A Moment of Being

A Moment of Being
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How unpleasant it is to be locked out;
But how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in.

*****

He does not understand his family.

The fact bothers him little; perhaps because they understand him even less than he does them. Spring, summer, and now early autumn, they sit there in the small drawing room as they have on countless evenings before, and he watches, wondering as he does so if he is the only one aware of the almost painful predictability.

His mother. How old is she? He has never asked, and, like so many things about her, it is not information that has ever been volunteered. She has no life, no purpose outside of this house, as if she would cease to exist on crossing the very threshold. He loves her, of that he is sure, but he does not confide in this woman. In many ways, she is a stranger. He knows her name, that she dislikes eggs, and that she cries at night when she thinks no one can hear. But he does not know her.

She is not crying now. Dark hair piled high, she leans over the back of the settee, laughing as she peers over her husband’s – his father’s – shoulder. He is reading, whether Shakespeare or Chaucer or the Viscount’s infamous novel, matters little to her, for so long as she is beside him, she is happy.

What of his father? Away at sea for much of the time; a lieutenant now, destined, as everyone said, for great things. Try as he might, however, he has difficulty envisaging him on the deck of a frigate, cannot begin to see how his father might appear in the heat of battle. He used to ask, but receiving only merriment and the half-truths considered appropriate for children, he soon stopped, preferring silence to such forced joviality. He has long since realised the inescapable truth – his father does not know what to do with him.

It is not his fault. He knows this, as much as he knows the fault is not his own – some things simply are. He is not a bad father, nor is he incapable of demonstrating his affections, as is shown only too clearly where his sister is concerned. But then does not everyone say those two are as peas in a pod? Lisbet is so like her father… how often had he heard those words? Never were they applied to him, and no one ever says how he resembles any member of the family. His mother’s hair, his father’s eyes, the title of Kennedy; that is all he shares with them.

“Jamie, come and read Mamillius for us?”

Shakespeare then. His mirror image has joined them, claiming her place on their father’s knee. Elizabeth, Lisbet, Lizzie; he is close to his sister after a fashion. She is Beth to him, the only one who calls her such. She speaks, so he does not need to, she smiles and laughs and charms so that he can escape such obligations. Two halves - that is how he sees them. He is content to let it be so. He shakes his head at her request, knowing she will not take it amiss. His father frowns for a moment, his mother looks resigned, and then they return to their reading without him.

The late evening sun casts its glow over the happy tableau. He is not part of it, does not want to be. There is one other who is without, not permitted to join the enchanted circle.

Lieutenant Cunningham. His father’s oldest friend sits apart from the rest. He is how James sees a true officer, and, like with so many things, he is not troubled by the disloyalty of the thought. For this man, it is not a part he acts; it is what he is. His mother does not like him. But then she does not like many people, especially those allied with the sea. She blames it, he knows, for keeping her husband from her, and in some way she also blames the man she so grudgingly allows to be present in her home.

He can recall every present, both Christmas and Birthday, ever received from him; a fact worthy of note if only because he cannot do so for any other.

Dark eyes raise at that moment to meet his; the other man is aware of his scrutiny. “You too?” the look they exchange seems to say, boredom and discomfort alleviated in that moment of shared feeling.

It is his dream, his one – he hopes not too – childish fancy. To be like Cunningham; Richard to his father, un-named unless it cannot be avoided, to his mother, but, to him – the person he strives to emulate in all ways possible.