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There is a hole in the roof.
There is perhaps more than one hole in the roof but this one is large, large enough that John can look up at the sky and see the stars. They stand out very clearly, each little pin prick diamond glittering in the blue-black sky. It must be a cold night for them to be so bright and clear.
But John does not feel cold.
He remembers feeling it. He remembers that once, cold ate into his flesh, dug into his bones, crawled into his mind and slowed his brain. He remembers that the cold was so cold that it became hot, his fingers bloodied and blackened.
But that was then. This is now. And John does not feel cold.
In the other room, he hears someone screaming. Another voice hushing the screams, then muffling the following sobs. John wonders if he ought to do something but he does not know what. He continues to watch the stars and wonders just how this has come about and if he cares that it has.
*
The next day, Edward and George attempt to fix the hole.
John watches them from under a tree. George is holding the ladder while Edward climbs it. Once he is up there, he carefully puts down the tools and comes back down for the wood.
“Are you sure you don't want me to go up?” George asks. “I think I could do it, you know. Or perhaps we should fix it inside first. Is that how you do it? Or … or no, no, I'm … I know that you know best. Sorry. You go up.”
John tilts his head a little, watching. That's not right. That's not how George is supposed to be. He remembers George. George is chatty, confident, merry, filled with happy belief. Him suddenly trailing off, twisting his fingers, that is not right. That is not George.
Edward seems to know that too. He pats George's shoulder for a moment, squeezes it, smiles at him. Then he climbs up again, the wood carefully balanced, while George holds the ladder. Is there something wrong about this too? Were they always the type of men that fixed things? John has an idea … an idea … but it is like smoke. So hard to grasp. He knows that he used to be quicker than this. But now his brain is different. He isn't very worried about it. He isn't very worried about much. It is as though everything is dampened by a fog that he cannot see out of.
George is worried. He keeps calling nervously up to Edward, telling him to be careful, not to lean, not to do anything foolish, that George will do it if Edward needs him. Edward mostly doesn't answer but when he does, his voice is quite calm. He hammers and hammers and swears very loudly when he hits part of his hand, which makes George cringe. When Edward climbs down the ladder again, George starts fussing, peering at his hand, babbling about doctors and treatments and anything that Edward needs, anything -
“George. It's just a bruise. It's nothing, George. It's nothing.”
George abruptly starts to cry; tiny, shuddering little sobs. Edward pulls him into a rough embrace, strokes his back. John continues to watch. He does not remember ever seeing George cry before. It is unnerving. Something deeply wrong with it.
But what isn't deeply wrong with the universe now?
*
He died.
He knows that he died. He remembers it. Remembers Hickey, stabbing and stabbing him. Remembers the rocks on his back, remembers the blue sky turning grey, then black as his life bled away. He remembers being surprised by this, bewildered that such a thing could have happened to him.
After that, he remembers nothing, except a vague idea that somewhere, time was passing. That something was changing somewhere but that it did not concern him. He was not unhappy or afraid or lonely, he was simply somewhere. Until the voice called to him, over and over again and then there was a hand on his arm, pulling and the hand was hot, hot like fire, pulling him out of nothing and into something again.
The hand had been Edward's. The voice had been George's. They had come for him. They had called him back from death itself because they could not bear that they had survived and he had not.
John has an idea that the self before his death would have been angry. That it was some sort of terrible crime against him, against God and Heaven. That he ought to feel all sorts of things.
But he does not seem to feel any of them at all. He was dead. He is now alive, at least in some fashion. And Edward and George wanted him so much that they did something, some shocking thing that returned him to the world and John does not understand it except to know that in some way, he is not the John Irving that left.
He does not know who he is now.
*
“John? Will … will you eat this?”
It is morning. John looks at the food that Edward is offering him. It is bread, bread and butter and some sort of red smear that is perhaps meant to be appetizing. He takes the plate slowly, stares at it. He ought to eat it, he knows that. Food is important. He remembers being hungry. Being so hungry that his stomach felt like it was eating itself. But now he cannot seem to understand it. His stomach doesn't ache for this. In fact, it seems mildly repelled.
Edward looks worried. That is something John remembers clearly, Edward's worry. Once, he was not so worried. He was merry, happy, excited about the voyage they were undertaking. Happy about the adventure. The happiness had faded in all of them, faded into cold and grief and fear but it had faded in Edward the most. By the end, almost nothing had made him smile, not even George.
“I will eat it,” he says and slowly takes a bite out of the textureless lump, chews it, swallows it. He tastes nothing. He feels nothing. But Edward's lips crack into a smile and John is able to smile too and he finishes the bread with no complaint.
*
George is painting the walls.
He seems quite excited about this, singing snatches of songs to himself, looking at the different paints, talking aloud about colour and pattern and little ideas of visages. John is not quite sure that these are important things when you are painting a wall. The walls he remembers were mostly white and dull and paintings hung on them rather than being on them. But George seems happy and John finds that he likes seeing George happy, just as much as he likes seeing Edward smile. He dips his own fingers into the paint, lets it run down his hands. He liked painting, he thinks. Before his death. A lot of before his death is oddly vague or does not make sense but he is sure that he used to paint.
The paint he remembers was thin. This paint is thick. He swirls it gently on the floor, watching a pattern develop. Circle into spiral, spiral into curves. There is something pleasant about it and John dips his fingers into the paint again to continue his play.
“John? What … um, what are you doing?”
George. He is staring at John and John looks back, not sure what answer he ought to give.
“Painting,” he says.
“Oh. Well. That's good. It looks nice. We don't often paint on the floor, you know. Do … do you know?”
John just looks at him. A part of him supposes that he ought to reassure George. He does know, he thinks. It does not seem as though there have ever been beautiful patterned floors with swirls and twists on them in any of his memories. But he does not quite see why.
“You … you can keep doing it, if you want,” George says. “This is our house, you know. Our little space. Edward found it and he and I bought it together. Neither of us are exactly rich, not really, not after … well, anyway. That's why it's so battered right now. But we're fixing it up. I'm going to get some of my things sent soon and so will Edward. We … we wanted to be sure that you were feeling a bit better first.”
John nods to show he understands, then licks the remaining paint off his fingers absently in order to clean them. George stares at him as though he has grown an extra head for a moment, then slowly turns back and begins painting again.
This time, he is no longer singing.
*
John finds he misses the hole.
He liked being able to see the stars. They were pretty. He supposes that they might be distracting him from sleeping, which is important, but they were pretty. He wonders if it would be all right to paint on the ceiling. Little dib dabs of paint all over. He does not remember seeing any in his past but then, he's not sure he remembers looking at any ceilings at all in his past. There was too much else to do.
So far, Edward and George have not asked him to do anything except eat and sit and sleep. John wonders if he is able to do anything more. Being dead has changed him, he can see this, even if what has changed is sometimes too hard to grasp. But he doesn't think that he is helpless. Perhaps one day, he'll return to being what he used to be.
He wonders how he feels about that. Good? Bad? How should feel about it? Was life always this confusing? Perhaps it does. He seems to remember being confused, being sad, being frustrated. He isn't quite sure why. Still. Perhaps it will make sense. Perhaps he can ask Edward and George. They must know. He remembers them as being smart. George with all his facts and ideas. Edward's knowledge of the world. They could talk for hours sometimes. He used to love to listen to them.
Warmth. Warmth, flickering through him. It is gone almost the moment it appeared but he felt it, he felt it. All the way through him.
Edward and George. George and Edward.
Warmth.
*
“Do you think you could help me clean?” Edward asks.
John considers the question. His past self liked cleaning things. He remembers that. Or liked them clean. Is it the same?
“Yes,” he says. “Of course.”
It does not win him one of those special smiles but he sees a twinkle in Edward's eye, a twinkle he thinks is pleasure. He follows, takes the brush he is given, helps scrub the floor. There is something pleasant in the action. Back and forth, watching the water, watching the filth vanish away because of him. He traces a spiral in the drying water, smiles at it. It is like his patterns in the paint, only it fades away.
“You used to paint.” Edward's voice is quiet. “Do you remember? We … George wasn't sure if you remembered.”
“Why wouldn't I remember?” he asks and Edward hunches his shoulders, looks away.
“We're not … sure. We've never … I mean … you don't … seem yourself.”
John wonders what that means. What self ought he be? He cannot think of how he ought to be. More like the self before? Ought he try to be that person? But there seems to be such a separation between then and now. Such a long, sprawling darkness.
“We're not sorry we have you,” Edward says, voice quick, anxious. “We're, we're not sorry we … but are you sorry? Do … you … we'll listen if you want to talk.”
John doesn't know what to say. Does he want to talk? What is he supposed to talk about? It is all so confusing, so strange. But Edward wants to help him, that is clear, Edward cares about him and that brings back that fleeting, pleasant warmth again.
“I'm not sorry,” he says and smiles and to his delight, Edward smiles back.
*
He helps George hang the curtains.
They are a strange mix of fabrics and shapes. John is fairly sure that they shouldn't look like this but he thinks that it doesn't matter very much. They are bright and pretty and George seems pleased with them and even more pleased when he and John manage to get them up.
“I've never done it before but I think it's worked, don't you? Goodness, my arms are sore. Are yours?”
John considers. He doesn't think they're sore. That probably means that they aren't. You feel pain, don't you?
“It's fine,” he says.
“You were always stronger than me,” George says, sounding cheerful. “All that climbing! Perhaps … perhaps when … it may not be as good as a mast but there's some lovely trees round here. I was good at it as a boy you know. More cowardly now but … but we could do it together, couldn't we?”
His voice is hopeful. John imagines being up in a tree, the wind in his face, everything green, with George somewhere nearby.
He finds that he is smiling. George beams at him, his face sun-bright with joy and John wonders why it was that he ever shied away from such happiness when it was so easily offered. He did, he knows that. Knows that he feared so much. But then, before, he had never died. What more could he lose?
*
Thinking about it, he knows he has lost a lot of things.
His family. They believe him dead, he can never see them without revealing he is not and he knows that cannot happen. His career. He can never return to the navy, will always been known as Third Lieutenant John Irving and nothing more. Even his name will doubtless be lost to him in time. Edward and George call him “John” but can he really still be “Irving”? He doubts it. And he has lost something of his past. Not the memories – at least, not that he can tell – but the understanding of them, perhaps. The continuity. Those memories are of a man that was him but the link between then and now is hazy and strange. He does not think that he can ever bring them back together. The separation will always be there. That might matter, or it might not, he isn't sure. Perhaps when this self has been a little longer, has expanded more, he'll be able to know that. There might be an answer.
There are smaller things too. He watches George and Edward eat with enthusiasm, supposes that once, he found pleasure in food. Now it is a necessity, tastes of very little, is not interesting. He knows there are things that he is doing wrong – or at least, things that he is not doing the same way as others do. Things he should know or should not know. His mind seems different to the way it once was and he doesn't know if it will ever change to what it was.
But then, Edward and George seem to have lost a lot of things too. He has worked out that it is George who screams at night, Edward who comforts him. George, who once casually said that he never had nightmares, indeed, hardly dreamed at all. Sometimes, when he smiles, John notices gaps where there used to be teeth. Edward's cheeks and lips and eyebrows are scarred, strange little pock scars that John does not remember and has not asked about. Sometimes, he goes rigid, as though he can hear something that they cannot and often, George simply guides him to a chair and leaves him alone until he comes out of it. They are both here, making this house their own. Neither has mentioned their families or friends. Neither has mentioned their own careers in the navy.
You do not have to die to lose your life.
*
George takes him tree climbing.
It is beautiful. John cannot explain it, he does not try. He just lets his heart soar as his hands find places to grip. He swings from branches, laughing, then climbs himself up as far as he can go, hooking his arm around the trunk and staring out over the woods. George is more careful but he laughs too, obviously delighted by John's joy. He does not come quite as high but sits comfortably aside a branch and looks up at John, his cheeks pink, eyes bright. John wonders if he can find words to explain how happy he is and decides he cannot. Instead, he just smiles, looks at the sky, listens to the birds and lets the beauty of the world soak into him.
When they climb down and return to the cottage, Edward scolds them for damaging their clothes and getting dirty. John finds himself glancing at George like a naughty schoolboy and neither can hide their smiles. Edward throws his hands in the air and tells them they can sew up any tears and wash everything themselves because he certainly won't be helping!
“Shall we take you with us next time, dearest?” George asks, throwing an arm over Edward's shoulder. “We found a most mighty oak, the type that could hide a prince, you know!”
“I've got better things to do than climb trees and tell romantic stories,” Edward says haughtily but as John watches, he sees him lean into George's embrace, bringing their heads close together for a moment and he knows that they are forgiven.
*
He is fairly sure that Edward and George are lovers.
He does not know. He does not want to ask. But he is fairly sure all the same.
It is strange how it doesn't bother him. He remembers all too clearly the horror and agonies that it bought him in his old life. Dark desires that ran deep within him, that had to be ignored and prayed away.
(he has not prayed since he was bought back. Another loss, perhaps, and yet it does not feel so. For God to allow him to be returned, that tells him that there is something important for him to do here. He has been blessed and though he doesn't understand it at all, it does not make him feel unhappy. God is with him. God is with them all. One day, His design will be known to them.)
Edward and George never seemed quite so perturbed as him. Edward had once spoken quite lightly of the choices of men on a ship and how sometimes, a man ought to turn his eyes away. George had always been filled with an ease around all people, an ease that was often physical. John remembers shying away from it sometimes, not wanting to be touched, not wanting to be tempted. Now, he longs for it. George's solidness makes him feel more tethered to the world, closer to reality. Sometimes, when George slings an arm around his shoulders, he feels almost like that old self that Edward and George longed for so much that they were willing to risk their souls for.
He hopes they have not been disappointed by what they have received.
*
Their home is beginning to look a true home.
Eccentric, certainly. Parts of it are still rickety George painted their front door yellow, except that he did not leave it to dry for long enough and now, Edward's hand print is immortalised on one side. The curtains are all shapes and sizes and some hang crookedly, no matter what they try to do to fix them up. John's marks are still on the floor, a little smudged but quite clear.
And yet, yet John feels the home of it. He can see that things need doing, even imagine them now, know how they will look when completed. He has polished up their kitchen floor, enjoys the way it shines. He has examined the stove and has a feeling that he could perhaps cook something on it with some confidence. He has helped Edward plant some vegetables, listened to George chatter about getting ducks.
“Why not chickens?” Edward asks.
“I don't like chickens. Nasty, pecky creatures. Now ducks, ducks are lovely. We'd need to dig a little pond, of course but I'm pretty sure that I can manage that. Perhaps we could get them at the same time as the rabbits. I'm looking forward to those too.”
“They're for food, not pets,” Edward says and George waves a hand, as though this is a mere detail. He has names planned for the rabbits and for the ducks that they haven't even agreed to get. Edward and John listen patiently to his happy chatter and exchange looks of amusement sometimes. It feels warm and gentle and home.
*
One morning, he comes downstairs and finds Edward and George kissing in the kitchen.
They don't notice John. They are too wrapped up in their kiss. Edward is stroking George's back with both hands and George's hands are on Edward's shoulders. It is soft and tender and John leans gently against the door frame and watches them, wondering why he was once so afraid of something so lovely.
He isn't sure which of them sees him first, but suddenly they spring apart like startled cats, staring at him with pale, shocked faces and John knows they're afraid that he will hate them for it.
“Can we go tree climbing together today?” he asks.
There is something a little funny about their totally bewildered faces.
*
They climb the oak.
Edward refuses to climb as high as him and George. He finds a study nook and stays in it, muttering audibly about idiots who are going to fall and die. John gets to his uppermost spot. The sky is blue today, all blue with only a few scudding little clouds in the distance. He wonders if he could paint a ceiling like this, catch this colour perfectly, make a sky in a house. He could never match the airy beauty of reality but perhaps, perhaps he could make something that would be lovely enough.
“I don't mind, you know,” he says. “I don't mind about any of it. I'm happy to be back. I'm happy to … to see you happy. You're in love. You're in love and I like it. Don't think that I don't like it.”
He isn't sure that it is a very eloquent. He feels that there must be a better way. But then, he was never very eloquent. Both his past self and this self, they both stumbled over words when they wanted to speak of important things.
He is still him.
“You know that we love you, don't you?” George's voice is soft, but clear. “You know that, John? That both of us … that we were incomplete without you. We would always have been incomplete without you.”
John wonders if he means that physically or in all the other ways. He decides he doesn't want to ask. He wants to find out. He wants to live each day as it comes, experiencing each different sky, each different movement. He wants to grow with Edward and George, he wants to take each step with them until he knows everything that he should be and everything they should be. His heart is full of love for them and their little home and every little animal they will acquire. Every flaw and oddity and crack in the roof is what makes it theirs.
“I love you both too,” Edward says, his voice calm. “Can we get out of the tree now, please?”
George laughs so hard that John worries he might fall out. He watches Edward and George climb down before climbing down himself. He watches George dust leaves out of Edward's hair, then submits to having leaves dusted from his own.
“Let's go home,” he says.
Home. Their space, their little world within the world. He will paint his skies on the ceilings. He will paint stars and birds and create in ways he never could have done the first time around.
He has a second chance. They all have a second chance. And together, John knows, they will make the most of it.