The boy jumped down

The boy jumped down onto the street.. He was taking the standard short-cut to the shops, which is where he might have been heading, but he had landed in front of a woman who seemed to be dazed and confused. She did not really see him, despite the noisy clatter of his landing. She just moved slightly aside and continued slowly onwards, her sad eyes staring into nothing.  This startled and amazed the boy, and for a moment he did not know what to do. The sound of an ambulance passing by, sirens wailing jolted him back to his senses. "What's wrong, Ma?" he said.
There was no reason for his Mum to be there, walking aimlessly beside this insignificant little wall, the slightly scruffy football park behind it, the busy London Road in front. He, no doubt, had a very good reason to be there. That is why he had taken the short-cut, why he was in such a hurry and why, in his careless rush, he had nearly collided with this sad, distracted lady.  This ten year-old boy had many banal passions, any one of which could have been the one that had driven him into a near collision with his distraught mother on this dreary autumn day. Whatever one it was, it has been driven from his memory. He only knows that he was alone when he dropped down onto the pavement, forcing the poor lady to hesitate, if only for a brief second. There were no playmates with him, they were elsewhere. No-one else was on the road, at least no pedestrians. Cars and ambulances hurried by. This created a distant air of business, of the world going on, but if there was any noise, he was unaware of it. All seemed silent. And if, somewhere inside his ten year-old brain, he knew any reason why his mother should be just there at this moment, he was certainly not aware of it.
"Your father is dead," she said, evenly, blankly, with a trace of a sigh, and then she continued slowly on her way. She too was on her own, an unusual fact which ought to have disturbed the boy. It has indeed puzzled and disturbed him ever since, but it did not register that day. Across the road lay the massive, windswept grounds of the hospital. This fact should have explained his mother's presence there, but this found no place in his consciousness, as an immense blackness took possession of him, urging him to flee.
This horror-driven, mindless flight must have ranged all over the neighbourhood, but it did not involve returning home, whether to seek the solace of his brothers and sister, or to give comfort to his bereft mother. Instead, he found himself in a park, where friends were playing football . He was still distraught and his mind filled only with blackness. They sensed this and they tried to comfort him. One explained that it was alright, his father had been crushed by a lorry, which seemed completely  irrelevant to the boy. Mostly they just did their best in embarrassed confusion and he ended up playing with them for hours, with no consciousness whatsoever of what he was doing.
He has no memory of returning home either, though he eventually did so, but a few days later there was a sombre bustle about the house, associated with the main room receiving his father's coffin. Foolishly, he tried to sneak in to see his father's body, so fascinated was he with the idea. He only managed a brief glimpse of the familiar figure, laid out formally in what looked like priestly robes, before he was overwhelmed with horror and ran and to hide himself in his room.
His father had been a distant, slightly hazy figure, though always at home and had performed the usual roles with diligence. He had been only dimly aware of his father's terminal illness. Once, a month or so  previously, he had been bemused to see his father in bed during the day, blessing himself as he watched Mass on TV. With hindsight, he could not really complain about him as a parent, but also he could not really say he loved him. The boy's overwhelming, perhaps excessive grief, which lasted well over a year, including some dreadful episodes, was therefore perplexing.
His brothers and sister did not experience any of this grief. Indeed they could speak more frankly, naturally and nonchalantly  about the distant relationship.
So a search for a narrative to explain this overwhelming, unfinished experience has obsessed the boy ever since, though of no interest to his siblings. It was the second marriage of both parents, and all three families lived together, reasonably amicably, it seemed, in the same house. He could start with this strange family background. His father was much older than his mother, so he would certainly include that. But, he must, he thought, start with the fact that he, the youngest of all, had been named after his grandfather, and so had his father. What's in a name? A narrative, he thinks.