Grave Conversation

Grave Conversation

I want to say a sincere thank you to Shackman636 for his assistance with proof reading. He has taken the time to improve my story with his work and I thank him for that generosity. Any mistakes are mine and I own them, view them as character tics that make me unique and special.

This story was written as a second part to an earlier story, at the same time as the earlier story. The intent was to release it a week after the first part. The first part unfortunately breached the site submission guidelines and was withdrawn before this part was submitted. I won't be rewriting the first part as I am happy it told the story I wanted to.

I revisited this story and with some work it stands alone. As ever, all comments are read, considered, and appreciated. I find it interesting what is written and quite surprising some of the insights I have got from the comments. I hope you enjoy this submission. There is no violence and no sex, so I hope that this time it will be allowed to stand.

Grave Conversation

He didn't need to glance down at the number, he had it memorised. He walked from row to row, head down, searching. It had been a while since he'd last been here. The evening air wasn't cold, it had been a lovely day. It hadn't rained, which makes it a lovely day in England and the temperature had been unseasonably warm. It was Spring and as he walked through the cemetery, he could see crocuses and daffodils. Clover was beginning to show its head. The colours were starting to return after the bleak greys and browns of Winter.

He glanced up and around, there were a couple of people in the boneyard. He wasn't the only one there, he didn't see anything to trouble him and he returned to his search. It took a few minutes but he found her grave. She had been buried next to his father, reunited in death. She'd have liked that. He hadn't known his father's number, just where it was. He smiled to himself as he walked closer. His father had died when he was in his early teens, the family had it tough and he'd missed that male presence in his life. His mother hadn't messed around, she'd grieved and she'd gotten on with life. They bred them slightly different in those days.

They had a good marriage and his early years had been everything he could have wanted. They didn't have much money. No-one in their neighbourhood had money. If you had money you lived in a different neighbourhood. Although now that had all changed. He'd walked around his old stomping grounds earlier. He wasn't worried about being identified, he looked sufficiently different that it would take someone who really knew him to make him. Anyone who knew him that well, wouldn't rat him out. Times and values change but snitching in this part of town; be a brave soul to do that. Especially calling down trouble on a local boy. Especially him.

There was no stone yet, not for his mother. She was too recently passed, too recently buried for a stone to be sited. He wondered who was dealing with that. He was planning to drop in on a couple of old friends and he'd chew that over with them. Make sure there was a suitable memorial for her. She deserved it. She wasn't anyone special. She was just one of the nameless, faceless tide of humanity that came into the world and exited the world without seemingly wrecking any substantial change upon it. She deserved something nice, something that people could see in fifty years' time. Something that would shout out to the world that her life mattered, that the fluke of life wasn't wasted upon her.

He could see that her grave was looked after. She'd been respected in the neighbourhood. People knew she'd had some tough breaks, losing her husband. Later, the death of a grandson; the furore around the end of his marriage. She'd had it harder than most and not complained, not looked for sympathy or special treatment. Just kept going on, kept a kind word for the people she interacted with.

He lay his flowers down carefully amidst the other blooms that were there. None of them looked particularly old, someone was keeping an eye on her grave. He squatted down on his heels. He wanted to say something to her. Find the words, the right words that would let her know that she mattered to him. That the distance between them hadn't diminished his love for her. That he was sorry that things had worked out how they had. He snorted; what words could do that? She was dead. She didn't care, she couldn't care. There were no words that could reach her. The words that he was reaching for were for him, not for her.

He grinned at his neediness and stood up. A faint groan as he stood. He was in good shape but part of becoming middle aged is groaning when you sit or stand. Feeling your body protest at the movement.

'I was wondering how long it would take you. Part of me was surprised you didn't come to the funeral.'

He turned quickly at the sound of her voice.

'Don't worry, I'm alone. There's no-one with me.'

He looked at her, it was the first time he'd seen her in the flesh since just before he'd walked into the villa and begun his vengeance. She looked good. She was a fine-looking woman, always had been. But it looked like her beauty had grown, perhaps where he hadn't seen her for so long. Perhaps she was growing into her looks. Slender, despite the two children she'd birthed. The years had been kind to her. He could see the lines on her face were etched deeper, the skin looked softer. The tightness of youth now fading. But she stood tall and still had the poise, a beauty that stabbed him in his chest when he looked at her.

'Talk to me, Terry.'

He took a deep breath. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest. His throat felt suddenly very dry, his mouth like he'd swallowed ashes.

'You look beautiful Dawn. I'd forgotten just how beautiful.'

It was hard getting the words out. He could feel tears pricking the corner of his eyes as he looked at her.

'Pity my beauty is just skin deep, hey?'

He shrugged.

'You look good from where I'm standing'

'You always did like the way I looked.'

'I did. Standing here. Now, nothing's changed. I still look at you and...' The words caught in his throat. He stopped talking, looking down at the ground, trying to regain his composure. Embarrassed at his weakness.

She walked closer to him.

'I'm sorry, Terry. I knew you loved me. I always knew you loved me.'

She took a hand that was hanging by his side.

'There's a bench over here. Let's sit over there and talk.'

He said nothing as she led him over to the wooden bench and he sat down on it.

'Lovely tree this.' She said. 'A Yew tree. Been around a few years and got some character. Very common in graveyards. You know why, Terry?'

He shook his head. 'They're an old tree. One of the longest living. Your oaks; big, mighty trees. Larger and more majestic than the humble yew last nine hundred years. Three hundred years to grow, three hundred to mature and three hundred to die. That's what they say about oaks. But your yews, they grow slowly. Don't tend to grow as big or dominate the landscape in the same way, but they just keep going. Thousands of years in some cases. They outlast the competition. They take what life throws at them and they endure.'

'Your mum bought me here, she liked to sit here when she came to visit your dad. I got in the habit of coming with her, this last couple or three years. She told me about how they used to plant yews in sacred spaces and because those spaces were protected, the yews could live their full lives without fear of being cut down to make ships or houses or weapons.'

He turned to her with a frown on his face.

'You didn't know? I'm sorry.' She paused, thinking. 'I moved in with her after what happened. We'd always gotten on well. She'd always treat me like a daughter, not a daughter in law. After what happened, I wanted to make things right. I couldn't change what I'd done, but I knew my actions had caused her a lot of pain.'

She looked down at her legs.

'She missed you, Terry. I know you called her when you could. She lived for those calls. One of the things that made her happy. When she heard your voice, I could see her light up. She'd be sad after the call, but she loved hearing your voice. She worried about you all the time. Where you were, what you were doing. Whether you'd get caught.'

'Well, you've got me now. Kind of ironic isn't it. Great fugitive captured visiting his mother's grave. Kind of a cliche.' He could hear the bitterness in his tone.

'I'm not going to call anyone. As far as I'm concerned, you can get up and walk away anytime you like.'

'You didn't ring the bill?'

She shook her head. He saw her trying to say something and look around with frustration as the words didn't come out. He sat, watching her, giving her the space.

'I'm sorry, Terry, so fucking sorry. I... my stupidity, my selfishness, my lack of thought hurt so many people. So, so many people.'

'You weren't the only one who fucked up, Dawn. No-one comes out of this whole fucking mess looking good. You, me, Ruthie, Darius, Marcel, none of us was the good guy. Each of us could have done something different. Each of us had the power to stop it and... I don't know. It's not just on you.'

She was crying. He could see the tears falling and dropping onto her legs. Leaving a wet spot on her slacks. A steady rain of tears. Her shoulders were shaking, not a lot, but he could see the motion. He reached out a hand and put it around her shoulder, scooting over so that they were sat close. She folded herself into him and cried. He put his other arm around her and sat holding her. He could smell the shampoo she'd used to wash her hair. Faint, but the scent still lingered. He could see grey in the roots of her blonde hair.

It took her a few minutes to calm herself down. She tugged a small handkerchief out of her coat sleeve and dabbed her eyes before tucking it back.

'Thank you.'

He moved slightly away from her and she arranged herself on the bench. They both looked out. The bench was under a large yew tree, its circumference too wide for a human, even a basketball player to link hands around. It was at the top of a slight slope, further up the hill was the small church that was responsible for the graveyard. Down, in the direction they were facing, was the town and further in the distance, the curve of the river Thames as it left the capital and became an estuary rather than a river.

'Your mum would come here most days. Make sure your dad's grave was looking good and spend some time just thinking. I didn't come with her every day. Probably, most days but not every day. I liked the time, rain or shine, to sit down and think.'

'That's not like you. You were always busy, keep on the move. Sitting down.'

'I know. Perhaps if I'd done a bit more thinking...'

'Stop it, Dawn.'

She turned her head at the sharper tone.

'You can beat yourself up forever. We all can, one of those things about being human. We're at our best beating ourselves up. Imagining things that never happened, never will happen.'

'I wrecked a lot of lives. People I loved.'

'Shit happens.'

She turned to face him; he could see her frown. He heard the anger in her words.

'How can you say that?'

'Easy. Easy fucking peasy, Dawn. If you'd realised what was going to happen would you have played around with that prick?'

He shook his head. 'It's a rhetorical question. Of course, you wouldn't. You didn't think for one moment it would happen like it did. It could have played out in a million different ways. You could have got pregnant; it could have been a one-off thing and I never found out; you could have started and then had to stop from guilt. Lots of different things could have happened. Any of them could have happened. You only had a part to play in what happened. We all had our own parts.'

'But my part...'

'Yeah, you set the whole thing in motion. But the seeds were already sown. This didn't just happen out of the blue. It was a sequence of events. Let's say for instance, that instead of you visiting Ruthie by yourself, I'd come along. I'd given up my peace and quiet weekends and gone up with you to visit our daughter. Something feasible, something easy, something that could well have happened. I'd have met Marcel, he'd not have introduced you to Darius. Or maybe he would have. Maybe Darius would have been at the wedding, met you there and seduced you, who knows?'

He looked at her. He gazed deep into the cornflower blue of her eyes.

'Look at me, Dawn. This isn't all on you. All of us, each of us could have owned it. You have to take responsibility for your part in it and let's be fair, you were a cunt to cheat on me. But it's not on you. I have my share of blame I have to take.'

She broke the gaze. He could read her frustration.

'Be a martyr if you want to be Dawn. I'm just saying you don't have to be. It happened, it changed lives. We were all part of it. But how it plays out, that's on us. You don't have to beat yourself up forever. Move on, move past this. It's over.'

'It's not that simple. Not for me. I have to take responsibility...'

'Nope. I own my response. I own my involvement. I own that I could have done things to change our relationship so that you wouldn't have wanted to look outside our marriage for excitement. None of that is about you. It's about me and what I could have done. I was involved, my actions could have brought about a very different set of events. You could be married to Darius, living the high life.'

He heard the snort and glanced at her.

'Of all the many futures, Terry. Marrying that piece of shit wasn't one.'

'But Dawn, he had that big dick and I bet he was able to use it.'

She looked at him and saw the playful grin on his face. She smiled.

'Oh, he could use it. Man, could he use it. But in every other way he was a tool. A one trick pony.'

She stopped, thinking for a moment.

'He was good in bed, Terry. But the difference between you and him wasn't that big. You did it with love, he did it with passion. He was bigger, you had better stamina. He had the strength, you had the technique.'

'So why?'

'Million-dollar question that one, isn't it? Here's the thing, I know the answer to this one. I've thought about it so damn much, I know the answer. Because I could, because I wanted to. I loved that he desired me. When we met, I could see in his eyes, all he wanted to do was fuck me. Rail me. Hammer me into sweaty submission.'

'Nice. Getting those images out of my head won't be easy.'

She chuckled. 'Dickhead. He was exciting, different from you. He was big and black and damn confident. He made me wet just meeting him.'

She looked at Terry and he shrugged. She reached out a hand under his chin and tipped up his head so that he looked her in the eye.

'He didn't love me. He didn't make a home for me, raise a family for me. He didn't work hard, make sacrifices, put up with my bad moods, my frustrations. You did all of that, and more, so much more and then took me to bed and made me feel good. He just did the easy bit and like I said, the gap between him and you wasn't that big at all.'

'I never stopped loving you. I still haven't. He wasn't a threat to us; he was just a bit of fun on the side. A bit of feel good. Something extra that I had. I wasn't going to leave you. Not for one moment.'

'I didn't know that. You cut me off.'

'Games, Terry. It was a fucking game. Made what I had with Darius a little bit spicier. You didn't do without, did you? OK, you didn't have my pussy. But you had my ass, my mouth, my hands and if you had one soapy tit wank, you had a hundred. I've still got the glossiest breasts from all the cum you shot onto them, so don't act like you missed out.'

Both laughed at her comments and the dramatic delivery.

'I didn't do without. But it did hurt when you cut me off.'

'Not as much as it hurt Darius when you cut him off.'

Terry laughed and shook his head.

'He was out cold. Didn't feel a thing.'

'Pussy.'

'I know, I got soft in my old age.'

'I'm sorry. I didn't think how it would feel when I cut you off. I didn't think you'd realise what I was doing. It was a game to me. A joke at your expense. I didn't think of the consequences, didn't think of anyone else. Like I said earlier, I was fucking shallow.'

'Stop it.'

Terry took a deep breath of the evening air. Playing their conversation over in his mind.

'How did Mum die?'

Dawn's head spun around quickly.

'I thought we were talking about what happened between us?'

'We are. But there are other things I want to know about as well.'

'Sorry.'

'Stop saying that.'

'She had a blood clot in her stomach. It moved inside her and blocked an artery. Didn't you know?'

Terry shook his head.

'I didn't know she was dead until weeks after. I was going to ring her but decided to ring... someone else instead and they told me. They knew she was dead and told me about her funeral and how it had gone off. But they didn't know, weren't sure what it was that. You know.'

'She was fine, then seemed to go downhill quite quickly over. One day she was struggling to even get out of bed, really weak, listless. I called an ambulance and she was taken to hospital. She died before they knew what it was. We only found out after.'

'Shit.'

'She didn't suffer, Terry. It was quick and painless. There're worse ways to go.'

His mother hadn't liked hospitals, she'd eaten well, got regular exercise and looked after herself.

'She's written you a letter. Things she wanted to say to you.'

'I'll stop by sometime.'

'Please do. It's probably your house now she's gone.'

'Stay there. I don't want it. You live there, stay there.'

'Thank you. I was thinking of moving in with Ruthie, but if I can stay there, I probably will.'

'Your choice. I did wonder after it all came out, where you'd go.'

'Yeah, some complete bastard burnt my house to the ground.'

Terry laughed at the faux outrage in her voice.

'Yeah, about that. Sorry.'

She turned and walloped his arm.

'Dickhead. You weren't sorry.'

'Nope, you're right, I wasn't sorry. I was angry. There, I've said it out loud. I was angry. I was angry.'

'Really? Pretty Woman.'

'I think I do Richard Gere quite well.'

He smiled as she laughed at his words.

'Michael Caine, yeah you can do him. Richard Gere, only in your dreams.'

He chuckled.

'I was angry and I'd decided what I was going to do and having the house was irrelevant. Seemed like a nice way to make things painful for you.'

'As opposed to that damn email and chopping up my lover?'

'OK, so it wasn't the worst thing I did, but I'll be honest it was quite cathartic.'

'Cathartic?'

'Yeah, it made me feel better doing it. Like I was drawing a line. That part of my life was over. Our marriage up in smoke and with it our house. See? It kind of works.'

'Yeah, works a treat. Thanks for that. Glad it made you feel a bit better.'

'I'm not sorry, Dawn. I did what I did.'

She lay her hand on his arm.

'It's over, it doesn't matter. You're right about that. At the time it was another blow. We'd come back from America after all the fuss and questions and attention and there it was, my house burnt to the ground. One last fuck you very much.'

'That was what I was kind of intending.'

'Well, it worked. The insurance didn't pay out because it was deliberate. Eventually some developer bought the plot. I think there's a couple of houses there now. I have your share if you want it?'

Terry shook his head.

'I've got enough money to do me.'

A thought occurred to him. 'Do I owe you anything for sorting Mum out?'

'No, she had an insurance policy to cover all the bills. There's a stone as well. That's paid for. Um, the wordings chosen for it, but I can probably get it changed if you want...' She trailed off.