dead telling
kath jones

i didn't know for a long time who tells the dead they are dead.

there'd been a party, a sombre affair with even my grandma in black right up to the feathers in her hat - and she was a woman of ice-pink nails and damson lips, sage eyeshadow and multicoloured trousers and blouses. an afternoon party where everyone gathered to talk in strained voices, occasionally glancing over at the ebony upright piano i played to fill the house with glorious melodies of my own composition. chord after chord to no applause until my mother cried out, christmas isn't blue its red and green and holly and robins. so i upped the tempo, faster and louder to drown out her wailing. played until my fingers were numb and i found myself wishing i'd worn a little black dress in fitting respect instead of pink wool suit which clung in all the wrong places and made my neck itch.

i stopped playing and undid the top button of my jacket, scratching my throat. dad came in from direction of the kitchen and said, anyone still for tea?. for this was the kind of party where there'd been more than enough glasses for everyone who cared to take a strong drink but not enough tea cups - fine bone or otherwise - for hot beverages. so tea got drunk in shifts and those of us who ate short bread biscuits passed round in the old cracker tin, before taking liquid, struggled with claggy tongues till a cup became vacant. uncle jack said, it's just as well i've got asbestos mouth eh?. as his just empty cup was reclaimed, refilled and past along. no one laughed but me.

stifling giggles, i'd gone over to the window. damp cloud hung so low i couldn't see the mulberry tree 50 yards away. the same tree where one summer i'd grazed my knees on bark gloriously wrinkled by time to tie a rope from its wind-bent-trunk-arm and make a swing: a simple thing with no seat, just a u of rope which sunk in my backside as i kicked legs back and forth to touch the fruit, the leaves, the sky. higher and higher before jumping off to land with a thud on my back, entrails a tremor as i blinked into a green canopy sparkling with stars. no words came - though my lips contorted to call mum mum - until a scrap of wind found its way to my voice and whispered, i can't move help mee. mum arrived through the bushes at the moment i rolled over attempting to stand. picking me up by the armpits, she'd thrown my left arm over her shoulder and half run me up to the house where she pulled off my dress shouting, look at the state of it. waving bruised-berry stained cotton in front of my face. even the tap sounded furious spitting cold darts at my cheeks. mum said, you will never ever play on that tree again. and later that week a mesh fence ringed the tree.

he was an opportunist, said dad as i turned back into the room. dad was knelt before my mother, stroking the backs of her hands with his thumbs. uncle jack said, no he was a coward. dad said, if it'd been me sat there in that empty … but his words trailed off. uncle jack said, i just pray they find him. mum began twisting an old handkerchief of mine she'd been carrying about for days; weaving a crown with the cotton square of unfading blue and yellow flowers i'd pulled from a homemade christmas cracker when i was twelve. why why why oh god why? mum mouthed to the ceiling. grandma said, i need my pills. i offered to make more tea, a suggestion which fell on deaf ears.

after the party, i found mum, dad, grandma in the kitchen: dad washing cups in high froth, mum and grandma drying cups so methodically i could hear the china squeak. i liked the one she played in honour of the dying swan, said uncle jack smoking one of grandma's cigs in the corner where table was already set for breakfast with bowls, plates, spoons and knives. grandma put down the red alfred meakin teacup she'd been drying for several minutes on the draining board, slung teatowel over her shoulder and walked straight past me to the fridge. she stretched to fetch a bottle of watered-down brandy: cheap stuff from the local store where the woman always asked my date of birth before selling it me, and we all looked on as grandma unscrewed the cap to take a deep swig, lips secured about the bottle neck. a trickle of nut-colored liquor escaped, ran down the side of her chin. oh how we laughed at me wearing two pairs of knickers, grandma said without a hint of merriment as she replaced the bottle on exact same spot between two box of cornflake, before wiping her chin with a paper hanky retrieved from cuffed and pleated sleeve. dad did a, you what? look over the top of his glasses as grandma left the room saying, nothing nothing nothing dear. so he called after her, what you going on about mother? but he didn't really want an answer because he turned his back to me: opening my mouth to tell of grandma's young girls naivety in thinking two pairs of knickers would mean no baby baby in a field on the way home from a dance two hours late of expected, a frenzied escape as afterwards the boy stood and turned his back to pee. how cycling faster than ever before, faster even than the time free-wheeling down uncle jacks hill to land in a ditch on a gozzle of eggs meant for tea, she didn't stop to look around, her mind too full of giving a bad name. the way grandma always seemed to be peddling her way to weeks of extra chores and more hail mary's than the sacred heart.

as a child i'd had two recurring dreams. one of a giant man-eating ladybird who came out to feed after four o clock; the other, i could fly: arms spread, down stairs, always waking up before my head embossed the woodwork. lately, i'd been dreaming of drowning. the critical moment water first rushes lungs. damp skin i'm thinking, i've got to get these covers off me. the dream begins on a blustery dark night. rain whip-slashing windows of empty train carriage taking me home. sat near a door, i have a holdall packed of clothes and a large bhs carrier full of gift-wrapped presents at my feet. down carriage: a young mans wide, blank face looming in window of connecting door. i glance behind me: twenty empty seats. the young man stumbles through and down to sit beside me. what's the password, he shouts in my left ear. i ignore him. what's the password posh bitch, he shouts in my ear again. and again. train stops with screech at station. i push the young mans fleecy shoulder away from me. he falls off seat. onto wet and gritty floor. i laugh. then i am leg akimbo being dragged by my collar towards open door. i shout, get off.. somebody help; thinking, surely the guard must hear. but no one comes. i manage to land a punch on the young mans arm. he laughs and shouts, you a dead'n now.

the dream shifts. i am floating naked down a cold and murky river. streaks of rain tickle my almost submerged face staring wide-eyed heavenwards. my arms reach for the sky: to touch the quarter moon and northern star - brighter than any other - to its left side. around my neck is tied a pair of turquoise lace knickers and one black stay-up stocking drifting in my hair.

its been six months since the party and grandma is back in one of her fluorescent dresses la la dee and da-ing between darkened rooms where my parents sit on wooden chairs with paper thin cushions and read books. someone has closed the lid on the piano where candles burn and drip wax onto once polished lacquer skinned with dust.

i found a death announcement card in the small black leather bound missal grandma kept in her bedside drawer amongst wooden beads, pills and tissues. between pages marking the ordinary mass beginning, since by the mystery of the word made flesh a new ray of thy glory has appeared to the eyes of our souls, the death card showed a black and white painting of the sacred heart above the script:
o sacred heart of jesus,
i put all my trust in thee.
the picture reminded me of the garish blue and red version hung in plastic gilt frame on the wall opposite my bed: same sheen on gown and delicate halo of light behind shoulder length hair; a stigmata in the palm of his elevated right hand - as if in greeting - with index and middle finger pointing above little finger trying to stop gash bleeding. clouds in the background: somewhere distant, infinite beyond memory where he has come from. bringing a cloud, scooped up on way, to hang from crook of his left arm. blood on the hand. a hand holding out to glowing heart wrapped in thorns with a cross stuck out the top. in all my years i'd never trusted this picture. never dared get close enough to take it down or turn his image to the wall. it was his eyes the most. the shadowy depths which followed every movement in every direction, even in dark.

the love of things invisible… i turned the death card over. traced the lines of a small black cross with my thumbnail and read, we who have loved her in life, let us not forget her in death - st. ambrose. somewhere downstairs a door slammed shut. still holding the death card, i threw the missal back in drawer and jumped off grandma's bed. slipped past her lines of forty-six pairs of shoes i'd counted one wet saturday afternoon when there was nothing else to do, onto the landing and peered down stairs. the hallway was empty apart from the large olive-colored vase dad brought back from ireland to store an array of umbrellas, walking sticks and finely carved willow branch canes with dog head handles; and my mother: sat on the bottom stair watching the front door saying, she'll be home soon you'll see. my mother was wearing the same long sleeved, knee length black dress she'd worn the day of the party - and every day subsequently except occasions it hung drying on a plastic hanger from the indoor line fixed across bath - palm ironing invisible creases in slow movements from thigh to knee.

my mother is a meticulous woman. when it comes to her fine silvering hair, she is fastidious in daily wash and blow-dry whatever the circumstance, like time she broke her left wrist while cleaning windows. up to her elbow in plaster and shampoo everywhere, i'd said, you'll wash all the natural oils out. non-plussed my mother said, it doesn't feel right otherwise. these days, my mother's hair fell lank and thin resembling the painted on hair of her childhood china headed doll now wrapped in cellophane at the bottom of her wardrobe.

i called my mother. three times before she turned her head to stare somewhere beyond me, somewhere beyond my rigid smile. then my mother got up and left the hallway.

in the front room, uncle jack sat in his armchair nearest the door studying racing form from the back of a tabloid. dad sat statue-like one end the high-backed, wooden arm sofa pushed against far wall: his spectacled eyes to the carpet and well kept nails shiny again' the black of trousers; the dull marble of fingers splayed on knees. who tells the dead they are dead?, my mother said as she stood by the fireplace. the dead themselves, my father said without looking up. when they realise, grandmother said crossing her legs as she lit a cigarette.