Crusaders by Richard T. Kelly Read Free Book Online Page B

Langley Methodist Chapel, one Charles Casson, should preside.
    Lined up in a pew with his family, wearing the scratchy suit in which he had been confirmed, John found that the austerity of the Methodist service appealed to him. Yet he could not shake the obdurate suspicion that it did not quite become his grandfather, a man who had been so very much alive. There was no changing the protocol, though, not now. And when bade to do so, the congregation stood as one to sing ‘Abide with Me’. They remained on their feet as Casson offered a prayer.
    ‘Merciful God, we commend our brother Alexander to your perfect mercy and wisdom, for in you alone we put our trust.’ All eyes settled upon the oaken casket set squarely upon the catafalque. ‘Forasmuch as our brother has departed out of this life, we therefore commit his body to the elements – ashes to ashes, dust to dust – trusting in the infinite mercy of God, in Jesus Christ Our Lord.’
    Staring at that coffin, John felt an inner hollow he had carried all day now fast filling up with panic. For it seemed to him, very suddenly , that this whole function had been far, far too orderly – indeed premature, remiss – to have arrived so starkly at its terminus . It was in the stillness of this fraught moment that Casson raised his head from a seemingly ruminative pause. ‘I heard a voice from heaven saying, “From henceforth, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.” “Even so,” says the Spirit. “For they rest from their labours.”’
    At John’s side Bill nodded gently. A hatchway opened slowly in the wall behind the catafalque, and the belt-driven mechanism began to convey the coffin by inches toward its final destination.
    Bill drove the family to the Working Men’s Club where it was arranged that all friends and well-wishers be made welcome. To John’s surprise the reception was a concertedly jolly affair. Everybody got drunk, or attempted the feat. His father, meanwhile , surprised him, for there were a few jokesters among the gathering and Bill consorted freely with them at the bar, joining in a loudly disputed game of darts. It dawned upon John that Bill had a social circle all of his own, some kind of sodality drawn from work and the local cricket club. After he had sat watching their game awhile, it was big rubicund George Bell who staggered away from the oche and offered his darts to John, insistent that ‘the lad couldn’t do worse’.
    ‘You’ll miss your granddad then, son?’ Bell remarked as they loitered together, his arrows swapped for a large Bushmill’s. John nodded mutely. Bill stepped in, seemingly desirous of speaking for his son. ‘Aye, they were proper pals, him and his grandda. Weren’t you? Went off to the Big Meeting together not three month ago.’
    ‘Aye, aye?’ Bell winked. ‘All the comrades together, eh?’
    ‘Well, he’s a lefty, this one, see,’ said Bill. ‘Young communist. Fancies that Russia’s a little workers’ paradise.’
    ‘Aww, divvint be telling us that,’ groaned George.
    John was riled by the seeming slur. It was perfectly true that he had borrowed a Pelican paperback of The Communist Manifesto from the library, and had expressed interest in nearby Chopwellvillage where the streets were rechristened in honour of great Soviet personages – Lenin Terrace, Marx Avenue. But in these pastimes he felt sure he was merely tugging at a red thread that had attracted his eye. ‘I never said I was a communist,’ he murmured.
    ‘Good job and all, son,’ said George. ‘Mind you, your dad mouths off but they’re a bit lefty in his union, all them posties.’
    ‘Dad’s not a postman.’
    ‘Quite right, son, he’s an engineer . But his union lumps in with the posties and the clerks and the lasses what do the switchboard .’
    John looked from the bumptious Bell to his father. It might have been no more than the effect of his suit jacket removed and shirt sleeves rolled – that and the boozy jocularity