Father's Day

Chapter One.

I shift where I'm standing and shield my eyes. Sunlight is dazzling on
the windscreen. I lock up my car and the metal is hot under my fingers.
I check my watch. The gardens really are peaceful, laid out carefully
to mimic an ideal English woodland. Established trees and areas of
interest to Botanists. Manicured pathways that lead to secluded areas
called 'Bluebell Glade' or 'The Copse'. A discreet wooded sign points
the way to 'A place of remembrance' and I find that I am remembering
and that things I can remember are painful.
The wind is fresh but the smell of flowers is everywhere, a cloying
odour of wet petals. My suit feels tight and my shirt collar chafes
against the skin of my throat. I glance at my watch but don't register
the time then I make my way towards the building. It's in an ugly
structure, built in the 60's, flat roofs and a factory chimney quite at
odd the leafy surroundings. The pale bricks that put me in mind of my
schooldays. Institutional in a suburban way. A small-town austerity.
The swing doors that open onto the chapel are bright with reflected
sunlight and the place is cheerfully municipal. This is no place for
this kind of funeral and I feel cheated, wanting something grander. I
walk lightly up the steps, my shoes making brisk rhythms on the red
tiles. In the anteroom, a book lies open on the table at a page marked
with today's date. The names of the dead are inscribed in Baroque
typescript. I peer at the page and feel the blood thump in my head. My
father's name is not there but I know that soon it will be. I
straighten up, breathe in, think about lighting a cigarette, wondering
if they will be late.
They. The word is resonant with separation. 'They' are other,
different from me. Yet they are coming to bury their dead too. Our
dead. And in this rite of grief we find ourselves united for the first
time in years. Their cars draw up. Doors open and they get out,
straightening their smart, mourning clothes. Uncle Qwyn. The two
Rosalinds. Sylvia and Aunt Mary. Their faces are hollow but they are
much the same as I remember them. I stand at a distance as they walk
towards the chapel.

The pall-bearers are professionals. With expert sadness, they slide
the coffin out of the hearse onto the waiting trolley. It teeters
momentarily and they steady it, faces betraying no trace of alarm. I
feel like laughing as they wheel it towards the chapel doors. The wood
is cheap and heavily varnished. A couple of inexpensive wreaths litter
the lid. All I see are surfaces, exteriors. It seems impossible to me
that my dad could be inside this narrow box. My dad, whose body had
been so dense with life, so big with beer and rage. So I stare at the
shiny brass handles, at the white envelope stuck amongst the roses, and
imagine no interior, no silk-lined silence within. No sweetness of
decay.

My brother gets out of the second car. Thinner, older than I remember,
grief sharpening his features. He's staring at the coffin too and
Diane, his new wife lays a pale hand on his shoulder. They move slowly,
almost shuffling, towards the swing doors. I breathe deeply and walk
towards them.

Diane sees me first, looking uncomfortable and adjusting her modish
hat.

'Hello Mathew.' She talks to me as if she's known me for years, as if
her life is as much a part of mine as my brother's. I kiss her cool
cheek lightly and conceal my dislike. She nudges him, whispers
'Jonathan' under her breath. He looks at me in a way I remember from
when we were kids.

'Hello, Mat. I wasn't sure if you'd turn up.' His voice is soft. Not
much more than a whisper. He and dad were always close.

'I wanted to come. I -'

We embrace awkwardly, not sure how to touch each other.

'I'm glad. After everything. He'd be pleased.'

I bridle, sure that I don't want to please him. My father. Mine more
than my brother's. Old rebelliousness twists in me but Jonathan's eyes
are red-rimmed and there's blood on his chin from shaving carelessly.
He's fragile and all I want to do is help him.

'Mum didn't come then?'

'No, I don't think she knew what to do so...'

'She should have come. They were married for 26 years.'

I hear anger in the sadness and I wonder about the roads that led us
here. I look at his face and see in it the boys face. An image of a
Penzance beach flashes into my mind. A wild blue sea. A mile of sand.
He runs towards me with the yellow bucket full of sea water. We build a
castle more complex than any other. I hear the organ playing from
inside the chapel.

'I think we should go in.'

The air in the chapel smells of furniture. The floor is a polished wood
that makes me think of suburban homes. I see faces familiar from my
childhood. Cousins, a few my father's Navy friends. It's not a big turn
out and I feel something like gratification. They sit in groups and
there are large spaces between them. They look like strangers. Someone
coughs and there is some shuffling. The organ makes heavy work out of
'Abide with Me' and I think about how mundane it all is. How strange it
is that something so significant should come such an dull end. We take
our places at the front. The coffin is a few feet way from me lying on
something that looks like a display case. Everything here looks like it
belongs somewhere else. Everything here looks cheap. A white-haired man
in ecclesiastical dress approaches the lectern and the ritual begins.
There is a pause and in the expectant quiet I hear the cries of
seagulls. He mouths the valediction and I don't recognise the man he
describes.

......................................................

My 14th birthday. The sun bright as it always seemed to be on my
birthday. I was in the garden. I lay on my back on the grass staring up
at the sky, watching a veil of broken drift in the blue. The sound of
the breeze was soft in the willow and there was a smell of cut grass,
of turned earth, that made me languid. I'd abandoned my 'Asimov' and
turned the radio up. I took off my new blue shirt, rolled it into a
ball and rested my head on it. Clouds passed overhead and the sun was
hot on my face. I lay for a long time letting the music from the radio
flow over me: David Bowie doing 'Let's Dance'. I imagined myself a rock
star.
Then the peace was interrupted. From somewhere behind there was a
commotion. The shriek of birds. A sudden movement in the conifers
beyond the rockery. I sat up and stared through the swaying branches of
the willow and saw something moving on the ground. Standing up and
brushing the grass from my pants, I walked towards the long grass to
check it out. A fledgling struggled in the undergrowth having fallen
from a nest in the tree. It was quite large, eyes open and staring
fearfully, but its skin was pink and downy still. I knew it was broken
inside and would die soon but something in me couldn't abandon it. I
knelt down and pressed the grass around it into a kind of nest. When my
fingers brushed against it, it opened its beak and let out tiny calls,
moving all the time, weakly flapping naked wings.
I ran to the house for milk and bread, mixing them into a gruel and
bringing it back across the garden in a saucer. Kneeling down next to
the fledgling and laying the saucer nearby, I peered into the little
face, cooing softly, encouraging it to eat.

'What's that you're doing?' It was my dad. I glanced back towards the
house and saw him framed in the kitchen door. He looked exhausted, his
dressing-gown hanging open to reveal the sallow roundness of his
stomach.

'I'm looking after this bird. It's fallen out the tree and -'

'You're wasting your time. They always die.'

My eyes were on the fledgling but my thoughts were with my dad.

' It looks quite strong.' I said, 'If you come and look at it you can
see...'

When I looked, he'd gone. I shifted where I crouched, feeling a mixture
of disappointment and relief. The bird shivered and mewled at my feet.
The bread and milk were untouched.
I found the box in the shed. A small wooden crate that might have come
from a fruit shop. I took some of the straw I was saving for the
tortoise and lined the box, carrying it back across the lawn. The dad
had come back. He was dressed now, a can of Heineken in his hand He
looked at me almost curiously.

'So what are you trying to do? Save it?'

I was wary, scanning his face to read his mood. He smelled unwashed. He
stepped closer and his shadow fells across me. I wanted to please him
then. Words fell out of my mouth.

'Its quite strong so It may have a chance. Never know, do you?'

'And you're gonna put it in this box?' His voice was soft,
friendly.

'Overnight maybe. The shed might be a good place.'

He looked hard at me. His brown eyes had threads of red in the white.
There was a silence.

'Maybe you're right' He looked down at the bird lying quite still now
in the grass. Relief flooded me. 'But you'll need to make some fresh
food. They like it fresh.'

'Yeah. Sure.'

Filled with the excitement of a shared project, I handed the box to my
Dad and bounded back to the house. The bread was where I'd left it on
the table. I cut a slice and crumbled some of it into my palms. I
opened the fridge to get the last of the milk. I could hear something,
a rhythmic sound from the garden, but paid no attention to it. Pouring
a little milk into the saucer and mixing it into a paste, I found I was
humming the Bowie track. Then I strode through the kitchen door and
across the grass. My father had his back to me and was busy with
something and I wondered what he was doing. I got closer and saw he was
digging. His rounded body bent into the work. I approached him
tentatively, the saucer cool in my hand. He'd dug a hole. A shallow
pit. He turned to me smiling.

'Don't wanna waste any more of your time on stuff like this.'

'What are you doing?'

Quickly, he dipped down, taking the wounded bird tightly in his fist
then dumping it in the hole. I could here it calling feebly as the
first sod fell on it. I watched in a kind of amazement, the saucer of
food still in my hands. He threw more earth into the hole and the bird
flinched, the trembling wings still visible. I watched, my stomaching
tightening, my voice trapped in my throat as if I were dreaming. After
a few minutes the hole was covered. He laid the spade on the grass and
brushed some dirt from his palms.

'What time are you going out tonight?'

'What?'

'It's your birthday isn't it?'

I thought of the cards in a row on the mantelpiece, of the books and
records still in their bright wrappings.

'I think the table's booked for seven.'

'You'd better get your skates on then.'

He sauntered back to the house and closed the door behind him.

.......................................................

At some pre-arranged moment, the Vicar presses a button on the
underside of the lectern. The organ reaches a crescendo and the coffin
begins to move. Rolling slowly towards cheap velvet curtains. I
hesitate to think about what is beyond them. Aunt Mary is crying
quietly in the pew in front of mine.
Afterwards we gather in the ante room. Conversation is halting and
awkward. My uncle passes his old man's fingers through course grey hair
then pulls car keys from his pocket. Sylvia smiles at me and I notice
flecks of pink lipstick on her teeth. She seems about to speak to me so
I step way and head for the door, breathing deeply. glad that it's all
over. The air outside is clean, summer warm. Smoke rises into the blue.
I don't look up but I know it's there. My father's ashes sent up into a
kingdom of air. A trail of slow-moving grey. I imagine gulls flying
through it, breathing him in. The paving stones feel gritty under my
feet. I look down and in the corner at the end of the terrace the red
tiles are spattered with bird shit.

.................................................