Pay our Respects

 

A story based on a true event

 

There was a knock at the door, an enquiring knock if you know what I mean. I looked at my husband wondering who it could be, we get so few visitors; any of our friends would have shouted their arrival. I got up and went through the kitchen not knowing what to expect.

 

A frail little lady stood there and looked up at me with an appealing face, and floored me with her request.

‘Could I scatter my sisters’ ashes in your garden?’

 

I was taken aback, not a request you often get, even more so at your own backdoor, it was not that I was speechless, I was just stuck for words.

 

‘She used to live here many years ago.’

 

I stood with my hand on the door knob as if guarding the place from some intrusion. It had the horrible feel of someone coming back from the dead.

 

‘I used to live here as well - we were children,’ she added as if that explained everything. Her eyes looked at mine as appealing for something.

‘I’m sure she would want to come home.’

 

That sounded even more macabre. It had the feel of a gypsy’s curse! My brain stood still, I could think of nothing that would be a suitable reply.

 

My husband called out,

’who is it dear?’

 

As I stood there in this confused state I suddenly wanted to shout out, ‘it’s only someone wanting to scatter their ashes’ but somehow that did not seem appropriate. I searched for a suitable reply.

‘Is it someone who used to live here?’ I asked. There was no reply.

‘A long time ago?’ I added lamely.

 

The little lady put her hand out and touched mine as if in some connection. I was conscious of a shiver through my system as if a ghost was asking for supplication. I stepped back; just a minute this is a sunny; I stopped, Sunday afternoon! I wondered for a moment if she was a religious thing, was this some crank standing before me.

 

‘What is the problem dear?’

My husband stood behind me, I felt his breath upon the back of my neck; somehow that did not comfort me. 

‘Harold,’ I started, ‘this lady wants to know if she can bury her ashes here?’

He burst out laughing.

‘Bit premature for that, don’t you think!’ He is a bit of a wag.

‘They’re not hers, they’re her sister’s’

‘Where’s she then?’

 

The little lady looked up at him. ‘She be dead.’

‘That be alright then.’ He went on.

‘You mean let her remains be buried here?’

 

Carried away by his own levity he made the cardinal mistake of agreeing to something on the spur of the moment.

 

‘How old is she then?’ He wouldn’t let it go.

‘She be dead.’

 

There was sharpness in her voice. I had the horrible feeling that a big son would come round the corner and confront us.

 

He leaned, that is my husband, over my shoulder.

‘Well bring them on then.’

 

Just you wait till I get you inside, I thought, there is no need for this cavalier mocking, also I was beginning to get a funny feeling about this, there is after all something spooky about ashes and the odd way people have about them, and in my back garden!. I actually spoke to her for the first time.

 

‘Surely there is somewhere better; don’t they have a remembrance garden at the crem?’ Her face crinkled as if trying to dismiss something.

‘She be much better in her own home.’

Then wiping away a tear she added.

’ You’ll take good care of her. I know.’ With that she clutched her bag to her chest and left.

 

Days passed and we thought no more about it, when there was a note put through the door.

‘We’ll be there tomorrow.’

I read it out to my husband.

‘Who’s that then?’

He’s not keen on visitors, he wants the quiet life.

‘How do I know, we’ll have to wait and see.’

 

At the Wagon and Horses pub later that evening (I often slip in there when I’m out getting petrol.) I was having a shandy in their little snug, well husbands can be wearing; when I overheard the landlord talking to someone I could not see.

 

‘It’ll be a lovely day for the funeral tomorrow.’

‘Funeral?’

‘Yes. You know the Kelly’s.’

‘Ah.’ Another voice interrupts.

‘Who be dead then?'

‘Spider Kelly’s mum.’

‘Never.’

Another voice joins in.

‘Spider Kelly! I never knew he had a mum.’

‘Aye, she be dead sometime.’

‘Why’s that then?’ There was raucous laughter at that.

‘Cause she ain’t been alive.’

 

This profound statement was digested by the assembled company as they quaffed their beer. I thought what a load of local idiots. I was gathering up my clouts to leave when I heard.

 

‘They can’t afford the church.’

‘Afford the church?’

‘No, tell me it would set them back 150 quid.’ 

This was followed by a respectful if not fearful silence.

‘No Kelly’s gone pay that.’ More silence.

‘Specially Spider.’ This seemed to strike a chord.

'No, Not Spider. Where then?’ 

The landlord clinked a class as he put on the top shelf.

‘In some mugs back garden, you know them with that Jag.’

‘Aye, that’ll be big enough then.’

‘It’ll have to be with all them Kelly’s.’

 

I drove home as fast as I could, I’ll give that stupid husband of mine something to think about. Kelly is the Anglicisation of the Irish surname O Ceallaigh - enough to give anyone pause for thought. Kelly is a common name in Ireland so the current Kelly’s lineage is not known.

 

They are, in common parlance, travellers, otherwise known as the more degenerative appellation Gypsy. Their key operating procedure is to deceive with complete aplomb; oh, and don’t cross them, the Gypsy curse is for ever. My husband, trusting fool that he is, poo poo’d the gist of what I had overheard in the pub; I had more difficulty explaining why I was there in the first place.

 

I had an uneasy nights sleep. The morning broke early with bright sunlight across the garden, although there were ominous rolling clouds on the horizon! We had breakfast. It was a Sunday; this means my husband is absorbed by the Sunday papers. He usually retires to his study and I might see him at eleven’s.

 

I strolled in the garden with a cup of tea in my hand with my thoughts all of a scatter - what had we let ourselves in for? That simple hesitative knock on our back door now had a more ominous ring to it. I looked down our long garden, did I see smoke, as if from a camp fire. Did I see the ghostly outline of a gypsy caravan, did I hear the sounds of a gypsy guitar playing a mournful Hungarian melody accompanied by the heartbeat of a tambourine.

 

I shook my head - hold on this is Langtoft not the Aural Mountains. Maybe I should not have that shandy last night; a wry smile came to my lips, maybe it was spiked; as if! I was awoken from my fantasy, if that what it was, by the sound that a horses nostril makes as it shakes it’s head, and the jingle of a harness. And there they were.

 

They drew into our drive; four black horses and a hearse. And, my god, a funeral director walking in front. Oddly there was no sound of their hooves on our drive. The funeral director doffed his hat as he passed me; a ghoulish look on his face. And there in the glass hearse was a small white casket. The guitar sounded louder and somehow more strident. The tambourine took a life of its own as if rattling bones. And then the mourners. A tribe of gypsies, from every part of the world it seemed, flooded into our garden. Black flashing eyes, brown skin, athletic bodies, their aromatic aromas engulfed me.

 

One man: I remembered last night - was this Spider Kelly, lifted the casket from the catafalque and tenderly laid it in the grass? As if a miracle there was a tree where there was no tree, and the earth opened up. An elderly lady stepped forward and made a blessing in a language I did not understand, and the casket was laid to rest. Many hands made a sign of passing, and then as if in a dream, they were gone!

 

‘You all right love?’

‘What?’

‘You look as if you have seen a ghost.’

I stood, not stunned, but elevated to some ethereal plane.

‘Hello,’ he said. ’where has that tree come from?’

‘Tree, what tree?’

‘That one, just there.’ Pointing.

There was only one explanation.

‘It was delivered this morning.’

He looked at me oddly.

‘From Spider Kelly I suppose,’ he said caustically.

‘If only you knew,’

 

I sat down below the tree to drink my tea, and in deep repose, thought about a gypsy warning; was there one in all this? Later that day, in the evening, there was an enquiring knock on the door. I opened it and there was the little old lady from before. She had in her hand a poesy of flowers. This time her face seemed more brown and wrinkled. She held my hand.

‘You life is now blessed, it will be long and fruitful.’ And then she was gone!

‘Who was that love?’

‘No one.’ I answered.

I lingered in the kitchen - I don’t know about the fruitful bit I thought!