‘What’s gone?’
He rubs his temple to stop the buzzing and walks to the bottom of the path. He stares at the dark building with its modern brick tower that only now, he notices, has the shape of a cross embedded into the stone.
‘This isn’t it!’ He looks left and right to see if he’s got the wrong place.
‘They must have knocked it down and rebuilt,’ Gloria says softly. ‘You can understand why.’
Something moves across William’s scalp, like a twang of elastic. ‘Why? We didn’t do anything wrong in there!’ He hears how high and broken his voice sounds. ‘They shouldn’t have knocked it down!’
He steps closer to the bleak building and touches the metal railing. It all seems so empty and still without the mothers, headscarves tied under their chins, winter coats held across their chests, without the coal-dusted miners, exhausted and determined, the Salvation Army with their tea, Kit Kats, and the kindness of whisky and cigarettes.
It’s all so ordinary.
An explosion behind them makes them both jump. They turn to see an old Ford Cortina race down the narrow street, the driver’s window wound down.
‘This is where they had to wait,’ William says turning back, rubbing his hand along the railing. ‘The parents.’
‘Where you had to hold up the little boy’s shirt?’
He feels the slide of warmth and the pressure around the side of his palm as Gloria slips her hand into his.
‘But it wasn’t like this.’
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ Gloria speaks quietly, not taking her eyes from the chapel. ‘You wouldn’t want it to stay the same forever, for all the people who have to go on living here? Would you?’
He shakes his head and frowns. ‘But if none of it’s here … if it’s only in my head …’ Something is falling within himself. He sounds mad. He doesn’t want Gloria to think he’s mad. He exhales; a bark of breath. ‘It’s an adjustment.’
‘Of course it is.’ Her grip tightens. ‘But you can do it. Just like with your mum.’
‘What do you mean?’
She continues to look at the chapel. ‘You’ve realised people change; in fact, they couldn’t stay the same, even if they wanted to.’
He looks ahead too, holding her hand. He’s holding her hand. Maybe he’ll be all right.
‘I think I’ll visit the graves,’ he says, ‘but it’s a bit of a climb. Do you want to sit in the car, or on that bench in the playground?’
‘No, I’ll come.’ She looks at him. ‘I’ll just have to take it slow.’
They walk back up the side street and turn left, away from the memorial garden and community centre and then right onto the lane that leads to the mountainside cemetery. The oldest graves sit at the bottom, skewed and sunken; grey, green and white with lichen and moss. But higher up the mountain, white semi-circles loop their way across the slope in two long rows; giant Polo mints, bright against the sky. William wants to run to them, but it would look odd and Gloria is by his side, so he slows his step and stares ahead.
‘Bloody hell, don’t they like their hills?’ Hands on hips, Gloria breathes heavily for a few seconds before starting again.
Eventually they stand on a level path before the graves. Graves, William reflects for the first time, that have been here for seven years now. Although he’s close enough to touch them, he has the strange feeling that he’s moving further away. The years feel fluid, as if they are draining through him. The emptiness he felt staring at the new chapel starts to inflate, to fill with a lightness that lets him breathe.
Beneath each loop of a headstone are individual memorials; angel’s wings, hearts, open bibles, scripture verses, poems, photographs in gilded frames. He walks slowly, reading everything.
If all the world was ours to give
We would give it yes and more
To see the one we loved so much
Come smiling through the door.
Halfway along the first row, Gloria sits on a bench behind him and blows her nose. William wants to find the grave of the girl with the perfect hand, but he can’t remember her name. There’s a photograph of a smiling boy, hair neatly parted, new second teeth too big and spread out in his mouth. The broken bodies of these children he never knew alive have sat under the surface of his memory for so long, it’s as if they’re part of him. Yet this is not the memory of the parents, or the community. It’s his. His and Jimmy’s and Harry’s and the other embalmers’. It’s what binds them together, and what separates them from the rest of the world.
William glances over his shoulder as a woman in a blue coat sits next to Gloria. He turns back to the graves.
‘Hello,’ says Gloria, ‘am I on your seat? I can move.’
‘That’s all right, plenty of room for three.’ The woman chuckles. There is a pause, then: ‘Where are you from?’
‘Near Birmingham, but we’ve been at a wedding in Swansea. You live here, do you?’
‘Yes, love. My whole life.’
‘Well,’ says Gloria, bold and kind, ‘my sympathy for the dreadful losses you’ve had to endure.’
‘Thank you.’
William walks along the row.
A precious flower, lent not given
To bud on earth and bloom in heaven.
‘Why have you come?’ The woman’s voice is gentle. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, I just always wonder what brings people here.’
Gloria clears her throat. ‘It’s not morbid curiosity, I promise you. My husband’s an embalmer. He came to help when it happened.’ William doesn’t turn round, but a heat rises in him to hear Gloria call him her husband. ‘He wanted to pay his respects.’
‘I remember them,’ the woman says, ‘a terrible job. A terrible kindness they did for us. Something none of us wanted to think about.’ William stares at the photograph of the smiling boy.
Gloria drops her voice, but he can still hear. ‘He came back for the funerals, but this is the first time since.’
‘He came to the funerals? That’s more than I did. I didn’t go to my own child’s funeral. Imagine that!’