A Trick I Learned From Dead Men (4 page)

At Rest
. The engraver makes light work of it. Gravograph is a nifty machine, you begin to think of all kinds of things you could engrave. Only drawback is the noise, like a drill through metal, which is what it is.
At Rest
is my preference.
Rest in Peace
is longwinded compared. Derek veers between the two, Depending on my mood, he says.

There are motifs: the men get the swirl, women get roses. Babies have
Asleep
. I haven’t had a baby yet, one to dread. I have a few work firsts left to come: newborn, immolation, suicide. All in good time, ready or not.

Everyone dreads a baby. Fortunately they are few and far between. Derek says he can count them on two hands, which is good. Still, you can’t shirk if one comes in. Derek does them asleep, sheet folded under their chin. Small children are prepared in a flash. No death mask for them, the skin is plumper, tricking you, making it harder to take. The eye sockets alone let you know they are gone. Children are buried with their freckles fresh on their face. Christening dresses are popular, undone is easier; we’ve had Buzz
Lightyear
, skinny jeans. We never say no. Philip Cuell died of spina bifida and took his light sabre with him. Soft toys, iPods, juice. The parents’ request is our command. We don’t answer the phone. The radio goes off. The satins are white.

*

T
HE WOODS KNOW
me these days.

Evening, Lee. Buenos tardes.

I startle a bird snoozing in a tree.

Hello, Mr Pigeon, not expecting me were you? Fear not, I am unarmed.

He clatters away.

So. Irene says to me on Tuesday, Are you happy, Lee? I’m happy when I’m here in these woods. I should have told her that, I didn’t.

I said, ’course, Reen. Kind of a question’s that!

And she says, OK, my love.

Sometimes, a woman can see right through you. Derek wouldn’t ask that in a million. He calls women the female of the species. Sums it up: species. Freaks me when she calls me My love. Like we’re having it off in one of the hearses.

I wish I could name the birds. I could google them, but it’d take till kingdom come. I wonder what Irene
meant
. People expect too much. Time to get real, but. Reality is on TV nowadays, while everyone lives in fantasy-land. For example, my girlfriend Karen and I went out for nearly two years before she said, Lee, I can’t see where this is going. This was before I got the job at Shakespeare’s and I’ve often thought she might have taken me more seriously if I’d been an undertaker, but still. Water under the bridge.

I look out for Crow. I think on, nothing too clever. My thoughts tangle up with the weather and the hedges and we go along like we’re the same thing.

When we were kids I used to push Ned along here in the pram. I had to fold him in from age eight, knees up. He loved it. If he kicked too much I had to smack him. He enjoyed our little jaunts. I used to push him all the way up Furlong Hill and back. Miles, we went. He wanted to swap over. I explained he was the baby, that was the way it was. He accepted it. I pushed him up to the woods the long way. When I got to the footpath I tipped him out. We had a walk together. He loved being out and about, made a change. Then I’d carry him on my back till he got too heavy. He has never blamed me for his being deaf. He has many faults but blame is not one.

The field is shadowed down the east side, brass-coloured in the middle. The light has elongated the trees. No birds. They must have gone to Fellings Farm, they
might
have been harrowing. Just a dead pigeon. Buongiorno; not looking his best: headless, gutless, wing torn clean off. Something’s given him a good old seeing to. The feathers go under the fence and into the field. I wait by the fence, watch the clouds.

A vista, is what Lester called this view when he first saw it, A marvellous vista. Those were the days when he spoke for the hell of it. He could surprise you with his outpourings, quite articulate then. People change, sometimes they disappear right in front of you.

There is wildlife in these parts, you just have to wait for it to turn up. I am not here for the wildlife, per se. I am merely here, waiting for nothing.

I sit by the spot. Not a grave exactly, is it? I sit there anyway. She is here because she’s nowhere else. They start to slip away, the dead. You don’t notice at first. It gets hard to remember. That’s how it begins: you can’t remember something you always knew. That’s the beginning. They slip away, they have to. Bit by bit you let them go. You think you won’t but you do. You hold on at first, you make yourself remember, pull it all back, but they go. That’s the way it is.

*

I
N THE BEGINNING
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by
Him
and without Him was not any thing made that was made. Derek has typed up his own cut-and-paste Bible extracts so that they fit on a sheet of A4.

In Him was life: and the life was the light of men.

It is stuck on the workshop wall with Blu-Tack. All your well-known quotes, top twenty Bible hits. God’s indefinite wisdom, Derek calls it.

He keeps meaning to frame it but deceased clients keep arriving and, as Derek says, there’s only twenty-four hours in a day.

Saying that, Derek points out, God did the lot in six. What have I got to complain about? He jinks an eyebrow at me.

The brass. Like him and God are the same. Derek Almighty. Talk about getting above yourself.

Derek, I say. Shouldn’t that be infinite wisdom?

Derek looks at it again, looks at me.

Says indefinite here, he says.

Reckon that’s wrong, I say.

He looks again. I’ll change it, he says. He does, there and then, with his pencil. Infinite, indefinite, he says, Splitting hairs, he says. Hardly the point, is it?

He’s in a huff now.

Depends, I say.

On what?

If you believe in God, I say.

It’s not as if it’s written in stone, he says. No one cares if God is infinite or indefinite, people haven’t got time to worry about it.

Howard pops his head round the door, ending the argument, giving Derek the final word. Derek’ll have the final word after they’ve screwed down his lid.

Lee? Got a minute?

Think on. I’ve cocked something up. Yesterday, the day before. The bruise on Mrs Wright’s hand. We sit down in Relatives 1, like we’re relatives.

How do you feel about paging, Lee?

Howard folds his hands, smiles, drops his head to the side. I look at his overhang of teeth. I pretend to think. I do not know how I feel about paging. I can hear Howard breathing, it puts me off.

OK, I say. Not a problem.

Good, Howard says. He nods. He smiles. Teethfest. More teeth than he needs, by the look.

Excellent stuff, he says.

Not a problem, I say.

I have shaved Mr Martindale, as requested. He looks buff. Old gents look better after a shave, even dead ones. Hair and nails do not continue to grow after death, I can hereby defrock this old wives’ tale. Skin shrinkage gives the impression of growth, it’s an illusion. Mr Martindale
is
to have his prayer book in his hand. He’ll look just the job.

Gents are coffined wearing wristwatches, ladies in their jewellery, but it all comes off if they are to be cremated. After the viewings, everything off including wedding rings, though our crem allows them, if requested. Gold melts with the deceased. All those I Do’s. All those promises. All those Till Death Do Us’s. Where they go we knoweth not.

You hear people say how they seem asleep and true there is a restedness, but a dead face will show you its skull, I never saw a sleeping face do that. Everything sinks. What you see in the naked dead is a skeleton draped. Not to say that it’s spooky, just different. It’s natural as. Nothing to be scared of.

Derek holds up a photo of a lady smiling, raising her drink to the camera.

Hot date? Mike enquires.

Match.com
? I say. Joining in.

Show some respect, Derek says. It’s Mrs Barry.

Mrs Barry is in the chiller, tray 5. Derek trollies her down and parks her in front of me. Well? he says.

It is a fact that Mrs Barry has aged a bit in the last two decades. The picture supplied by the son must be twenty-odd years old, or more. I don’t know what to say.

I take it as a compliment, Derek says, but this is not a beauty salon and neither is it the Shrine of Lourdes, are you with me?

I don’t answer. I don’t know the Shrine of Lourdes. But I can see Mrs Barry has lost her joie de vivre. We have to assume it’s the same woman in the photo, but. Finally I think of a comment.

We’ve got our work cut out, I say.

Derek rubs his face, blinks. He holds the photo at arm’s length, squints.

I am not a miracle worker, Lee, he says. We are men not gods.

I don’t agree or disagree. Sometimes Derek sounds like he stole his words out of a film. Then again, he says, she’s come to the right place. He winks, tucks the photo into his waistcoat. It’s now or never, as the great man sang, he says.

Fancies himself, does Derek. If he did his own burial plate he’d be on the Gravograph all day.

4

A grey start but brightening up in the morning with some patchy cloud later on

I WALK HOME
. Shake off the day’s woes. Highways and byways. Flyover, lanes, woods: gives you peace of mind. Let the dead men sleep. Spend all day with the deceased you’ll feel alive on your way home, trust me. Not that I’m complaining. I enjoy my job. I am the eyes and ears for those who see and hear nothing. I keep them up to date with weather, goings-on. I let them know the forecast for their funeral. No joke. Wait till it’s yours. Will the sun shine? Snow? Gale force winds? Plain old pissing down? We’d all like to know. On the day you return to dust how about a blue sky? Some prefer a belting storm. Point is people like a forecast.

If I was at B&Q I might have won Employee of the Week by now. We don’t do Employee of the Week at Shakespeare’s. We should. Good scheme. Keeps everyone
on
their toes. A customer is a customer; service is service, I see no difference because customers are deceased. Splitting hairs, as Derek would say.

Which would you prefer? Old knobby fiddlesticks at W. D. Brookes Funeral Services on the High Street showing you the best view up his nostrils? Not to mention his other propensities, as yet unproven, but. Or me?

I’d want a friendly face. A good morning Mr Hart, looks like rain, not to worry, dry as a bone in here.

Mental, yes. But then it’s you lying there. Who knows what the dead catch hold of? Not me, not you. Not yet.

I’m home! Old habits die hard.

Ned is watching TV in Lester’s chair. Lip-reading Sky News. I switch it off.

He throws back his head, blows through his mouth. The deaf are noisy. Ned slurps, chews, smacks his lips. Stands to reason, not his fault. Like a whale shoots air out the top of his head, Ned blasts it out his mouth. Like he has been at great depths when he is, in fact, a shallow person. Funny, because when he’s going mental on the trampoline you’d think he wants to go up and never come down. When all he has to do is hold his breath, float off like a hot air balloon. Adios.

I sign him the alternatives for tea. Don’t know the sign for risotto. I have become more cosmopolitan in
the
kitchen. I mouth it. Ri. Sott. O. Ned has a dead face when he reads you, it’s the concentration – it’s why his smile takes you all the more by surprise. He smiles at things no one smiles at: shadows, vibrations, rain, knives. His face lets you see everything, no holds barred. Naked, you could call it. Most faces have learned to cover up their nakedness. Only little kids and Ned go as they are.

He had a girlfriend once, Janey. She had a cochlear implant. He met her at a BDA Youth Group Night in Reigate. Les drove him there and back; the last deaf event he ever attended, as it turned out. When she ended it, Ned cut himself off. Closed up shop. Kaput.

He thinks about his dinner. I hug him from behind, surprise him. Boo. He pushes me off. Hates it he does, hugs. I wrap my arms around, squeeze him. He kicks and squirms. I wrestle him for a hug. He can’t stand it, any kind of touching. I have to chase him, hold him down. I kiss his head. He gives in in the end. I reckon it’s good for him. I do it anyway. No harm done.

I often eat standing up if Ned doesn’t come down. I do Lester’s on a tray. I should run an old people’s home, perhaps:
Oldbastards.com
. Think on. Time to consider my options. In the old days Les used to say please and thank you, now he says, Fetch us the paper, Fetch us a fresh tea. I prefer working with the deceased. They’re
better-mannered
and you get job satisfaction. I could never go back to the land of the living, not now.

Water swishes upstairs and the pipes let off a groan. Five generations of farmers have lived here, all our grandfathers going back. Granted, this cottage needs some work, plumbing and electrics for starters. Over the years the fields were sold off, lot by lot. She sold the last when Ned was born. Her ashes lie in the ground her family tilled for a hundred years but we hold no claim on it now. Somewhere out there with her rest the bones of our great-grandfather, feeding the GM crops.

Just after she was diagnosed we lay together on the settee, her and me. We watched the fire flames – not a real fire, gas, but still. Everyone is relying on you, she says. I know you won’t let me down. Her fingers lay in mine. She stroked my hair. No one else was in the house. I think about this sometimes.

Farming is no life for you boys, she used to say. Farming ties you down. Get out there and do your own thing. The world is your oyster, she told us.

Sun is low, gold light spreads behind the hill. Shadows on the field. I take myself out. Crow cries on the boundary, like a human voice realising he’s forgotten something. I sit with my back to the fence. Let the day blow by. Crow always turns up in the end, glides in
like
a dirty thought – patience is a virtue. Vainest bird in Christendom. I spot him at the top of the highest tree.