The names of the dead

I met Lee in Easterby mid-morning and we took the bus into Whincliffe. Lee had seen some black army fatigues for sale at a militaria and army surplus shop there for £6.50. On the bus, Lee told me that before he left his Mum was crying as she remembered him as a “pink baby” . . . “Now you look grey . . . like a corpse,” she'd said, tearfully.

In Whincliffe we caught the 88 bus to Cartbeck and then walked. We passed street after street of ornate red brick Victorian terraces, countless shabby second-hand electrical and junk shops, and the occasional late-Victorian church, whose spires soar everywhere above the chimney tops. Eventually we reached the shop, but we were out of luck. “Come back tomorrow,” said the middle-aged mother of the owner. “He’s gone to get some new stuff in.” The shop was a treasure trove of post-WW2 military clothing and hardware: a Nazi flag (genuine I was assured) was on sale for £25.00. Tacked to the ceiling was an enormous hammer and sickle flag alongside the stars and stripes.

We walked back via the overgrown and neglected Ivywood Cemetery, which was filled with black tombstones. We wandered through the long grass and sturdy trees, reading morbid Victorian verses on the stones. Lee found a glue sniffing hang-out—an empty can of lighter fuel and evidence of a fire between two gravestones. We were puzzled by four gravestones inscribed on either side with a name, date of death and age: it contained seventy four names altogether. The occupants of the graves had all died in February and March 1908. Was it an epidemic, or just poor people who couldn’t afford separate tombstones? When I asked Dad later he seemed to think perhaps it was a ‘flu epidemic.

Soon we found dozens more, containing hundreds of names, the dates of death all ranging from 1914-18, 1920 and 1923-24, so perhaps they were all ‘flu victims who had had to be buried together, and apart from everyone else. As we walked to the exit, Lee found some mushrooms which he thought were psylocibin, and we saw two hippies obviously scouring the ground nearby for the same. We ate one each and picked a few more but threw them away because we couldn’t be sure, and we didn’t want to be poisoned.

It’s now twenty-five minutes past midnight and I’m sitting at the dinner table. Mum and Dad are long since in bed. All is quiet save for the tick-tick-tick of the clock & the hum of the ‘fridge in the kitchen. It’s been an odd weekend. I’m planning on writing to Claire before I sleep, but tiredness might foil me. I now want to see her before I go away—but then I remember how wooden and awkward I am when I’m with her.

I’m back at square one. “Perhaps we could go somewhere?” Perhaps we could, Claire. . . .