The clock on the mantelpiece ticked busily. The Craw moved a paper on his desk. There was a knock on the door, but the Craw didn’t answer it.
‘Died?’
‘I’m afraid so, Stephen.’
‘You must be brave, old chap,’ the Craw said, his voice beginning to make its scratchy sound again.
The knock on the door was repeated. ‘Not now,’ the Craw shouted.
‘It would be better if you didn’t come home. It would be better if you could stay at school, Stephen. I thought at first you should come home.’
‘Best to stay at school, Stephen,’ the Craw said.
‘Died?’ Stephen said again. ‘Died?’
His lips began to quiver. He felt the bones of his shoulders shaking uncontrollably. He could hear his own breathing, a noisy panting he couldn’t control either.
‘Died?’ he whispered.
His father was standing beside him, holding him.
‘It’s all right, Stephen,’ he said, but it wasn’t all right and the other two in the room knew it wasn’t either. It was unbelievable, it was something that could not be true. He felt the tears on his face, a wetness that came warmly and then was chill. He struggled, as he often did in nightmares, trying to reach a surface, struggling to wake up from horror.
‘You must be brave, old chap,’ the Craw said again.
She had a way of comforting, holding you differently from the way his father was holding him now. There was the softness of her hands, and her black hair, and a faint scent of perfume. ‘Eau de Cologne,’ she said. She smiled at him, her eyes lost behind sun-glasses.
The Craw was no longer in the room. His father had a handkerchief in his hand. Stephen wept again, closing his eyes. He felt the handkerchief on his face, wiping away the tears. His father was murmuring but he couldn’t hear what he was saying.
He couldn’t prevent himself from seeing her. She stood by the edge of the sea, a rust-coloured corduroy coat pulled tightly around her; he could see her breath on the icy air. He watched her making drop-scones in the kitchen of Primrose Cottage.
Mrs Craw came in with a cup of chocolate, with the Craw behind her, carrying a tray of tea things. They didn’t say anything. The Craw put the tray on the desk, and Mrs Craw poured a cup of tea for his father. They both went away again.
‘Try and drink your chocolate,’ his father said.
A skin had already formed on the surface. ‘Disgusting!’ he used to cry when she brought him chocolate in bed, and she’d laugh because it was a joke, because he was only pretending to be cross.
He drank the chocolate. His father repeated that it would be better if he remained in the school rather than return to Primrose Cottage. ‘I’m sorry to be so little help,’ his father said.
When he’d finished the chocolate the Craw and Mrs Craw returned. Mrs Craw said: ‘We’re going to put you in the san for the night. In Miss Tomm’s room.’
There were awkward silences then, but they were only awkward afterwards, looking back on them; they were nothing at all at the time. His father put his arms round him again, and then Miss Tomm came into the study with his clothes and shoes for the morning, and his wash-bag. The wash-bag was dangling from one of her fingers, yellow and blue and red. ‘Here’s a nice one,’ he’d said in Boots in Dynmouth the time they’d bought it. ‘This one.’
He walked with Miss Tomm across the quadrangle and then along the path by the playing-fields, to the sanatorium. Leaves squelched beneath their feet, it was windy and drizzling slightly. He couldn’t help shivering, even though it seemed wrong to be affected by the cold.
It seemed wrong to fall asleep, but he did fall asleep. He was in a camp-bed beside Miss Tomm’s bed, and when he woke he didn’t know where he was. Then he remembered, and lay in the darkness sobbing, listening to Miss Tomm breathing. Once or twice she spoke in her sleep, once saying something about spoons, and once saying she loved someone. There was a smell of powder in the room, a smell that wasn’t like the smell of eau de Cologne and yet reminded him of it. When the dawn began to come he could see the outline of Miss Tomm in bed and when the light was better he could see her open mouth and the hairpins in her hair and her clothes on a chair quite close to him.
An alarm clock went off at half past seven and he watched Miss Tomm waking up and being surprised when she realized he was there. He watched her frowning, peering at him.
‘My mother died,’ he said.
He wasn’t going to cry. He wasn’t going to shiver like that. If he cried, it would be in the middle of the night again, quietly and to himself. He felt an emptiness in his stomach when he thought about it, an actual pain that came and went. But he did not want to cry.
He walked with Miss Tomm back to the school, carrying his pyjamas and dressing-gown and slippers. They would be late for breakfast, he said, because the bell had stopped ringing more than a minute ago. Mr Deccles had promised it wouldn’t matter, Miss Tomm said, and when they entered the dining-hall together he knew that the Craw had told the whole school what had happened. There was a silence when they entered the dining-hall, which continued while Miss Tomm went to the sideboard where the cornflakes were given out, while he himself pushed his way to his place.
The boys at his table looked at him, and although talk had begun again at other tables the boys at his remained silent. Quiet-Now Simpson, who was at the head of the table, didn’t know what to say.
Afterwards, during the day, boys said they were sorry. And much later on he was told that when the Craw had informed the school he’d said it would be better if boys didn’t mention the matter. ‘Just be kind to Fleming,’ apparently he’d admonished.
He went to see the Craw and said he wanted to go to his mother’s funeral. He didn’t want to remain at home after it, or go home immediately. He just wanted to return to Dynmouth for the funeral.
The headmaster shook his head, and for a moment Stephen thought he was going to say that this request would be impossible to grant.
‘Your father,’ the Craw said instead. ‘I just wonder what your father …’
‘Could you telephone my father, sir? Please, sir.’
‘Well. Well, yes, I dare say.’
There and then the telephone call was made. Impatiently, the headmaster’s stick-like fingers rapped the surface of the desk while he waited to be connected. It was clear he would have preferred not to telephone. It was clear that he considered it a nuisance, a boy having to go to a funeral, special arrangements made.
‘Ah, Mr Fleming. Deccles here.’ His voice softened by an injection of mournfulness, was less scratchy than it had been a moment ago. He repeated the request that had been made. He listened for a moment. He nodded and then he said, handing Stephen the receiver:
‘Your father’d like to speak to you.’
Stephen took the receiver from him, unable to avoid contact with the fingers that generations of boys hadn’t cared to touch either.
‘Are you really sure, Stephen? Mummy wouldn’t have –’
‘I’d like to come.’
Miss Tomm put him on a train, his father met him at Dynmouth Junction and drove him back to Primrose Cottage. Later they drove from the cottage to Dynmouth, to the church of St Simon and St Jude, where Mr Featherston conducted the service. The clergyman gave an address, referring to the death as a tragedy. ‘Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of His great mercy,’ he said softly, ‘to take unto Himself the soul of our dear sister, we therefore commit her body to the ground.’
It was sunny in the graveyard. Yellow and brown leaves were scattered everywhere. It was unbelievable that she was lying in the gleaming coffin which four men were lowering on ropes. It was unbelievable that her body was going to rot, that never again would she be seen or heard, that never again would she kiss him. He wasn’t able to prevent himself from crying. The more he held it all back the worse it became. He wanted to cry loudly, to run to the coffin and embrace it, to speak to her even though she was dead.