After the Mourning Read Online Free PDF Page A

when my eye was caught by the deceased’s beautiful sister. Lily Lee was small, curvy, and, dressed from head to foot in black, looked exotic and mysterious. Not that those features alone single out a Gypsy girl. Lily Lee, though, had something else besides, a sort of delicate dreaminess to her eyes. It was something that made her beautiful rather than just pretty. She sat at the far end of the spread with her parents, her brothers, and sisters, and Rosie’s loudly weeping husband.
    There wasn’t, or didn’t seem to be, any organisation, so people just tucked in as and when. Arthur and I sat with other gauje , like Nobby Clarke, and talk was, as ever, of the war.
    ‘Them military coppers been all over this forest like a rash,’ Nobby told me, as he sank his third glass of stout. ‘They’ve got a whole list of men they want to get their hands on – spivs and gangsters a lot of ’em, but also deserters, poor sods, and a couple of foreigners too,’ he said, with a knowing tap of his nose.
    Foreign spies – those creatures we have to avoid careless talk for. Nobby, I felt, had a quite different attitude to foreign spies than he did to deserters. It was one with which I was in accord. Spies are dangerous and need to be stopped but frightened boys should be left in the forest until this horror is over and done with. That’s what I believe.
    We all tucked in and then, after a while, George Gordon rose and went to what had been Rosie’s tent. Alone, he took out plates, cups, pictures and jewellery, which he proceeded to smash in front of everyone. I imagined it was all part of the process Horatio had told me about – getting rid of the deceased’s goods for fear of bad spirits. Rosie’s father sat like an oak while this went on. Her mother and husband screamed. Again, just as it had been at the graveside when many of the mourners had thrown coins down on to the coffin while tearing at their chests and faces, it was raw and distressing. Rosie’s brothers joined in too, beating the ground with fists still wrapped around cigarettes, saying words only some of which I could understand.
    ‘They’re a lively lot, aren’t they?’ I heard Nobby’s missus say to Arthur. Not that I caught what Arthur might have replied because it was at this point that Lily screamed and sprang to her feet. Trembling with what looked like fear, she pointed a dirty finger at a tree.
    ‘She’s here!’ she said. ‘ Oh, dordi! ’
    ‘Lily!’ Rosie’s widowed husband shouted. ‘Lily!’
    For what seemed like an age there was nothing but silence. No one around me ate, drank or moved. Some people were later to say that they stopped eating mid-chew, so alarming did the girl appear to all concerned.
    I alone, I think, moved to look up at her. Lily’s face wore such an expression of terror that it was almost painful to see. ‘She’s here!’ I heard her say again, then something else in another language. Many of the Gypsy women hid their faces in their scarves, muttering until rendered mute by the strangeness of the situation. All other voices besides Lily’s became silent.
    ‘Our Lady,’ Lily said, her voice trembling as it formed the words, ‘is here!’
    Now no one so much as breathed, or so it seemed.
    Much to Nan and the Duchess’s disgust, the Church has not featured in my life to any great extent. Most of my old mates who were killed out in the trenches died deaths I still see in my mind, in red and black blood-drenched detail. Only one of my mates survived along with me and he’s left with half a face. Whether that’s any better than having only half a mind like me, I don’t know. But one thing I am sure about is that God didn’t help me get through any of it. That said, I know religion: I had it drummed into me at a very early age. I know who ‘Our Lady’ is.
    Rosie’s husband was up on his feet now. ‘No,’ I heard him murmur. ‘No.’ He started to run towards Lily. I watched him and was probably almost as shocked