Proud father’s eyes fell on the child as he came into the world. Wide eyes, prised open as if to take in more than they could really see; all that was and would be.

The nurse lifted his son like an athlete lifting a trophy. The trophy wailed. His father imagined he could see not just the baby as he was now, but also the man as he would be, a daft feeling, but tears couldn’t blink it away. He didn’t just see today but every birthday from now on.

He saw a body filthy with blood, tiny little fingers, his mother’s face. Superimposed with that he saw red hair where no hair was, he heard a desperate laugh, saw a weak heart, saw a floor manager with a good sense for people.

Charley Raven was born into the world, a brother of three and father of two, a man with a degree or a baby with jaundice.

***

They crossed the beach together, hand in hand, smiling like giddy young things not knowing what sense was. One stared into the others eyes, the other stared back. They stopped and stood like that for all the time in the world.

Still they stood gazing. She was so taken with him. He was born in love with her, totally convinced by the wind in her hair. He kissed her until her mouth closed up, took her on his shoulder and spun her about.

They walked off through the shingle and hid behind a crew of rocks. There they held each other, alone and unbothered, until touched by the water’s foamy stubble. They picked themselves up and wandered off, leaving the best of the tide behind them.

They learnt each other and learnt life, learnt more than school, and every day they felt the buzz of being ahead and not behind. He spent more time thinking about her than she would ever know. He loved her, and loved the beach itself. Every day was a new day, meant for her, meant for the beach and not the classroom.

***

Classroom.

All his classmates were looking at him.

The teacher, either Campbell or Simms, had passed some ultimatum. Charley wouldn’t remember what it was. He held attention until expectation hit a peak, hefted up his chair and threw it into a nearby table. The table clanged and the chair reacted wildly.

A couple of people looked to see Phil Bonnet nurse his jaw and his shattered tooth. One of them, the teacher, rushed to his side. Phil shrieked at the chair fallen from the sky, a martyr to submission and obedience shaken that his gods of textbook and teacher had the providence to bless him mentally but not to protect him physically. Two children prayed. The rest saw Raven kick and put his foot through a plasterboard wall. As he stormed out the room, they chanted his name.

He would spend two years in college for it, and answer problems with his fists, he would relish celebrity and be suspended four weeks.

Years passed by spent on woodwork, drugs, video games, cooking, gangs and the music he loved. Months were paypacket and him and Sarah together or apart. Morning was five mile run, half hours in front of the TV before university came and with it long days studying and with that…

***

Graduation day. He couldn’t stop thinking: Graduation day.

It wasn’t him that kept whispering those words in his head – It was the gothic buildings he passed and the gowns his friends wore, all the photography and the ceremony of it, all those things chanting together. Graduation day. Graduation day!

Bob and Jimmy and Claire and Stevey and Phil.

Row by row they marched into church, feeling so special. 23, 24, Jimmy who was 30, they had come of age and pride ran high. They all held hymn books in another near miss with religion. They mouthed words together not knowing what the words meant:

“Via Veritas Vitae…”

September 5th Graduation day. Girl at the back, red hair, something in her eyes.

He took away his scroll and gown and photographs, wished his parents had been there, and took her name and number.

*** There was definitely something in her eyes. Something different.

Most girls he looked at reminded him of Sarah, but not Margaret. To look at her was to be caught up in her. Sarah wasn’t there. So he forgot about her, though he’d married her.

Falling in love meant everything to him. But as he thought back through it all his life was more about the falling, than the love.

***

Falling.

Six thousand feet above the fields near his home, Charlie held the cabin handles until his hands wrung sore. Outwardly, he appeared brave and brash, like this was his plane and this was his skydive. Secretly he distracted his best friend with his best smile and hid his tension in his hands and his head.
”GO!”
Someone pushed from behind and Charlie fell before he was ready, screamed before he could keep it in. The air slammed into him with the shock of cold water, his eyes slamming shut as it hit him. He felt his body spin and started to laugh.

***

It was a silvery grey sort of a morning, set between the hills and the lake.

He could see it through the black frame of the office window and filtered through his imagination. An hour yet until lunch and it would rain by then.

He hated this job. He hated the work, hated the hours, he hated the business and he hated the window. He’d do it until he had the chance not to, though chances only came to those who made them and promotions only came to those who already had them. He had an urge to up and leave it, but couldn’t. Margaret would ask for cash – where’ve you been, she’d say, and talk about Ben. Besides he needed the work, fags cost money. To quit one he’d need to quit the other. Ach! He needed the work. Babies ate money, drugs ate it more, fags cost it, landlords think they need it. He needed the job.

He fed himself and kept his own desk.
He spent the rest of the hour filling in forms, like an animal caging itself.

***

Charley sank into the ground, his dead body lowered carefully. Friends gathered, and some parts of his family clustered together or peppered apart. His children, both of them, were young or didn’t care, but their mothers were there and they cared. There were about fourteen people there in the end.

Mr Walker said something about religion or…

Words were said and darkness fell.

He was boxed away and buried underground.

FIN