Entry tags:
PSL: Quentin's Funeral
Capitol funerals are oleaginous with wealth. Today they assemble to commemorate Quentin Compson not just with tears, but with commissioned oil paintings, fireworks, an orchestra playing some lugubrious dirge, with wines ages two hundred years and flowers genetically engineered to have the deceased's initials appearing naturally on each petal. The young man's body is no longer a matter of sodden, lifeless flesh but ash compressed into a shimmering jewel, set at the middle of a wreath of designer oleander at the base of a portrait picturing him more present than any who knew him ever saw him. The painted eyes look aware, like they're taking in every detail around them, while in life Quentin always seemed a step out of time, thinking of something else, half-listening to the conversation.
Jason, fifteen years old, hasn't seen his father sober since the older Jason went to identify the wax-white, water-bloated corpse in the mortuary. This Jason, in a new suit with a tag on the back of his shirt that itches his neck, had stayed home with his mother, listening to her mewl about how could this happen to her, how could Quentin have done this to her. He'd expected to feel something when his father came home, either relief or grief, because everyone was supposed to feel something when a sibling died, but the only emotion that had surfaced was a strange sort of unease that he'd quickly choked off with disgust that his father didn't even bother to come straight home, and instead arrived drunk.
"Did you drive like that?" Caroline had asked. "Did you want me to have to identify a body today too?"
The older Jason's drunk at the funeral, too, trying his best to stand still and not sway next to his black-clad wife and eight-months-pregnant daughter and her new husband. Benjamin's been left home; his crying would be "upsetting". Uncle Maury's had a few too; Jason's starting to suspect that maybe he's the only sober one, sharing company with Caddy's fetus. When the eulogy ends, having described a person Jason's certain never actually existed, there's a reception with pay-per-plate seating and photographers and fireworks in the background.
His mother pretends to faint from crying, although her face is dry, and calls for Jason, her 'last remaining son', to come help her. Jason slips outside just out of her eyesight, not wanting to engage, hoping she just assumes he didn't see or hear her while Maury props her back up. He heads round the back, slouching on a bench in sight of the parking lot, reconnoitering every half hour or so to see if things have died down. His nose, fresh from a rhinoplasty, is straight now, but there are fading bruises under each eye, covered by slight makeup. He undoes his tie and unbuttons his jacket, then finally just flings the latter off onto the lawn somewhere.
At some point his father goes to a microphone and starts rambling about the nature of time and his daughter's wedding and then Jason's just done, incapable of anything but disgust with everything here.
He heads back to the bench and picks up some pebbles, chucking them at the pigeons just to see if the birds will fly away.
Jason, fifteen years old, hasn't seen his father sober since the older Jason went to identify the wax-white, water-bloated corpse in the mortuary. This Jason, in a new suit with a tag on the back of his shirt that itches his neck, had stayed home with his mother, listening to her mewl about how could this happen to her, how could Quentin have done this to her. He'd expected to feel something when his father came home, either relief or grief, because everyone was supposed to feel something when a sibling died, but the only emotion that had surfaced was a strange sort of unease that he'd quickly choked off with disgust that his father didn't even bother to come straight home, and instead arrived drunk.
"Did you drive like that?" Caroline had asked. "Did you want me to have to identify a body today too?"
The older Jason's drunk at the funeral, too, trying his best to stand still and not sway next to his black-clad wife and eight-months-pregnant daughter and her new husband. Benjamin's been left home; his crying would be "upsetting". Uncle Maury's had a few too; Jason's starting to suspect that maybe he's the only sober one, sharing company with Caddy's fetus. When the eulogy ends, having described a person Jason's certain never actually existed, there's a reception with pay-per-plate seating and photographers and fireworks in the background.
His mother pretends to faint from crying, although her face is dry, and calls for Jason, her 'last remaining son', to come help her. Jason slips outside just out of her eyesight, not wanting to engage, hoping she just assumes he didn't see or hear her while Maury props her back up. He heads round the back, slouching on a bench in sight of the parking lot, reconnoitering every half hour or so to see if things have died down. His nose, fresh from a rhinoplasty, is straight now, but there are fading bruises under each eye, covered by slight makeup. He undoes his tie and unbuttons his jacket, then finally just flings the latter off onto the lawn somewhere.
At some point his father goes to a microphone and starts rambling about the nature of time and his daughter's wedding and then Jason's just done, incapable of anything but disgust with everything here.
He heads back to the bench and picks up some pebbles, chucking them at the pigeons just to see if the birds will fly away.
no subject
"Why did your family have to do anything to him? Maybe he was just sad inside. Sometimes I get really scared about things that aren't scary, and my daddy said that sometimes, people just feel a certain way. If things make me scared, maybe things made Quentin sad. Maybe he just didn't want to be sad anymore."
She's looking back down at her doll by the end of it, tightening the braids to make sure that the flowers don't fall out. She's been told a million times that dandelions are weeds, that if she's going to pick flowers, wouldn't she rather have the nice ones? But Swann has never understood why being a weed was supposed to make dandelions any less pretty or nice.
"Won't you be lonely?"
no subject
He shrugs. He hasn't thought about it that way, is angrier at the way people will think of him and his parents than he is about missing anyone.
"I don't care about them anyway."
no subject
"You're not... you're not zoo animals. Quentin was sad, that's all. And you're still here, and Caddy. And she's going to have a baby soon, and people will think about that instead, people like babies."
Turning her gaze back on him, she looks concerned, about him. "So you're just going to stay in your house all the time?"
no subject
"I don't know. Maybe. That seems to be Mother's plan." Jason feels like a toy being put back in a box, something that a great hand plucked up, played with and broke and now is going to relegate to some dusty mothball-filled corner. He feels like he needs every speck of concern in Swann's expression.
no subject
"But what about what you want to do?" It's never occurred to her that his mother might just decide these things on her, wouldn't ask how he feels about it. It's rare that Swann's father asks her to do anything at all, let alone something so drastic and against her own will. Swann, at ten, essentially runs her own life, with her own staff to order around as she pleases, her only obligation being a more exclusive private school than any other in the Capitol, the one all the old money children attend.
no subject
"Doesn't matter what I want to do." Maybe that's what killed Quentin, having to shoulder the burden of being the eldest son. Now that he's dead Jason is to continue being his mother's blunt object to bludgeon the family with along with being the mantle on which they must hang the family name. "I have obligations now. Responsibilities to the family. You're just a kid - you wouldn't understand."
no subject
"You're not a grown-up yet, what responsibilities could you have?" She thinks about her family, her father and mother and grandparents, and she can't imagine them saying she has to do anything 'for the family', because the Honeymead name stands on its own and she doesn't need to defend it.
no subject
Maybe he shouldn't swear in front of Swann, but that makes him want to do it even more. "Some nights Father doesn't go to bed because he can't even get up the stairs."
no subject
She frowns at him when he swears, but doesn't say anything about it. "Is he sick?"
no subject
"What do you think?" Mr. Compson's alcoholism isn't even an open secret, because that would imply people aren't talking about it, aren't going to exchange jokes at his expense after the funeral is over if they don't have the decency to feign sadness for him.
no subject
She shrugs. Swann is still young enough that she's rarely exposed to Mr. Compson, instead being shuffled off to nurseries and playrooms during gatherings, and with only one parent around, she doesn't even really have much opportunity to eavesdrop on adult conversations, to pick up those little tidbits of information that other children might absorb.
"Sometimes he acts like Grandma Honeymead when she was getting... um... dimensions? And then she died. That was when I was littler, before Grandpa died."
no subject
The truth is, Jason doesn't know if his dad is 'sick' in a traditional sense of the word either. On the one hand, the evidence is undeniable, but Jason can't get over the fact that this is something his father does to himself. Every single night, by this point.
"The doctors say he has less than a year if he keeps drinking." And, well, he's obviously going to keep drinking, if the ramble in the background is any indication. He's only gotten worse since Caddy's pregnancy.
no subject
She repeats it out of habit, each syllable separate so that she can remember it for the next time. She doesn't know anyone else with a drinking problem, at least not a public one -- her daddy drinks whiskey and bourbon and brandy after dinner, but only a glass. Two when Viatrix is home. For Swann, that's drinking, not endless amounts that leave one a mess in front of everyone they know. Not enough to kill you.
"Why doesn't he stop?"
no subject
Jason snorts, because he isn't sure if he's serious or joking there. It's only recently that he's realized his father has a drinking problem, that the constant inebriation and sloppiness is abnormal, that most fathers don't come home and drink until they can't stand.
no subject
It's an innocent question, wondered aloud simply because Jason doesn't seem very attached to any of his family, hasn't said a single nice word about any one of them, and he has a lot more family to like than most people do. Swann doesn't know if she would miss her mother very much, but she would miss her father very much, and Eta even more.
no subject
Which is to say that he doesn't know either. He slouches back on the bench, rubbing his temple with his knuckle, worrying his lower lip under his teeth.
"Would you miss yours?"
no subject
She says it instantly, without having to think, because it's true. She would be miserable without her father, always happy and joking around and bouncing her on his knee when she's sad. If the question was would she miss her mother, well then she might have to think a little bit harder to figure it out.
no subject
Jason's not stupid; he can see that there are strange dynamics afoot with the Honeymeads. It's always been part of Swann's presence, like a shadow following her around into the playrooms. Ilar was always there at the events, a jolly constant who treated the kids to candies under their parents' noses, but the few times Jason saw Viatrix she reminded him less of a person than of a faraway smoke signal spelling out the name of a mother.
no subject
"I would... I would miss her, I think," she says slowly, her little forehead still furrowed. "But not like I would miss Daddy."
no subject
no subject
"I would miss her. It would just... it wouldn't be like if Daddy died. It would be a different kind of missing." She pauses and looks at her doll's head. "It wouldn't be so different anyway. She's always gone, and even when she comes home, she doesn't really have time for me."
no subject
"What, she doesn't love you?"
no subject
"She's my mother. Of course she loves me."
It sounds rote, like it's something that's been repeated over and over to her, until she spits out the same thing just from habit.
no subject
Jason knows better than to equate love and family. He doesn't know when he came to that realization, but he's pinned himself to it like a protestor chained to a fence.
no subject
She's not there yet, not yet able to understand why her mother is never there, why she's so distant. She can only take the excuses that her father gives, sweet lies to spare Swann's feelings and preserve the family name.
"She gets me presents, at Christmas and for my birthday."
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)