Mat Johnson - Drop

When I turned around, Margaret was already driving away from me. The red Fiat popped into gear and ran: no limousines had been hired, no expense wasted on mortal formalities. So that was it? A life was over? Apparently, because Fi was already halfway down the hill towards our rented car. Moving lightly, her arms swaying, staring at her feet so as not to sprain an ankle on the slope. I followed her. My hands were still heavy with earth so I wiped them together till they were just covered in dust like brown sugar, the tiny specks glittering back at me. A finger in my mouth, tiny particles of soil found a stream in my saliva, a delta in my throat. I sucked on the rest of my fingers as well, then along the callused lines of my palm, leaving my hand slick and glowing with spit’s hunger. Before me, fifty yards at most, Fionna had already reached the car. She sat in the driver’s seat, starting the engine and putting a cassette into the player.

This was not over, this death ritual. There would be more. Tonight I would buy some hooch, some good shit, too, American (David would like that), and I would come back and pour it on the grave. A whole jug that I could pour down and know that it would reach the wood around him, maybe even seep through. I would buy one for myself, then bring a box—

‘Fi, where the hell are we? This isn’t Brixton.’

‘Well, no. I was thinking we could drive by Ikea, pick up that wardrobe we’ve been looking at, the green one.’

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

‘I’m sorry, it’s just we’ve already rented the car, haven’t we? And look, we’re already here.’ Fionna cut off two lanes of oncoming traffic and found a parking space before they stopped honking. ‘Come on! It will cheer you up! You need a new lamp, too,’ she said, opening the door. I didn’t even unbuckle my seatbelt. The tears were finally coming: long awaited, much anticipated friends. It was good sitting with them.

I was so weak. After that first realization at David’s door, I had found myself back at my own. Nearly an hour after I had done the opposite, I was sliding back in next to Fionna, trying once more not to awake her. There I remained for the rest day and most of the next one. Feigning sleep when Fionna came in the room and refusing to turn on the radio or television, I successfully escaped reality up until Margaret called and confirmed my description. When the phone rang so late that night I knew who it must be, and when I saw Fionna’s face as she took in this dreaded information, I watched as she realized that this was no simple flu I’d been stricken with.

In the days after the funeral I made up for my original cowardice with a full-fledged inquiry. Keeping my alarm set for eight as it has always been, I used my new abundance of time to get up, go down to the newsagents on Brixton High Street and buy a complete and heavy set of the dailies. Now, at my kitchen table, underneath the banging of Fi’s aerobics upstairs, I hunted through the obituaries to see what had been mentioned of the one I had disappointed. But I was too late. After a week of scouring The Guardian, The Daily Mail, The Sun , even The Sport , I found nothing. Finally, I admitted my latest round of failure and harassed Fi into calling Margaret’s answerphone to ask which publication and date I should request a back issue for. A week later I received an envelope in the mail with no return address. Inside was a crisply folded clipping I knew must have been cut by the blessed widow.

The obit was insulting. From the paper stock it was hard to tell, but I think it was from the Voice , which should have known better. A brief record no longer than my thumb that basically mentioned David’s two decades of work at the Patterson Group, that he was a resident of South London, and that he left a wife, Margaret Crombie, behind. The last line was ‘The pinuncle of his career was the founding of Brixton-based Urgent Agency, co-chaired by the immensely talented American creative director Christopher Jones.’ Pinuncle. Did the copy editor bother even reading the paragraph, or did he just assume that respect for the dead does not include proper spelling? Or were they just too fucking stupid to know that a life like this should not be reduced to this burp. The last line I declared aloud, apparently screaming, because immediately a response came back to me.

‘What the hell are you yelling about? Will you shut up? Will you shut up?’ Fionna running down the stairs, waving the sound away with her hands.

‘Look at this shit!’ I said, tossing the article at Fionna. She wasn’t ready; she slapped it to the floor.

‘Don’t throw things at me! What is wrong with you? Why are you being such an ass? Why, Chris? Why?’

Enter standard apologies here and continue with ‘This thing, it says nothing. Nothing. Like he was some John Doe who faded in the night. It’s not an article, it’s a damn list.’

‘Well, considering, do you really want them to say more?’

‘What the fuck does that mean?’ Continue with apologies, even more. That seemed to be half my verbal weight these days.

‘I mean, come on, Chris. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about this. I mean, she leaves and then … poof.’ The last sound comes complete with fully complementary visual effects: eyes bug, hands go from balls to wide receivers.

‘David was a fucking slob! Everybody knows that! The man was a pig. And all those books — he might as well have filled the house with kindling. “He fell asleep smoking,” that’s what Margaret told you, right? That’s what you said Margaret said. He was drunk. You have no idea how the man could drink. The only reason you’re saying this shit is because she left him the day before. And that’s stupid. If it had happened two weeks earlier, you’d be blaming it on the smoke detectors.’

‘If this had happened two weeks earlier, David would have just killed Margaret too, in addition to himself, the house, and Urgent.’

‘It wouldn’t have happened two weeks earlier because someone would have been there who could protect him.’ Someone who could handle the job.

‘Chris, why don’t you get out the house?’

‘What? I get out the house. I go for walks.’

‘Twenty minutes in the morning. Maybe fifteen minutes to pick up some take-away at night. Why don’t you just give us a break.’

‘He didn’t kill himself.’

‘Just get out the house.’

‘I’m going to call the paper. Fuck that, I’m going to go down there and get the little shit that wrote it! Fucking disrespect!’

Fionna walked out to the hall and into the bedroom, where she closed the door. After a few seconds I could hear her music coming through, the same song she did her routine to for hours every afternoon, the same thudding vibrations as she practiced her moves on the wood floor.

There was a bottle of vodka in the kitchen cabinet over the washer-dryer, a gift he’d given me that I’d never touched before. Loudly opening then shutting the front door, I took off my shoes and slipped back to the small closet underneath my stairs. Moving the vacuum cleaner, there was enough room to sit down and a bucket to pee in. Upstairs, for hours afterwards, Fionna walked around, watched TV, made numerous phone calls, danced some more. That night, when she was in the shower, I climbed out with the bottle drained, grabbed a box of cookies, then crept into the bedroom and closed the door.

My cover letters went out to every contact I could remember, everyone I had been introduced to or whose name bounced off David’s lips for one reason or another. Each letter said basically the same thing: ‘I have been employed by David Crombie as a senior creative partner for the former Urgent Agency and I’m looking to continue my experience as an advertising creative. David often spoke highly of your work, citing both its intelligence and creative power, and I would consider it a great privilege to be able to assist in furthering your vision in the future.’ Afterwards, when the phone did ring it was for Fi. If I got a call, it was just an assistant calling to say ‘no openings at the moment’ and ‘we’ll keep your résumé on file’ before hanging up and leaving me holding a dead phone. Every morning Fionna told me to call them, talk to someone and try and get an interview, and some mornings that seemed almost possible, that I could just pick up the phone and do that. But at the end of each day I found that I didn’t, because without David, what was I? Just some newbie with a couple of lucky months on his résumé, an outcast from a third-rate town across the sea. Certainly nothing to pause from a busy workday to talk about.