A Funeral for an Owl Read online

  Shamayal was right, damn it! Jim Stevens was a colleague. She remembered the boy’s pronunciation: the hardness of the ‘k’. A suitable match for his assessment of her! And now, because of Jim, she had broken the rules, rules necessary not only to protect pupils but teachers too. The sad fact was that innocent friendships - supportive friendships - had become taboo. The teacher who used to invite Ayisha and her sixth form friends home for coffee, offering a safe refuge where smoking wasn’t frowned upon and there was always a shoulder to cry on, would probably lose her job these days. Having put her career on the line for Jim, Ayisha must wait to see if he comes round before hearing what he has to say for himself. And waiting is something Ayisha has never been terribly good at.

  CHAPTER 7: JIM - JULY 2010 - H.D.U., ST HELIER HOSPITAL

  Jim was aware of voices floating in and out, some near, some further away. Of busy hands. The blue-orange hue inside his eyelids. The assault of familiar and unfamiliar smells: sweat, disinfectant and something that he couldn’t - or perhaps didn’t want to - identify. And of pain. Excruciating pain, spreading like the warm glow of whisky.

  Trying to lift a heavy eyelid, it took Jim a moment to identify the flickering dark feathers as his eyelashes.

  “Nurse! Nurse! I saw him move. I think he’s back with us!” That unmistakable tone: the last he expected to hear.

  Assaulted by bright light, Jim’s head swam. If this is what it feels like to be awake, he thought, I would rather sleep. Instinctively, he shrank away from a touch of his shoulder.

  “Don’t shake him, Mr Stevens. If you dislodge his chest tube we’ll be back to square one.” A no-nonsense voice. “Wait for him to come round. And don’t expect too much. He’ll be very confused.”

  “I always said you were a fighter, son!”

  These words distracted Jim from the mystery of how his father came to be in the same room as him. All of his energy was diverted to the impossible reconciliation of his father’s statement and his memory of what was actually said: “It wouldn’t be much of a fight. You’re not worth the energy.”

  Frank Stevens had been the sort of father who expected to be stood up to. The thought of having weaklings for sons would have embarrassed him no end. Tall for his age, never one to walk away from a fight, Nick enjoyed the sport of egging him on. They called it playing, but both father and son had competitive streaks; neither would back down. With Jim’s mother out of the way, they practised wrestling moves on each other, a rug in the living room their ring. Until he turned fourteen, Nick’s speed was no match for his father’s bulk, and Frank wasn’t one to go easy on an opponent, even if it was his teenage son.

  “Stop!” Jim would yell from the safety of the doorway. “You’re hurting him!”

  “Best way for him to learn,” Frank would growl.

  If Nick was injured, he never bore a grudge. That he could stand up to a grown man was proof he was tough enough. He’d seen Barry McGuigan beat far heavier men.

  Once Nick turned fourteen, it was payback time. Jim bounced on the sofa, punching the air and shouting, “Yes! Come on!” as his brother won his first fight. Frank was pinned down with one arm twisted behind his back. He looked up, a vein standing proud on his forehead, a snarl curling his top lip: “Don’t know why you’re laughing. You’re next, sunshine.”

  Now, compelled to protest, Jim found he could only produce a dry rasp. “When?”

  “What’s that, son?” Frank’s voice was animated.

  He opened his eyes a second time. The light was violent, everything brilliant white, apart from two faces, one pale, one dark, beyond the blur of his vision.

  “I think he asked you ‘when?”’ the second voice chortled, a riotous duck-like noise.

  “Hear that, eh? He hasn’t seen his old man in years and now he wants to pick a fight!”

  Jim had never been his brother, that much was painfully clear. With Nick out of the way, Frank missed his sparring partner. He would clench his fists at shoulder-height when he cornered Jim in the narrow hall - “Put ‘em up” - punching the air on either side of his son’s face in time to The Eye of the Tiger. But, with Jim still flinching, Frank would blow on his knuckles, the tails of his dressing gown trailing: “Nah! You’re not worth the energy.”

  “Jim,” a deep, rich voice was saying, pulling him back to the present. “I’m Ella. I’ve been looking after you for the last couple of days. Do you know where you are?”

  “Am-I-in-hell?” he groaned.

  She beamed a tooth-filled smile. “No, darlin’. This here’s St Helier. You’re in Recovery.”

  Close, he thought.

  “And she’s your guardian angel,” his father interrupted.

  Attempting to raise his head, Jim experienced a new level of pain ripping through his left-hand side.

  “Don’t try to move,” Ella purred. “You’ve had a serious accident. Your lung’s been punctured. We’ve put a tube in your chest to inflate it. The doctor will be along shortly to explain everything.”

  “An accident?” his father protested loudly. “I wouldn’t have got a special permit for an accident!”

  So nothing had changed. Even as a child, Jim had recognised the pattern. His father would spend a couple of weeks hanging round the flat before he got bored and ventured out to the betting shops, gambling money he fooled himself he would have when his horse came in. Faced with the prospect of admitting to his wife that debt had caught up with him, an old associate would tempt him with a ‘business proposition’. It was then that the arguments escalated. When Frank got caught, as he invariably did, it ended the weeks of tension. Watching him being led away, Jean always cried. As an adult, Jim understood that his mother felt so guilty for expecting him to let them down, she convinced herself she was to blame. And now here he was, taking the credit!

  “My son’s a bleedin’ hero. That’s what they said on the radio.”

  Jim didn’t know how much more of this he could take: a hero? “What-are-you-talking-about?”

  “If it wasn’t for my boy, there’d be one more dead teenager! They should give you a medal. Hey, Jim! There’s a man outside wants to take your picture for the papers.”

  Ella sighed, saying, “He’ll have to wait. The police will want to speak to you before the reporters get a look in.”

  A foggy memory tried to make itself known: of running, of raising one hand. More afraid of not remembering than remembering, Jim followed the thread: stepping between two boys, then staggering, clutching his chest. He heard himself groan. He was lying on the ground, looking up at faces: Shamayal and Ayisha...

  Blinking, he saw that it was Ella who was bending over his hospital bed, eyes full of concern. “First things first: I’ll give you something for the pain, Jim. Give your son some space, Mr Stevens. We haven’t saved his life so that you can suffocate him.”

  Jim’s stomach lurched like a belly-dancer’s. “I’m-gonnurbe-sick,” he slurred, managing to turn his head sideways. Even this small movement pulled on the tube, causing a jabbing in his chest. Effort disproportionate, he dry-retched, producing a thin trail of foul-tasting saliva.

  “I got you,” Ella said, and he felt something that turned out to be the cardboard edge of a kidney-shaped dish graze his chin. “That’s the anaesthetic wearing off.” His mouth was wiped for him as if he was a small child, but the miserable green taste of bile remained.

  “Dance with me, nurse. I feel like dancing.”

  Letting out a small shriek, Ella turned to a figure beyond Jim’s range of vision. “Can’t you control your father?”

  “Never have been able to. No point trying.” Another ancient echo: another image of happy families. His teenage brother, Nick, straddling his father’s prostrate form, twisting his arm tighter: “Leave Jim alone, you hear?”

  “I’m trying to give your son some morphine, Mr Stevens, and you’re not helping.”

  Jim felt hands alight on his arm, pressure and then the pain subsiding, replaced by a paralysing sensation he ha
dn’t the strength to fight.

  “Better?” Ella turned away from him. “If you want to say hello to your brother, do it now.” She beckoned. “I’m going to run some tests in a minute, and then he’ll need his rest before those vultures get their hands on him.”

  “Jim.” The face hovering over him was fuller than when he last saw it. The hair was thinning. He hadn’t been surprised to see his dad looking old - his friends’ fathers were all in their sixties. But it was shocking that Nick was no longer eighteen, as he was when Jim last saw him. “Can he hear me?”

  “He can hear you.” The nurse drew the curtains around the bed with sharp little movements.

  “Jim, it’s Nick.” The face moved out of range. “Are you sure? He’s not saying anything.”

  “You wouldn’t be saying a lot for yourself if you’d had your lung punctured for you.”

  “Mate!” Back in view, he grinned sheepishly. “We thought we’d lost you.”

  There was only one thing Jim wanted to say. With difficulty, he moved his lips. “Where-were-you-at-Mum’s-funeral?”

  “Don’t wear yourself out,” the nurse fussed. “You’re going to need your strength.”

  “I’ll shift out your way.” Nick’s Adam’s apple moved. “I’ll be back to see how you’re doing later.”

  Jim closed his eyes. He thought he had said, “Don’t bother,” but, sinking, he realised that he may have just thought it.

  “Son!” Jim jolted as his hair was ruffled. “How you doing?”

  “Let’s be having you, Frank,” a voice called out from the direction of the door.

  “My chariot awaits. Any chance of a swift half on the way back, boys?” The request was good-natured.

  “‘Fraid not. They’d never forgive us if we didn’t get you back in time for your dinner.”

  He shrugged. “Can’t blame a man for trying.” Turning back to Jim, his tone was confidential. “I don’t know when I’ll be able to get out again, but I was glad I was here when you came round.” Sniffing loudly, his father cleared his throat. “Like seeing you being born all over again. Good on you, son. Your mother would have been proud. Very proud.”

  Jim closed his eyes, felt tears overflow as his father walked away, confused as to who they were for.

  “Just the two of us now,” Ella was clucking. “I’m going to do your bloods. See how it’s settling down. We had to lend you a pint or two of someone else’s. There now. Your daddy’s quite the handful, isn’t he?”

  Jim’s mother used to tell him he got his cheek from his father. It wasn’t much of a legacy. He recalled the last conversation they shared.

  “Was Dad like that when you met him?” he’d asked, old enough to deserve an honest reply. The almost skeletal hand that Jim held so gently was marked with the points of numerous needles.

  “It was at a school disco. I’d had my eye on him for weeks.” Conversation paused while her body was racked by coughing. He didn’t tell her not to talk, not when he had good reason to think it might be their last opportunity. “He was fifteen, and as cheeky as you like. A real character, and I fell for him. I thought he’d come round when he had family. As it was, I ended up worrying enough for the both of us. Your father missed out on so much of your childhood. Either he wasn’t there or he… well, he never felt the connection with you that he did with your brother.”

  “I wasn’t Nick, that was for sure.”

  “But you must remember how he taught you to do up your school tie?”

  He had shaken his head.

  “Honestly? Your dad hadn’t been around to teach you how to ride a bike. He never really forgave me for letting your granddad do something he saw as his right. So when he said that next time there was something you needed to be shown, he wanted to do it, I said, ‘I’ll hold you to that.’”

  “Red, white and blue. Diagonal stripes.”

  “You do remember!”

  Jim winced: his memory had been of the tie, no more.

  She’d smiled. “Your dad was so proud to see you looking so grown up.”

  And that was when it had come back to Jim. They had been in the governor’s office.

  “Right, you want to start with the wide part on your right-hand side. Your right-hand-side, son. That’s your left. That’s better! Now you bring the wide side over the top of the narrow side like so. That’s it. Bring the wide part under the narrow part, like this. It’s always the wide part that moves…”

  “...God only knows how many times he had you practise, but you never forgot. And when he was happy, he crouched down and whispered -”

  But it was his father’s voice Jim heard: “Now you’re a real man, Jim. A real man.”

  And Jim had found that his mother was comforting him. “I’ve never seen him so proud of you as he was that day,” she patted his hand, misinterpreting the reason for his tears. “Do you think your brother will visit?”

  “I’m sure he will, Mum.”

  Touring the local pubs, Jim had finally managed to locate someone who promised to get a message to Nick - but there was no reply. And very soon afterwards it was too late.

  CHAPTER 8: JIM - APRIL 2010 - AT HOME

  “No child or young person should be invited into the home of an adult who works with them, unless the reason has been firmly established and agreed with parents or carers and a senior manager or Head teacher.”

  Shuffling into the kitchen, Jim bristled. The sight of anyone seated in his chair - the one with the best view of the small garden - would have discomforted him. He protected his privacy fiercely. The fact was, Shamayal was also a pupil. And rules were rules.

  “Mornin’, Sir,” the boy said brightly, looking up from the book he had been thumbing through. Jim recognised the small volume of British birds he kept handy for reference. “You overslept?”

  Jim located the blackbird that was trilling outside, conversational and enquiring. Suddenly conscious that his dressing gown was hanging open, he saw how easily the situation might be misconstrued. “I thought you might have gone,” he said, hoping the hint would be taken.

  “Din’t want to leave without sayin’ goodbye, did I?” Leave was pronounced as ‘leaf’, crisp and autumnal. “How rude would that be?”

  “I thought you’d have somewhere you needed to be.”

  “No place specific. Saturday, innit?”

  Jim smiled wryly at the specifiK. “I’ll just grab some clothes. Did yours dry?”

  “I’ve got to be honest, they could be drier.”

  “That wasn’t exactly your typical April shower.”

  “How’s that foot of yours?” the boy asked Jim as he returned, dressed in Levis and a t-shirt.

  “Fine.” He extracted two cartons from inside the fridge door - one of milk, another of Tropicana - and placed them in the middle of the table. In fact, his foot wasn’t fine: since he had removed a glass splinter with tweezers it had been throbbing.

  After filling the kettle, Jim reached for the bread bag.

  “You’re down to the crusts.” The boy examined the pictures in the book studiously. “Hope you don’t mind. I made toast.”

  “No problem.” Grinding his teeth, Jim opened an upper cupboard. A cafetiere and mugs presented themselves. “Will you have coffee if I make a pot?”

  “That stuff rots your stomach somethink chronic.”

  “You’re probably right.” He took a seat opposite the boy. “I drink too much caffeine, that’s for sure.”

  Shamayal eyed him intently. “No disrespec’, Sir, but I ain’t all that surprised you got no girlfriend.”

  Jim was taken aback. It was true: girlfriends had been few and far between. A girl would have to show a great deal of interest before he’d issue a cautious, ‘If you’re not doing anything…’ His mind settled on Lisa Flannigan, a college girl Jim had admired from behind a weighty Tudor history long before she noticed him. A natural brunette. Confident enough not to plaster herself in make-up. Often found in the library after everyone else had reloc
ated to the bar.

  “We seem to be the only two left,” Lisa had said as the lights in the corridor were switched off one by one.

  “Hm?” He’d looked up, pretending not to have noticed.

  “Fancy a drink?”

  Convinced that the only reason for her offer was that any company was preferable to nursing a half of lager alone, Jim’s reaction was that of someone caught misbehaving. “I - I have to get this essay in tomorrow.”

  “I’ll give you one more chance,” she said, bending so close to his ear that he could hear her tongue click against the roof of her mouth. “I don’t like being turned down twice.”

  The next day she had scraped back the chair opposite his. Distracted by the way one of her feet gave chase to its lost shoe, each new paragraph appeared to be exactly the same as the last. He spent much of the day re-reading Mark Smeaton’s confession to his affair with Anne Boleyn, the image of Smeaton creeping into the Queen’s bedchamber supplemented by the dark outline of Lisa’s thighs. Knowing the man’s grisly fate lent a sense of inevitability to the afternoon, but it was only when Jim showed signs of packing up that she’d acknowledged him, saying, “Last chance. How about it?”

  Jim had thought the evening a disaster but, when he clammed up, Lisa said she found it ‘sweet’. He’d suggested a follow-up date because it seemed rude not to. The same etiquette demanded he slept with her. Everybody wants to believe they’re irresistible. Why should he be the one to disillusion her? And it had been glorious for two sleepless nights, two lazy days, but when it fizzled out Jim experienced the same relief he felt when his father was led away: a return to normality.

  Shamayal’s presence, here in his kitchen - a boy who had been mistaken for his son - gave Jim a heightened sense that time was passing him by; that perhaps he should take tonight’s date seriously. “How do you know I don’t have a girlfriend?”