Borrowed Time

One

“I knew it would bloody rain.”

I turned to my brother walking towards me, head crouched into his shoulders as if it would avoid him getting wet and his hand clasped to his mouth guarding a cigarette against the downpour. I shifted my umbrella to the side offering shelter and he squeezed alongside me underneath it, soaking the right side of my suit. He exhaled a plume of smoke that seemed to get stuck under the umbrella and spread like a fog, that familiar smell I’d always detested lingering long after the smoke had disappeared. I’d half expected him not to come.

“Miserable bastard’s going out just like he lived,” he said, taking a sharp inhale from the soggy cigarette. “Like a dark bloody cloud over us all.”

I didn’t respond. He wouldn’t have expected me to. I tended to keep my opinions of our father to myself. It was easier that way. Instead, I kept my eyes forward, looking at nothing in particular but avoiding eye contact with everyone around me and willing the day over.

The rain hadn’t stopped for hours. The hole in the ground in front of us had already begun to fill and form a puddle at the bottom, the water lashing down quicker than the ground could soak it away. That’s what I focused on.

“There’s more people here than I expected,” he continued, prompting me to shift my gaze and look around. He was right. Even without the bad weather, I hadn’t expected to see so many faces. Old colleagues, I supposed. The few I did recognise were from the office and some relatives from my mother's side, but nobody that really represented him. Some may have been friends, but we’d met so few of them through the years that it would have been hard to be certain.

I returned my focus to my dishevelled-looking brother and looked him up and down. His eyes were dark and sunken, probably hungover, and he looked like he hadn't slept for days. Still, I was glad he’d at least managed to get himself into a suit, even if it did look a size too big and was creased from head to toe.

“You look like shit, Lee,” I said, eliciting an unsurprised smile from him. He took another drag of his cigarette then leant back slightly to eye me up. He’d have been expecting me to say something about his appearance. I always do. The contrast between us was as evident as it ever was. Moreso, probably, given the formal wear. I’d always been the more organised twin and it would be a surprise to no one that I’d had my suit dry cleaned and pressed days ago, whilst his was likely screwed up in a ball at the bottom of a wardrobe until an hour before he arrived.

“You look uncomfortable enough for the both of us, brother,” he replied dryly. “I’m sure Dad would be very proud of you for making so much effort.”

I ignored him again and turned my gaze back to the hole in the ground. I couldn’t see much of the bottom from where I was standing but I had no inclination to get any closer for a better look. Truthfully, All I wanted was to fill it so that we could all leave.

The service at the church had been short, thankfully, but the delay at the graveside had been long and not at all helped by the worsening weather. I’d even noticed two mourners leave and get into their car. I wanted to do the same.

Beside the open grave stood an easel with a canvas picture of my father printed upon it, its ink beginning to run and smudge from the downpour. I tried not to look at it. It didn’t look like him. Not really. It was obviously my father, just not as I remembered him. The image my mother had chosen to represent her late husband looked warm and grandfatherly. Like someone you’d want to sit and talk to. His greying hair as immaculately styled as it always was, but with a grin so rarely seen on him in real life. I suppose you could say he looked happy, though he never seemed it. No, the picture was a lie. My mother’s doing, obviously.

“Do you think he left specific instructions to make us wait in the rain?” Lee asked, taking a final drag of his cigarette then dropping it to the ground and stepping it out with a not-polished shoe. The idea made me smile, knowing it wouldn’t be too surprising had it been true. Our father always made sure everything went his way and any negative effects that his actions may have had on us were of significantly less importance. ‘A hard lesson makes for a hard man,’ he would tell us, but mostly it made for resentful children.

As the owner of a publishing firm, he’d had a large number of employees to take charge of and he brought his authoritarian rule home with him at the end of every day. Lee and I were expected to do as we were told, to have the best grades, be the best at sport, and follow his lead as boys to grow up to be men who would be worthy of taking over his empire. When our sister Sophia died as a child he became even worse.

Lee did as teenage boys do and acted out. He got mixed up with a bad crowd and started drinking and smoking pot. Over ten years had passed and he’d barely stopped. I stayed home, of course, desperate for approval and respect as I played the dutiful son. Eventually, I took my place in the business while Lee partied his life away. I grew to resent the path my life had taken but with him gone I intended to finally forge a new one.

When dad’s cancer diagnosis reduced his workload further, things eased up a little. He would stay squirrelled away in his study going over papers and documents, reading old dusty books and talking to himself and we’d only really hear from him when he wanted something brought to him. I’d long since moved out into a place of my own but he still insisted on daily reports and updates from the office so I used our meetings as an excuse to give my mum a break from his demands.

“Is it wrong that I feel such relief?” I asked, finally turning and looking at my brother properly. “Does it make me a bad person?”

He reached his arm around my waist and hugged me tightly into him.

“You’re not a bad person, Tom,” he countered. “We’re all feeling it. Even mum.”

“Has she said anything?” I asked.

“No. Not really. She just seems calm. It’s been a lot to deal with and she’s had to put up with him longer than any of us.”

“She loved him.”

“We all loved him, Tom. That doesn’t mean he was always easy to love.”

Lee’s admission took me a little by surprise. It’s not that I didn’t think he felt it, I just couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard him admit it.

“It’s time,” he said suddenly, pulling his arm from my waist. I turned towards the church and raised the umbrella to get a better view. The rain started hitting my face and making it hard to see but I could just make out my mother and the priest walking behind the coffin towards us.

They came to a stop beside the grave and the priest took his position beside it next to my mother. A man from the funeral home came to stand behind them holding an umbrella over their heads while the priest fought against the wind to keep the bible open to the correct page.

“That’ll be ruined,”I thought as he struggled. “There’s no saving that book.”

A clap of thunder roared overhead as the priest finally began to speak and a gust of wind blew the canvas from its easel, sending it face down onto the floor at the head of the grave. Lee let out a snigger and I gave him a gentle jab of my elbow to his ribs. I’d have laughed along with him but I didn’t want the glares from my mother if she spotted us giggling like schoolboys. It was better to keep him in check.

The miserable October weather made it almost impossible to hear anything that the priest was saying. The rain was coming down harder than before and even my mother looked like she was ready to walk off for someplace drier.