4

Wednesday 30 July 1986 and before

The mourners filed slowly out of the crematorium chapel into the bright sunlight, blinking. The women had no particular problems with their hands - they had umbrellas and hand-bags to hold - but the men felt constrained to clasp their hands before them as if the duty minister - whom they had never seen before, and would probably never see again - might be planning some dastardly attack on their persons.

    Trying to be inconspicuous, shy, self-effacing, Colley was among the last to leave; his elaborate politeness on these occasions was of the kind which would attempt to promote chivalry by holding open a revolving door. He shook hands with the cherubic priest as he passed through the portals - MORS JANVA VITÆ.

    The hearse was just pulling out of the gates with its living cargo to collect another dead one; to them it was a job; a way of life. 'I spose it's a way of life ... [people would say to them in the pub, adding] ... or death, more like - hahaha'

    The funeral director had already ushered the first mourners into the Garden of Remembrance, where they now stood in knots, talking in subdued tones, eyes watery, smiles brave. The floral tribulations - the most consistently troublesome part of a funeral director's work - were tastefully laid out, Chaite's fresh and colourful in contrast to those wilting from previous days - a teddy bear constructed entirely of chrysanthemums; a motorcycle of lilies: From his Mate's - a masterpiece of the florist's art; a triumph of incongruous medium over illiterate message:

    Somewhat condescending of Gray, thought Colley, not pausing to wonder whether it was perhaps not somewhat condescending of him to think it.

assignment abroad, lived in Little Bygrave ... and it was her with whom Chaite had recuperated after her accident.

    Next to Mercia was Chaite's elder sister, Cepha, and her husband Rupert; 'too young for funerals', Chaite's nephews and nieces were at school. Cepha & Co had been the last people to see Chaite alive. For that, Colley could not forgive them; he should have been the last person to see Chaite alive; perhaps if he had she wouldn't be dead. Though illogical, the thought made him angry.

    Now they were all outside. Colley wanted to meet Mercia, but not Cepha & Co. Feeling like a sheepdog he quickened his pace, surreptitiously trying to separate Mercia from the flock without anyone else noticing. He awarded himself full points for the outrun, but dropped more and more on the fetch; panic rose ... where was she? Not gone, surely?

    He found the shedding ring; she was standing by a little group of soi-disant uncles and aunts, almost defying anyone to talk to her. He stalked her, sidled up to her, held out his hand - not in the open 'look-I'm-not-carrying-a-sword' way, but more covert, like a cowboy preparing to shoot from the hip: 'I'm Colley ... you must be Mercia'

He'd been practising the line since he'd espied her. He hoped it sounded spontaneous; that the effort needed to utter it didn't show.

'Colley ... You don't look like your picture'

That voice ... it was Chaite's. They shook hands. It was not like selecting a herring.

'That picture? I'm the rider. Cardophagus is the donkey. I don't ride. Normally'

He wondered if this were too obscure; too flippant, even, for Mercia at her sister's funeral.

'You're just like Chaite said to talk to'

'I haven't said much yet'

'You've said enough ... [Colley's heart sank; she noticed] ... I mean, you've said enough for me to know you're the Colley Chaite talked about'

'She talked about ME?'

'Of course. She was very much in love with you'

Colley burst into tears. He had never been sure. Now it was too late.

they had heard; colleagues from workplaces; friends from the village; friends from college; friends; all gathered. Chaite's sisters Mercia and Cepha. Cepha's family. Even Chaite's ex-husband Roy and his subsequent, the lovely Lavinia. No one talked to them. No one could imagine why Roy had come after what he'd done to Chaite. They didn't know the whole story. Now Chaite could not tell, and Roy had no reason to. No one would ask him.

Here is to be noted ... [read Colley in the Book of Common Prayer to which he steadfastly clung] ... that the Office ensuing is not to be used for any that ... have laid violent hands upon themselves.

    Had Chaite laid a violent hand upon herself? The Church had obviously been guided by the Coroner's verdict - or did people worry that much about such things nowadays?

    Perhaps it was different for cremations. He found it hard to concentrate on the Duty Minister's words of comfort - our dear departed sister (who, in our case, we did not know).

    And why did people try to sing hymns whose tunes nobody knew? What comfort was that? Something rousing and unequivocal - that was what was wanted. He'd have suggested O God, our help in ages past - but then ... nobody had asked him.

    Dog Colley got back into his manger - there was no reason why he should have been consulted. Nobody knew about him and Chaite (he thought). Did he have some greater right to her than did her family? A jumble of thoughts and emotions jostled through his mind.

    He had wanted to see Chaite just once more, to say good-bye to her 'properly', to say things he couldn't've said to her in life - especially after the nature of their parting. He had called the undertakers to ask if he could visit Chaite ...

'I'm sorry, sir, but the coffin has been sealed'

Undertakers' jargon - the lid had been screwed down ... but then Chaite was no longer a pretty sight.

    And that admixture of anger, self-pity and frustration which is grief envelops Colley.

    And now Colley imagines Chaite in her coffin, isolated and alone.

And now Colley imagines Chaite somehow floating above the congregation, gratified that there are so many people.

    And Colley himself experiences some momentary gratification that there should be so many people.

    And now Chaite turns into Lizzie Siddall, to be buried in Highgate Cemetery with the volume of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's poems entwined in her hair.

    And now, Lizzie Siddall is to be exhumed, in order to retrieve the poems.

Like a flower he blossoms ... [Blossoms - Albert Moore] ... and then withers; like a shadow he flees ... [great fleas have lesser fleas ... ] ... and never stays.

    And why hadn't DGR kept a copy of the poems?

    And what difference had the ghoulish manner of the renaissance of those poems made to their sale?

Lord God, holy and mighty ... [mighty Chaite] ... holy and immortal, holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver us from the most bitter pains of eternal death ...

    And anyway, Chaite's not to be buried, she's to be cremated, which reduces the opportunity for funerary artefacts.

    And an artificial limb would be the ultimate in funerary artefacts ... wouldn't it? ... but Chaite in heaven will be whole again ... won't she?

curtains enclose the coffin containing Chaite, and time and the crowd of mourners stand still for her moment of finality. And nobody knows why Chaite died. And nobody will ever know for certain.

That the coffin would be wound through the doors, and manhandled on to a bier to await its turn in the fiery furnace; that the 99 per cent of Chaite that was volatile would ascend from the crematorium chimney as vapour - to fall on their lawns as dew, even; that the osseous remains of Chaite would be raked out and fed through the cremulator for scattering in due time; all these were facts of the process yet to come which were not foremost in the mourners' minds.

    For Chaite was dead, flattened in her car as it had decelerated from 68mph to zero in less than a second against the stag-headed oak which had stood at a bend in the road through Marby for well over 250 years.

It was 1727. On the day that George I had died, nobody in Marby - or anywhere else for that matter - knew that a squirrel was burying an acorn which was destined not to perish as would all its fellows, but to live and grow and influence the lives of men and women.

    Quercus robur marbiensis would pass from insignificant shoot, to seedling, to sapling; it would grow and become a landmark, and when man's greed, man's desire for destruction, man's ruthless legalised vandalism had threatened it, it would be subject to a preservation order, a public enquiry, and a purchase for the people in perpetuity by an anonymous philanthropist.

    So it is that all about us stand potential deodands; we cannot know that this or that will cause death - our death - and Chaite had admired Quercus robur marbiensis scores of times as she had driven past it to or from one or other of her sisters. And now that acorn buried in 1727 had worked out some purpose.

    Alien they seemed to be:

Thus had Thomas Hardy written; at Harland and Wolff thousands of men were fashioning the SS Titanic; up in the Arctic, God was singlehandedly fashioning the iceberg.

possible for the likes of Chaite to travel it - or not, as the case might be - heedless of the speed limit, at 68mph.

    As the Marby Oak had grown, generations of birds nesting in its branches had seen all: the construction of the canal basin at the termination of the Marby Arm of the Grand Union Canal; they had seen Marby grow, encouraged by its canal, until it attracted the attention of the railway company - and had not Robert Stephenson himself surveyed the line, selected the site for the station, spoken for the shareholders in that very Town Hall that the birds could see from the branches of the Marby Oak?

    Generations of birds had seen the rise of the railway, and the decline of the canal, the basin falling into disuse and decay until the enthusiasts came and put it in order; then was the long-lost bustle of business replaced by the busyness of holiday hire.

    And then they had seen the railway decline, diesel supplant steam, diesel depart, disuse and decay, until the enthusiasts came and put it in order; then was the bustle of business, so long absent from the station, replaced by week-ends steeped in the nostalgia of steam. The birds, and the now stag-headed Marby Oak, had seen it all.

    And Chaite's car, the metallic mauve Metro automatic, 897kg - including the 53kg Chaite, and her luggage - had been effortlessly decelerated from 68mph to zero by the Marby Oak, the object to all intents and purposes immovable, the force far from irresistible: kinetic energy turned to heat, and noise, and death.

restored form with some interest, and less surprise, experiencing an overwhelming regret that she could not tell Colley about it, as her time ground to a halt in heat, and noise, and a great blinding light, as every thought and fact and memory in her brain was extinguished and obliterated for ever.