‘Thank you for coming.’ Jimmy puts a hand on William’s shoulder, walking him a few feet away from the gathered women. William’s feet are sticking to the pavement. ‘What’s your name?’
‘William Lavery.’
‘Were you at the dinner dance?’ William nods. ‘It’s pretty basic in there.’ Jimmy has a thick Belfast accent. He’s talking quietly so the women can’t hear. ‘Electricity and water were cut off when it happened. The fire services are doing their best, but for now it’s a hurricane lamp and buckets of water. Doors on trestles for embalming tables.
‘Bodies are brought here, wrapped in blankets. Before we arrived, the police were cleaning them to get identification from the parents. We’ve managed to get the coroner’s permission to treat the bodies without post mortems, thank God. We’ve set up a couple of stations in the vestry and a couple more in the other chapel down the road. We wash them, get them identified, treat and coffin them. Then they’re moved to the other chapel.’ Jimmy still has his hand on William’s shoulder, but he’s talking to a spot on the ground a few feet ahead of them. William tries to concentrate; there won’t be time for questions later. ‘Our biggest challenge is the slurry. It’s like tar and all you’ve got is soap and cold water. Just do the best you can.’ Jimmy rakes a hand through his red hair. ‘Now listen, William – it is William, isn’t it?’ William nods again. ‘The help we can give these people is not complicated. We do our job. We do it well, we do it quickly and we leave. We’re not priests, or friends or family. We’re embalmers. Keep your head down and your heart hard. That’s your kindness.’ He squeezes William’s shoulder. ‘Got it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘One other thing.’
‘Yes, sir?’ William wants to get on with it. If he doesn’t start soon, the desire to run might overwhelm him.
‘There’s a concern that more slag might come down. Especially if this rain carries on. If you hear the alarm, you get the hell out. Understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Right then, let’s go to it.’
They return to the chapel entrance, watched intently by the line of women.
In the chapel gloom, William can just make out cocooned shapes; on the pews, upstairs and downstairs. Compared to the lofty, stained-glassed majesty of his chorister chapel it seems ludicrous that this simple building can even share the same name. They could have as many embalming stations as they wanted in there, and the choir could still practise without getting in the way.
‘The bodies recovered first were relatively intact and most of those have been identified, embalmed and coffined,’ Jimmy says. ‘Now it’s getting harder. That forty-foot pile of slag hit the school at one hell of a speed, so they’re not just covered in it. You can imagine, with that sort of impact …’
William glances round at the blanketed bundles, guessing there must be over fifty. ‘How many more to be rescued?’
‘Don’t know exactly’ – Jimmy walks through to the vestry and William follows – ‘but there were a hundred and sixteen children missing overall, plus adults.’
A paraffin lamp casts a dim glow round the room with peeling white paint. There are two doors supported by trestles. William’s heart jumps at the sight of such small bodies lying on them. During training, he’d looked after one child; a ten-year-old boy hit by a car. At the time, he thought he’d taken it in his stride. Now he thinks the embalmers look as if they’re working on dolls. Two men stand over a body, one pumping embalming fluid in with a hand pump, the other attaching a label to a big toe. On the floor is a bucket into which blood flows. There are mounds of black rags at the embalmers’ feet.
Another man, at the second station, looks immediately to William and opens his arms slightly in a gesture of relieved welcome.
‘Harry, this is William,’ says Jimmy, ‘your partner for the next few hours. I’ll leave him with you, Harry.’
‘Thanks, Jimmy,’ the man says, then turns to William. ‘Ready for this, lad?’
‘Ready,’ says William, not wanting another speech.
‘Right then.’ Harry picks up a pair of scissors and hands them to William. ‘I’ve cleaned him up as best I can.’
The boy’s brown hair lies flat across his forehead. His face has smears of grey across it, but large smudges of freckles are clear to see on his neat nose, reminding William suddenly of his old chorister friend, Martin. His arms are freckled too and his shorts are rumpled. Then William notices that below the knee, both legs are crushed.
‘You saw the parents on the way in?’ Harry asks. William nods. ‘They’re waiting to see if we’ve got their child.’ A tiny muscle twitches under Harry’s left eye. ‘First, cut the shirt off. Neat as you can.’
‘OK,’ says William, moving already to the body, noticing one side of the shirt is covered in slurry and the other is strangely fresh. He snips down the clean seam and manoeuvres it off the boy. One side of it feels light and insubstantial in his hands while the other is heavy and pulls downwards. ‘Where shall I put it?’
Harry shakes his head slightly. ‘You’re going to take it out there’ – he nods to the chapel door – ‘hold it up, and ask whose little boy went to school in it on Friday morning. Then bring them in here.’
5