‘On your way if you please,’ shouted the Ministry official and the old couple walked off reassured and wondering if they would recognise any of the smiling faces when it was their turn to retire.
All of the villagers were on the beach to say goodbye to June. The undertaker had made last minute adjustments to the small rowing boat that would carry her out to sea. They were by the cove and protected a mile out by the shark nets that usually held.
Only the village undertakers were permitted to make and keep seaworthy vessels to prevent illegal fishermen profiting from the ocean and subversives trying to escape.
‘Go on then you two,’ said Malthus, pointing May and Bastian towards the water’s edge.
They submerged themselves in the warm sea and swam the short distance to the funeral boat. Bastian and May clung to a side each after which Malthus and then Nabulus held on behind. They all kicked with their legs out to sea.
The ocean was becoming clearer of late, almost blue. The company bosses who once poisoned the water had long gone, killed by a dose of hard work on the chain-gangs.
‘Are you alright, vicar?’ asked Nabulus.
He was in his formal orange swimming trunks and not black for this was a time of joy not sadness.
Malthus spat out the water.
‘Just a headache,’ he replied of his migraine.
Two hundred yards or so away from the shoreline, Malthus spoke the last rites.
‘Those born of the flesh eventually swim with the fish. Don’t worry about it,’ he said before turning around and ready to swim back.
‘Vicar!’ said Nabulus.
‘Oh yes, sorry,’ said Malthus, and he finished the passage sending June to her maker with dignity.
‘You’re not the first and won’t be the last,’ he said.
‘Feeling better?’ Bastian asked May.
‘A lot,’ she replied.
‘And to think the rusting generation had bereavement counsellors.’
Nabulus reached inside the boat and picked up the box of waterproof matches. He threw a lit match onto the dry straw placed inside the boat around the body. Quickly, they all turned around and swam back to the beach as fast as they could.
First to reach dry land was Nabulus and as village tradition had it, he would be the first to visit the deceased’s house. He could take anything of June’s he could carry between now and sunrise the following morning. May was gutted though he had promised to leave her things alone.
The villagers were drinking coconut juice with straws in the husks, watching the boat go up in flames and ready for the butcher’s barbecued elephant sausages.
‘One last word,’ said Malthus.
The crowd groaned.
‘June would be pleased with her send-off,’ he said, careful to avoid the word proud and tarnish her memory.
And with good reason, during the rusting generation pride had been applied to houses, cars, and the husband’s job that took him away on ‘important’ business. Or at least that’s what the neglected wife said in an unnecessary loud voice at the school gates.
‘Nabulus has registered June’s death as a suicide,’ said Malthus.
There was a loud cheer.
‘Next week, she will officially have her name added to the BC.’
This was the ‘Book of Commendation’ permanently kept beside the altar, to which Malthus regularly referred, and in which worshippers could scribble their congratulations and thanks. There were no cheers this time and everyone heard a voice from the back moan, ‘not another bloody celebration.’
Nabulus wasn’t there to root out the offender. He was rushing to fill his arms at June’s house and leave May with the leftovers.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
‘I’ve been dreading this day for the last year,’ admitted Jeremiah.
‘Is that all,’ said Eliza. ‘I’ve been trying to get it out of my head for the last ten.’
She paused for a moment of reflection, having caught her own in the glass panel of the kitchen door.
‘You’ve always been a calm man, Jeremiah, but aren’t you angry?’ she asked.
‘At the STP or retirement?’
‘At dying,’ she replied.
They both looked outside as the horse and cart pulled up. It was early evening and it seemed cruel that time couldn’t just stop and leave them together in the house forever. But now they could no longer pretend it wasn’t going to happen, leaving.
The village was ready to say bon voyage before the journey to Scotland. They were leaving in the morning, cases already packed, with no more time left to worry if they had everything. Eliza stood up from the kitchen table and Jeremiah hooked his arm underneath hers as they went outside to greet the beautiful fresh air carried on the sea breeze.
‘Well, we might as well enjoy it,’ said Jeremiah.
‘You old fool,’ said Eliza, and she pinched his arm.
They rode onto the village green seated in the back of the cart. Both wore a crown made of coconut husks and palm tree leaves, the King and Queen of the village for a night, honoured before they left for good on a ship to Scotland, then quickly forgotten with no one willing to reminisce their own brief time away.
Jeremiah and Eliza were helped down and sat at the head of a long table. Familiar faces joined them but there were no special places for their sons. Family life was already over and it was best they entered their twilight years together but not dragging anyone else with them.
‘Don’t expect me to dance,’ said Eliza to Jeremiah.
‘And don’t expect me to kiss those wrinkled old lips,’ he replied.
Flagons of cider were being handed around the villagers as Nabulus lit the bonfire. The smell of spices and sizzling meats pervaded the air. Shadows danced on the shop fronts to the sound of drumbeats as young girls, scantily dressed, danced around the maypole celebrating the death of old age and rebirth of the village.
Two monkey heads with the skulls sliced open were handed before the King and Queen.
‘Close your eyes and pretend its lamb,’ said Jeremiah.
The villagers cheered as they swallowed their first mouthful
