The Likely Resolutions of Oliver Clock

by Jane Riley

  I called for Jean. Tried to calm them down.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ the son called out.

  Jean rushed in to comfort Mr Lowry’s daughter, who was on the floor with the granddaughter. I gently closed the coffin lid and tried to explain what had just happened, but they didn’t seem to want to know about any technical malfunction with the plastic caps we insert under the eyelids to stop them from opening. The moment of solemnity was gone. I offered to give them a discount and a repeat pre-viewing once we had fixed the problem. They left still in shock, although seemingly happy with this arrangement. I only hoped they wouldn’t whisk Mr Lowry away and complete his funeral with the new crowd down the road, sinking us further under.

  It was a slap in the face for Clock & Son and two slaps for James ‘Jimmy’ Miller. I should never have let Mum persuade me to hire him.

  Even Mum wasn’t quick enough to come to Jimmy’s defence when I told her. She dropped the large bunch of Asian lilies she was holding on to the reception table in horror.

  ‘This is a serious offence, Oliver,’ she said. ‘We’ve never had that happen before. Roger was always a stickler for detail.’

  ‘That’s what I said to the poor family but they were in such shock I don’t think they heard me.’

  ‘I told you we didn’t need to get a new embalmer,’ Mum said, ‘and now this happens. It’s an outrage.’

  ‘Well, I knew he wasn’t right for us as soon as we met. There was something about him . . .’

  ‘If only you hadn’t thought to advertise for an embalmer in the first place.’

  We were both getting tetchy. If only Jean had been there to intervene.

  ‘I can’t do two jobs at once, Mum, when will you understand that? Either way, Jimmy can’t stay, no matter how much you like him.’

  Mum unwrapped the flowers and trimmed the stalks. ‘On this point, Oliver, I do agree and, as I said before, think of the money we’ll save. Shall I do it or you?’

  ‘Well, if you’re offering . . .’

  ‘I suppose I hired him, after all.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’

  ‘Now,’ she said, shooing me away, ‘let me get on with my flower arranging. Sometimes I think I could have been as good as Marie.’ She yelped with delight at the vanity of her statement and pulled out the dead waratah and flax leaf arrangement Jean had created and replaced them with her beloved lilies. I slunk back to my desk, disillusioned with Jimmy and disgruntled at the thought of having to do the embalming once again. How I didn’t want to wash, flush, disinfect, preserve, sew, dress or refrigerate a body ever again! It was all I could do not to hit something. I formed a fist with my right hand, a smooth-knuckled, clean-fingered fist, and made fist-pumping gestures as if I were going to punch the wall. I curled my lips, put some force behind my shoulder. My knuckles brushed paintwork. But I couldn’t do it. A punched office wall was as good to me as a fallen business sign. Only worse. I could hurt myself.

  Candle-Making

  I didn’t tell Caroline that I was going to be spending a good part of Saturday learning how to make candles with Edie. Something told me she would be jealous. When she suggested we go out to lunch I lied and said I had to work. It didn’t sit comfortably with me, I admit, so I resolved to make it up to her by promising to take her to a smart restaurant in the city – the Italian one whose crab linguine was legendary. It could be an anniversary of sorts, I decided – for what, I’d work out later.

  I got dressed in a suit with one of my favourite ties – navy with tiny croissants, which is more tasteful than it sounds. The croissants are so small that it’s only when you look closely at the design that you realise what they are. I even polished my shoes, having been unable to get Mum’s words out of my head. This was technically work, after all, not a social occasion. Edie lived only a couple of suburbs away but I did have to drive past the street in which Green Light Funerals resided. I could practically hear them belting out their cheap promotions and garish insincerity from where I was on the main road. It gave me the shivers and reminded me that I could not let them get the better of us. Maybe Edie and I could loiter nearby, handing out candle brochures to those about to walk inside. But did I really want to stoop so low as to steal their customers?

  Edie’s house was a quaint two-bedroom terrace in a quiet street with a nature strip down one side that residents had converted into a shared herb and vegetable garden. You couldn’t miss it; her door was painted bright yellow. Edie greeted me with the energy of someone who liked having a front door painted bright yellow and probably owned other things in the same colour.

  ‘Hi, Oliver, come in!’ She gave me a hug before I could enter, which was a little disconcerting, as I didn’t feel I knew her well enough for us to be encroaching on each other’s personal spaces when neither of us required consoling over a death in the family. I reciprocated the gesture nonetheless, as I couldn’t deny that I enjoyed being hugged by Edie (in a purely professional way, of course), and then followed her down the hallway to the kitchen at the back.

  I was pleased to discover that I was right about the yellow. The windows above the sink were framed by yellow-and-white gingham curtains and the tea towel hanging over the oven featured a yellow-and-white cockatoo. It was all very cheery and welcoming. It was also very tidy, despite the rows of cake stands displayed on shelves on one wall and a cabinet of what must have been about thirty ceramic salt and pepper shakers in various forms: flora and fauna, vegetables and cartoon characters and other unusual pairings. The bench top was set up with rows of fragrance vials, glassware, labels, wicks, a large bag of wax flakes, a candy thermometer and a stainless-steel pot on the stove.

  ‘Welcome to my lab.’ She laughed. ‘I’ve got everything set up, and the first thing we need to do is play with scents to get the fragrances right.’ Then she paused and looked at me. I wondered if I had toothpaste on my lapel. ‘Just one thing: you do look very smart and I like a man in a suit, but I’d hate for your tie to get dipped in wax.’

  I looked down. It hadn’t occurred to me that my choice of attire was most impractical for candle-making. Edie was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and had her hair in a ponytail, which was not only more sensible but made her look younger than the age I believed her to be: early thirties. I took off my tie and jacket and draped them over a kitchen chair. Practicality won over from professionalism and I rolled up my shirtsleeves as well and felt pleased I had polished my shoes so that any dripped wax would easily come off.

  ‘That’s better,’ she said, ‘and you still look smart,’ she added with a coy smile. ‘Now, I thought we could start with Fran’s candles. The combination she’s chosen of pineapple, lemon, tequila and daffodils is really lovely but it’s going to be tricky getting the balance of aromas right. Tequila note from the blue agave plant can be strong, woody and spicy. It’s often used for men’s fragrances but, paired with sour lemon, the sweetness of pineapple and the delicate fragrance of the daffodil plant, it can be toned down. I think we should aim to capture the essence of springtime and the tropics.’

  ‘That sounds highly technical,’ I said. ‘It’s probably best if I merely observe and let you create your magic.’

  She laughed. ‘Don’t worry, it sounds fancy but really it’s chemistry. Not really that dissimilar from being a lab scientist, which is what my mum is. She potters with Petri dishes.’

  I didn’t like to ask what was in her mother’s Petri dishes, preferring instead to watch Edie tinker with fragrance oils, the kitchen becoming heady with scent. She dripped and poured, stirred and sniffed, all the while explaining what she was doing and why.

  ‘Try this,’ she said.

  I sniffed. ‘Definitely tropical.’ She smelled it again, decided it was too tropical and adjusted the scent. It was a pleasure to watch her being so focused, so dedicated to getting it right. When she was happy with the final result, it was time to seal the wicks in the glass jars with a glue gun and melt the wax. Around us the air thickened with the sme
lls of a Pacific island cocktail and earnest concentration.

  ‘It’s quite a process,’ I said.

  ‘But I love it,’ she said. ‘If I could choose any job in the world, it would be a perfumier. Playing with fragrances and oils, taking individual smells and putting them together to create something new. It’s kind of what we’re doing here but on a grander scale. It’s a real art form, I think. My real dream would be to go to the Givaudan Perfumery School in Paris, the oldest one in the world,’ she sighed. ‘That would be amazing. What about you?’

  I thought back to my notebook of resolutions, the page in which I once wrote my dream jobs, as if I was ever going to get a chance to try them. Cordon bleu chef had been one fantasy, thriller writer another.

  ‘I wanted to be a journalist once, when I was at school,’ I said, ‘but I didn’t really have a choice. Clock & Son has been going for three generations. When you’re born into the funeral industry, you die in the funeral industry.’

  ‘Amazing. And are you the eldest, is that why you’re running it now?’

  ‘I’m the only one,’ I said. ‘I’m the Clock and the Son. Well, Mum still works in the business on a part-time, interfering basis.’ I laughed. ‘She should have retired ages ago but when Dad died and I took over she seemed to think she had to stay. The problem is that she’s resistant to change. So resistant that I’m sorry to say I haven’t actually told her about the candles.’

  ‘In that case, we just must make a candle for her,’ Edie said.

  I was non-committal. I feared Mum’s reaction to the candles and doubted I’d ever be able to find a scent she would be pleased with.

  ‘Once you think of the fragrances,’ Edie continued, ‘I promise I’ll do it. I’d love to.’

  ‘Please don’t worry about a candle for Mum. Aren’t you trying to do one for your father?’

  ‘Well, yes, but . . . you know . . .’ She looked away.

  ‘If you like, I could help you make one of your dad,’ I said, and realised my hand had touched her very attractive and slender wrist. I quickly removed it and shoved it in a trouser pocket.

  ‘Thank you, Oliver,’ she said, then her tone brightened and she brought the subject back to Mum. ‘But what I really want to know is how you’re planning on keeping them a secret from your mother?’

  It was a very good question and one which I didn’t know the answer to. I was afraid it had the unfortunate effect of tainting my character. ‘I know I shouldn’t be going behind her back,’ I said, ‘but it’s complicated. There’s also the delicate matter of Marie and the candle you made of her. It’s a long story, but I was very fond of Marie and Mum doesn’t know about that either.’

  ‘I know, relationships are never easy,’ Edie said, nodding as if she knew exactly what I was talking about. ‘My last boyfriend didn’t understand my love of collecting, and that was what broke us up in the end. See the corn-on-the-cob salt and pepper shakers, third row to the right? They’re the culprits. When I bought them Jack said I had taken kitsch too far and he couldn’t take it any more. He said he didn’t want to come second best to miniature china condiment holders, which was just a silly thing to say. He said I was wasting my money and being frivolous. I know I can get a bit obsessive sometimes, but I can’t help it, I love the hunt. Of course, you could argue that having twenty-two vintage cake stands would be enough and that the one I bought last weekend was utterly unnecessary, but that would mean being a killjoy, wouldn’t it?’ She laughed.

  From where I was now standing, with the afternoon light coming in the kitchen window and catching the glass, highlighting their curves, they looked rather attractive. What’s more, I couldn’t see any specks of dust. How I admired an attention to cleanliness; it was a most fetching trait.

  ‘They’re very sparkly and clean,’ I said, ‘which must mean you use them, and so that’s not being wasteful at all.’

  ‘Oh yes, I do. They’re wonderful for when people come over. I’ll put anything on them, not just cakes.’

  We were silent for a few seconds. I wondered if we were both thinking about cake and how a slice of something sweet would go down quite nicely around about now.

  Except then Edie said, ‘Jack was one of those people who takes, you know what I mean? And everything had to be done his way. I realised afterwards that I had been handcuffed and couldn’t be myself. I’m much better off without him.’ She looked out the window and far away across the fence line to goodness knows where and three seconds later she was back in the kitchen and checking the thermometer in the pot of wax. ‘Right, I think we’re ready to pour.’

  I followed Edie’s instructions to keep the wicks vertical as she steadied them with kebab sticks and gently poured the wax. It was a slow, methodical process that I found to have therapeutic properties, and Edie seemed pleased with my attempts at perfection. When Fran’s fifty candles, plus two extras we could use as samples, were made, we started on Pete’s.

  ‘I’m really excited about these because I discovered fragrance oils that smell of attic and paper,’ she said. ‘I figure if we add some white tea, we should be able to emulate the smell of a paperback book and an old bookshop.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it,’ I said. ‘Is there no smell that cannot be replicated?’

  ‘Well, no, not really. You know the olfactory scientist Sissel Tolaas I mentioned the other day? She once recreated the smell of sweat from men having severe phobia attacks. She impregnated them into the pages of a Berlin art magazine, mono.kultur, to explore the true power of smell and replace their usual photography with olfactory art.’

  ‘Top marks for originality,’ I said, ‘but who wants to smell fear? It’s bad enough feeling it.’ I said it in a light-hearted way, hoping she didn’t think I was the fearful sort. ‘How did she do it?’

  ‘The men were put in a controlled setting and induced to have panic attacks so she could capture their sweat and synthetically replicate its molecular structure. And you know what else? Fear has a smell. Dogs know it. Horses know it.’

  ‘Like the smell of overcooked Brussels sprouts?’

  She laughed.

  ‘Or dead fish lying in the sun?’ I suggested.

  ‘What about boiled cabbage?’ she said.

  ‘I quite like cabbage.’

  ‘OK, wet dog.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘and dry dog.’

  ‘Ha! What about mould?’

  ‘Mmm, but I do like a decent blue cheese.’

  We both started laughing. ‘Oh, that’s funny, we could go on for days, couldn’t we?’ Edie said. ‘Come on, let’s get these samples finished and then it will be time for a cup of tea.’

  When all the candles were made and left to rest for twenty-four hours, Edie put the kettle on and produced a tin of mini saffron buns with currants and pistachios.

  ‘This is my new thing,’ she said, ‘using saffron in baking. It has a subtle fragrance and taste, an unusual blending of honey and hay, and the colour it produces . . . well, you already know it’s one of my favourites.’

  She took down one of her smaller cake stands and placed four buns on it. I had thought I should get going, that she probably had better things to do than to keep entertaining me now that the candles were made. Then again, it would be rude not to partake of tea and buns since she had gone to the effort of making them.

  We sat outside in her courtyard next to pots of red geraniums and a backdrop of washing on the line. It seemed very unprofessional having to look at Edie’s underwear and the clothes she liked to wear hanging upside down and swinging in the breeze. I angled my chair so I could look at Edie instead. We chatted some more about our jobs, how we both disliked exercise but knew it was good for us and how we dreamed of travelling to far-flung places like Iceland and Tanzania but had never actually done so. I found we had a lot in common, which boded well for our candle venture. There would be nothing worse than going into business with someone who didn’t appreciate the challenges of making non-chewy macaroons or the
difficulty of dropping everything for an extended holiday when you had commitments like a job you were tied to or an ill father and a mother you wished to support. After two cups of tea and a delicious saffron bun, I had definitely overstayed my welcome. I asked if there was anything more I could help her with.

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ she said. ‘We just need to wait for the candles to set.’

  ‘It’s been a very informative and interesting afternoon,’ I said, getting my tie and jacket.

  ‘Yes, we must meet up again to continue brainstorming bad smells.’ She giggled. ‘Anyway, I should be thanking you because it’s been so much fun doing it with someone else.’

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I had also thought the afternoon fun but me, enjoying candle-making? It was all too peculiar. ‘Well . . .’ I said.

  ‘Yes, well . . .’ she said.

  We looked at each other awkwardly and then she gave me another hug, which I was happy to reciprocate in a more relaxed way. She waved me goodbye from her yellow front door and, as I walked back to my car, I realised I hadn’t once thought about the events of the past twenty-four hours or, indeed, Caroline.

  Standing Up, Properly

  I arrived home feeling unexpectedly joyous from an afternoon of making candles and bounced into my flat as if I had lost a lot more weight than I actually had. I’d not long been home when the doorbell rang. I assumed it was a charity, pulled out a note from my wallet and went to the door. As I was about to hand over the money, I realised it was Caroline on the doorstep.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ I said. I probably could have sounded happier to see her but I hadn’t anticipated such a spontaneous visit.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she asked. A hand was on a hip; there was a tone of aggression in her voice.

  ‘I was at work,’ I said, thinking it was better to keep up the lie I had already begun.