Hallowed

Matt hurried homeward, he'd lost track of time while he was in town with his friends, and was nearly an hour late - his mum had told him to be home by 4:00, in time for dinner and to get ready for the evening's fun and games, but it had been later than that when he left the shopping centre, the shops had all closed, being Sunday, and it was rapidly getting dark, the clocks having gone back in the early hours of that morning, 'the first day of winter' as his dad always called it. He reached a point where he had to choose which way to go next - it would take him another 15 minutes to get home if he followed the roadway, but there was a short cut that he'd taken from time to time, through an overgrown, almost derelict garden, over its back wall and across the open ground left by the demolition of the old factory, which would bring him out almost opposite his front door in not much more than five minutes. He hesitated for a second, the darkness under the trees by the garden gate unnerving him slightly - he couldn't remember ever going through that way at night - but his qualms seemed juvenile when he thought about it. He wasn't a little boy any more - he'd be 14 in a few months - and it wasn't even fully dark, more like deep twilight. As long as he didn't break his neck climbing the wall, it would be fine, he thought - although he'd still probably be dead meat when he got home.

The boy slipped between the tall brick gateposts, rusted hinges all that remained of the gates they'd once supported, and walked along the pavement of cracked flagstones. From what he could see in the gathering gloom, the garden had been tidied up since the last time he was there, the grass looking recently mown and the flowerbeds weeded. As Matt took perhaps his tenth step since entering the garden, he started violently as the area around him was suddenly bathed in bright light. He turned, ready to run back the way he'd come, but relaxed when he saw the security light mounted on top of the left hand gatepost. Just set off a sensor, Matt thought, it's like the one on the neighbour's patio that seems to light up with every passing cat. The pool of light around him, he noticed, had illuminated what looked like a new wooden bench, with a metal plaque fixed to its backrest. Matt glanced at the inscription, then looked more closely as its wording registered with him:

In Memoriam

Ronald Brown (Ronnie)

1933 - 1985

Miss you every day

Your J

Unless there was some huge coincidence, Matt thought, this bench was in memory of his grandfather, his mum's father who, he'd been told, had died young after splitting up with his grandma, who had herself only died a couple of years ago, although the boy hadn't seen her often enough to have grown close to her - she lived at the other end of the country, and seemed not to have welcomed too many visits from her daughter and family. Matt realised he knew next to nothing about his grandparents, but he did know his grandma's name had been Rosemary, so who was 'J'? As he stood there pondering his discovery, the security light went out, leaving him almost blind in the near darkness for a few seconds as his eyes adjusted. He was just about to walk away when the light flared into life again, and this time the boy almost jumped out of his skin, because almost within touching distance was a tall figure in a long, dark coat.

"What are you doing here?" the man asked, but without the harshness Matt was expecting, the voice gentle and sounding educated, like a teacher, or even a vicar, the boy thought.

"I...I'm sorry, I didn't know it was private here," Matt stammered.

"It isn't my garden, if that's what you mean," the man said, "it belongs to the local Church of England diocese. We have had some problems with vandals, though, that's why the security light was installed. Didn't you know this used to be a churchyard?"

"No - it's always just been like an overgrown garden as long as I can remember. My house is just over there," - he waved his hand vaguely towards the open ground at the rear - "and...I use it as a short cut sometimes. I'm sorry, I won't do it again."

"It has been rather neglected in recent years, I have to admit. Some local residents decided it was becoming rather an eyesore, and we've got together to do something about it. It hasn't really been properly looked after since Ronnie...since its last caretaker died."

Matt, even at his tender age, recognised the catch in the man's voice as he mentioned 'Ronnie'. He looked at the bench again.

"Was it that Ronnie who looked after the churchyard," the boy asked, "because I think he might be my grandad."

Now it was the turn of the man to look shocked. He gazed into Matt's eyes, and then held his hands up in a kind of rough rectangle, as though trying to frame a particular view of the boy. The security light went out again, and the man shifted his position so it would spring back to life, before resuming his inspection of the teenager in front of him.

"My God, you look so much like him - apart from the hairstyle," the man whispered.

Matt shifted uncomfortably under the man's scrutiny.

"Sorry, I don't mean to embarrass you. It's just that there's a photograph...he was about your age, showing off a trout that won him his first fishing trophy. He was your grandad, I have no doubts about that."

"I don't know anything much about him, he died 12 years before I was born. My mum has said about me taking after him, but I've never seen a picture of him, so I can't say. You must have known him, though, if you know I look like him."

Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, the man thought. He couldn't find a way to speak for a few seconds, leading to an awkward silence. The boy was looking towards him, waiting...for what? An explanation? The man didn't know whether he could bring himself to draw any such thing out of his depths, today of all days, even after a quarter of a century. Deep breath...say something, quick, quick.

"Yes..." Another loaded pause. "Yes, I knew him. More than that. I loved him, and he loved me. He loved me more than anyone in the world, before or since." Matt looked at the man, stunned, disbelieving. "And I loved him more than anyone in my whole life. I still miss him, even now, every single day." The boy's face began to register some understanding.

"So....you're....'J'?"

The man sighed, the sigh coming from some hidden place, deep inside.

"Yes, I'm James. He called me Jamie, though. His Jamie, his special one. That's what I called myself - 'your Jamie'. I was so happy, he was so happy. Both of us were lonely, no-one had ever shown either of us any real love before. Especially not your grandma. She hated him. She hated me. I don't know, from that day to this, why they ever married. Even your mum was an accident, he said, your grandma got drunk one night and it just happened. It was her life's work to make him unhappy, that's how it seemed. When she found out that I was helping him look after the churchyard, she started making comments, going on about him being a child molester. He never did anything like that - ever. I was 14 or 15 anyway, I was bigger than him, I could have easily stopped him doing anything I didn't want. I just loved being with him, he made me feel like the most important person in the world. I wanted him to make love to me, but he always said no, it wasn't right, wasn't what he wanted from me. Only one thing ever happened, and that was...my fault. That day..." James's voice was shaking with emotion. "That day, he bought me a present. Only a small thing, a little silver St. Christopher on a chain. He found out that he'd missed my birthday, it had been a week or so before, I don't know who told him, it certainly wasn't me. It was beautiful, I was so pleased with it. I...I couldn't help it. I put my arms round his neck and kissed him. Kissed him on the cheek. But she saw it. Your grandma. She walked past the churchyard right then. She started shouting at him, calling him horrible things, telling him she was going to call the police. He didn't say a word back, he just stood there and took it. She went off, but she didn't go to the police. Later that night, he found out what she'd done. His garden, his own garden at his house, it was so wonderful, he spent hours and hours working on it, rain or shine. That night - it was Hallowe'en, just like today - a gang turned up at the house wearing masks, kicked the side gate in, and destroyed his garden. Totally trashed everything he'd worked so hard on. Painted 'Trick or treat, paedophile' on his garden shed. Your grandma had got some thug she knew somehow to come round with his mates and do it. She laughed while they were doing it. He didn't say anything, didn't cry - he just went up to his bedroom, they didn't sleep in the same room - wrote a letter to me, went out and posted it, then went back to his room and took all of his heart pills, the whole bottle. They say he was dead within an hour...they killed him, because I kissed him, they..."

James became aware of a sound, a gasping sob. Shaken away from his memories, he focused on Matt, standing in the dark churchyard in front of him, the faint glow filtering in from the street lights outside reflecting from the tears streaming down the boy's cheeks.

"Oh...I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to upset you, I've never really told anyone the whole story, I couldn't help myself, I felt I had to tell you - it just happened, like that kiss."

"They killed him...he died, just because of love, just because of a kiss? That's so awful. Why do people do things like that, I don't understand."

"I'm not sure I understand myself - anyone who's different in any way seems to upset some of these people. It's like 'if you're not with us, you're against us'. That's all I can think of. He said something to me in the letter he wrote the night he died though, that he might have said to you, if he'd lived long enough to meet you. It's something full of love and caring, full of everything Ronnie was. Maybe that's why I was fated to meet you tonight, he wanted me to pass his message on to you. He said 'Whatever you do, be true to yourself, and be true to the ones you love, and you'll never regret your life. I haven't been true to myself, and I haven't been as true as I should have been to you, and this is where it has led me - too many regrets, and nowhere left to go. Follow your heart, and as long as you can do it without hurting others, be yourself and don't hide. Love is the thing that matters, if love is shared, then it can never be wrong.' I haven't come across a better philosophy of life since, so that's what I try to live by. You have to decide what's best for you, but I think your grandad's words are a pretty good basis to start from."

Matt couldn't think of any immediate answer to James's words, but they sounded right to his young ears. He looked again towards the inscription on the bench, and whispered, as if to himself, "Love is the thing that matters, I'll always try and remember, Grandad."

****

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B