Joseph O'Neill - The Breezes

‘Of course it is,’ Rosie said. ‘She’s being burned, isn’t she?’ She wrinkled her face. ‘God, sometimes you’re so thick .’

We went back inside. The reception was coming to an end and our father was speaking with the funeral director. ‘Not for another hour or two,’ the funeral director was saying. He was a cheerful, happy-looking man.

‘We’ll wait,’ Pa said. ‘I don’t mind waiting.’

‘There won’t be any need for that,’ the funeral director said. ‘We’ll look after everything. We’ll telephone you when we’re ready.’ He looked at us with a kindly eye. ‘The children will want to be going,’ he said.

Pa was not listening. ‘We’ll wait,’ he said. ‘It’s no bother.’

The funeral director said, ‘Well, it’s most unusual … And there’ll be another cremation following shortly …’

‘I’ll be back in one hour,’ my father said, taking Rosie and me by the hand.

We went to a coffee bar. From time to time, Pa started to say things. Rosie and I poured sugar in our Cokes to make them fizz. We weren’t thirsty, anyway.

We went back to the crematorium. Pa said, ‘Stay in the car, you two,’ but we followed him anyway.

Pa said, ‘I’ve come for my wife. Mary Breeze.’

The receptionist said, ‘If you would take a seat for a moment.’ Shortly afterwards, the funeral director came in. He presented Pa with what looked like a fun-size cereal packet. ‘My condolences, Mr Breeze,’ he said. Pa nodded and quickly left. Once outside, he turned his back to us and opened the packet. For several seconds he inspected its contents, touching the ashes with his index finger. Then he began walking back towards the car and Rosie and I ran down the slope ahead of him and impatiently clicked the handles of the doors of the station wagon. He leaned backwards from the driver’s seat to unlock the doors. He placed the packet of ashes in the dashboard compartment along with the Kleenex packet and the road maps and the can of engine oil and started the car. Then he switched off the engine and sat there without a word.

After long minutes of silence, he looked at us. ‘I want you kids to stay here. And I mean it.’

He retrieved the packet and stepped out and walked down the leafy road and around the bushes at the corner of the block. He thought that we could not see him through the intervening undergrowth; but we could. We could see everything. Looking around to make sure he was unwatched, my father was rapidly sprinkling the powdery leftovers over the flowerbeds that ornamented the sidewalk — were they rose-bushes? Whatever they were, I had seen it with my own eyes: my mother reduced to fertilizer.

It’s incredible — her sheer nowhereness.

The train has stopped again. This time we’re in the outskirts of some town, with a view of clothes lines, underwear and gardens full of bathtubs, shopping trolleys, bits of wood and other junk.

‘Are we there yet?’ the woman asks.

The man sighs from behind his newspaper and I notice the sports page splash: WE’LL BE BACK, VOWS UNITED BOSS. ‘Not yet, madam,’ the man says. ‘I’ll tell you when we are.’

‘I don’t want to be late,’ she says. She fiddles with her bandage, revealing an eyeball of pure red. ‘It’s my dog, you see.’

The man looks out of the window. ‘I mean, this really is quite extraordinary. What possible reason could there be for stopping here?’

A minute passes. ‘That’s it,’ the man says. ‘I’m lodging a complaint. One simply can’t take these things lying down.’ He opens his briefcase and takes out a pen and a piece of writing-paper. He clicks down the point of the biro, places the paper on his briefcase, which he balances on his knees, and starts writing.

A few moments later, he puts his pen down and stands up. ‘Would you keep an eye on my stuff?’ he asks, and I nod.

I cannot resist looking at the letter, which is still on the briefcase.

Dear Sir or Madam … The paragraph that follows is scribbled out, as is the paragraph below that one.

At least that’s one letter Pa will no longer have to deal with.

He was flummoxed by the pulverization of his friend.

‘I don’t know,’ he muttered, as we drove back from the crematorium, ‘I just don’t know.’ He clenched and unclenched his mouth and unrhythmically drummed his fingernails against the window. ‘What does it all mean? I mean …’ He stopped speaking, struggling with his feelings, ashamed about burdening me, an innocent whom he had brought unconsulted into the world, with his doubts. Perhaps, too, he was afraid of what my answer might be.

We reached the pacific streets of the Birds’ District, passing a playground with see-saws and a sandpit where mothers pushed tots skywards on the swings and supervised their gleeful experiments on the slides with the sweet tug of gravity. On an impulse, I pulled over at the supermarket and, while Pa waited in the car, loaded up a trolley with loaves of wholemeal bread, eggs, a kilo of apples, butter, beers, ready-made mixed salad, Brie, mature Cheddar, salami, oranges, cans of soup, toilet paper, tomatoes, two rump steaks, minced meat, onions and bananas. Stuff he liked. And when we got home I made him a sandwich and a cup of coffee, and while he took it easy I filled up the dishwasher, cleaned the kitchen and stocked his fridge.

Then I checked the mailbox. A large brown envelope stamped with the Network logo fell to the floor.

I handed it to Pa, who was sitting at the dining-table.

He dropped it on the table and pushed it away. ‘It’s Paddy Browne’s report. I don’t want it. I’ve had it with them. They can keep their rubbish. I don’t want to hear from those people ever again.’

‘What about your action for reinstatement? Are you just going to let that drop?’

‘It’s over, John. Can’t you understand? It’s over. There’s nothing I can do about it.’

I was suddenly angry. ‘What happened to your fighting talk? Are you just going to let them walk all over you?’ I tore open the envelope.

The covering letter said, Dear Gene, Herewith a copy of the report which you requested. I hope that all is well. Yours, Paddy. I picked up the enclosed booklet. ‘Here we go, it’s a copy of— ’

After a moment, Pa said, ‘What’s the matter?’

I passed him the booklet. The authors of the report were identified on the front. ‘Bear Elias,’ Pa read out.

He looked at me and winked involuntarily with his lazy eye.

He said, ‘You don’t think that Angela … Surely, she …’

I pointed. There was her reference number at the foot of the last page, AF/103/2.

It was Angela who had fired Pa.

Pa removed his glasses from the reddened ridge of his nose and began pressing and kneading his brow with his fingers, as though desperately trying to reshape the contours of his skull. ‘She was only doing her job,’ he said finally.

I felt too guilty to reply.

He picked up the report and thumbed at its pages. He raised the silver of his eyebrows, curved faintly on his brow like moons in daylight, and pointed at some coloured pie charts. ‘What did I tell you? Paddy Browne.’

Paddy Browne, Pa’s worst enemy, and Angela, a virtual member of the family, a de facto Breeze, collaborating intimately and secretively to produce a report of this kind.

The bitch. The fucking bitch. So that’s what she’d been doing Sunday night — while I, like an idiot, rotted in her flat, fearing the worst.

I pictured it: in the early hours of the morning, Angela sits flashing her fingers at the word processor with her long brown hair tumbling over her shoulders while Browne, his jacket long since discarded, informally brings her a cup of coffee to keep her going. He makes a humorous remark to which she replies, refining his joke in the special bantering manner which they have developed over weeks of teamwork; he, in turn, takes the joke one step further, and they both start tittering, delighted with themselves and each other.