Twelve Days of Winter (5 page)

The singing dissolves into grins and sighs, then everyone goes back to their phones. Everyone except for Agnes and Tracy.

Mr Aziz frowns at her. ‘How come you’re on the Sexy Sadie line, then? I mean, no offence, but I think you’re a bit young for the phone sex business.’

‘I need the money, it’s my mother’s—’

‘Look, Tracy,’ Mr Aziz lays a hand on her shoulder, ‘I like you and I understand that you’ve got problems, but my customers expect a certain level of service when they phone up. They—’

‘Hoy!’ Agnes pokes him in the chest. ‘Now you listen to me, Kamuzu Aziz, that poor girl can talk dirty with the rest of them.
And
she needs the money.’

‘But—’

‘But nothin’. If you think. . .’ She stared into the cubicle: the Sexy Sadie hotline was ringing. ‘Well, go on then, Tracy – show him what you’re made of!’

She does, making a big show of the striptease and self fondling. The man on the other end moans and groans and grunts his way to fifteen minutes forty-nine seconds, Tracy’s longest romantic encounter all night by a long shot. She hangs up and beams. Agnes gives her a round of applause.

Mr Aziz shrugs. ‘All right, all right. You can be Sexy Sadie for the rest of the night. Only put more
moaning
into it. The punters like a bit of moaning.’ Then he shuffles back to his copy of the
Racing Post
.

Tracy blinks back the tears. ‘Thanks, Agnes.’

‘Don’t mention it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some dodgy double glazin’ to sell.’

Now she’s learned the magic formula, there’s no stopping her. The next call lasts twenty minutes and the one after that a full twenty-five. Do this every night and their money worries would be over. Well, not
over
, but they’d be able to pay off the funeral.

Maybe Mr Aziz could put her on full time? She could be ‘Spanking Susan’, or ‘Horny Helen’, or ‘Lusty Laura’, or something. Have explicit postcards of her very own plastered over every telephone box in Oldcastle. Not that she’ll pose for the photo herself – it’ll be months before she loses the baby weight, and let’s face it, she was hardly skinny to start with – no she’d do the same as all the other women and let Mr Aziz pick one of his ‘nieces’ to model the thong and stilettos.

The next call is a funny one, and not funny ‘ha, ha’ either. It’s a woman with a growling, furious voice. ‘
I know what you are! I know what you are!
’ A nut job, phoning up to cause trouble, too stupid to realize that she’s getting charged for every second the call lasts, just like the men who want someone to talk filthy to them. ‘
And I know
where
you are!
’

Tracy blinks. ‘Excuse me?’

‘
You heard! I
’
ve got a friend in the police: they traced the number. I know where you are, whore! You
’
re a shit stain on the human race, you hear me WHORE?
’ There’s more, but Tracy doesn’t listen to it, just kills the line and sits back shaking.

The phone goes again and she jumps, letting out a little shriek. No one notices: shrieks and moans are par for the course around here.

There’s silence from the other end of the phone and then, ‘
Is that Sadie?
’ A man’s voice; not the mad harpy again. Thank God for that.

Maybe she should try out her new persona: Dirty Debbie?

No, better save it until she’s got her own kinky postcards. Start to build a clientele.

‘You better believe it.’ She goes for deep and sultry, but it comes out sounding a bit blocked up instead. ‘Do you like dirty girls?’

‘
You don
’
t sound like Sadie. . . I want to speak to Sadie.
’ There’s something familiar about his voice, but Tracy can’t quite place it.

‘I told you: I’m Sadie. If you’re going to be naughty I’ll have to spank you!’

‘
I don’t. . .
’ Another pause: he’s thinking about it. He has to be one of Agnes’s regulars, or he wouldn’t know what the real Sadie sounds like. ‘
I suppose I
have
been naughty.
’

‘Hmmm, well I think we’ll have to do something about that. Won’t we?’ She launches into her routine, doing the undressing thing while he whimpers and groans on the other end of the phone.

Where the hell does she know his voice from? It’s so bloody familiar. . .

Then he says, ‘
Naughty! I
’
m a naughty boy! Spank me!
’ and she knows. Oh God!

She punches the button and hangs up on him. The stopwatch has the call at a little under five minutes. She sits staring at the phone. It starts to ring again.

Go away, go away, go away!

Fifteen rings later, and Agnes is hanging over the side of the cubicle. ‘Are you feeling all right, dear?’ The phone keeps ringing. ‘Is it the baby? Have you got your contractions?’

Tracy drags her eyes from the phone and looks up at her. ‘No. . . Please, can. . . I can’t . . . it’s. . .’ She pulls her headset off and backs away from the cubicle. Her stomach
churns
– like morning sickness all over again.

Agnes hurries around and takes the call, telling the man on the other end what he wants to hear.

It’s stupid. She’s imagining it. A lot of people sound the same over the phone –
especially
when they’ve got an Oldcastle accent.

Agnes moans and groans her way to a climax. Only takes ten minutes, she must be worried to end it so quickly. She disconnects the call. ‘What is it Tracy? You can tell me: what is it?’

She points at the phone and says, ‘I . . . I thought it was. . .’ She blushes, picks at a button on her maternity dress. ‘Never mind.’

Agnes grins. ‘I know what you mean. First couple of months I was
sure
I was speaking to my neighbour, milkman, the boy who works at the bingo hall on Thursdays. . . In the end I just decided, ‘so what?’ They don’t know I’m Sexy Sadie: doesn’t matter if I recognize them, does it? It’s all just make-believe.’ Agnes gets up, then pats the vacant seat. ‘Come on. Sooner you get back on the horse, the sooner you’re earning again.’

Tracy nods. It’s stupid.

She settles back into the seat.

Agnes hands her the headset. ‘That was one of my biggest fans. Calls at least twice a week, poor soul. Wife won’t let him touch her. If it wasn’t for me, I don’t know what he’d do.’

Tracy manages a sickly smile and doesn’t tell Agnes why she thinks she knows the voice. Nor does she dial 1471 to find the number he phoned from. She just sits and stares at the phone, willing it to ring again and erase the last Caller ID record.

It was stupid. It wasn’t him. Her dad wouldn’t ring a sex line to masturbate down the phone at her, not while Mum’s lying in a coffin at the funeral director’s.

The phone rings and she nearly screams. With trembling fingers she puts on the headset, takes three deep breaths, and picks up the call.

Maybe selling double glazing isn’t such a bad job after all.

There is never a good time to look upon the face of a dead loved one. This is something Mr Unwin understands all too well, because he sees it every day.

Mrs Riley is the latest addition to his world: the world of mahogany caskets and heavy velvet curtains: of subdued lighting and soothing classical music. And the calming smell of lavender, to cover anything ‘unpleasant’ coming from the dearly departed.

Mrs Riley cries and cries and cries, while Mr Riley does his best to comfort his heavily pregnant wife. She is distraught: she has lost her mother. He is stoic: he has lost his mother-in-law, which is not the same thing at all. And little Chloe – who has lost her grandmother – seems completely unconcerned. She sits on the carpet by the casket, pulling the petals off a white carnation and sticking them up her nose.

And all the time Mr Unwin stands in silence by the door of the small room, hands folded in front of him, waiting for the family to finish. Patience is a virtue. The dead will not be rushed.

Finally Mrs Riley cries herself to a shuddering standstill and her husband leads her from the chapel of rest, taking little Chloe with them. ‘Thanks.’ He places a hand on Mr Unwin’s shoulder. ‘You’ve done a wonderful job. She looks so. . .’ He casts a glance back at the open coffin. ‘So peaceful.’

Mr Unwin nods. ‘I’m glad we could help.’ And shows them to the door.

‘Well?’ Mr McNulty shifts his chair closer to the embalming table as Mr Unwin pushes back through into the preparation room. ‘They gone?’ He runs a thick-fingered hand across his shiny scalp, stroking the liver spots.

‘Yes, Duncan, they’ve gone.’ Mr Unwin takes off his black jacket and hangs it up, then dons the heavy rubber apron again. ‘I’m sorry it took so long, but Mrs Riley was quite distraught.’

Mr McNulty shrugs, then takes another swig from his bottle of Glenfiddich, ‘They say it?’

‘“Very peaceful”? Yes, they said it.’ They always say it.

‘You going to make
her
look “very peaceful”?’ He points at the large, doughy, naked woman on the embalming table. ‘You going to. . .’ Another drink. ‘You going to. . .’

Mr Unwin folds his hands, stands still as a headstone. ‘Are you sure you want to be here while I prepare her?’

But Mr McNulty doesn’t reply, just stares at the pale, yellowy body.

‘Duncan, please, I’ll take good care of her, I promise. Go home and get some rest.’

‘No. No I want to be with her. To help. It’s the least I can do. . .’ He wipes his nose on his sleeve. ‘I. . . Oh God. . .’ And with that Mr McNulty dissolves into tears.

Mr Unwin waits until he has cried himself out, before escorting him to the back door. ‘Don’t worry, she’s in good hands.’

Mr McNulty nods, wipes his eyes, then slouches back up the stairs.

Mr Unwin closes and locks the back door. Then turns and smiles at the woman lying in the preparation room waiting for him to work his magic.

Mrs McNulty was, and still is, a big woman: eighteen stone of flesh, bone and fat. All those years she and Mr McNulty have lived in the small flat above the funeral home – ‘U
NWIN AND
M
C
N
ULTY
, U
NDERTAKERS EST
. 1965’ – and this is the first time Mr Unwin has ever seen her naked.

He pats her pale belly. The skin is cold and greasy, like chicken taken from the refrigerator. But Mrs McNulty is no spring chicken. Then again, Mr McNulty isn’t much of a catch either: short, chubby, bald and dour. But a good man for all that. . .

There is a
particular
smell that comes with embalming people. A mixture of raw meat and disinfectant, with a faint underlying taint of decay. It’s an acquired taste, but Mr Unwin has had years to get used to it. Now it smells like home. Like a job well done. A chance to use his talents. To do what he was born to do. To make the dearly departed look peaceful.

And then, when Mrs McNulty’s body fluids have been swapped out for preservative, and all her personal orifices bunged up with gauze pads to make sure she doesn’t leak in her casket, he pulls over his special toolkit and stares at her face. Studying the lines and wrinkles, the thread-veins in her cheeks, the mole on her chin with one long hair poking out, the freckles on her forehead. Then sets to work on her face.

It’s a delicate job, one Mr Unwin has been doing since he was a small boy in his father’s funeral home. He has the gift: layers and layers of flesh-pink, blended beautifully to a soft sheen on her sallow skin; a subtle red lipstick painted on glued-together lips; eye shadow and blusher; her grey hair carefully styled. When he’s finished she looks better than she has for years.

Death suits Mrs McNulty. She should have died years ago.

Mr McNulty has provided his wife’s favourite ensemble for her final journey – a blue, knee-length dress, a pair of thick brown tights, black pumps, and a large leather handbag. It takes a while to dress the deceased, but Mr Unwin has had plenty of practice putting clothes on dead bodies. At last she’s ready for her final journey.

It isn’t easy, hefting his partner’s wife into her coffin – walnut and maple with a pale-blue silk lining and genuine brass handles – but he manages. There’s a reason people call it ‘dead weight’. And Mrs McNulty has lots of it.

She looks so peaceful lying there, and Mr Unwin takes a moment to give thanks for her life, before wheeling her into the chapel of rest, where she’ll spend the night with Mrs Riley’s mother. A pair of old ladies, comfortable together in eternal sleep.

Now only one thing remains to be done.

Mr Unwin takes Mrs McNulty’s hands and arranges them across her chest, right over left, gluing them together to make sure they stay in place. Sometimes the dearly departed move in transit, or the change in temperature from the funeral home, to the hearse, to a cold and draughty church makes their tendons contract. It can be
very
distressing for the family, and contact adhesive covers up a multitude of sins.

Back in the front office Mr Unwin settles behind his desk and looks out over the darkened rooftops of Old-castle. Eight days to Christmas and there’s not a single decoration or card up in the funeral home. This is not a place for celebration; it is a place for quiet respect and mourning.

There’s a bottle of Highland Park in his desk and he pours himself a modest dram, adding a splash of cold water to loosen the whisky’s aroma. He raises his glass to the sleeping city. ‘To Mrs McNulty, may you have all the peace in death you denied your husband in life.’ Which was why Mr McNulty had pushed her down the stairs, fracturing her skull and breaking her neck.

With a faint smile, Mr Unwin unlocks the drawer in his desk and pulls out a long wooden box. It opens with a small golden key – click – and its contents sparkle in the dim light. Wedding rings, large and small, new and old, all cut or pulled from the fingers of the dearly departed. He places Mrs McNulty’s ring on the pile, admiring the way it fits so neatly with the others. All those lives. All that love. All that grief.