Sing Like You Know the Words (37 page)

Soon there would be an election.
All the smart commentators said that Tony Blair’s new vision of the
Labour Party would finally make the party electable. New Labour
would sweep away an exhausted conservative administration that had
its reputation for competence and even honesty in tatters after too
long in power. Politics would never be the same again.

This was taken as read by
everyone except people like Matthew and the Labour party itself,
traumatised as they were by decades of internal bickering, and
defeats snatched from the jaws of victory. On the left of politics,
whether you read about it in the media or heard about it at David’s
house on an evening, there was an obsession with the need to keep
discipline and not to break ranks. Don’t try to do too much about
this at first; don’t let the Tories get to the right of you on
that. Make sure there are plenty of fresh faces. Above all don’t
fall into the stereotype; wear a good suit and try to sound grown
up

It sounded like an impossible
trick; walking a tightrope carrying an anvil. Matthew struggled to
understand what any of it had to do with turning around years of
government by the rich for the rich. When you listened to the
speeches, and read what everyone had to say, it began to sound as
if a Labour government would not be so very different to the other
kind. All the parties were targeting what they called the middle
ground, like two fat men trying to sit on the same small chair. But
if so many things were going to stay the same, where would the big
change that everyone was getting excited about come from?

***

Ralph had been missing from the
office for a few days. It wasn´t the first time, but it worried
Richard Tuttle more than usual. Normally, before one of Ralph´s
episodes there would be warning signs, like the plumes of smoke and
ash that precede a volcanic eruption. But lately Ralph had seemed
quiet by his standards.

After work, Richard drove round
to the flat. He sat in the car for a while, parked at the kerb,
reminding himself that his sense of foreboding, like Ralph’s
absence, was nothing new.

Richard had a key, so that he
could feed the cats when Ralph was away. He knocked anyway, but
there was no answer.

Ralph’s flat was on the upper
floor. One of the cats brushed against Richard on the stairs,
hungry and indignant. She complained at him with a long and
petulant mew. Richard ignored her. All three of them were bad
tempered creatures that despised him, even when he was being their
food provider. Their sense that he did not unconditionally adore
them was enough to stir them to resentment.

The flat was laid out in a
modern style, though the building was old. There was an open plan
lounge at the top of the staircase: it was deserted and the whole
place had an abandoned feel. Richard called out softly, but no one
answered. The door to the kitchen was open. He opened the fridge
and found it empty.

He found Ralph in the main
bedroom. Here again the style was bright and modern. The high
ceiling was angled to match the pitch of the roof, and the roof
beams were left exposed, to make the space feel more like a loft.
They were made of heavy timber, supported by sturdy cross pieces.
It was a roof that was more than strong enough to support the
weight of Ralph’s thin body, hanging from one of the beams. He’d
used a belt for the noose, buckled to another that was looped round
the beam and nailed. It looked like a fragile arrangement, but it
had proved fit for its purpose.

From the look of it, Ralph had
climbed onto a chair back, balanced for a moment, and then kicked
the chair over. Richard knew little about how such things worked.
He could only hope that Ralph had looked into it properly, and that
he had managed the business well enough so that his neck was
snapped by the fall. Better that than hanging till he choked.

The body was very still, stiff
even. That was what shocked Richard most, though it should have
been expected. It was the rigidity that gave him the sense that the
living, breathing, speaking being that had once been was now turned
into a mere object. You could call what was hanging there a body,
but that would sound as if the thing suspended from the beam
retained some essence of personality or animation; that something
at least of the spirit remained. But at that moment, Richard only
felt that Ralph was gone, and this dead skin was just something to
be cleared up and dealt with: it was even too commonplace to be
horrifying. The resemblance of the lifeless hanging thing to Ralph
was only a cruel joke.

Richard went back into the
living room and sat down. He felt sadness but no anguish: his mind
was calm. The things that needed to be done and the people who
needed to be told began to crowd his thoughts, unbidden. He
realized that he’d rehearsed it all before in his head, many times,
without ever intending to. In his imagined versions of the moment,
it had been pills that were the cause, or only a failure of some
vital organ hastened by the years of ragged excess; perhaps even a
fall or some other domestic accident after drinking himself
insensible.

Hanging seemed too melodramatic
for Ralph’s taste: too much a grand gesture and too unambiguous.
Hanging required you to be settled and determined in your mind, for
the planning and the execution. And leaving a body hanging, needing
to be cut down, was like a mute reproach to the world: a statement
in itself. That was the way kids did it; the ones who were too
screwed up to realize that dying was just the end, and that after
it didn´t matter what anyone thought about you. He couldn´t imagine
that Ralph would have been thinking in that way. Maybe he just
didn’t trust pills.

It was a surprise that he hadn’t
made any arrangements for the cats, but then they had the cat door
as a route of escape. Probably Ralph thought they might move on and
find new homes, rather than providing something else for Richard to
worry about.

He rose, and walked to the
kitchen. There was food for the creatures in the usual place.
Richard was used to the task and did it mechanically. Better ring
his wife and explain he’d be late home, and why.

He knew that there were
practical things that must be done, but he felt reluctant to start,
as if something heavy were pressing him back. He knew that as soon
as he spoke to another human being, the business of the living
world would reclaim him, and his final connection to Ralph would be
broken. He sat down again, just for a moment.

-It will hit the lad hard, he
thought.

One of the cats, white and
black, sloped up to him and began to rub against his shin. He
stroked its head, absently. Fickle monsters, he thought.

***

-I found a note, Richard
explained to Matthew, a few days later. – Just six words. “Done
because we are too many”.

-That’s a quote. Thomas Hardy, I
think.

-Yes.

-In Hardy’s story the father
killed his family, then himself, because he couldn’t afford to feed
them.

-That´s right.

But Ralph lived alone, Matthew
said.

-I thought about it, Richard
answered. It’s meant as a joke I think. He´s saying there are too
many of all of us. Humans.

-Makes sense I suppose. But it’s
hardly a reason to kill yourself.

-I can´t think that Ralph ever
lacked a reason to kill himself Matt. I think what he needed were
reasons not to kill himself. I remember he used to like that phrase
from Sartre – nous sommes de trop. Same idea. People are
superfluous.

-It says nothing about himself.
Although it does sound like Ralph, and I wish it didn’t. If this
had to happen at all, I´d prefer to think that he did it when the
balance of his mind was disturbed. Better that he was temporarily
off his head than that it was a considered decision. Like he´d
passed a verdict on himself. I keep remembering the jokes we used
to make when we had to report a suicide. It was only gallows humour
I know, but now it leaves me feeling guilty.

-That’s only part of being human
lad. Laughing at it all is how life goes on.

Then Richard said that Matthew
would have to deliver the eulogy. Matthew could not understand why
it should be him, which seemed to shock Richard.

-You were his best pal, he
said.

-Was I? Matthew seemed genuinely
surprised. Surely lots of people knew him better than me. The two
of you have been friends for years.

-But he thought the world of you
Matt. He had a great ... affection for you. Did you really not
know? Think back, do you see? It has to be you, or you’ll be sorry
afterward. Ralph would have wanted it.

Matthew felt that he had no
choice, but still he had no idea what he should say. He did the
research diligently, in a way that he supposed Ralph would have
approved; meeting old friends who could give him a more rounded
picture of Ralph’s life; reading back through the archives. There
were no close relatives that they could trace. The time was short
and a solitary existence yielded little in the way of anecdote. The
external details of Ralph´s life could be summed up in a few
sentences, but what to say about the inner man?

Richard and Matthew resolved
that for present purposes Ralph should be considered Church of
England, although they had no evidence of his faith or lack of it.
The service was booked at the crematorium by the ring road, on the
north side of the city. It was held on a sunny morning. The funeral
people had managed all of the arrangements with quiet efficiency.
They advised that the day was a busy one with a number of
ceremonies scheduled, so everyone must take care to be punctual.
Richard had sorted out somewhere for drinks and light refreshments
afterwards.

Matthew owned a dark suit, not
black but near enough. He met Richard at the funeral parlour and
rode with him in the official car. There was only the two of them.
All the way, the rustle of paper in the right hand pocket of his
suit reminded him of the speech he would have to give. He kept
putting his hand in the pocket, without thinking, as if wanting to
check that the words were still on the paper. He noticed that his
hands were sweaty and wondered whether the occasion or his speech
was to blame.

At the crematorium, they stood
in sunshine that seemed to mock the purpose of the day and shook
hands with various people who Matthew had never seen before.
Richard seemed to know some of them. There were many more people
than Matthew had expected and it seemed odd that they wanted to
express condolences to him and Richard, as if the occasion were to
mark their private loss. They were cast as surrogate relatives for
the day.

They needn´t have bothered so
much with the floral arrangement because there were many bouquets
sent or delivered for the service. The mourners were of all kinds,
but mostly older people. Shaking hands with strangers, Matthew kept
seeing the same expression in eyes that made a point of meeting
his. It was a practiced expression of restrained sadness, that gave
Matthew the feeling that they were all part of a ritual he didn´t
quite understand, and some response was demanded of him that he
didn´t know how to make.

-I feel as if these people are
expecting me to tell them something. What should I say? he
whispered to Richard; but Richard was as much in demand as he and
had no time to reply.

Mindful of the time, they were
ushered inside. Matthew again became painfully conscious of the
crumpled paper in his pocket. Some music that he didn´t recognize
was playing. It didn´t sound religious, but played on an organ it
seemed to fit the occasion.

The minister began to speak and
the calm rhythm of his words made Matthew believe for the first
time that yes this was really happening; that Ralph was gone
forever; dead whatever that meant, and that this was their goodbye
to him. Absurdly, the realization came as a shock. At first the
minister said a few words about Ralph and who he was. His words
were carefully chosen and sensible and he didn´t make the mistake
of speaking as if he had known Ralph personally. Still this
preamble made Matthew more tense, and he was grateful when the
minister began to speak the formal words of the service.

And all the time the sheets of
paper in the right hip pocket of his suit seemed to grow heavier
and heavier.

He´d spoken briefly with the
minister before the service; a solidly built man of middle height
with reddish hair, bald on top. His manner was kindly in a
practical way: the sort of man to reassure that everything was
happening, and would happen, as it should. It was hard for Matthew
to imagine that such a man could believe these words about god and
eternal life.

Even so, the recital of the
familiar words was comforting in its familiarity, though some
phrases that had been updated for modern ears seemed to jar. What
would Ralph think of that? But then what would he make of the “in
sure and certain hope of resurrection” that this practical man
declared so confidently. How could anyone who was not deluded talk
about a certainty of resurrection without pretending? But then
there was a pause and he was being gently summoned forward.

Standing at the front of the
chapel, looking back to the congregation, everything looked
different. Matthew realised for the first time how crowded the
place was. He couldn´t remember seeing so many, outside. Expectant
faces, turned to him. The service had been understated and in
keeping with the occasion, but it could have been for anyone. Now
it was up to him bring them something that would make the occasion
personal to Ralph: that would make it different from all the other
services that would be conducted on that day and all the days that
came after. So many services; so many lives forever ended.