Chapter Text
”Shall we go for a walk in the woods?” Daddy asks.
“Yes, Daddy. I’d love to,” Sherlock answers.
“Come on then.”
Together they walk down the gardens. They cross the big clover field and wave at John who’s busy near the apiary. Daddy opens the gate that’s set in the wall just at the end of the orchard and they enter the wood. A profusion of bluebells stretches away in front of them, greatly outnumbering the quantities flowering in the park. A gentle wind stirs the tender green canopy of the beech trees, sending waves of a lighter blue rippling over the flowers. The floor of the forest transforms before their eyes into a calmly undulating sea flowing around the poles of a pier built for giants. The red flash of a squirrel shoots up the bark of a tree to their right. Sherlock’s ears detect the scuttling of small animals beneath the floral carpet. Above the flowers silence reigns absolute, as if a great glassy dome has been blown over the forest to shelter it from the rest of the world.
Daddy chooses the path straight ahead that leads to the hidden glade. Sherlock holds his hand.
“If we’re very quiet we might see a deer,” Daddy whispers, squeezing Sherlock’s hand. Daddy’s hand is dry and warm around Sherlock’s. Sherlock nods in acknowledgement of Daddy’s remark. He daren’t utter his consent for fear the pitch of his voice will shatter the glass wall protecting the forest.
In the glade a stag is standing, a proud adult with great antlers. It hasn’t heard them and can’t smell them as they’re downwind from the animal. They stand hidden behind a tree to observe him, the sweet smell from the disturbed bluebells almost overpowering. The stag grazes languidly, raising its head from time to time to with twitching ears to check whether there’s any reason for alarm.
“He’s beautiful,” Sherlock finds himself whispering. He claps his hand in front of his mouth for he has spoken. But the quiet scene before him remains, his hand is still warm and safe inside Daddy’s, the great trees still rise around him from their bright blue bed. He breathes in relief.
Suddenly the stag jerks up its head, ears turning and twisting nervously. The head swivels and its gone with a few high leaps. Daddy stares after it.
“What was that,” he says. “Why did the beast …”
He doesn’t finish the sentence. A look of fear flares up in his eyes and leaks out, dripping slowly over his face, conquering and twisting his features into a mask of anxiety.
“Run, Sherlock!” he shouts and Sherlock hardly recognises Daddy’s voice for the dulcet dark tones are wrenched into a high pitch of acute fright. Sherlock is swept up in Daddy’s arms and Daddy starts running, his long legs leaping across the ground in an imitation of the stag’s graceful arches. Until now Sherlock didn’t know Daddy could run so fast but he darts along the path at an impossible speed, clutching Sherlock close against his chest, unhampered by Sherlock’s weight. The tendons in his long neck are stretched taut around his furiously working throat.
Over Daddy’s shoulder Sherlock can see the sky behind them has been shrouded over with the cloak of a night that’s darker than the black velvet of the curtains in Daddy’s study. No star, no ray of moonlight to ease the deep, dank dusk. A foul smell wafts up from the forest floor as the bluebells are disturbed by Daddy’s running feet and upon looking down Sherlock finds they’ve been painted black and the bells are snapping at Daddy’s ankles, some of them managing to tear at the tweed of his trousers.
He clutches his arms tighter around Daddy’s neck and buries his head in Daddy’s shoulder so he doesn’t have to look. Next to his ear he can hear Daddy panting with the effort of running while holding Sherlock in his arms but Daddy is big and strong and fast and he can run like this for hours. He will run out of the forest, through the gate and safely back home again.
The screech, when it comes, chills every nerve in his body.
“God, please, no,” Daddy cries. “Don’t look, Sherlock.”
He looks. Now he sees the blackness isn’t simply caused by a sudden absence of light. It’s a mass, a great dark heaving mass of black birds flying in neatly packed rows, effectively blocking the passage of the rays of the sun. His ears are pierced by the shrill shrieks that rent the air asunder.
He watches in fascinated horror. One of the birds accelerates and heads away from the others. It sweeps down with all the determined deliberation of a bird of prey closing in for the kill, long-clawed talons stretched away from the body. It falls down upon them with increasing speed. As the beast nears them, the individual aspects of the head start revealing themselves and Sherlock recognises the bird’s features as his mother’s. Its beak is drawn apart in a ghastly mockery of a smile.
“Hello, darling,” the harpy breathes. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”
Sherlock ducks his head to hide behind Daddy’s shoulder. He finds he is swung down on the ground.
“Safe,” Daddy says. “Come on, Sherlock.”
A sleek black car stands solidly waiting to shelter them. Daddy smiles down on Sherlock while his hand reaches for the car’s door handle.
***
“Daddy, Daddy!”
“Sherlock, wake up boy! Hey, Sherlock.” His shoulder is shaken forcefully. Upon opening his eyes he immediately screws them shut against the sharp light hitting his pupils, catching a glimpse of John’s anxious face hovering next to him.
“Sherlock, come on.” John’s hand paws at his upper arm.
“The light,” he manages.
“Oh, all right. I’ll lower it, but you had a nightmare just now,” John’s voice moves away from the bed and comes back again a few seconds later. “Here, you’d better drink some water.”
Sherlock sits up and extends his hand to accept the glass. He glances around him.
A surge of wonder at John’s presence in his bedroom fleets through him while he gulps down some liquid.
He looks up at John as he hands the glass back at him. John’s eyes are puffy and bloodshot, his ginger lashes clinging and wet. Now Sherlock remembers. He doesn’t have to close his eyes to relive his dream because he’s watched the end over and over again in Daddy’s study. He kept pushing the knobs on the remote to rewind the tape and start it anew.
“Do you think you’ll be able to sleep again?” John asks. “Mr Talbot said you could have half a pill if you want to.”
“Have you been sleeping, John?”
“Yes, I believe I have, a little. Until your screaming woke me. It must have been a very bad dream.” He nestles Sherlock’s right hand between his callused palms. “Your hand is cold. Should I find you another blanket? Where does Nanny keep those for you?”
“You’ve been crying,” Sherlock says.
“Yes, I have.”
“Why? Mr Talbot hasn’t cried. And you’re not a woman like cook or Nanny or Mummy.”
“Well, everybody is different. Maybe I cry more easily than most other men.”
“Are you sad Daddy is dead?”
“Yes, of course Sherlock. Your Daddy …” John’s voice falls away. The red colour of his eyes intensifies and fresh tears start rolling down his cheeks. He drops Sherlock’s hand so he can bury his face in his hands, pushing the heels of his palms against his eye sockets. “I’m sorry, Sherlock, I’m sorry.”
Sherlock says nothing; he traces the invisible lines of the Plough between the stars showered over the fabric of his pyjamas. John’s shoulders heave with the effort to stop his crying. He sniffles and gulps deeply several times before dropping his hands away from his face. “I’m sorry,” he repeats.
“Shall I get you some water, John?”
A weak smile fleets over John’s mouth. “No, thank you, Sherlock. That won’t be necessary.” He spreads his knees and bends his head between them for a minute. After he’s come up again he says: “You look exactly like he did when he was your age. Exactly the same.”
He pushes himself up out of the chair and walks over to the air mattress in front of the closet.
“We both should try to get some sleep, Sherlock. Tomorrow will be another long day.”
***
The four of them hurried to Daddy’s study to watch the news after Mr Talbot’s announcement. The moment the car exploded on the television screen Mummy threw a fit of hysterics that brought a yet unaware Nanny flying to the room.
Exactly that moment the bell had rung. Two police officers were standing at the front door to bring them the news they were already aware of.
Mummy lay shrieking and wailing on the rug in Daddy’s room, thrashing her head against the floor and tearing at her hair while Nanny sat crouched on her old stiff knees beside her, vainly trying to calm her with shushing noises.
Sherlock huddled as closely as possible to Mycroft on the sofa, his knees drawn up in front of his chest to protect himself against the onslaught of Mummy’s grief. Mycroft’s gaze had attached itself to the ceiling while he appeared to be forcing himself through a series of deep breathing exercises, puffing up his cheeks and setting the air escaping again with small deliberate whiffs. His hand was clasping Sherlock’s in a wrenching grip that had left bright red marks on Sherlock’s skin for a quarter of an hour after Mycroft had been forced to let go.
Mr Talbot marched into the room and flicked his eyes over the scene.
“I’ve sent those policemen away again,” he said. “They didn’t know any more than we do at this stage and the less strangers loitering about here the better. I surmise people from both the London police and the Ministry will arrive here shortly. I’ve called the doctor and he promised to be here in a quarter of an hour.”
He crouched next to Mummy. “Mrs Holmes, can you hear me? Please try to contain yourself in front of your sons. Let me and Nanny help you up to your room.”
Mummy lashed out at him with a sharp-nailed, desperately clawing hand. A look of distaste fleeted over Mr Talbot’s face before he hoisted her up in his arms as easily as if she were nothing but a sack of flour and strode with her out of the room instructing Nanny to follow him. Nanny trailed after him in a daze, any sharp remark about inappropriate behaviour frozen in her mouth.
After ten minutes Mr Talbot returned to find both Mycroft and Sherlock still seeking shelter on the sofa, like a pair of sodden survivors holding onto the rocks of the small uninhabited island where they’ve been washed ashore after the shipwreck that orphaned them.
“This won’t do,” Mr Talbot announced, wringing the remote out of Mycroft’s clutched fingers and flicking off the television set. He snapped his own fingers closely in front of Mycroft’s face next.
“Mycroft, come out of it, try and focus, will you? I need you to find me your father’s papers so we can start telephoning the right people to help you deal with this situation. Your mother won’t be of any assistance, we’ll have to do this together. I asked Cook to make you a strong cup of coffee. We’ll go down to the kitchen now and you’ll drink it and you will remain calm.”
He turned towards Sherlock and gently wrenched his fist out of Mycroft’s hand.
“You go fetch John, Sherlock. Tell him he’s wanted here.”
***
Daddy’s head and shoulders are visible above the roof of the car. The shiny exterior mirrors the upper storeys of the houses lining the street. Daddy is waiting for the chauffeur to open the door of the car for him, turning to the man on his right to tell him something. A smile spreads over his face at the man’s answer while Daddy lowers to place himself in the backseat of the car.
A huge explosion, like that time Sherlock threw one of Mummy’s hairspray cans into the fire he had started near the wall of the estate, only much bigger and louder, and when the smoke clears the car is gone, and the chauffeur is gone, the man next to Daddy is gone and Daddy himself is gone as well. All that remains is a blackened mass covered with an indeterminable shiny, slimy substance with little bits sticking out of it. The silence is deafening for about thirty seconds. Then the screaming starts.
That’s the moment Sherlock presses the rewind button on the remote.
Out of the explosion the car is rebuilt and Daddy exits the car with amazing alacrity to stand smiling at the man next to him.
Daddy’s head and shoulders are visible above the roof of the car.
***
The house has been transformed overnight. A steady stream of visitors flows from the hall to the yellow drawing room to Daddy’s study and back to the hall again. His birthday cake has vanished from the sideboard and been replaced by an enormous stack of sandwiches and walnut date cakes which are consumed with great avidity by the waiting gentlemen.
Mycroft is either upstairs in their parents’ – or now rather Mummy’s – bedroom or locked up with Mr Talbot and Daddy’s solicitor in Daddy’s study. The gentlemen waiting in the yellow drawing room wish to speak to Mycroft and Mr Talbot alone or in the presence of the solicitor. They’re all dressed in black or dark grey, a great flock of ravens or vultures roosting in their sunny drawing room, waiting for the one who’s currently engaged with Mycroft and Mr Talbot to finish his business so they can go in and start theirs. The moment one leaves, another arrives to take his place.
Brenda and Mary keep jogging between the drawing room and the kitchen with heavy trays laden with coffee and tea and refreshments. John alternates between dashing for the bell or making a beeline to answer the telephone, while accepting and handing out the visitors’ coats.
In the kitchen Cook bustles about muttering and swearing softly beneath her breath, swiping a flour-streaked hand over her teary swollen eyes every now and then. Yet she finds a few minutes to press Sherlock against her bosom every time he enters her abode in his search for some relief, giving vent to her own shock and consternation in a wild ramble of incoherent words: “It’s not right, it isn’t. – The best ones are always the first to go. – They must be horrid people, Sherlock, to decide to blow up one of the nicest men to be found in England. – Oh, your poor mother, she must be suffering so.”
After a final tight embrace that nearly stifles him Cook slips a pear tartlet into his hand and shoos him away, saying she’s busy and he should make himself scarce. A few hours later he’s back and swept up into her arms again. He throws the tartlets into the rose garden for the robins and blackbirds to find.
***
Oh, how he wishes he could crawl into Mycroft’s bed to snuggle up close against Mycroft’s chest and relax into the soothing warmth of his body heat as it spreads beneath the blankets. But Mycroft is cooped up together with Nanny in their parents’ room at night because Mummy has apparently said she can’t sleep without both of them beside her.
In recognition of this arrangement Mr Talbot decreed the first evening both he and John will take alternative turns sleeping in Sherlock’s room for the next few days. Sherlock is already sitting in his bed when Mr Talbot enters his room dressed in striped flannel pyjamas and a dark blue velvet robe. Sherlock does his utmost not to gape at his tutor.
Mr Talbot ignores Sherlock’s astonishment with a perfect show of obliviousness. He eyes the bedding on the air mattress with a vague abhorrence before seating himself in the windowsill.
“What have you been doing today, Sherlock?” he asks. “I’m sorry none of us have been able to give you any proper attention. It’s all … there’s so much to arrange. And Mycroft is in utter shock. I wonder whether he’s heard one word that was said to him today.”
His hand jerks up to fiddle with his moustache. The inadvertent gesture somewhat jeopardises his showmanship of ruthless capability and induces Sherlock to jump out of bed and throw himself onto his teacher’s lap in a wild abandonment of propriety and despondent search for consolation. Beneath him he can feel Mr Talbot’s body back away in initial reticence before settling back into the touch and allowing Sherlock to slump against him. His arms hover uncertainly before acquiescing into the intimacy as well, cradling Sherlock close in a cocoon that feels safe despite its unfamiliarity.
“You’ll manage. Somehow you and Mycroft will manage.”
Sherlock bobs his head up and down to confirm Mr Talbot’s utterance. His nose brushes the soft fabric of Mr Talbot’s dressing gown and he almost sniggles as he identifies the lavender trail of Nanny’s soap beneath the strong scent of Mr Talbot’s cigarettes.
Now Sherlock dares to present the idea that sprang up in him while he was practicing on his violin.
“Mr Talbot,” he says.
“Yes, Sherlock.”
“I want to play something for Daddy. At his funeral. Mr Mancini and me have been studying a Beethoven scherzo lately. It’s very short so it won’t take up much time, but I would really, really like to. For Daddy. I was going to play it for him yesterday evening, for my birthday, but now … Do you think Mummy would agree? Seeing as it is for Daddy.”
Mr Talbot is quiet for a very long time. His voice, when he finally starts speaking, is turbid, barely distinguishable in the shadowed room.
“That’s such a marvellous idea, Sherlock,” he states. “We … this household … everyone would truly appreciate you playing for us, for your father. But I’m afraid it’s impossible.”
Sherlock starts to object but Mr Talbot’s lays a gentle hand on Sherlock’s knee before continuing: “Your father wasn’t merely your father, and Mycroft’s and your mother’s husband, he was much more than that. Your father was England, Sherlock. Yesterday, in killing your father, the IRA dealt our country a heavy blow. Rather they’d targeted our Prime Minister, that would have been easier to overcome.”
Mr Talbot breathes deeply. “Hundreds of people will be attending his funeral I’m afraid. It’s going to be a massive affair. We won’t be able to fit all the people wishing to attend into the village church. We’ve had to order tents and television screens and a sound system for the people that will have to remain outside during the service. The seating is a nightmare of sensitivities and bruised egos.”
Mr Talbot sighs. “Tents will have to be erected here for the reception as well. We hired the services of a catering service, much against Cook’s protests, but she was forced to agree even she wouldn’t be able to provide the required amounts of food.”
His hand squeezes Sherlock’s knee. “We do realise your father would categorise his own funeral as utterly dull and boring. However, there’s no avoidance. This funeral isn’t going to be about your father and his family, Sherlock. It’s about England. Mycroft managed to wriggle the most important concession out of the negotiations regarding the day’s protocol. At least there won’t be any singing of hymns, which your father would have abhorred. Mr Mancini and a friend of his will play the Spring sonata instead. So Beethoven’s wonderful music will be heard, Sherlock. Brought to life by a man who loved your father well.”
Sherlock has been struggling to hide his growing disappointment at Mr Talbot’s words, fighting the burn brimming behind his eyeballs. To save both himself and his tutor the indignity of having to ask and confirm whether he understands he assents with a firm gesture.
He just wants to sleep now.
***
”Shall we go for a walk in the woods?” Daddy asks.
“Yes, Daddy. I’d love to,” Sherlock answers.
“Come on then.”
***
Downstairs in the hall a big black coffin rests on a dais. It’s surrounded by a lake of flowery wreaths that keeps widening in haphazard circles. Between receiving all the visitors John now also has to hurry to the front door constantly to accept another token of people’s desire to announce to the world they thought it of the utmost importance to openly commiserate with Sherlock Holmes’ family after his death.
The coffin would be big enough to fit Daddy if he was still in one piece, but he isn’t. Sherlock saw Daddy being blown up on the television so he knows that’s not his Daddy lying hidden in the black casket. One minute Daddy was right on the screen, talking and smiling, and the next moment there was this big blast and then Daddy was gone, reduced to a gory slime with small bits sticking out.
Sherlock doesn’t understand why the coffin has to be so big, the little pieces would easily fit in a much smaller coffin and he wonders how they can be sure the shreds lying in the coffin are actually parts of Daddy. Suppose there is a piece of Mr Norton lying there in the coffin as well, or Mr Percy-Fitz or Miss Lewis, the other people that were blown up together with Daddy?
Placed slightly towards the end of the coffin, where Daddy’s shoulders would be if he were whole, an ornate silver frame has been placed. Inside the frame is a photograph of Daddy laughing out at the world, the corners of his mouth drawn so far apart a glimpse of his teeth flashes between his lips, his eyes alive with merriment. Any moment he can wink at Sherlock to signal all is well and Sherlock needn’t fidget. But then, Daddy’s not the one that can hear the sounds escaping from his bedroom.
***
He knocks on the door of his parents’ bedroom and waits until Nanny’s voice bids him entrance. He sticks his head around the door with utter caution. The curtains of the room are drawn against the soft wintry light. On the bed Mummy lies tossing and moaning.
“Hello, Sherlock,” Nanny whispers. Her voice is thick and choked with tears. She draws him close and kisses him on his forehead. “Mummy is asleep, dear, finally. Oh God, she’s suffering so. Did you sleep at all, Sherlock? I’m so sorry I can’t be with you but Mummy needs me. Come in, sit with me a while.” He takes a step into the room in the direction of the chair Nanny has indicated to him.
“Sherlock!” Mummy shoots up from the mattress and looks around her, head swivelling wildly. Sherlock stares at her in open-mouthed apprehension.
The figure rising from the bedclothes is nothing but a slipshod effigy of the fine lady that sat reading her book with demurely crossed ankles in her elegant drawing room less than forty-eight hours ago. The shimmering reddish-blond waterfall that was Mummy’s hair has turned into a drab gory river of grey, the blue eyes are dulled to a faint listless vapidity, her glowing healthy skin is veiled with a dusky shroud. Sherlock can’t believe he’s looking at Mummy, she must be a ghost, preparing herself to follow Daddy into the afterlife, to throw herself onto his funeral pyre like a Hindu widow. Mr Talbot has told him all about that ancient custom.
Mummy returns his stare with a long hard look, cast between rapidly blinking eyelids.
“Sherlock?” she finally asks. Her voice is rough, apprehensive, wavering with a fearful hope which hardly dare find articulation for itself. Her eyes flicker with a barely noticeable light.
Nanny nudges his shoulder for him to answer.
“Yes—,” he swallows, choking on his Adam’s apple which has become a foreign object in his throat: “—Mummy.”
The sound of his voice makes her flinch. Her eyes flare up briefly before their shimmering is snuffed out again. She drops down onto the cushions.
“You’re not him,” she says. “You’re nothing but an impostor. Horrible and wicked. Please have the decency to remove yourself from this room at least.” She turns her back on him and curls up on herself. Sherlock stands nailed to the floor, his eyes glued to the shallow rise and fall of Mummy’s narrow ribcage beneath the blanket. He can feel Nanny’s hand feebly pawing his shoulder in a failed attempt at reassurance.
“Oh Sherlock, don’t listen. Mummy doesn’t know what she’s saying … ” Nanny starts.
A dreadful sound spirals up from the bed. A wretched mewl of utter loneliness and despair, gaining in volume until an animal howl of grief and pain rings through the room. Nanny’s hand falls away from his shoulder. Sherlock turns on his heels and flees the room and the house, out into the garden to the safety of his tree house.
He sits there for hours, shivering with the cold, staring into the dripping wet mist.
***
”Shall we go for a walk in the woods?” Daddy asks.
“Yes, Daddy. I’d love to,” Sherlock answers.
“Come on then.”
***
“Daddy, Daddy!”
“Sherlock, Sherlock! Wake up, wake up for God’s sake! Hey, Sherlock.”
His shoulder is shaken forcefully. He forces himself up out of the dream with a gasp, like a drowning body breaking through the surface of the vicious liquid that was trapping him, pulling him under in a drowning embrace. John’s worried face is hovering above him, barely visible in the soft light of the lamp on the night table.
“Jesus, Sherlock. You frightened me. I’m the one that’s supposed to be enjoying nightmares, remember? Here have some water.”
He heaves himself upright and clutches the glass with a shaking hand, gulps some water and huddles the beaker against his chest to steady himself. John stands looking down at him, a frown of worry wrinkling his brow.
“Is it those children? It was a nasty business. But you helped them, you solved the case and they’re safe now.”
Sherlock shakes his head, exhaling a shuddered: “No.” His stomach is still full of the celebratory dinner at their favourite Vietnamese. He doesn’t elaborate further. He can’t stop the shivers that keep welling up at his nape to travel down his spine.
“All right,” John says once he’s grasped the fact Sherlock won’t forward him any information. “God Sherlock, you look like something the cat’s dragged in. Shall I go and make us some tea?”
“You go back to your room and get yourself some more rest, John. I think I’ll sit in the living room for a while. I’m done sleeping for now, I guess. I do apologise for waking you.”
John chuckles. “Well, it’s a relief to find you actually do sleep sometimes. Though I don’t envy you your nightmares, whatever their content may be. Would you mind if I sit with you? I don’t want to start any guilty feelings but I really won’t be able to sleep anymore. I’ll skip my Sunday lie-in this week. A cup of good strong tea… ”
Sherlock waves his hand in a vague gesture.
“I can’t stop you. You’re a responsible adult.”
“Right.” John pivots on his heels. “I’ll go put the kettle on.”
Sherlock waits till John has departed the room before pressing his hands against his face.
Christ, what a ghastly dream. Yet somehow it was so familiar. As a child he must have endured this particular nightmare quite frequently. All this reminiscing certainly isn’t something to encourage, not if it results in reliving these horrors.
He sighs and rubs his hands vigorously through his hair to ostracise all the useless fear and anxiety from his mind. Daddy has been dead now for how long? He does some counting in his head and groans as he finds the answer. Twenty-six years.
Better get up now. Sometimes living with a flatmate does have distinctive disadvantages. At this particular moment Sherlock could decidedly do without John’s gentle concerned scrutiny of his person. He would greatly have obliged Sherlock by returning to his own bedroom to catch some more sleep. Any other man would probably have done so but not John Hamish Watson. John is way too decent to leave Sherlock sitting alone in their living room after having been woken by his anxious shouting. John won’t probe, won’t ask. He’ll just sit quietly in his chair, reading a medical journal or The Sports Journal till Sherlock is up and ready to divulge whatever he needs to share with John. Or not, which is also fine with John. Whatever Sherlock wants. The patience of the man is excruciating.
The memory of his grimy bedsit at Montague Street flashes up momentarily in his brain to drive the point home that ending up sharing a flat with John Watson at Baker Street is one of the best things that ever happened to him.
“Tea is ready,” John calls. Which is John-speak for ‘why are you still in your room? I’m worried about you.’ A hot flush of gratefulness floods Sherlock’s chest.
He swings his legs to the floor and grabs his robe from its hook on the door. He walks over to the sideboard to pick up the topmost file from the stack of cold cases Lestrade has graciously supplied for Sherlock’s perusal during acute fits of boredom.
“Coming,” he calls back.
***
“This won’t do, Mycroft.”
Mycroft is exhausted. Sherlock may not sleep much but Mycroft must not sleep at all. A brief lull in the tide of visitors has encouraged Sherlock to glide into Daddy’s study and huddle close to his elder brother who sits slumped on the couch. Mr Talbot is standing in front of the hearth with a long list in his hand.
“What won’t do, Mr Talbot?” Mycroft’s voice is but a ghost of his usual concise, clipped tones. His vowels are slurred and his hand shakes as he brings the coffee cup up to his lips to take another sip with the same desperate urgency a drowning victim brings to his first gulp of clean, liquid-free air.
“Sherlock sitting between you and the Home Secretary. You’ll have to devote all your attention to helping your mother make it through the service. Who’s going to look after Sherlock?”
“I gathered Nanny would be of even less use. We could change the order of the line though, I suppose, have Sherlock seated on the side of the wall.”
“No, no, and have Nanny seated next to the Home Secretary? You’ll be sure to do them both a displeasure if you choose to do so. No, there’s nothing for it but to shift the Home Secretary to the second pew and throw somebody out at the back. So that’s the end of a place in the church for …” Mr Talbot squints at the list, “the right honourable Mr Frederick Hunshaw, I’m afraid.”
“I never met the good man, nor have I found any reference to him in Daddy’s files, so I can’t say I’m personally sorry to have him leave the premises,” Mycroft sighs. “But who do you want to sit next to Sherlock then? Would you do it?" He turns to Sherlock. “I’m sorry to be talking about you like this, Sherlock, with you seated next to me. But I’m so very, very tired.”
Mr Talbot coughs behind his hand. “Indeed, Sherlock understands perfectly, Mycroft. No, I thought of John.”
“John?” Mycroft pushes himself up out of his sagged posture. “You can’t be serious, Mr Talbot. Excuse me for doubting your judgment, but John is our gardener.”
Mr Talbot smiles. “I’m well aware of the fact, Mycroft. And he was both your father’s oldest friend and one of Sherlock’s as well.”
“I agree, but … Mr Talbot, our gardener.”
“Yes, how delightfully eccentric. A fitting tribute to your father, I’d say. You’re absolutely right it will be a heavy breach of etiquette. But don’t you think the Home Secretary will appreciate the youngest son of the deceased would rather be seated between the people most dear to him?”
Mycroft’s eyelids fall half-closed. He puts down the cup and purses his lips deliberately.
“Mummy won’t be happy.”
“Will she even notice?”
“Nanny will tell her.”
“I know. But that’s only after the fact.”
Mycroft puts his hands to his face and rubs them forcefully over it on both sides of his nose.
“All right. John in the front pew at Daddy’s funeral. Oh God, Mr Talbot, what a mess. What a bloody big mess.”
***
Daddy was smiling at him out of the frame all through the service but now the casket is three feet down in the ground and he stands looking down with his left hand in John’s safe warm one and he’s taken his handful of cold crumbling earth and he has to throw that onto the lid of Daddy’s coffin.
Mycroft has already turned and is walking away together with Nanny, both of them supporting Mummy.
“Just throw it, Sherlock,” John urges him. “You’ve got to do it. For your father. It’s all right.”
No, it’s not. It’s really, really not.
***
“I must say this is one of the most unusual funerals I’ve ever attended.”
“Rather like the man himself.”
“It’s all splendidly organised, though. Have to give them that.”
“They’ve managed to arrange everything in the spirit of the deceased then.”
***
“Christ, what a way to go.”
“Well, it’s quick at least. Far preferable to cancer.”
“You do have a point, I suppose. Still, he was only forty-four. Bit young.”
***
“Wonder who will be the lucky gent to marry the merry widow?”
“She doesn’t appear to be very merry to me.”
“Ah no, not now but mark my words, a year from now on she’ll be on the hunt. I’ve always considered her to be mightily attractive. Holmes was an extremely lucky fellow to have snatched her away at such an early age.”
“You’re not going to divorce Cynthia to marry her, now are you?”
“Never say never, dear fellow.”
***
“Whoever is that long grey chap who the elder boy – isn’t his name Mycroft? – seems intent to have hovering near him at all costs?”
“Don’t you recognise him? You should cast a proper look.”
“Good Lord! But that’s, that’s … ”
“Exactly.”
“Whatever is he doing here?”
“Teaching the Holmes children apparently. And doing a damned good job of it too. My son is in the same school as Mycroft and from what I hear the teachers can’t seem to decide whether to view him as a boon or a scourge.”
“One would expect the children to be sharp with those two as their parents.”
“Yes, and Holmes took the right gamble with the whetstone, it seems. I’ve heard it said both Trevor and Kennington are outbidding each other in an attempt to have him teach their children.”
“But wherever did Holmes find him? He must have dug him up straight out of the muck. I mean, that scandal … Who’d ever imagine engaging an addict to teach his children?”
“Holmes was a thorough eccentric of course. Still, the IRA dealt us a crippling blow.”
***
“Oh Lizzie, do stop the sobbing. You’re making yourself look ridiculous.”
“It’s his funeral. I don’t see why I shouldn’t be sobbing. He was about the only decent one in the whole office. I’ll miss him.”
“You’re only sobbing because you imagined yourself to be in love with him.”
“I am in love with him. And you are too. You said so yourself.”
“I know, and I was. But he’s dead now. No chance of having it off with him now. Not that there ever was when he was alive. God, I hate that ghastly wife of his.”
“You’re a horrid person to say such things, Sylvia.”
“At least I’m not making a fool of myself.”
***
“You could try to look a little less happy.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Nothing, absolutely nothing. Of course you aren’t delighted with the chance his death is offering you.”
“I’m not going to discuss this. Not at the man’s funeral.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t be a hypocrite.”
***
Their dull vacuity and their viciousness. Those struck him most as he wandered amongst them. They were all so full of themselves they hadn’t noticed him while they stood gossiping about his father, his mother, about them. That afternoon he had understood he had been living inside a cocoon of pampered protection Daddy had built for them all. How Daddy must have suffered under their ghastly simpering and sucking up to him, only to start wagging their tongues to drag him through the mud the moment he turned their backs on them.
He despised them, each and every one of them.
***