It is the flapping of a flock of fat pigeons when the coffin slides out of the boot.
It is made up of crows. Here, one black crow perches on the back of a white sheep, pecking at its wool.
It is to piss and to cry at the same time.
‘Mikey, there was nothing anyone could do. I’m sorry.’
That’s Edmund’s tall shadow above him. He doesn’t mean to lie, but he is lying. Someone could have done something.
Mikey doesn’t reply. There is nothing left to say.
The drive on the other side of the cattle grid goes nowhere that matters.
Behind him, there is nothing left.
The truths are heavy as earth on top of him, all breath blocked, all words buried.
It begins to drizzle. Sullen grey clouds loiter over the park with nothing better to do than make things worse, and a listlessness and tearfulness seep into the scene; everyone moves more slowly, the sense of urgency is gone. People huddle, the man has put his heavy camera down, the rescue dog is back in the van, Grace checks her phone again and goes to her husband. She is desperate to reach her daughter, there’s still no news of Liam, there’s nothing else they can do here. Diana can overhear her quite plainly although the argument with John is conducted in angry whispers.
‘We can and we should go now. After all that’s happened, are you going to put her family before our own?’
Now Edmund joins them. There is a brief muttered debate about whether the boy would be better off going with them. All three of them turn to look at Mikey, picking at the bark on the cedar tree as if there might be something beneath it after all. Privately, Diana is torn: she wants him gone, she can’t bear the way he looks at her; she needs him close when he starts telling everyone, she must be there to translate. She realises she might need to learn to love him, she may be all he has left. Her mind trips over its laces as she moves towards him to claim him.
There is not much that Mikey knows. His mind, which was so out of breath the pain was unbearable, is now out of focus as well, but his instinct tells him he wants to stay with Grace and he wants Grace to stay here at Wynhope. He can’t leave here because here is where his mum is, but he can’t stay here with his aunt, not on his own. His mum always says he’s razor sharp when it comes to people, and he’s razor sharp now, recognising that there is no love lost between Grace and his aunt, and if he has to choose he knows whose side he’s on. Even the dog looks as though he wants to go with Grace, waiting by their car and wagging his tail. When they drive away without either of them, Mikey realises how cold he feels in his socks and his funeral shirt.
‘We need to get you sorted out, young man,’ says his uncle.
Back inside the house, a different sort of anarchy greets Edmund, Diana and Mikey: the detritus of that last supper is everywhere even though the Stafford porcelain figurines are still dancing in pairs on the sideboard and the freesias stand upright on the windowsill, just a few petals fallen, confetti at a funeral. Edmund says he does not understand it, how some things can be destroyed, but others left untouched. As he guides the boy towards the staircase, Edmund picks up the pieces of the smashed china horse and runs his finger over the rough edge of its snapped leg.
‘My father’s, Flash in the Pan he was called. He fell at Hereford and had to be shot. The whole household was in tears over that.’
The boy finds the leg on the floor and gives it to him.
‘Thank you, Mikey. Look, it fits perfectly. A bit of glue and everything will be as right as rain.’ The words are out before he realises how empty they are. What has fallen, what is damaged, what seemed repairable and what has survived. That is the reckoning, always has been.
Forbidding them to follow him, Edmund leaves to examine the damage upstairs, instructing the boy to sit tight on the bottom of the stairs, just for a minute or two. From here Mikey can see straight out through the front door, which is open because it won’t close properly. His trainers are still on the mat so he puts them on. If the house falls down again, he can escape that way and from here he can see the firemen. He can’t allow himself to think about what they’re doing, just that they’re out there and strong, and his mum is still here. And from his waiting place he can see the statue in the lily pond, and the bronze boy and the dog seem like the only two people who matter. Diana frightens him, even the sound of her frightens him. He can hear her in the dining room clinking this and clunking that, trying to clear up the big mess she made arguing last night, like that’s all that matters when the firemen are still out there and so is his mum. And maybe she’s not dead after all.
Diana is in the dining room, it’s true, but she doesn’t know why or what to do with the filth. She picks things up and she puts things down again, then because the boy is in the hall, spying on her, she retreats to the utility room where she screws her dressing gown into a ball and pushes it down to the bottom of the black sack, knowing it is the sort of thing criminals do and drags the torn and bloody nightdress over her head. Naked, she sorts through the laundry basket, finds dirty pants, leggings, the cashmere jumper stained with lily pollen and is it only yesterday, the funeral? In the hall, she tries to give the boy a shrunken blue jumper that Mrs H ruined by putting it in the washing machine, but he refuses it and, at a loss as to what to do with him next, she sits at the kitchen window and watches her story being played out on the lawn.
Mikey’s glad she’s gone. He’s lost sight of the men, but he can hear them calling now like people do on the building site opposite his house – left a bit, up here, that’ll do – and the same sort of sounds, metal on metal and engines. The more he sobs, the tighter he sucks his funeral shirt. He allows Edmund to lead him to a sofa and tuck him up tight in a blanket and say he’ll be back in a jiffy and give him his rucksack in case he’s got something he wants in there, but Mikey doesn’t open it; he just holds it tight, as tight as he can. It’s all he has left even if it is almost empty.
The fire crew inform Edmund of their progress; they have been surprisingly efficient given the unfamiliarity of the task. Normally when he visits his development sites, Edmund wears a yellow helmet and a hi-vis jacket, but it’s all too late for risk assessment now. Who knows what the insurance position is, this is probably considered an act of God. Valerie is lying in an air pocket, the beams and masonry crisscrossed above her, except the one monumental block which crushed her chest and her pelvis. It takes a long time to lift it, but once it is winched away, all that is left is her body. To die in the dress you wore to your mother’s funeral – he doesn’t know why that hits him, but it does. The rain falls harder, hammering against a piece of corrugated iron propped up against the potting shed, puddles forming in the tyre tracks on the grass. Ground, dust, sludge: the earth is losing its identity.
The redundant ambulance crew have left and been replaced by an unmarked van. The trolley stretcher gets stuck in the gravel, Diana could have told them that would happen; Valerie’s wheelie case did the same, and what will she do now with her suitcase and everything in it? She can’t see the remains of the tower from the kitchen, it’s almost as though it is offstage and here is the player, walking across the lawn wearing gloves and carrying Valerie easily, thin as a rake she always was. He lays her on the trolley. The zip gets stuck half way up the bag, caught in her dress perhaps. It delays the moment in which Valerie is wrapped in black for ever. When the van has gone, at the kitchen table, Diana flicks through the messages. #earthquake. One hundred and forty will never be enough. My half-sister is dead. She counts the letters. People who know her have sent direct messages and she realises Wynhope must be on the news. She snaps the phone case shut and bursts into tears.
The vehicles have left deep ruts in the grass; Edmund presses the edges with his foot, instinctively trying to even things out. There