Acts & Monuments Read online

  Acts

  &

  Monuments

  Alan Kane Fraser

  Copyright © 2019 Alan Kane Fraser

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Extracts from Funeral Service are taken from Common Worship: Pastoral Services © The Archbishops’ Council , 2000, 2005 and are reproduced by permission of Church House Publishing. [email protected]

  The Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  Cover image: Night with her train of stars and her great gift of sleep by E.R. Hughes © Birmingham Museums Trust

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

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  Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  For Alexis, whose innocent question

  prompted the idea for this book.

  And for Danielle, whose innocent question

  prompted me to write it.

  Contents

  19th January 2016

  PART 1

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  PART 2

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  PART 3

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  PART 4

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  Notes

  “People change for two main reasons: either their minds have been opened or their hearts have been broken.”

  Steven Aitchison

  19th January 2016

  Gemma Rathbone pulled up behind the gleaming sports coupé and turned her engine off. She sat for a moment, trying to summon up the courage to get out of the car. She hated this part of the job, absolutely hated it, although she would rather have been up there by the bridge than down on the carriageway below where her colleagues were helping the ambulance crew clean up the mess.

  “Subaru BRZ. The SE LUX too,” said Molloy as the light from the top of their vehicle momentarily washed the scene with a harsh, electric blue. “Probably a mid-life crisis. Usually is with the sports cars. ’Specially the red ones.”

  Gemma felt as though there was an invisible weight pressing down on her chest, stopping her from moving. In reality, it was just the fear of what she might find.

  “Come on, Bones,” said Molloy. “Let’s get this over with.”

  They looked at each other, then swung out of the car in unison.

  A brush of icing-sugar frost dusted the ground. Gemma led the way with Molloy following on behind; the bleak January chill quickly daubing scarlet onto their cheeks. So it was the younger constable who reached the car first, making straight for the driver’s door, which had been left slightly ajar. Molloy went for the passenger side. Gemma closed her eyes as she reached the vehicle and, feeling cold chrome on her fingers, pulled the handle sharply, forcing her eyes open.

  Nothing. Thank God. There was an audible exhalation of relief from both sides of the vehicle.

  “Nice little motor, this,” said Molloy. The moment had passed, and now he was acting as though it had never been there; as though he had never felt the slow-burning nausea that is the unspoken glue binding officers together.

  Idiot, thought Gemma.

  And then she noticed it. A small manila envelope on the passenger seat. She leant forward and read the message written in neat and cultured handwriting on the front: “To whom it may concern”.

  There was something about it that touched her. Even at a time like this, someone had made the effort to write neatly and legibly. The ‘whom’ is a nice touch too, she thought. Standards were being maintained, right to the end. Gemma felt certain that this wasn’t the usual tale of money troubles and relationship difficulties – she felt intuitively that this was a good person who’d simply been overwhelmed by a bad world.

  “You gonna read it then?” Molloy asked. “‘To whom it may concern’ – that’s you as much as anyone else.”

  Gemma shot him a glare.

  “I mean, there’s nothing to say we can’t,” Molloy added.

  The gloom of a winter’s day was ebbing gently into the darkness of evening, but there was still just about enough light left to read by, so she carefully removed the letter. She was pleased to see that the neat and cultured writing continued inside.

  Firstly, let me say how sorry I am if I’ve caused anyone any trouble or put anyone out. I really didn’t mean to. Please pass on my apologies if I’ve made a nuisance of myself – that wasn’t my intention.

  But I wanted to explain things.

  Obviously, I’m not happy, but it’s why I’m not happy that really bothers me. It’s that I seem to make the people around me miserable. I don’t mean to, I just do. The people I’m supposed to be closest to actually feel the farthest away. I do care about them, but they just regard me as an inconvenience. I think they’d prefer it if I was dead, to be honest.

  It used to be so different. I was at an art college once. I had dreams; I knew what I wanted to be. But somehow I’ve lost sight of all that. My daughter talks to me now like I’m an idiot – when I can get her to talk to me at all. She doesn’t respect me anymore. No one does. I think that’s what hurts the most.

  Losing our son tore us apart. When Christopher died, it pretty much ended our m
arriage. We don’t communicate now, not really.

  It’s funny, because I feel I have so much love to give, but no one seems to want it. It’s like money, I suppose – you always think you want more of it, but if you keep it all for yourself, it just becomes a burden. You really need to be able to give it away, and if you can’t, then frankly, what’s the point? You don’t have anything to live for if no one wants your love, do you?

  Sorry again. Please make sure my daughter knows that I do love her. This wasn’t about her; I want her to know that.

  Thank you.

  And then there was a signature that Gemma couldn’t quite read.

  What a shame, she thought. What a lovely person. It was a genuine tragedy that it had ended this way.

  But how had it come to this? How on earth had it ever come to this?

  PART 1

  “Before you criticise someone,

  walk a mile in their shoes.”

  African Proverb

  Walking

  the Mile

  22nd–26th October 2015

  One

  Barry Todd was a good man. It’s important to make this point at the outset because it might not be immediately obvious to the dispassionate observer how someone who stole the best part of £50,000 from a charity could ever be described as ‘good’; not in the eyes of most reasonable people. But, technically, although it was charity money that he’d stolen, it wasn’t the charity that was out of pocket. So no homeless young people were harmed in the execution of the theft – as he would have pointed out if anyone had challenged him on that point. Which they hadn’t. It was actually his employer who had ended up footing the bill, and they could afford it.

  They also absolutely deserved it.

  But none of that was on Barry’s mind at the beginning, as he sat opposite Angela, the head of HR, in Monument Housing Association’s boardroom. It contained the kind of table around which Barry liked to think evil geniuses would gather. And the high-backed leather seats that surrounded it certainly seemed indicative of a change in priorities from the days when the organisation had been run by a board of volunteers largely drawn from local churches. Back then Neville would never have countenanced spending a few thousand pounds on posh chairs. But, now, with a board of paid professionals in place, such charitable thoughts felt naïve.

  Barry’s pouched and jowly face craned forward in an attitude of anticipation, whilst his clammy hands sat clenched between his knees as though in prayer. Even the serene beauty of Kingsbury Water Park, visible through the huge, plate-glass windows, was not enough to distract him. This will be it, surely, he thought. This is my time.

  But Angela seemed to be avoiding direct eye contact. She was looking at some notes and fiddling with her pen, rather than doing that ‘leaning-forward-and-staring-benignly-whilst-tilting-your-head’ thing that HR people liked to do when they were trying to reassure you. Which, Barry realised, probably meant that she wasn’t trying to reassure him.

  Angela’s official job title was actually Head of People Investment, but, given that her role mainly seemed to involve sacking people, dragging them off their sick beds back into work, and relentlessly driving down their terms and conditions of employment – everything, in fact, except investing in them – most employees continued to refer to her as what she was (or, in the case of Kay from finance, as the Head of Grim Reaping).

  A sudden chill ran down the back of Barry’s neck, although he realised that might just have been the office’s comfort cooling system kicking in. And then she said it.

  “Well, as you can imagine, Barry, we had a lot of very good people apply for the director’s job, and we’ve had to make some very difficult decisions.”

  She muttered some other stuff about his “strong application form” and “good, relevant experience” before commenting that his presentation hadn’t quite demonstrated a “sufficient understanding of the business plan”, and that the panel hadn’t seen the kind of “innovative thinking” and “personal gravitas” they were looking for from a prospective member of the executive team.

  He wanted to interrupt, to challenge her rather downbeat assessment of his capabilities. But instead, Barry found himself nodding as, with tender precision, Angela articulated his various shortcomings, echoing his assent to each. It felt like a parents’ evening, but without his parents to help protect him from the brutal truth.

  “So, overall, I’m afraid we don’t quite feel that you meet the standard we’re looking for in such a senior post.”

  The words washed through him like radiotherapy: silently, invisibly, killing something that he had allowed to grow inside him. Hope.

  Barry slowly crumpled into his seat, like a bouncy castle being deflated at a children’s party that had never happened. “Sorry,” he said, as though it was somehow his fault.

  “I can see that this is all rather a lot to take in at the moment,” Angela said. Then she made good eye contact and started to do the ‘tilty head’ thing, which Barry found oddly reassuring. “But I’d be happy to offer you some more detailed feedback when you’ve had a chance to reflect, if you think you’d find that useful.”

  “Are you sure you’ve got the time? I mean, I know you’re very busy.”

  “It’s the least I can do.”

  And the way that she said it, Barry honestly believed that it was.

  He’d wanted it so badly, and with everything that had happened – Christopher, his wife, the endless restructuring – he felt that he needed it. But it was not to be. Of course, Barry had always recognised that there were more dreams in the world than there were glorious destinies, so he was well practised in the art of swallowing his disappointment. And, to be honest, as long as Langley didn’t get the job, he decided he could live with the outcome.

  “So tell me, who did get it?”

  “Well,” Angela said, losing eye contact again and returning to her papers, “we’ve decided to give it to Langley.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Langley. Langley Burrell.”

  Barry remained silent. His faced reddened and his eyes fixed Angela in a desperate stare. His breathing became heavier and he found himself involuntarily twisting his tie around his pudgy, sweaty fingers.

  “Now I know that you and Langley have had your…” she searched for the right word, “issues in the past—”

  “He sacked my wife, but it’s not about—”

  “He made your wife redundant,” corrected Angela, “but that was a business decision, Barry. It wasn’t personal. He acted in the best interests of Monument – he always acts in the best interests of Monument. We’re facing a really challenging business environment at the moment, and Langley brings an awful lot of the kind of private-sector disciplines that Monument is going to need to face those challenges going forward.”

  “But he’s not a housing expert. The person specification specifically said—”

  “I think, in the short time that he’s been here, Langley’s shown that he brings a lot of other skills – the kind of skills we’re looking for in a housing director. The thing is, Barry, at exec-team level we’re looking for someone with good generic business knowledge of things like cost control, income generation, people management and business development. The operational side of things can be left to…”

  She slowly ran out of enthusiasm before reaching the end of the sentence, as though she’d started off with a very clear idea of what she was going to say, but had gradually thought better of it.

  He wanted to say something; to ask her – beg her – to reconsider. He tried to find the words to explain why Langley simply couldn’t be given the director’s job. The ones Barry had said to himself countless times in the bathroom mirror and when he was alone in his car. But they would not be found. They went into hiding around other people. They always did. Yet, that, of course, was precisely when he needed to find them most. />
  So, he simply mumbled a “thank you” and another “sorry”, in what sounded to Barry like an acknowledgement of his defeat, and then he headed obediently back to his desk. Langley had been appointed and nothing Barry could say would change that fact.

  Barry’s desk was situated in an island along with the desks of the other members of the team he managed. Andrew, Neville’s replacement as chief executive, had moved Monument into a new, open-plan office space, apparently to encourage greater interaction between staff and their managers. The consequence was that, upon returning to his desk, Barry was forced to interact with his team, when what he really wanted was to be left alone.

  Lucy and Taneesha were waiting for him. As he took his seat, Barry could feel their eyes searching him for clues, but he didn’t look back. He knew that if he did he would have to explain; and he couldn’t explain it. Not even to himself.

  Lucy was too polite and too savvy to ask her boss about his application for promotion, but Taneesha had no such qualms. “So?” she asked.

  “So what?”

  “The job?”

  Barry noticed Lucy trying to rein in Taneesha’s curiosity with a wide-eyed stare. Taneesha was having none of it, though, and simply stared back. He could see that she wasn’t really in the mood to be put off.

  “Oh, that. Sorry,” he said. “I’m afraid I didn’t get it, but thanks for asking. Now, have you got the weekly void report done yet?”

  “Oh, that’s a shame – although, obviously, it’s good news that we get to keep you as our manager.” Taneesha waited a moment to allow Barry to acknowledge her attempt at sycophancy (which he didn’t) before adding, “So, who did get it then?”

  Barry paused. His natural inclination was to make Taneesha wait until Angela emailed an official announcement around the office. After all, it wasn’t his job to do people investment’s work for them.