Drowned Lives

Dear Christopher,

By the time you read this, my part will be done. It’s up to you now. I hope you will understand what I’ve been trying to achieve. It all has to be brought to an end.

I thought I might find some justification for what has been done to us. But I found none, Christopher. Perhaps I wasn’t objective enough. Perhaps you’ll discover some cause where I could not. I only found, at times, the efforts that the Buckleys made to fight back, to restore the family’s position in society, just as I’ve tried to do myself in my own way. These things become more important as we get older and we develop a greater sense of perspective. ‘Today’ means less and less to old people, but ‘yesterday’ means more and more.

And then, in the course of my research, I reached 1800. It was in that year your ancestor, William Buckley, vanished without trace. It was said that he’d embezzled money, and that he’d fled to escape disgrace. But was that really so?

You might think that two centuries are much too far back in time to have any relevance. Am I right? Yes, it all seems ancient history to you at the moment, doesn’t it? Dead and forgotten. But there are people with very long memories, Christopher. People for whom a wrong is never forgotten, whether real or imagined. People who will pursue a vendetta for ever, as if the sins of the distant past can in some way be avenged by this continuing feud, and two wrongs can make a right. They seek an eye for an eye, though the guilt has been buried with the dead. Betrayal plants the desire for revenge. Vengeance leads only to bitterness. Evil breeds evil.

And there’s something more than that. I truly believe there’s a sort of family ‘genetic memory’ that we all have, a memory which can be recalled to life once we start to look into our past, and peer into the lives of our ancestors. All we need are a few reminders, little nudges that will re-awaken the recollection and cause pictures to re-form in our heads, however dim and half-understood. It could be a smell perhaps, or a taste.

Have you ever read Proust? Do you remember his madeleine — the cake that created an involuntary memory, containing the essence of his past? Well, I’ve tasted my madeleine. I discovered my genetic memory, Christopher. I hope you will too.

Your great-uncle,

Samuel Longden