A Good Death

A Good Death

Table of Contents

A Good Death

Elizabeth Ironside

To Joan and John

Prologue

The invaders had left. The sun, barely above the horizon, striped the field where they had camped with long black shadows. Only a bleached light reached inside to reveal the disorder of life abruptly abandoned.

In the early morning silence the children reoccupied the house. They walked through the open front door and found a leather suitcase standing upright in the hall, still waiting for its former owner to leave. They skirted the case and in unspoken agreement went straight up the stairs. Here were more signs of an interrupted life. In their old bedroom a sweat-stained shirt hung over the back of a chair beside the bed. The drawers of the chest between the windows were pulled out. The wardrobe door swung open revealing one black jacket, hanging hollow. Up here they touched nothing, simply sniffing the air for the scent of those who had gone. They looked at the bed, its pillows and covers dented by the shape of a body, of someone who had flung himself down on them for a moment’s rest. That mark of absence seemed to fill the house.

Below, in the library, burned papers lay in the hearth and more lay beside the fireplace. A cigarette, half-smoked, had been ground out in an ashtray, buckling under the pressure. Beside it was the packet out of which it had been taken, nine cigarettes untouched. One of them reached out and took the cigarette butt, fitting her own lips to the faint red rim. This broke through their reluctance to touch things. As she spat out the smoked cigarette, she seized the packet and began to tear the contents to pieces so that a storm of tobacco fell to the ground. Next they found on the desk a pile of letters tied into a bundle. They picked them up and shook them onto the floor, tearing the paper as they did so. Writing paper, ink, a pen, all lay ready for the reply that would never be written. They unscrewed the inkpot and dribbled it carefully over the scattered papers. They now opened drawers and cupboards, frenziedly pulling the contents out and strewing them on the floor. After a while the fury that had affected them both abated and they paused, looking idly at certain objects, not searching for anything in particular. Odd things attracted their attention for a moment, soon to be abandoned in favour of something else.

They found treasure in a cupboard: a flat brown paper parcel, still addressed to Major Udo Knecht. It had been unwrapped once, that was clear, then bundled back into its coverings, an unwanted present.

They studied the writing, the unfamiliar gothic letters and German stamps, for a time before folding back the paper to discover a box with, on its lid, a picture of a knight in armour, riding on his charger, trampling a fallen enemy beneath its feet. They carried the box across the hall into the dining room and emptied the contents onto the table. Absorbed in what they had found, they ignored the overturned chair, the unstoppered brandy bottle, the pool of alcohol. Without speaking they sorted the wooden shapes, turning them the right way up, selecting those with straight edges, tentatively placing one against another to link them together.