by Jane Riley
Henry was always an enigmatic figure in the background. He was usually at work when we did home visits or, if not, appeared keen to make himself scarce. I sensed he had little interest in talking to me, which I put down to the nature of my job. I suppose he put me in the box of ‘wife’s work colleague’ and the fact that I dealt with death twenty-four-seven made me an even less appealing friend proposition than I might otherwise have been. He would mutter, ‘Oh, you again,’ if he saw me arrive and then make a joke about how he’d left a sink full of dishes for me to wash up. I’d always thank him in a jovial way, as if I too thought his attempt at humour was funny, even if I didn’t, and felt put out at how lowly he thought of me. Yet if I’m honest, it was a situation that suited me fine as I enjoyed having Marie to myself and wanted to feel as if, for a brief moment, that I always had her to myself and always would. Then, in Marie’s last week, when she chose to move into palliative care and I visited her every day, I still barely saw Henry. We were shadows passing in the corridor. I tried a few times to engage him but he seemed even more withdrawn from the world, sombre and morose, which, of course, were perfectly reasonable emotions for a man in his ghastly situation.
Even then, Marie still wanted to stay abreast of the funerals.
‘Come and sit here,’ she’d say, patting the edge of the bed so that I would pull the chair up close and sit next to her. ‘Tell me everything.’
Even if she was too tired to keep her eyes open, she wanted to listen, to imagine, I suppose, that she was still involved in it all and to take her mind away from her new reality. She’d ask me to bring her roses, so I’d take in a sprig or a bunch, whatever I could get. Her favourites were Fragrant Plum, an opulent, sweet-smelling rose whose petals were a light lavender colour with smoky purple edges. She breathed in the scent of every rose I took her, holding on, I suspected, to all it signified. I tried to keep things lively, making her laugh at customer foibles or Mum’s fixation with buying decorative tissue-box holders. And she did laugh. She laughed as well as she could right up until the end.
And then the end came: Marie died.
I do not wish to dwell on that day, suffice to say that I managed to keep it together for her funeral. While Clock & Son was tasked with the job, Mum ensured I was relieved of all duties. She knew how closely I worked with Marie (just not how close I wanted to be with her). I hovered, pretending the funeral was for someone else, and clung to the church rafters, present but not present, unable to concentrate, unable to remember.
Coming home later that day, I had never felt more alone. No one knew my feelings for Marie and, most likely, they never would. And now there was no point in them ever knowing anyway. I had to grieve on my own in private and hide the full extent of my grief in public. For unrequited love and grief make awkward bedfellows.
And it was to bed, that Friday afternoon in May, that I wanted to go; to curl up under the covers and mourn my loss. I couldn’t get out of my suit quickly enough. It was like flinging off the day, the funeral, the depths of my sadness and discarding it all on to the floor. In my haste, a button flew off the shirt, ricocheted against the window and plopped near the skirting board. I stared at it for a long time. It was like staring at myself: the lone fellow in the corner. I ignored it and went to bed.
Then I woke to my first weekend without Marie, which turned out to be pretty much the same as every other weekend, except there was a hollowness that followed me around. I hadn’t realised how much she had been with me in my head, how focused I had been on asking her out, how the past few months had been dominated by her sickness and working out when I could spend time with her. With the few friends I had now otherwise occupied with babies, new wives or businesses they were getting off the ground, my weekends were most often spent alone. I may have made small talk with the barista at my local café when getting my Saturday morning coffee and croissant, nodded at someone in the street who was keen to forget they knew me because I was a dreadful reminder of their loss, or, conversely, accepted an embrace by a virtual stranger who appreciated what Clock & Son had done for them, but these were superficial encounters with people I barely knew. And always, I went home alone. I read the newspaper alone, tidied alone, cooked alone, researched holidays I would never take alone, spent more time than I knew was necessary hunting out the best jam to serve with my croissant alone, went to call-outs alone. The list could go on.
Worse, the button that lay lacklustre on the carpet fluff seemed a symbol of my life. In normal circumstances I would have sewn it back on, if not immediately, as soon as I could. Yet I realised in despair that weekend how this simple act was, in fact, the perfect – read horrible – metaphor for my life. My daily routines were done as systematically and rhythmically as a needle going in, out, in, out. A single needle with a single thread through a single button, over and over and over. That was me, the single man, with the single life, doing the same things, over and over. And all of it, alone.
At work I had to pretend I had it all under control. That my expressions of grief were appropriate for my status as Marie’s colleague-friend, not her colleague-paramour. ‘Grin and bear it’ didn’t even come close. I was teeth-clenching grinning and not even bearing it. Worse, I was grieving a lost opportunity. Sure, it may not have been an opportunity I was allowed, but I had been in love with Marie and had been unable to fully enjoy the benefits that being in love brings, even if from afar. Perhaps that was what pained my heart. That I felt cheated and filled with so much regret. If only I had put myself on the line and asked about her marriage, then we may have had a chance. But now I will never know. My dreams of us being together were, and would now always be, mere fantasy. They could never again bring me comfort or hope, and that made me feel even more alone than ever before.
Then I took my eye off the casket where Clock & Son was concerned. I took my eye off everything, to be honest.
Maltesers
A month later sleeting rain sluiced the sky and brought with it an unseasonal chill. The summer had been the driest on record and now we were ‘in for a wet one’, according to weather reports. I woke up that first day of the rains and decided the change in weather was a good excuse to stop shaving. Well, that wasn’t the real reason I ended up with a beard. It was because I couldn’t be bothered to shave. Instead of doing it every day, I skipped a day, then another, until I found the fuzz on my chin had thickened and spread.
Andy said I looked like an explorer, which I took as a compliment, and I fantasised about the places I’d like to travel to, like the romantic streets of Paris and the wild English countryside. Then he joked that the only thing I had ever explored was the insides of bodies, which normally would have made me laugh. It made me think of all the places I’d talked about visiting but hadn’t, how far removed I was from being a true explorer – I didn’t even own a fashion backpack, let alone a hiker’s one with hydration kit and compass pocket – and how difficult it was to take time out of the business to attempt any sort of exploring at all. I explained to Mum, who had taken a dislike to my facial hair, that it helped keep me warm. So I trimmed it. But only when I could be bothered.
I relaxed my weight-loss programme, too. There was no need to punish myself any more than I had to, I reasoned. Change had to be sustainable and I was pretty pleased I’d sustainably incorporated more greens and fewer salted peanuts into my diet. I just had a problem with my sweet tooth. It couldn’t be helped. Sugar had always been a panacea and Mum and Jean were no help with their afternoon sweet treats, a consistently full tin of sympathy biscuits and the new addition of a large jar of jelly beans in reception – Jean’s idea, made on the basis that ‘a burst of colour and a sugar hit does wonders for one’s mood’. For every one a customer took, I popped two. Anyway, what was the point of dieting now that Marie was no longer around? What was the point of any of my recent resolutions when I didn’t have her to unwittingly spur me on? While I went to work with my belly full, I felt hollow. I was a tyre with a puncture, a Mars bar wrapper with
out the Mars bar, the toast without the marmalade. I used to joke how working with the dead made you feel more alive. Yet this time it had the reverse effect. Like I was alive but not living. It was the strangest of feelings and it rattled me. I would be turning forty in a few months and had never envisaged reaching that milestone dispirited and loveless, and exhibiting signs of dishevelment. Whoever coined the phrase ‘life begins at forty’ got it very wrong.
Feeling sorry for myself, I lost all sense of caring. I don’t know if it was because I was trying, in a bizarre way, to cheer myself up or whether I momentarily became delusional from the grieving, but I decided to show customers that funerals needn’t be gloomy. Jean’s jelly beans were just the start.
On the morning following the last day of the rain an older couple came in. I assumed they were married. My first mistake.
‘Hello, Mr and Mrs . . .?’ I said.
‘We’re not together,’ the woman said. ‘I’m Judith and this is my brother, Brian.’
‘Apologies. Nice to meet you,’ I said, offering my hand. ‘Please come in.’
Her French-bulldog eyes were slathered in light blue eye shadow, a look we’d passed over for our female clients around the late 1980s, and her brother had dark rings under his eyes, a sign of either insomnia or sinusitis.
‘We’re here about our mother,’ she said.
‘I’m very sorry for your loss,’ I said. My second mistake. Judith lacked the usual, expected sadness for when a parent dies.
‘Don’t be. She hung in there for longer than was necessary, didn’t she, Brian?’
Brian wiped an eye but didn’t answer. I detected sibling tension.
‘So, Jude,’ I said, trying to lighten the tone. ‘May I call you Jude?’ My third mistake.
‘It’s “ith”,’ she said pronouncedly. ‘Jude-ith.’
I apologised. Brian shrugged. I ploughed on, metaphorically flipping open Dad’s Folder and asking them the standard questions. It was when Judith mentioned their mother’s penchant for sweets and chocolate that my ears pricked up.
‘Let’s sprinkle Maltesers around her body,’ I suggested.
‘Excuse me?’ Judith’s nose was upturned.
‘It doesn’t have to be Maltesers. We could use Smarties or after-dinner mints, Roses chocolates or Lindt balls.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
That’s where I should have stopped, cut my losses and realised that the idea of adding extras to the coffin to honour their mother was not being well received.
‘We can throw in all sorts of things. It’s a wonderful way to personalise the experience.’
‘Who for?’
‘You.’
‘She had a tooth abscess when she died.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You’d have had one, too, if you ate the amount of sweets she did.’
‘For goodness’ sake, Judith, the man’s only trying to help.’
I’d almost forgotten Brian was there. His chin jutted forward, his eyebrows a semi-permanent arch, as if life perplexed him, or maybe it was just his sister. He seemed open to the chocolates idea.
‘I like bananas, but I don’t want them rotting next to me when I’m gone,’ she said.
‘What’s the harm? It’s what Mum loved.’
Judith looked at Brian as if she were going to slap his cheek.
‘How about another idea?’ I said, to remind her she had an audience. ‘We could have a bowl of sweets at the church entrance, something for guests to munch on while they wait for the service to start?’
‘This isn’t a children’s birthday party, Mr Clock.’
‘Mum loved birthdays,’ Brian said dreamily, as if remembering a particularly poignant birthday moment.
‘That’s exactly it,’ I said. ‘It’s all about remembering what they loved, bringing those things into the service and maybe, even, back into your life. Memories are what sustain you when a person has passed. They’re very powerful.’
‘So is my backhand,’ Judith said, standing up.
I couldn’t believe she’d said that. Brian couldn’t believe it either. He looked at her in horror and slumped into the seat, as if hoping the chair offered time travel.
‘I’ve decided not to use your services after all,’ she said. ‘I’ll make arrangements for Mother to be moved elsewhere. Come on, Brian.’
‘Please don’t go,’ I said, although I suspected my pleas were in vain. ‘They were only suggestions. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. We could have a beautiful bouquet of antique cream roses instead – the Iceberg variety comes to mind – that would perfectly match her blouse,’ I added, quickly trying to emulate something Marie might have suggested.
‘Too late. I already have an image of Lindt balls I do not wish to have, and they were one of my favourites. Goodbye, Mr Clock.’
I watched Judith and Brian leave. I watched business walk out the door and did little to stop it. I still believed Mrs Cummings senior would have loved having a selection of chocolates dotted about her body and wondered if I hadn’t sold the idea as well as I could have. Regrets were accumulating like bills yet to be paid.
Then there was the customer to whom I revealed too much. People may say they support recycling and upcycling but that doesn’t mean they want to know that their relative’s hip and knee implants can be melted down and made into road signs and car parts. I misjudged a woman called Tessa who had the look of someone supportive of sustainability with her loose harem-style pants in an elephant print and hair down to her fourth rib.
‘You’ve got to be joking,’ she said, when I told her that her father’s double hip replacement had benefits way beyond improving her dad’s dodgy joints.
‘It would be helping the broader community,’ I said. ‘No one wants to die in vain.’
‘He didn’t die in vain. He was eighty-four and had a good life.’ The woman was sitting at the edge of her seat now, twiddling a ring.
‘No, of course not, but there has to be more to dying than just vanishing, poof, into thin air.’ I don’t know why I said that. Words were coming out of my mouth without my brain being able to stop them. I kept thinking of Marie and how I felt that she had died in vain, even though she hadn’t been fighting a cause and had no means to fight her cancer. It was the seeming pointlessness of it all.
‘Look, I haven’t come here to philosophise and I don’t care about a bloody road sign.’ Tessa was becoming agitated.
‘I understand.’ I nodded. I was truly sympathetic, but maybe she didn’t think so. Perhaps I wasn’t giving off the right empathetic vibe. ‘I’m very sorry for your loss,’ I added, telling myself to immediately revert to the Folder. Do not under any circumstances deviate again from its system, Oliver Clock.
‘Anyway, how do I know that you won’t surreptitiously dismantle Dad’s hips when I’m not looking?’
I was horrified and reassured her that we were never surreptitious. ‘We don’t do anything you don’t ask for,’ I said.
‘But how can I be sure?’
‘I won’t tick the box.’
‘What box?’
‘This box here,’ I said, pointing to the checklist on page two before me.
The woman stared at me as if her face had frozen momentarily then burst into tears. I reached for the tissues, but she stood up and walked out. I rushed after her with the tissues, flapping the box like a peace offering, rapidly trying to summon up a thoughtful Marie suggestion but, in this instance, I couldn’t think of anything quickly enough.
‘Tessa . . . Ms Ritchie . . . Please,’ I called after her. She didn’t turn around but left, letting the open sign clank against the door as it shut.
‘Oliver? What’s going on?’ Mum came out of the cupboard behind reception.
‘Nothing, Mum, it’s fine. She’s upset about her father.’
‘Those tears were not ones of someone grieving. I’ve been around here long enough to know one tear from another. I hope you didn’t say somethi
ng out of turn.’
‘Of course not. She just needs time.’ I grabbed a handful of jelly beans and headed back to my office, with the sneaky suspicion Tessa’s father would be leaving our premises sooner rather than later.
Nails in the Coffin
I used to joke that the only reason my parents wanted me working in the business was so they didn’t have to change its name. I was the only child and the only son. Except, technically, I wasn’t an only child, I just grew up as one. I had a little sister, Lily, who died aged two when I was four years old. She was struck by lightning on our back lawn, which sounds like an unbelievable thing to have happened and the sort of story an only child with a vivid imagination would make up to get attention and sympathy for their siblingless status.
It was a tragedy of no one’s fault but Mother Nature’s. It was raining, large heavy drops from large heavy clouds that hung low in the sky. Lily wanted to dance in it – to jiggle and giggle as she did whenever there was music playing. Yet that day in the storm she jiggled and giggled in the wrong corner of the garden at the wrong time. Seconds either side and she would still be dancing now. As I was never given a proper explanation for what had happened, I spent the weeks following looking for her around the house – in the wardrobe, behind doors, in the playhouse outside. The places where we used to play hide and seek together. My parents refused to join in, which I thought was strange and uncaring. Usually they encouraged my love of playing hide and seek. I badgered them for a while but it only made them angry and me more confused. Where was she and why wasn’t she coming back? ‘She’s gone, and that’s that,’ was all I’d get, and the subject was closed, which was uncharacteristically blunt of Mum at the time. She had always been the type of mother to explain things fully, as if she were an employee of Encyclopaedia Britannica. After that, it was like Lily had never existed, and I grew up as an only child who had never had a sibling.