Graham Swift - Wish You Were Here

He was aware that being who he uniquely was might grant him excuses for behaviour that might otherwise seem clumsy, inadequate, even rude. He was relying on playing this card. He’d played it, strongly, yesterday. His principal plan — he didn’t disguise it from himself — was to get away with as little as possible: time, involvement, talk. Pain. He would do the essential thing, he wasn’t shirking that, but he wasn’t up for any extras.

The arrangements he’d made — all by phone — had been minimal. He’d spoken to Babbages. He’d spoken to Brookes. And he’d spoken, of course, to Major Richards. No flag, please, the battalion could keep it. A non-military funeral, thank you. He’d been surprised at his own firmness. He’d not made a point of notifying people, let alone inviting them. He’d left that as a matter between Brookes and his parishioners. He knew that he was supposed to organise and host some gathering afterwards. But where could that be? There was only one appropriate place: Jebb Farmhouse. Impossible. The Crown? No. In any case, he knew he couldn’t go through with it. Be the living centrepiece. Make a bloody speech (having not made one yesterday). Whatever poor form it might be, he couldn’t do it. He would be present, that was the main thing.

A simple word had come, theoretically, to his aid: ‘private’. Today’s thing was private, if yesterday’s hadn’t been. Arguably, the whole thing was immeasurably private, and Major Richards had even framed for him that statement — for public release — that ‘Corporal Luxton’s family’ (though there was only one) ‘hoped that their need for privacy and peace in this time of great sorrow would be respected’.

But Jack could equally see that private was a thin, even treacherous word. A war memorial, for example, was not a private thing. It was a public monument, the names on it were for all to read. And how did a common soldier, serving his country in its public causes, ever get to be called a private? Fuller, Pickering. (Where were they now — and those clusters that went with them?) In any case, life in a village was never private, Jack knew that. Everyone eyed everyone else. This was one respect in which, today, he could envy the inconspicuous existence of those who lived in cities.

Yesterday’s event should have trained him up, perhaps, for exposure. This little affair in a country churchyard ought to be a doddle in comparison. But Jack knew — seeing now the line of frost-speckled hills that he hadn’t seen for over ten years — that it wasn’t so.

Brookes and Babbages had been good to deal with. He’d been both pleased and troubled that it was still Brookes, since the rector’s voice, even on the phone, took him straight back to the burial of his father (and of Jimmy). Brookes had said, ‘I don’t know what to say, Jack. The last time we spoke was when … And now this.’ It was reassuring somehow to know that a man of the Church didn’t know what to say. But Jack didn’t like that linkage across twelve years — first that, now this — as if the two things were actually connected and the later one would unearth the other. Perhaps Brookes, who’d been so solid that first time, might be stretched past his limits now. A suicide — now this?

Brookes had asked Jack, among other things, if at the service he might want to say a few words of his own. Jack had said no, he couldn’t face it, which was only honest, and Brookes hadn’t pressed the point and had said, ‘Fair enough.’ Then Brookes had asked Jack if he wanted him, in his own address, to say anything in particular — possibly something about those two Luxton brothers on the memorial outside? Jack had thought for a while and said no, he didn’t want that, and Brookes had also seemed to think for a while and had said again, ‘Fair enough.’ By then Jack was getting the comforting impression that Brookes understood that what he wanted was really only what he’d wanted that first time, twelve years ago, when they’d spoken face to face. As little and as simple as possible.

Brookes, indeed, was well aware by now (he’d been rector for over twenty-five years) that it was what most people really craved at such events, even when there were no extraordinary circumstances to acknowledge, as little and as simple as possible being really the essence of the thing, the bare bones, so to speak. So: a simple service, just the one address, and he would have to find some way — but he’d somehow done it before — of referring to the exceptional (and violent) manner of the death. He’d have to give it some thought and come up with something. The coffin would lie in the church overnight and, after the service, be carried out to the churchyard — Jack as principal bearer (this was the bit, Brookes noted, that seemed to matter most to the man) — for a simple burial. Hardly more, as Brookes knew very well, than eighty paces.

These thoughts had gathered in his mind even as he’d spoken to Jack on the phone. ‘So,’ he’d said, sensing that Jack didn’t want to prolong the conversation, ‘he’ll be next to his mum and dad again.’ And had heard a silence down the line. He’d added, ‘It’ll have been a long journey.’ Then, hearing only more silence, he’d asked (he’d known he’d have to ask it and this was the only chance) whether there would be a flag, a Union Jack, over the coffin? And if not, would he like them — the parish — to organise one? Or anything else along those lines? Never having presided over an event of this kind before, Brookes was not at all sure how things worked. But Jack had finally spoken again to say no, he didn’t want a flag. There wouldn’t be a flag. And Brookes, after a pause, had said, ‘Fair enough.’

Brookes would be there, Jack thought, looking older. Who else? Sally and Ken Warburton? How might Sally shake her head this time? Bob Ireton? Still the local bobby? The whole damn village would be there — remembered or half-forgotten faces leaping out at him like flash bulbs — but, given that the thing was on the front pages, Jack thought, so might the whole bloody world.

As well as speaking to Brookes, to Babbages, to Major Richards and to some other necessarily connected parties, Jack had in recent days been obliged to speak — or had avoided speaking — to quite a few people who wanted to speak to him. Most of whom had wanted to know, above all, how he felt, what his feelings were at this particular time, and had given the impression that they thought he might be only too grateful to be asked to share them. Jack had used the supposedly exempting word ‘private’ with these people, but it hadn’t often worked, and he’d opted instead for a basic policy of evasion which, on the other hand, had felt shaming and — evasive. At yesterday’s event he’d successfully given the reporters (he’d noticed their presence, like a different kind of cluster) the slip. He’d given everyone the slip. But now, as he approached his ultimate destination, he had the feeling he’d had before of being liable to arrest.

Ireton, yes, Ireton would be there. With a set of handcuffs. After the burial, and all its due allowances, he might say, ‘Now, Jack, come with me.’

As he drew nearer, he was in fact already and very intently planning his escape. Right now, with his mobile still firmly switched off, no one knew exactly where he was, or if he’d even appear. Let alone how he felt. Ten-fifteen. And away — by when? If he was not under the immunity of privacy, then he was surely under the protection, the alibi of grief.

While he couldn’t have feared more the clutching actualities of the occasion before him, Jack was hoping that he might pass through them like some shadow — both there and not there. Who could come near his situation? His compounded situation. First that, now this. He would be untouchable. He would be, in effect — and what could be more appropriate and more purely expressive of his situation? — like the corpse he would nonetheless have to bear on his shoulder. This was how he felt.