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  Not Quite Dead

  Copyright © 2017 by Fred Crawley

  The rights of Thomas Hall to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are ficticious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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  When Walter is suspended from his private boarding school he is sent home to start the summer holidays early.

  Hoping to keep him out of further mischief, and to teach him some responsibility, his parents buy him a dog. Walter has no interest in the animal and spends his days ignoring it and snooping around the family estate. What he learns scandalises him and he finds an easy target for his frustrations.

  When his actions come back to haunt him, he finds himself fighting for his life.

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  CHAPTER 1

  THE FIRST THING SHE NOTICED WAS THE SIZE of the coffin. It was no more than four foot long, a deep red wood that she didn’t know the name of but mahogany was the word that came to mind. It was sitting on the dining room table, where she had eaten her Cheerio’s that morning. She stood in the doorway with her arms crossed looking at it.

  She was wearing a black pleated dress with a little black ribbon around her waist. She had a matching ribbon in her hair and shiny black shoes that clacked as she walked through the hallway.

  ‘Are you okay Joanie?’

  She turned around at the sound of her name and saw Mrs Mitchell standing in the dining room. Mrs Mitchell was old. Really old. She had curly grey hair and she wore cardigans with wool skirts. She always wore skirts.

  Mrs Mitchell was Joanie’s neighbour and sometimes baby sat her and her brother.

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Joanie and pushed past Mrs Mitchell to get out of the room.

  She stopped at the foot of the stairs. She could hear her parents talking in low monotone voices. They always spoke like that now, as if they might wake a sleeping baby if they used their normal voices.

  Joanie went up to her room but once she was on the landing she decided she didn’t want to be by herself. So she went into Ben’s room.

  It was a mess. Soft toys all over the floor and his bed unmade. She still remembered when he got the bed. He’d been so excited about being a ‘big boy’ but he couldn’t have slept in it more than a dozen times. Ben had nightmares and, more often than not, come morning he would be found sleeping on the floor next to her bed or in her parents’ room. He hadn’t liked sharing a bed but knowing someone was close helped put him at his ease.

  Joanie bent down and picked up a teddy bear. Tried not to think about how scared he would be all alone in that coffin. She put the teddy bear on his bed and walked back downstairs, determined to keep him company for as long as she could.

  Mrs Mitchell was sitting at the kitchen table and the kettle was boiling on the side behind her. ‘Hello dear,’ she said as Joanie walked in and sat down opposite.

  She could see Mrs Mitchell’s grey curls peering over the top of Ben’s coffin. Joanie crossed her arms on the table and waited for Mrs Mitchell to say something. She didn’t. When the kettle finished boiling she got up and poured herself a cup of tea and sat down again.

  The coffin didn’t move. She didn’t really expect it to but she watched it anyway. Inside her baby brother was laying on his back with his hands crossed over his heart. He had his eyes closed and, because Joanie was the kind of girl who liked to know about these things, she knew that most of his insides had been removed and replaced with something like cement.

  Mrs Mitchell had explained that lots of other children were now alive because Ben’s organs had been given to them. Joanie didn’t care about lots of other children, she just wanted her brother back.

  She wished she had told him that she loved him more.

  Joanie didn’t move but the house filled with people around her. They were all dressed in black, suits and dresses, some of the women wore black mesh hats that covered their eyes. They walked past the kitchen and looked in through the door. They didn’t say anything when they saw her sitting there and that was just fine with her.

  After she’d finished her tea Mrs Mitchell carried her cup over to the sink and rinsed it under the tap. ‘Time to get ready I suppose,’ she said.

  Joanie didn’t reply and Mrs Mitchell left the room without another word.

  ‘Oh Joanie, there you are.’

  She looked up and saw her Aunt Sylvia looking in at her from the door. ‘Hello Aunty Sylvia,’ she said.

  Aunt Sylvia was wearing black like everyone else. She took a step into the room and then seemed to notice the coffin on the table. She stopped and held onto the door frame so tightly her knuckles turned white.

  ‘What are you doing in here?’ asked Aunt Sylvia. ‘You shouldn’t be in here with... that.’

  Joanie looked at the little wooden box and she knew that her brother wasn’t really in there. He had never been in there. Her brother was somewhere else, gone. Burying dead bodies was just a stupid superstition. Where Ben was he couldn’t feel lonely or scared and that was good. He wouldn’t have any more nightmares.

  She stood up and walked over to Aunt Sylvia. She hugged her tightly, her head nestled between her mum’s sisters chest. ‘Thank you Aunt Sylvia,’ she said.

  ‘Why what...’ she began to say but then stopped and just hugged Joanie back.

  CHAPTER 2

  JOANIE SAT IN THE BACK SEAT OF THE car behind her mum and dad. Her dad had his arm around her mum who was resting her head on his shoulder. They were both wearing black. Neither of them had turned around to look at her or ask how she was.

  The car was big and posh. All of the metal was shiny and the leather was soft and smelled like it had just been cleaned. She had her seatbelt on but they were only travelling at about twenty miles per hour so she didn’t think she really needed it.

  Ben’s body was in the car ahead of them. The cherry red coffin was covered with flowers that had been arranged to spell out his name. Joanie thought it lucky that he wasn’t called something with more than three letters. Then she decided that nothing about what was happening could be described as lucky and she felt bad for thinking it. She had said a little prayer apologising to Ben.

  Joanie’s parents were not religious. She didn’t think they had ever taken her or Ben to a church except for weddings or christenings. They had not had her or Ben christened.

  ‘What will happen to Ben’s sole?’ she asked her mum.

  Her mum had buried her face in her hands and run out of the room crying. Joanie felt bad and would have gone after her to apologise but her father had sat down opposite her in the living room and taken her hands.

  ‘Joanie, if there is a heaven then god wouldn’t punish Ben because we decided not to have him christened,’ he said.

  ‘Do you think there’s a heaven?’ she said.

  Her father paused and seemed to consider the question. ‘Joanie I don’t know. But what I do know is a lot of people think so. Maybe th
ey know more than me?’

  Joanie had smiled because it was what he expected. It meant she wasn’t going to ask any more questions.

  She had thought a lot about heaven and god and what happened to people when they died. She had asked a lot of people that came to the house. They all gave her conflicting information or asked her what she thought. She smiled at those people as well because they didn’t want her to ask any more questions.

  That morning she had asked Mrs Mitchell why no one could give her a straight answer about what happened to people when they died.

  ‘It’s because no one really knows darling,’ said the old lady. ‘Some people say they do and maybe they believe it, but they don’t really.’

  ‘So why do they say it if they don’t know?’

  ‘To make themselves feel better I suppose.’

  Joanie nodded. She didn’t ask Mrs Mitchell what she thought because that didn’t seem to matter anymore. No one knew what happened to you when you died so she could make up her own answer and it would be just as true. ‘I think that when we die we stay with our family,’ she told Mrs Mitchell while the old woman sipped her tea. ‘We look after them and we make sure they’re alright.’

  Mrs Mitchell had smiled but she was crying too. When Joanie asked her what was wrong she shook her head and said: ‘Nothing. It’s just such a lovely thought Joanie. It means Mr Mitchell is right here with me.’

  The car stopped in front of the church. It was an old building made of grey bricks. St. Valen’s church; Joanie had gone there once on a school trip.

  She could see people inside the church. Some of them were sitting down but most of them were standing.

  The car carrying the coffin was in front of them still. Four men in black suits were standing behind it with their heads bowed. Joanie watched from the back seat of the car as one of the men opened the back and with great ceremony slid out her brother’s coffin.

  ‘Joanie,’ said her mother.

  She turned and saw her dad holding the car door open. Her mother’s face was mostly hidden behind a black veil but Joanie could see her puckered mouth that meant she was angry.

  She slid across the seat and felt her black dress pull up under her bum. She pressed it down and climbed out. When she looked across at the other car she saw that the four men were balancing the wooden box on their shoulders.

  The sound of people talking in the church had stopped. She could hear an organ playing solemn music that she didn’t recognise.

  The men with the coffin walked forwards. Her dad reached out for her hand and she gave it freely. It felt cold but strong and reassuring. She, her mum and her dad, followed the men with the coffin into the church. It was, she thought, like being a ghoulish bridesmaid.

  Joanie had been a bridesmaid the year before at her Aunty Meryl’s wedding. Aunty Meryl was her dad’s younger sister. It was the last time, before today, that Joanie had been in a church.

  Aunty Meryl had wanted Ben to be a pageboy but her mum had said he was too young. That same night, after she’d drunk too many glasses of wine, Joanie heard her mum tell her dad that Ben could be a pageboy at Aunty Meryl’s next wedding.

  Joanie looked around as they walked into the church and saw Aunty Meryl sitting by herself in the second row. She realised that Ben wouldn’t get to be a pageboy at her next wedding and she didn’t think she would want to be a bridesmaid either. She didn’t think she would want to step foot in a church again after burying Ben.

  Mrs Mitchell was sitting a little further back. She had changed into a plain black dress that looked like it was itchy.

  The four men placed the coffin on a small table at the front of the room. As her mother passed it she paused, bowed her head and whispered something under her breath. When he passed her dad did the same and when it was her turn Joanie copied them.

  ‘Goodbye Ben,’ she said. ‘You were a good brother and I’m sorry I stole your bunny.’ She felt like she would cry if she said anymore so she followed her parents to the front seats and sat down next to her mum.

  Her mum reached out for her hand and squeezed it gently. Joanie could feel the residue of tears on her skin.

  The music came to an abrupt end and a man in dark robes walked in through a door at the side of the stage. He paused in front of the giant cross, bowed his head and moved his right hand across himself. Then he turned around to face them.

  ‘It is a terribly sad occasion that brings us here today,’ he said. His voice was deep and resounded around the large open space. There was a constrained joy to it, as if he knew, or thought he knew, something the rest of them didn’t. ‘Nevertheless it is a testament to the special boy that Ben was that so many of you are here.’

  Every seat in the room was taken and there were more people standing at the back. So many that they were cascading out the door. Joanie looked around at them and saw many faces both familiar and not. She didn’t think that Ben had met that many people in his whole life.

  ‘Ben was a beloved son and brother. His family cherished him deeply. He was a gentle soul and never caused harm to anyone.’

  Joanie felt her face flush and it seemed that everyone in the room had turned to look at her. Ben really was a beloved brother but he had not been as innocent as all that.

  CHAPTER 3

  THEY LIVED ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF WREATHING. FAR enough away from the chaos of the city but close enough that the town centre was accessible by bus. They had moved there from the city centre when she was three ‘near the good schools’.

  They had neighbours; Mrs Mitchell and, for a year or so, her husband Mr Mitchell. On the other side there were the McAlister’s first and then the O’Neil’s. There was lots of land around them, open fields that contained horses and cows, small wooded areas where her dad promised she could go to climb trees when she was older.

  Four years after they has moved there her mum has become pregnant and shortly after her seventh birthday she had been presented with a little brother called Ben.

  Joanie has been besotted with Ben. She was always pestering her mum to let her hold him and she was fascinated by the way he fed from her mums boobs.

  ‘That’s how you used to be fed,’ said her mum but Joanie hadn’t believed it until her father had shown her photographs.

  Joanie had already been at primary school by the time Ben came along so she was out of the house during the day. But she took pictures of him in to show her friends and her teachers who affectionately thought of him as her mascot. Or perhaps her as his cheerleader. Whenever she got the chance she would invite her friends around to meet him and play with him, so much so that soon her mum and dad had to put a stop to it. He was just a baby; he didn’t want to be handed around like a pass the parcel.

  The vicar had stopped pacing around delivering vague niceties about how loved Ben was. He stood behind the podium and glanced down at his notes from time to time.

  ‘Ben had only started to talk a few months ago,’ said the vicar. ‘He was a late developer in that respect. When he did speak though he didn’t waste time with baby talk. The first thing that Ben ever said was, ëI love you mummy.’

  The people gathered to watch the ceremony ëaah’d’ but Joanie knew that wasn’t the true story. Ben might not have started with baby talk like she had but he’d been talking for longer than her mum and dad knew.

  Joanie prided herself that she and Ben had a special relationship. That they were closer than most brothers and sisters. She liked to play games with him, even though the games he liked to play were much too young for her and he got distracted easily. She let him sleep in her room when he had nightmares and that wasn’t usual. She liked to share things with Ben and the two of them spent a lot of time together.

  So was it really that surprising that ‘Joanie’ was the first word he said?

  Well, she thought it was the first. It had certainly come weeks before the infamous ëI love you mummy’ speech. They had been playing with his toy rabbits. He loved those things, a little famil
y of soft bunny rabbits that wore cute outfits like waist coats and top hats. She had been playing with them anyway, he was just happy to sit in his chair and watch her moving them around in front of him.

  Joanie watched the vicar because she could hear her mum crying and if she saw her cry, she would cry too. So she kept her eyes on the man in the frock and listened as he somehow spun Ben’s two year long life into the tale of someone who had lived a full and happy life.

  She could hear other people crying as well. Tears were being muffled by tissues all around the room. She didn’t want to cry, not in front of all these people.

  ‘Now I believe we have Audrey Mitchell who would like to say a few words about Ben?’ said the Vicar.

  At the back of the room Mrs Mitchell stood up. She was clutching a piece of paper in one hand and a navy blue hanky in the other. She walked down the central passage that separated the two sections of pews and up onto the stage beside the vicar.

  Joanie noticed that she did not so much as glance at the giant cross. The vicar stepped aside and she stood behind the lectern.

  ‘I didn’t know Ben for very long,’ she said. Her voice was strong. ‘The sad truth is that none of us did.’

  Joanie remembered the day her dad had taken her to the hospital to meet her baby brother. They were outside the ward at quarter too, ready to be let in at six when visiting hours commenced. Despite her dad telling her she had plenty of time to get changed Joanie was still in her school uniform.

  She remembered the first time she’d held him, sitting in the green plastic chair with her arms out. Her dad had placed little Ben on her lap. He had been warm and she had felt his little heart beating as he sucked in tiny gasps of air. His breathing had seemed funny and she’d asked her dad about it but he’d told her all babies breathed like that. Ben had smelt milky and he’d waved his arms around. When he’d opened his mouth to yawn she’d seen his funny toothless gums.