Grief is the Thing with Feathers Read online

  CROW

  Once upon a time there was a babysitting bird, let’s call him Crow. He had read too many Russian fairy tales (lazy boy burn, Baba Yaga howl, decent Prince win), but was nevertheless an authorised and accredited caregiver, much admired by London parents, much in demand of a Friday night. On his newsagent advert it was written:

  ‘Nappy Valley: And Beyond!’

  The telly went off and Crow suggested a game. ‘You two boys’, he said, ‘must each build – here on the floor – a model of your Mother. Just as you remember her! And whichever of you builds the best model will win. Not the most realistic, but the best, the truest. The prize is this …’ said the Crow, stroking their shampooed hair … ‘the best model I will bring to life, a living mother to tuck you up in bed.’

  And so the boys set to it.

  The one son went for drawing, furiously concentrating like a little waist-high fresco painter scrabbling hands and knees on the scaffold. Thirty-seven taped-together sheets of A4 paper and the full rainbow of crayons, pencils and pens, his front teeth biting down on his lower lip. Heavy nasal sighing as he adjusted the eyes, scrapped them, started again, working his way down, happy with the hands, happy with the legs.

  The second son went for assemblage, a model of the woman made from cutlery, ribbons, stationery, toys, buttons and books, manically adjusting – leaping up, lying down – like a mechanic in the pits. Clicking and tutting as he worked his way around the mosaic mum, happy with the face, happy with the height. And, ‘Stop!’ said the Crow.

  ‘They are both extraordinary,’ he said, admiring their work, ‘you’ve got her smile, you’ve captured her posture, her shoulders were hunched to that exact degree!’

  And the boys couldn’t wait to find out who had won; ‘Which one?! Which Mum?!’, but Crow started hopping, avoiding their gaze, suppressing a giggle and turning away.

  ‘Crow, which one of these fake mums has won us a real one?’

  And Crow was quiet, laughing no more.

  ‘Crow, don’t be funny, let’s have our real Mummy.’ And Crow started crying.

  And the boys cooked Crow in a very hot oven until he was nothing but cells.

  This is Crow’s bad dream.

  BOYS

  Yes? she said, before she was dead.

  We don’t want baths, our bums are clean!

  We both had a bath last night.

  Fine, she said. Straight to bed for stories.

  Yes? she said, before she was dead.

  We don’t want baths, our bums are clean!

  We both had a bath last night.

  Well, she said, no bath, no stories.

  You decide.

  DAD

  We will fill this house with toys and books and wail like playgroup left-behinds.

  I refused to lose a wife and gain chores, so I accepted help. My brother was incredible, give me food, let me shout, with the boys, with the bank, with the post office, the school, the doctors and our folks. Her parents were kind, with the service, with the money, with their people, give me space, give me time, give me sense of her, let me apologise, let me find a path outside simple fury. Her friends, our families, with the news and the details, and her stuff, doing her proud, doing it right, teasing out a route and tailoring it to us, and not a cliché in sight.

  BOYS

  Not long after, our Gran was dying. We were told we could go up, so we went up. The carpet was deep and soft and we were barefoot. She had an oxygen tank on wheels. We went either side of the bed and each held a hand. The hand I held was crinkled and soft and amazingly warm. She said she had some things to tell us if we were ready to hear them. We said we were ready. Born ready Gran, my brother said, which I thought was inappropriate, but she said ‘Yes, born ready darling’.

  She told us that men were rarely truly kind, but they were often funny, which is better. ‘You would do well to prepare yourselves for disappointment’ she said, ‘in your dealings with men. Women are on the whole much stronger, usually cleverer’ she said, ‘but less funny, which is a shame. Have babies, if you can’ she said ‘because you’ll be good at it. Help yourselves to anything you find in this house. I want to give you everything I have because you are the most precious and beautiful boys. You remind me of everything I have ever been interested in’ she said.

  ‘Do you hate seeing me wheeze?’

  No, we said, it’s fine.

  ‘Help yourself to the cigarettes in the kitchen drawers’ she said, ‘and one day you too will wheeze like me. The daisies on my grave will puff and wheeze, you mark my words.’

  We stayed while she slept and a tall woman in a tight white uniform changed her covers.

  DAD

  By the side of the road was a young dead fox, eyes open, stuck frozen to the grass, looking more still-born than road-killed.

  I could cycle it to Heptonstall or bring it defrosting to the kitchen and set it down for my sons to see. I am obsessed.

  I remember the night I got home and told her I’d finished the book proposal, and she said, ‘God help us all,’ and we drank Prosecco and she said I could have my birthday present early. It was the plastic crow. We made love and I kissed her shoulder blades and reminded her of the story of my parents lying to me about children growing wings and she said, ‘My body is not bird-like.’

  We were smack bang in the middle, years from the finish, taking nothing for granted.

  I want to be there again. Again, and again. I want to be held, I wanted to hold. It was the plastic crow.

  We made love. The wing story. My body is not bird-like.

  Again.

  The wings.

  The love.

  Bird-like.

  Again. I beg everything again.

  BOYS

  We used to play a game called Sonic Boom. We would fly as fast as we could through the pine forest like bullets through a crowd and we would compete to turn at the very last moment before a tree. We would fly as fast as we could through the pine forest and then flip, roll sideways millimetres from the tree, shrieking Sonic BOOM as we reeled off. One day I taunted my brother. I dared him to ricochet off the tree like a bullet glancing off a fleeing shoulder. I went first and I flew hard and true straight towards a tree and Sonic BOOM at the final moment swerved and my wing slapped the trunk, whap, and I barrelled off into the forest (like a bullet glancing off a fleeing shoulder). My brother flew too low and too fast and never turned, whap, a sharpened branch pierced him right through the neck and he hung there crawking ‘sonic. sonic. sonic.’ This is only partially true.

  DAD

  They played at birds, they played at lions. They went through phases: dinosaurs, trucks, Thundercats, kung fu, lying, sport.

  There was very little division between their imaginary and real worlds, and people talked of coping mechanisms and normal childhood and time. Many people said ‘You need time’, when what we needed was washing powder, nit shampoo, football stickers, batteries, bows, arrows, bows, arrows.

  There was very little division between my imaginary and real worlds, and people talked of sensible workloads and recovery periods and healthy obsessions. Many people said ‘You need time’, when what I needed was Shakespeare, Ibn ‘Arabi, Shostakovich, Howlin’ Wolf.

  I remember they left their tea unfinished and I picked at half-eaten fish fingers, cold peas and coagulated ketchup.

  I remember I said, ‘I’m throwing every single toy in the bin!’ and they giggled.

  I remember being scared that something must, surely, go wrong, if we were this happy, her and me, in the early days, when our love was settling into the shape of our lives like cake mixture reaching the corners of the tin as it swells and bakes.

  I remember my first date, aged fifteen, with a girl called Hilary Gidding. A coin fell down the back of the cinema seats and we both slipped our hands into the tight fuzzy gap of the chairs past popcorn kernels and sticky ticket stubs and our hands met, stroking the carpet feeling for the coin, and it was electric. The wrist being c
lamped by upholstery, the darkness, the accident, the lovely dirt of public spaces.

  BOYS

  Dad and Crow were fighting in the living room. Door closed. There was a low droning cawera skraa, caw, cawera skraa and Dad saying Stop it, Stop it, caw, craw, and hocking, retching, spitting, bad language, cronks, barks, sobs, a weird gamelan jam of broken father sounds and violent bird calls, thumps and shrieks and twinging rips.

  Crow emerged, ruffled, wide-eyed. He gently closed the door behind him and joined us at the kitchen table.

  We coloured in zoo pictures with our felt-tipped pens and Crow went over the lines.

  DAD

  I remember her pushing when they told her to push and the Jamaican midwife saying, ‘Push gyal, push gyal.’ She said, ‘I don’t want to poo,’ and I laughed and said, ‘Too late.’ Then there was son one, covered in strange smelly cream, hungry and tiny.

  I remember her pushing when they told her to push and the Scottish midwife saying, ‘Blimey, here comes a head.’ She said, ‘It hurts, fuck, fuck-fuck it hurts,’ and we were crying and there was son two, purple, howling and bendy.

  She is Mrs Laocoön, standing on the beach with her arms crossed, saying, ‘Look at those bloody boys,’ and we are fifty feet out to sea being chewed apart by sadness.

  BOYS

  Some of the time we tell the truth. It’s our way of being nice to Dad.

  DAD

  Introduction: Crow’s Bad Dream I miss my wife

  Ch. 1. Magical Dangers I miss my wife

  Ch. 2. Reign of Silence I miss my wife

  Ch. 3. Unkillable Trickster I miss my wife

  Ch. 4. Aphrodisiac Disaster I miss my wife

  Ch. 5. Tragic Comedy I miss my wife

  Ch. 6. The Baby (God) in the Lake I miss my wife

  Ch. 7. The Song I miss my wife

  Conclusion: Recovery and Growth I miss my wife

  CROW

  Once upon a time there were two big men who were brothers with one another. They were in brother with each other.

  The soles of the bigger brother’s boots were worn through in patches. Half a mile out of the village on Windmill Hill his socks were damp and squelching and he mentioned turning back for better boots but the smaller brother kept walking.

  ‘The only other pair of boots is my old pair and they would be too small for you.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘My spare boots are better than your only boots.’

  They trudged up the steep hill mounting thin banks of chalk like swimmers moving out past breaking waves and at the top they paused to gaze down at the village sitting neatly in the cupped hand of the valley.

  ‘You will struggle in shit boots brother. At some point we might walk on sharp flints or need to tread down thorny branches.’

  ‘I imagine at some point we might.’

  ‘Then you will struggle is all I’m saying.’

  The smaller brother hocked and spat a ball of ochre phlegm at the gate of the windmill and cursed the owner. The bigger brother laughed.

  They walked fast down through the pollard wood that clad the far side of Windmill Hill. A roof of luminous patchwork was suspended above them and the dark floor was stabbed all over with light.

  A red deer bolted from a holly bush and the bigger brother whispered, ‘Hello friend.’

  The other brother made a gun with his hand and shrieked ‘KABOOM’ and a startled pheasant barrelled upwards into the neon green with a chuckle.

  Comprehension Questions:

  Do you think the brothers in this excerpt are realistic?

  Does the rural setting of the story change the way you engage with the characters?

  If the boots are a metaphor for the ability to cope with grief, who do you think has died?

  Write the next paragraph of the story, focusing on the themes of man versus nature, boots, brothers, and the Russian revolution.

  BOYS

  She was beaten to death, I once told some boys at a party.

  Oh shit mate, they said.

  I lie about how you died, I whispered to Mum.

  I would do the same, she whispered back.

  DAD

  I remember her pretending to like watching award ceremonies more than she actually did because it surprised me, but then I let her know that such-and-such award ceremony was on and we would have to sit through it. Let’s go to bed, she said, we don’t really know who any of these people are.

  Winners, I said. Every stinking ugly vacuous cunt-faced last one of them.

  And off we went to bed.

  Some days I realise I’ve been forgetting basic things, so I run upstairs, or downstairs, or wherever they are and I say, ‘You must know that your Mum was the funniest, most excellent person. She was my best friend. She was so sarcastic and affectionate …’ and then I run out of steam because it feels so crass and lazy, and they nod and say, ‘We know, Dad, we remember.’

  ‘She would call me sentimental.’

  ‘You are sentimental.’

  They offer me a space on the sofa next to them and the pain of them being so naturally kind is like appendicitis. I need to double over and hold myself because they are so kind and keep regenerating and recharging their kindness without any input from me.

  CROW

  Try to consider all three, in one, before we move in closer. A is to B what C is to A plus B less C. Lovely. Look again, that’s right, sweep. Now left to right? Good. Now right to left. Good. Now move across them all for a One Two Three? Now absorb them all at once. Now again, One Two Three? And … absorb. OK, in we go:

  On the left we have the dad. This image occupies the functional position of the here-goes, the ask, what I like to call the George-Dyer-on-the-shitter, the left-flank, the hoist, the education spot, the empty church, the torture step, the pain panel, the muscular.

  In the middle, yours truly. A smack of black plumage and a stench of death. Ta-daa! This is the rotten core, the Grünewald, the nails in the hands, the needle in the arm, the trauma, the bomb, the thing after which we cannot ever write poems, the slammed door, the in-principio-erat-verbum. Very What-the-fuck. Very blood-sport. Very university historical.

  But don’t stop looking. The triptych is about ways of never stopping. It is culture. On the right we have the boys. Two forms, but one shape, could be female, could be male, we can just about decipher four little legs and four little arms (the newborn calf of the right-hand panel!) and tiny little hopeful faces. And sense is suddenly made of the previous panels, this is pure mathematics, this is ancient logic. It is nature. This is what I call the lift-off, late style, the ten-year-journey-home, the arrow through the eye-hole, the fugue. Very sunset. Very bard. Very poignant.

  BOYS

  We all used to get a lot of trouble from Mum for flecking the mirror with toothpaste.

  For a few years we flecked and spat and over-brushed and our mirror was a white-speckled mess and we all took guilty pleasure in it.

  One day Dad cleaned the mirror and we all agreed it was excellent.

  Various other things slipped. We pissed on the seat. We never shut drawers. We did these things to miss her, to keep wanting her.

  DAD

  Oil, when you look closer mud, when you look closer sand, when you sip it, silt becoming silk.

  I missed her so much that I wanted to build a hundred-foot memorial to her with my bare hands. I wanted to see her sitting in a vast stone chair in Hyde Park, enjoying her view. Everybody passing could comprehend how much I miss her. How physical my missing is. I miss her so much it is a vast golden prince, a concert hall, a thousand trees, a lake, nine thousand buses, a million cars, twenty million birds and more. The whole city is my missing her.

  Eugh, said Crow, you sound like a fridge magnet.

  BOYS

  In the long grass I discover flattened paths, maybe my brother’s, so I whisper, ‘Bro, are you in here?’ and passing adults see us, three feet apart, but we are in cathedrals, infinite, vast.

  Crow giggle
s. ‘I’m in here, can’t see me, I’m greeeen!’

  DAD

  I said to my best friend, She would be cross with me for staying the extra day for the end-of-term football party, because we’ll hit all the holiday traffic. My friend said, You have to stop thinking this way, involving her. There’s grief and there’s impractical obsession.

  I was impractically obsessed with her before, I said. Are you seeing anyone? he said. To talk things through?

  I am, I said.

  Are they good?

  Very good.

  I almost laughed, at the thought of Crow in a study, Crow pecking out an invoice, Crow recommended by a GP, or available on the NHS. Crow pondering Winnicott, with a shake of the head, but grudgingly liking Klein.

  Yes, I said to my best friend. You don’t need to worry, I am being helped.

  BOYS

  Around the time Mum died there was a hurricane and a lot of trees fell down. In the beech woods near our Gran’s house there were a great many half-fallen trees, resting diagonally on the ones left standing.