Come Not When I Am Dead

  Come Not When I Am Dead

  R.A. England

  Text copyright © 2016 R.A. England

  All rights reserved

  To the Coningsby Clan for being strong together. To Chris and Ali for all their help. And to the original Jo (Jane).

  Come not, when I am dead,

  To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave,

  To trample round my fallen head,

  And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save.

  There let the wind sweep and the Plover cry;

  But thou, go by.

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson

  Table of Contents

  Come Not When I Am Dead............................ 1

  R.A. England...................................................... 1

  Chapter 1........................................................... 7

  Chapter 2......................................................... 11

  Chapter 3......................................................... 18

  Chapter 4......................................................... 21

  Chapter 5......................................................... 25

  Chapter 6......................................................... 30

  Chapter 7......................................................... 35

  Chapter 8......................................................... 41

  Chapter 9......................................................... 44

  Chapter 10...................................................... 51

  Chapter 11...................................................... 56

  Chapter 12...................................................... 59

  Chapter 13...................................................... 64

  Chapter 14...................................................... 69

  Chapter 15...................................................... 73

  Chapter 16...................................................... 77

  Chapter 17...................................................... 78

  Chapter 18...................................................... 82

  Chapter 19...................................................... 88

  Chapter 20...................................................... 92

  Chapter 21...................................................... 97

  Chapter 22.................................................... 102

  Chapter 23.................................................... 107

  Chapter 24.................................................... 111

  Chapter 25.................................................... 116

  Chapter 26.................................................... 121

  Chapter 27.................................................... 123

  Chapter 28.................................................... 128

  Chapter 29.................................................... 131

  Chapter 30.................................................... 133

  Chapter 31.................................................... 137

  Chapter 32.................................................... 140

  Epilogue........................................................ 142

  What happened to Coningsby................... 142

  Late Summer/Early Autumn 2016

  Chapter 1

  I knew it was going to be horribly hot today and so I woke up early, for me. By 8.30am I was up and dressed and out of my front door, my head heavy with not enough sleep.

  I was off strimming by the river and as it would take four hours or so I wanted to start early and avoid the worst of the heat. The Major, my magpie, was watching me with suspicion from his aviary, a slicker, a flicker of black and white mischief, I took my inflatable killer whale from the boot of my car and he shrieked and shouted at me “Oi Oi” he says, he doesn’t like black plastic. I hid it as much as I could behind my back so I didn’t upset him and he muttered something querulously, then shouted with rage whilst catching glimpses of shiny black and white, too bright. I put the strimmer motor-end in the boot of my car, I collapsed the back right hand seat of my muddy little red Peugeot and rested the shaft of the strimmer there, and the head of the strimmer I put in the cruck of the passenger seat, up in the air so it wouldn’t leak. Bits of grass and dried slugs fell from it, wafering over the seat and then lay mingled with pastry crumbs, sweet wrappers and cockerel feathers. I am tired and I am concentrating on everything.

  I had made myself a large bottle of ginger and lemongrass cordial and I put it beneath the strimmer head, placed with care betwixt jacket and bag. I will look forward to that later. I put a block of Wensleydale and cranberry cheese there too, it would sweat, but I like it like that. And strimming does make me very hungry and today I intend to exhaust myself.

  I patted the pockets of my boiler suit to make sure I had my mobile phone and my Swiss army knife. I checked that my work gloves, my neckerchief and my visor were all attached to the strimmer handle and, after whispering my goodbyes and “see you ever so soon darling” to The Major, looking up at the House Martins cheeping away and flying to and from their nests, I got in the drivers seat, shuffled in to place, adjusted my knickers beneath my boiler suit and drove off.

  It was pretty hot already and I have no air conditioning in my car, and I sped along with open windows and open legs and a song on my lips ‘If the weather’s sunny, there’s things here that I’ve got to do, it may sound quite funny, but I dig to do them with you’.

  I drove the route to the river, through lanes where I maybe passed two cars in forty minutes. Tall Devon hedges shading the lanes, home to millions of horizontally projectiling birds, out they shoot and I think about the sport I’ll have this coming autumn with my little musket, Sergeant.

  When I got to the river, I parked my car in the lay by on the road. I slinked out of my seat with my door open, avoiding the nettles and took the strimmer and petrol and spare wire out, I put them on the road and then walked back round to the drivers side and locked the door with the key. I checked that the fuel tank of the strimmer was full, I checked the harness, I patted my pockets once more for my knife and my phone. I checked the time I got there so I could invoice the syndicate later.

  I strode out across those fields that I know so intimately. The first field has a herd of Hereford cattle in it, cows and calfs, bold in soil-red beauty. They are standing in a fine, strong group in the centre of the field and I lift my hand lightly to them as I go by to say hello, then I stop and look a little longer. I get my mobile phone out of my pocket and take a few photos of them. They are beautiful. Everything is going according to plan. Everything is in slow motion. And the clock ticks, tick, tick, tick as a hundred dandelion seeds whish into the sky before me.

  The ground is hard now but where the cattle have poached it when it was wet, it is bumpy and I stumble here and there and every time I do, I say “whoopsy” aloud to myself. The horse flies are beginning to pester me, but I have repellent on and I’m sure it will work. “Bugger the bishop” I say to myself, who was that then? Who was that? At the end of the first field is a shaded area where there’s a gate with an annoying latch, over a little tiny, broken wooden plank bridge in to the next field. But the latch today is easy to open, and as I go through to the next field I remember to duck down with the strimmer so I don’t hit the strand of electric wire. I love knowing my way around.

  I like the next field best I think. I could live in this field. Charlie and I once saw a Barn Owl fly just below the canopy of the trees to the left, beautiful and fluid and loose flying, a ghost out of time, but that’s
not why I love it. I stand, when I am half way through it and face the left hand side, I plan a house and a planted orchard in it, I plan no road, no drive, you have to walk to it, I see children running amongst the trees. I collect myself and walk on. The next gate always makes me think for just a fraction of a second too long, how to get past it. Open the latch, which is a bit of a bugger with the strimmer, or climb over, which is difficult too with strimmer and heavy jerry can. I climbed over it and that too is easy today.

  Now I am in the field where I released Bill, the tawny owl I had rescued and made wild when it had been taken from the nest and someone tried to man and imprint it. It is over a year later now and yet he still calls hello to me when I’m here fishing in the evening. His fawn coloured feathers following me lightly through the trees and a hoot ever closer and closer gliding upon the air. I go through this field to the next one, I have no feelings about this one, except that it always feels too large when I’m tired and that I think maybe I’m half way there. I walk through the open gate at the end of this field and there, on my right is the stony beach of the river that I’m going to just have a look at. But I can’t see the stony beach, it is a jungle of Himalayan balsam, some in flower, most not. It is tall, I am 5’ 4” and it’s a lot taller than me. I hadn’t expected it to grow back so quickly, so densely, so secretively. It is a hidden army. I put the strimmer down and say “well, bugger me, you bastard” to myself, but still I’m not unsettled, it’s work to be done, it will be good to cut it down, to make paths through it getting wider and wider until there is just a patch and then nothing. I imagine it and wonder how long it will take, many hours I think but it will be satisfying work to do. I tie my neckerchief across the lower half of my face. My boiler suit arms are tied around my waist and on my top half I have on a white cotton loose shirt that I bought in Oman and only ever wear strimming, It’s cool and light and protects my arms from sap that occasionally burns your skin. The shirt is rather green stained now, but in my head it’s still pure white. I pat my pockets again to make sure of my phone and my knife.

  I put the jerry can down with the sunglasses. I half pick up the strimmer and pump fuel into it, open the choke and push the switches and pull the chord, vroosh, vroom, vroom it goes, and quickly I close the choke so the engine doesn’t stop. I say “come on then” to myself or the strimmer or the river and sling it over my head, strap going from my right hand shoulder to my left hand waist, once it’s in place and comfortable, my shoulder blades shuffling it round a little, I put the visor on. You can’t tie your hair up with the visor as part of the strap goes over your head, you tighten it up with a little wheel behind your head and that gradually loosens, and you often and more often have to wipe the visor clean with your sleeve, it gets so covered in sap and swollen sliced slugs. I am aware of everything. I am so quiet and so calm that I fall in love with myself. I can depend on myself, I am not to be ruffled. I am alone with my strimmer and my thoughts. I pull the neckerchief up over my mouth and lower nose and begin strimming.

  I decide to begin by walking towards the river, strimming as I go. I will strim a wide path and that way I will be able to judge things better, as it is I can’t even see the river. I cut the balsam in three swipes, the head, the belly, the foot and then it falls, tattered to the ground. The thick and wet stems are very short now and I crunch and burst them under my feet. Puuush they say as they are destroyed. The sand martins, behind my head chase after the insects that fly from the destruction and carnage. There is sap flying through the air like bullets and I say “Pfff pfff” like distant gun fire as I continue, this is now a battle ground and my work is aggressively exciting. The balsam cracking and splitting spitting all over my face, my arms, my neck, it is covering me, I wipe my face, I wipe my neck it’s making me itchy. I am concerned that it will burn where it hits and so I wipe off every wet patch right away with the inside of my once white sleeve.

  It really is very hot and getting hotter, I don’t like it, the sun is strong in my eyes and I turn my back on it, it’s making me sweat. I don’t like sweating. I make a horse noise as sap touches my lip, keep my head down, adjust the visor which falls slightly as my head lowers.

  I walk with my legs together a little, the seam on the boiler suit is sometimes firm against my crotch, it’s a lovely feeling and I begin to think about sex. I wonder whether I should stop and have a quick wank through the open bits behind my pockets, but the thought of horse flies keeps me working. I go into automaton for a while, because in my head I’m singing “Love me or leave me, let me be lonely” and I have a full orchestra behind me. I am shining on stage in a shimmery ball gown and everyone is delighted because I love singing to them. My head goes up to thank the crowd and I am aware of something below, I hear myself say “oh” and look down to see what it is. It is a wader boot. I often strim up boots, leather boots, and trainers, but not wader boots. “That could be useful” I think, half realising that it is a full boot. “Is it full of water or stones or mud?” I say and before I have time to turn the strimmer off, there is another boot. They are pointing upwards, they are five inches from each other. I am in a cathedral and this is the crypt of a knight, the sun shines harshly though the stained glass windows and I don’t like the claustrophobic and suffocating atmosphere inside churches. I turn off my strimmer, I am frowning. I gently put it down on the ground next to me and I know, I know, I know. I stand up and straighten up, I smooth my hands over my hips, my head is high and I turn to the boots, I am sucking my lower lip.

  I push the balsam away with my left foot and I see the bottom of waders, waders full of legs, legs with wader boots on. I feel my chest tight, I open my mouth so I can breathe easier, my head goes up and looks ahead, my eyes widen and I bite the inside of my mouth. “Stop it, stop it, stop it Gussie, don’t cry.” I pat my pockets, I feel the rectangular leather of my phone case and I get it out. No reception. It is magical how you can call 999 with no reception, that is part of the almighty power of the police. “Emergency services” it is a man’s voice, he has an accent I don’t know, maybe somewhere up North, he sounds kind. “ I want the police” and in response to his questions I tell them what I have found. I tell them where I am, how to get to the river. I try to convert the images in my head into words that the police will understand, they don’t navigate by trees so I have to wonder how many yards or meters something would be. My voice quickens and I am in shock, I am in shock, I am not calm anymore, I am still fully aware of everything now but I don’t want to be. “Shall I carry on strimming?” I say to them, I hear myself say, “Or shall I come and meet you?” They tell me to do nothing, stay by the body and don’t touch anything else. And the clock ticks, tick, tick, tick, a thousand rooks in ceaseless objection.

  Later on, when I am in the police station, a policeman’s fleece jacket draped around my shoulders, people being kind to me, I try to be aware again, I want it all to be in slow motion once more. Rooms devoid of pictures, but posters pinned on the wall, I squint and try to read them, handbags, cars, theft, crime, they are all just words. Someone sits me down at a table, blue biro scrawl ‘piss off pigs’ it says, I see that. There is a screeching noise and I am aware that someone has pulled a chair away from the table, a hand on the back of it and then I feel a slight breeze as he moves himself into the seat of the chair. I look up, I see a face, dark haired, too dark haired, his mouth is upturned and that is a smile, I know that is a smile. I shut my eyes, I open my eyes. It is Frank. And then I find myself crying. “Hey, hey, hey” he says “come on Gussie, what would Kaye have said? What would your grandma have said? Come on darling, don’t cry. Come on” and my head is in his shoulder, he is next to me, he is taller and I am smaller, it is not his shoulder, it is where his gun recoil protector would be, what is that part of your body? I cannot breath. I am in the police station, this is Frank, he is in charge here, he was grandma’s friend and I have known him all my life. I start thinking again whether they were lovers or not. They couldn’t have been. But he will
look after me. He really will and the black creeps up from the floor, what is that? And even though I am watching it creep up and up and up I know it’s inside me. The black creeping up my legs, my middle, it’s got to my head and as it is half way up my eyes I cannot see any more and I wake up being carried to another room and people shouting and arms all around me. I wake up and I am vomiting.

  “Do you know the dead man Gussie?”

  “Yes.”

  Late Spring/Early Summer 2015

  Chapter 2

  I dreamt about grandma again last night, she took me out to lunch some place that was a favourite of hers, down a path through some pretty gardens. She was always lunching out. She had just been to see ‘Fiddler on the roof’ at the theatre, she kept calling people ‘Israel’ as some people call others ‘bro’, which, even in the dream, I found incongruous, but then I was half rag doll.

  We were waiting for our food to arrive, the pub was full of large dark wood beams and little quiet corners. The light was dimmed and there was a velvet hush around us and we sat at a heavy oak, round table on matching heavy oak hard back chairs like thrones. I turned to look at her but she was looking away at a dog or something on the floor, she did like dogs. Her silken-soft and cherished face was in profile. I opened my mouth to say something and then all was ruined, as I was very suddenly, violently sick, but it didn’t look like sick, it looked like water gushing out of a fire hydrant, all over the white linen table cloth. grandma turned to look at me in slow motion, a look that cared for me and was never surprised or horrified. She always knew what to do and like an unfurling ribbon she got up out of her chair and helped me up out of mine and we glided out in to the sunshine, arm in arm, in a daze.

  I wake up exhausted and forget that she’s dead. I listen out for her. My love for her is tender and precious and caught in continuous timeless motion. But she’s not here any more. I listen for creaks coming from her bedroom, but there are none. I listen for her padding footsteps on the landing on her way to the bathroom. She had a shower every morning before I got up and I had a bath every night before she went to bed, but there’s no sound of little velvet feet. And then I lie back down again, neat and straight, close my eyes and put my hands on my belly. I miss her. “I miss her,” I say to the ceiling. I try to sleep again but I know I’m just stewing and so I clamber out of my self scented, self centered bed. It is only me here.