"Put to rest"
A piece of flash fiction which demonstrates how inspiration is all around us...
All I did was to walk past this gate:
Put to rest
He walks into the churchyard via the back entrance: four rough steep steps up from the narrow pavement and in through the enamel-painted iron gate which to him has always seemed too small compared to the gap in the wall. The latch is not fastened which can only mean that Jack is already there busying himself in the shed, preparing things for their once-a-week morning shift. Checking his watch, Duncan knows Jack would have spent a little time with Rose and, having done so, will now be settled for work.
Closing the gate behind him, Duncan walks the short distance between the trees to where the space broadens out and the graves begin. About fifty yards ahead and to one side, partially sheltered by three overgrown laurel, the gardeners’ hut; in front of the shed a number of spades and forks lie in a confused jumble on the path, and on the nearby bench the slightly hunched figure of Jack.
“Morning Jack.” Instantly aware all is not as it should be, Duncan attempts a tone perhaps a fraction of an octave above where he would normally pitch it. “All set?”
Jack glances up but says nothing.
“I thought we’d start down by the War Graves; I think they’re due a bit of a tidy-up, don’t you?”
“I can’t do it,” Jack says, more to his boots than to Duncan.
“Do what?”
“This. Not this morning.”
Duncan puts down his small rucksack and sits next to his friend. “What’s up? Have you seen Rose?”
Jack shakes his head.
“Well why don’t you take five minutes now? I’ll get this lot sorted.” Duncan looks at the implements which have clearly just been thrown from the shed.
“There’s no point.”
“What do you mean, ‘there’s no point’?”
Jack raises his head, glances at Duncan for an instant, then stares up at the trees above them. Although there is a slight breeze and the early chill of autumn, it has the makings of a fine day. ‘Good gardening weather’.
“I got in early, like I usually do. Then I came here, unlocked the shed, then went down to see Rose.”
“And?”
“I didn’t get there. I couldn’t get there.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought I’d go round by the old oak, you know, then across. But when I was about twenty yards away I just stopped. I saw her stone and just couldn’t go any closer.”
“Why on earth not? Was there something wrong?”
“Not with the stone; not that I could see from where I was.” Jack lowers his head; stares at the tools on the path. “It was as if there was a barrier, something in the way. As if she’d put something up to stop me getting any closer.”
“Rose?”
“Aye.”
Because you need a certain sense of humour to work in a graveyard one day a week for twenty-two years, Duncan’s immediate instinct is to laugh, but he can see how distraught his friend is. “You don’t believe that” is all he manages.
“I tried, Dunc.” Jack’s tone is suddenly desperate. “I walked back round, went the other way. Same thing. The same thing. And I’d brought some fresh flowers too, but she didn’t want them.” He nods towards a nearby bin; Duncan notices the pristine heads of some chrysanthemums poking out.
“How can she not want them, Jack?”
“Because.”
“Because what?”
As if for the first time, Duncan notices the chattering back-and-forth of blackbirds in a nearby tree; and beyond the laurel, the occasional purr of rubber on tarmac as cars make their way into town.
“Because she’s found me out. After all this time, she’s worked it out. I don’t know how, but she knows.”
“Knows what?”
“That I’m the reason she’s where she is. That I couldn’t bear to see her in the state she was in, not knowing what day of the week it was, not recognising the kids. Not knowing me.”
Duncan remembers how difficult it had been for him — but that was five years ago. “You weren’t responsible for her not being well, Jack. None of that was your fault.”
“I thought if I came here every week, started talking to her, tending the place, trying to make it as nice as I could… I thought if I did all of that she might forgive me. But now she’s seen through me; she’s worked it out.”
“Worked what out, man?”
Jack stands, looks down to the tools lying in front of him and then away into the graveyard.
“Maybe you can explain it to her. Maybe she’ll listen to you. If you tell her that I was only trying to do what was best. To remove the confusion. To make it quick and painless. Perhaps if you tell her all that then she’ll forgive me.”
And with that Jack walks away along the path and back to the small iron gate and the rough steep steps.