My daddy opened his mouth once more to speak. But he didn’t ask “why?” as many would. Uncle Jon was always writing to the Pope about one thing or another.
“I am shocked,” said my father, the Daddy. “I am deeply shocked by this revelation. I was fighting with Charlie only the last week.”
“I was fighting with him only the last yesterday and now he is no more.”
“So!” cried the Daddy. “You murdered him! Hand me the poker from the brass companion set that lacks for the tongs, son. And I will set about your uncle something fierce.”
I hastened to comply with this request.
“Hold hard,” said my uncle, raising his blind-man’s stick. “I am innocent of this outlandish charge. Charlie died in a bizarre vacuum-cleaning accident. He was all alone at the time. I was in the Royal Borough of Orton Goldhay, performing with Count Otto Black’s Circus Fantastique. To rapturous applause and a standing ovation, even from those who had to remain sitting, due to lack of legs.”
“Charlie was my closest friend,” said the Daddy. “I loved him like the brother I never had.”
“I never had that brother too,” said my uncle. “I only had yourself, which is no compensation.”
“Do you still require the poker, Daddy?” I asked.
“Not yet, son, but keep it handy.”
“That I will,” said I, keeping it handy.
“I am appalled,” my daddy said. “Appalled, dismayed and distraught.”
“And so you should be.” Uncle Jon turned his glassy eyes to heaven. “And so should we all be. And I have had enough of it. Charlie is dead and there will be a funeral and a burying and words will be spoken over him and what for and why? Nobody knows where he’s bound for. Whether to a sun-kissed realm above, or just to the bellies of the worms beneath. No one, not even the Pope. And I think it’s a disgrace. The Government spends our tax money putting up Belisha beacons and painting telephone boxes the colour of blood, but do they put a penny into things that really matter? Like finding out what happens to people after they die, and if it’s bad, then doing something about it? Do they? I think not!”
“Daddy,” said I. “This Charlie Penrose, who you claim was your closest friend. Why did he never come round here?”
“Too busy,” said my father. “He was a great sporting man. Sportsmanship was everything to him. And when he wasn’t engaged in some piece of sportsmanship, then he was busy writing. He was a very famous writer. A writer of many, many books.”
“Poetry books?” I enquired.
My father smote me in passing. “Not poetry!” he shouted. “Never use that word in this house. He was the writer of great novels. He was the best best-selling author of this century so far. He was the man who wrote the Lazlo Woodbine thrillers. And also the Adam Earth science-fiction novels. Although they were, in my opinion, rubbish, and it’s Woodbine he’ll be remembered for.”
“Surely that is P.P. Penrose,” said I with difficulty, clicking my jawbone back into place. “P.P. Penrose. But this is terrible. Mr Penrose is my favourite author. Are you certain that this Charlie is really the same dead fellow?”
“Same chap,” said Daddy. “He changed his name from Charlie to P.P. because it gave him more class.”
“We have more class at my school, when no one’s off sick with diphtheria,” I said.
“Same sort of thing,” said my daddy.
“No it’s not,” said my Uncle. “Don’t just humour the boy, tell him all of the truth.”
My daddy nodded. “It’s nothing like that at all, son,” he said, smiting me once again.
I considered the poker. A boy at our school had done for his daddy with a poker. He’d done for his mummy too. And all because he wanted to go to the orphans’ picnic in Gunnersbury Park. I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing anything as horrid as that. But it did occur to me that if I smote the Daddy just the once, but hard, it might put him off smiting me further in the future. It would be the work of a moment, but would take quite a lot of nerve. It was worth thinking about, though.
“There’ll be a wake,” said my Uncle Jon, derailing my train of thought. “There’s always a wake.”
“What’s a wake?” I asked, pretending that I didn’t know, and edging myself beyond my daddy’s smiting range.
“It’s a kind of party,” said my Uncle Jon, lizarding all around and about in the visitors’ chair. “Folk like your daddy drink a very great deal of beer at such functions at the expense of the dead man’s family and rattle on and on about how the dead man was their bestest friend.”
“Is there jelly and balloons?” I asked, because I greatly favoured both.
“Go and play in the yard,” said the Daddy.
“We don’t have a yard,” I informed him.
“Then go and help your mummy lather sprouts.”
“That’s women’s work,” I said. “If I do women’s work I might well grow up to be a homo.”
“True enough,” said my uncle. “I’ve seen that happen time and again. Show me a window-dresser and I’ll show you a boy who lathered sprouts.”
My father made a grunting noise with his trick knee. “Much as I hate your uncle,” he said, “he might well have a point on this occasion. He knows more than most about homos.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” said my uncle, “although it wasn’t meant as one. But let the lad stay. He should be told about these things. He’ll never learn to walk upon ceilings, just by standing on his hands.”
“There’s truth in that too,” said my daddy.
“What?” said I.
“What indeed!” said my daddy. “But tell me, young Gary, what do you know about death?”
“Well,” said I, toying with the poker, “I’ve heard that good boys go to heaven and that brutal fathers burn for ever in the fires of hell.”
My uncle laughed. “I’ve heard that too,” said he. “But what do you actually know about death?”
I shook my head in answer to the question. “Nothing,” I said. In truth I knew quite a lot about death. It was a particular interest of mine. But I had learned early on in my childhood that adults responded favourably to ignorance in children. They thrived on it. It made them feel superior.
“What is death, Uncle Jonny?” I asked.
Uncle “Jonny” pursed his lizard lips. “Now that is a question,” he said. “And it’s one to which no satisfactory answer really exists. You see, it’s all down to definitions. It is generally agreed amongst members of the medical profession that a subject is dead when they have suffered ‘brain-stem death’. Which is to say, when all cerebral activity – that is, brain activity – has ceased. This is referred to as clinical death. Although, I am reliably informed, certain techniques exist that are capable of keeping the body of a dead person ‘alive’ in a hospital by electronically manipulating the heart muscle and pumping air into the lungs.”
“Why would anyone want to do that?” asked my father.
“I don’t know,” said my uncle. “For use in spare-part surgery, I suppose, or possibly for the recreational activities of some deviant doctor.”
“Go and lather sprouts!” my father told me. “I’ll risk you becoming a homo.”
“I want to listen,” I said. “Or I’ll never learn how to walk upon the ceiling.”
“You know enough,” said my father.
“I don’t,” I said. “When is this wake, Uncle Jonny? Can I come to it?”
“No, you can’t,” said my daddy.
“It’s not really for children,” said my uncle. “The body will be in an open casket. Have you ever seen a dead corpse, young Gary?”
I had in fact seen several, but I wasn’t going to let on. “Never,” said I. “But I’d like to pay my respects. I’ve read most of Mr Penrose’s novels.”