my grandmother's roof. At this rate I would be there all night. Pall-Man had already relieved himself of half his burden. He had a rhythm going, a fast and hypnotic pace. In my anguish and distraction I forgot all about my cap. The wind snatched it up and spat it into the hole with a howling glee. It came to rest on the uppermost part of the coffin. Nobody said a word. My father seemed to be feeling into his pocket for his pipe. I felt my mother's eyes boring into me and I dared not look in the direction of the rabbi. Even Pall-Man stood transfixed to his spot, his spade halfway through a downward motion. Only Malcolm, dear, Sad Uncle Malcolm reacted appropriately.

Malcolm lifted himself slowly into the tunnel. He retrieved the wandering headgear and hoisted himself out with his forearms. Malcolm came over to me, fingering the cap as he walked. He placed it on my head, steadying it in its place. He removed the pin from his own head and put his cap into his suit's inner pocket. Malcolm secured the pin to my garment and pinched my scarlet cheek.

'I'll finish off here. Please. Everybody. Go inside. Into the warmth. You too Rabbi!' beseeched Uncle Malcolm. Herschom didn't need asking a second time. My mother and I sought confirmation in the other's face that her brother's wishes should be respected. By the time the rest of us (including Pall-Man) had reached the inner rooms of the synagogue the Rabbi was nowhere to be seen. I was the last to go in, having held back slightly. Taking the glass swing-door in my grasp, that my mother had kept open for me, I turned around to look at my Uncle. Malcolm had taken my spade and was launching the remaining dirt into the grave. Perfectly executed short, sharp strokes of such violent and uncharacteristic vigour that I would never have attributed to him.