Tiny Acts of Love

by Lucy Lawrie

  ‘The thing is, once a person has been in employment for twelve months, they have certain rights not to be unfairly dismissed under the . . .’

  ‘No, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO. In our line of work, this sort of thing is completely, utterly unacceptable. The dignity of deceased persons is quite simply paramount. I just can’t have him working for me any more.’

  ‘Well, does your company have a disciplinary procedure? Normally in these situations you would need to allow . . .’

  ‘But this is gross misconduct. Pure and simple.’

  Why are you bothering me then, if you know it all? ‘In my view,’ I said carefully, ‘the safest course of action would be to follow the appropriate procedures, which would involve giving written warnings and holding a disciplinary hearing before proceeding to dismiss.’

  ‘Fine. A disciplinary hearing. Can you come?’

  ‘What? You want me to be present at the disciplinary hearing. That’s not . . .’

  ‘Can you come now, please. I need to get this wrapped up today.’

  ‘Would it not be better to take a little time to—’

  ‘Look, let me be clear. I’m doing this today. I need you to be there. Are you saying you won’t come?’

  A tall figure loomed up in the doorway: Murray Radcliffe. Oh Christ. Was he tapping my phone or something? I stiffened, certain he was about to stride over and snatch it out of my hand. And he was wearing his favourite coat, too – a long, checked, Sherlock Holmes-style affair; maybe he was going to pull me from my chair and quick-march me to the funeral home in person. But he beckoned to Annabel, who grabbed a file off her desk and followed him out.

  I slumped back in my chair. ‘Okay, Elliot. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

  But as soon as I’d put down the phone it rang again. It was the nursery this time.

  ‘Sophie’s had two loose nappies, Mrs Carlisle. That means you’ll need to come and take her home. Those are the nursery rules and we adhere to them strictly, I’m afraid. If she has a virus of some sort we can’t risk her infecting the other children.’

  I bit back the urge to say that if Sophie had a virus, she’d almost certainly caught it from nursery in the first place.

  I phoned Jonathan but he was out of the office playing golf, and uncontactable, according to his secretary. I phoned the nursery manager again to plead, suggesting that maybe Sophie had just eaten something that disagreed with her and couldn’t they just keep her and see how she got on over the next hour or so.

  ‘We don’t bend the rules, I’m afraid, Mrs Carlisle. There are emergency care procedures we can put in place if there is no parent available when we need to hand over care of a child; are you telling me that’s what you want me to do?’

  I told her I’d be there in ten minutes, although I didn’t know how I’d manage it. I was furious with myself for not being assertive enough with Elliot, but cancelling our first meeting because of a sick child on my third day back at work? With the firm in the throes of a redundancy exercise? Well, it wasn’t an option.

  So this is what they mean by juggling, I thought, as I tried Jonathan’s mobile for the third time.

  *

  We took a taxi to the Braid Hills Funeral Home, Sophie, the work experience student and I. The premises were in an old Victorian house situated in a wide avenue in a very genteel part of town.

  ‘Right, Greg,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry, there’s nothing to it. Just wheel her round in the pram. She’ll go to sleep, I’m sure of it. I won’t be too long. Just come in and get me if there’s any problem.’

  ‘Well, just remember I have to be back to walk Murray Radcliffe’s dog at three,’ he said, scowling. I had honestly thought he would prefer this to photocopying and running round after Annabel, but he didn’t seem impressed.

  As he turned and began to push the pram down the street, there was a horrible moment when he seemed to transform from a McKeith’s employee into what he really was – a random teenager I’d only known for five minutes. Why was I letting him walk away with my daughter?

  ‘Greg,’ I called after him. He turned, with a look that said ‘what now?’ It fleetingly crossed my mind whether I should send him to the meeting and do the more important job of minding Sophie myself. Hmm. Not unless I wanted to go back to the office and find my P45 on my desk.

  ‘Just . . . don’t go too far.’

  Trying to dismiss my fears, I crunched across the gravel courtyard to the entrance, which was located round the side of the building. I rang the buzzer and stood there, waiting for several moments. It was very quiet. An overflow pipe from the first floor dripped gently onto the gravel near my feet.

  Inside, the atmosphere was very calm, very hushed. Given Elliot’s phone manner, I had expected a corporate-feeling environment. But it felt almost like somebody’s house, with a faded red and gold carpet, and granny-ish antique furniture. There was even a grandfather clock.

  ‘How can I help you?’ asked the receptionist.

  ‘I’m Cassie Carlisle, here to see Elliot McCabe.’ My voice sounded muffled, tiny, swallowed up by heavy furnishings.

  ‘They’re in the meeting room, just along the corridor on the left.’

  I knocked and went in. An unusually short young man with thick waves of marmalade-coloured hair stood looking out of the window.

  ‘Are you the lawyer?’ he asked, though he looked as if he wasn’t really interested in the answer. ‘Elliot’s just gone to photocopy my personnel file.’

  I sat at the table to wait. Several minutes passed. I asked Bobby, out of curiosity more than anything else, what made him become an undertaker’s assistant.

  ‘I became an assistant funeral director,’ he said, ‘because I know that I’m uniquely suited to the job. Do you know much about the funeral profession?’

  It turned out that after doing a degree in anthropology, he’d decided to train as a counsellor. However, after four years of training and providing counselling to students free of charge through the Students’ Union, it became clear he wasn’t going to be able to earn any kind of living that way, and with eight years’ worth of student debt to pay off, he realised he was going to have to find some regular paid work.

  ‘I’ve been working here a year now. I’m doing my Diploma in Funeral Directing, as well as training in embalming. I can do all this on the job, you see.’

  He looked unaccountably cheerful about all this. But then he stopped and leaned forward in his chair. ‘But my thing is counselling, really. As a funeral professional I can offer an informal but compassionate listening service to people. Ultimately, my aim is to set up my own funeral firm, with a fully integrated grief counselling practice. To help the bereaved, to share the darkest hours of their lives – that’s what I want to do. Actually, what I was made to do.’

  I felt, rather emphatically, I would not wish to share the darkest hour of my life with this boy.

  Elliot entered the room in a fluster, paper and pens falling as he tried to shake my hand and set everything on the table at once – his arms and legs seemed too long for the rest of him. And he wore the same troubled look now as he had at Great Auntie Judith’s funeral – something to do with his sunken eyes, perhaps, peering from beneath wild grey eyebrows. I suggested that he should outline the allegations against Bobby, which he did with barely suppressed rage, enunciating each word in staccato.

  ‘Bobby, do you have anything to say?’ he concluded, slapping the file shut.

  Something outside the window caught my eye. It was Greg, walking past on the pavement pushing the pram. Each step was being taken with exaggerated slowness and he was frowning in the direction of the building.

  I realised that Bobby was waiting for my full attention.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it was that Madame Boileau.’ He spoke as though that in itself was explanation enough. A muscle near the corner of his mouth twitched, but he was composed enough to pronounce the name with an affected Fre
nch flourish.

  ‘She was my French teacher, at school,’ he went on, looking defiantly at Elliot McCabe. ‘Fifteen years ago. She made my life a misery. She made me stand on top of my desk and recite verb conjugations, so the whole class would laugh at me. I tried to run away from home. I packed my gym bag, and stole three bananas and a box of Ritz crackers from the kitchen. But Dad was following me in the car, and I only got to the end of the street.’ His voice went soft at this point and he paused.

  ‘When Tomasz, the embalmer, brought her into the preparation room the other day, I instantly realised it was her. And I wasn’t sorry,’ he added darkly.

  Elliot jumped in here, and addressed me. ‘Tomasz reported that Bobby was humming a song for the rest of the day. A very inappropriate song. It took me a while to decipher it from Tomasz’s description, what with the language barrier.’

  ‘Was it this one?’ began Bobby. He cleared his throat. ‘Ding, dong, the witch is dead, the . . .’

  ‘All RIGHT!’ snapped Elliot. He turned to me. ‘Do you see what I’m dealing with here?’

  ‘Anyway,’ went on Bobby. ‘I was provoked. Because when we were in the preparation room she just opened her eyes, all sort of evil . . .’ He looked at me, as though I might be a sympathetic audience for this bit, and scrunched up his nose. ‘And she shook her head and said, “You were always a stupid boy.” ’

  I gave Elliot a sideways glance.

  ‘She raised her eyebrows!’ shrieked Bobby. ‘I want that on the record! She raised her eyebrows! She doesn’t believe me! Write it down!’

  ‘Calm down, Bobby,’ said Elliot. ‘We’re just trying to get the facts straight.’

  ‘And who’s that anyway?’ He pointed to the window.

  Greg had stopped the pram now, and was standing outside the window looking mutinous, arms crossed, feet planted apart. I could faintly hear Sophie’s wails, rising in desperation.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘Please just go on. What happened about Madame Boileau?’

  ‘She went back dead again when Tomasz came in. I tried to let it pass, I really did. But I couldn’t get it out of my head. So at around two a.m. I decided that I would have to do something about it. I got in my car, and drove to Braid Hills. I just wanted to talk to her, to tell her she couldn’t bully me any more . . . You can’t let these bullies get away with it, that’s what Dad always used to say . . . before he . . . passed away.’

  He gave a loud sniff.

  ‘But it was the right thing to do. Don’t you see? Because she didn’t bother me again after that. Dad was right.’ At this point his voice crumpled and he dropped his head into his hands. ‘It’s just so hard for me sometimes, with my abilities.’

  When he looked up again he gave Elliot a sullen look, but then addressed me. ‘I’ve told him,’ he said through gritted teeth, ‘that he needs to get this place blessed regularly. To clear them down.’

  ‘Clear what down?’

  ‘The spirits,’ he said. ‘How am I supposed to get on with my job when they’re milling around all the time? Apart from this business with Madame Boileau, who provoked me, of course, I’ve actually been very restrained.’

  ‘Bobby,’ I said. ‘Do you want to give us a minute?’ He gave me a very unpleasant look and made for the door. In fact, he very nearly fell through it, since the receptionist was in the process of opening it to come in.

  ‘That’s your two o’clock for you,’ she announced to Elliot, with a sideways glance at Bobby.

  ‘Elliot,’ I said when we were alone. ‘The cautious approach would be to give a written warning rather than proceed with a summary dismissal. A tribunal might agree that the moustache constitutes gross misconduct, but there’s a risk they might just view it as a prank.’

  He sank back into his chair with a deep sigh. ‘So you’re telling me I wouldn’t be safe to dismiss him.’

  ‘Yes. But on the other hand . . .’ I felt that someone needed to say it. ‘Elliot, this guy is taking the piss.’

  ‘Thank you. I appreciate that.’

  ‘I mean, spirits? Come on. Haunting a funeral home? If you give ground on this, where is it going to end?’

  ‘Do you know . . . sometimes I hate working in this business.’ As he spoke, his blustery manner seemed to fall away. He looked tired and grey suddenly, the lines on his face more deeply etched.

  ‘To hell with it,’ he said finally. ‘I’ll take the risk. Give him the boot. Madame Boileau didn’t deserve that. Nobody does. If we can’t give them a little bit of respect then what the hell are we here for?’

  He gathered the papers together and left the room. It struck me that, for some reason, he was too upset to say anything more.

  *

  I decided I’d better wait for a minute in case Elliot came back – he hadn’t said whether I should stay or go. I went over to the window to see if I could see Greg and Sophie. He had lifted her out of the pram and was jiggling her on his knee, sitting on a low stone wall on the opposite side of the road. I waved and motioned to my watch to indicate that I would only be a few more minutes. He gave a sulky nod in return.

  It was then that I became aware of peculiar noises coming from the hall outside – Elliot had left the door open. There was a click-clicking sound and what sounded like something heavy bumping against skirting boards.

  After a moment, a small white face appeared from behind the door. I felt a little frisson after Bobby’s talk of ghosts, but this little girl seemed very much alive – about seven years old, I guessed, with long curly dark red hair and a pointy chin.

  ‘Hello there,’ I smiled. ‘What’s your name?’

  The girl frowned. ‘Milly Watkinson.’

  ‘Hello, Milly. I’m Cassie.’

  She disappeared momentarily, then shuffled into the room backwards on her knees. Her progress was impeded by the fact that she was pulling along two plastic horses who, in turn, were pulling along a white Barbie princess carriage.

  ‘Wow! They’re lovely,’ I said. ‘White ponies are my favourite. And I love the pink ribbons in their manes.’

  The girl gave me a suspicious look. ‘This one’s Pinkie,’ she said. ‘And this one’s Sparkles. He’s really naughty.’

  ‘Cool. And who’s in the carriage. Is it Barbie?’

  Milly pushed out her lower lip and frowned again.

  ‘No. It’s Mummy.’

  I took another look. Only then did I notice the miniature coffin that had been shoved through the rear window of the carriage at an awkward angle.

  At that moment a tall woman swept into the room. ‘THERE you are, Milly,’ she exclaimed in an American accent, with an exaggerated roll of her eyes.

  ‘They keep you on your toes, don’t they?’ she smiled.

  I murmured assent, but I couldn’t formulate much of a response. In fact, it was difficult to take my eyes off her. Her skin was pearlescent over sharp cheekbones. Her hair was just growing in again, by the looks of it; dark, silky baby curls.

  ‘I’m sorry. We’ve upset you,’ she said, glancing down at Milly’s playthings and taking in the situation.

  I shook my head vigorously, attempting a bright smile. She kneeled down next to her daughter, and picked up Pinkie, absently stroking his mane with one finger.

  ‘The latest thinking is that children should know what to expect, when a funeral is being planned. They should understand what is going to happen, know how we’re going to get there, who they’re going to see, that sort of thing. It’s supposed to help them cope with it all. The only thing is, our Milly here seems to want to go one step further and plan the whole thing!’

  ‘Kids,’ I said, with a forced laugh.

  ‘They’ll always surprise you, hmm?’

  I shook my head and smiled.

  ‘We’re making a memory box,’ announced Milly in a loud voice, not wanting to be upstaged by her mother.

  ‘Really? How lovely.’

  ‘It’s got Jane Eyre in it, and The BFG.’

  ‘Ah –
good choices.’

  ‘Our favourite bedtime book, and then one of Mummy’s favourite books to read when you’re older,’ explained her mother in a sing-song voice, as though this was something she’d repeated several times before.

  ‘And Mummy’s shampoo.’

  All of a sudden, I couldn’t say anything at all.

  ‘Come along, Milly, let’s get out of this nice lady’s way.’

  And they crawled out of the room, Milly dragging the carriage, and her mother clip-clopping the horses carefully along the carpet.

  I didn’t wait for Elliot any more after that. I left, murmuring a hasty goodbye to the receptionist, and burst out on to the street to find my daughter.

  But she was nowhere to be seen.

  7

  They can’t have gone far. They can’t have gone far. I stood there for a few minutes, scanning the street in both directions until the empty pavements seemed to buckle and bend in front of my eyes.

  Maybe Greg had gone into the funeral home looking for me. I went inside to check with the receptionist, but she hadn’t seen him. So I began walking up and down the street – a stiff, wooden walk; my legs hardly seemed to be part of me any more. Widening my search to the side streets, I circled further and further out, all the time listening out for footsteps or the sound of Sophie’s crying. But there was nobody around, in this quiet residential neighbourhood in the middle of the afternoon. The only person I saw was an elderly man weeding his flowerbeds, and he hadn’t noticed any be-suited young men pushing prams.

  Making my way back to the funeral home, I told myself they were sure to have shown up there by now – but once again, the receptionist confirmed there’d been no sign of them.

  After several attempts to key in the number correctly, I managed to phone the office. My intention was to reach Annabel, and ask if Greg had phoned in, or if she knew his mobile number. But she was out at a meeting, and the secretary who took the call didn’t seem at all clear as to who Greg was, let alone what his mobile number might be.

  At that point, the rational, ‘they can’t have gone far’ mindset deserted me completely. I heard myself whimper, suddenly no more than a child myself. I was back inside a recurring dream of my childhood: reaching up for a parental hand that wasn’t there, finding myself lost, falling down through layers of terrifying worlds. I’d always awoken before reaching the bottom, but here it was now, after all these years: a world without Sophie. The street swirled around me and I was reduced to nothing more than the wanting of her; a hollow, screaming space at the heart of me. I bent double and vomited in the gutter.