Read Online Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield - Free Book Online
Authors: Diane Setterfield
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settled between him and his own thoughts, and behind it, unformulated, unexamined, was this: How long before things go back to normal?
His mother was dead: he had seen the body; yet this knowledge refused to find a settled place in his mind. It came and went, surprised him every time he chanced upon it, and there were a million reasons not to believe it. His mother was dead, but look: here were her clothes and here her teacups, here her Sunday hat on the shelf over the coat hook. His mother was dead, but hark: the garden gate! Any moment now she would come through the door.
The feeling that it was all a charade persisted, and on the morning of the funeral he was more than anything irritated that it had come to this. He dressed in his Sunday suit and laced his good shoes, but nothing altered his expectation that the next caller at the door would be his mother herself. All dressed up on a Wednesday? Whatever’s got into you all? As the procession of men left for the church, inside the cottage the Misses Young were making tea so that the women could do their feminine mourning in domestic comfort. She will be here by the time I get back, he thought.
William had sung at a good many funerals. He knew the service well. All the same, today everything appeared false to him. He was in the front pew and not the choir stall. The church was not the church he knew but a stage: Reverend Porritt masquerading as himself, the coffin an ugly prop. It was unsettling. When Dora Bellman’s name emerged, in slack mournfulness from Reverend Porritt’s lips, Will wanted to give him a punch on the nose.
At the singing, Will’s voice cracked.
Something in his chest was restless. It expanded painfully inside him, pressed against his heart, compressed his lungs.
What on earth was the matter with him?
After a few bars of croaking he reduced his effort to a mumble, and without his shepherding the communal voice strayed and wandered most painfully.
And now a new discomfort. He wanted to scratch the back of his neck. Below his hairline, that place under the collar, a vertebra near the top of the spine, the one where the bone marrow stirs when someone has their eye on you . . .
Will wanted to rub the back of his neck, and he wanted to turn and see who was staring at him. Don’t fidget in church! He could hear his mother’s voice speaking the words. Today was hardly the day to disobey. He repressed the urge.
How did he come to be here, anyway? How could such a thing—such a stupid thing—have come to pass?
He sighed, exasperated, and his hand twitched with the urge to rub his neck, but the thing that was pressing his lungs and squeezing his heart turned the sigh into a cry, and he felt Paul’s arm around his shoulders. His uncle was still supporting him as they walked from the church and into the open air.
At the graveside, fingers of lucid September sun pointed at the coffin and at the pit. How had Reverend Porritt and the coffin seemed so unreal a moment ago? Look at them now . . .
The thing from his chest had grown into his throat and he couldn’t swallow. It had locked his jaw. It was pushing from behind his eyes . . .
Clusters of mourners stood around the grave: Dora’s brother and nephews were there, and some cousins, her neighbors and friends, people who had liked and admired her, those who had gossiped, those who had listened to gossip and those who had not.
It was the smallest of movements that caught Will’s eye. Someone at the back. Just a glimpse. There and gone again—the merest impression . . .
The man who had been staring at him in church! He knew it!
Will shifted his weight a little, swayed to the left, trying to get a view of him. Nothing. The fellow must have moved. He leaned fractionally the other way. Between two mourners a sturdy shoulder was visible. Was that him? Or there, that edge of a cape? But in the massof black, among all the downcast faces, it was impossible to distinguish one man from
His mother was dead: he had seen the body; yet this knowledge refused to find a settled place in his mind. It came and went, surprised him every time he chanced upon it, and there were a million reasons not to believe it. His mother was dead, but look: here were her clothes and here her teacups, here her Sunday hat on the shelf over the coat hook. His mother was dead, but hark: the garden gate! Any moment now she would come through the door.
The feeling that it was all a charade persisted, and on the morning of the funeral he was more than anything irritated that it had come to this. He dressed in his Sunday suit and laced his good shoes, but nothing altered his expectation that the next caller at the door would be his mother herself. All dressed up on a Wednesday? Whatever’s got into you all? As the procession of men left for the church, inside the cottage the Misses Young were making tea so that the women could do their feminine mourning in domestic comfort. She will be here by the time I get back, he thought.
William had sung at a good many funerals. He knew the service well. All the same, today everything appeared false to him. He was in the front pew and not the choir stall. The church was not the church he knew but a stage: Reverend Porritt masquerading as himself, the coffin an ugly prop. It was unsettling. When Dora Bellman’s name emerged, in slack mournfulness from Reverend Porritt’s lips, Will wanted to give him a punch on the nose.
At the singing, Will’s voice cracked.
Something in his chest was restless. It expanded painfully inside him, pressed against his heart, compressed his lungs.
What on earth was the matter with him?
After a few bars of croaking he reduced his effort to a mumble, and without his shepherding the communal voice strayed and wandered most painfully.
And now a new discomfort. He wanted to scratch the back of his neck. Below his hairline, that place under the collar, a vertebra near the top of the spine, the one where the bone marrow stirs when someone has their eye on you . . .
Will wanted to rub the back of his neck, and he wanted to turn and see who was staring at him. Don’t fidget in church! He could hear his mother’s voice speaking the words. Today was hardly the day to disobey. He repressed the urge.
How did he come to be here, anyway? How could such a thing—such a stupid thing—have come to pass?
He sighed, exasperated, and his hand twitched with the urge to rub his neck, but the thing that was pressing his lungs and squeezing his heart turned the sigh into a cry, and he felt Paul’s arm around his shoulders. His uncle was still supporting him as they walked from the church and into the open air.
At the graveside, fingers of lucid September sun pointed at the coffin and at the pit. How had Reverend Porritt and the coffin seemed so unreal a moment ago? Look at them now . . .
The thing from his chest had grown into his throat and he couldn’t swallow. It had locked his jaw. It was pushing from behind his eyes . . .
Clusters of mourners stood around the grave: Dora’s brother and nephews were there, and some cousins, her neighbors and friends, people who had liked and admired her, those who had gossiped, those who had listened to gossip and those who had not.
It was the smallest of movements that caught Will’s eye. Someone at the back. Just a glimpse. There and gone again—the merest impression . . .
The man who had been staring at him in church! He knew it!
Will shifted his weight a little, swayed to the left, trying to get a view of him. Nothing. The fellow must have moved. He leaned fractionally the other way. Between two mourners a sturdy shoulder was visible. Was that him? Or there, that edge of a cape? But in the massof black, among all the downcast faces, it was impossible to distinguish one man from
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