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Listeners' Fantasies |
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The End of an Era
by inguanoveritas
 In the week of a special birthday, here's a tribute to a much-loved character, from the Fantasy Archers topic of .
It was a bruising, thug of a day. Just being outside was an effort: cold showers, whipped by a mean-spirited, heartless wind and gunmetal-grey clouds, their purple veins and limpid, yellow edges etched by a pallid sun had been racing over Ambridge all morning, dumping heavy rain on the houses huddled round the Green.
The village looked deserted, but behind the tightly closed doors nearly everybody was busy getting dressed in their best and most sombre clothes. Those who lived even a short distance away came by car, and as they slowly processed round the Green at around 11.15, doors opened all round the village with alarming precision, synchronised by the common, overpowering impulse: to get a seat in St Stephen's church before the rush in what was likely to be its biggest congregation since the gospel choir at Christmas.
In minutes, the whole village was scrambling into the church, their mood matching the mood of the day: unsmiling, heads down against the weather, silently acknowledging their collective emotional emptiness. Even as they queued outside the porch, getting wet and battered, everybody behaved with exaggerated courtesy, especially towards the older, frailer villagers who seemed to have at least three supporters each.
The unspoken intimacy between people who had spent decades living in the same community was only evident to those who were part of it. A stranger could never hope to master the web of functional, interconnected relationships that made a village like Ambridge work, the "Ambridge Web", that hovered permanently between supportiveness and vindictiveness, between the urge to forgive and the inability to forget, which only those involved understood. Without the mixture of balm and vitriol, a vital part of their lives would be missing, as if they were going on a journey from T5, having lost their baggage.
People filed into the church with an acute awareness of where they fitted in, an unspoken order; not a social order, but one based on a sharp instinct for how they were built into this particular rite of passage.
Without a word or a sign, the villagers left the first two rows of seats free for the Archer family in all its complex and extended glory.
The church was warm, made all the warmer by Peter Barford playing a medley of extracts from music that older villagers could remember Phil Archer playing to practice every Friday.
From the organ loft Peter watched the Archer clan arrive to take their places, slotting in like a family tree laid out in flesh and blood. Filling one side, in the second row there was Jenny on the aisle, then Brian, Ruari, Debbie, Alice, Adam, Ian, Kate, Lucas, Sipho and Nolukando; opposite Jenny was Lilian, then Matt, James, Pat, Helen, Tom, Brenda, Phoebe, Hayley (with Amy in a sling) and Roy.
In front of Jenny was Christine, then Peggy and Jack, then Heather from Prudhoe, Ruth, Ben, Josh, Daniel, Lily, Freddie, Jamie, Kathy, Susan Carter, Emma and George. Opposite Christine, the front pew was empty, waiting for the sadly depleted core of the family, depleted by its oldest member: Phil.
The stage was set for his funeral.
On the dot of 11.45, Alan emerged from the front door of Glebe Cottage next to the church and folded his arms across his waist, a black bible in his left hand, leading a sad little procession: six pall bearers, David, Kenton, Alistair, Nigel, Tony and Neil, who hoisted the coffin on to their shoulders. As they did, a man in a long, dark coat stepped forward from the garden and placed a single wreath of immortelle and bright flowers on top of the coffin alongside a carefully positioned light bucket.
The stranger bowed his head, then stepped back. Jill, holding hands with Pip, both moist-eyed but upright despite the buffeting wind and persistent rain, emerged from Glebe followed by Shula and Elizabeth.
Alan led them into the porch and towards the open church door and precisely on cue, Peter pulled out half a dozen organ stops and a huge chord that drowned the sound of the weather told everybody that Phil had arrived; the more so when he started playing Mozart's Requiem. Jill was composed, even when Pip squeezed her hand, the pressure falling on the eternity ring Phil had given her only months before, and she reflected on these being the last steps she would take on her long journey with Phil.
The inquest had determined that death had been accidental on account of hypothermia while gazing at the stars in an open field at zero C. The official part was over now. No more busybodies from Borchester, no officials ticking their boxes. Now it was village only, a plain oak coffin placed gently on the same wooden trestle where John, Dan, Doris, Uncles Walter and Tom, Auntie Pru, Brother Jack, George Barford and great nephew John had been lain before him.
As the door closed on the weather and the world outside, there was standing room only inside the church, nearly a crush. Alan steered the service between the Anglican formalities, Phil's own, more joyous religious belief and life, and the needs of the family: "Phil was one of the gentlest people I have ever known; he never harmed anybody, in fact he has probably helped almost everybody in St Steven's church today at some time or other, and he did so with true faith and humanity..."
There were prayers, there were tears, there were readings, poems, hymns, and the odd cry from Abbie, the compulsory new born baby, and then there was Elgar's Nimrod as the doors opened again and Alan led them into the churchyard for the burial.
Outside, the world was a different place: the wind dropped, the rain squalls had disappeared, the clouds were still racing each other but less earnestly, and the sun shone, burnishing them until their edges turned red, like crusty, molten pewter being poured into a mould. Even a few rooks were brave enough to fly, tumbling in the wind as they looked down on a large crowd of dark-clothed people gathered round an open grave.
The storm abated long enough for Alan to invite Jill to the graveside. She reached into her bag and took out dried flowers from their wedding and one from their golden wedding party. Then he asked anybody who wanted to throw their handful of earth on the coffin to do so. Each handful mingled with single flowers, a tuft of grass from Lakey Hill, thrown by Pip.
Then the people of Ambridge left the churchyard to the gravediggers and the rooks, and made their way on foot over the Am to the village hall where Freda, Sid, Jolene, Cathy, Fallon and Roy had prepared a buffet lunch before the service. Before she joined them, Jill went briefly back to Glebe, to gather her thoughts and compose herself. She was the last to arrive at the Village Hall.
Inside, the whole village was swapping stories about Phil, remembering his attachment to Lakey Hill between nibbles of Tom's sausages on sticks, recounting his lesson in wringing chicken's necks between munching on Brookfield free range eggs and Hereford beef sandwiches, all washed down by Shires beer, cider, sherry and lemonade.
It was a very Ambridge affair, but without Phil would that quality still warm the Village Hall?
Before she stepped inside Jill looked up at the sky behind the storm which was gathering again. She addressed the yellow sun: "Oh Phil, I do hope you're all right..."
***
Phil was more than alright - he was in Hog's Heaven. While Ambridge was saying goodbye to him, the object of their mourning and veneration was enjoying a completely new experience, one that had taken him to a very special place, far beyond the sun.
He was sitting alone at a long table, laden with tropical fruit trifle made with Cointreau, a side of beef glazed with almond juice and saffron, a male and female swan, their necks entwined in a loving embrace, their breast meat en croute with apricots and truffles, mounds of crisp vegetables sprinkled with pistachio nuts, honey and limes, potatoes sautéed in olive oil, balsamic vinegar and sea salt, Eton Mess with fresh raspberries and Jersey cream and crystal decanters filled with every hue of wine.
"Heavens" he thought as he looked down its length.
Then his guests arrived: first came his parents Doris and Dan, who sat down either side of him, then Uncle Tom and Auntie Pru, Uncle Walter with his arm round a young wench in a gingham frock without much frock, John Tregorran with a young man, Aunt Laura steadfastly alone, then George Barford.
Then coyly, shyly, clearly an item with George ... Grace.
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