Hope Springs Eternal - An Original Short Story

 Hope Springs Eternal

No-one with any sense likes them, but due to what could only be described as childhood trauma,

I could never shake my phobia of funerals. A traumatic event happened at my first, the funeral of

my great-grandmother. I was five years old. My parents and I stood at the church gate, and I

watched some people that I might have vaguely known, wander around the graveyard. They were

admiring the 13th century chocolate box church and examining the tombstones, bending over

and peering at the worn dates. A group of more familiar people congregated at the entrance, all

very forlorn. An old man that I’m sure I had seen before, approached my parents. They shuffled

uncomfortably and glanced at each other as he conversed with them about various things. I

wasn’t listening; just taking in the faces at the event with my childish curiosity. I was focussed

on a young couple holding hands and laughing at one of the more ornate, larger gravestones by

the church, when the old man stooped down, so that his face was no more than six inches from

mine. His dry and bitter breath entered my mouth, making me nauseous. Sweat pricked my

forehead.

‘She’ll be in there scratching at the lid to get out, won’t she boy? She’ll be scratching

them long old nails, and crying, let me out, let me out.’

He cackled, bent back upright, and finished the story he was telling my parents. I began to cry,

and can’t remember when I stopped.

Three decades later, I was to attend a service at the local crematorium. My late boss, the

venerable Hope Mathews-Watkins was no more. She owned the small investment firm that I

worked at, dealing with pensions, ISAs, share dealing, and various other miscellaneous financial

advice services. Her favourite workspace was situated directly across the hall from my cubicle,

for whatever reason. The company had a few small offices, none of which were what you would

call flash, but the one that I worked in was the most prestigious, being as it was Hope’s base of

operations. We were based on the first floor of a drab, outdated and somehow nauseatingly sharp

lined industrial estate building. Hope liked me. She would check over my work, call me into her

office for brainstorming sessions, and have Jane and I over for dinner. At first, I was worried that

she was coming onto me, but eventually decided that this was hubris. In any case, I made the tea,

I worked late, I helped Hope with her timetable and any extra odd jobs that needed doing. As a

result, despite not ever intending to stay in small investment management, my numbers got

respectable quickly. I was earning ok, which I admit would not usually be considered to be bad

news, but because of this became trapped. By the time I realised it, I was waist deep in a career I

was growing to despise, and equally as ensconced in a friendship with my boss that made me

dislike myself almost as much as I disliked her. My thirties blurred into a long malaise, and by

the time I was forty, my life force was spent. To counter my long, lingering wait for death, I

became a master of the leapfrog. Identifying a colleague's weaknesses, exposing and exploiting

them and taking their place in the hierarchy after the inevitable fall out. I made enemies, but

anyone working within financial services and expecting clean ethics was never going to last

long, so in the end, I did them a favour.

Hope had developed a brain tumour and died almost two years to the day that she was

diagnosed. She told me about problems with her vision and headaches at the onset, assuming her

oversized and gregarious glasses needed changing. A trip to the opticians turned out to be a

reading of her death sentence. A desperate grab onto Hope, no pun intended, prompted two

major surgeries and a course of radiotherapy, but ultimately, she was told there was nothing they

could do. She told me in the office, late one night. It made me so uncomfortable. Why couldn’t

she have just had me stand with the others when she did the announcement? It wasn’t like she

needed reassurance, and what reassurance could I give anyway? She was dying and there was

nothing that anyone could do about it, least of all me. After all said and done, she was

remarkably calm about the news and continued working right until the end. Her thick, almost

black hair was eventually replaced by thin, busily patterned headscarves, and her eyes sunk into

her skull, until close to the end, when they were almost lost to the darkness of her hollowed face.

Investments were still made, pension pots were added to and drawn from, and the company still

prospered. The weekly promises to myself that I would start applying for other jobs ceased, as I

decided that leaving now would be callous, and would have made me feel like a villain after all

those years. Despite it being completely expected, and gradual, Hope’s death felt shockingly

sudden. A void was left, and I took care not to stare into it.

We were given the day off for the funeral. I stood in our bedroom, tying my tie in the

mirror, I heard the faint patter of rain on the window next to me. Looking outside, it had

suddenly turned dull and dark. I watched raindrops slide down the window, mesmerised by them

for quite some time. They travelled slowly at first, and then collected each other. The weight

made their journey so much faster, and when they reached the sill, they were lost within a

collective pool of cold water.

It would be cold and wet, and to be honest, does a funeral have any right to exist on a

better day?

That old man’s grinning face , the one I encountered when I was five, appeared . He

watched me through the window, and through the dying raindrops. His head had thin strands of

white hair along the sides, liver spots and dark blue veins covering its ragged scalp. It was hard

to shake the image and it became even harder when the old man’s face morphed into Hope’s,

creating a visage of a grinning skull, attached to a thin body, scratching feverishly at its coffin

lid, screaming ‘let me out, let me out’.

As luck would have it, we avoided most of the rain. Hope wasn’t popular, so the funeral

got started mercifully quickly. None of the sparse turnout expected it to be as poorly turned out,

and I couldn’t help but think; perhaps she should have been a little nicer to people. Just as we left

the cars, It started to rain again. With a flurry of shaking and shrinking black umbrellas, we were

led into a modern looking building, a modern marvel of giant windows and white walls.

‘This is all about to go up in smoke,’I whispered to Madge from accounts. Her lip raised

very slightly, and she shook her head. I wouldn’t have suspected much more to be honest. I was

convinced that my fake closeness with Hope was perceived as real by most of my colleagues and

contributed to a feeling of mistrust. I realised that my planned sarcastic candour; my effort to

ingratiate myself was now too little, too late in the team's eyes. I could relate I suppose. My lack

of forthcoming redemption was fair. I guessed that the company would either change hands now,

or even wind up so I supposed that it didn’t matter. We got to the holding area, and I did a rough

head count. Sixteen? For the first time, I felt sorry for Hope. I imagined that a lot of the staff

disliked her, as I did. She was abrasive and could be extremely strict about working practices

with me. I had won myself some favour along the years, following her instructions as closely as I

could bear, with many others coming and going. I became a loyal old butler, shuffling along

attempting to cater to his master's ever increasing needs, the stark bitterness having come and

gone decades hence, with only an underlying aura of mild resentment remaining. At last,

following several minutes of funeral guests awkwardly leaning on chairs, walls, and checking

watches, a dour, older gentleman appeared and in a well rehearsed, neutral, soft voice said,

‘Mathews-Watkins, this way please.’

He led us into another modern, bright space. Blue fabric, quite ornate dining chairs were

laid out in rows, in quite generous numbers. Three unused stacks were shoved into the front right

corner of the room, a monument to unpopularity. The small audience made their way to

individual seats, seemingly trying hard to have as many chairs as possible between them and the

next person. The atmosphere, while not brimming with vitality up to this point, shifted into a

new level of awkwardness. Opposite the unused chairs was the centrepiece. A raised platform

that incorporated a conveyor belt. And on that, lay the coffin, and inside that, the corpse of Hope

Mathews-Watkins.

Madge sat next to me. A surprise considering my previous snubbing.

‘Alight?’I whispered. No reply.

Madge held a tissue up to her nose. I scanned the room, and I could see many others looked

upset. Watery, red eyes some of them, others shifting back and forward in their seats clearly

trying not to cry. I wondered if it was the dreary day that had depressed people, or whether the

team were more hypocritical than I gave them credit for. I wished that Madge had sat elsewhere.

Comforting upset people; not my forte. Someone rose up from a chair on the front row and

walked toward the lectern. It looked to be faux oak and had two bendy, thin microphones rising

out of the top that fed back a static squeal as the stranger daintily coughed into them. The

speaker was an attractive brunette, mid twenties. Professional looking yet slightly dishevelled.

Cute, I thought, and she began to speak.

‘I want to thank you all for coming, I know my aunt would have loved to see you here.’

A long pause.

‘Aunt Hope was first and foremost a business person, but many did not get to see the real

her. She was my guiding light through life, having looked after me as a child while my mother

worked. And when my mother died, Hope was there to help me along and keep me grounded.’

She went on, with anecdotes about how Hope had split her life between her work and

responsibilities to Evelyn, explaining that it didn’t leave much time for socialising and pleasure.

‘Hope was always very proud that she got to give careers to so many local people, and

she often used to say that it was her way of connecting with others”.’ A small ripple of polite

applause.

Evelyn went on to talk about Hope’s charitable donations; ten percent of her income apparently,

and her work with some local soup kitchens when she had time. I wondered if I was at the right

funeral. I looked around and noticed that virtually everyone in the room was crying now, and I

suddenly felt quite left out. A string of mourners came up to the lectern .Some I knew, and some

I didn’t but each had a surprising revelation about Hope that I would never have guessed. How

she had been there for them when times were bad, or how they used to work for her but she

quickly recognised their potential and moved them on to bigger and better things. Frank, who

was a quiet and shy, yet huge red head that worked in our office spoke last. I realised that I had

never had a proper conversation with Frank in all the years that I worked at Mathews-Watkins

Investments.

‘Hope and I talked on the phone shortly before her death, as she knew the end was

coming. She made me promise to add something about someone special to her at the end of the

service’. His voice began to break. ‘She dictated a letter to read to you all.’

‘Dear all.’ Frank's hand shook, rattling the letter in his hand. ‘I want to thank you for

being here. Posthumous speeches are for the dramatic, and as you are well aware, that isn’t me. I

just wanted…...to…... say a final……. Farewell…..oh’, his voice cracked….’to you all and…’

Frank broke down completely then. After several moments of deep breathing,

‘I want to thank all my staff generally for their private counsel and support. In particular I

must thank Felix Arnham.’ I sat up straight in my chair, suddenly feeling visible. ‘Being a leader

isn’t easy and every leader needs a right hand man, or should I say person?’A mild ripple of

laughter ran through the group. ‘Felix has been a rock to me and I don’t know what I would have

done without him. He truly became a friend throughout all of my work, including my last dark

days and for that, I thank him’.

It went on, but the words turned into dust. I think other names were mentioned after that, and as

Frank read a further three pages of A4, full of individual platitudes and commendations from

beyond the ether,. I reflected on what she had said. I thought about the years in which I

harboured resentment, and bitterness towards Hope. I sometimes wished she would disappear, if

not actually die. The speech shocked me, yet didn’t touch me. In fact I felt angry. Why wasn’t

she clearer about how she felt? Why didn’t she say, ‘well done Felix’ once or twice? A great

wave of insecurity washed over me and I considered, for the first time in over a decade, that

though I was raised to be loyal in work, it didn’t mean that I was the best at my job. Clearly I got

away with doing the minimum and cheated my way into the affections of the boss in order to get

away with it. That was always the plan, so why was I so damn frustrated at realising the fact?

The truth had become as clear as day to me in this moment, and as it did, my blood iced through.

A chill emanated from my forehead and crept down my arms. To my complete shock, the feeling

coincided with a single tear down my cheek. Before Frank finished speaking, I was sobbing,

almost uncontrollably. I became a thing of pure guilt and shame. I was still crying as we lined up

to drop our floral offerings on the coffin. I had picked some daffodils from a field that backed

onto my home, and had tied six or seven stems together with string. By the time I laid them,

though it was through a salty wet filter, the bright yellow bulbs had wilted and faded to a dirty,

pale hue.

I thought I would never get over that tsunami of guilt, but the feelings of shame passed as

quickly as they arrived. I should have found it very odd, that by the time I had driven home, I felt

better, but not just better; I felt amazing. On my return home, Jane and I chatted about my future.

The world opened up. I would leave the company, and Hope behind me and find my true calling.

The options were limitless.

***

A year later I was still working at Mathews-Hopkins Investments. A month after the

funeral, a handful of employees received invites to the reading of the will. Aside from the small

group of staff, Evelyn was there, a lawyer and the lawyer’s assistant. None of the staff received

any money, that all went to Evelyn. What we did receive though, were promotions. We were

hand picked by Hope before her death to ensure the smooth continuation of the company, and

while this was received with touching gratitude by the others, I was bereft. When I got home and

told Jane the news, it was like Christmas Day. Despite years of me stating that I wanted to

escape, and that I needed to do something else with my life, Jane was mentally spending the

extra salary that evening. She paced around, yammering about kitchen worktops and curtains. I

despaired silently, vowing to take the promotion, but keep an eye on the classifieds. Who knew

whether the promotion would be a move into the limelight, and into headhunting territory. There

was always hope.

So, I had no option but to grin and bear it; get my head down and just do it. The money

helped, and so did the status. I asked Frank to be my right hand man, mainly so that I could shift

any responsibility his way. He was a great worker, and was as keen as mustard. I could tell he felt

a little resentment at my appointment, but that didn’t hurt in terms of him wanting to prove

himself. Due to being so into the job, he settled in quickly, allowing me to indulge in late starts

and early finishes, helping me to settle into a not entirely unpleasant experience at the firm, for

the first time that I could remember. Several months went by, and the company actually started to

outperform Hope’s tenure. I became a star, in so far as the insurance industry has ‘stars’. I began

getting invites for lunches, and award ceremonies. And then, there were the corporate black tie

events that would involve lavish dinners, and glitzy award segments, compared by celebrities for

hire. The people that worked directly under me, upped their game when one of these events was

on the cards, to be in with a shot at bagging an invite. At the start of the following February, it

was announced that Mathews-Watkins had been nominated for Eastern Investment Company of

the Year, and that Stevie Deen, the singer of some band, was to present the award. Several of the

girls in the office came to see me in the following days, regaling me with stories about how they

had pictures of Stevie and his twin brother on their bedroom walls as teens, and how it would

mean the world if they could at last meet the guy in real life. They came to me with almost the

exact same pitch, and it made me wonder if they had gotten together to compare notes. I picked

five girls and presented it to the team as the outcome of a raffle. The men in the office realised

early on that the writing was on the wall, once the buzz hit the office, so most didn’t bother

trying. I heard one or two whispers about fixes, but that was standard, and I didn’t kick off, as to

be quite honest, it was a fix. The event happened on the 31st of March, and was as grand as

billed. I followed the minibus of staff in the Audi and when we arrived, the gratitude of the girls

was obvious. I felt truly popular for one, the girls being genuinely grateful at the chance of

meeting their idol. Hope Watkins didn’t win any awards, however Hope got several mentions in

acceptance speeches, leaving me feeling like chopped liver. The girls got to meet Stevie Deen,

and as a surprise bonus, his twin brother Shaun was also there. The Deen twins worked my ladies

like experts, and it was quite a sight to behold. They introduced their manager Frank, a large red

haired beast of a man. He looked remarkably like my Frank, and I must admit to feeling some

guilt at not bringing him. It’s funny how things in life pop up like that. The repetition of themes,

and people. Like someone is trying to tell you something, or nudge you toward a certain course

of action. Frank, back at the office, was probably pouring over sales figures as we sipped

Champagne, keeping my professional head above water. I made a mental note to consider taking

Frank next time. He would be a designated driver if nothing else.

The evening finished and because it was busy, I hardly got a chance to get drunk. I think

I’d only had a couple so decided to drive home. I wanted to get home at a reasonable time, and

you couldn’t trust the taxi drivers not to try and shaft you. I needed to get up and call Frank to

cue up the schedule for the week. I said goodnight to the girls, and they thanked me with kisses

on the cheek and big, tight hugs.

By the time I was nearly home, it was around 2am. I was in a hurry to get to my bed in

the end, the adrenaline and Champagne buzz had worn off, leaving a rhythmic throb in my

temples. The country roads were winding, yet familiar, but I was starting to feel my eyes getting

heavy, so I opened the window half way, and turned on the radio. I was nearly home, and was

anticipating telling Jane about the evening. She also had those twins posters on her wall

apparently. When she heard that Stevie Deen would be there, she had wanted to come

desperately so I was forced to tell her it was employees only. There were a few husbands and

wives there, but she didn't know that. I never listened to the car radio normally, preferring a tape,

so I was beholden to Jane’s choice of station. Back to those life coincidences again. The band on

the radio, as the DJ announced, was none other than Druid’s Ruin, the band that Stevie and

Shaun were members of. Seeing as I’d just met the guys, I decided to give them a chance.

‘A thief on the run,

Like from a barrel of a gun,

When all said is done,

All hope is gone…’

I could see my house now, and was getting ready to brake for the driveway. All hope is gone. The

third coincidence of the night made my skin crawl. I checked my rear view mirror for braking.

As I looked forward, a large deer ran out from the hedgerow, and without thinking, I pulled full

down to the right to aim for where it had been, as opposed to where it was going. The car rose on

two wheels. I felt the car rise into the air and felt weightlessness, while my arms flailed and

smashed into the hard plastic interior of the door and dashboard. I squinted in anticipation of the

airbags deploying but none of them did. The sounds were immense. I was rolling in the field

beyond the hedgerow and my body was breaking in sections with each roll, the crunches

reverberating inside me. Exquisite pain ripped through my body as my shoulders both dislocated

at once, as my arms were sucked toward the back of the car. My arms wouldn’t respond to my

commands and were flailing more wildly, as if unattached to my body. They hit the car interior

many times, and during one revolution of the car, my face, breaking my nose and splitting my

upper lip in two. I felt a millisecond of weightlessness, every time the car span, and each

subsequent bounce on the field caused fresh agony and injury to my, now useless body. There

was one final, triumphant flip, from front to back like a gymnasts crescendo, and the car crushed

into the ground on its wheels. My consciousness stopped as suddenly as the car’s rolls.

When I woke, I could see only blue and red flashes, and something was dripping onto my

broken face. I thought about the raindrops on the window, and as the drops of whatever it was

thudded onto my head, I heard a chorus of many different voices. When it appeared, I’m not

sure, but there was a face, very close to mine. My head was leaning at a strange angle to the

right, and felt that it was set in concrete. Sticky, wet heat from the side of my head slithered

down my neck, and this contrasted horrifically with my numb, cold body that was shivering with

no help from me.

I heard someone inhale deeply somewhere beyond the close face, and it was that sound

that finally brought the panic. It swelled within me, and remained secret. My inability to move

became more real then, and for some time, I was in hell. I managed to move my left eye. It still

worked up to a point, and as I scanned away from the blurred face to the left, I could see the sky

beginning to turn blue as dawn turned to day. I shivered, and believed that I felt it on some level;

the cold of the spring morning air being something that I wanted to experience with all my soul.

Another wave of chill swept over me, and just for a second, my vision improved. It was long

enough for me to register a familiar image. I saw with remarkable colour and clarity, a lush and

bright green grass field, filled with circular wild beds of vivid yellow Daffodils.

***

I was back at the Church that my parents had taken me to as a boy, standing looking at it

from a distance, not far away at all from where I had the traumatic encounter with that old man

god knows how long before. I looked around and saw a few people I thought I vaguely knew,

milling around the graveyard. There was another group of people at the church entrance who

were more familiar. Everyone was dressed in black. There had been an accident, and here we

were at another funeral. My own accident had caused me severe amnesia, the last few weeks

being a blur of wires, pipes and white walls. I could feel my head pulsating again, and

remembered being back in that twisted car, in my crushed and impossible body. I remembered

flashes of speaking to someone, and making arrangements that felt like, in that moment, a

conversation about leaving the hospital. I needed someone that knew me, so decided to make my

way to the group of people I knew at the church entrance. Jane was there, and she was standing

next to Madge, which was strange. Work and home, never the twain, I always used to think. As I

approached the church entrance, Frank appeared from the far side of the nave and he looked in

my direction. I waved and tried to shout, but my mouth didn’t work. Nothing came, except a

heavy breath. He didn’t react to my wave, turned and continued his conversation with a small

group from the office; the girls that I had taken to the event. I hoped that they hadn’t had a

chance to speak to Jane yet, and worried that they had told her about the awards evening already.

I needed to get to them right away and interrupt somehow. If I could just get between them, it’d

be a distraction at least.

I was inside the church. I could see the coffin at the opposite end as I stood between the

large, ancient double doors. The coffin was standing on two wooden V’s that looked precarious. I

cursed Jane for not staying with me, my memory being as it was. I walked up the aisle, looking

for her, still trying to articulate something;anything at all. Still nothing came. My head pounded.

No one looked up as I walked past them, and I wondered how damaged I must have looked. I

found her at last, much to my relie. She was crying in the front row, so there was no wonder I

couldn’t see her from the back. She had her mother on her left and her father on her right. Where

was I supposed to sit? Of course it was obvious, and it was then that the assumption you have

been having for the past minute or two struck me. I wasn’t shocked by it, nor did it seem

unnatural. I felt calm and realised that I had felt strangely flat ever since I arrived outside the

Church. I had never felt flat, calm or settled at a funeral, not since that old man scared me, but at

that time, it was completely right. I walked up to the coffin and made my way to the head of it so

that I could read the silver plate, screwed on with ornate headed screws. Felix Arden. Plain,

unfussy lettering. I turned to face the congregation, and opened up my mouth to speak. Old

habits die hard I guess. I remembered Hope’s funeral, and thought that I had a few more guests at

mine. That didn’t make me happy, or sad, it just was, and that was ok. The front row consisted of

Jane and her family, and on the other side of the aisle, sat my parents. I knew that I would be

speaking with them again soon, so that was ok. I knew that I would speak to my father in three

thousand, four hundred and thirty two days, and my mother, a further seventeen hundred days

after that. I then turned to the right and saw Hope Matthews Hopkins, for the first time, of what

was to be many. She looked at me calmly, and then I knew my purpose. In that moment I could

sense every thought of every guest. Some of the thoughts were good, and some, very bad.

Among the mundane thoughts around how long this was going to take, and how cold it was on

these old wooden benches. I listened to inner conversations about how I wasn’t very well liked

by many people, and how I got what I deserved. A lot of people saw me as a parasite, I learned in

that moment. More importantly, I appreciated the real truth in that for the very first time. How

profoundly parasitic I was, and how that spread to those that knew me. It was as if my mind

released ticks that jumped onto the people I knew, and they would burrow into others, and suck

the life from them. Of course, some would become infected with my disease, and others would

become passive, the spirit of life drained from their body. What a waste. It wasn’t as if their

energy came to me. It simply remained in my tick, died on them, and withered into nothing

before dropping off, like a dead skin tag. As grim as my revelation though, I was still calm.

Besides, my purpose now wasn’t to reflect, it was to choose. I walked around the church many

times as the vicar gave his cookie cutter eulogy. I had a hunger to choose someone. I stood

behind Frank and Madge, who were talking.

‘I think he was misunderstood,’ Madge said. ‘I actually quite liked him, to tell the truth.’

I felt Frank’s hatred, though he remained silent. He had good cause to dislike me of course, but

what I wasn’t aware of was that during the year of us working together, he had been

manipulating the figures of the company in order to set me up with the HMRC. Even here at my

funeral, he was planning on following through with it so that my name would be forever soiled.

I also knew that he had tried the same trick with Hope, but that she had given him another

chance, a chance at redemption. Though I probably deserved everything coming to me, and my

memory, it was Hope’s gesture toward someone who had wronged her that made my decision

suddenly very easy. I stood directly behind Frank, and looked up at Hope, still standing in the

same spot, observing me intently. She smiled enigmatically and nodded her head once, keeping it

down, looking toward the floor. I leaned forward, and kissed Frank on the forehead. He shivered,

and I noticed he was holding a boating magazine, and had a single white lily pinned to his

buttonhole. I thought of my own daffodils, and remembered the cold, and regret in that one

moment at Hope’s funeral. I looked at Hope, and she still looked down. It was ok. Everything

had balance, and I knew that everything was as it should be. As for Frank, in three hundred and

sixty five days from now, I would be seeing him again, or more accurately, he would be seeing

me.

I saw Hope countless times over the years as we travelled with the same purpose. For

her it was a choice, for me it was penance. To avoid the alternative was enough, and I got the

sense that Hope helped me avoid that, though it has never been confirmed. I would continue

with my work for as long as I was allowed to. All I know is that sometime on my journey, I was

told that there was indeed another option that I could take, but that I was not permitted to know

what that was. I have vowed never to agree to it, in case another of those strange coincidences

comes to pass, and my fate involves lying in a box for eternity, scratching at the lid and shouting,

‘Let me out, let me out.’

All rights reserved. J L Brown 2024