FROM THEN ON Jack was like a puppet, a lost man, somehow steering himself or letting himself be steered through what lay before him. He might have used, if it had been one of his words, the word “autopilot.” He might have had the same sense of not being himself if he had been cal ed to Buckingham Palace to be knighted by the Queen.
Beyond the glass doors (a sign said “Ceremony Reception”) he was met—and ticked off a list—with an intenser version of the courtesy he’d received at Control of Entry, but with also, he couldn’t help but detect, a faint, disguised relief.
I am Jack Luxton.
There was now ahead of him, through another wide doorway, a throng—he was somehow sucked into it —that included a great many uniforms, some of them of an astonishingly resplendent and seemingly high- ranking nature. His plain suit felt instantly shabby. There were swords, sashes, gold braid—medals— epaulettes. It was fancy dress. Some of the uniforms were so besmothered and encrusted that Jack wondered if they didn’t mark the point where they mysteriously merged with the regalia of dukes and earls. And he’d previously noted, from the List of Those in Attendance, that he would indeed be in the presence of one viscount (whatever a viscount was) and more than one lord. It hadn’t given him any sense of privilege. It had scared him.
Among the uniforms were a number of women in what seemed to Jack extravagant forms of dress and hat, as if this might be a wedding, and wearing also, in some cases, a kind of smile that wasn’t a smile at al and reminded him of zip fasteners. There were also at least two men wearing uniform but with long white lacy surplices on top.
Among it al too, though somehow distinct from it, were two clusters of civilians (that word, like “citizen,” now also forced itself upon him) who seemed to Jack not so unlike himself, either in their clothing or in their air of dazed incomprehension. He instantly knew who they were and instinctively felt it would be good, though also difficult, to be close to them. The two clusters were quite large, both consisting of more than one generation, from grandparents down to smal children. In one case there was a child so smal that it needed to be carried in its mother’s arms. The mother looked not only weighed down, but as if she were standing on ground that had given way. Al the children looked as if they were there by mistake.
This was al suddenly quite terrible: these people, these floundering women (he vaguely grasped that the ones with the hats and smiles must be there to provide some token balance), these children, among al these uniforms. The two clusters seemed both to cling to themselves and to cling, separate as they were, to each other, and Jack realised that he was a third cluster. He was
But at the same time he’d glimpsed something else distinct from the gathering—standing at a distance from it, yet overshadowing it, overshadowing even these important human clusters. On the far side of the large room was a wal of mainly glass, such as you might find near a boarding gate in any airport building. And through the glass, beyond the jostle of heads and hats, could be seen, out on the tarmac, a single large plane. Around it was none of the usual clutter of baggage carts and service vehicles that surrounds a parked plane at an airport, and it was stationed with its nose pointing outwards so that, even from where he was, Jack could see the dark opening into its bel y, beneath the tail, and the ramp leading down.
When he’d first had to picture this event, Jack had vaguely supposed that everyone might watch the plane fly in, then unload. But of course it wouldn’t necessarily be like that. The plane had been there perhaps for some time, while preparations were made. It had landed in darkness, possibly. It had slipped over the English coast, perhaps, even as he’d slipped down Beacon Hil .
Jack had known it would be there. But seeing it like this was nonetheless a shock. It was a big plane, for three coffins. It stood there, seemingly unattended, under a dappled, grey-and-white, autumnal sky in Oxfordshire. It must have stood not so long ago on a tarmac in Iraq.
Major Richards was suddenly and merciful y at his side—
barely recognised at first, since, though Jack had only ever seen him in uniform, he too now wore a sword and a sash, as if he might recently have undergone (though he hadn’t) some promotion. Even as this contact was made—an actual, quick touch on his elbow—Jack realised that Major Richards must have been keeping an eye out for him, not just to make sure he was there, but, as it now seemed, to compensate, so far as was possible, for Jack’s being just a cluster of one. He and Major Richards, if only temporarily and for the purposes of negotiating this gathering, would form a cluster of two.
MAJOR RICHARDS ALREADY KNEW that Jack was the last of the Luxtons, the only one left. There was a whole story there perhaps, he’d thought, though it was not his business to enquire. But then, only yesterday, Jack had got in touch by phone to explain that, “as things had turned out,” he’d be coming alone. There was a whole story there too, no doubt, but Major Richards felt it would be even less appropriate to pursue the point. His own wife wasn’t here either (though why should she be? She wouldn’t want to be). He was only a major, after al .
MAJOR RICHARDS SAID, “Journey okay?” As if they might have just met for some sports fixture or were about to compare notes on the traffic on the A34. But Jack didn’t mind this at al .
“Yes.”
“Good. Good.”
After this, Jack was not always sure what Major Richards was saying or what he was saying himself (now and then he opened his mouth and words came out), but he understood that Major Richards was doing his duty, a special kind of duty. He was leading him around, introducing him briefly to people, leading him on again so that no single encounter became too much. He was being a cluster with him and getting him through this thing. And Jack realised that he, too, in spite of himself, was somehow stumblingly doing his duty, which was to be, unavoidably, introduced to people in extraordinary get-ups with extraordinary voices and have his hand shaken as if he himself had done something extraordinary, and have things said to him and over him (while he said, “Yes,” or, “Yes, I am,” or, “Yes, it is”) which were no doubt meant to make him feel good.
And Major Richards was definitely being a special cluster with him, because those other clusters surely deserved Major Richards’s attention just as much as, if not more than, he did, though perhaps they didn’t necessarily want it and anyway they had each other. The point soon came, however, when Major Richards piloted Jack towards them. It was what Jack both wanted and dreaded, since what could he possibly say to these poor stricken people which could be of any use to them? Their grief was multiple, if also shared, and they’d see before them just this big, roughish man. Perhaps they’d think: Poor him, al on his own. But what they would also see, Jack felt certain, since it would surely and damningly be glaring out of him, was that he was here to meet his brother, because he had to, though he hadn’t seen his brother for almost thirteen years, hadn’t even written to him for twelve, hadn’t known where he was, and had even tried not to think about him most of the time.
