The Wood Beyond

iii

Families are a fuck-up, thought Peter Pascoe.

Otherwise, how come he was standing here in a crematorium chapel with all the inspirational ambience of a McDonald's though without, thank God, the attendant grilled burger odours, being glared at by his sister, Myra, and squinted at by a bunch of geriatric myopes, as he attempted an extempore exordium of a grandmother he hadn't seen for nearly two years?

'Hello. I'm Peter Pascoe and Ada was my grandmother and I'm doing this because..'

Because when he'd arrived and discovered Myra had ordered a full-fig C of E service right down to 'Abide With Me', his guilt had vaulted him onto a high horse and he'd gone through the arrangements like Jesus through the money changers, till at his moment of triumph Myra had brought him crashing to earth with the question, 'OK, smartarse, just what are you going to do?'

'… because as you probably know, Ada didn't reckon much to organized religion. She always said that when she died the last thing she wanted was a funeral-chasing parson droning on about her unlikely virtues. So I'm doing it instead. . not droning on, I hope. . and not unlikely. . anyway, I'm doing it.'

And a right cockup you're making of it too. He could see Myra's fury moderating into malicious pleasure. If only there'd been time to make a few notes. Only a fool relied on divine inspiration when he'd just dumped God!

'Well I'm not going to make a lot of notes… I mean, fuss, because Ada hated fuss. But equally I'm not going to let the passing of this remarkable old lady pass un … er. . remarked.'

This got worse! Pull yourself together. If you can brief a bunch of CID cynics and pissed-off plods, no need to be fazed by a pewful of wrinklies. What was Myra rolling her eyeballs at? Doesn't she know a dramatic pause when she hears one?

'Ada was born in Yorkshire though she didn't stay there long. The event which changed her life, changed all our lives, come to think of it, was the Great War. So many died. . millions.. numbers too large to register. One of them was Ada's father, my great-grandfather. After she got the news, my great-grandmother took her three-year-old daughter and headed down here to

Warwickshire. I've no details of how they lived. I only discovered the Yorkshire connection because I was a nosy kid. Ada wasn't one to go on about the past, maybe because there was too much pain in it for her. But I can guess that one-parent families had it even tougher in those days than they do now. Anyway here they came and here they stayed. This was where Ada grew up and in her turn got married. And in her turn she had a child. And in her turn she saw her husband, my grandfather Colin Pascoe, go off to the wars.

'Did she know as she said goodbye that in her turn she too was never going to see him again? Who knows? But I think she knew. Oh yes. I'm sure she knew.'

That had them. Even Myra was looking rapt..

The child they had was, of course, Peter, my father. Naturally he wishes he could be here today. But as you probably know when he took early retirement a few years back, he decided to follow my eldest sister, Susan, and her family out to Australia, and unfortunately urgent commitments have prevented any of them from making the long journey. But I'm sure we will be very much in their thoughts at this sad time.'

He caught Myra's eye and looked away, but not before they'd shared their awareness that any thoughts turning their way in that antipodean night would probably need the attention of an oneiromantist.

'So in 1942 Ada got the same news from North Africa that in 1917 her mother had got from Flanders. Another young widow. Another fatherless child. No wonder she hated uniforms and wars and anything which seemed to be celebrating them. She could never look at an Armistice Day poppy without feeling physically sick, and one of her last cogent acts was to rebuke a British Legion volunteer who came round the ward selling them.'

Rebuke? What she'd actually said according to Myra was, 'Sod off, ghoul.' Which message it might appear he was passing on to this well-poppied congregation. Ah well. You can't please all of the people all of the time.

'But Ada did not let the past destroy her present. She joined one of the accelerated teacher training courses after the war and despite her late start, she climbed high, finishing as Head of Redstones Junior which I myself had the privilege of attending. As you can imagine, having your gran as head teacher was a mixed blessing. Certainly in school I got no favours, just a first-class education. But outside, I got all the love and indulgence a growing boy is entitled to expect from his gran.'

He caught Myra's eye again and read the message clearly. Favourite! So what? Boy with two bossy elder sisters needed an edge somewhere. Another eye was catching his, the crem. super's, reminding him of his warning that despite the nanny state, dank Novembers still meant frequent hearses and any overrun could quickly blacken up the bypass. Time to wrap it up. Pity. He just felt he was getting into his stride.

'Even after retirement, she remained at the centre of things, as a school governor, a member of innumerable committees, and a tireless campaigner in the corridors of power and on the pavements of protest.'

Now he was really motoring! Great phrase, that was. Even though getting the rhythm right meant a solecistic drift from the nounal trochee to the verbal iamb. How old Ada would have rapped his knuckles. The crem. super too looked close to physical violence. Big finish!

'I doubt if she went gentle into her good night, but gone she has, and the world is a sadder place for her going. But she left it a better place than she found it, and that would have been the only epitaph she wished.'

Big finish nothing. Big cop-out was more like it. Ada had had no illusions about progress. Watching the telly peepshow of famine and disaster and war, she used to rage, 'They've learned nothing. Absolutely nothing!' Oh well. At least he'd taken his poppy out.

Time for the final music. Myra had gone for Elgar's Enigma which to Ada's tin ear probably sounded like bovine eructation. The crem.'s alternatives were all just as classically solemn. Then Pascoe had recalled the one time Ada ever talked about her father, the day he found the photo in the secretaire, and he'd rummaged through the tapes in his car and come up with Scott Joplin. He saw the shock on Myra's face as 'The Strenuous Life' came floating out of the speakers. He'd explain later, sharing his secret knowledge that Ada's sole recollection of her father — indeed her first recollection of anything — had been of a shadowy figure sitting at an upright piano picking out a ragtime melody.

So the circle closes … so the circle closes.