A Terrible Kindness(11)
Howard is in the kitchen, oven gloves on, lifting out the casserole dish.
William shakes ketchup onto the side of his plate next to the rich mincemeat oozing from under mashed potato. Howard and Robert sit with him at the table but he’s grateful they don’t ask any questions, because although William is ravenous it’s a struggle to talk or eat. He clears his plate but says no to the tinned peaches and evaporated milk that Howard has taken from the fridge.
‘I’d best turn in. I haven’t slept.’
‘Gloria called,’ Robert remembers as William is getting up. ‘She sends her love and hopes you’re OK.’
William stops. Uncle Robert is studying him. Oh, how he wants this to be good news! How he wants that delicious rush of lust and love and certainty he had on the way to Aberfan, set ablaze simply by the thought of her, saturating his future. But all he’s left with now under Robert’s gaze is despair. He knows exactly what Gloria will want of him at some point in the future and has even spent a lot of the last year imagining just that. But after what he’s just experienced, he doubts he will ever feel able to give it to her.
‘OK’ – he nods at Robert – ‘I’ll call her, once I’ve slept.’
‘Goodnight, William, rest well. You’re home now.’
‘That you are,’ adds Howard, nodding.
Relieved to be alone, he strips and climbs into bed. The grandfather clock in the hallway strikes eleven. He thought he’d fall asleep immediately, but with the insistent tock of the clock, and the quarter-hour chimes that he doesn’t normally hear, quarter-hour after quarter-hour after quarter-hour, he finds he is not alone after all. Wrecked bodies, faces of parents entering the mortuary, moans and wails of grief. Aberfan, he learns, staring at the white tasselled lampshade above him, has set up camp in his body; it’s behind his eyes, in his ears, his nose, on his hands and running through his blood.
It’s just after 1.15 when he gets up to go to the bathroom. Opening his door he expects darkness, but the landing is buttered with a soft light from under Robert’s door. Glancing to his left, he notes that Howard’s door is open and his bed empty. William freezes at the sound of muted voices.
‘… she might be a comfort.’
‘If you ask me, we’d do better to put our hope in Gloria than his mother.’
William clears his throat and treads his feet heavily across the landing to the bathroom. When he comes out, the hallway is in darkness and Howard’s door is shut.
11
Black and silver, bumper to bumper over the bridge, glinting in the grey winter light; every hearse in South Wales, it looks like. From the narrow pavement, he could reach out and place his palm on the polished hearse rolling past, see his own outline imposed on the coffin.
The pavements fill with black-clad figures oozing from doorways. Keep your head down and your heart hard. That’s your kindness. Earlier, gazing into the purple dawn through the windscreen, William imagined a cup of tea with Betty, hearing about life with her sister-in-law. Now, he tells himself, he mustn’t think like that; he should leave these people alone, drawn tight into the folds of their community.
He turns away from the procession of hearses and overtakes the human tide rolling towards the mountain graveyard; black coats and hats, downcast eyes, flower-filled arms. William strides up the lane to the left of the cemetery gates, over tufts of grass and patches of moss blending with the bitumen. He’s unsure why, four days later, he’s returned, and that’s probably why he’s told no one. Not Uncle Robert, not Gloria, who he has only spoken to once since he got home anyway.
She was so pleased when he called the day after, her warmth and concern so palpable she may as well have been standing next to him. And he knew, as he answered her questions with lone words, like yes, and no, and terrible, and unbearable, that he was building a barricade between them. That when she said she’d love to see him soon, his maybe had made it clear to her as well.
William loves Gloria, has done ever since he met her lodging with her family for his embalming training. He’s loved her without a moment’s wavering through all that happened – things that would have sent other men running. And then, at last, at the dinner dance, with that kiss, he dared to believe they had a future. But Aberfan has scooped out the core of him, stretched it thin and catapulted it into the wild blue yonder. Maybe that’s why he’s here; to try and get himself back.
The path twists to the right, above the graveyard, on top of the mountain. William climbs quickly, heart thudding. Skinny autumn trees stand sentinel every two feet or so, their lower branches reaching straight out, as if to shield him from what’s about to happen. He’s glad of the criss-cross limbs, for he too is obscured. Across the valley, on the opposite hillside, are hundreds, maybe thousands of people gathered in stunned solidarity.
The world has been watching Aberfan, and the floral cross dominating the mountainside above the graves shows that it has also sent flowers. Mourners swarm the hillside. Some add their own bouquets to the cross, before heading towards the gaping wound where the coffins are laid. From up here, they look like beige piano keys, occasionally white; the ones Jimmy brought from Ireland. Two or three rows deep, mourners lean towards the open ground. Some drop a flower, some simply touch the earth, as if to be blessed, or to bless. What boundless capacity for pain, William thinks, is expected of such tiny, frail humans.