Get him OUT ! Get mine daddy out of heaven!”
I held tightly onto his shoulders. “Oh, Charlie, please, you don’t understand!”
“ GET HIM OUT! GET HIM OUT! ”
My son squirmed in my grip and broke free;—It happened very quickly. He stood at the very edge of the hole. He looked back at me and then he turned and inched forward, but the greengrocer’s grass overlapped the edge of the hole and it yielded under his feet and he fell, with his bat cape flying behind him, down into the grave. He landed with a thump on top of Andrew’s coffin. There was a single, urgent scream from one of the other mourners. I think it was the first sound, since Andrew died, that really broke the silence.
The scream ran on and on in my mind. I felt nauseous, and the horizon lurched insanely. Still kneeling, I leaned out over the edge of the pit. Down below, in the dark shadow, my son was banging on the coffin and screaming, Daddy, Daddy, get OUT ! He clung to the coffin lid, and planted his bat shoes against the side wall of the grave, and heaved against the screws that held the lid closed. I hung my arms down over the edge of the hole. I implored Charlie to take my hands so I could pull him back up, I don’t think he heard me at all.
At first, my son moved with a breathless confidence. Batman was undefeated, after all, that spring. He had overcome the Penguin, the Puffin, and Mister Freeze. It was simply not a possibility in my son’s mind that he might not overcome this new challenge. He screamed in rage and fury. He wouldn’t give up, but if I am strict and force myself now to decide upon the precise moment in this whole story when my heart irreparably broke, it was the moment when I saw the weariness and the doubt creep into my son’s small muscles as his fingers slipped, for the tenth time, from the pale oak lid.
The mourners clustered around the edge of the grave, paralysed by the horror of this thing, this first discovery of death that was worse than death itself. I tried to go forward but the hands on my elbows were holding me back. I strained against their grip and looked at all the horror-struck faces around the grave and I was thinking, Why doesn’t someone do something?
But is hard, very hard, to be the first.
Finally it was Little Bee who went down into the grave and held up my son for other hands to haul out. Charlie was kicking and biting and struggling furiously in his muddied mask and cape. He wanted to go back down. And it was Little Bee, once she herself had been extricated, who hugged him and held him back as he screamed, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, while each of the principal mourners stepped onto the thin strip of greengrocer’s grass and dropped in their small hand-fuls of clay. My son’s screaming seemed to go on for a cruelly long time. I remember wondering if my mind would shatter with the noise, like a wine glass broken by a sopjrano’s voice. In fact, a former colleague of Andrew’s, a war reporter who had been in Iraq and Darfur, did call me a few days later with the name of a combat fatigue counsellor he used. That’s kind of you , I told him, but I haven’t been at war .
At the graveside, when the screaming was over, I picked up Charlie and held him on my front, with his head resting on my shoulder. He was exhausted. Through the eyeholes of his bat mask, I could see his eyelids drooping. I watched the other mourners filing away in a slow line towards the car park. Brightly coloured umbrellas broke out above the sombre suits. It was starting to rain.
Little Bee stayed behind with me. We stood by the side of the grave and we stared at one another.
“Thank you,” I said.
“It is nothing,” said Little Bee. “I just did what any one, would do.”
“Yes,” I said. “Except that everyone else didn’t.”
Little Bee shrugged. “It is easier when you are from outside.”
I shivered. The rain came down harder.
“This is never going to end,” I said. “Is it, Little Bee?”
“ However
I held tightly onto his shoulders. “Oh, Charlie, please, you don’t understand!”
“ GET HIM OUT! GET HIM OUT! ”
My son squirmed in my grip and broke free;—It happened very quickly. He stood at the very edge of the hole. He looked back at me and then he turned and inched forward, but the greengrocer’s grass overlapped the edge of the hole and it yielded under his feet and he fell, with his bat cape flying behind him, down into the grave. He landed with a thump on top of Andrew’s coffin. There was a single, urgent scream from one of the other mourners. I think it was the first sound, since Andrew died, that really broke the silence.
The scream ran on and on in my mind. I felt nauseous, and the horizon lurched insanely. Still kneeling, I leaned out over the edge of the pit. Down below, in the dark shadow, my son was banging on the coffin and screaming, Daddy, Daddy, get OUT ! He clung to the coffin lid, and planted his bat shoes against the side wall of the grave, and heaved against the screws that held the lid closed. I hung my arms down over the edge of the hole. I implored Charlie to take my hands so I could pull him back up, I don’t think he heard me at all.
At first, my son moved with a breathless confidence. Batman was undefeated, after all, that spring. He had overcome the Penguin, the Puffin, and Mister Freeze. It was simply not a possibility in my son’s mind that he might not overcome this new challenge. He screamed in rage and fury. He wouldn’t give up, but if I am strict and force myself now to decide upon the precise moment in this whole story when my heart irreparably broke, it was the moment when I saw the weariness and the doubt creep into my son’s small muscles as his fingers slipped, for the tenth time, from the pale oak lid.
The mourners clustered around the edge of the grave, paralysed by the horror of this thing, this first discovery of death that was worse than death itself. I tried to go forward but the hands on my elbows were holding me back. I strained against their grip and looked at all the horror-struck faces around the grave and I was thinking, Why doesn’t someone do something?
But is hard, very hard, to be the first.
Finally it was Little Bee who went down into the grave and held up my son for other hands to haul out. Charlie was kicking and biting and struggling furiously in his muddied mask and cape. He wanted to go back down. And it was Little Bee, once she herself had been extricated, who hugged him and held him back as he screamed, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, while each of the principal mourners stepped onto the thin strip of greengrocer’s grass and dropped in their small hand-fuls of clay. My son’s screaming seemed to go on for a cruelly long time. I remember wondering if my mind would shatter with the noise, like a wine glass broken by a sopjrano’s voice. In fact, a former colleague of Andrew’s, a war reporter who had been in Iraq and Darfur, did call me a few days later with the name of a combat fatigue counsellor he used. That’s kind of you , I told him, but I haven’t been at war .
At the graveside, when the screaming was over, I picked up Charlie and held him on my front, with his head resting on my shoulder. He was exhausted. Through the eyeholes of his bat mask, I could see his eyelids drooping. I watched the other mourners filing away in a slow line towards the car park. Brightly coloured umbrellas broke out above the sombre suits. It was starting to rain.
Little Bee stayed behind with me. We stood by the side of the grave and we stared at one another.
“Thank you,” I said.
“It is nothing,” said Little Bee. “I just did what any one, would do.”
“Yes,” I said. “Except that everyone else didn’t.”
Little Bee shrugged. “It is easier when you are from outside.”
I shivered. The rain came down harder.
“This is never going to end,” I said. “Is it, Little Bee?”
“ However
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