Mary Paulson-Ellis - The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing

For Jack,

with love

And for my dad,

the best of men

Solomon Grundy

Born on Monday

Christened on Tuesday

Married on Wednesday

Took ill on Thursday

Worse on Friday

Died on Saturday

Buried on Sunday

That was the end of Solomon Grundy

Traditional

The First World War, if you boil it down, what was it?

Nothing but a family row.

Harry Patch

In the end there was one, but there should have been two, dead men laid out amongst the walnut shells, skin already blue. A great rose bloomed over the dead mans heart, there on his second-best shirt, bright amongst the decay. Those who were left looked away, thinking of the one who should have been there but was not, lungs like wings of ice holding him to the bottom of a river where none of them would have to follow now. Above them birds perched silent amongst the branches. The sky hung grey on the horizon. It was morning. Dawn would be here soon.

In the end they drew lots to decide who would choose first:

A wishbone;

A tanner;

A reel of pink cotton.

Before the rest came rummaging, too. Into breast pockets. And hip pockets. And pockets tucked away by the kidneys and the groin. The dead man lay unprotesting as the men dipped their hands in. Everything was sticky. They wiped their palms on damp khaki wool and fingered the rest of the treasure:

Two dice;

That piece of green ribbon;

A canvas pocketbook filled with needles and pins.

They all smelled it. Cordite. And the bullet that was inside the dead man now.

In the end they buried him before they walked away. Not deep, but a dip in the ground scraped out beneath a scattering of walnut shells, like the shallow form of a hare. Their hearts were beating one two one two as they scratched at the hole. They didnt leave a marker; only the mud on their boots told the tale. And the treasure that came last from the dead mans pockets:

Pawn ticket no.125.

That small square of blue.

In the end the men who were left went ahead, single file across the fields, no sound but the clink and jink of weaponry as they walked. None of them looked back to see where they had come from. None of them looked ahead to see where they might go. Only one of them stayed behind to pray.

A thread of pink stained the sky as he closed his eyes, standing once more in the shadow of that rubbish dump, remembering fields of buttercups and two kinds of clover. Of air flowing pure as the river at the bottom of the hill. Then there were the whispers of the men as they drew from their pockets a dice, a penny, a thick stub of pencil. The card in his wallet, I am quite well the only words not yet crossed out.

He wondered then what the card would say once it was done. Who it would be sent to. And opened his eyes as light touched his skin. Dawn was spreading low on the horizon. It was November. The end would be here soon.

They called him Old Mortality. After the book. But he hadnt expected to end like this. Face down on a mattress that smelt of urine. Nothing between him and the ground but a cold concrete bunk. It was May, dawn breaking over the city of Edinburgh. But Solomon Farthing could not draw back the curtains to see it, for he was already in the gutter no money, no friends, no estimation the last of him dribbling onto the stone floor of a police cell, not even a bottle of Fino to wash away the indignities of his life.

Wakey, wakey, you bastards! Rise and shine for glory.

Outside he could hear the clatter of a police station waking to its daily business. Inside he could feel the judder of his heart. Solomon pressed at the soft fat around his nipple. He was not a well man, of that he was certain, a mess of memory lapses and confusions, skin grown irritable on the inside and the out. His most recent predicament did not help, though it was all of his own creation, lying in a police cell without any laces to tie up his shoes. What would his grandfather have made of it, a man for whom respectability was embodied in the buttoning or unbuttoning of a collar. And yet here was his offspring, sixty-six and counting, his shirt hung loose, the edges of his trousers muddy. Also the knees.

There was the sudden shuffle of heavy boots, two police officers coming down the corridor, banging on each metal door as they passed.

Time to get up, gentlemen.

Solomon levered himself into a sitting position, licked his palm and ran it across his hair. He was hoping for DI Roberts, ex-Enquiry Team, bag carrier for DCI Franklin, come to read him the Riot Act by way of admonition. A warning. A minor fine. A rap on the knuckles. Or, if the dice rolled in his favour, a straight pass through the doors of Gayfield police station into an elegant Edinburgh square. That old haunt of prostitutes and rent boys, first home for all those first-generation immigrants come to the Athens of the North to polish their dreams. Transformed now, of course. Five hundred thousand for three bedrooms and counting. Whatever its murky past, Edinburgh always did find a way of lifting one up in the end.

Solomon pulled his wrinkled fuchsia socks straight at the ankle, attempted to smooth away the creases accumulated after a weekend of sleeping in his clothes. When exactly had he taken the wrong path? he wondered. An Edinburgh Man with at least a semblance of a profession, given to riding the ebb and flow of life to his advantage, lost now like some sort of child abandoned in a storm. His appeal to the only relative he had left in the city an aunt who wasnt really his aunt had elicited nothing but silence. No calls to a solicitor. No demands for early release. Not even a clean set of clothes. Solomon took a surreptitious sniff at one underarm after another, waited for salvation to arrive in the form of a police officer for whom he might have done a favour, once, long ago. It wasnt that many years since he had known all the officers in the city by their first names, too:

You scratch my back and Ill scratch yours.

An ability to charm, one of Solomon Farthings more valuable qualities, though even he knew it was hanging by a single thread now.

But when the hatch was lowered Solomon did not recognize the blank eyes gazing at him through the hole in the door. Female. Young. Discerning. Everything he was not. The PC looked at him for a moment longer than was comfortable, then vanished before Solomon could make any sort of appeal. A shit. A shave. A good morning. Not to mention breakfast. Nothing more than the ordinary courtesies of life.

In the cell next door a moan rose up, the same elemental groaning that had kept him awake for most of the weekend.

Oh man, oh man, oh man. You fucker.

There was a pause. Solomon waited (the illusion of hope). Then the repeat.