Gray

A Chapter by Jade

It wasn’t my Granddad in the urn. The man’s hands were shaking slightly as he offered it to us. I looked behind him and could see an old man standing there, his eyes fixed on the grey urn presented before us.

“He’s not in there,” I told the man. He blinked frantically and swallowed,

“Excuse me?”

“He’s not in there, that’s not my Granddad,” I waved my hand at the urn. He looked down.

“I can assure you…”

“You’ve made a mistake,” I interrupted. My Mum nudged me,

“That’s enough Emily,” she hissed, wiping one eye with a crumpled tissue. The old man moved closer and I could feel him, feel his cold body.

“Please, just go and check again,” I said. The man holding the urn continued to blink at me. “Now,” I snapped. My Mum glared at me then turned away, staring at the open graveyard with its cramped headstones and oppressing shadows. My Dad reached to hold her hand; she kept it relaxed by her side, so he just held her fingers. The man turned and went back into the grey building he had come from. The old man followed, he turned to look back at me before he entered the door and tilted his head in thanks. I nodded to him.

The car ride back was silent until Mum decided to scold me,

“You were very rude back there Emily, as if I haven’t got enough to deal with,”

“Well, it wasn’t Granddad in the urn,” I replied, folding my arms and sighing. I glanced to my right and he was sitting there, smiling at me. His eyes were creased up and the folds of old skin like dried leather were bunched up around his small mouth. He reached out his hand to me and I rested mine upon it, he was cold, so cold it hurt like a freeze burn.

“Turn the heater on,” my Mum said and my Dad fiddled with the dials in front of him so hot air circulated around the small car. She hugged the urn to her stomach as she sat there, “Emily, you were being ridiculous,” she continued.

“Well, that’s not the same urn the guy tried to give us before,” I replied, smiling at my Granddad as he sat beside me. His white hair shimmered in the dimly lit car; he liked to call it ‘snow on the roof’. My Mum looked at the urn then, she noticed that the pattern around the lid was no longer gold leaves but silver ivy tendrils like she had ordered. She didn’t say anything. She stared out the front window and stayed silent for the rest of the journey as I held my Granddad’s hand in the back seat.

He went away after a couple of days, after we had buried his ashes near the cherry tree and the bench in the garden. I sat there with him until he left and held his hand. He was silent, but I talked to him about everything. About how much I would miss him and how I would visit Granny every weekend and that I would finish planting the herb garden we had started and that I would send a bunch of flowers to that lovely nurse in the hospital who had made sure he was comfortable. He always smiled at me but never reacted to what I said. I often wondered if he could hear me. I tried writing on a piece of paper once and showed it to him but he still didn’t react. I didn’t mind though, it was nice to just sit with him, but then he was gone and I never sat on that bench again.

I’ve always seen them, always felt them. They’re everywhere. Some are trying to make contact with people they knew and some just walk around aimlessly, confused. They’re eyes are always blank, endless tunnels. There is no life in them anymore because they have no purpose. There is nothing left to do but wait until you can move on.

There was a memorial service being held at our school. I knew the boy but had never spoken to him. He was one of those tall, athletic types with blonde hair and green eyes. He had been one of those tall, athletic types with blonde hair and green eyes. I knew he was dead before I had seen the appeal posters, with a picture of him smiling and holding a football trophy. I’d never spoken to him because I find it easier to talk to the dead. I don’t find the living approachable. As a child I had had numerous dead friends, little girls who had gone missing, old ladies who had passed away with their family sobbing at their side, young men who had gotten into a drunken state and staggered into the path of an oncoming car or fell into a cold river and drowned. They had a way of finding me. The older ones would sit and watch over me as I slept and the younger ones would watch me play in the garden and listen to me chat at them in an animated way. My Mum would watch from the kitchen window and think what an odd child I was but I was oblivious to her scrutiny. Adam Gray. That’s what the boy’s name was. I’d watched him in the corridors making his way to his next class, his red bag hanging loosely from his right shoulder and his hands moving excitedly as he talked to his friends. I’d stared at the back of his well groomed head in English, where he answered all the questions on Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ correctly and in History when he recited the important dates and events in the Second World War. Our eyes met sometimes as I watched him and he would smile, his mouth was full of white teeth framed with pink lips, they looked like they tasted sweet. Sometimes he would stop in front of my table and turn his head to look at me his mouth half open as if he wished to say something. Then he would just nod and turn away to sit in his normal place with his friends. The school had made a little shrine to him in the assembly hall and everyone had laid flowers and lit candles around a picture of him that had been enlarged and put into a frame. I didn’t visit his memorial or attend the service. I thought everyone who did was a hypocrite. Everyone who cried over him but had never spoken to him was a big, fat hypocrite. He didn’t find me for a long time though. Sometimes if the death was violent they need time to re adjust.

It was a cold, miserable day and I sat on a swing in the deserted park near my house. The wind blew my dark hair around my face and into my eyes and whipped my scarf up and around my head. I swung slowly back and forth. I thought that if I swung too high and too fast I might fly away like Dorothy and her little dog. I wanted to give it a go but was afraid, so I just swung a little, lifting my long legs off the floor but letting the toes of my shoes drag on the soft, rubber tiles intended to soften the blow if you fell. He was sitting on a bench opposite the swing set watching me, the wind blew his blonde hair and ruffled the loose white t shirt he had on. He’d been missing for three weeks before someone found his body in the boot of a car, abandoned on the verge of the A43. I stopped swinging and stared back at him. I stood and walked over and sat down on the bench. We looked at each other for a moment and I stared into his green eyes. They were alive. They weren’t tunnels or endless voids, they glimmered in the grey afternoon. He took in every detail of my face with his slow, sweeping gaze then smiled gently at me.

“Adam Gray,” I said to him. He continued to smile at me, “They had a memorial service for you at school. I didn’t go though,” I smoothed out the creases in my skirt that the wind had created as it pulled at the fabric, “Mr Palmer made a speech in assembly the other week. I didn’t know you were part of the literature club. I was going to join but…didn’t,” I looked at him, he was no longer smiling but watching me intently, drinking in every word I was saying to him. “I wish you could talk,” I sighed. I looked out across the park; the swing was rocking back and forth by itself now in the wind. I turned back to Adam but he was gone.

Granny knows that I see them. We sat in the garden tending to the herbs in their separate bed. It was a warm day when the sun came out from behind a scattering of grey clouds. Granny had assured me that it wasn’t going to rain, but I’d worn my boots anyway. My feet were hot and I pushed my small spade into the earth to make room for a rosemary plant.

“Have you not seen Adam anymore?” she asked passing me the watering can, I shook my head.

“No, it was about a month ago now, but he hasn’t moved on. Doris’ cat has been following me around though,” Granny laughed,

“That cat always loved you,” she chuckled. “How do you know he hasn’t moved on though?” she asked.

“I just do,” I replied tipping the can and watching the earth as it swallowed the water greedily.

“Hmm,” Granny murmured. “It’s been a while though,”

“I know, that’s what I don’t understand,” I said, “People usually leave within a week at the most,” I pushed the rosemary plant’s roots into the soil and then pressed more earth around its base.

“I wish you and your Granddad had planted that one first,” Granny commented, motioning to the plant, “I’m cooking lamb for dinner.”

People leave imprints of themselves on Earth. Whether it’s in their favourite place or on a person, you can feel them even if you don’t have my sight. You might look into a girl’s eyes and see the sister that never made it through infancy embedded in the pupil staring back at you, or you might notice a brown patch in the lush grass at the park which was the favourite seating place of someone passed away. They’re like handprints on clean glass, no matter how much you try and wipe them away someone will always come back and replace it with a new one.

I knew he hadn’t moved on. I’d walk through the corridors to my next lesson and see a flash of red, a glimmer of blonde, but it wasn’t him. I wished that in those moments when he had stood before my table, his mouth poised ready to speak that he had. I knew what his voice sounded like but not how it would sound when he spoke to me. Why didn’t he come and see me? Everyone else did. I’d asked this question to a young girl who sat on the edge of my bed. She had been visiting me for a couple of days now. She never smiled at my little jokes or bitching rants about people at school but I didn’t mind. I think she was around my age, maybe a little older. I had turned seventeen a month before Adam had gone missing. I was always curious about these people’s names. I wanted to call them something, so sometimes I made up a new name for them. I believe that we shouldn’t name people until their older and then you can judge what name would suit them best by how they looked. This girl sitting on the edge of my bed looked like an Alice with long, wavy blonde hair, held back with a headband, pale blue eyes and a small mouth. My Mum’s name is Heather, but I think she looks like a Sue. Or maybe I just imagine all Mums are called Sue. I called her Alice but she didn’t react, she just stared at me with her pale, blue, dead eyes.

The news reader tried to look solemn but I could tell that she was one of those people that always had a smile etched onto their face, even when they were upset. The type of person who always answered, I’m fine, when inside they wanted to stab something.

“In a Police statement today Cambridgeshire officers claim to have discovered the identity of Adam Gray’s killer, the young boy from Peterborough who went missing two months ago, found on the roadside of the A43.” She readjusted her mouth again so that her lips stayed straight and solemn. A photo of a tired looking man, with heavy lidded eyes, filled the screen with the name Greg Brooke underneath. “If anyone knows the whereabouts of this man then please call this number..” I looked to the left and he was sitting next to me, his green eyes intently watching the television screen.

“Hello Adam,” I studied his pale face with its large eyes and sugary lips. He continued to watch the television, the coloured lights from the screen dancing on his skin. The news reader had moved onto another story. Mum walked in and sat down in an arm chair carefully holding a cup of tea, I was glad that she hadn’t sat where Adam was. I’d watched people do that before; freeze burn all over must be a horrible feeling.

“Have you done your homework?” she asked me.
“Mum I’m in sixth form I rarely get homework,” I replied. Adam was watching her now,

“You had homework the other week,” she took a sip from her cup and watched me.

“Yes, but I don’t have any today,” I replied. I turned back to watching the television and Adam did too. I wanted to talk to him but now she was sitting there I couldn’t.

“Just trying to make conversation,” she muttered. We all sat in silence for a couple of minutes, “God Emily this is depressing,” she commented as the news reader began to talk about a stabbing in East London.

“The world is depressing,” I said, not bothering to look at her.
“Pass the remote,” She held out one of her skinny hands to me. I ignored her. She sighed, “Fine I’ll go watch something in the kitchen,” she stood and left the room and I rolled my eyes. Adam smiled at me.

“She’s such a pain,” I muttered. His smile widened and I thought he was going to laugh but his partially open lips snapped shut again. I wanted to hear him laugh. I frowned and we continued to watch the news in silence.

© 2011 Jade

Author's Note

There are probably quite a few grammatical, punctuation and sentence structure issues. Please read around those and let me know what you think of the story and whether I should continue writing.