A Trick I Learned From Dead Men Read online

  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.

  14

  Cloudy and dull, with some light rain or drizzle at first and sunny spells later

  NO SIGN OF Ned this morning. Normally he drops past the kitchen window on to the trampoline in time for breakfast before I leave. Shreddies he has, or Cheerios.

  He found the old washing line, the one we used to play with. Talk about gobsmacked. I had no idea he even remembered. Need it. Busy. Go away, he signed. God knows. He slammed his door before I could ask.

  Not your average nine to five, undertaking. Death doesn’t look at his watch. A late finish, dark by the time I make it to Somerfield to pick up something for our tea. I choose Somerfield Special Chow Mein. Lester didn’t care for oriental food, but me and Ned are now free to sample the flavours of the East. I buy extra noodles. Two cheeky cans of Stella find their way into my basket, I knoweth not how.

  There’s no point calling, I’m home! I say it anyway. I mosey to the kitchen, unpack the shopping by the sink, same as. Four minutes in the microwave on high.

  There is a card on the sideboard. In Sympathy it says. Dear Lee, I’m so sorry for your loss. Lorelle has got beautiful curvy handwriting, artistic. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do. Well, well. Buonasera, señorita. As a matter of. Knock it off, Lee, back in your box. A time and a place.

  Quiet. No TV blaring. I open the back door, let myself out. I crack open one of the Stellas. The stone bench under the window reminds me of our mother. She found it in a reclamation yard. I sit on it. It’s got a broken griffin at one end.

  She used to write messages to herself. She stuck them on Post-Its all over the house. We read them daily. New ones appeared as the old ones fell off. I am a conqueror. I choose hope. God is not finished with me yet. Healing wisdom … Get some! Every surface of the house was papered with information, the information that held the secret to the cure. They were in capitals, underlined. That’s how important they were.

  Cancer is caused by imbalance! The logical way to SOLVE this is to use NATURAL Products to safely Target and Kill cancer cells! (E.g. laetrile, found in apricot kernels)!

  She signed up for acupuncture, kinesiology and light therapy. And she was happy because happiness too was a cure. Stress AND sadness cause cancer! She smiled and laughed. She had a whale of a time, because if you don’t laugh you’ll cry and months of detoxing and oxygenating will be out the window.

  On the walls, mirrors, kitchen cupboards: Reclaim your inner terrain! We took note. The only thing that can let you down is your ATTITUDE. We adjusted our attitudes. We did everything the leaflets said. We obeyed the pamphlets. We banished sadness. We said the affirmations. We believed. The cancer didn’t stand a chance.

  *

  I PUT THE tea on. Ned is outside, bouncing. He has a look of surprise on his face, like he’s trampolining against his will. The
twangs are the comedy sound of things going pear-shaped – our theme tune – like some kids’ cartoon, The Knobs.

  Ned’s benefit money is going to cease unless he gets a job pronto. We no longer have Lester’s disability allowance. My plan is to spend twenty pounds a week less. New world, new rules, same old us. I am not unduly worried. I have a plan. We don’t use central heating but we need to pull back in the area of electrics. In the area of food I have come up trumps, if I say so myself. But. I do require an Italian fund, needs must. In this one area I cannot scrimp. It will have to be in the region of one hundred pounds. Undercover Lee has done his research and Il Terrazzo is around about fifty squids a head, plus wine. So far I’ve got about twenty-nine in the pot. Well on the way. Tulips. Tiptoeing. Sorted, dare I say.

  *

  WE STAND IN Chapel 1 looking at Lester in his box. I guessed I would be tongue-tied and I was right. I talk to dead men all day long. Funny. When he was alive I spoke one-way remarks to Les twenty-four seven. Only difference now is the small matter of a pulse. Then there is Ned. He presses his lips together, stares. He looks like a fish out of water. He has never been at my work before. I loaned him my other suit jacket. He slipped it on over his Simpsons T-shirt. You can still see Homer’s surprised yellow mug peeking out between the lapels.

  We have now studied Lester’s face longer than ever before. A decent job by Derek. He has used plenty, I can see, to cover the darker staining. Typical Les, sloping off without warning. Sod off to the rest. Don’t go away they say on Extreme Makeover during the ads, and he didn’t. He went nowhere, but he buggered off just the same. Why not other people’s reality if you’re sick of your own? Fair play. This real enough for you, Les? Lying here covered in make-up with us two knobs looking on.

  I have nothing to say. Zipped, I am. Les has arrivederci’d leaving us none the wiser. One time alive as if he were dead and now dead as if nothing had changed. Buenos noches.

  Ned leans in. He touches Lester’s arm, his hand. Examining it. I don’t recall Ned ever touching Les. Or vice versa. I don’t remember any of us touching any of us come to think of it. Ned lowers his head till it lies on Les’s chest. I check the door. I’m not embarrassed, per se. I don’t know what I am. Looks like he’s listening for a heartbeat except (a) Ned is deaf and (b) Les is dead. The blind leading the blind. Les would have loved it.

  I don’t feel anything much, I wait but nothing comes. I notice the picture of the lakeside sunset is askew so I step over to straighten it. When I turn back Ned is upright again, like he never listened to nothing on Les’s chest. Like I imagined it. Maybe I did.

  I replace Lester’s lid before we leave.

  15

  Mild with strong winds, gradually easing throughout the day

  TAP TAP. I knock and enter. Good morning, Mrs Evesham. Not the finest of days, I’m afraid. Rain just now, but brightening later, I hear. Mrs Evesham died in her sleep. Nice and easy. No fuss or fanfare. She has no idea she’s even gone. No clue. Not to worry, Mrs Evesham. Things may look different but to be perfectly frank it’s the same old same old. I bet you can’t honestly say you even noticed. Am I right?

  Derek is in the back, on coffins. I can hear his radio. Howard is at a crem funeral with the others. Nice and peaceful here. Just Irene front of house; now and then you can hear her voice asking, Now why’s that happened? Looking at her screen.

  Last June Reen said, Lee, you remind me of an attending angel. Everyone laughed. I felt like a knob but I took it as a compliment. She was referring to my presence, my walk. Because there is a style of walk and talk in my line of work that you must perfect if you want to get on. The talk is one thing, slow and soft, as if someone has died, which they have. The walk is another kettle of fish. The walk must be supervisory, sober, but light-footed. Eggshells we call it. Remember, you are not Dracula, Derek says. You learn to walk on eggshells without coming across as a ponce. Egg-shelling is my speciality, hence Irene’s comment. If you want to make it to funeral director you have to be the last word in this skill. Then you have to get the voice right. If you are not posh by birth, and no funeral directors are, then you have to learn to speak toffee, like Howard, a few plums in the mouth. People want death to be posh, nice and smart, even though, of all the things we do, it is the most common.

  *

  OUTSIDE THE SKY is flat blue. I drink instant coffee standing up. The clock doesn’t tick at all. All I hear is my breathing. Then a wood pigeon, starting his list and forgetting. I sit and look across the field at the mast. I wait for a thought, a feeling. Nothing comes. My mind is blank as, empty as the woods.

  * * *

  I sit in the room. I’m supposed to be hoovering, but. Here she died. Here Lester lay. Facts unfit for airing in the presence of prospective house buyers, under the rug they must be brushed, pronto.

  Framed photographs. Us when we were young. I stare at us. Me and Ned with freckles, gaps in our teeth. Mum and Les, leaning, laughing up at the camera, surprised, sun-kissed. We seem alive, more than we are now. Who are these people and what are they doing? And where have they gone? I lie on the bed.

  I wonder if I lie here long enough whether I might slope off too. I close my eyes. I don’t mind, make a change. Buenos noches. Adios. Not that it’s easy of course. It isn’t. Death: the most natural thing in the world is unnaturally tough to do if you’re trying too hard. And certainly not if you are clocking it before it’s had a chance to clock you. A watched pot, etcetera. Stare death in the face and watch it paralyse. Death would rather take you by surprise, creep up sideways and bosh.

  16

  Perhaps a bright start but soon somewhat cloudy, with showery rain

  THE ESTATE AGENT has organised house viewings but there are no offers as of yet. I am usually at work during house viewings but I always run the Hoover round.

  Today is Sunday. There is a viewing. I tidy up. I put daffs in a pot, though they are yet to open. I put mugs on a tray, I put milk in a jug.

  I can hear them moving from room to room. I am waiting upstairs, listening. I can hear them in the kitchen below. The voice of the agent, boom boom boom. Silence. I hope he is pointing out the view. Perhaps they are stunned by it.

  Boom boom, off he goes again. I hear them moving out of the kitchen back to the lounge. Boom boom boom. Silence. Possibly they are regarding the view from there too and are amazed. The silence goes on too long. They don’t like it. They think it’s crap. I displayed the condiment giraffes on the dining table. Probably they’re trying not to laugh.

  Bollocks to this. Making me out like I’m a dick. I do not want to meet them on the landing, on the stairs. I leg it to Ned’s room.

  He is online, possibly nude, I don’t dwell. I walk straight past. I sign as I go.

  Trousers. Now. People.

  I open his window, climb, drop out through the space. I hit the trampoline below. One bounce, two, and I step quite elegantly off. I head for the mast. I stroll like always, same as. I don’t think about them seeing me or if they’re watching. I careth not. Be my guest. Fill your boots. I can just imagine the reaction of old Frilly-Ears Boom-Boom.

  Ah! There we are. Look. There in the landscape! You can see a genuine rustic knob making his way to the woods for food. Very rare. Don’t move, you might scare him. Bit of local flavour for you there. Mostly, they can’t afford to live here any more. Very rare indeed.

  The house will sell eventually. Some gold-carded gent will bring his architect. Together they will find a way, using steel and glass, to transform our red bricks and tiles, our pine kitchen and oil-fired Rayburn into something more or less. Something else.

  Sell we must, but It’s Ned who concerns me. Viewings could be derailed. People might be put off. I’ve told him to stay in his room, told him the estate agent does the walking and talking, but. He’d think it was funny. Typical of him to jinx it for a laugh, to get on my nerves, to keep the house. Who do know?

  I ring the agent.

  Did you point out the views? I ask. />
  Of course, he says. Everything will change in the spring, it always does.

  OK. No problem. If you say so. Cheers then.

  A prediction. I like that. Everything will change in spring. It always does.

  *

  I HAPPEN TO know her name is Caitlin. I have no idea how she found her way into my head. She works at DFS on the industrial estate. I tell her their car park is always full, even though I’ve only been once to look at a leather four-seater. Never mind that, she says, climbing on. There are dreams when you know you’re dreaming. Game on.

  Under her shirt Caitlin wears a leotard, that’s novel, I think. They put her on the till, she says, because she was too efficient in the stockroom. I don’t know what she means by that and I had no idea there were poppers on leotards. Took me by surprise. Caitlin is a double D cup. Here’s mud in your eye. I reckon Caitlin is wasted at DFS. Her talents, I can vouch, would make a dead man blink. I am putty in her hands. I don’t put up a fight. Like I say, she’s efficient. She deals with me swiftly, like blowing up a raft. Caitlin is the type of girl who always, even in your dreams, has mini-Kleenex about her person. There is no post-coital, time is money and Caitlin steals none, which is why they put her on the till. The clock is always ticking with her, but when she’s gone the clock stops dead. Funny. I had no idea I even fancied her. I lie there like one of our clients.

  Lorelle. Lorelle. It’s you I really want.

  *

  I BREW UP. Me and Derek take five in the workshop. Derek’s had his fair share of suicides. Many a hanging, he says. Hanging is the most popular, according to him. Roughly two a year here.

  You remember the name of your first suicide, he says. And your first child. Then as the years go by you muddle them up. As in life, he says.

  Derek’s had five drownings, several overdoses, three jumpers, fourteen hangings and a shotgun. That was the worst, he says. You try to jigsaw them back together. No one views a shotgun death over here, but. If the family request a viewing you have to warn them, gently, then they use their discretion, the more violent the death the more discretion required.