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A schoolmate was teaching him to swear without moving his lips. He grated 'bloody bitches' at table then denied he'd spoken. It was accepted God culled his flock without rhyme or reason and kept open-house day and night choosing the young and best as any good shepherd might. Death was a brisk, involved event for all. Trade unions had introduced welcome funeral benefits. The Lord's will had to be seen in a positive light and paid-up members took the chance to display style. Ernest took Lizzy's spite to heart. He'd cause to fear the agents of heaven despite the robust family line. On Sundays he would idle about his den listening to relays of answering bells and ponder solemn events in the Christian calendar. He knew when they tolled for the dead and when they summoned the living - bells were vital to the politics of heaven. He overheard his mother promise his ailing father 'when your time comes and your funeral's costed I'll pay to have the horses' hooves padded. We'll show the street we can match the best'. Rubber-shod horses expressed grief more decorously than raiment rending or wearing sack-cloth and ashes - much mentioned in God's good book but not favoured in Swansea, being more the custom of folk of Hebrew persuasion. Undertakers offered rococo hearses with silver cherubs and nags plumed with black ostrich feathers. The ensemble offered the dead a luxury undreamt of in life: 'mutes in fine livery, not to be missed'. Cobbled routes to the cemetery were always lined with hatless men, heads bowed, and shawled women sobbing. Elizabeth Parnell, egged-on by daughter Lizzy, was obsessed with the rites of death and put neighbours through her own sieve of pomp and style.
"Lizzy! The O'Neals have bamboozled us! Wreaths, plumes, four nags, six mutes! That's cost the liars a sack o' gold dey swore dey niver had!"
Lizzy's breast heaved with rage.
"Dad's funeral will put all their noses out o'joint."
Ernest found it hard to distinguish funeral wagons from carnival floats. He studied coffins and tried to imagine how the corpse had been 'fixed'. Repose inside the casket was serious parlour talk. He avoided black horses sure they'd bad breath even though on frosty days they snorted silvery clean. God's logic was a nightmare.

"Sweet Jesus spare Stan and take Ma and Liz."
With eyes tight shut he peered with all his might into the night. Shaun Brody told him that this way he could see into the next room as well as heaven. It didn't work indoors nor did he see God. The priest said there was a big shopping list in St Peter's right hand and the saint lazed about heaven directing Gabriel when and where to blow his summoning horn. Ernest had visions of the horn near Stanley's ear trumpeting black death. For his own comfort he accepted Tara Grady's assertion that death was white. She'd been born blind and the Sisters of Mercy said she saw through the sight of the Virgin. He asked her:
"Have you seen God?"
"Yes."
"What colour is he?"
"He is so bright he took away my sight."
Ernest fell silent.

When the mother of Liam Reynolds died, the boy cornered Ernest.
"We can't manage without her. Dad's always cryin', says religion's cruel bullshit. He ain't bin struck dead yet."
Proof, if proof was needed, that humanity was not subject to God's avenging sword. Ernest drew no comfort from the church. His mother and sister Lizzy buzzed in the world like horse flies, claiming to be purer than pure. He begged Gabriel to swat them both.

This is a page from Milk and Honey by Gerald Moore, available for purchase from Lazarus Press.

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