Episode 19: The Man at the Grave
Six months had passed, and people had stopped asking about Thomas.
At first, Neil had been grateful. He had grown tired of answering the same questions outside the kirk and in the shops. Now, when someone asked after the family and carefully left Thomas out, he found himself wanting to mention him.
Life had settled back into its familiar routine. People spoke of the harvest, the price of timber and whose roof needed repairing. Thomas’s disappearance had become something they skirted around, particularly when Agnes was within earshot.
The work had continued. Edward had taken on jobs that once belonged to his brother. Robert had repaired the loose step at the back door and bought another sack of seed. At meals, they no longer left Thomas’s place empty. Someone sat there without thinking, and nobody asked them to move.
Only Agnes seemed unable to follow.
She still worked, but sometimes Neil came into the kitchen and found the potatoes half peeled, the knife resting across the basin. His aunt would be standing at the window.
On other days she brought a chair.
She could sit there for hours, looking towards the road, rising whenever a cart approached. When it passed, she watched until it disappeared.
Robert had stopped asking her to come away.
One Sunday afternoon, Neil went with Esther to the cemetery. She carried a small bunch of flowers wrapped in a damp cloth. They had called at Maggie’s grave before, usually after the kirk, when there was no hurry to get home.
“Flowers are for the living” quipped Robert “I hope you are not taking these to the cemetery”
Esther smiled and avoided the question while Neil quickly distracted him, slipping out before more questions were asked.
As they approached the cemetery wall, Esther slowed.
“Someone’s there.”
A man stood beside Maggie’s grave with the wind sweeping around him.
His dark suit fitted neatly across his shoulders. Even from the path, Neil could see that it was expensive. He held his hat at his side, and his shoes were polished, though the ground around the grave was damp.
“Do you know him?” Neil asked.
Esther shook her head.
They went through the gate. The man did not turn. He seemed to be staring at the grass, his head slightly lowered.
Neil wondered whether he was a relative of someone buried nearby. Then the man raised a hand and adjusted his spectacles.
Esther stopped walking.
“What is it?”
She did not answer.
The man looked round.
Neil saw the beard first, then the glasses. They made the face unfamiliar. He had already begun to give the polite nod he would offer a stranger when the man spoke.
“Hello, Neil.”
For a moment, Neil could only stare.
“Thomas?”
Thomas gave a small, uncertain smile.
“Aye.”
Esther caught Neil’s sleeve.
“Where have you been?”
Thomas looked at her, then down at the hat in his hands.
“I’ve been away.”
“Away?” Neil repeated. “You left us in the dark for six months. Your father searched every place he could think of.”
His voice sounded too loud among the graves.
Thomas’s smile disappeared.
Neil stepped nearer. He wanted to take hold of him, to make certain it was him. Instead, he looked at the unfamiliar clothes, the watch chain across his waistcoat, the hands that had once been scratched and stained from work.
“Your mother’s been waiting for you.”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t know. She sits at that window for hours. Every time someone comes up the road, she thinks it’s you. She’s been clinging to the hope that you’ll come home. The shock of you coming back could kill her”.
Thomas glanced down towards Maggie’s grave.
Esther moved between them, not quite blocking Neil, but close enough to make him stop.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
“No.”
“Have you been ill?”
“No.”
“Then why didn’t you write?”
Thomas pressed the brim of his hat between his fingers.
“I should have.”
For six months Neil had imagined this meeting. Sometimes Thomas had been injured and unable to get home. Sometimes he had arrived hungry, with his clothes torn. Neil had imagined being so relieved that nothing else would matter.
He had never imagined wanting to punch him but he was feeling it.
“Your father searched for you,” he said. “There were men out along the river for days.”
Thomas looked up sharply.
“I heard.”
“From whom?”
But Thomas did not answer.
Esther glanced at Neil. He could see that she was struggling too, trying to fit the man before them to the Thomas they remembered.
“Are you coming home?” she asked.
“Aye. I was going there next.”
“Then we’ll walk with you.”
Thomas nodded, but stayed beside the grave.
“I wanted to come here first.”
Neil looked down at the grass – there was nothing else to see.
He felt some of his anger loosen, though not enough to speak kindly.
“You could have sent word.”
“I know.”
Esther knelt to place her flowers as Thomas watched her straighten the damp cloth beneath them. Then he stepped back, allowing her room to rise.
They left the cemetery together.
For a little while, the only sound was their footsteps on the road. Thomas walked beside Esther, carrying his hat. Neil kept looking at him when he thought he would not notice.
Everything about him suggested prosperity: the immaculate suit, the polished shoes, the watch chain across his waistcoat. Yet his hesitation was unmistakable. He looked like a man who had rehearsed his return and forgotten what to say.
At the turning, Thomas paused.
“I’ve bought the mill.”
Neil thought he had misheard.
“What?”
“The mill up the road.”
Esther turned towards him.
“You’ve bought it?”
“Aye, from the German family.”
Neil looked past him towards the road leading to the river.
There had been talk of a buyer. Robert had mentioned it at supper a few evenings earlier, wondering whether the new owner would keep the men on.
“Uncle Robert said someone had bought it.”
“He’ll have heard right.”
“He didn’t say it was you.”
“Not many people know yet.”
Neil stared at the watch chain again.
“With what money?”
Thomas put on his hat.
“It’s paid for.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Thomas’s expression became guarded.
“I’ve had a change of fortune.”
“Well, you’ve certainly landed on your feet,” Neil said. “The rest of us have been wondering whether you were alive.”
Esther drew a breath.
“You can’t expect us to take it all in our stride, Thomas. You disappear without a word, then return in an expensive suit and tell us you own a mill.”
Thomas’s face tightened.
“I didn’t come back for an argument.”
Neil almost laughed.
“What did you think you were coming back to?”
They stood at the turning while a wagon passed. The driver greeted Esther, then gave Thomas a curious look.
Thomas waited until it had gone.
“I’ll explain what I can.”
His evasiveness only deepened Neil’s suspicion.
“To your mother,” Neil said. “First.”
“Aye.”
They began walking again.
Esther dropped back beside Neil. Ahead of them, Thomas stepped around a muddy patch, careful of his shoes.
Neil remembered the boot lying beside Thomas’s bed.
The folded paper had been pushed down inside it. The next day, Esther had opened it on her knee and read it twice, turning it over to make certain there was nothing on the back.
There had been no message. Only a street number, an address, and beneath it the words London, England.
They had wondered whether it was someone Thomas meant to visit. With no name and nothing else to go on, the paper had told them very little.
Now Esther looked at Neil.
“The address,” she said quietly.
He nodded.
Thomas stopped and turned.
“What address?”
Neither answered at once.
“The one in your boot,” Neil said.
At the mention of the paper, Thomas’s composure faltered.
“You found that, you need to give it to me”
“I took it to Esther. I couldn’t make it out.”
“London,” Esther said. “Was that where you went?”
Thomas looked from her to Neil.
Until then, he had answered their questions with a restraint Neil found almost insulting. Now his apprehension was plain. His hand went towards his coat pocket, then fell back to his side.
“Have you still got it, I need it”.
“Aye.”
“Who else has seen it?”
Esther looked directly at him.
“Why?”
Thomas glanced along the empty road.
Neil waited.
“Who else?” Thomas asked again.
“Just us,” Neil said.
Thomas took off his spectacles and wiped them, although the lenses looked clean.
“Then hold your tongues about it. For now.”
Esther did not agree. Neither did Neil.
From the next rise they could see the farmhouse. There was smoke coming from the chimney, and a figure stood at the kitchen window.
Thomas saw her but was still asking for the letter.
He stopped so suddenly that Neil nearly walked into him.
Agnes had one hand against the glass. Even at that distance, Neil recognised the way she leaned forward, trying to see who was coming.
Then she moved away from the window.
Thomas stood rubbing his spectacles.
The front door opened and Robert marched up the yard.
“Take off your glasses son” he commanded.
Thomas obeyed and no sooner had he removed them that Robert’s fist came from nowhere and knocked him to the ground.
“Inside….. Now” Robert shouted.