Short Story

THE FAMILY BIBLE

by JERRY DOWLEN

John knew he was chancing it taking his son to the park when grey clouds were looming and rain was in the air. Ian was ten and he could hit a cricket-ball powerfully now. After wild swings and misses at the first two throws the boy connected with the third one and clumped the ball over the railings into the tiny graveyard next to the park.

‘Bother!’ thought John. He didn’t fancy making an exhibition of himself trying to clamber over the railings. The graveyard was overgrown with stinging nettles and weeds. A few mouldering gravestones poked out from clumps of grass. A forbidding black mausoleum stood in the centre. Its roof was covered with lichen spots and bird-droppings.

But double bother it! It was a brand new shiny red ball, purchased that very day. John decided at least to try and see where it had landed.

‘Well I never!’ he exclaimed. He had found something puzzling: a metal-framed wire gate in the railing. ‘Funny: I don’t remember seeing a gate there before,’ he mused. He lifted the handle and the gate clanked open. Drizzle was falling now. Ah! The ball was lying by the wall of the mausoleum.

What happened next made John nearly jump out of his skin. ‘Good evening,’ intoned a rich mellifluous voice. ‘You’re here at last. I’ve been waiting for you. I’ve been here since 1857.’ Was the ground suddenly spinning or was it the sky? Or both? A tall bewhiskered man was standing before John, wearing a stovepipe hat and a frock coat. His long lank fair hair contrasted with the blackness of his garments. The sky had become radiant blue. A gentle breeze was rippling across the sunlit meadow. John saw the figures of two ladies in long dresses buttoned to the neck. They were wearing bonnets. Behind them a small girl in a white smock was bowling an iron hoop. A strange sequence of words hummed through John’s head: ‘Time is an umbilical cord.’ What did it mean? ‘Dad! It’s pouring! I’m getting soaked!’

John couldn’t say how it had happened but he was back in the park and his son was shouting at him frantically. Rain was lashing down. ‘Run!’ called John and the two of them hurtled to the car and gratefully clambered in. The damp cricket-ball was in John’s pocket with the car key. Wet grass was clinging to it. ‘Gosh – did I pick it up?’ he pondered. He had no recollection of doing so. After parking in the front drive John followed Ian into the house. He saw that the door to the cupboard under the stairs was open. His wife Tina had brought several boxes and bags out into the hall. ‘Look at you two drowned rats,’ she laughed. ‘Whatever was your father thinking of going out in the wet like that. Upstairs at once young man and run a hot bath.’

Tina addressed John: ‘Guess what I found while you were out. The key to that old strong box that’s been under there for years. Mind you it’s mostly full of junk. But you know your family Bible you’ve been saying you can’t find anywhere? I’ve put it on the table.’

John picked up the book. It had a soft cover of crinkly black leather. ‘Gosh the last time I saw this I was still at school. It’s beautiful isn’t it?’ He began flicking through the pages. He saw that each new recipient had written in the flyleaf the name, the birth date and death date of his father. So now he, John, should add the details of his father who had died fifteen years ago.

‘What’s the matter darling?’ said Tina. ‘You look a bit startled.’

John was staring blankly at the very first entry on the flyleaf. In faded but flowery black ink were the words: ‘Thomas Ebenezer Stanton, 1779 to 1857.’ ‘I wonder ...?’ said John.