by Jane Riley
‘Yes, Mum, we need an embalmer.’
She pointed a finger at me. ‘A trial is all I’m agreeing to. One month.’
‘Yes, Mum.’
Half an hour later I watched Mum walk to her car from my office window. She twirled the car keys, like I sometimes did when I felt good about the world. The crystal key ring caught the light, bounced lightning streaks across the cars. She spotted me and waved. I smiled and waved back but wished she hadn’t turned up today, taking over and undermining my decisions. But really, what was she doing still working? Shouldn’t she be spending her time lunching with friends, doing aquacise for her arthritis or volunteering at a charity? She got into her car and accelerated jerkily in reverse, braked suddenly then drove slowly – very slowly – out of the car park. She couldn’t have been going more than fifteen kilometres an hour. She took up the whole entrance and kept another car waiting. She should have caught the bus. I wondered if I should go and help but I didn’t want her telling me off. I’ll buy her a travel card instead. She couldn’t argue with a present. I’ll throw in some flowers, too. She liked having flowers in her house. The truth was, I admired her resilience and drive but resented her constant involvement. It niggled like a pinched nerve.
Later that evening, Andy called as I was ironing my underwear, celebrating Mum’s acquiescence to getting an embalmer.
‘Hey, mate, have I caught you at a bad time?’
‘Not at all,’ I said, putting the phone on speaker and continuing to de-crease a crotch.
‘Good, good. Look, I know it’s last minute but I was wondering what you were doing Saturday week? We’re having a gathering to celebrate.’
‘More news? I can’t keep up.’
‘No news. Just a celebration of life and the baby,’ Andy said. ‘It’s an excuse to have a party, really.’
Unless you were otherwise engaged and couldn’t change the date, you never turned down one of Andy and Lucy’s parties. They knew how to socialise with generosity of spirit, food and music. ‘Obviously, Caroline, too,’ he added.
‘Obviously.’
‘Excellent,’ Andy said. ‘Any time from seven thirty.’
Bath Time
After my last rendezvous with Caroline, it became apparent that our relationship – or whatever you wanted to call it – was turning into an extended practice run for me getting a life and out of my comfort zone. She wanted to keep seeing me and, I’ll be honest, I didn’t not want to see her. Yet I wrestled constantly with the Marie dilemma. I kept trying to tell her – Marie – that I didn’t feel the same way about Caroline as I did her. I had to compartmentalise the two. At home I had Marie and her diary, and outside of home I met with Caroline. But I couldn’t ignore the slow, creeping-up feelings of guilt that I was in some way cheating on Marie. The rational part of me knew that, physically, I wasn’t, but the irrational, emotional side felt that I was.
Still, Caroline and I went on a few more dates – two dinners and one movie. Neither quite so remarkable as going to the beach or salsa dancing (I used my left foot as an excuse for getting out of the next class – a pretend injury, not a metaphor for my dancing ineptitude). Two dinner dates and a movie warmed my heart even more, if I’m honest. I didn’t need adrenaline to appreciate a pleasant encounter with a gregarious woman. What’s more, she was proving a welcome distraction from all that was happening in the business – both the good and the bad. I didn’t want to burden her with my business worries or have to explain the candles just yet until we’d had some success, nor did I care to bring up Marie so Caroline knew the back story. I was happy for conversation to revolve around anything other than death and the other woman in my life. But then, over dinner, she started pressing me about ‘us’.
‘So, Oliver, I was wondering,’ she began, toying coyly with the spaghetti on her fork, ‘do you think that you and I . . .?’
‘You and I?’ I repeated. As she hadn’t finished the sentence, I was unsure exactly where she was going. I shoved a piece of steak into my mouth.
‘Yes, you know, us. Are we officially a couple? I was just wondering because I like to know where I stand and don’t like it being all airy-fairy.’
Thankfully, the steak mouthful I had cut was larger than ideal and required extra chewing so I could process what she had said and work out how to answer. I realised I had been perfectly happy with ‘airy-fairy’, taking each date as it came without dwelling on the future. Going out with Caroline had been like an experiment for me, on so many levels. Of course, it was advantageous that I was enjoying her company but I hadn’t entertained the thought of us as an ‘us’, joined as one like a comedy duo unable to perform without the other. But it didn’t help that we were more like a trio, the third party unbeknownst to Caroline. I finally swallowed, except the meat took a while to go down; Caroline’s commitment question seemed to have given me indigestion.
‘Are you alright?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I’ll be fine,’ I said, wincing with chest pain.
‘Have some water,’ she said, pushing a water glass towards me.
‘Thanks,’ I muttered, and took some sips, appreciating the delay in having to reply.
Then Caroline started up again. ‘You see, the older I get, the surer I am about what I want and have no desire to waste time drifting aimlessly if there is no future. You must feel the same?’
I nodded.
‘Andy and Lucy’s baby news hasn’t helped either.’ She sighed.
I nodded again, remembering how Andy and Lucy’s engagement announcement had made me feel. She looked at me and waited.
‘So?’ she said.
I really wanted to answer in the way she wanted me to in order to be agreeable and make her happy but, considering that meant committing fiercely to an ‘us’ in a future I hadn’t previously contemplated, I couldn’t do it. And yet, I still wanted to see her again . . .
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I don’t want us to break up so does that mean we are a thing?’ I said it light-heartedly, hoping it would cover up the fact I was unable to bring myself to say ‘couple’ or ‘official’ either separately or together in the same sentence. She looked a bit taken aback so I added, ‘I want to keep seeing you, Caroline, and if you do me, then . . . yes . . . I guess . . .’
She smiled and nodded and I squeezed her hand across the table, pleased she seemed happy with my committal of sorts. Thank goodness the waiter appeared then so the conversation moved to whether we wanted desserts or cheese and wasn’t brought up again.
At the end of the night, I waited with her for a taxi and watched her drive off. She wound down the window, blew me a kiss and waved her right arm furiously. I began to panic, and started running after her.
‘Put your arm in!’ I shouted, waving my arm as well. But she paid no attention. ‘Your arm, Caroline, your arm, get it in!’
The car got smaller and smaller as I became more and more out of breath. I stopped running, pulled out my phone and wrote her a text.
Please stop waving at me. It’s very nice of you but it’s also illegal to extend a limb from the window of a moving vehicle.
I pushed send. Phew. At least now she knew.
I was simultaneously looking forward to and dreading Jimmy Miller’s start. I wanted a new embalmer, of course, just not him. It didn’t help that he arrived late, again. Only by ten minutes but, still, I wished I hadn’t noticed his tardiness, as I wanted him to work out. I tried to put aside my doubts about the suitability of his fit with us and his penchant for lax timekeeping. I’m sure Marie wouldn’t have been impressed either and would have preferred Cora. Mum, however, was enamoured.
‘I like the shine of his shoes,’ she said when we’d left him to become familiar with our embalming room.
‘Literally or figuratively, Mum?’
‘Both, dear. He makes your shoes look quite dull.’
I looked down at my shoes. I know I shouldn’t have. I should have walked away and not let her dig get to me. I didn’t like to think that
I or my shoes needed a polish, so I went to the jelly bean jar. Except Mum was on a roll and told me off as she placed a fresh bunch of pink lilies in Grandmother’s crystal vase by the frosted window. She said I was eating more than the customers, which was probably true, but then, as I told her, that wasn’t difficult, as we’d not had that many. The day had barely started and already I was keen for it to end. I went to my office and shut the door. Inspired by my bookshelf at home, I decided to rearrange my work books in a more pleasing manner. I couldn’t extend to colour-coordination, as most books on the funeral industry, grieving and counselling tended to be rather dour in colour, so I settled for ordering them by height.
That night, I decided to follow Andy’s orders and look after number one. I would soak in a hot bath and stay there as long as I wanted. As soon as I got home I changed into my dressing gown, leaving my clothes draped on a chair in the bedroom. I could put them away later, I thought, trying to emulate a carefree mindset. I lit Marie, took her into the bathroom and ran a bath. Remembering I had some fragrant additions in the vanity, I got out a packet of muscle-soak bath salts scented with eucalyptus and peppermint oils, which I’m sure Edie would have approved of, and a large yellow bath bomb decorated with purple cornflowers designed to ‘wash my cares away and brighten my mood’. I picked up the salt packet and dumped the whole lot in. Next went the bath bomb. Instantly the water went yellow and fizzed like sherbet. Purple cornflower petals swirled like tea leaves. Steam aromatic with an oily fragrance curled up from the bath. What was I getting myself into? Next: easy-listening music. A relaxing ambience was not complete without a few synthesised underwater instrumentals or Spanish guitar riffs. I set them to play on my phone with the volume on medium, starting with the healing sound of dolphins and waves, the perfect music with which to reach a state of mindfulness, or so I’d heard. Better than the deathly silence that envelops you when lying on the embalming table. When the bath was three-quarters full – a giant glass of effervescent multivitamins – I turned off the tap. I felt quite pleased with myself at this point. It was all going swimmingly. The stage was set for my relaxation.
Until the doorbell rang. I didn’t want to answer the door. I could pretend I wasn’t home. It rang again. And again. It was too hard to ignore. I tiptoed to the door and peered into the peephole. A magnified eye looked back. A voice called my name. I looked into the peephole again. Caroline looked like a mushroom. Or a magnified sperm.
I opened the door.
‘Hi, Caroline.’ I cursed myself for sounding so pleased to see her.
‘Look at you in your robe.’ She said it like I was a handbag dog in a tartan coat, then rubbed my arm as if the terry towelling had aphrodisiac properties. ‘Am I interrupting anything?’ She strained to see into the living room.
‘No, not at all.’
‘Oh, good, can I come in?’
‘I was about to have a bath.’ I felt a sudden rising panic. Help! Marie was flickering in the bathroom and the diary . . . where was the diary?
‘Oh, Oliver . . .’ She sighed a decadent, indulgent sigh, as if in anticipation of more sighs yet to come.
That’s when I should have suggested we catch up at a later time. I really wanted to try and focus on my ‘me time’ alone, with number one not a number two as well, and I certainly didn’t want her encroaching on Marie’s terrain. But I didn’t. I was too busy panicking about Marie when she invited herself in. Except the last thing I expected was for Caroline to want to join me in the bath. I wasn’t anticipating so much enthusiasm. As soon as she’d walked in and shut the door, she started disrobing, unbuttoning her shirt and whipping off her belt with such vigour I didn’t feel I could stop her. And all the while, she was heading to the bathroom with me trailing behind, as if I really were a stupid dog in a tartan dog coat, and wishing I could have downed some of Mum’s blood pressure pills. Sorry, Marie, I’m really sorry about all this, I repeated over and over, and made a quick detour to my bedroom to hide the diary in my sock drawer, carefully laying it over my selection of navy socks. I met Caroline back in the bathroom, hoping I had also successfully hidden my feelings of anxiety, and then blew out the candle.
‘Oh, I thought that smelt quite nice,’ Caroline said.
‘It can be a bit overwhelming,’ I muttered, and shoved the candle in the vanity cupboard.
‘Shame it looks like someone’s peed in the bathwater,’ she added.
‘It’s a bath bomb.’
‘I know, silly.’ She laughed then angled her head to listen to the music, as if I had high-tech speakers set in the ceiling piping music of my choice to select rooms of the house.
‘Dolphins,’ I said.
The downward trail of her mouth suggested I fast-forward to the next track. I didn’t hesitate, as I liked to please. Then she was fully naked and submerged in lemon liquid, two cornflowers stuck to a nipple.
‘Come on,’ she said, tapping a hand on top of the water, as if she were patting the seat next to her.
There seemed no turning back and . . . well . . . I had always wondered if my bath was big enough for two. And, at least, in the bath, Marie’s diary was safe from discovery. I took off the dressing gown and folded it neatly next to my clothes, stepped over haphazardly thrown underwear and sized up my spot. Thankfully, Caroline hugged her knees to her chest so I could ease in, then she unravelled and we entwined legs to maximise space. It was tight, granted, but we fitted.
‘This is a nice surprise,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to turn up unannounced but I was missing you. Just because we’ve both been busy doesn’t mean we should neglect each other, does it?’ I wasn’t quick enough to come up with an answer but then she didn’t seem to want one, as she started up again. ‘I saw Lucy tonight and felt the baby.’ She sighed. ‘I didn’t feel anything but I knew it was there, floating in amniotic fluid.’
Baby talk already! I looked down and splashed water on my face to cover a look of more panic I didn’t think I could hide.
‘She looked so happy . . .’ More sighing. ‘It was probably kicking away. Sucking its thumb.’
I smiled. Peeled cornflowers off my cheeks. Was she teetering around the edges of a discussion about us? About her babies? Our babies? I had to say something before she pressed me to comment.
‘I didn’t think it had a thumb yet?’ It was all I could think of.
‘Maybe not, but it’s nice to imagine.’
Quick, change the subject. ‘How was work?’
‘The usual. Except for a client who wants to dress two women as boobs to advertise his bras. I think he has a problem, to be honest. All he talks about is breasts.’
‘I guess you would if you were selling women’s underwear,’ I said, and laughed stupidly.
I was just relieved the conversation was now on more comfortable territory. I was hardly relaxed – my cares were still floating in the bathwater and the energetic guitar strumming coming from my phone far from meditative – but with Caroline so happily ensconced I started to wonder whether I should have dimmed the lights and lit a different candle, added a slug of bubble bath for a froth of discretion. As it was, the downlights were highlighting with glaring unsubtlety every fold and freckle on our bodies, the bruise on Caroline’s thigh and the paunch I was unable to fully shake, not dissimilar to a half-deflated balloon. I sucked it in.
‘He’s fixated,’ Caroline continued. ‘He once told me how he’d pulled a prank at the tennis club he belongs to. Took down the flag they had flying and replaced it with a bra. Can you believe it? He raised a bra on a flagpole.’ She shook her head.
‘That’s daring,’ I said. ‘And kind of funny.’
‘The tennis club manager didn’t think so.’
‘No, of course not.’ I didn’t want her to think I didn’t agree with her. I was now distracted by the soap, the shrunken slab sitting on a dish next to me. What to do? If I offered it to her first, would she think I thought she was in need of a clean? But then, I didn’t want her wondering whether I wa
s going to wash. What was bath-time etiquette for a virgin bath-sharing couple?
The water was now more tepid than hot and, with my head next to the tap, I couldn’t risk a scalded scalp by adding more hot water. I grabbed the soap and rubbed it over my body, then attempted a casual underwater soap-pass to Caroline, as if I didn’t care whether she took it or not. Her eyelids fluttered. She reached for the soap. A tingle tickled my loins. She lathered herself with gusto, which would have been the perfect prelude to segueing to the bedroom, had she not leaned forward for a kiss. Her bottom, slimy with soapy residue, slid backwards. She nose-dived my belly and I clonked the back of my head on the tap, which made me yell just as Caroline reappeared, spurting bathwater in my face. Some I swallowed, some slapped my forehead and dripped into my eyes. She stared at me. I wasn’t sure if it was a look of shock, disappointment or regret.
‘Baths are renowned for being unreliable.’ I blurted out a laugh to lighten the mood.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, wiping spray off my face.
‘Time to get out?’
She nodded.
‘Let me go first so I can get you a towel.’
I found her a clean one in the cupboard under the bathroom cabinet and gave it to her as if it were a coat I was helping her to put on. But I was still unsure of the protocol of unexpected bathing. As I dried between each toe, I tried to gauge if the kiss was still on offer. If I forgot about Marie, I decided, I should be able to fully embrace the moment. But it was hard to tell Caroline’s thoughts, as she appeared more focused on drying herself – under her breasts, around her scapulas, behind her knees and around her hairline. As much as I yearned to be the one to let my hair down and instigate another smooch, I didn’t dare. What if she’d lost interest and turned me down? What if the bath face-plant had changed her mind about bathtime romance with me? Or, in fact, any romance with me at all. It wasn’t worth the risk. We finished drying in silence. Then, after I’d wrapped the towel around my waist, deciding whether to put the dressing gown back on or to get dressed properly, the towel was whipped off and Caroline had me pressed up against the basin, a tap yet again poking me from behind. I forgot about the tap. And the bright lights. And the water dribbling down my back. And Marie’s candle in the cupboard. Ah, Caroline . . . you’ve answered my question.