Wednesday Story: Graveyard

"Look at this one." Simon brushed the long grass away from in front of the gravestone. "1895."

Susan came up behind him and rested her forearms across his shoulders. Her face brushed the top of his head. His hair smelt of apple-scented shampoo. It seemed strange to her, suddenly artificial, as though they had become actors in a television drama, a soap opera.

Susan stepped back away from Simon and strolled off deeper into the churchyard. Here amongst the thick gnarled trunks of the trees there was plenty of shade. The shadows were cool compared to the bright sun of a hot summer afternoon. Her fingers trailed across the mossy surface of a nearby gravestone. It was cool under her fingertips, but rough with age. It seemed so calm, so at ease.

"1883... so long ago." She whispered to the stone. She traced the moss-filled date of birth with her fingers. "Ooh!" She quickly looked around to see if Simon had heard her gasp, but he was too far away, pissing against the base of a tree-trunk. This Doris Mary Fellows had been only fifteen - the same age as Susan was now - when she died. Susan looked down at the overgrown grave. The grass was long and lush. It had not been disturbed for a long time.

"What's the matter?" Simon's arms wrapped around her from behind, under her T-shirt. His palms were rough on her breasts. She squirmed slightly but felt her nipples hardening.

"This one - Doris Mary Fellows. She was the same age as me when she died," Susan said. She leant back against Simon and looked up over her shoulder at his face.

"I wonder how she died?" she said.

"It was probably disease, or an accident," Simon said.

"Have you ever seen a dead body?"

"No, have you?"

"No."

He turned her around to face him, pulling her T-shirt up. She hesitated for a moment her hand on his, then looked around. The graveyard was quiet, still, deserted, especially in this old part where the gravestones were almost lost amongst the long grass and thick tree-trunks. Susan shivered, despite the warmth of the day, as the air touched her skin. She squirmed away from Simon and pulled her shirt back down. She walked off, away from him, through the graves. It was so quiet that she could hear a bee buzzing as it fumbled deep in a flower.

The gravestones were old in this part of the churchyard, green with moss and listing, some even fallen over and broken. Of the dates she could see, none were from later than the turn of the century. She sat down under a tree and lit a cigarette, closing her eyes.

It was so quiet, so good to get away from the constant noise of people, of her family. The noise of brothers and sisters, arguing parents, the constant blare of the television or the radio.

She looked away, down the hill to where the estate lay. She could see her own house, recognising it by the garden full of rusting, broken cars. Her father's constantly postponed dream of starting a business - doing up old cars and then selling them - was always being sidetracked. He always seemed to start on each car in a sudden burst of enthusiasm that seemed to wane rapidly as the scale of the job became apparent to him. Susan remembered how - when they were younger - her older brother Paul and she would sit in the broken abandoned cars and pretend to travel to faraway places. Places that were little more than names to them.

Simon would be here any second, she thought, trying to get her knickers off again. She didn't mind that much. She quite liked fucking, and Simon was fairly good at it, and - after all - that was why they had ended up in the churchyard. But now, in this peace and quiet, in the cool of the shadows, she was more than happy just to sit leaning back against the solidity of the tree with her eyes closed.

What would it be like to be dead? There would be no more worries, no more problems with school and whether she would ever get a job after next year. Would she one day find herself pregnant - like her sister, Dawn - and then find her bloke had pissed off with someone else. Leaving her with a handful of kids clutching at her thighs as she stood in the school playground wondering why all her friends suddenly looked so old and tired.

She looked around at the quiet peaceful graveyard. She decided it would be nice to lie there for all eternity. She strolled over to the nearest grave and lay down, her head almost touching the listing headstone. It would be so calm and peaceful lying there forever, with the birds singing and the leaves on the trees flickering in the breeze, watching the clouds floating free.

It would be possible to lie there all year, through summer sun, autumn winds, winter snows and the greening again of springtime and not to have any worries at all. Not to have any fears about what the future would bring, knowing that this was how it would always be - for forever. She crossed her arms over her chest - like she had seen in pictures of some old tomb - and closed her eyes.

"What are you doing?"

She opened her eyes to see Simon staring down at her. "I just wondered what it would be like to be dead. That's all."

"Bloody hell, Sue. You are weird." Simon shook his head, then laughed, dropping to the ground next to her. He kissed her as his hand unfastened her jeans, and slipped down, catching and pulling a couple of hairs on the way. She winced and squirmed.

"You wouldn't get any of this, if you were dead, would you?" Simon's fingers were moving, easing inside.

Susan shook her head. That was just the point. But she had long ago given up trying to explain these things to Simon, to anyone. Even her own family thought there was something 'not quite right' about some of the things she used to do, think or say. She had long since learnt the value of silence. She looked around at the headstones all around her. These too must know the value of silence and the peace she craved.

Her jeans and knickers were down around her knees and her T-shirt was pushed high, up under her chin. The cool, fresh air felt so fine on her naked skin. She had a sudden urge. A sudden desire to want to run naked through long grass and to run, run and dive head-first straight into a slow-moving cold river. She felt the soft bristles on Simon's chin scrape across her skin. She rolled away and stood up, pulling up and fastening her jeans and letting her shirt fall back down.

"What's the matter now," Simon said.

Susan could hear the frustration in his voice. She had heard it in boy's voices many times before. Times when it had been easier to give in.

"I thought… I thought I heard something… someone...." She waved her hand vaguely. "Yes, look!" She tried to keep the relief from her voice. "Look, it's the vicar, priest, or whatever they call them." She pointed down to the wide pathway that led up to the church. A figure in long black billowing robes was striding along.

"He's miles away and, anyway, he isn't coming this way."

"I dunno," Susan said. "There's something I don't like about it. About the way he suddenly just appeared like that." She turned away from Simon's sudden serious look, so that she would not burst out giggling.

"No, it's all right. He's going into the church." Simon turned back to face her. "I thought you said you fancied doing it here? Somewhere cool and quiet where we wouldn't be disturbed."

"I did…. I've changed my mind now. Anyway, I don't think I'm in the mood… not any more."

"In the mood. What the fuck does that mean? Don't you fancy me any more is that it?"

Susan shrugged and looked down at the grass in front of her. There was a ladybird, bright scarlet with glistening black spots, climbing up towards the end of a stalk.

Simon stepped towards her and held onto her upper arms, bending down to look up at her face. "Sue? What's the matter?"

"I don't know." She turned away, pulling her arms free. He let go reluctantly. She walked off across to another grave.

Thomas Henry Barber

1920-1941.

She read it automatically, and wondered if he had died in that war. She sat down on the stone edging, running a hand through the weeds that were slowly taking it over. She lit another cigarette and looked over at Simon. He sat under the tree next to the grave pulling grass from the area around him before standing and walking off.

A few moments later his shadow loomed over her. She looked up. He seemed so far away.

"I hate it here. It's too quiet, nothing to do," he said. Suddenly he grabbed her and pulled her to the ground, trying to kiss her as he pulled her T-shirt up and off. She squirmed, throwing her head from side to side to avoid his mouth. She tried to hit him, thump him, push him off. He grabbed her arms and held them down.

"Come on Sue. You said it was what you wanted. You promised me. You owe me.... You led me up here and said we would. He knelt up, one hand still holding her arms. It was awkward, getting her jeans and knickers down with one hand while she struggled, but he managed it.

Susan tired to buck up, push him off. "Fuck off, you bastard! Leave me alone. I said I didn't want to...."

"Ah, but a few minutes ago you said you did," Simon laughed, looking down at her naked body. "My dad used to say you can never really know what women mean, saying one thing when they want the opposite." He undid his own trousers.

"No... don't. Simon.... Please!"

"What difference is it going to make? We've done it loads of times before, just one more won't matter."

Susan spat in his face. Simon slapped her hard on the cheek, she felt it go hot and numb before it began to sting. She closed her eyes and turned her face away, feeling him moving on top and then inside. She tried to free her hands a couple of times, tried - somehow - to squirm out from underneath him, but it was no use. Part of her was just saying: let it be. It will be over soon and he will go away. Another part of her was planning retribution, revenge, the police, her father - but no-one would really believe her, she knew that and knew everyone else would assume that too. This was - after all - why they had come up here. This was why Simon had followed her. She had made a promise and now he was only getting what she had so freely offered an hour or so ago.

She had a sudden vision, behind her tearful closed eyes, of a family holiday they'd had, a long time ago when her father was in work. She could see herself standing up high on some headland staring out at the endless blue of the sea. Wanting to run right off the edge and jump into that endless blue that merged into the sky off in the distance.

Simon was standing over her when she opened her eyes. He looked down at her. Without saying a word he turned and walked away, leaving her half-naked and spread out on the grave.

She lay there unmoving for a long time, watching the clouds floating serene in the sky, feeling the cool breeze on her naked skin and the slow drying of the stickiness Simon had left between her thighs. There really didn't seem to be much point in moving, in putting her clothes back on, in going home, in returning to a life that seemed so thin and pointless.

END