Clasford Williams was tucked up into a purple drape with gold crosses embroidered on its sides. His head rested on a white pillow. His face, a dark matt brown, was so old yet so unlined, skin moulded smoothly over cheekbones that lack of food had made overly prominent, and his tensile jawline was as stubborn in death as it had been in life. His wild grey bush of hair had been cut close to his head, his wild grey beard had been trimmed into a neat goatee. His lips, which in his last years drooped listlessly away from his few remaining bottom teeth, had been tightly tucked in by the undertaker, making them thinner. His face still exuded a restrained fierceness, for after only a few days of death his body still contained something of the spirit that had been within him. Surely this is what Stanley could sense – or did the life force that made eyes shine with light from the miracle of creation, that gave skin its sheen, really just disappear so quickly, without even a lingering trace, after over seventy years? Just like that?

Clasford did not turn his head as he entered. Stanley half expected him to. He expected his usual brusque manner, for his voice to say with the familiar tone that carried both threat and approval with measured weight, ‘Mi know oonoo bin behavin’ yerself.’ But he ignored him. Not a lopsided smile. Not a rant. Not a reprimand or provocation. Stanley moved closer. Here was death at close range. He touched his father’s brow fleetingly; it was deep-frozen. Two slits of eyes showed spookily beneath his closed lids. They hadn’t shut them properly.

Stanley’s urge was to pick him up in his big arms and cradle him. Would he be stiff and light? He would be cold. Would he melt as he held him, turn back to water and pour himself over his son?

He looked so frail. So dignified. So.

He sat down on the seat at the side. A box of tissues had been provided on a little table, and he was overwhelmed with a compassion that he never knew was in him. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he cried aloud. ‘I’m so sorry, Daddy.’

He sat there and let it all flow out of him, wanting to stay close to his father’s presence, which had always been there. Like air. Like memory. Like skin. Like earth. Like birth. Like the ghostly presences he had felt ever since he could remember – curtains blowing, the tingling in his ears, the cold breath down his spine, the breeze on his lips, a whisper. Realizing that now he would feel his father even more acutely.

Realizing he was only human after all.

Single at Mingles, 1988