Mourn Me: a fic about one character mourning another's death.
A/N: I don't really know what happened at the end... all I can say is, I know it's weird but my muse won't let me change it.
Cemeteries aren't for the dead. They're for the living left behind. For friends and family to visit the grave site, remembering and mourning the life that once was, now lying beneath the soil. Cemeteries are not for the dead. The dead are oblivious to the life that passes by above without them. They don't know the change of seasons; aren't aware of birthdays and anniversaries. They can't see the anguish and sorrow of their loved ones faces, taste the salt of their tears. They can't appreciate the craftsmanship of their headstones, the beauty of the flowers left at their graves, the lushness of the grass that eventually sprouts from the dirt above them. The dead don't notice when no one comes to visit anymore either, when the flowers wither and blow away and the headstones erode and inscriptions fade. They can't be lonely. But the living can. And I am. I am so lonely for her.
That's why I finally came here. After avoiding this place for more years than I care to count, I find myself turning down the road, following the distantly familiar row of trees that line the way to her final resting place. I haven't been back since that day. I told myself I didn't need to come here to remember her; to be with her. All I had to do was look inside myself, close my eyes and I would have her with me again.
But the passage of many years has made her image fade to the point that I have to look at her photograph just to make sure I'm remembering her correctly. Her voice. That's another thing that's been difficult to evoke lately. I have tapes of her speaking, even laughing a few times. A message on an answering machine, the tape worn with being replayed umpteen times. It was the last time she called me. I wasn't home. I wish I had been. It's one of the deepest regrets of my life; missing her call. But I'm not here today because of regret. I'm here because for some reason it seems like it's time. I never said good-bye. Not at the wake. Not at the church. Not at her grave site as the dirt was sprinkled on her casket. Not even as I stood in front of her name on the memorial at Thames House. I refused to say it then. But I'm ready to say it now. I'm an old man after all.
It's different than how I remember it from that day. It's early summer now and the sky is a powder blue with ice cream wispy clouds. It was appropriately gloomy then, with a wind that howled and sky that rumbled with storm clouds. Late autumn can be a glorious time of year with warm reds and oranges or withered brown, biting cold. That day was the latter. It was if nature mourned with all of us she left behind.
I park the car and get out slowly. Old bones and muscle once strong and fit, creak and strain with my age. It's funny how when you're younger, it's almost impossible to imagine how you'll be when you're old, then suddenly you are, and it's impossible to recollect how you were when you were young. I was hardly in the flush of youth when I knew her, but I never felt old.
I take my time resting my elbow on the car door. I adjust my glasses on the bridge of my nose and scan the gently rolling hills around me. It isn't far from where I stand really, but it seems miles away. A lifetime of distance between us.
My feet take me where I need to go, automatically, just like that day. I have no memory of walking to her grave site back then. Somehow I just got there. I can't recall too many details any longer. I do however, remember that I wanted to be where she was. I had wanted to die.
People who've never experienced such a loss don't understand that moving on with life doesn't mean banishing the past. To deny the grief, the anguish, the despair, is to deny yourself. It's what makes you who you are. It becomes a part of you. If it doesn't kill you, it will at least make you more aware of your place in the world.
At the time, I just struggled to get through each day. I tried not to think of the future. I never envisioned that this long after, I would still be making the journey through life alone. It's one that lately I feel I've grown too tired to make anymore. I seek her company and guidance. I need direction toward a final destination of peace. Where else is there left for me to go but to her?
Her headstone is in place now. It's beautiful, I have to admit, in a simple understated way, just like she was. There is no flowery prose, no verse to contemplate what significance it held for her. Just the facts. Name, date of birth, and death. It was what she would have wanted. She would have wrinkled her nose if we had chosen anything different for her.
The lawn around the headstone is neatly mowed. The grounds are kept tidy but there are no flowers for her like unlike many other graves around her. She had no family and I have outlived all of the members of Section D who knew her. Dimitri, Callum, Erin… they're all gone. So now the honour has befallen me, to decorate her grave with flowers that I'm not sure she even liked in the first place. She was picky when it came to flowers.
I stoop to place the lilies in the pot that sits in front to her stone. Fortunately there's a little water left over in it from the rain the night before. I completely forgot about bringing water for them. I never was much of a horticulturalist.
It's getting more and more difficult to do the simplest of tasks, such as bending over and standing up again without pain. Old age sucks. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Just thinking the word "sucks", a favourite of my Grandson, somehow makes me feel young again and I smile at that thought. She always made me feel young. I hang on to those types of reminders of her. Without them, I wouldn't have the impetus I need to get up some days.
"Shit," I mumble to myself as I rub my back, standing straight. The beatings and tumbles I took during my career started to catch up with me years ago.
I run my fingers through what's left of my hair, and try to gather what I've come here today to say. I want to make sense. I want to have clarity and purpose; like I did when I was at MI-5. I'm about to open my mouth, simply say her name for starters (a word I haven't let myself utter in ages because of how much it hurts), when I see a man walking toward me. For a second my Spook-instincts kick in and, I feel paranoid; old habits are hard to shake. I push my glasses down on the end of my nose a bit so I can see that far away more clearly. Damn bifocals, you'd think by now they would have come up with something better.
He's a distinguished looking man, younger than me. He is carrying something in a long box which makes my pulse quicken. I exhale softly when I see him remove a large floral arrangement from the confines of the cardboard. My gaze follows him as he makes his way over to a plot about 20 feet from where I stand. I watch as he gets down on his knees and clears away some weeds around the base of the large stone. I can hear his voice faintly carried by the gentle early evening breeze. I wonder if he really thinks the person below his feet can hear him. It is dusk now and the air is cooling. I shiver slightly and pull my jacket around me tighter. I strain my ears to hear what he is saying, but my hearing has fared as well as my eyesight and bones.
I'm still studying him as he props the flowers against the tall monument. It is a colourful arrangement with flowers of all types. He obviously spared no expense with it. I look at my tiny bouquet and suddenly feel inadequate. After all this time, I could have done better. I have a lot of years to make up for.
I'm shaken out of my bout of self-pity and berating when the man turns toward me suddenly. He must have noticed me staring. It's not polite to stare at people in a cemetery. This very public place has very private moments and obviously I've just intruded in on one. I avert my eyes and thrust my hands into my pocket, trying to let him know that I'm going to leave him to his time with his loved one, but I've got his attention now, and he walks toward me.
I clear my throat, embarrassed that I've disturbed his peace. "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable," I begin to apologise, "I was just noticing how beautiful the flowers you brought are."
The man smiles broadly at me as he comes closer. "Oh, no. No need to apologise. My mother was always a softie for flowers." His smile fades a little as he notices the headstone before me.
"Wife?" he asks softly, knowingly; his expression full of empathy.
"No, not exactly," is all I volunteer. How could I begin to explain to him the relationship that we had?
"She's been gone a long time," he notices, looking at the dates, and I nod in reply. I feel older than the dirt beneath my feet when I think of the time that has passed since she... "Young too," he says after doing the maths. "I'm sorry."
"Thank you," I say. I feel a lump in my throat. How many people had I heard say those exact same words then? They couldn't begin to fathom how sorry *I* was. It's a formality, a cultural ritual of expressing condolences. I didn't want to hear it from people then, but somehow now, those same words coming from this stranger's mouth give me comfort.
"My mother was 58 when she died," he says. "She had cancer. Got really sick in the end, but even after she was diagnosed, we had a good year. We had the chance to say goodbye, tell her the things we always wanted to but didn't for one reason or another. Some people aren't so lucky."
He looks at me and I know he can tell I wasn't one of the lucky ones. Although I'm sure he doesn't come close to imagining the truth. He's probably imagining a car accident… not a FSB agent, who could have been my son, hell bent on revenge after Ruth orchestrated the death of his mother at the hands of his father. My opportunities to tell Ruth all the things I should have ended with one shard of glass; with an injury that shouldn't have been life-threatening but, for reasons that I still can't comprehend years later, was. And all this just after we had a glimmer of a future together. Unlucky doesn't come close to how I felt as I watched her die in my arms.
We stand in silence, contemplating the contrast between what separates us from the world they belong to now. What is a pulse, a breath, an electric impulse in the brain that signals life? When they all cease, we call it death. But doesn't there have to be more? Doesn't there have to be something else beyond this shell we reside in? Our flesh, our bones, is that what make us who we are? I've never really given much thought to God or heaven. I think Ruth did… she requested a church funeral after all, but it was never something we really discussed.
"I never really said goodbye to her," I say, unsure as to why I'm baring my soul to this stranger.
"It's never too late to say that," he says, laying a hand on my shoulder.
"It seems so, so... final," I say. And for me, it is. If I ever had any faith, I lost what little of it I had the day she died.
"Only in the terms you define it in," he offers.
"What do you mean?" I ask, not sure I really want to hear any religious crap at the moment. I saw the good that Ruth's God did for her the day she was stabbed. And I say fuck him.
"You said goodbye to her lots of times before, when she was alive, didn't you? On the phone, at the end of the day, after a pleasant evening together?"
"Yes, I said goodbye many times. But not like this. Not knowing that it was forever; that I would never see her again, talk to her, hold her..." I trail off, tears coming to my eyes. His hand squeezes my shoulder with silent acknowledgement as I blink them away.
"You said goodbye once before when it was supposed to be forever then, but you were reunited. What's to stop that happening again?"
"Last time it was just an ocean betw-" I find myself saying, before I realise what he's said. The hair prickles on the back of my neck and my eyes narrow at him. "Who are you?" I ask with as threatening a look I can muster at 76 years.
"Someone who knows things," he says ambiguously.
"Why are you here?" I question suspiciously, trying to search my brain for who this man can be. I really don't think I know him, although there is something about him; something in his eyes but my memory fails me once again. My doctor says I have early stage Alzheimer's, but I say he's a fucking idiot and he must have got his medical degree out of a cereal box. He always laughs and tells me he'll worry more about me when I no longer insult him like I do.
"I'm here because you need me to be. Because you need proof Mr Pearce. You need to know she's waiting for you."
"How the hell do you know who I am and what I need?" I almost yell at him. My teeth are clenched and I can feel my blood pressure begin to soar. My heart feels out of control, galloping one second, stalling the next. I can feel my chest tightening. I fumble in my jacket pocket from my GTN spray.
Once I feel the tightness in my chest relax, I look up ready to make him answer my questions.
He's gone.
I spin around, searching the growing shadows around me. Where did he go? How could he have...? Vanished. I can see no sign of him anywhere. I start to walk back to my car, assuming he has hidden behind it. It's the only place large enough where he could have concealed himself. But even then... He was just too damn quick. A sound rumbles off to the side of me and I turn to shade my eyes against the glare of the setting sun. It's a council van coming down the narrow cemetery road toward me.
I wave my arms in the air at the man driving it. He's obviously a worker on the grounds crew. He slows the lumbering vehicle and yells down at me. "What can I do for you?"
"There was a man just out here with me, about my age, nicely dressed. Did you see which way he went?"
The young man looks at me as if I'm crazy and shakes his head. "How long ago was he here?" he asks, obviously bewildered by my question.
"Just a minute ago. He was standing next to me, we were talking, and..." I break off, realizing it's not helping explaining this to him.
Again he shakes his head and rubs his jaw. "Mister, I'm sorry, but I haven't seen anyone else here this evening but you. Your car's the only one left inside the gates. In fact, I was just coming over here to tell you that we're gonna be locking up soon. We shut the gates at sunset."
Now I'm the one shaking my head. It can't be. I can't be the only one here. That man, he was... He was right there, talking to me, standing next to me on her grave. He knew my name… How did he know? I turn and look back to where my flowers rest near her headstone. We had been right
there. He knew about her exile… How could he have known that? It was a state secret.
I walk over to the grave he had been visiting, flowers still resting against it as an offering and examine it. I see the dates for the mother and father. It's then that I notice the family name and another inscription below.
James Evershed. Son of the above. 15th August 1935 - 10 July 1981
Beloved husband to Elizabeth and father to Ruth
It can't be… I didn't just have a conversation with Ruth's father. It isn't possible. But he knew things about me that a stranger couldn't possibly have known.
I walk back to Ruth's grave and I as I tell her about the strange encounter I've just had, it's as if I can feel her with me. And then I know. She sent her father, from whatever plain awaits us after this life, to let me know there was hope for us.
I leave shortly after. I have some affairs to set in order and I need to do it quickly; if she's waiting for me then I'm know I'm not going to be long of this life now.
I don't say goodbye… I resolve to say 'hello' instead when I see her again.
A/N: Told you it was weird. Having said that, I'd still like to know what you think. Please leave a review.