The tomb of someone who never lived

A dark marble tomb sits high on a gloomy knoll to the west of Darksford cemetery. Its distinctive edifice, carved with skilfully crafted words, glints in the sunlight on the rarest of fine days, when the rhododendron bushes part their leafy green hands and allow the unassuming passerby to catch a glance of the monolith that waits there.

***

It was on one such day that George Godfrey, a writer of sorts and part time curator at the town’s library, was taking a purposeless meander through Darksford cemetery in search of something he knew not.

He’d woken early that morning to a blackbird rapping on his bedroom window, half an earthworm in its beak and a glint in its yellow ringed eye. Parting the brown flannel curtains of his small bedroom, George was surprised to see the sun easing its way over the eastern hills instead of the perpetual rain clouds that had so far blighted that June of 1972.

George heaved open the sticky sash window and the blackbird flew away. An overwhelming aroma of greenery, wet with the night’s rain, now touched by the new sun’s rays, and the warmth of the earth, rose to his nostrils. In the ground something stirred.

Instead of donning his brown plaid dressing gown with tassel cord, as was his usual routine, George felt an urge to dress himself promptly. He slipped into his grey slacks, over greying underwear, and eased himself into a pullover. He paused at the bathroom door, entering briefly to splash water over his face and to run a toothbrush with flattened bristles over teeth that hid behind thin, unsmiling lips.

As George passed the bedroom of his deceased parents, he stopped and regarded the rose-printed pink and beige room. He contemplated for a moment whether it might be sensible to move out of the box room where he’d slept since a boy, and into the master bedroom where there was much more space. The idea fleeted and then passed by as he drifted downstairs.

George was an only-child, academically inclined, small boned, and with a protruding upper jaw. Subsequently, childhood friends had been scarce and remained a rarity, scarcer still, into adulthood. His single companion, who he did not consider a friend, but at least would exchange words with him for more than thirty seconds, was Barbara, a timid girl with freckles who worked in the archive at the library.

George’s collection of classic board games, once played around the dining room table every Sunday evening, lay idle on top of the veneered sideboard where his fingers left a directionless trail in the dust each time he passed.

He ate a boiled egg from a blue melamine egg-cup, accompanied by white sliced soldiers, sporting a smattering of green, for it was the last remaining slice of a ten-day-old loaf of Sunblest.

As George pushed the empty bread bag into the overflowing kitchen bin, the memory of his mother packing him sardine paste sandwiches for the school trip, wrapping them in the empty bread bag, lolloped through his mind. The Tupperware flask had leaked, the sandwiches damp and squashed. He pushed the sluggish memory away and dropped his yolk smeared egg-cup and cutlery into the sink.

The only time George had visited Darksford cemetery was on the day of his parents’ funeral. The sixty-two year olds had been killed in a terrible accident involving a forklift truck and a pallet of instant coffee outside the local supermarket, and even though the couple had not been interred or scattered at the cemetery (indeed, their ashes stood in two reproduction Chinese urns on the mantelpiece), George had felt it apt, on that solitary day, to be amongst the bones and the sod of the rain soaked cemetery.

That had been eight years ago, and now as George passed through the entrance of Darksford cemetery, unsure of his purpose or destination, the gentle creaking of the heavy iron gates sounded an unsettling welcome on that unusually warm morning in late June.

With no particular objective or preferred route, George allowed his feet to take a narrow gravel path away from the tarmac roadway, wide enough to take a hearse in one direction. The gravel moved under the thin soles of his plimsolls which, like his underwear, had once been white but were now a neglected shade of grey. Along the path, creamy coloured butterflies hastened out of his way, tall grasses brushed the backs of his hands, the faint sensation of touch, quite alien to the man.

The sun shone on the back of George’s neck, pasty as uncooked dough, as he followed the gradual incline of the path towards the knoll at the western edge of the cemetery. His mind was devoid of any thought. Since being woken by the blackbird that morning, he had almost forgotten to flick the switch to allow conscious thought to assemble in his dusty mind. The clicks and ticks of purpose lay idle and George felt the oddest sensation. A yearning for something that he couldn’t define.

For all intents and purposes, the life that George Godfrey led was acceptable. As an only child, he had inherited well. There was more than sufficient money in the bank and his part-time job at the library covered the bills. It also allowed him time to pursue his writing activities. His handwritten textbooks formed an unsteady pile over five feet high in the corner of his bedroom. Their contents had never been seen by anyone, and probably never would be. But this was enough for George and he never questioned his life but simply existed his way along its path.

As George reached the top of the knoll, perspiration forming damp patches under his pullover, he was greeted by a softly scented breeze. It touched his lank, greasy mouse-brown hair, lifting it from his forehead. It played with the fine hairs on his ears and beckoned him closer. The rhododendrons had flowered late that year and George’s eyes were filled with their vibrant blossoms of cerise and red. As he gazed at the festival of colour and shuddered slightly at the breeze's gentle touch, he noticed a parting within the dark green of the bushes. He hesitated a moment before stepping forward, pushing the branches to the side as he stepped through the blooms and the shiny dark leaves.

George emerged onto a small grassed area surrounded by the greens, pinks and reds of the bushes. The grass was soft underfoot, cushioning his footsteps and accustoming himself to this new place, his eyes caught the glint of the sun, sparkling off the black and silvered marble of a great tombstone nestled within the rhododendrons. As George made his way closer to the great sentinel, he made out the gold lettering, in a beautiful gothic font, ‘The tomb of someone who never lived’. And that was all. No dates, no names.

George traced his fingers down the cool marble, another unnameable sensation flickered over him. A sudden weariness overcame him, so he settled down to lie facing the foot of the great stone, in the lush blades of verdant green grass. George pushed off his plimsolls and peeled his socks from his feet. Before he knew anything about it, George was dozing in a peaceful slumber.

***

George felt the grass cool and wet beneath his soles as he stirred awake. Adjusting his eyes, the tomb seemed to loom larger than before. A woman stood beside it, one hand resting on the shining marble. Her long black skirt brushed the grass beneath her bare feet and her shirt burned yellow in the sunlight.

George sat up, feeling the damp cling to his trousers. The woman watched him. He thought she might smile, but her lips only curved into a question.

“Why do you sleep here?” she asked.

George blinked, rubbing his bare feet against the earth. “I don’t know,” he said. And for some reason, he thought of his empty house, his solitary boiled egg, the dust on the games no one played. “I suppose I was tired.”

The woman turned, tracing the carved words on the tomb. “You’re sleeping for them,” she said. “They who never lived.”

George shivered. “Who does the tomb belong to?”

“You know,” she said, her amber eyes glinting, “or you wouldn’t be here.”

She stepped aside, and he saw a door set into the tomb’s side. It was slightly open - ‘Why didn't I notice that before?’ A thin light seeped out.

The woman invited him closer. “Do you want to see?” she asked.

Her hand lingered on the tomb’s edge, her fingers tracing the dark marble as if drawing energy through her touch. George pushed himself upright, wincing as his bare soles pressed into the damp earth. The grass clung to his feet in green ribbons, anchoring him to the living world as the tomb compelled him forward.

He hesitated at the threshold where shadows met sunlight. The stone slab door eased open like a wardrobe in a child’s fairy-story. From inside, a thin, golden light flickered.

“Are there bodies in here?” George asked, feeling foolish at the question.

The woman’s mouth twitched, almost a smile. “No bodies,” she said, stepping closer to him, so close he caught the faint smell of something warm and unfamiliar. Something that reminded him of a sunlit kitchen he’d never stood in.

“It’s a resting place,” she said, “for what you buried before you ever lived it.”

George looked past her shoulder, into the warm glow. In the shifting light he thought he saw a hallway, a flicker of wallpaper, a shape of a woman at the front door. A room filled with laughter. Or maybe it was just the breeze moving through the crack in the marble.

He wanted to step back, but his heels pressed into the grass, and the earth seemed to hold him fast.

“What happens if I go in?” George asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

The woman tilted her head, her dark hair slipping over her cheek. She did not answer. Instead, she raised one hand and laid it gently on his chest, right over the hollow ache that George had suddenly noticed beneath his ribs.

“You can’t take it with you,” she said softly, “but you can see it and feel it. And then...”

George’s breath caught in his throat. He thought of Barbara, of the empty seat across from him at the dining table, the clatter of dice that never fell. His mother’s rose-print curtains. The unread words that filled his books.

He leaned forward, peering into the tomb. The woman stepped aside, her skirt brushing his bare ankle sending more unfamiliar ripples through George’s body.

Inside, the glow deepened. Shapes gathered, meandering, shifting. George saw a kitchen table laid for two. A birthday cake ablaze with candles. A pair of shoes left neatly by a double bed. Typed words filling a page. He reached out a hand. The warmth of the light danced around his fingers.

For a heartbeat, George felt weightless. His knees buckled at the unfamiliar sensation and he steadied himself on the cold edge of the stone.

Behind him, the woman’s voice drifted from outside the marble door. “Be careful. If you stay too long the whole thing will dissolve back to where you never thought of it. Somewhere you’ll never find it again.”

The moment fleeted past and George suddenly felt a sense of something, and realising where he was and the potential folly of the situation, he turned back towards the opening. The slant of light from the outside was narrowing. He looked back at the table, the game, the shoes, a nagging hopelessness, a feeling of complete bereavement washed over him. George held his hands to his face as tears formed, welling and threatening to spill over his burning cheeks. The door shifted. George, caught between a dawning reality of great loss and deprivation, and the golden hued images before him, pulled a crumpled handkerchief from his pocket and rubbed his face.

The memory of his mother standing at the ironing board whilst his father read the newspaper. The pile of handkerchiefs neatly pressed. ‘But I can’t hold that time and place forever…’

George lifted a foot from the cold floor of the tomb, and then the other, and then with a sudden sense of purpose and grief and confusion, he pushed his way back through the gap in the doorway, out into the June sunlight.

George stumbled out of the tomb’s shadow into the warmth of the sun. He turned back, expecting the woman to be there, but she was gone. Only the rhododendrons remained, stirring gently in the breeze. Bright blossoms and the hush of the cemetery.

George looked down at his feet, grass-flecked and damp. Something brushed over them, something else he couldn’t name and for the first time in years, George felt the pang of hunger, not for sustenance, but for the kind of life he never believed he could have.

He glanced back at the tomb. The door was gone with only the cold black stone, its gold letters catching the sun. George read the words aloud. ‘The tomb of someone who never lived.’ and then pulled on his socks and plimsolls. He stood for a moment longer, listening to the wind and the distant trill of a blackbird.

***

When George, cleanly showered and shaved, arrived at the library for work the next morning, Barbara was behind the counter, sorting through a stack of returns, instead of hidden away in the archive where she was usually to be found. Her hair was pinned up haphazardly, a pencil stuck through the bun. She looked up when she heard George shuffle in and offered a quiet smile. George smiled back. Not just a polite curl of the lips, but something that broke the mask he’d worn for years.

“Morning, George,” she said, adjusting her glasses. “You’re early.”

George cleared his throat, an anxious wave threatened, but he pushed it aside. “I woke up early,” he said, and then added out of the blue, “I was wondering... do you play board games?”

Barbara blinked, her face brightening. “I love board games. I’ve got lots of old ones at home.” Her cheeks flushed. “My dad taught me to play chess when I was seven.”

George’s heart stuttered. He’d never felt it beat in this odd way. “I’ve got a few old ones myself,” he stammered. Then composing himself. “They’re gathering dust. Maybe...” He faltered. “Maybe… we could play sometime?”

Barbara pushed a stray hair behind her ear, her cheeks rosy pink. “I’d like that,” she said.

***

In the weeks that followed, Sunday evenings no longer belonged to dim memories of the past but to a growing warmth. George had found yellow dusters in the cupboard under the stairs and wiped the years of emptiness from the top of the sideboard. Barbara called by with an old battered Monopoly set and a flask of coffee that tasted better than any instant George had ever made. They sat at the dining table, dice clattering across the polished wood, the walls listening to laughter that they hadn’t heard in years.

Barbara noticed the stacks of books that teetered in George’s box room. One rainy Thursday, when they were looking for an old chess board, she lifted one of the handwritten exercise books and asked George if she might read his work.

Initially, he baulked at the thought, but it was only for seconds and then he caught himself. The memory of the tomb, the warm light and how empty it had made him feel. So he nodded.

Barbara read a few pages aloud, her voice alive, her praise genuine. George sat opposite her on the old bedroom carpet, his feet tucked under him, listening to his own words made real by the soft warm mouth of someone else.

It was Barbara who first suggested he move into the master bedroom.

“Why do you sleep in that little box room?” she asked one evening, standing in the doorway of the rose-printed room. “This is lovely. It feels like a real bedroom.”

George ran his fingers over the faded wallpaper. “I suppose it is,” he said. And that night, they stripped the old sheets, aired the heavy curtains, and dusted the furniture.

The next morning when George woke in the room where his parents had slept for over forty years, the blackbird was there again at the window, tapping at the glass. George sat up, Barbara curled beside him, her breathing soft. He walked over to the window and watched the sun climb the hills, just as it had that morning in June, except now it felt different. He was different.

***

George’s books didn’t stay stacked and yellowing in a corner. Barbara typed them up on her typewriter, sending them to various publishers. One day, a small publisher from Bristol telephoned. They said George’s stories were bold and unique - and they wanted to print them.

George and Barbara would play Cluedo, Monopoly, Scrabble and other favourite games. Sometimes they argued - about illegal chess moves or the spelling of a word. But the house never felt empty again and neither did George.

Sometimes, on warm mornings when the sun was rising, George would think of the tomb on the knoll and the woman with amber eyes and blazing yellow shirt. He would stand at the bedroom window, a cup of coffee in hand, watching Barbara read one of his books, her hair spilled across the pillow, her foot poking out from under the quilt in that way he loved so much.

And the tomb on the knoll stayed just where it was, holding its secrets in the dark, while George stood in the sunlight, finally living.