Hi everyone,
With Underdogs: Tooth and Nail edging closer to publication (we're now at the proofreading stage, and this week is the final week of the pre-order rewards), last week I wondered whether to write another short story as a thank you present to you all, like Ewan West Goes To Oakenfold or Jack Hopper Talks To Dad. I gave it far too little thought, said "meh, why not, it'll be fun"... and then spent the next week writing a really difficult story about bereavement and loneliness. Nonetheless, I'm relatively happy about what came out and certainly glad I took on the challenge.
So here's McCormick's short story- those who had read Underdogs will know a few details about the passing of his wife and the significance of Polly Jones. Here's the whole story, with a content warning for lymphoma, death and mourning.
PS- Underdogs is on Facebook for instantaneous updates about important things. And since there's only a week left of the pre-order reward phase (after February 3rd, people will no longer have their names printed in the book - and will need to pre-order via Amazon and hope they don't screw up like last year), feel free to get the word out to those who may be interested in the series! Don't forget to mention that both books can be ordered together as one of the options. And for those receiving this update by email, here's the pre-order link for Underdogs: Tooth and Nail.
United by our differences,
Chris Bonnello
----
Joseph McCormick Fights Alone
Not long ago, the dying woman at Joseph’s side could have beaten him at chess. Doctor Joseph McCormick, mathematics lecturer at Durham University, may have the power of raw calculation on his side, but Barbara had always held a different kind of advantage: she had known exactly how her husband thought.
Joseph would have given half his soul to play another game against her (and only half, because if he did have a soul then the other half already belonged to Barbara). But most of her brain functions were gone, and today was the day his wife was going to die.
He looked at her paled face, which already looked most of the way to lifeless. Her cracked lips showed little evidence of breath passing through them, but the passive rise and fall of her diaphragm under her light green hospital gown confirmed she was still alive for now. Barbara’s room was silent, with the nurses knowing to leave them alone except for the occasional vitals check, and without even a beep-beep-beep of a heart monitor like in the movies. Those were reserved for patients who stood a chance of recovery.
Zero chance of recovery now. Fifty-nine is no age to die from Hodgkin lymphoma.
Barbara McCormick had always been one to ignore the odds, but this worked both for and against her. When Joseph thought about it, dying of a disease that mainly caught people in their twenties or over seventy (and more commonly in men too) was a very ‘Barbara’ way to go. Not that it helped him make peace with it.
He reached forward and held her hand yet again, and remembered how twenty years ago she had fractured that same wrist playing in a charity football match. There were memories attached to her whole body, which lay helpless in front of him like a monument to its younger days: the scar on her neck from a climbing activity on holiday in their thirties, her big toe that had kicked him in the shin during their first dance at their wedding, and her forehead wrinkles that had appeared whenever she had frowned at his deliberately terrible jokes.
That body, which had spent so many years playing the violin at orchestra standard, had massaged his shoulders when work had been stressful, and had been capable of striking a friendly conversation with just about any stranger, was minutes from failing. The hand he held no longer had a wedding ring, removed for her comfort as her fingers had started to swell, due to build-up of excess fluid and poor circulation around her dying body.
I wonder how Dr Hodgkin, whoever he was, feels about having this abomination named after him.
Barbara had told him, many times over their thirty-eight years of marriage, that one day he might have something named after him. A mathematical theorem or something grand. His years of work in the field of topology had earned him something to last, surely.
Joseph had smiled, knowing that Barbara had no idea what topology actually was. By the end of that day she would have lived and died without ever knowing what her husband’s work was truly about. But that was ok: she had made up for it by excelling in every other area imaginable.
He looked at her still face, regretting nothing about how he had misspent his sabbatical. He was nearing the end of his six months off work, promised to him throughout his career as a lecturer, zero days of which had been spent doing the ‘fun’ mathematical research he had planned. Topology be damned, he had spent his sabbatical in the most valuable way he knew how.
‘The cruise was my favourite part,’ he whispered to Barbara, believing she could still interpret his words. The doctors had said that hearing was the last sense to go. ‘You were right. You always were…’
A cruise through the Mediterranean, which had been amazing despite the food poisoning. A week touring of every sizeable museum in London. Returning to Angelsey and recreating that honeymoon photo. Edinburgh Castle. It had been a stunning sabbatical. Or ‘sa-bucket list’, as Barbara had called it.
It can done immeasurable good for both of them. Barbara for obvious reasons, but also for her husband. If Joseph McCormick was going to enter his latter years childless and widowed, he was going to give the best days of his life a good send-off.
Mathematically, having your best days last until the age of sixty-one wasn’t bad at all. But the mathematics could not comfort him as his wife lay dying at fifty-nine.
Joseph looked at Barbara’s diaphragm. Her breathing had been erratic for a week, but it was becoming a slower kind of erratic. The pauses between breaths were increasing in length. He wondered what her last breath would be like to watch.
Last breath, last words, last kiss… these six months have been full of ‘lasts’.
I’m no longer afraid of them. I’m afraid of the ‘firsts’ now. First Christmas without her, first anniversary alone, first morning I wake up forgetting she’s dead.
He had not told anyone about that fear, of course – no more than he had told anyone about any of his fears. He was not the priority: his dying wife was. Joseph could look after himself gently and in silent dignity, without upsetting those around him further.
Joseph looked at Barbara’s diaphragm once again. This time, it no longer moved.
The moment had been coming for weeks. The last surviving McCormick reached over to check his wife’s pulse, and found nothing.
At that moment, a nurse walked past Barbara’s open door with her face turned in another direction. Joseph did not call her over. Barbara would be dead for a long time, and there was no hurry for anyone to start processing her passing.
He checked his watch. His wife had passed away at 3:40pm on an otherwise regular Thursday afternoon.
#
On Friday, Joseph McCormick kept himself busy. Calling banks, insurance companies, and secondary social acquaintances who had not been informed the previous day. Painful as it was, the workload helped him to function.
On Saturday he went on a walk. It was a beautiful February afternoon with white frost under clear blue sky. A wonderful day, but Barbara was still dead. In the evening, he noticed that the taste was gone from his dinner.
On Sunday he went to church voluntarily for the first time, and did a good job of pretending to focus on what the priest was saying. He had spent the sermon wondering whether the Christian afterlife would take place in a bounded or unbounded space. Topologically, there was a lot to consider. All Joseph knew was that even if Barbara were in an infinitely large area, he would walk through Heaven or crawl through Hell until he found her again.
On Monday, he had a day in. He endured the first of his dreaded firsts: waking up forgetting she was dead. Later that day he smiled at a comedy show on TV, and felt guilty for it.
On Tuesday, he had another day in. He had no idea that doing nothing could be so exhausting.
On Wednesday, he felt hungry. He had kept meaning to go shopping that week but hadn’t managed it. That day he had meant to order his shopping via delivery, but it just didn’t happen.
On Thursday, one week on from the death of his wife, he stared at a blank sheet of paper hoping that a eulogy would come out. The written word had never been his strong point, even when he had had a fully functioning mind.
#
The funeral of Barbara McCormick took place twelve days after her passing, in the same church where they had been married. Joseph had written a fluent enough eulogy, and delivered it with enough clarity. He had even included a joke about Heaven being an unbounded space, although precious few of the grievers were mathematicians and it had been met largely with silent half-smiles.
There was, however, one line he had been proud of. During his mourning that week, in the midst of the silent tension where there was nothing to panic at but his brain instructed him to panic regardless, he had comforted himself by thinking ‘it could be worse. If you’d been ill on the night of Danny’s eighteenth you’d never have met her in the first place. Thirty-eight years of married life could easily have not happened. This hurts right now, but it’s worth it for what you had.’
Or, as he had paraphrased his thoughts during the eulogy, ‘the pain of missing someone is always worth it for the joy of having known them. Always.’
Following the service, he had gone alone to the crematorium to watch Barbara’s remains being burned out of existence. The most important body in his life had become ash, and Joseph was expected to attend the wake immediately after and socialise with well-meaning friends.
He stood at the kitchen doorframe in his village hall, watching the table of food without an ounce of appetite. Once in a while a friend of Barbara’s would approach him and offer condolences, perhaps sharing a memory of her while they did.
Not one person mentioned his eulogy.
Because it was unremarkable, he soon realised. It was factual and lukewarm. I delivered it like one of my lectures, and everyone in church must have noticed. They aren’t mentioning it today, but tonight some of them will make comments about it over dinner.
The dinner they’ll be spending with the rest of their family, while I eat alone.
Polly Jones – an old schoolfriend of Barbara’s, and Joseph’s friend too for as long as they had been a couple – had invited him out for dinner. She had been willing to delay her five-hour drive home to Hertfordshire to accommodate him. He had declined, and didn’t quite understand why.
In the twelve days he had spent alone, Joseph had pictured the funeral as a difficult day, but a pleasant one. One where he would not be alone. Where people would talk to him as if he were the priority rather than Barbara, on account of him still being alive. He was coming to discover that a day of being surrounded by swathes of people – even people he knew the names of – could still be crushingly lonely.
Not that he said a word about it. It was not the day for his own feelings to be part of the discussion.
A boy with a black jacket and jeans walked through the village hall entrance, piercings across his ears and one half of his back-length hair dyed red. At the sight of him, Joseph’s body found itself pushing away from the kitchen doorframe and marching across the hall. Apparently, he had seen someone worth reactivating himself for.
Barbara had died childless, and one day Joseph would do the same. But even so, one of their surrogate children had returned.
‘Angus-’
‘Yo, McCormick!’
There was a smile on the face of Angus Booth. A real smile, not an awkward attempted smile of sympathy. Angus was emotionally illiterate, but it guaranteed he was genuine in how he acted. Joseph admired that.
He met Angus in the middle of the hall and held out his arm for a handshake. In the time since he had last seen the lad (who must have been seventeen now according to the arithmetic), he had forgotten that Angus Booth only dealt in fist bumps. He corrected himself accordingly.
‘I’m sorry about Barbara,’ Angus said. ‘Was today alright?’
‘I’ve had better days, to be honest.’
Most adults would have given a cover-up type of answer. It’s refreshing that I can be as honest with Angus as he always was with me.
Angus Booth, from six doors down. At least, six doors away during weekdays. The boy who had grown up as a pawn between two warring parents, his worth as a person measured by how well he could be used in courtroom combat. The boy who had believed himself not to have strengths, and had never known a way of expressing tricky feelings except through anger (because why would he?). The ten-year-old who Barbara had got talking to at a neighbour’s Christmas party that he had crashed out of curiosity, and decided he was worth believing in.
The boy who years later had made the effort to come to her funeral, when a lifetime of other young protégés had been unavailable, having grown up and moved to different areas of the country.
‘How have you been?’ Joseph asked. ‘It’s been a few years.’
‘Crap. But also good. You know how it is.’
‘I know how it is for me. Tell me how it is for you.’
Joseph startled himself, upon realising that a lost part of him was waking up. The side that could nurture young people of just about any background or personality. His paternal love that had never had the chance to be given to a child of his own.
‘Well I live with Charlotte now. My girlfriend. In York.’
You live in York and you made it to Durham for Barbara?
‘I always figured you’d move out sooner rather than later,’ said Joseph. ‘You always showed you’d be capable of it.’
‘I made myself capable of it. The sooner I could do it, the sooner I could do it, you know? Anyway, her parents are kind of like the parents I wish I’d had. Except you and Barbara, of course. So they’re like the silver medal parents I wish I’d had. And I’m on this carpentry apprenticeship, which is going well. They like me, for whatever reason.’
‘You look well. You’re looking happy too.’
I needed a smiling face today.
‘Yeah,’ Angus answered, ‘I hope you don’t mind that. I just think there’s no point in a sad funeral, you know? It’s not like the person you’re respecting would want you to be sad, and if they did want it then they’re not worth respecting. Barbara’d want me to remember her with smiles and stuff, so why would I disrespect her by being sad today?’
Joseph could not find an answer. After all the years he and Barbara had spent trying to persuade this child that he was a worthy and valuable person, Angus Booth had evolved into a young man with some interesting insights. He was prone to being misunderstood of course – a less understanding person would interpret that day’s insights as insensitive rather than loving – but he was as worthy and valuable as the McCormicks had always believed.
‘It’s good to see you again, Angus.’
‘You too, McCormick.’
‘Still calling me McCormick then?’
‘You should call yourself McCormick. It has more gravitas, whatever the hell gravitas is. It’s more dignified than Joseph, anyway.’
Joseph – or McCormick – looked around the hall to give it some thought. Along the way he saw at least a couple of faces looking back at him, perhaps happy to see him smiling. Barbara’s widower was surrounded by people who wanted him to be happy, but didn’t know how to help him. Polly had at least come close before she had driven back to Hertfordshire, but Angus Booth of all people turned out to be healthy company for a grieving man.
‘Chess?’ asked Angus.
‘Hm?’
‘Chess. Do you want a game?’
‘What, now?’
‘Why not? You’ve never refused a game before. I spent half my teen years escaping my house, coming to yours, getting a cup of tea from Barbara and a game of chess from you. So unless you suddenly learned how to make a decent cup of tea, why not get a chessboard? There’s one in the games cupboard – I used to come to this place for youth club before they kicked me out for being a twat.’
Joseph found himself walking alongside Angus to the games cupboard, almost under instruction.
‘It’s not exactly the done thing to play chess at a funeral.’
‘Do you care?’
McCormick laughed, for the first time since Anglesey.
‘Well when you put it that way… I guess I don’t.’
The most entertaining part was looking at the reaction of the grievers in black clothes around him, as he sat down next to the sausage rolls with a chessboard opposite a long-haired teenager in jeans who looked to be fifty percent piercings.
I wonder how many months will pass from his eighteenth birthday before the other fifty percent becomes tattoos?
Some of the onlookers were confused. Others were genuinely interested. Most were smiling. A small crowd began to gather.
The game lasted for twenty minutes. Back in Angus’ early days they had taken less than five. The longer their relationship had continued, the more Angus had learned how to control his impulses and plan ahead, and the longer their games had become. Angus had never beaten McCormick in his life, but had seemed not to mind. He had never overtly mentioned how much the games were helping him with life in general – self-control, sense of actions and consequences, taking responsibility for his mistakes – but he must have noticed the change in himself. Joseph and Barbara certainly had.
Why did I spend my career faffing about with topology? Joseph thought. I could have spent my career in a children’s home or somewhere, helping young people with their impulses and building them up to be the best they could be. Yes, I helped intelligent young adults with their doctorates, and lots of enthusiastic mathematicians became more successful in their careers. But did my work with Angus have to be reserved for my social life?
He began to daydream of a lottery win, and how he would spend his winnings on building the ‘Barbara McCormick Home for Misunderstood Youngsters’ or however it would be phrased. Even at sixty-one, surely there must have been something he could still give to the world’s Angus Booths.
But in the meantime, there was a back-rank checkmate Angus had not noticed. Or perhaps pretended not to, if he was feeling charitable that day. McCormick moved his rook to the back of the board and ended the game. The small crowd of onlookers gave a ripple of applause, then turned back to their own conversations.
‘Well played,’ Angus said.
‘You too. You’re right, I really did miss this.’
‘One last thing,’ Angus said – his way of announcing his departure as subtly as he knew how to, ‘I should probably say thank you for that thing you said in the talk.’
Is he talking about my eulogy? The talk that was about as lifeless as Barbara?
‘You were at the service?’ Joseph asked, wondering how on Earth he could have missed such a distinctive character in the church.
‘Well, sort of. Hiding at the back, you know? I hung around the exit just in case, behind that big wooden door. Hope you don’t think that was bad. Pretty sure Barbara would’ve understood.’
Joseph nodded. Not only would Barbara have been grateful for Angus’ presence: she would have been opposed to him attending on anyone else’s terms.
‘But yeah,’ Angus continued, ‘that thing about the pain of missing someone being good. How did you phrase it?’
‘The pain of missing someone is always worth it for the joy of having known them. Always.’
‘Yeah. That stuck with me. My nan died a few years ago and I still feel bad about it, you know? That helps. I’m now more glad that I knew her than sad that she’s gone. If that makes sense.’
‘It does,’ Joseph replied, his face down to the chessboard. ‘I’m glad my eulogy had an impact on someone.’
‘That’s not the only impact you had,’ said Angus. ‘That carpentry apprentice I’m on, and that career I’m about to have? You started it.’
‘Did I?’
‘Yeah. Remember the birdhouse?’
Joseph racked his numbed brain. Somewhere in there, he found a memory of an angry Angus recovering at their house one day, making a comment about how crap Barbara’s birdhouse was, and how he had jokingly suggested that Angus was welcome to fix it himself.
‘The one you…’
‘Yeah. You kept the tools in your house so Mum wouldn’t take them away as punishment for me getting angry, and I came round every time I was bored and built a bit more. It was even more crap than the one that was there before, but-’
‘But it was one that you made, and that mattered.’
Angus nodded.
‘And now here I am. On a carpentry apprenticeship because of a birdhouse you can barely even remember.’
Joseph had no idea how to respond at first. He just stood open-jawed until a couple of suitable words fell out.
‘I had no idea…’
There was a smile on Angus’ face.
‘Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?’
‘Wonder what?’
‘How many other people are out there who got life lessons from the great McCormick, were helped loads by you but didn’t get any chances to tell you. They’re probably telling stories about you all over the place. You might never know the impact you had.’
McCormick had not felt the sensation of welling tears since the numbness of mourning had set in a week earlier. He had almost forgotten how to fight against it.
‘And with that,’ said Angus, ‘I need to bugger off.’
He didn’t give his reasons, nor did McCormick ask for them. In Angus’ usual style of staying on the periphery of things – as demonstrated by his behaviour during the service – he clearly felt he had paid his respects to the best woman in the world, and was going to leave before he got too deeply involved. He stood up from the table, packing away his half of the chess pieces.
‘It was good to talk to you, Angus,’ Joseph said. ‘Really good.’
‘You too mate. Look after yourself, alright?’
Joseph nodded, but wasn’t sure how he was supposed to do so. Especially alone.
Angus headed for the door with an unusual happiness in his step. The child version of him had always moped around with slow feet and a sunken head, but apparently those days were gone. An onlooker – some former colleague of Barbara’s who had watched the chess game from a distance – tapped Angus on the shoulder on his way out.
‘Joseph taught you to play, did he?’
‘McCormick did, yeah.’
He had said it with such a casual voice as he walked out of the door, clearly without any intention for the words to stick in Joseph’s head. But they did: apparently Angus might never know the impact he had had either.
Joseph didn’t help him. McCormick did.
I’d like to become McCormick again someday.
#
Joseph scattered Barbara’s ashes a week later, across a dilapidated piece of council estate parkland where she had played as a child.
To him, it looked like a dumping ground. But Barbara had grown to love it when she was young.
It made sense. As an adult, she had grown to love most things.
Once the last of her physical form was gone from his life, Joseph returned home and lost the ability to care. He had predicted that the worst part of grieving was not going to be the funeral. The worst part of mourning Barbara was sure to be the months afterwards, once her death was gone from the headlines and Joseph remained alone anyway.
He would have been horrified to discover how quickly the loneliness had returned, had he still been able to feel horror. He just accepted that the taste was gone from his food again, and his number of days indoors were set to grow.
Months passed.
His sabbatical ended and became annual leave. His annual leave ran out and became compassionate leave. Not that Joseph had answered the phone to anyone at work. His colleagues had simply sent emails about the decisions they had made in his absence. Even Polly had called a couple of times, and been duly ignored.
One day, sat in his armchair and reading a novel that wasn’t engaging him, he took a break and thought about him and Angus. Barbara had helped and guided each of them throughout her years in the world, and it gave him some comfort that one of them had turned out alright. That child who had crashed a neighbour’s party now had a whole lifetime of achievements to look forward to, while Barbara’s husband lay at home waiting for the rest of his depressing life to happen to him.
I’ve been dutiful and dignified for the last three months and it’s got me nowhere.
Maybe duty and dignity are overrated. Maybe I should start crashing parties as if I still have six or seven decades ahead of me. Then again, I’d be dutiful and dignified there too, and keep silent…
In that moment, Joseph realised the truth. He was not suffering because of his sense of duty or his dignity. He was suffering because of his own choice to remain silent.
Barbara didn’t help Angus out of nowhere. She made a decision to be there for him because he had made the effort to actually talk about his problems. In a different world, Angus could have had a normal and boring conversation with her, and missed out on years of mentoring and guidance.
The silent ones go unnoticed. Sometimes you’ve got to crash parties to get the help you need. Angus’ self-esteem may have been in the toilet back then, but he wasn’t too proud to ask for help.
Maybe I shouldn’t be either.
From the moment that thought entered his mind, the plan changed.
He started to wait by the phone. He would not phone Polly, but rather wait for her to call him. And that was progress enough.
Two days later, as the overgrown back garden was getting dark for the evening, the call came. Joseph answered the phone, and the power to speak immediately left him.
‘…Hello?’ came Polly’s voice.
‘Hi,’ Joseph whispered back.
‘Joseph! I’m glad I’ve caught you. I was just wondering how you were doing. Are you… are you ok these days?’
It took all of his strength, but he said it.
‘No, Polly,’ he gasped, as if he were trying to drag his words back into his mouth. ‘I’m not ok.’
Polly’s response was immediate.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
Joseph thought about how Barbara had listened to Angus at the party, and had changed the course of his life. Sometimes, even older men needed to play the role of Angus and let someone else be Barbara.
It was time for Joseph McCormick to realise that his own feelings mattered too.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I want to talk.’
##
Copyright © Chris Bonnello 2020