13
Cloudy with light rain at first, becoming brighter and clearer by the afternoon
MY HANDS EXPLAIN it to Ned. Dead. My hands flatten. Dead Les. I realise this is only the second time I’ve had to think how to sign the word dead.
Ned folds his arms, looks at the floor. I put my hand on his shoulder, same as we do in the Relatives Room. We stand for a bit like that.
Embarrassing. The fact that I didn’t twig. Mortifying. Me, a trained professional. Lee Hart, specialist subject: being deceased. There is evidence Lester died some time ago. Around lunchtime? I had a Chilli Texan burrito. It’s possible he’s been dead all day, or longer. I wish the ground would open up.
We wait while the kettle boils.
Ned wants to bury him in our garden, like a hamster.
No, I sign.
Privately I admire this idea. But. We need to sell the cottage pronto and this is something not to add to an estate agent’s particulars: Garden laid to lawn with beds. Tool shed. Mature tree. Grave: one occupant.
Ned wants a plan. I’m in charge of plans.
Tree dig us yes, he signs. He sniffs. He folds his arms over his head as if, next, the house might collapse on us. I don’t answer. The tree is a sycamore. She loved it. It tilts away from the house at an angle, like the house is afloat, like we’re setting off somewhere. Ned presses his hands over his face. Since he was little this is his way: sightless, soundless, locked in. You have to wrestle him to get his attention. He peeks, one eye.
Doctor, I sign.
Ned rolls his eyes, shakes his head. He is frightened. As if we murdered Les, as if. Ned points at the freezer. I close my eyes. Think think think.
Granted it looks bad, a deceased stepfather decomposing in his own front room under the nose of his trainee undertaker stepson, and yes I have my reputation to consider, but. Even if the freezer was empty it would be necessary to fold Les in half, perhaps quarters, or even eighths.
Ned and me eat our dinner in the kitchen. Mince and onion. Silence, except for the squirt of the ketchup bottle. I don’t catch his eye and he doesn’t catch mine. His hands won’t talk, two empty gloves. I intended putting the radio on but I don’t bother now. I let him dry for me at the sink after. We watch it get dark. A dog from the farm kicks off barking.
I go upstairs and stand under the shower. I let it be hot. The GP visited Les recently. Recent enough to keep the coroner out of proceedings. When? Week before last? The coroner will know Les was sat dead in his chair for at least twenty-four hours. Less than ideal. When I pull back the plastic curtain the room has vanished in the steam. I am invisible and nowhere. I am someone else in another house living a different life in some other time. The steam evaporates. I am me in the here and now. You can run but you can’t hide, Lee. I check myself in the mirror. I look demented. I was good looking once. What giveth? I go downstairs, light-headed. The smell of a clean T-shirt makes me feel sane. Ned is in Lester’s chair, watching Dancing on Ice, his hand down his tracksuit. He waves me out of the way.
Anything on?
No, says his other hand.
I boil the kettle. I open the back door. The air is cold but pleasant. Fresh, Lester used to call it. I step out on to the path and in the stillness my step is loud. No moon. I never carry a torch, you don’t see anything outside the beam. You can see a light from the road, the rest is black.
My name is Lee Hart. In my line of work you get used to it. After a while you stop noticing. The border is no more a border than these fences around here, it’s just the other side. Sometimes you forget, the hours can be long, you forget who is alive and who is dead. You have to remind yourself. You wonder if it matters. Sometimes the fence just disappears and you are in no-man’s-land.
Next morning I make porridge with salt, like she used to. We will need our strength. Ned watches with big eyes, arms folded, foot jigging. I spread my arms to get his attention. I sign him that we must complete a simple manoeuvre after which everything will be right as rain. A girl could do it, I sign. No problem. Easy peasy.
He throws his hair back, chucks his spoon in the sink, burps.
I raise Lester under his arms. He is stiffened. Ned lifts his feet. Without hands I’m unable to precisely communicate to Ned what I need him to do. You do not want a deceased individual vertical at this stage of the game, whether you knew them when they were alive or not. I exaggerate facial expressions but Ned isn’t looking. He’s looking at Les, at his margarine mask face and dark hands. For f*cks. I put my end down. On the plus side he doesn’t hear the gurgles and leaks, but I can do nothing about the smell. Finally, Ned looks at me. At last. Buenos dias. Pay attention, Scrotey. Then. One of Lester’s shoes slips and the leg thumps to the floor. Ned, holding the shoe, lets out a cat’s wail. I count to ten. One knobhead two knobhead three.
Ned chucks the shoe and runs, hand over his mouth. Total spit of one of Lester’s TV reality people seeing their new kitchen for the first time. Anyone would think this was all my fault.
You are excused! I shout. Cheers. But he’s already with the long-legged ice dancers in their shiny skirts. Same old. Buonasera. Not a problem. Lee is here, as per.
I pick up Les in my arms, like you would your bride on your wedding day. Les carried her this way when she got weak. These very stairs. I would watch as he climbed, puff puff, he went. I hated it when her foot hit the banister. I manage just two stairs now. Les is heavy; he is leaking, he is staring at me. I put him down. I am in charge of plans. I drag him up by the arms on his back. There is no other way. He spills down his front like a baby. Unpleasant, Howard would call it. His head drags and bumps. Needs must. I remember her saying, You’re a natural mover, Lee. Would you like to be a dancer?
If she’d had her way we’d all be leaping and twirling with roses in our teeth. Talk about rose-tinteds.
This is working. Job done. Easier on my own. We all have a cross to bear and mine is knobhead downstairs.
I will need soap, water, kitchen roll, tea towels, cotton wool. I will have to improvise. I put the kettle on. Catch my breath. I roll up my sleeves. I have that Louis Armstrong song in my head. I see trees of green. Red roses too. Something something. For me and you. And I think to myself.
The GP drives a Volkswagen Polo.
Once in bed, cleaned and plugged, dressed in fresh clothes, Les looks OK in spite of the staining. Discoloration yes, some hypostasis, but supported on pillows in a clean jacket he looks quite approachable, debonair even. His eyes have clouded. For the sake of appearances I stack fifty-pences on each, as we seem to be out of one-pound coins. The GP is nice, friendly. No worries, he says, though he’s not from Australia. He remembers me. I see him flick a double-take at the fifty-pences. I decide not to ask if he has change.
I had my concerns, he says. It was on the cards, he says. Don’t give yourself a hard time. Your stepfather’s problems were significant and various.
Thank you, I say. I tell him I know it’s not unusual, per se.
The GP washes his hands. He pronounces Lester dead.
Your stepfather is dead, he says.
Thank you, I say. I dip my head.
The GP and I have an understanding. He writes the certificate. We estimate a time of death. Less than the actual. Nothing is said vis-à-vis Lester having died approximately forty-one hours ago. If he sees there is evidence, he doesn’t let on. He tells me I have done a good job laying out Lester. It’s a dying art, he says.
I watch Derek and Mike walking slowly up our path, professional, as if they’re at work. A knock. I open the door. They are supposed to say, Good afternoon, Mr Hart. Shakespeare and Son. May we come in? But they don’t. No one says anything. Then Derek says, Shall we put the kettle on, son? And they step inside.
They stand in our kitchen. Mike goes outside for a smoke. Derek says, Any biscuits?
I introduce Ned as the kettle boils. Derek and Mike watch my hands signing what is being said so that Ned understands.
You look nothing like each other, Derek says. I sign this too to Ned. He looks away. Mikey says nothing.
I’ve never before gone by vehicle to work. Funny. A different perspective. The hearse is wide as the lane. I try not to think about Les zipped up in a bag behind us. What’s done is done. I put it out of my mind and look out at the sky and trees and hedges floating past. I try to imagine I am a stranger here.
I sit on the settee in the Relatives Room. I am a Relative. Should I ask myself whether I want tea? Coffee? Sugar? Milk?
Tea, Lee? Coffee?
It’s Mikey.
This is all wrong. I do the teas and coffees, not Mike. This is wrong, I say.
You’re all right, mate, he says. Perfectly normal reaction. Do some deep breaths.
Mike has misunderstood. I nod.
I know the catalogues off by heart. I don’t know what Lester would want, we never talked about it. It’s a decision for the Relative. That’s me. I opt for cremation: The Basic Coffin. Blue satins. Compton Ashes Casket. Embalm no. Crucifix no. Dressed: Own clothes. Viewing: TBA. Personal Effects: TBA. At Rest.
I choose the Sympathy Basket from Fleurtations. I ask to speak to Lorelle personally.
Howard puts his head round the door. I have put my head around that door countless times.
We can do the employee’s discount, Howard says. No problem. Comes out very reasonable. He sits beside me. He pats my hand, like I’ve patted so many hands before.
All right, Lee. Take your time. Anything else you need at all?
No thanks, Howard. Thanks anyway. Where’s Derek? I say.
Don’t worry, Lee, he says. We’ll take care of everything.
Lester is naked on the table when I walk in. Derek jumps in between, tries to hide everything by spreading his arms.
It’s OK, Del. I’m fine. Let me help.
No need, Lee. I got it sorted. He lowers his voice, winks. Go and relax till I’ve got him ready. Don’t fret, son. I’ll give you a shout.
Behind him Lester’s mouth is frozen in a yawn. Bored rigid he looks. An extreme makeover all his own, at last.
*
THINGS ARE ALMOST normal today, Thursday. Lester is prepped, tucked up on his tray in the chiller. I don’t open it. The crem is booked.
Early this morning I heard Derek in the workshop on the Gravograph, stapling satins, tapping in coffin handles: door locked. Tomorrow me and Ned are to view Lester in Chapel 1, bid arrivederci. What I’ll say to him I do not know.
Miss Langley is still with us. Out she comes on her runners, good as gold. Pulmonary arrest it says on her paperwork. Many of us are walking time bombs.
I’m all right on my own, I tell Derek. You’ve no need. I’ll get on.
Sure? he says.
Sure.
Sunset Glow, Derek says and leaves.
I look at Miss Langley. Never fear, Lee is here. I take out the box of tricks: the combs, the cosmetics, the hairdryer. When you get them so as they look as if they might open their eyes and speak, you’re done.