Furthermore, he'd not been eager to stand in front of Tommy's grave,
where memories of blood and loss and despair were certain to assail
him.
To the left of Tommy's marker was a double stone. It bore the names of
his parents--EDUARDO and MARGARITE. Though Eduardo had been in the
ground only a few months, Tommy for a year, and Margaret for three
years, all of their graves looked freshly dug. The dirt was mounded
unevenly, and no grass grew on it, which seemed odd, because the fourth
grave was flat and covered with silky brown grass. He could understand
that gravediggers might have disturbed the surface of Margarite's plot
in order to bury Eduardo's coffin beside hers, but that didn't explain
the condition of Tommy's site. Jack made a mental note to ask Paul
Youngblood about it.
The last monument, at the head of the only grassy llot, belonged to
Stanley Quartermass, patron of them. An inscription in the weathered
black stone surprised a chuckle out of Jack when he least expected
it.
Here lies Stanley Quartermass dead before his time because he had to
work with so damned many actors and writers.
Toby had not moved.
'What're you up to?' Jack asked.
No answer.
He put one hand on Toby's shoulder.
'Son?'
Without shifting his gaze from the tombstone, the boy said, 'What're
they doing down there?'
'Who? Where?'
'In the ground.'
'You mean Tommy and his folks, Mr. Quartermass?'
'What're they doing down there?'
There was nothing odd about a child wanting to fully understand
death.
It was no less a mystery to the young than to the old. What seemed
strange to Jack was the way the question had been phrased.
'Well,' he said, 'Tommy, his folks, Stanley Quartermass . . .
they aren't really here.'
'Yes, they are.'
'No, only their bodies are here,' Jack said, gently massaging the boy's
shoulder.
'Why?'
'Because they were finished with them.'
The boy was silent, brooding.
Was he thinking about how close his own father had come to being
planted under a similar stone? Maybe enough time had passed since the
shooting for Toby to be able to confront things that he'd been
repressing.
The mild breeze from out of the northwest stiffened slightly. Jack's
hands were cold. He put them in his jacket pockets and said, 'Their
bodies weren't them, anyway, not the real them.'
