Pastures New. Julia Williams

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      The Mamas & the Papas were crooning from Ben’s car stereo as he headed up the motorway from his parents’ house. The leaves were less brown than non-existent, but Mama Cass had one thing right: the sky was an irredeemably awful muted grey. The colour of which fitted his mood right now – a sort of sad and subdued melancholy that always lingered with him after a visit home.

      He hated this annual pilgrimage down to his parents – the purpose of which was ostensibly to celebrate their wedding anniversary, instead of the act of commemoration and remembrance that it really was. It had been so many years that they had played out this godawful charade that Ben could scarcely remember a time when they had actually mentioned Sarah by name. It must have been a long time ago. But not mentioning her now made it worse. His father’s forced jollity as he held his mother’s hand and toasted another happy year of marriage, and his mother’s cheery smile, couldn’t quite hide the pain in their eyes. The pain that he had put there; the pain that he could never talk to them about. They had both tried so hard to eradicate the past, and yet the more they forced it away, the more it seemed to come back to haunt them.

      Still, who was he to criticise? Would he have done anything differently in their place? And as his dad had said on many occasions, ‘We still had you two boys, you know. You needed us too.’ But Ben’s brother was older, and now lived up north, busy with his own family. So it was left up to Ben, year after year, to face this increasingly hollow and empty ritual. How he wished he could cut through the flannel and talk to them about what had happened, but to do that would be to really open a can of worms. He still wasn’t sure he would ever be ready for that.

      Before he left for good, though, he had to perform one last ritual. His own annual act of remembrance and penance. The church of St Barnabas had been a feature of his childhood, from the days when he and Sarah had spent Sunday mornings scribbling on bits of paper at their mother’s feet. As he walked through the familiar door, went to the front of the church, and sat down in a pew, memories crowded in on him. He had been nearly three, and Sarah a baby, but he could still recall with clarity the moment the vicar poured water on her head, and she had squawked loudly. He remembered too how proud he had been watching David, his senior by five years, marching down the aisle at Harvest Festival, holding the banner for the Scouts, and how he had longed for it to be his turn. But by the time his turn came, the world had changed, the church had become a place of mourning, and his memories were spoilt by the horror of Sarah’s funeral, and the awful pitiful wail of anguish that had come unbidden and uncontrolled from his mother’s lips, and the weird and unsettling sight of his father crying. By the time that Ben had held the banner for the Scouts, such things didn’t seem to matter any more.

      Ben stared up at the high altar, a welter of emotions swirling around him. Why did he put himself through this annual torture? The rest of the year he could hold all this at bay quite easily – and he didn’t have to come here, his parents probably never even knew he came. But somehow, he felt he owed it to Sarah – a mark of atonement almost.

      He went to light the candle he lit every year, and remade the promise he had first made all those years ago so that Sarah’s death would mean something. He couldn’t save her, but he could and would save others. Ben wasn’t particularly religious, but this simple act of remembrance, while immensely painful, always did him good. And his heart was somewhat lighter when he emerged into the grey wintry day.

      When he got back in the car, he realised he had missed the end of the song, and so he replayed it. On second hearing it didn’t seem quite so gloomy – offering more hope than sadness. Caroline had emailed him again to ask if he would come out at Christmas. He thought fleetingly of Amy. It might be nice to see more of her during the holidays, but her reaction to the bike incident had only served to remind him how vulnerable she was. Did he really want to get involved? And what was he to her anyway? Nothing, probably. And what was there here for him at Christmas? His parents always went to David’s and Ben tended to work through. Maybe skiing in Colorado was a good idea. Perhaps he would take Caroline up on her offer after all.