Inchoate: (Short Stories Volume I)

  ***

  We began to drift apart from this time on. Edward helped to bind us together but we were never close again. The last time we visited England together was to visit my parents and my grandfather’s grave ten years earlier. We had missed the funeral because my parents hadn’t told us. I assumed at the time it had to be because they thought we had too many other things on our minds. I had felt no urge since to visit his grave. Now I really wanted to see it.

  There had been a bond between my grandfather and me. He understood certain things about me that no one else did. Once, on a visit to him when I was still a child, he gave me a rare and ancient book. ‘A History of the Supernatural and Mythical Beasts and Customs of Central and Southern Europe’ by Edgar de Boulon. I didn’t understand why at the time and simply read the old book out of fascination with the subject.

  Antonia, the younger of my two younger sisters at fifty-five, had brought along her new husband who was a curious late addition to the family for me. We had to spend some time getting to know him before finally visiting grandfather’s grave.

  My already fragile parents – now both in their eighties – looked nervously at each other when I asked where he was buried.

  “Yes. We will take you there but you will be disappointed son.” There was that ever-present frailty about my father as he spoke to me.

  “Oh, why? Did you keep the money for yourself and give him a cardboard box?” I said laughing.

  “No.” My father smiled weakly. “But it will not be as you expect. It’s a lovely spot though.”

  I felt a little angry now and confused. I had liked the old man a lot and knowing there was a rift between him and my father, I began to suspect the worst.

  “It’s not what you’re probably thinking son. There was a supplementary part to the Will, something we couldn’t show you. Your grandfather requested just an urn and stone tablet.”

  “You mean you burned him? But he always said he never wanted to be cremated.”

  “Yes. That’s right.”

  “But I don’t understand. What are you trying to tell me?” My father was sometimes infuriatingly incapable of giving a straight answer, especially when he was uncomfortable with something.

  “Best we take you there,” he said. My Mother nodded and smiled. I think she would have hugged me had Rose not been there.

  The tablet was small, flat and of polished black granite, and lay under the shade of a hazelnut tree on the edge of the old graveyard. It had my grandfather’s name and then said simply.

  My spirit away to my family home,

  My body too.

  If you feel sad looking at me,

  Then smile again for I look not at you.

  My anger left me immediately. I understood somehow, that my grandfather was not here, and I also understood that there was a secret, which I would learn eventually.