Reginald Hill - Death’s Jest-Book

Also she tells him stories. They are good stories, well structured, but lacking a little of the colour and excitement he already prefers in a narrative. But this is no matter as when he retells the tales to his brother and sisters, he is quite capable of adding enough of these elements to give them nightmares.

He stands up and takes his aunt’s hand.

‘Is Father well again?’ he asks.

‘No, Tom, though he is in a place where all are well,’ she says. ‘He has left us, Tom, he has gone to Heaven. You must be a comfort to your dear mama.’

The little boy frowns but does not speak as Aunt Maria leads him into the bedroom.

‘Oh, Tom, Tom,’ sobs his mother, embracing him so tightly he can hardly breathe. But all the time as she presses his head against her breast, his eyes are fixed upon the still figure on the bed.

His aunt prises him loose from the sobbing woman and says, ‘Now say goodbye to your papa, Tom. Next time you see him will be in a better world than this.’

The boy goes to the bedside. He stands a little while, looking down into those staring eyes with a gaze equally unblinking. Then he leans forward as if to plant a kiss on the dead man’s lips.

But instead of a kiss, he blows. Once, twice, thrice, each time harder, aiming the jet of warm breath at the pale mouth and flared nostrils.

‘Tom!’ cries his aunt. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m bringing him back,’ says the boy without looking up.

He blows again. Now the assurance which had marked his mien till this moment is beginning to fade. He is gripping his father’s right hand, and squeezing the fingers in search of a respondent pressure. And all the time he is puffing and blowing, his face red with effort, like an athlete straining for the tape at the end of a long race.

His aunt moves swiftly forward.

‘Tom, stop that. You are upsetting your mama. Tom!’

She seizes him, he resists, not blowing now but shouting, and she has to pull him away from the corpse by main force. His mother stands there, clenched fist to her mouth, shocked to silence by this unexpected turn.

And as he is dragged out of the bedroom by his aunt, and across the landing, and down the stairs, his cries fade away like the calls of a screech owl across a darkling moor which still echo disturbingly in the mind long after they have died from the ear.

‘Fetch the cow … Fetch the cow … Fetch the cow …’

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