Sixteen Songs About Regret by J.S. Cook

Author:J.S. Cook [Cook, J.S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

IT WASN’T like Simon had never been to a funeral before. There was

the time his grandmother died when he was twelve, and a couple years before that, a classmate had died of some rare childhood cancer. He’d become adept at crying on cue, at pretending to be affected, even if the person wasn’t anyone he knew particularly. But this was different—this was Roger. His father was dead now, there was no way around it. There was no way around the open grave. The others hated him, he was certain of it. He kept trying to meet Mick’s gaze, but Mick wouldn’t look at him. Mick huddled close to his wife and their small daughter, his broad back bent against the cold.

The priest was stalking round Roger’s grave, black vestments fluttering in the wind like the wings of a carrion crow. Why Catholic? Had Roger converted? It was difficult for Simon to believe: his father never had any religion, never went to church. But Roger’s widow was a Catholic, wasn’t she? Simon never asked. After his hospitalization, he received a card in the mail from Doris, informing him that masses were being said at the St. Columba’s Church. He didn’t know what to do with it, so he used it as a bookmark in a book that he started reading and never finished. He often wondered about it: when masses were said for someone, was the person actually mentioned by name? In the name of the father and the son and Simon Duckworth… Maybe it was a task that fell to lesser members of the seminary—priests in training, acolytes, or friars—or assigned as penance if one failed to properly observe various of the holy tenets. His cassock came above his knees during cricket practice, Father. It was a shocking spectacle. Simon imagined this exchange taking place inside a darkened space, a library or confessional. Above his knees? Well, he can say the masses for Simon Duckworth, then. Serves him right.

The casket—his father’s casket—was going down into the ground. Roger’s mortal remains were effectively conveyed into the

underworld, there to await the resurrection; Simon wondered if the dead could feel the presence of the living, the impress of a beloved foot as the ground above their coffin was trod by mourners. He imagined his father could hear the beat of his heart, a misplaced metronome. Why wasn’t Stephen here? He was sick with a bad cold, he was in bed asleep somewhere, snoring noisily with his mouth open—the image was comforting. Someone in this world, at least, was still alive. The clods of dirt surprised him, hitting the casket noisily like stones hurled down from a great distance. The mourners filed past the grave, dropping fistfuls of earth down onto Roger’s coffin. It must be a Catholic thing; he had never seen this done before. (This noise would stay inside his head forever, and subconsciously inform the cadence of his music.) Simon found himself bending, his fingers clenched around a clod of earth. He saw Roger, sitting by the canal out back of their old house, fitting a worm to the hook for him.

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