‘Oh well,’ she said, withdrawn, ‘praps you will in the end,’ she said.

On the surrounding graves the brown flowers stood in their jars of browner water. The more top-heavy, plastic bunches had been slapped down by a westerly, but had not come to worse grief than to lie strewn in pale disorder on the uncharitable granite chips.

The heat made Councillor Last yawn. He began to read the carved names, those within sight at least, some of which he had just about forgot. He almost laughed once. If the dead could have sat up in their graves there would have been an argument or two.

‘In the midst of life we are in death,’ said the parson bloke.

JACK CUNNINGHAM

BELOVED HUSBAND OF FLORENCE MARY,

read Horrie Last.

Who would have thought Cunningham, straight as a silky-oak, would fall going up the path to Daise Morrow’s place. Horrie used to watch them together, sitting a while on the veranda before going in to their tea. They made no bones about it, because everybody knew. Good teeth Cunningham had. Always a white, well-ironed shirt. Wonder which of the ladies did the laundry. Florence Mary was an invalid, they said. Daise Morrow liked to laugh with men, but for Jack Cunningham she had a silence, promising intimacies at which Horrie Last could only guess, whose own private life had been lived in almost total darkness.

Good Christ, and then there was Ossie. The woman could only have been at heart a perv of a kind you hadn’t heard about.

‘Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul . . .’ read Mr Brickie.

As it was doubtful who should cast the earth, Mr Gill the grocer did. They heard the handful rattle on the coffin.

Then the tears truly ran out of Ossie’s scaly eyes. Out of darkness. Out of darkness Daise had called: What’s up Ossie, you don’t wanta cry. I got the cramps, he answered. They were twisting him. The cramps? she said drowsily. Or do you imagine? If it isn’t the cramps it’s something else. Could have been. He’d take Daise’s word for it. He was never all that bright since he had the meningitis. Tell you what, Daise said, you come in here, into my bed, I’ll warm you, Os, in a jiffy. He listened in the dark to his own snivelling. Arr, Daise, I couldn’t he said, I couldn’t get a stand, not if you was to give me the jackpot, he said. She sounded very still then. He lay and counted the throbbing of the darkness. Not like that, she said – she didn’t laugh at him as he had half expected – besides, she said, it only ever really comes to you once. That way. And at once he was parting the darkness, bumping and shambling to get to her. He had never known it so gentle. Because Daise wasn’t afraid. She ran her hands though his hair, on and on like water flowing. She soothed the cramps out of his legs. Until in the end they were breathing in time. Dozing. Then the lad Ossie Coogan rode again down from the mountain, the sound of the snaffle in the blue air, the smell of sweat from under the saddle-cloth, towards the great, flowing river. He rocked and flowed with the motion of the strong, never-ending river, burying his mouth in brown cool water, to drown would have been worth it.