Bigot Hall

ENVY OF THE WORLD

Besides formation belching the main activity which constituted quality time at the Hall was the pretence at being dead. Of course there was Harbinger Night, during which the entire household rushed up to the reading room and rolled strangely along the walls, a tradition I always took for granted. But that was only once a year — we pretended to be dead all the time.

We were experts at vacant immobility. Whole days were passed tilted dummy-like at the table, cod-eyed and agape. I’ve recently unearthed a family portrait in which we are grouped staring past the camera, slack and departed. When visiting the seaside we would collar a brisk passerby to snap the family, and drop abruptly dead as we were brought into focus, provoking a kind of anguished scream from the traumatized bystander. We spent entire afternoons laying dead in the surf, rolled by the waves, our limbs flaccid as the ocean raised us and put us gently down.

In England death is a way of being left alone. Even clowns or barbers will reserve respect for the departed. I have known meddlesome priests to run snivelling the moment I collapse. Executives roar off in open-top cars. Street-mimes shuffle awkwardly, ducking into taxis and peering white-faced from the rear window. Horses look away in bored disdain. Policemen fail to notice. In other lands the flight of the spirit is an end to privacy — here it’s a start.

Adrienne once played dead as far as the morgue. She opened her eyes and swung off the slab, padding through the chill chamber. There were several other bodies in the vault, and these too opened their eyes expecting a time alone and free. There was some embarassed laughter at the realisation, and then a heavy, imploding silence. Lie back and think of England.