The Five Brothers 2

Herbie turned his head to one side, and heard the light sound of crackling as he did so, making him re-position himself and giving time for Clara to cool from her annoyance.
“I’m only playing Clara.” Herbie said as he lightly rubbed his furrowed neck. Clara paced forward and put a hand on the top of Herbie’s arm chair so that she towered above him and cast a shadow over his weary face. He looked at her and shook his head in a miniature movement so not to aggravate his sore neck.
“Don’t stand above me Clara, I’m older than you.” Feeling like she was in the wrong Clara re-took up her position on the floor neck to her grandfather and sat cross-legged before him, looking at his face for approval. He nodded stiffly. “That’s better.” He exclaimed lightly. There was a pause. Herbie closed his eyes as he continued to stroke his pained neck as Clara rocked on the floor beside him. With a bereaved sigh Herbie lowered his hand and opened his eyes to his young blood.
“Are you gonna cook that blasted egg?” He asked, Clara jumped and looked at him. She smiled and shrugged.
“I will in a minute.” Herbie scrutinized her little face and gave her an inquisitive look that stared her down. “Grandma’s in the kitchen.” Herbie’s mouth rounded to an ‘Oh’ as he relaxed against the side of his chair and placed his hand under his chin calmly.
“I see.” Clara gazed at the floor nervously as she waited for her grandfather’s reply. When she didn’t get any she looked up at him again and explained herself.
“Grandma scares me.” Herbie let out a chuckle and looked at the yellowing ceiling lightly.
“Well she’s a softie really.” Clara shook her head forcefully, like all seven year olds she believed her perceptions to be the only correct ones and all other accusations to be silly.
“No, she is scary! She told me off for stirring the bubbly soup the other week! She said I’d kill you for fright!” Clara gasped at what she had said; the day that she had stirred the soup was the last day that she had been around before Herbie had had his health turn.
Herbie looked at her big round eyes and smiled softly. For truth she had frightened him as he had seen the metal tub angled towards her and nearly tipping off the gas stove. He had jumped forward out of instinct for fright that it would tip onto her and burn her. Her grandmother had been so infuriated that she would have struck her if he hadn’t have been there to calm her, but when he had his turn the following morning his wife had loudly blamed Clara for the incident and it was now common knowledge that she had not only told him of her theory for his health’s deterioration.
“Don’t listen to your grandmother, Clara.” Clara smiled softly, relieved. Herbie’s eyes flickered to the kitchen door and back to Clara. He leaned forward and whispered quickly. “Don’t tell her I said that either!” Clara laughed and placed her hand over her mouth as she too looked at the door cautious of her grandmother’s entering. She was not an unkind woman but she didn’t seem to understand Clara, it was as though neither of them were compatible with each other and they only got on with each other because they were related, they could hardly have a conversation together without one of them feeling uncomfortable with the other.
“Now...” Clara looked back her old grandfather. “...did the chicken peck yer?” Herbie asked. Clara thought about it for a minute and rolled her tongue over her lips as she stared at the carpet in thought. She looked up again and nodded smiling. Herbie’s narrowed and his eyebrows pulled together.
“Really?” Clara’s head slowly came to a halt and she gulp guiltily as she shook her head from side to side. Herbie tutted and looked at Clara patiently, tickled.
“Mandy...” Clara gasped and her head flicked up angrily.
“Don’t call me that!” Herbie laughed as he fell back in his chair, his granddaughters cheeks flushed with incense. “You promised never to call me that!” She grunted loudly and crossed her arms again. “I hate my middle name!” Herbie’s eyes widened in horror, he sat up straight, knowing that he was just aggravating his poor health and weary limbs.
“Clara!” She jumped and stared up at him, her rosy cheeks and pursed lips frozen on her face. “We never say that word!” Clara knew full well what he was saying. It was common knowledge in the family that you never said the word ‘Hate’ in front of Grandpa Herbie; he could not tolerate the use of it.
“Whenever you say that word, you not only disrespect me but you disrespect a lot of decent men who gave their lives for this country! I’ve seen what that word can do and I never want to hear you use it again! Have I made myself clear?” To any person not in the family, a stranger, would find Herbie’s behaviour and fury unnecessary but to have heard Herbie’s reasons for his dislike of that word was enough to make the family never use the word again, or at least not in front of it. Clara knew this but a seven year old is likely to slip up now and again, and over a matter of seconds Herbie realised this too, but that did not soften his resolve as his back twanged as he pressed it forcefully against the back of his chair.
Clara shuffled back on her little bottom, not liking the tension of where she had been sitting beforehand. She now felt scared of her grandfather, but not in the sense that she never wanted to speak to him again, but in the sense that she knew what he could have done when he was younger if she had made such a mistake to infuriate him. In truth being scolded was not something that she was frightened of, like some goody two shoes or prigs. She was quite capable to take a reproach and then to laugh or joke it off, in some cases at school she would even back talk. It was what she was like and Herbie, as her harmless, witty and calm grandfather, was not someone that she could ever be afraid of.
There was a slight silence as Herbie returned to his tranquil state of mind and Clara allowed for the tension in the room to cease before she spoke.
“Grandpa, what does disrepe- dis- disrespecked...?”
“Disrespect?” Herbie offered.
“Disrespect, that’s the one, what does it mean?” The Faversham twang to her sharp voice echoed in the small room as Herbie decided how to phrase it and also if the time had come for him to tell Clara the story which had told all his children, and grandchildren.
“To disrespect someone is to go against their memory, their achievements; to act and say that what someone did was bad or just to make it seem like that they were worthless.” Clara nods, it is still obvious that she is confused.
Herbie grunted and sighed as he smoothed the blanket on his lap and looked ahead of him, to the window that opened up onto the busy road of Stone Street. It was one of the most visited and walked by streets of all of Faversham, and it was once near the centre of all of the activities and gossip in town. Now it was hardly distinguishable from other streets with buildings on. It was no longer special.
The sounds of the passing day were not unlike what they had been fifty years before, except for the fact that cars were not as commonly present as they were now, but the sound of the whistling wind, the crunching of the leaves on the path that had fallen from the hundred year old oak tree in Herbie’s garden, that lingered over the side of his garden wall and offered shelter to those walking the path to town. The escaped sound of birds as they tweeted and swooped past the hurrying pedestrians, the sound of drunken sings songs from the Rose pub just down the road and the loudness of the bell of the Town clock ringing at each passing hour, it was still so similar.
On any evening, past midnight, Herbie could sit in his chair, close his eyes and imagine that he was sitting in the same chair fifty years beforehand, with his new wife and his new bereavement sitting with him, before the fire roasting the feeling of loss away and still hearing the sounds of the Shellfire, the artillery guns, the explosions, the screams, the crunch of bones, the splash of great puddles of murky water, the agonizing silence in a nearby town. The death. It was still so easy to see and imagine and it was time, Herbie knew it was time, for Clara to understand about her past, especially since she was the last to know and probably the last to visit, with Herbie’s failing health so rapidly deteriorating.
He looked down at her, her eyes waiting patiently for a better description of the meaning of ‘disrespect.’
“Clara, have I ever told you the story of the five brothers?”