Uncle Michael

His ramrod back, his brill-creamed hair and waxed moustache gave him a certain air, a certain dash, and a military bearing. His speech was clipped. He walked his stick with sergeant major's flick. His corduroys were always neatly creased and Liberty cravat was tucked and teased just so within pressed collar. When I was six, when I was nine, he smelled of oils and turpentine. His painter's smock, his donned beret, the memory of finest days spent long in summer holidays while drawing boats upon the beach and teaching me to see each shape, to look at nook and shadow, and learning how to place the paint from palate onto canvas. I adored him. He was a father friend to me, and I was like the son he never had, nor could he ever have. Our time was always fun, like that between beloved father and a much loved son. We watched Jaques Tati films in matinees and laughed until I cried on happy days spent with my mother's only brother, my upright uncle Michael. When I was sixteen I saw him less. We lived quite far apart and I spent not much time in Kent and he hardly ever came to Cambridge. It was not for me to know the diseasing rot beneath his skin, or colostomy bag not quite concealed and hanging by his thigh, revealed in darker privacy of Kentish cottage bedroom. And then one Sunday afternoon while sitting on the sofa, watching something on the box, mother suddenly began to swoon. She came quite unwell all over, no longer strong and feeling faint soon made to go upstairs and said, 'Something's very wrong.' Her mind seemed gripped with fear and dread, and climbing each unhappy stair, she slowly made her way to bed. Then father took an evening call. A shotgun in the shed. My aunt was out she'd left the house. When she came back she found him. He'd shot himself. He'd shut shed door and shot himself, both barrels through the head. 'Son, your uncle Michael's gone, your uncle Michael's dead.' And no one thought to tell me then that he was slowly dying. Not wanting wife to bear that strain and sparing both to share his pain, the day had come to end his life. That conspiracy of silence broke me. Confusion for that teenage boy, and thoughts that raced right through his mind with sweaty sleepless nights, began to grind away all remnant of his sanity. Days were brought up short at school, and then he didn't go at all, but wandered room to room at home, and banged his head upon the wall. And how much kinder would it have been if someone thoughtful simply said the reason for that shotgun shed, had seen the reason for my mother's dread, which I learned so much later. And now, once in a while, I draw and paint. I've not seen Tati's funny films again. I'd like to think that if I saw them, I'd like to think I'd laugh out loud, those memories of that grieving boy, spared by the laughter we once shared. I'd hope that final memory would not spoil and taint the joy, that joy with Mon Oncle Michael.