The Ground Took His Blood
I. The Measure of a Man
My brother worked in finance.
I was a plumber.
He dealt in figures.
I dealt in things that leaked,
pipes bursting in the night,
boilers giving up in winter,
people who couldn't afford
to put things right.
He wore a suit to work.
I wore boots.
At family gatherings
he talked about investments,
interest rates,
the things money does
when you already have some.
I talked about a job in Harehills,
a blocked drain in Armley,
the landlord who still owed me
three hundred quid.
We were both working men.
That's what I used to say.
But my mother always seemed
a little prouder of Hevel.
He was the one who'd done well,
the one she mentioned
when people asked after us.
I don't think I hated him.
Not then.
We shared a room for years.
Knew which floorboards creaked,
how to get home
without waking Dad.
Sometimes we'd sit in the garden
with nothing much to say.
It was enough.
I can't remember
when that stopped being enough.
II. One Too Many
That night in the pub
I thought we might sort things out.
We had a few.
Then a few more.
Football, at first.
The old stories.
The daft things we'd done
when we were boys.
Then Dad came up.
Mum.
Who'd been there.
Who'd paid.
Who'd sent money
instead of turning up.
We'd both been keeping things
for a night like that.
Hevel said I was jealous.
I told him he thought
money made him better than me.
He said something else.
I remember his face
more than the words.
I got up.
And I lamped him.
It was quick.
My fist.
His head.
The edge of the table.
Then somebody was shouting
and Hevel was on the floor.
I stood there
with my hands at my sides.
Someone called an ambulance.
Someone told me to sit down.
I wanted him to get up.
To swear at me.
To call me a bastard.
Anything, really.
He died two days later.
III. The Ground Took His Blood
My mother asked where he was.
I couldn't look at her.
At the funeral
people spoke about Hevel,
the good he'd done,
the life he'd had ahead of him.
I stood at the back.
I wanted to tell them
he wasn't perfect.
That he'd said things
he knew would hurt.
I wanted someone to ask
what had happened to me.
Nobody did.
I'm in a prison in Liverpool now.
At night the pipes knock
inside the walls.
I know the sound of a leak,
the little change in pressure
before something gives way.
Sometimes I think about the field.
I don't know why a field.
I've never seen it.
But I see the ground
beneath my knees,
my brother lying there,
blood going into the soil.
Anger doesn't feel like much
while you're carrying it.
A bad mood.
A few words.
One more drink.
I'd been angry with Hevel
for years.
When Mum praised him.
When I counted my wages.
When he talked about work
and I heard something else.
I'd go home and run it all again.
Think of what I should have said.
What he should have known.
By morning I'd usually let it go.
That night I didn't.
Afterwards I stood outside the pub,
hands shaking in the cold,
still going over the argument.
I was hurt.
I know that.
But I'd begun to think
being hurt meant I could hurt him back.
There was something at the door.
I'd felt it for years.
I thought it was him
I needed to get past.
I never thought
it might be me.
IV. Where Is Your Brother?
They ask me about Hevel.
Sometimes I tell them
we were different men.
He had money in the bank.
I had a van and a bad back.
He could buy a round
without checking his balance.
I knew which bills could wait
another week.
There were things he didn't understand.
Things I never told him.
But he was my brother.
I knew the sound of his laugh.
Knew how he took his tea.
Knew the scar on his knee
from when we were boys
and he fell off his bike.
I knew all that.
And I hit him.
Sometimes, in the dark,
I hear my mother calling us in
from the garden.
For a moment we're boys again.
Hevel running ahead,
me shouting after him.
I can almost see him turn.
Then the pipes knock.
Someone moves in the next cell.
I lie there
and think about the ground.
How it took his blood.
How it kept it.
My brother is dead.
I was his brother.
I killed him.
Rev'd Jon Swales, Oct 2026
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