‘We had a funeral for you,’ I told him. ‘The government said it would help. I even had to sign a piece of paper to say they could properly dispose of your body. Says something about the amount of bodies over there, doesn’t it? Not even Mister Efficient Government Man Mr. Penny knew your body wasn’t over there. I shouldn’t be mean about him, though. He was nice. He was the one who suggested the funeral. Sion and Rhodri came. People liked you, Danny. They always did.’
I rambled to him as he watched me through those dead eyes. I cut his once white t-shirt off him and threw it to the floor. Even in the pale light that permeated the shed, it was clear that my brother was in a bad way. His ribs stood out through his tight, translucent skin. When I walked behind him I could count every single one of his vertebrae. There was hardly any muscle and no fat to speak of; Danny was wasting away in front of me.
‘I’m just going to clean you up a little, okay? Because let’s face it, you smell bad.’
‘Ed,’ he slurred, letting his weight sag forward on his emaciated left arm. I pulled the sodden brush out of the bucket and began to scrub his body. The water ran down his chest, over his stomach and down inside the leather motorbike trousers that were literally hanging off him.
‘Ed,’ he said again.
No matter how much or how little I fed him, he still lost weight. I was convinced that if I upped the amount I was giving him then he would start to look more, well, more human. But instead he continued to fade away. In the darkest of nights, I believed that he was, in fact, rotting from the inside out, like he was host to a huge tumour that was draining his body of its vital nutrients.
‘Ed.’
‘Oh, shut up!’ I snapped, picked up the bucket and threw its contents straight into his face. He didn’t blink. He didn’t become aggressive. He just hung there still, feet stepping forward and back on the wet wood. The water dripped from his face and what was left of his hair stood up on end like he had styled it for a night out. I tossed the empty bucket against the side of the shed and dropped to my knees, jeans soaking up some of the soapy water as it ran across the floor. I still held the brush in one hand. Danny’s head drooped as he looked down at me.
He made a sound I hadn’t heard him make before. I couldn’t believe it.
‘What did you say? What did you say?’
He continued to stare at me blankly, head moving from side to side. And then he uttered the noise again.
‘Dah,’ he repeated, much more clearly.
Nearly seven months I had kept him in here, hoping there would be some way to bring my brother back, and now he was trying to say ‘Danny’.
Reading to Danny, even with the battery-powered lamp I now kept in the shed, had become a chore. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do it anymore or even that I thought he no longer responded to the words, but he was just more and more vocal during the time I spent in his shed. I would read less than a paragraph and he would start telling his own story back to me. The ‘Dah’ word had become clearer, although at times it sound more like ‘Duh’. Either way, he would finish the word with what sounded like a long and drawn out exhalation and I started to believe that he was going to soon add another syllable onto the end of it.
So I would start reading, and he would start trying to form his name. And I would put the book down and stand up and try to coach him to say ‘Danny’. I could see the frustration in him. He would say ‘Dah’ or ‘Duh’ and I would finish the name for him, ‘Nee’, but as time went on he would shake his head, step towards me, eyes staring right at me as he almost stamped his feet. I wondered if this was how stroke patients or people who had severely injured their spines felt; they could think the words and actions they wanted to carry out, but their bodies would not let them fulfil them. So I would calm him down, return to the book, and again he would interrupt.
But I still did it. He was my brother and I wanted him to remain as close to human as was possible. For me, a big part of this chore of mine was not fully looking at him, because when I did I struggled to describe what I saw as my brother Danny. I just had to believe that he was still in there. I had turned to Shakespeare’s Macbeth as something that I remembered had caught his attention in school, hoping it would stimulate him now as it had then.
It seemed to have worked. He stood absolutely still, left arm loose despite being tied to the rafter, head sloping forward but eyes, as ever, wide open. I finished a scene and as I turned the page I glanced up at him. He had become more alert and was now looking at me.
‘You like this story, don’t you?’ I asked him.
‘Duh,’ he said, and then that breathless sound.
‘Yeah, you’re Dan…’
‘Ed!’ he stated, more clearly than ever before.
‘Duh—nee, duh—nee,’ I encouraged. I laid the book down, text to the floor so I didn’t lose our page, and lifted myself to my feet.
‘You okay there, Danny?’
‘Duh… Ed.’ He made a motion with his head that made it seem like he was looking himself up and down.
‘Duh… Ed,’ he repeated.
With lifeless, soulless eyes he stared into my face, made the head gesture again.
‘Duh… Ed.’ The voice, more pleading this time, and the tears that fell from my eyes were born of understanding.
‘Duh…Ed.’
He was not saying ‘Ed’. He was not trying to say ‘Danny’. He was trying to tell me something else, and had been for a long time.
My brother was telling me that he wanted to be dead.
I still held the typed sheet of paper in my hand as I stepped out through the kitchen door and onto the decking. There were very few letters I bothered to open anymore, especially anything that looked official. Most of the other mail that dropped through the letter box were either bills or bank statements, so when the personalised stationary of one of the local solicitor’s arrived, it caught my attention. I stood at the bottom of the stairs and peeled open the top flap, and after reading just the first paragraph had to put my hand on the banister to steady myself.
I couldn’t believe what I was reading; the land to the right-hand side of our home had been sold to property developers and planning permission had been sought to build apartments. I walked through the house in a daze, unable to formulate any real course of action. The air was warm as I stood looking out over the garden. I was reminded of the day we were told our parents had died and how emptiness had filled me up, had overtaken me.
* * *
‘I’m sorry, Matt, but there’s very little we’ll be able to do about this. The previous owner had the zoning of the land changed to residential a long time ago, and because of where the apartments are going to be positioned, they aren’t actually going to be overhanging your property’.
Ram Morjaria had been our family solicitor for years; he’d been the guide for Dad when he set up the copyright on his design and had, with the financial aspects at least, been there for Danny and me after our parents were killed. I trusted him and I knew that he would not only give me the best advice for dealing with this situation, but would also go that extra mile if it was at all possible.
‘How much will it cost to fight this?’ I asked.
‘You and I both know that the cost isn’t the issue, Matt. The point is that no matter how much we dig in our heels, all we’re going to be able to do is slow them down. We can’t stop them.’
Ram ran his hand across his white beard, shaking his head as he did so. He was a tall, slightly built man. His Indian accent had softened over the years and he’d developed a light Welsh lilt on certain words.
‘Matt, did you not see the Council’s notices?’
I shrugged.
‘Matt, they would have been up on the lampposts, telegraph poles over the last few months? You would have even received a letter? Do you not recall any of this?’
‘I’ve just been wrapped up in my own life. I haven’t paid much attention to stuff, well, not since…’
Ram stood up and came around to my side of his desk.
‘I’ll see what I can do, but I cannot promise anything. As I said, all I think we can do is slow this down. And maybe if enough barriers are put in the way, then the project will just fade away. But don’t hold out too much hope.’
‘Trust me,’ I said, getting to my feet and shaking his hand. ‘I don’t hold out too much hope for anything anymore.’
How could I? After all, I had no choice now but to fulfil my brother’s wish.
Dusk had become night by the time I finished digging. Blisters had formed and split on each hand and a thick, muddy sweat ran down into my eyes. I rubbed the back of my hand across my forehead and held it there as the tears came again. I thrust the blade of the shovel into the soil and then used it to hold me upright until I could pull myself back together. I knew this had to happen at some point, but I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t finish this, not now, not tonight.
I had chosen the plot well. It was in the corner of the back garden, tight in by the six foot wall that had been, for what seemed like the longest time, the only thing that had stood between us and the end. I’d planted a row of saplings that would give this spot even more cover. I, of course, had kidded myself at the time that it was the best place for them to catch the sun, and that the rain drained away towards that corner, too. But I knew what I was doing and why; that once Danny told me he wanted to die, it would have to come to this.
I needed to go into the shed. The roll of plastic pond liner was in there. It was as much as I could do to open the door and throw it in there last week. Why hadn’t I just left it in the garage? No chance could I open that door now and face the full extent of what I needed to finish once and forever.
Leaving the shovel standing upright, I climbed out of the hole. It was at least one metre deep and one metre wide. I would double line it with the plastic sheeting and then dump him in; simple as that.
A shuffling sound came from inside the shed. Could I hear that shallow, raspy breathing or was it an echo in my mind?
‘Shut up,’ I muttered, unsure.
Head bowed, I began the trek up to the house.
* * *
I let the water run until the shower was hot. My skin stung as I washed the dirt off myself, rinsed the suds and turned the shower off. Hearing the telephone ring, I stepped out of the shower cubicle, quickly took a towel from the silver heated towel rail and wrapped it around my waist, a habit I would never lose no matter how long I lived by myself.
‘Hello.’
‘Matt? This is Nick. How are you, mate?’
I could do without this. I had complete sympathy for him, I really did, but I had enough on my mind tonight and I couldn’t cope with his issues too.
‘ Look, I’ve just got out of the shower and…’
‘Okay, I get the message, mate. But I’ll be in the King’s Head for last orders if you fancy it. You know where I am.’
Yeah, more and more in the pub, mate.
‘Appreciate it, Nick,’ I said, possibly a little too sarcastic, ‘Sorry. Just tired.’
‘Not a worry, mate. I’ll catch you soon.’
Click.
I sat on the edge of the bed and placed the phone back in its cradle.
What could I have said to him? ‘
Sorry, would love a pint, but just been digging a grave in my back garden
’?
My stomach rumbled and I knew I needed to eat, but fatigue overtook me and I slumped onto the bed. I desperately tried to keep my eyes open, because every time I closed them all I could see was Danny’s face.
* * *
I must have drifted off at some point, fading in and out of sleep without gaining any of the real benefit. I could feed myself all kinds of rubbish that it was bad dreams that kept me awake, but I don’t think I ever went off deep enough to have nightmares, and if I did, I was lucky that I was unable to recall them.
The digital clock on the bedside cabinet said 6:45. I got out of bed and headed downstairs.
The lights remained on in the kitchen but I flicked the switch off as I walked in; the bright March sunshine was burning in around gaps in the curtains and that was more than enough light for making coffee. Although my back felt tight and my hands had been better, I was more or less okay, and I wanted to press on. The kettle boiled and I added the hot water to the coffee. I unlocked the back door and stepped through onto the decking, looking out over the garden.
From here, I could see over the wall at the end of the property and across the river toward Usk itself. I could see the floodlights from the tennis club and, beyond that, the cricket field. Further away, and to the left, was the steeple of the church, these days more a spiritual centre of the village than it had been in decades. The garden was nicely laid out: the decking, a long stretch of lawn with a pond in the middle, the large shed off to the left and in the far left corner, the row of saplings and the hole I had created the evening before. That kind of ruined the scene.
Over the left wall was the neighbours’ expansive garden, bigger than ours, so much so that their house was far enough away not to overlook even a section of our land. To the right had been farm fields, now sold, and it was my final failure to get the plans rejected that had brought me to this dark and miserable position.
I finished my coffee and a small bowl of cereal before pulling on some clothes and my boots. I felt my stomach churn as I purposefully marched down the garden with the keys to the shed in my hand. The shovel had tilted in the night and lay against the side of the hole, but the ladder was just as I had left it.
The hole was deep enough and I couldn’t keep putting this off. I unlocked the two padlocks on the shed and leant in. There was immediate movement and a muffled gasp, almost a moan, but I blocked out all noises and I was able to pull out the roll of plastic pond liner without any trouble. I pushed the shed door closed and launched the roll down into the hole, turned and re-clipped the padlocks and pushed the keys to the bottom of my pocket. I climbed down the ladder, stopping halfway as a muscle in my back gave a small twinge. Pulling the shovel out of the ground, I threw it up over the lip of the hole, only then realising how fatigued my deltoids were. The shovel almost made it, but then tumbled back down toward me.