East Fortune (3 page)

Out in the streets the wind hit him for the first time; the early-summer air of a city that never stayed warm for long. He stopped at a florist in Nicholson Street. The floor was crowded with wedding sprays and funeral wreaths. White chrysanthemums spelled out the word ‘Elaine'.

He chose four bunches of white freesias and asked for them to be sent to the boy's home.

A film crew was shooting a period drama near by. Two men with cans of lager started a football chant every time the first assistant called ‘Action!' demanding £20 to go away.

Twenty quid, twenty quid, twenty quid!
Twenty quid, twenty quid, twenty qui-id,
Twenty quid, twenty quid, twenty quid,
Twenty QUI-ID, twenty quid.

He took the lift to his office in George Square and tried to keep to his routine: Roman authors in translation on Tuesdays, Latin every Wednesday, philosophy and set texts on Thursdays. He had organised his timetable so that even in term time he had a four-day weekend.

Jack knew that he had to try to stay calm, not letting the death affect him, but it returned with every passing police car, each ambulance siren, and with the sight of every solitary male figure waiting to cross the road in the distance. These were his daily reminders,
ne obliviscaris
: do not forget.

A few days later, amidst the bills and the junk mail on the doormat, he found a handwritten letter.

Dear Mr Henderson,

Thank you for your letter and the flowers. The funeral will be held next Thursday 19 May at Greyfriars Kirk at midday. If you would like to come you would be welcome. We appreciate your letter at this difficult time.

Yours sincerely,

Peter and Iona Crawford

He wondered if people would know who he was at the funeral and how many people he might have to tell. He could already imagine them pointing him out.

That's him.

Perhaps he could stand at the back without anyone noticing. But he would have to meet the parents; he would have to say something.

He wished Maggie was still with him or that he could persuade her to come. He could hardly ask one of the girls; Annie was travelling, Kirsty had her exams, and besides, then he would have to explain everything.

He did not want to worry them. He did not want to be blamed or face any kind of confrontation. That was why he had withdrawn in
the first place, he reminded himself. Now, it seemed, he had failed even at that.

Jack had forgotten that he had promised to go with his parents to a concert in the Queen's Hall. His mother called to remind him.

‘I noticed that you didn't write it down when I mentioned it.'

‘I've had a lot on.'

‘More than usual?'

‘No, it's not that.' He wasn't going to tell her on the telephone.

It was a concert of motets and madrigals. Jack had to pretend to like the music more than he did. He saw himself as more of a blood-and-thunder man: Beethoven. Mahler. Wagner.

‘They are a very good group of Americans,' his father was saying as they entered the Hall.

The audience was mostly retired. The spaces around the seats were cluttered with walking sticks, shopping and handbags. Jack caught himself wondering how often the people left their homes and how many more concerts they would be able to attend before they died.

The music consisted of love songs and laments; for lost love, lost youth, and lost opportunity. Perhaps, Jack thought, Sandy Crawford had been driven to distraction, and then death, by love. He began to imagine talking to a girl, or perhaps a boy, at the funeral: the survivor, the punished, the left behind.

As he listened to the music Jack thought of his friends who had never reached old age, struck down by breast cancer, AIDS and accident: Katy, Peter, Jan; now this boy. It was another marker in his life. A stop.

A woman with long dark hair stepped forward and began to sing how cruel and inexorable fate had coloured her sweet life. Jack knew that it was unhealthy to think that she was speaking directly to him when the words were random acts of coincidence. They could hardly have been
meant
but the music was saying what he could not.

He knew he should tell his parents what had happened and how he felt; that this recent disruption meant that he could not think of anything else. But how would he begin and how could they hope to understand?

Perhaps, Jack thought, it would be better to protect them from the news. They were old. They had seen enough disappointments. And Jack had surely lived long enough not to be a child to his parents any more; not to need mothering or fathering or for anyone to tell him that everything was going to be all right. In any case everything was not going to be all right. No one was going to kiss this better.

He tried to concentrate on the music. The singer was coming to the end of another lament. She was begging her lover to deign to remember all that they had shared. She could never forget him.

Si vous pri, que de moi vous voelle remenbrer,
Car je vous porroie oublier.

He returned home to discover that Maggie had telephoned. Jack worried that she was phoning about one of the girls, or money, or an unspecified anxiety he could do nothing to allay, but when he returned the call it appeared that she just wanted a chat.

‘What are you doing next Thursday? I'm going to be in Edinburgh. I've got a meeting at the Botanics.' Her tone was surprisingly cheerful. ‘I don't suppose you're free?'

‘I'm afraid not.'

‘What are you doing?'

‘Nothing. A long-standing engagement. A seminar.' He could hardly tell her it was a funeral.

‘Can't you change it?'

‘No. Why? Is it urgent?'

‘You normally can.'

‘Well, I can't change this.'

‘What is it? Are you all right? Has something happened?'

She had always been able to tell what he was thinking in the past but Jack would not confess.

‘No. Nothing has happened.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Of course I'm sure. And I have to be away in the afternoon.'

‘Oh well, another time. I'm glad you're going out. That's something.'

‘I don't stay in all day, you know. I still have a job.'

‘I know. But I don't want you spending too much time on your own. You know how you get…'

Jack was sure his wife had noticed the anxiety but he was prepared to say anything, however inadequate, rather than tell her what had happened.

He had been to enough funerals and was more familiar than he wanted to be with readings about people stepping out into the next room, or footsteps that had been with us all along. But death had never been his direct responsibility before.

The Minister spoke about the inevitability of human pain. He argued that suffering could make people strong, and that Sandy's death had been a kind of sacrifice. He had been a bright young man who had been unable to cope in the real world. The Minister talked about the delight of Sandy's jokes and his curiosity about the world before the loss of self-worth, the gradual closing; his silencing from all those around him.

They sang a hymn: ‘Jerusalem the Golden'. A man stood up and told the congregation that he had not only been Sandy's brother but also his best friend. He read the lyrics of a song Sandy had written:

All the things we've said
All the life we've led
Everything we've shared
Everything we've known

All the times we've loved
All the times we've fought
Everything we've shared
Everything we've known

Forgive me, forgive me,
I hadn't thought, I hadn't known
A life by myself, a whole life alone

Allan Crawford talked about Sandy as thoughtful and kind but also troubled by the carelessness of everyday life. He had seen
poverty and injustice and he wanted to fight and change it and he had tried to do too much of it on his own. He couldn't understand why people didn't think as he thought.

As he spoke Jack looked at a woman in the front row. It was either a relation or Sandy's girlfriend. Her hair was dark and swept back, severe more than sober, and she was wearing a black summer dress. It was as if she was no longer part of the world. Her eyes were dulled but not red. Jack wondered if she was on medication.

He thought of the suicides he knew from history; the urging on to silence when death became a need, a desire beyond all other: behaviour that could not be redirected, a silencing.

After the blessing the congregation left to the sound of ‘American Pie'.

This will be the day that I die.

There was a wake at the house in Drummond Place. Jack had said that he didn't want to trouble them but Sandy's father had insisted that he come. It was like a summer party with white wine and elderflower cordial; cucumber and smoked salmon sandwiches; strawberries and chocolate cake.

The house was filled with floral displays from friends: white lilies, white orchids, white roses. There were bereavement cards on the mantelpiece and side tables: impressionist paintings, Constable skies; images of permanence and good taste.

In the hall were large collages of family photographs behind sheets of plastic: the mother with her boys on the beach, family groups in church cloisters, mountains they had climbed, sites where they had camped.

The inner doors of the house had been removed, ready to be stripped for another round of DIY. There were sample doorknobs and taps for the bathrooms amidst the flowers, the condolence cards and the golfing memorabilia.

‘Would you like a drink, Mr Henderson?'

‘Jack. Please call me Jack. That would be kind.'

Iona Crawford showed him school photos of her son in a navy windcheater on the top of a mountain, a Munro probably, smiling with his thumbs up. Perhaps she had moved it to make it more prominent. Jack wondered if Sandy had been the favourite.

‘He loved mountains. Until he thought he had better things to
do. If he'd stuck with mountains … Still … We can't change anything now…'

Jack studied the photographs for longer than was necessary. It was easier than speech.

‘We'd had a bit of trouble with him before, over Highers,' Peter Crawford said. ‘He'd even seen the doctor and got the medication but none of us were ever expecting anything serious. Hypomania, they called it. I thought that sounded bad, but the doctor said it was only a mild form and that rest, a bit of exercise and mountain air would do him good.'

‘What did you do?'

‘We went to Skye, climbed the Cuillins. It was the best time we had together. But then, after a couple of years at uni, it all started to go wrong. Perhaps we expected too much of him. He said he was tired, he couldn't write essays any more. Then he took to his bed. Nothing we could say would get him out of there. He was listless. He said that he had lost his sense of taste and found eating exhausting. His brother thought he was just “being a student” and that it was only a bit of attention-seeking. I wanted to tell him to pull himself together but Iona kept saying if a child is called attention-seeking it's because they want attention.'

‘I've always thought that,' his wife said.

‘So we made sure we looked after him, brought him food. We left it on trays outside the door, but it was no use. He didn't want to recover. He believed that, if nothing moved, if he could just keep everything still, then he could survive in that state for ever. No one would notice. Every time we went in to see him he pretended he wasn't there. For a time he only moved when we were out of the house.

‘Then Krystyna came. At first I didn't think she could deal with it all. But she turned the whole thing round. And I was grateful to her. Sandy was always calmer when she was with him. But then he must have collapsed again; just when we thought he was getting better. It doesn't seem fair.'

‘I miss him so much,' said Iona. ‘I thought if I could only keep him at home he would be safe. But you can't hold on to your children for ever, can you?'

‘I suppose not,' said Jack.

Sandy's mother was beginning to cry.

‘I'm sorry. Please excuse me. It was good of you to come.'

Jack walked out into the garden, and saw the girl from the front row at the funeral. Her skin seemed whiter than it had been in the kirk; her hair even darker. The only colour other than black was a touch of pale-grey eye shadow and a silver bangle on her arm. She was smoking.

‘I am sorry,' she said, putting out her cigarette. ‘It is not allowed in the house.' She spoke with an Eastern European accent and looked as if she would rather be anywhere other than standing in this garden; this city; this country.

‘I'm sure they wouldn't mind.'

‘I think they do. Even today.' She looked at Jack as if she could not understand why he was talking to her. Then she guessed. ‘You are the man?'

‘Yes.'

‘I am Krystyna.'

‘I'm Jack.'

She nodded.

‘I should say I am sorry. For you. For what happened.'

‘I don't think…'

‘Because … you know … I am … I was … the girlfriend…'

‘I understand.'

‘You have been told about me?'

‘Only a little.'

Jack did not know how to continue.

‘Where are you from?' he asked. They could have been at a drinks party.

‘Poland. Kraków.'

‘Your English is very good.'

‘I have been here for three years. And I learned before I came.'

‘Are you a student?'

‘No. I have a job. One day I'd like to study more. But now, of course, everything has stopped.'

‘I can imagine.'

‘I did not expect this.'

‘No. I don't suppose we can ever prepare for something like this.'

The sun was in Krystyna's eyes. She moved into partial shadow.

‘Did you see him walk out?' she asked.