Toby Brooks Is Dead

I died at the age of twenty eight. No one knew that till the funeral. Mum and Dad must have known I suppose. Everyone else thought I was ten years older. ‘So young’, they would have said. Thirty eight is young enough, I’ll stick with that thanks. No need to rub it in.

I remember Dad standing over me in the bathroom. I had the shower curtain in my hand, the shower rail clanking against the rim of the bath as my hand shook. I could see a trail of brick dust below the hole where the rail had been ripped out as I had dropped to the floor. Dad turned on a tap, filled a tumbler and chucked it over my face. I closed my eyes. I could still see him. Now he was bollock naked leaning against the railings of the only house he had ever lived in. He was smiling. The milkman walked past and they smiled and nodded to each other. My mum came out of the front door and put two milk bottles on the doorstep. She looked at Dad. He turned his head half towards her. She shuffled back inside and closed the front door.

I opened my eyes. Dad was over me still. This time he was crouching down and talking to me. I couldn’t make out the words. He was angry. His eyes were half clenched; his neck muscles rose and fell with each burst of speech. I tried to say something back. My mouth turned into a downward half moon shape but nothing came out. My eyes closed.

I don’t remember most of my life. It feels like I was born one day and died a week later. Maybe that’s how everyone feels when they go. The gap between sliding out of your mum into the world and sliding out into a box is nothing at all. I don’t remember having a job, a girlfriend, a holiday, a house. Something must have happened in twenty eight years. I’m just tired. Rest in peace they say when someone dies. I haven’t rested yet. I don’t sleep anymore; I’m always just half awake. When I’ve slept I’ll feel better. Maybe my life will come back to me.

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Mr Brooks loved his clock. He loved to refer to it as a ‘long case clock’ and sulked when someone referred to it as a grandfather. His father had bought it when he was a child. Mr Brooks had only been vaguely aware of its presence in the house when young and it was only after his father died that he began to pay it any attention. Now, sat at the dining room table, his eyes swept up the mahogany inlay until they came to rest on its big white face. The boiled egg in front of him waited for the hovering spoon to cave its perfect head in. Mr Brooks was waiting for nine o clock.

Mrs Brooks seemed to sneak into the dining room and sat at the far end of the table from her husband. She placed a plate of toast between them and contemplated her own intact egg. Her head remained bowed to the expectant oval below her as the clock chimed the hour. On the ninth bell, Mr Brooks whipped his spoon down onto his egg and Mrs Brooks recoiled slightly, as if fearing that she might be next.

Soon, the eggs were efficiently disembowelled and Mrs Brooks cleared the plates with the earnestness of a priest post communion. Mr Brooks sat upright in his chair and unfolded the paper. The clock kept a steady beat over the room. Mr Brooks squinted at the columns of print as if looking for a clue that would enlighten the beginning of his day.

Mr Brooks carried on interrogating the words in front of him as his wife silently circled, flicking ornaments with a duster and polishing imagined blemishes on the vast dining table.

‘I suppose he’s still in bed?’ Mr Brook’s eyes stayed focused on the page as he spoke.
‘Yes.’ Mrs Brooks stopped waving the duster for a beat as she answered.
Mr Brooks pursed his lips as if to speak. Instead he shook his head and turned to an inside page.
‘Shall I wake him?’ Mrs Brooks asked.
‘No. He’s missed breakfast. He knows full well what time we eat in this house.’
‘I’m not sure he eats much in the morning-doesn’t agree with him.’
Mr Brooks took his eyes from the paper and looked at his wife.
‘That’s really not the point Cecilia. We provide him with the option of a breakfast; he should at least have the decency to come to the table, even if it is only to decline the offer.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose so’ replied Mrs Brooks. She knew her husband had had breakfast at the same time every day since is retirement (an hour earlier when he had been working). She knew that any remonstration on behalf of her son was futile. She withdrew to the kitchen, folded the duster neatly and put it under the sink.

Mrs Brooks tapped gently on the bedroom door. She pushed it gently open. Her son was lying on his side facing her. He was fully dressed and the collar of his shirt had ridden up to engulf the sides of his sleeping face. Mrs Brooks stepped into the room and stood a few feet from the bed.
‘Darling.’ She whispered, stooping slightly as if to direct the word directly into his ear. There was no reaction, so she stepped a stride closer. She rested her hand on his upper arm and spoke again.
‘Alistair, darling’
Her son’s head retreated an inch deeper into his shirt and one eyelid fluttered before coming to rest again full closed. He rubbed his lips together. Mrs Brooks smiled as sweetly as if he had just slid from her womb again. His eyes both opened at once. Mrs Brooks was still smiling and his mouth tried to reciprocate.

‘I’ll make you a nice cup of tea, shall I?’ Mrs Brooks stroked his arm and tilted her head towards him in anticipation of an answer. He nodded from within his shirt.
‘Ok, I’ll go and put the kettle on’, Mrs Brooks straightened herself and smoothed down her dress with both hands, ‘Why don’t you have a nice bath? Ever so soothing a bath in the morning sets you right up for the day.’ Mrs Brooks turned to leave the room as her son raised himself up onto an elbow. She half smiled at him and closed the door behind her.

The tea sat on the table between Mr and Mrs Brooks. She turned her head slightly as the echo of footsteps on the stairs came from above them. The front door opened and closed from behind the hall wall. Mrs Brooks looked at the steam above the cup and then at her husband.

It was only a five minute walk from the front door to the park. He pushed the heavy iron gate open and stepped into a patch of sunlight. He wrestled with his shirt, trying to find a spot to settle within it. He saw two of the gardeners opening the tool store by the far gate. One was rolling a cigarette and as he put it to his mouth, he waved across the park, smiling.
‘Hey Toby man! How’s it going?’

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Justine sat on her usual bench. The municipal gardeners sat in a patch of sun by the park hut. An errant cat from one of the square’s houses sauntered out from behind a shrub and lay prostrate on the path that encircled the lawns. The gardeners were not gardening-they smoked, laughed, read the paper, and chatted. Justine felt the waft of last night’s football, Golden Virginia and the sexual predilections of Zoë from the Black Lion. Her flowers were doing their lunchtime parade; still but for the wisps of breeze that rocked them gently. Justine smiled at the spring rug of colour that was unfurled at her feet. The mediocrity of her life seemed like another time, a hazed memory from childhood where the details had been smudged and the faces smattered with pixels.

The gardeners were on their feet, puffing out chests and reaching for tools. Justine looked at her watch. Everyone’s lunchtime was simultaneously over. Her flowers would continue parading, though she would not be there to see them. As she stood, she took one last look at them. Over her shoulder there was a man. He was crouched down at the edge of the floral ring. His red, checked lumberjack shirt, that seemed as if it was meant for someone taller and stronger, clashed inelegantly with the yellow and white petals below him. Justine stopped, mid stride and watched him. He was smiling, no, beaming at the flowers. His face was nearly as red as his big shirt and it was blotched and pitted. Justine, usually so protective of her spot in the park, looked on with a half smile. This man, with his greasy hair, tired eyes, scarlet skin and shirt was given permission to be the custodian of this place-at least till next time.