No Man’s Land

Adam had known they were dead in that instant; he hadn’t needed to stay and watch the men with the hose fight to bring the fire under control and carry out the charred bodies under a pair of white sheets while the remains of the east wing smoked and smouldered behind them.

And so he’d gone down to the lake to be alone with his grief and a succession of questions to which his dead father could provide no answers. Why hadn’t he followed him into the house? Why hadn’t he tried again to pull him back and save him from himself? Was it because he knew that it was hopeless; that his father wouldn’t listen to reason because he was determined to atone for his wife’s death? And that only the highest price would provide the redemption he so desperately craved? Was that the difference between them – that his father wanted to die, and he wanted to live? Life was terrible, never more terrible than now, but Adam knew that he didn’t want it to end.

‘Adam, I’m so glad I found you.’ Parson Vale’s voice cut into his thoughts, jolting him back into consciousness of his surroundings. He looked up into his friend’s kind, compassionate face, ravaged like his own by trauma and lack of sleep, and immediately turned away. He didn’t want sympathy, however well intentioned. All he wanted was to be left alone.

‘How long have you been here?’ the parson asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Adam muttered. ‘I’m sorry about your bicycle. I had to leave it …’ He stopped, unable to finish the sentence. Talking meant cutting through the numbness which was enveloping him like a protective skin, and he willed his mind not to think. He knew that grief was waiting for him around the next corner, ready to take him unawares if he relaxed even for a moment, and he was determined to keep it at bay for as long as he could.

‘Don’t worry about that. It doesn’t matter,’ said the parson. ‘Do you know what happened – to your father?’ he asked, steeling himself to ask the question.

Adam nodded without looking up. ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he said fiercely. ‘I can’t …’

‘I understand,’ said the parson. He fell silent, looking out over Adam’s head towards the trees on the other side of the lake, and when he spoke again, it was as if the words had been torn from him, forced from his lips. ‘Oh, God, how can you allow your children to suffer such pain?’ He looked up into the empty cloudless sky as if expecting an answer to his question but there was none, just a flurry of cawing blackbirds flying up over the water, disturbed perhaps by his distant cry.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, wiping the clammy sweat from his brow. ‘It’s been a long night, one of the longest I can remember.’

Adam nodded, remembering the candlelit morgue at the pithead and the bodies laid out in rows on the cheap trestle tables. Edgar so alive and yet so dead.

‘How’s Ernest?’ he asked, looking up. ‘Has he been told?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the parson, shaking his head. ‘I assume his mother has, or his brother. I don’t envy them: it’s a terrible thing to have to tell a boy. I’m glad that you already knew.’

‘Yes,’ said Adam, flushing. He’d felt better for a moment thinking of Ernest sharing his pain, but now he was ashamed of himself, realizing he’d been trying to derive comfort from Edgar’s death.

‘Have you thought about what you are going to do?’ asked the parson. ‘There’s nothing I’d like more than for you to come and live with me but I know my wife won’t allow it. And with Miriam …’

‘Please. You don’t need to say it. I understand,’ said Adam, holding up his hand. ‘The truth is I can’t think now. I need some time.’

‘Yes, of course you do,’ said the parson hurriedly. ‘But I want you to know that I’d like to help. Your father would’ve wanted you to finish your education. He was so proud of you—’ The parson broke off, seeing that Adam was becoming distressed. He had put his hands up over his head and his body was convulsed by a series of sobs.

‘Thank you,’ said Adam, regaining his composure with a huge effort. ‘Like I said, I need a little time to think, a little time on my own. And then maybe …’

‘Of course,’ said the parson. ‘You should take all the time you need. And you can rely on me to make the arrangements, you know, for the—’ He stopped, not wanting to say the word ‘funeral’ for fear of upsetting Adam again. And when Adam nodded, he felt his meaning had been understood.

He was about to leave but then changed his mind, putting out his hand instead and placing it on Adam’s shoulder. Over the last few months he had come to love the boy and the physical touch seemed to be the only way to tell him that. He stayed, standing over Adam’s seated figure for a moment, looking out at the water, and then turned and went back to the house without saying anything more.

The following days passed in a blur for Adam. He walked and walked, hardly ever stopping, tramping the roads around Scarsdale in every direction, sometimes going as far as the outskirts of Gratton, until his boots were all worn through and he had to pawn his watch to buy some more. And at night he returned to the widow’s house, falling into bed when he was too exhausted to walk any further. His father had already paid the rent for the month and the widow left him alone, making no reference to Daniel’s absence when she passed him in the hall so that he sometimes wondered whether she even knew about the fire. He fell asleep in his clothes, sleeping dreamlessly until the sun woke him in the morning, streaming in through the open window of his bedroom. And then he hurried out, avoiding the other rooms, avoiding anything or anyone that might remind him of the life he’d shared there with his father. He knew what he was doing: he was a veteran of grief, remembering how he’d got past his mother’s death eighteen months before, and he was stronger now, almost a man.

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