The Life and Afterlife of Charlie Brackwood (The Brackwood Series Book 1) (16 page)

Chapter Fourteen

In Heaven memories are gifts.  A way of seeing a loved one again.  Someone who is simply too far away, or more poignantly is never coming back.  For me, to remember an event from my life on Earth is to relive it. My memories are precious and I cling to them. They make the loneliness disappear for a brief interval.  They form a bridge from one world to the next.  I can decide to take a trip over the bridge whenever I want and be back in that world once again.  It is something that is mine and it cannot be taken away.  It brought me peace to know that the people I loved and cared about, worlds away, held the same memories, and that I was alive in them.  But there is always that one question that niggles away at you, over and over.  For how long?

The afterlife is an adventure.  Or so the older, greyer and generally crinklier village churchgoers were fond of informing me.  Maybe they drew some comfort from this thought during the later years of their lives.  Perhaps in giving me advice they were really just trying to convince themselves.

“Think of Heaven as unexplored territory, Charlie,” they would say in kind enough tones.

“There's nowt to fear in death when you believe in t'grace o’ God, lad,” was another favourite. 

However, their efforts were often wasted on me, simply because the young do not fear death.  We are naïve enough to believe that death will keep his distance from us, choosing only the frail and elderly members for passage to the next life.  This sense of security, once it is shown to be false, can lead to a sense of the cruellest injustice being perpetrated.

Of course, I should have paid attention and been grateful for their advice, which was meant as a form of comfort.  Words of reassurance that I will never hear again.  By a cruel twist of fate, these elderly villagers would all outlive me.  It was a situation I could never have predicted at the time, so confident was I of my own immortality.  It is only now that it is too late to alter the outcome, that I have reached the understanding there is no dress rehearsal in life, nor is there a game restart button.  What's done is done forever and God keeps an accurate and permanent record of everything.

Time for reflection is abundant in my new world and I spend most of mine selfishly consumed in thoughts of my time on Earth.  Why was I born?  Where did my soul materialise from?  While I was alive the biggest question I had asked was: 'Is there an afterlife?'  As I had learnt the hard way, the answer to that burning question is a big, fat yes.  But now what?  Now that the biggest mystery of my life hitherto had well and truly been solved it paved the way for other questions to materialise.

Was my death predetermined?  Do we all have a certain amount of time allotted to us before we are cruelly and unfairly ripped from the ones we love, only to have to watch them from afar while they live out their lives without us?  If the number of days I had on Earth was always well and truly limited, did that mean Lucy's were too? Was there any way of finding out just how long I had to wait for her?  And was her future on Earth part of a predetermined plan that was impossible to change or was she in control of it?

As I sat in torment high up in my wooden castle these questions would cause a merry-go-round of emotions in me.  Before long I had fallen into the dark, heart-wrenching pit that many people succumb to at least once in their lives.  I was experiencing a bout of deep depression brought on by my enforced detachment from a world I once belonged to.

After I witnessed my own funeral, the sense of belonging I’d begun to feel in my new life died away, to be replaced by feelings of overwhelming regret and loneliness.  Only my beloved treehouse gave me any sense of security and comfort.  It quickly became a place I could not bear to leave.  I was in paradise yet I had an overpowering longing for the comforts of home.  For the familiar.  For the life I’d once had.  I longed to hear the powerful rush of the river despite the fact that it was responsible for my death.  My eyes yearned for the familiar sight of the hills that framed the landscape of my childhood and youth, and my ears craved the sound of the church bells in the distance. Most of all I missed the scent of Lucy's freshly washed hair.

The children who had flocked to me didn't understand why I'd closed my doors and my heart to them.  After a short time their eager knocks on the door diminished and all I heard were the sounds of the forest sighing around my fortress.  Gran and Gramps’s attempt at bribing me with hikes to see pretty views of waterfalls inevitably failed, and eventually they too gave in and left me to wallow in suffering of my own creation.

I must have appeared extremely ungrateful for the beauty all around me, for the opportunity I had been given, but I felt as though I had been plucked from my happy and content world and forcibly transported to a place I’d never asked to be.  Mostly my days were spent wishing that there was no afterlife, that there was only nothingness after death, no thoughts or feelings, no loneliness or regret... no complications.  These musings would often make me feel guilty and unworthy of the new life I had been given, for instead of seeing it as a gift I saw it as a curse.

Over the next few months every day became indistinguishable from the next time passed me by unnoticed.  Instead of stepping into the proverbial light I had stepped in to the dark.  I kept my distance from everything that reminded me of my other life and my desire to check up on the coping mechanisms of my nearest and dearest dwindled with every waking moment.  My refusal to witness the pain I had caused outweighed even the desire to see Lucy's face again.

I had plummeted into a world of suffering, loneliness and regret in the midst of this idyllic landscape. The contrast between the beauty around me and the way I felt inside was often cruel and upsetting.  I felt ungrateful for the gift I’d been given, angry that I was not given any other option.  I knew my outlook needed to change but I was so deep in depression I could not imagine emerging from it.

It would eventually take the kindness of a stranger to pull me from the darkness that had held me in its grip for too long. I still received one regular visitor to the treehouse.  His knock on the door was always soft but when it broke into my thoughts it might as well have been an explosion.  Timmy didn’t understand my sudden coldness towards him or why I no longer wanted to play pirates.  He would look up at me with eyes full of disappointment every time I explained that I was still feeling unwell.  Even after the other children had given up, he would still visit me in the hope that I had recovered.  I was so steeped in misery that I didn’t even feel guilty about lying to him.

One day, while reliving the moment I proposed to Lucy in an attempt to remind myself of happier days, I heard the familiar soft tap on the big wooden door of the treehouse.  Reluctantly, I dragged myself out from under the comfort of a soft blanket that was identical to one Lucy and I had in our house, and steeled myself against the disappointment on Timmy’s face once again.

“I’m sorry, Tim, but I’m still…”

I stopped mid-sentence as the visitor was revealed to me through a gap in the door.  I was almost relieved when I realised it wasn’t Timmy.  I wouldn’t have to deceive him today.

The man standing in front of me was a stranger but there was a sense of the familiar about him.  I had seen him before and as I stared into his youthful face I realised we had even had a conversation not too long ago.

“My name is Robert,” he said in a serious tone. “I think it’s time I told you my story.”

I didn’t know who this man was but I wasn’t prepared to listen to any story he had to tell.  No doubt he had been sent by my grandparents to talk some sense into me.

“I’m sorry, I’m not feeling too good today, any chance you could come back another day?” I asked with annoyance in my voice. 

I was eager to get back to my daydreams and the comfort they brought me.

“I’m afraid not, this is quite important,” he said, sounding amused. Obviously he had been expecting this sort of evasive reply.

I hesitated for a second, wondering how this stranger could possibly help to lift the gloom that overwhelmed me.  My curiosity was piqued, though.  This man obviously thought he knew me from somewhere but, as hard as I tried to remember him, I did not believe I had ever encountered him in the land of the living.

I stood aside and let him come in.  He climbed the stairs to the top of the treehouse with an air of quiet confidence that suggested he had been waiting for this meeting for some time.  I gestured for him to sit in the large, old-fashioned, overstuffed armchair in the corner of the room, while I sat down opposite on a long window seat and waited for him to begin.

“I know we’ve spoke a little and I’m aware that you don’t know who I am, but since I know who you are, I thought I’d attempt to even things up a bit.”

I listened to his voice and realised for the first time that he didn’t have an accent of any kind.  He could have been from anywhere. 

“I’m listening,” I said, while studying this young man, who couldn’t have been more than eighteen.

He took a deep breath and glanced nervously in my direction. His hands were clasped tightly together as they rested on his knees.

“I know you, Charlie.  I know that your first car was an old, battered Mini Mayfair.  I know your favourite ale is Black Sheep, and I know that’s what you were drinking just before you died.  I know you had tears in your eyes when you proposed to Lucy that day.  I know you and your best friend have been in love with the same girl for years and that you nearly lost him over her.  I know about the treehouse you built and how rich your life on Earth was.” He paused for a second and ran his fingers through his hair, “I know because I watched you... I’ve been watching you for years.”

I stared at him, still trying to place his unfamiliar features and coming up with nothing.  Questions raged through my mind.  Was this man sane?  Did he have an unhealthy obsession with me?  Was he responsible for my death?

“I don’t understand,” I told him.

He shook his head.

“I’m sorry, I’m not explaining myself very well.” He paused for a moment, a pensive expression on his face.  I assumed he was seeking the best way to say what was coming next.  He tried again.

“Does anything about me look familiar to you?” he asked.

“No,” I said apologetically. 

Where was he going with this?

He narrowed his eyes, almost as if willing me to concentrate.

“Look again.”

I focused on his eyes, their shape and colouring.  His eyebrows were thick and low, making him appear serious-faced even when he didn’t mean to be.  His hair was dark and cut short but I could see the slight curl to it.

A vision flashed into my subconscious then.  It was a photograph of my mum and dad on their wedding day.  Black-and-white and slightly faded, it took pride of place in my parents’ kitchen.  In the picture, I saw the same curly hair.  The same low brows.  The same easy smile. 

“I don’t believe it,” I whispered under my breath as I stood up.

I moved so I could study him closely.  How could I not have seen it before?  The resemblance was uncanny.

“You look just like my dad when he was younger, but how...?” My voice trailed off as I struggled to make sense of this.  He looked at me with a lopsided grin as he stood up.

“Your dad also happens to be my dad,” he said.

Chapter Fifteen

I stared at him as a mixture of emotions filled me.  Robert stared back, waiting patiently for my response. 

“I don’t understand.” I was beginning to sound like a broken record, even to myself. “How come we never met on Earth?”

“I’ve never set foot on Earth.  I died before I was born.  I’ve never met our parents. Gran and Gramps are the only family members I’ve met and even they didn’t know about me before I told them.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

My eyes widened as I realised what he had just said.  How had I never known this before?

“Our parents? So that means…”

He started to nod and then laughed nervously.  He shuffled his feet on the spot and looked down at the wooden floor as I stared at him in shock.

“Yes, I’m your kid brother.”

Tears began to fill my eyes. I became overwhelmed with emotion.  I grabbed him and hugged him to me, scared to let him go.  All this time I’d had a brother I didn’t know about.  Flesh and blood living so close to me, and I’d had no idea.  I thought about my own treasured childhood memories and felt so sorry for the brother I had longed for as a young boy.  I thought about my parents too and the heartache they must have suffered at the loss of Robert.

After many hours spent getting to know him, I had a clear picture of what his childhood had been like in this world.  He told me that in Heaven children grow older just as they would on Earth.  He had a birthday every year, he lived with our grandparents and they lovingly raised him as their own.  Gran and Gramps had advised him to keep his connection to me secret until I had overcome my initial disorientation.  They had been hiding him when I lived with them during my first few days here.

When I had seen him walking up their driveway that day he had been returning home from school. 

Robert told me many things about my new world that I had never before had any interest in knowing.  For example, all children there attended school, where they learnt the subjects they would have studied on Earth.  They celebrated birthdays, exchanged gifts at Christmas, and if you were so inclined, you could even go to university and build a career.  Everything you could do on Earth, you could do here.