Borrowed Time

After a few minutes of trying to pray through the rain, the priest slammed his bible closed sending droplets from its waterlogged pages spraying outwards. There’s no saving that book. He made one final attempt to lead the group in the Lord's Prayer and I began to pray for a lightning strike to come and send either him or me down into the grave to put us out of our misery. I looked at Lee and even with his rain-soaked face I could see he was crying. Should I have been crying?

The pallbearers, who could obviously hear the proceedings better than the rest of us, suddenly moved in unison to the trolley upon which the coffin sat and hoisted it into the air and over to the hole in the ground. With a final few words from the priest, they began to lower it until it hit the bottom with a soggy thud. As if it were timed by my father himself, a chorus of thunder rolled through the clouds above us. That noise, like a clocking-off claxon in a factory, was all everybody needed to hear to make their hasty exits.

Just like in life, our father’s funeral had ended with him surrounded by people who were uncomfortable and wanting to leave.

“Rest in peace John Jacob.”

***

The day after the funeral had been set aside to begin the clear out of Dad’s office. Mum had left to stay with her sister for a few days in Milton Keynes and had tasked us with the job of emptying it by the time she returned. Lee had stayed at mine for the night, too cheap to pay for a taxi to his flat on the other side of the city. I’d have offered to pay, but the truth was that I wanted the company.

I checked my watch for the umpteenth time and tapped my fingers impatiently on the banister waiting for him to come down the stairs. “Lee, come on,” I shouted and I heard him start to shuffle across the landing from the bathroom.

“What’s the rush?” he asked as he appeared at the top of the stairs, a cigarette hanging from his lips as he wrestled to get his arms into a denim jacket. I rubbed my forehead as he barrelled down the stairs with a grin on his face. He knew I hated being late.

“I’m sorry, brother,” he said, and he scuffed up my hair as he pushed past me down the hallway to the door. “Come on then. What are you waiting for?”

I looked in the mirror that hung in the hall, smoothing out my hair as he grinned at me from the doorway, clouding the exit with a nicotine fog. When I was sure I looked presentable I grabbed my car keys and we left.

It wasn’t a long drive to our parent’s house but the morning traffic in town was holding us up. Lee pushed a cassette into the player on the dash and began miming a guitar solo, grinning at a girl in the car beside us as we crawled along the road. He’d learned to play when we were younger, and he was really quite good, but Dad put a stop to his lessons and got him a maths tutor instead.

The girl in the other car flashed him a smile and he turned excitedly to me. “How’s my hair?” I gave him a cursory glance and a thumbs up and turned my attention back to the road. He reminded me of our father in the few pictures I’d seen of him when he was our age. The same brown hair, though Lee’s was usually soaked with product and spiked up while our father’s was side-parted and combed to a perfect point. They smiled the same, too. Just a little crooked but beaming and toothy. I suppose, by extension, that meant that I looked like him, too.

Lee and I weren’t technically identical but we looked similar enough that people would often mistake us for the other. We shared the same hazel eyes and dark brown hair, and we were both just a little over six feet tall but he had a freckle under his left eye that I didn’t have, and though I hated to admit it, his waist was a bit smaller too.

“Is there much to do today?” he asked as I took a right turn, pulling his attention away from the girl.

“I hope not. I need to get back early.”

“Hot date?” he asked. “What’s his name?” He tilted his chair back and kicked a foot up onto the dashboard waiting for the details.

“I should be so lucky,” I laughed. Since our father had gotten sick and my workload had increased, I’d lost any semblance of a social life. My evenings consisted of spreadsheets, microwave meals and falling asleep on the sofa. Finding time to fit dating into the equation was an idea I rarely indulged in.

“It’s just work stuff. Nothing to get excited about.”

“You work too hard,” he replied as though I chose it for myself.

Sometimes I envied him. Sure, he didn’t have a job and he’d side-lined all of his ambitions in favour of his wayward lifestyle but he was at least content. He was never bored or boring. Everything was a joke or a tease and he was never bogged down by the stress of work or responsibilities. Truthfully, I wished I could be more like him. More carefree. We were days away from turning 27 but I was living my life like an old man.

“What do you think is in there?” I asked, changing the subject. “The study, I mean.” Dad’s office at home was like his fortress. Always locked, very private, and no entry was granted unless he invited you in. He’d hate the idea of us going through it.

“It’s just full of boring files and paperwork. Unless there’s anything of interest in the safe, I think you’re going to be disappointed.”

“What safe?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.

“What do you mean ‘what safe’? The safe! The safe in his office.” He waved his hands to emphasise the word ‘safe’ as though I should have had some idea of what he was talking about.

“I didn’t know he had a safe,” I replied

“I guess you’ll see it soon enough,” he said as I pulled onto the gravel driveway of our parent’s home.

The house, though by no means a mansion, was fairly large, detached, and situated in one of the nicer parts of Cambridge near the river. I brought the car to a stop outside the front door, careful to avoid my mother’s rose bushes, and parked in the spot usually reserved for our father’s car.

An hour into emptying the cupboards of Dad’s study and we’d found nothing of particular interest. The safe was where Lee said it would be, though it was smaller than I’d anticipated. Not much bigger than a shoebox.

“How are you getting on there, Lee?” I asked sarcastically, bringing another box down off a high shelf and exploring its contents. He’d spent the last half hour sitting in Dad’s chair with his feet up reading through old newspaper clippings.

“Did you know Dad donated £10,000 towards the upkeep of a farm?” He asked, ignoring my question while waving a newspaper clipping toward me. The image at the top of the clipping was a grainy black and white picture of our father shaking hands with a man in overalls. The ink detailing the story underneath the picture had smudged with only a few words legible, but it was dated to 1968.