A Trick I Learned From Dead Men (7 page)

Proves my point, says Derek. That people are split fifty-fifty over marzipan. Love it or hate it, like Marmite.

I don’t care for Marmite, Howard says.

Nor me, says Mike.

Doesn’t bother me either way, I say.

Proved! says Derek, putting his hand up. I thang you.

Many people don’t like cumin, Howard says.

Marzipan, Derek goes on, ignoring Howard, was Henry VIII’s favourite sweet thing.

Is that right? Mike seems genuinely intrigued.

As well as apricots and spiced fruit cake, Derek says. I’m talking sweet things not savoury.

How come you know so much about Henry VIII? asks Howard, narrowing his eye, brushing crumbs.

History, says Derek, is a subject of mine. What are we
without
the past? Nobodies that’s who. It’s going on under our noses every day. This tea break for example, he says, is history.

It is now, says Howard, standing up. Interview in Two in ten minutes.

I begin to clear the mugs.

I wonder if I should mention my own connection to history. Derek stretches, hoists his trousers, checks his watch.

I am related on our mother’s side to James Phipps, I say.

Derek stops, thinks, flicks his head at me.

Come again? he says.

James Phipps. First person in the UK ever vaccinated. Good, eh?

Doesn’t ring a bell, he says.

They experimented on him as a kid, I say. And he doesn’t get the pox, he survives. Job done.

And you are related to him?

Phipps, yeah. He’s my great-great-great—

Any chance of us rejoining the deceased and the grief-stricken? Howard enquires, head around the door.

Skates on, everyone, please, says Derek. How many times have I said it? The dead don’t bury themselves.

8

Rain and cloud at first but drier and brighter conditions developing

I TRY TO
observe, keep alert, so I don’t end up like Les, cabbaged in an armchair, fuses blown. The front door slams, quakes the house. I lean towards the window, catch sight of Ned’s bony arse vaulting our gate. He is athletic for a knobhead. How is it a deaf man who never checks for oncoming traffic is still alive? He is wearing one of Mum’s deerstalker hats and his trackies hang low on his hips. Some old dear will die of shock. An offensive weapon, that’s what he is. I should open the window and shoot him. He’s quick, though. You’ve got to wonder what he’s running from. No good asking.

It occurs to me that if I go blind we will be the three hear-no speak-no see-no-evil monkeys. As it is, I am the only one with a plan. I am no saint but I am twenty-first century. I can hoover the house, including the stairs, in
two
and a half minutes flat with the tube attachment, I timed it.

I do ask myself, Lee, what are you doing? I could walk away and never come back. Granted, I could put my foot down. But I would always wonder. This way I know, I don’t have to think on, worry, fret. They are here under my feet, getting on my nerves, costing a fortune.

Lee and I have an understanding, she used to say. Lee is my soldier.

That day we stood, me and Ned in the field; she must’ve been cremated ten weeks or more. We’d waited for decent weather. He carried her casket, her name was on the plaque. We stood at the edge of the field waiting for the right moment. I wore my red tie. Ned had fastened the top button of his shirt. I read out the prayer. I liked the bit,
risen with healing in his wings
, but the rest went over our heads. Ned watched my lips to listen. His hair blew in his eyes. As the clouds shifted I did it. I couldn’t tell if it was the right moment but the light breaking seemed like a signal. The sun was weak but it warmed our necks. Her ashes blew on to our jackets, up our sleeves. We were sixteen and eighteen but Ned knelt down like a little kid. I saw her ashes in his hair. Clinging, I thought. I waited. By the time he stood up the gap in the clouds had closed over.

*

O
UR
D
AD WAS
a plant operator, he specialised in static tower cranes and mobile elevated work platforms. He worked his way up, he used to joke he’d made it to the top of his profession.

He accepted a job in Dalkeith, Midlothian, as plant and maintenance manager, and he came back less and less until he never came back at all. Me and Ned imagined he must have met someone. We decided she was blonde, a dancer we reckoned: Candy, Sheryl. Something like that.

The cranes suited him, our mum said. Alone up there among the clouds where no one could reach him. He spread his wings, stepped off, floated away.

Lester had no skyward leanings. Never mind what might have been, could have been, never was. Les was as plain as the nose on your face. He took us on day trips: model railways, garden centres, car boot sales. We ate pasties, visited the gift shop. He sang along to Bruce Springsteen in his Ford Mondeo. He made her happy. We kept our opinions to ourselves.

I have wondered if our dad is still alive, swinging among the clouds in a crane cab. She was the only one who could’ve found out. I have an inkling he is still with us. He must wonder what has happened to his sons, Lee Paul and Ned Joseph. Here we are, Dad. He said to me once, At the end of the day, Lee, you come back down to earth, no matter how high you go.

*

I
REMEMBER ALL
our roadkill trophies from back when. Hard won they were. We had to position ourselves very carefully to make a play for the smashed pheasant. It was lying by the central reservation, torn like a puppet. I count Ned down for the oncoming traffic. He takes his time. Typical. Reckons himself the expert now. Like this is a useful expertise. Like it’ll be his career, scraping up dead things.

He waves at me. Gog! Look at me!

I wave. I jump up and down. Cars are coming. She’ll kill me if. Hurry up then. For
fucks
. Come on! Now!

*

W
E TOOK OURSELVES
out when she was bad, when she was weepy. Take our minds off. Get some fresh air. The doctors, the mastectomy, the chemotherapy, had all worked then failed. She made a new plan. She was in charge of plans in those days. We all agreed the new plan would work a treat, even Les. The new plan involved a new approach. To help us all understand it there were leaflets offering advice, information, facts.

I took money from her purse. Me and Ned bought sandwiches and crisps at the garage. I read a leaflet while we ate the crisps.

The single most important key to surviving advanced CANCER is working with an expert who knows fighting advanced cancer is like fighting a raging house fire! You
cannot
fight it with 5 or 6 garden hoses. You need firemen!

Lester was her fireman. Day and night down the pole. Peeling, chopping, dicing, grinding the juicer. He drove her to a place for doses of intravenous vitamin C, a place for intravenous vitamin B17. A clinic where they plugged her in, like Frankenstein’s monster, to a Frequency Generator. Les read the leaflet. I read the leaflet. Ned read the leaflet.
Electromedicine produces miraculous results!
You can’t argue with that.
A machine that turns cancer cells to normal cells. When used with a water ionizer
, it says,
the process allows clusters of water to get inside cancer cells, detoxifying dead microbes and the toxins they create
. Result. Impressive. Ned steals one of my crisps. I kick him.

The vast majority of alternative CANCER treatments out there are
garden hoses
. We will supply you with the
fire hoses
you need for both home and clinical treatment. Survival means acquiring 3 things!! (1) At least 1 fire hose. (2) Several garden hoses. (3) An expert to work with patient and/or caregiver
.

You can’t take it all in, it’s too scientific. We take extra copies of the leaflet to read at home. We walk home the long way. I used to prefer to get home after dark, after she’d fallen asleep. If we were lucky we would hear the owl hooting, just like when we were little kids, same old, as if nothing had changed.

9

Some outbreaks of light rain and intermittent drizzle expected in the afternoon

LES REMAINS IN
his TV armchair, finger on the remote. We all know Raven is here. He is at the kitchen window, hair standing on end in the crosswind. He never uses the door, we don’t bother wondering why. He goggles at us through the glass, babbling on, as if we can hear him. Ned could translate, should he choose to read Rave’s lip-flapping. He doesn’t. Everything is always me. I let him in because no one else will. Never has a family group ignored each other more, I don’t even bother pointing it out. It’s like we’re in separate jars in a museum.

We’ve got a door you know, I say.

A new one? Rave asks as he steps in.

Ned lays his head on the table.

How do, sirrah? says Rave.

Tea? I say.

If you’re making.

What’s new? says Rave.

Nothing. You?

Grief, strife.

Les has not yet torn his gaze away from the TV. Rave could be wearing a Superman costume for all he knows.

Ned closes his eyes. Rave sits down and reads our fuel and electric bills that are lying on the table.

Two sugars? I say.

Please, says Rave.

I’ll have coffee, Les says to the TV.

When I go they might as well bury me with a kettle, I say.

No one replies.

When you’re in the tundra your blood freezes at between -2 and -3 degrees Celsius, Rave says.

I wait while the kettle boils. Is it cold out then?

No.

Blind leading the blind. Love it, Lester informs the TV.

I notice Rave’s trainers.

New?

Rave lifts his foot.

Nike clearance. Thirty-eight quid.

Aware of of a switch in focus, Ned lifts his head.

Greetings, Noddy Nedmund. How goes it? Rave
mouths
slowly. Ned drops his head again, shuts his eyes. He read the words fine, but he won’t bother.

Have a little sleep, Rave says, patting Ned’s shoulder. Nighty-night. Sleep tight. Bloke fainted at work on Tuesday, I wasn’t there, Rave says.

Milk? I say.

Thanking you kindly, maestro. One of them immigration things.

Right.

I’m going to have to go to the dentist with this tooth, Rave says. You sold up yet?

No. Valuation first.

Have I died or has no one made me a cup of coffee? Les asks the TV.

Rave slurps his tea.

Had your hair cut, Lethal?

If I had a pound for every time I’ve said that! shouts Les.

I check my reflection in the chrome kettle, my giant head and tiny body and the room stretching into an endless corner behind. If another dimension did actually exist, for real, I’d go there in the blink of.

I wash the mugs, then we walk to the mast, me, Rave and Ned. Out for a stroll. Windy. Each time I look back at the house I picture it exploding in flames, Les still inside it.

We stop at the mast. Raven makes an observation.

All those people talking to each other, he says, but here at the phone mast, silence.

Me and Ned don’t add anything. Rave has said it all really.

Raven’s cone of hair erects in the wind. We laugh.

Fuck off, Rave says, but he waves it about.

Dickhead, we say.

We walk up to the woods. Ned follows. No sign of Crow. Shy are we today?

The wind shivers the trees, throws a spring in your step. Ned runs off, returns with grass stains on his clothes.

I feel proud of the woods, as if I made them myself. As we walk, I reckon they are mine by claim. These others are my guests. Would you like to see my woods? Be my guest.

We sit by the oaks. Rave lights a Camel and Ned cadges one.

Can I have one? I say.

Only four left.

Tightarse.

He chucks it. I dive to catch it in my mouth.

Missed!

Cheers, you knob.

Ned laughs.

I have always caught cigs first time. A rare miss there by me.

Nice to have a smoke. Sunlight falls through the trees and lands on us, strobing, warming us up. Smoke drifts. It’s like we are hunters and this is our base camp.

I hear Crow at last.

Nice base camp, Lee.

Cheers, Crow. Welcome to Lee’s Wood.

No one says anything else. I reckon I am happy. Definition of happiness: When knob-all happens but you don’t mind in the least. Can’t last of course, nothing does.

10

Any cloud in the south of the region will soon move away, leaving a dry day

DEREK IS PACING
up and down in the workshop in front of the Mid Oak Veneers. His gut leads the way.

One and two and one and two, he counts, like a bride down the aisle, a pregnant one. The
and
gives you the timing, he says. Are you with me? Otherwise you’ll be off like a steamed cat. Nerves, Lee. Empty your mind, he says. Bit like ballroom dancing, he says, without the music or the twists and turns, or the partner. Got it? Off you go.

I feel like a bona fide twot. Coffins are empty but. I get an idea of a smirking client inside each. Derek counts me, One
and
two
and
.

I got a text this morning from Lorelle in response to my joke. It was brief. It said, He he. That was it. Nothing more. Beggars can’t be choosers. Least she replied, he he.
I’m
not cut out for this. Leading the coffins calls for a certain type, an extrovert. Derek or Howard for example. I am not of that ilk.

Slower, Lee.

All eyes are on the page for a start. He leads on. Everyone looks. No thanks. This is why I don’t dance. I don’t take to the floor, not even at weddings.

And two. Slower!

I keep my eye fixed on the corner of the room where the spiderwebs hang.
Tough Guys Don’t Dance
, I never saw that movie. No idea what it’s about.

You look like a fascist, Lee.

This will be over in a minute. I’ll be deemed unfit. He he.

Derek runs a tight team. My lads, he calls his pall-bearers, though the youngest is fifty-nine. He won’t have them mucked about, protective he is. I don’t want my lads injured, he says. If the vicar gets slow in front, Derek bumps him gently with the coffin to speed him up, save the bearers.