Car speeding up the ramp to the highway, tire chains gripping and humming on the hard snow. Past parked ocean liners, tall ships, steaming funnels and rust stained anchors hauled up against the bows. Ice flows in the river. And across it, a bleak winter skeleton of an amusement park stands on top of the hard straight cliffs.
Smith opening up the mail. To each a quick glance. One school chum, alas from an institution. A risque one from Matilda. A big santa claus holding a bottle of whisky from the kids. Nothing from Shirl. Others blaring good business and prosperity. Make a million throughout the coming year. And happy new year too. And what's this, amid this. Within this. Poor quality envelope, a little letter from far away. Hold it on my dark knee. Makes me blink.
Post Office
Cool Village
December ipth
Dear Mr. Smith,
I am so sorry to have to acquaint you with bad news. On December i4th your mother died peacefully and your father passed away in the same manner yesterday, Tuesday the15th, your mother having gone the Friday before. They both told me while they lived that they did not want to bother you as they knew you were a very busy man. Your father said I was not to give you any bad news that might worry you. But since he has now passed away too, I am writing. I hope to the right address which I found in your father's papers, and that this reaches you. As your whereabouts has been unknown.
The details are that the clergy found a definite sum of money of which they will tell you soon, which they found useful for expenses regarding the undertaking and costs of other arrangements. They knew you would wish a suitable stone and they selected their grave under the yew tree in the old cemetery near the big rock. I know you may know this burial ground has been out of use but it is now believed here by anyone of the modern outlook that the rumoured vampire has been driven out, having been dealt with by the Clergy with a good sprinkle of the holy juice.
And I would like to add a personal note myself that the dear old couple always minding their own business may rest in peace. I know it is such a blow to you I will not add further news. Except that the passing away is much mourned here in the village. It seems there are enough twisters and chiselers loose on the roads these days trampling graves of honest respectable people that I don't mind telling you the old folk are a loss. And condolences. The Clergy say they will be in touch with you later with the details.
Mary Needles (Miss)
Of The Post Office
With deepest sorrow.
Out the window the highway dips down under a stone bridge and up on hills stand lavish houses surrounded in grey brown thickets of trees. George Smith's tear fell plop on the paper. Out of a weak left eye. They never had a chance. None of us have. For what. A private telephone like the one in this car. Didn't want to worry me. When Shirl's father died she spat on me. Out of the blue. Right across a table in a drug store. Had I known her better, I would have punched her. She was having a chocolate soda. Had her father and mother died at once I would need an umbrella. News comes like this, and something is saying I knew all the time. I knew. Just as I went then back to our apartment with Shirl after the spitting and lay on her in the afternoon till she went fast asleep crying and crying. Waking when a warbling bird came pecking at a pot on the window sill. She said hear that sound. I had a hand on her young breast. I said it was a bird dipping in a dish. She said it's my father tapping on a tomb. I listened again. She said it's dark, birds don't come out at nights. I said bats do. And rearing up naked and thin in my arms she said O George it isn't a bat, please tell me it isn't a bat, bats come out for blood and get in your hair and God I don't want that, no. I held her down close underneath me. Just as we'd lain night and nights together clutched. And suddenly she bit me and I screamed. She said I hate you.
Chauffeur turning and with a white gloved hand pointing to a sign. George picking up his microphone. Clearing his throat because nothing came out at first.
"Next turning driver. Cross between the fences of the golf course. And straight at the next traffic lights."
A little touch of the peaked cap. Had this driver before. Not servile but civil. Keeps an even ready eye on the road. Minds his own business. For mine is properly sad. And when I married Shirl my parents sent her beads on which to say prayers and later my mother's pearls. Shirl stood over them in the brown wrapping paper, wondering if they were real. I had hoped she would have die good breeding to take it as a gesture on the part of my mother and father. And not as she did one day at her jewel box whisper loudly, I wouldn't be caught dead in this junk. On the part of my parents it had been a sacrifice. And now one after the other they've been carried along the sea road and up the ancient lane in their coffins. And if Shirl stood in the cow pasture nearby, in her shimmering green and oriental amethysts watching them go, I can hear what her lips are saying, his God damn peasant parents without a pot to piss in. Shirl this one's jade which I send to you now. Use in their memory.
Two trolley tracks in a cobbled stone road. Smith's car crossing them to tall iron gates laid open. Man in a grey uniform kicking his black booted feet together and clapping his hands in the cold. Looks and makes a gesture of pushing the gate wider which weighs three tons at least. But I appreciate that. Nod. He nods. Salutes. Never knowing I suppose if it's proper to smile as well. And one more letter here to peruse before further business.
i Electricity Street
December 22nd.
The year is irrelevant.
Dear Sir,
Obviously you intend ignoring my communications. I do not think you quite understand who I am.
Yours faithfully,
J J J. & Associates
I dispute that this man is the result of what his mother and father did. Joyless as it must have been. If you get slammed with one thing. Another, don't worry, is on the way. Where once there was no hope there is horror now. And if you are sad and remembering, wham, not long till they wake you. One brief reply for Miss Martin to send off when she comes in on Wednesday. And ask the obvious question with perhaps something as a post script. Make jocularity his lot. For the moment.
Main Gate
Renown Memorial Cemetery
December 24th
Do choose a year.
J J. J. & Associates
i Electricity Street
Dear Sir,
Who are you?
Are you possibly a live wire?
Yours sincerely,
G. Smith
P.S. What are your connections?
George Smith's car pulling up in front of a grey stone building. Entwined with winter shrunken ivy vines and in summer full of buzzing bees. Tiny windows sunk in the thick walls. A gable roof, so like the little country cottage one keeps in a dream. Chauffeur popping up the steps. Nearly skidding on his arse on the porch. Whoops, neatly regaining balance. Pity. Gone by the board. Nice little action for damages. Liability for one shattered pelvis. And while I build my monstrous mausoleum my mother and father go to their small graves.
Cemetery looks whitely sleeping. Big tombs. One round, with pillars as high as five men standing on each other's heads. Something to be said for these blue spruce trees. For their silence. And cold perfume. My mother and father lived laced in by roses. And walked once a week along the train tracks by the sea to buy pressed beef, four miles away. A spring at the bottom of their garden. Grey cat called Snooky who was a good ratter even with his balls cut off. Nature's full of foolishness. They had me late in life. Nothing else to do in the country on the edge of a bog with the sea getting nearer every year until it would take it all. Just like the village postoffice fifty years ago, now three miles out under the waves.