Living with Shadows (49 page)

Eventually, clothes were sorted and put into bags for charity while everything considered useful was packed into five large boxes and the contents of each labelled. Much of it, she knew, would be distributed among the family to make use of or simply to keep as a memento until such time as the whole process would be repeated at another time by another family member. It was part of the cycle of life.

On Monday morning Kate was awake at six. Unable to sleep in any longer, she arose and got ready for work before preparing a breakfast tray for her mother. She set the gas fire to low in the front room and checked that the remote control was on the table by the side of her chair.

When she had eaten, Kate was about to go and wake her mother when she noticed a figure pass by the front window. The doorbell rang and she wondered who could be calling so early in the morning. She opened the door to find Jim on the doorstep. He looked serious and her immediate thought was Ben. ‘Jim, what is it?’

‘Can I come in? I’m afraid it’s bad news.’

Kate’s heart skipped a beat and her stomach flipped over. Her mind raced on the back of his words telling her she didn’t want any bad news.

Jim stepped inside the door and looked at her solemnly. ‘Michael hanged himself in the early hours of this morning.’

‘No, oh no . . .’ She felt tears springing to her eyes.

‘I’m sorry, Kate. The prison rang . . . I came straight round.’ He reached out and pulled her to him. They stood for a few moments in each other’s arms and she was glad of his strength, his compassion.

‘They said there’s no need to go in today.’ Jim guided her into the living room and sat her down. ‘There’s a prison officer, Luke somebody or other. They said he’s there if you need to talk to someone.’

Kate remained silent trying to take in this latest blow. The events of Friday morning appeared vivid in her mind; her last impression was of Michael being escorted from the room. One of the boxes of chocolates they had let her keep was open on the table in front of her. She stared at it thinking how so innocent a gift could have caused such devastation. ‘I’ve got to go, Jim. I need to find out . . .’

‘Shall I take you?’

‘No. I’ll be OK.’

As Kate got to her feet Jim took her hand. ‘I’ll be here when you get back . . . if you want me to.’ His voice was filled with uncertainty.

‘Yes . . . yes, I would.’ She pulled him to her, remembering that strange conversation with Michael in the classroom.

Within the hour she was at the prison gates. An officer, one she hadn’t seen before, greeted her sympathetically and asked if she would prefer to take a walk with him outside the prison gates, to which she readily agreed. They walked in silence for several minutes. Luke was the first to speak. ‘It’s always upsetting when something like this happens.’

‘I thought he might try something this weekend, especially after Friday.’ Kate explained what had taken place with the chocolates and how embarrassed Michael had seemed about it.

Luke immediately dismissed the idea. ‘That wouldn’t have been the reason. Did you know he’d tried to kill himself before he came into prison?’ he asked.

‘Yes, he told me, but that was because he’d had such a shit life which has a lot to do with why he ended up in here.’

‘Lots of people have shit lives but they don’t all end up murdering someone.’ He looked at her and quickly added, ‘What I mean is . . . well, you’d have to be unstable to do something like that.’

And shit lives make people unstable, Kate thought to herself. She didn’t want to get into a debate about what she knew of Mac’s life or whether it was or wasn’t relevant as to why he committed his crime; it was pointless now. But she did want to know how he’d managed to commit suicide. ‘I did suggest he should be watched over the weekend after what happened in class.’

‘He was on suicide watch but if someone’s determined to do it, no matter how much you try, you can’t stop them.’

‘All the same, if he hadn’t bought me those chocolates. I bet he thought he’d got me into trouble . . . I know he’d have hated that.’

‘He was a very troubled and unhappy young man,’ Luke said softly. ‘I don’t suppose you want to hear this just now but sometimes I think it’s kinder to let someone die than to see them go on suffering. Of course we can’t do that; our job is to prevent them from taking their lives.’

Kate thought for a while. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she said, remembering the sadness in Mac’s eyes that time in the hospital and how, ever since, he’d never once let her believe he wanted to live. He didn’t believe in false hope. But she did. She had only seen what she wanted to see. When he smiled or joked, she took that to mean some sort of progress, that he was no longer in despair.

Luke and Kate walked for half an hour or so, their conversation turning to other things, not wanting to dwell on Mac’s death. After all, it must be difficult for everyone if they had any compassion at all, and it was obvious Luke had. He said he’d known Mac when he was on the wings, had always found him civil, no trouble at all really.

Kate thought he hadn’t
really
known Michael. Who had? Certainly nobody in that prison. And before that? From his letters, it didn’t sound as though anyone knew him at all. He’d drifted in and out of people’s lives, never getting too close to anyone, or letting anyone get too close to him. As for her . . . she’d met someone who was prepared to tell his life to someone who was prepared to listen. The sad thing was that in the end she hadn’t made a scrap of difference.

Kate waited until they were all on the other side of the cemetery gates before stepping out of her car. She had arrived ahead of them all, parked up a short distance from the entrance anxiously waiting for the cortege to arrive. The hearse, when it coursed slowly up to the gates, gleaming and silent, sent a shudder through her. She watched the coffin being offloaded as a couple of cars pulled up behind it. Through the trees, she watched it wheeled to its destination at the far end of the cemetery and, not for the first time, she was overcome by a sense of the surreal. Death was something that was not supposed to happen to people you cared for. Death was the antithesis of anything beautiful in this world.

After a few moments, she slowly followed the mourners to where they had assembled around an open grave. She stopped next to a tall headstone a little way from the group, just out of sight but within earshot. She had no desire to speak with any of those who had come to mourn him. Hers was a personal pilgrimage, a conclusion to a strange and, in some ways, edifying friendship. The experience had made her question the complexities of the human soul and just how much control a person has over his own destiny. She still could not understand how someone could overcome the fear of dying and end their life. To see nothing in one’s life but total hopelessness was impossible for her to comprehend. She had always believed that it was the natural instinct of humans to want to survive.

“ . . . we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust: in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life . . .”

A loud sob drowned the next few words and everyone turned to look at a small, middle aged woman. Her head drooped onto her chest as she gently dabbed her eyes with a tissue. Suddenly, a train burned past on the nearby line cutting through her sadness like a jagged knife.

Moments later, the small party turned from the graveside and slowly moved away, trudging silently along the broken paths between the neat rows of headstones, towards the black hearse and waiting cars. They stepped onto the pavement in an orderly fashion, ushered into their vehicles by grim faced undertakers who swung open the doors with deferential automation. The mourners. They would take with them their sense of bereavement, their loss. But they would never know the torment he had suffered or the mental anguish Kate had endured in the struggle to keep him alive.

She had discovered that Michael had left a suicide note, the only piece of his writing she never got to read and so she could only guess what was in it. The prison chaplain must have read it because he told her she shouldn’t feel in any way responsible as she had helped Michael find some sort of happiness in the last year of his life. Less encouraging was hearing that one of the hospital staff had said they always felt no good would come of her weekly visits, though at the time they told her it was a good thing for Michael to have a regular visitor.

There was probably a lot more said, especially when they found her letters which she knew Mac would not have destroyed. But she didn’t care. They could all think what they liked. What did they know anyway? There are no truths, only interpretations.

Now she was alone and her heart thumped as she moved towards the open grave, stepping over clumps of sodden grass. A heap of black, wet soil lay piled up on one side waiting to be shovelled back into the gaping hole. Mist hung around the graveyard, dank and grey, obscuring headstones, and penetrating through to the bone. She knelt at the edge of the grave and, reaching inside her coat, Kate pulled out a single red rose wrapped in cellophane and dropped it over the side.

As it fell, a series of images flashed through her mind. She remembered the bearded Mac, their first encounter in the classroom and a sense of . . . almost of
knowing
him, his joining the class and sitting trembling in a seat by the window. She remembered his smile, and the sadness in his eyes as he tried hard not to cry in front of her in the hospital, the look of gratitude when she gave him his story all typed up. And she remembered his final exit from the classroom, unable to look at her, she, half knowing what he might do.

The
struggle’s
over
for
you,
Mac.
You’re
free
now
 . . .
you’ve
paid
the
price.

Do
you
remember
when
we
spoke
once
about
how
people
would
feel—your
family
—
if
ever
you
did
this?
I
told
you
how
hurt
they’d
be
and
how
much
they’d
miss
you
and
you
just
said
that
maybe
they
would
for
a
few
weeks
and
then
you’d
be
forgotten.
I
don’t
believe
that
will
be
the
case.
I
know
I’ll
always
remember
you
because
you
made
an
impact
on
my
life
 . . .
in
a
way
that
I
can’t
really
put
into
words.

Anyway,
you’ll
be
glad
to
know
I’m
being
‘shipped
out’.
They
read
my
letters
and
came
to
the
conclusion
that
although
I
hadn’t
really
broken
any
rules,
I’d
been
walking
a
fine
line.
They
reckon
I’m
not
really
cut
out
for
prison
work.
In
light
of
everything
that’s
happened,
I
have
to
agree.
I
have
no
regrets
if
our
friendship
truly
brought
some
happiness
into
your
life
 . . .
yet
if
I
ever
thought
that
I
was
in
any
way
to
blame
 . . .