Grey Suit Black Tie

Scene

We sat in the car and waited with our hands over our heads as they lowered the casket. Hers were raised in black gloves tracing up to bare shoulders, I assume, to block the east morning sun shining in through the windows of the black sedan, or from a pair of eyes on the hill that in no way could reach us.  My hands were raised to the ceiling, at which our driver turned inward and scowled as I yawned and slid down into the warming dark leather. I said it was my first time in a cab. I got another flinch from the driver. This isn’t a cab, she said, without looking away from the procession.  We have Norman down for the weekend. I looked around in the cabin. Initially, it was everything I imagined from a London taxicab but now I was seeing the detail that would never come standard; silver lined trim in the corners, the drivers perfectly pressed suit. St. Martin warned me of the deep seat pockets that I currently settled into, the running of the engine away with your wallet. I was relieved. We couldn’t have taken a cab? She raised her voice just slightly, assertive. We’ve driven out far from the city; would you know how dangerous that is? Not knowing your driver? We had traveled twenty miles west out of London, me in charcoal suit and thin tie and hair I tried to flatten in the back, and her in black dress and gloves that I didn’t see until the car heated and she shed the coat wrapped around her. She blacked out part of the window which made the sun brighter, warmer than the seat cushions or the window that caught her breath and held to it for a moment and then let it shrink into the slightest line of moisture. It was her thin frame that came out of the blur, the shoulders you could see from under the coat that shagged up around the edges. Her eyes were not the same that looked up at me from under sheets in the blues of the curtained morning but were now focused, blinking with the visible wind hanging on the tips of men’s coats and the wisps of hair not held down by pins or hats of those standing firm up on the hill. This was where the clouds ended; they played as the roof to my temporary home, holding on to rain, or the threat of rain though fall’s haunt.

I adjusted in my chair to see her face and heard the rustle of pages under me. The shine of a wrist watch, black band and pearl face looked up at me. One strap held the place of pages I bent in my adjustments. I thumbed through the manual, removing the watch and placing it on my thigh and read the marked section to myself, tracing the black stamped words on the sun, and coffee, soaked pages. She slid in, still keeping her face inches from the glass, a foot from the curb and the yards of grass that opened up the hill. The open soil must have felt too unpredictable, as it did to me, opposed to the paved corners at the edge of each building in the cities center. Even the queen’s combed yards and open parks looked to be controlled by the will of the people. Now we sat at the base of foreign land; these faces were not the faces of friends, at best, the faces of strangers all gathered in varying levels of despair. But she refused to flinch at the dust flit from the open grave, as the priest, trying to look unmoved. We heard muffled song sync with the humming of the engine. These gospel songs are more for your country. I only know them from films. She said she wanted to go before it ended but the heat catching our necks and the hum kept her back; that, and the grip on my hand. I let the manual fall to the floorboard, slid the watch off of my leg and into my coat pocket, intent to give it to the driver before he turned around to return to Leeds. His band was navy with gold set, too similar to the one I twisted and turned in my pocket, rolling it over onto itself to the sound of the engine hum.  Assumed he would return it to Mr. Judge or an associate of his and Christmas dinner would be a perfect time to discuss its origin.

The gathered around the body were small in number; two young boys with knit caps covering up their shags of hair, their mother with a hand on each of their shoulders, some distraught family members and family friends, along with a boy whose eyes were covered. He stood nonthreatening in his suit, one hand attached to his pocket, the other like a sea captain lifted to his fringe. He cupped his brow the same as she, instead of looking up and out, down into the casket. He stood solemn, not shaking as if shielding the tears, and away from the rest of the gatherers, just enough to know he’d come alone. Louise said it wouldn’t be reverent if he tried to speak with her. She didn’t want a scene. She couldn’t imagine why he had shown or how he was able. You would expect him in lockdown. But I could imagine why he’d risk a scene on that hill as her hair’s brown ribbons fallen slightly from her pulled up streams; the white of her neck illuminated by the prism split through the car glass, the lips, hr doe eyes that didn’t wince from the light, never hidden behind frames; worshipping Audrey but never completing her most iconic look. I imagined he lost himself in the war and was put in Her Majesty’s Prison, Belmarsh. I spilled rumors of riots he set to motion, three million pounds in damages, which led Beth to change the places name to her own, as if she locked the inmates in herself and started laying bricks to keep them all together. I wondered how he would have escaped, or perhaps been let free. I thought he must be standing over his mother.