by Millie Gray
After much deliberation, Sandy announced, “Aye, aw richt then. But richt noo I’ve to gae and see about a big bug’s funeral, so I’ll tell ye what.” Sandy drew out his notebook again and licked his lips before writing a brief note. “We’ll dae Gabby in Seafield Crematorium, let’s say, on Wednesday at fower o’clock.”
“Four o’clock? That’s just perfect,” Rachel almost sang. “Cos that means the bairns will only need two hours off work without pay to go to it.” She hesitated before going on, “And we’ve agreed it’ll be eighteen pounds down and the rest at five shillings a week?”
Sandy rolled his eyes, sighed, grimaced and finally nodded in acquiescence.
“And that’ll surely include a wee floral tribute? The bairns would like that,” Rachel added coaxingly.
Sandy fingered the mole under his eye again. “Aye, I suppose so. Noo I maun be aff. Run aff my feet this week, I am, with everybody wantin’ to be upsides with the King and pass away this month.” Before leaving though, he drained his cup and asked, “Here! Yin last thing: d’ye want Gabby brocht up here to hae a proper lying-in-state afore the service?”
“Course she does!” Bella interjected. “There’d be nae point in giein’ him a decent send-aff if the neebors didnae see it.”
Rachel nodded her assent. She and Bella both rose to see Sandy out, but by now four cups of whisky-laced tea had taken effect on Bella and she staggered perceptibly before embracing Sandy rather too cordially. Rachel, who had had only two cups of the medicinal tea, was overtaken by a fit of the giggles and spluttered, “Here, Sandy, tell you what! To hell with the expense! Let’s give Gabby a right royal send-off, just like the King’s getting this week, and send him off in that mahogany coffin with the maroon tassels that you’ve got on show.”
Now it was Sandy’s turn to chuckle. “Right enough, lass, so we should. But here – ken somethin’? A funeral like that would set ye back a cool hunner.”
“That all?” replied Rachel. “Well then, we’ll just take it out the petty cash, won’t we, Bella?”
Sandy had only been away for half an hour when Rachel realised that she’d have to put Bella to bed to sleep off the effects of her six cups of tea. Bella had insisted that she was needed down at the funeral parlour to help Sandy. Rachel was of the opinion, however, that Bella was more in need of being laid out than the corpses, so she had hochled her through to Sam’s room and planked her down on the bed before throwing her coat over her. She then dashed to the scullery and had just finished getting rid of all the evidence of their impromptu wake when Carrie opened the door and came dolefully into the living room.
“Suppose having a face like the length of Leith Walk means you’ve told Will you won’t be going to the ball.”
“Haven’t told him yet,” Carrie snapped back, flinging herself on a chair.
“And why not? After all, haven’t I brought you up to face up to your problems?”
Carrie began to look tearful. “That was the problem. I tried to look him straight in the eye and when I did – oh Mam! His eyes are so blue and they twinkle whenever he says, ‘Carrie, darling’.”
“Oh, my God. Don’t tell me you’re wanting to write for that blinking Red Letter again?”
“Mam,” Carrie whispered pleadingly, “is there no way you could get that ball gown for me?”
Rachel looked out off the window. It was raining again. Like her own life of late, the weather was always storm-tossed. She sighed. “No, hen. You see, I’m having to go into debt because I haven’t got all the thirty-five pounds I need for your Granddad’s funeral.”
“Thirty-five pounds for a funeral for Granddad, who wanted to go away in an orange box? Mam, don’t you realise my whole life is being ruined just for the want of a five-pound ball gown when you could take out a Mutuality Club loan from the Store?”
Rachel lowered the pulley, methodically took off the towels and sheets, then folded them neatly before replying in a voice that was thick and choked. “Look, Carrie, there’ll be other balls for you and Will, but with a bit of luck we’ll only need to cremate your Granddad the once.”
Carrie jumped up, grabbed her mother by the arm, and shouted, “But that’s where you’re wrong! Cos I told Bernie all about it and she says, if I can’t go with Will, then she will.”
Rachel firmly removed Carrie’s hand from her arm before demanding, “And what’s she going to wear?”
“The dress she had as bridesmaid to her sister last year.”
Rachel started to smile and she patted Carrie on the cheek. “Then that’s your way out. You and Bernie are about the same size, so just you ask her if you can borrow the dress.”
Carrie’s face fell again and tears ran down her cheeks. “I’ve already done that but Bernie says that the Bishop says that the Pope has just ordered that Protestants aren’t allowed to wear Roman Catholic bridesmaids’ dresses!”
On the day of Gabby’s funeral, Carrie left work well before lunchtime. She’d been instructed by Rachel to do the shopping for the boiled ham tea because, out of the blue, Rachel had been asked to attend the Queen’s Hotel for an interview.
By the time Carrie had gone to McRitchie’s in Charlotte Street for the boiled ham, into Lipton’s in the Kirkgate for the cheese, to Smith’s for the bread and finger rolls, and finally to Rankin’s in Great Junction Street for the Canary Islands tomatoes, she was soaked – thanks to the rain and hail that had pelted down relentlessly as she’d trudged from shop to shop. And, by the time she got home with a laden message bag in each hand, she was so ill-humoured that she lifted her foot and furiously booted the door.
She was just about to give another vicious kick when the door opened and there stood Auntie Bella with a feather duster in her hand.
“Oh it’s you, Carrie,” she said, standing aside to let Carrie enter. “Wi’ all that thuddin’ I thocht it was the polis.”
Ignoring Bella, Carrie went straight into the scullery and dumped everything on the table, muttering, “Hope I got it all.” Then she went to the living room.
“Got what?” asked Bella.
Only then did Carrie become aware of the highly-polished coffin lying on its two trestles against the far wall and she uttered a squeak. “Is that my Granddad’s coffin? I thought … Well, I never thought it would be so highly polished.”
Bella flicked the feather duster over the coffin. “They’re always real braw like this when Sandy dis the funerals. Doesnae send onybody awa, he doesae, that isn’t completely polished aff. But never mind that, ye were saying ye hoped ye had got it aw. Aw what?”
“All the stuff for Granddad’s boiled ham tea. And another thing. Why are we saying that it’s Granddad’s boiled ham tea and the only one that’s not having it – is Granddad?”
“Time for ye to bother is when you get left at the crematorium and the rest of us come back for the boiled ham tea,” retorted Bella. “And, by the way, you did get the ham sliced thin? Very thin.”
“Yes, I did,” said Carrie irritably, holding up an imaginary slice. “I told the grocer so often that I wanted a whole pound of it cut very thin that he held up a slice so I could see the light shining through it. Nearly died of embarrassment, I did.”
“Talking of deein’. I thocht ye said ye were gonnae hara-kiri yersel’ last night?”
Carrie stuck her head arrogantly in the air. “I’ve had to put off drowning myself until Sunday.”
“Oh, so ye’ve gaun aff gassing yersel’? But then, ye did say ye micht cos ye couldnae really staun the smell.”
Bella prattled on about all the other ways Carrie had talked of ending it all. She’d just got to teasing Carrie about how she would have jumped off the Scott Monument if she hadn’t been so scared of heights when she realised that Carrie wasn’t listening. Instead, she was sitting on the settee sobbing quietly and every so often rubbing her hand under her nose to catch the drips. Bella’s deep brown eyes began to sparkle suddenly and she looked over her shoulder, giving several nods of understanding. “H
ere, Carrie,” she said at last. “That was yer Granny Rosie that just came through the noo and she says ye’re to stop yer greetin’ cos Cinderella ayeways gangs to the ball.”
This otherworldly revelation only served to make Carrie cry all the harder and she blurted out, “Oh, Auntie Bella, this isn’t the day to remind me about the only person that has ever really loved me.”
Before Bella could remonstrate the door opened and both Sam and Paul came in.
“In the name o the wee man!” Sam exclaimed, walking in astonishment around the coffin. “Whit on earth is this?”
At that very moment Rachel dashed in. “What a day! Guid for neither man nor beast,” she gasped, shaking her umbrella.
“Aye,” agreed Bella. “But happy is the corpse that the rain faws on.”
Shaking the water from her hair Rachel was about to reply when her eyes fell on the coffin. “Here, what the devil’s this?” she exclaimed, advancing warily.
“Gabby’s coffin,” Bella replied nonchantly, flicking the feather duster over the coffin once more.
“Oh no! It cannae be. I told Sandy I just wanted him put away nice and tidy. Surely he realised I was only kidding when I said I wanted the showroom coffin? Quick, Sam, work this out: one hundred pounds, less eighteen, divided by five shillings is how many weeks?”
She’d scarcely finished when Sam answered glibly, “Three hunner and twenty-eight weeks, which is six years, three months and three weeks efter this week that ye’ll be—”
“Up to my eyeballs in debt!” howled Rachel. “Oh my God, I should have remembered that Sandy bloody well enjoys makin’ a fortune out of other folks’ misery.”
“Noo be fair, Rachel, ye did say you wanted nae expense spared.”
Rachel glowered at Bella and then sprang towards the coffin, tripping as she did so over one of the large floral arrangements lying on the floor. “And they flowers! Where, in the name of heaven, did they come from? Oh no!” she sobbed. “I said a wee floral tribute. I never said I wanted the whole blooming Botanics transplanted.”
Bella, Sam, Paul and Carrie all looked blankly at one another, speechless. Not one of them knew what to do or say. So when they finished looking at each other, they all stood and gazed at the three large wreaths. Eventually Bella bent down and picked out a card from the nearest floral arrangement.
“See here, Rachel, and listen tae they nice words.” And she began to read reverently from the card: “To dearest Papa, who wis oor inspiration an’ joy.”
“Sarcastic bastard,” Rachel replied through gritted teeth. She took another close look at the coffin, checking the lid before yelling, “Quick, Sam, get me a screwdriver.”
Sam dashed into the scullery while Bella threw herself over the coffin and screeched, “Naw. Naw, Rachel. Ye cannae tak him oot o his box.”
“No. You can’t, Mam,” Carrie insisted, wringing her hands. “I mean, what would you put him in?”
By now, Sam was back with the screwdriver. Rachel grabbed it from him and smartly ordered, “Get the blanket off the ironing table, Carrie, and we’ll wrap him up in that before laying him out on the table itself.”
“But, Mam,” Carrie protested again, “the blanket is full of burn holes.”
“Good,” came Rachel’s retort. “At least we know it’s inflammable.”
Before they could do anything, however, footsteps echoing on the outside path paralysed each of them, and they looked from one to another again in dismay. Bella dashed to the window and looked out.
“Too late, Rachel,” Bella sighed with relief. “It’s your Alice and Hannah, and they’ve got the minister in tow.”
“Oh, Mam,” Carrie cried, “whatever are we going to do?”
“Nothing, hen, except stuff our fists in our mouths when we see a hundred pounds go up in flaming smoke,” said her mother despairingly as the screwdriver slipped from her grasp.
At lunchtime next day, Bella and Rachel were sitting at the table supping some hot soup when Bella remarked, “Weel, didnae everythin’ just go sae awfae weel yesterday. Ye ken, when we arrived in oor limousine and I looked oot and saw aw they respectable folk, I thocht we’d been taen tae the wrang funeral.”
Rachel just nodded complacently. She too was thinking about the events of the previous day. Bella was right in saying there was a large turnout of decent folk but then they were mostly Learig Close neighbours and pals of hers and the bairns. A sly grin crossed Rachel’s face as she remembered how everyone had seemed quite gobsmacked when the hearse rolled up. And not only did Gabby’s up-market casket come in for envious approval, but Rachel lost count of the number of people who commented on the truly tasteful floral tributes. Rachel recalled how she had smiled demurely and maintained her dignified manner even when the minister remarked that Gabriel had been an example to all – an example of what would happen if you succumbed to the twin demons of drink and gambling. She was unable to keep her utter despair in check though when the minister asked all to stand for the committal. He had just reached the words, “Ashes to ashes” when a long anguished wail escaped her as she stood and watched a hundred pounds’ worth of mahogany being committed to Dante’s Inferno.
Rachel’s cries were subsequently drowned out by the wails from Carrie and Alice. Evidently the girls were grief-stricken because they could now remember the couple of times that Gabby had had a winner and had bought them in a bag of dolly-mixtures. Carrie herself was also consumed with guilt when she remembered that she never ever did pay back the five pounds she had “borrowed” from him when they were about to be evicted.
At the end of the service, Rachel had stood at the door with Paul and Sam to thank everyone who had come to pay their respects. And when it was the turn of Andra Couper, a drouthie crony of Gabby’s, to shake hands with Sam, he remarked that Gabby’s coffin was really something. “In fact, I’ve never seen Gabby sae weel dressed afore.” Sam responded by asking Andra up to Learig Close for the boiled ham tea and he, along with most of the others that were in attendance at the crematorium, did just that.
Rachel had been mortified. It was true she performed wonders feeding the family out of scraps, but even she would need divine intervention to get a pound of boiled ham, five tomatoes and two loaves of bread to go round forty folk!
Her solution – that none of the family would eat – had angered Carrie. In fact, she had stayed furious all day. First, she was angry that Johnny had turned up at the funeral and had stood at the back. She had seen him there in his kid gloves and Anthony Eden hat and when he realised she was staring at him he had pulled back his overcoat sleeve pretending to look at his gold watch – which was truly gold. She was so angry that she had hung about the front door intending to ask the burning question she had always wanted to put to him. Why, when he’d left them, in the dead of winter, had he taken his Home Guard greatcoat with him when he knew it would leave them with no covers for their bed? But even though she was now fired up enough to confront him, she was denied the chance because he had stolen out of the back door like a thief in the night.
Bella was now looking about the kitchen. “That boiled ham on the bunker there?”
“Aye,” Rachel answered absent-mindedly. “Bought it this morning.”
“This mornin’?” Bella speired, sucking in her cheeks. “Won the pools or somethin’?”
Rachel shook her head as she got up to light the gas under the chip pan. “Just thought, that as Sam and Carrie missed out last night I’d give them a wee treat.”
“Spending yer wages afore ye get them again?”
Rachel didn’t bother to reply. She knew Bella was referring to her having got a job back at the Queen’s Hotel. This time though she was to be the manageress, doing the day shift and in charge of purchasing. The only problem with being in charge was that you got paid monthly in arrears, and with what had happened this week Rachel was already up to her ears in arrears.
Bella seemed quite unaware that Rachel was deliberately ignoring her endless stream of chatte
r, which only stopped when Carrie opened the outside door and slunk into the scullery.
“Look,” Rachel said brightly, pointing to the boiled ham she had set out. “McRitchie’s, just like last night, and, better still, you and Sam are getting chips and beetroot with yours.”
Carrie grimaced before slumping down on a chair. Lifting up her fork and knife she intoned woefully, “Don’t tell me you think a slice of boiled ham, twelve chips and two slices of beetroot are going to mend my broken heart?”
“Och, c’mon. Yer Granddad got a richt guid send-aff, so stop worryin’ aboot him,” Bella coaxed, picking up one of the chips from Carrie’s plate and eating it with relish.
“Good send-off?” howled Carrie. “It was a blooming disgrace the carry-on that there was in here last night. Specially from folk that were always going on about my Granddad’s drinking.”
Rachel gulped. She hadn’t meant the funeral tea to turn into a big knees-up and it wouldn’t have, if every man that had come hadn’t brought one of the bottles of Glenfiddich that somehow had got lost at the docks and needed refuge at 16 Learig Close. “Carrie,” said Rachel gently, “you’ll get over losing your Granddad.”
This statement only made Carrie break down and sob, “Mam, I’m over Granddad. It’s the fact that I can’t go to the ball tomorrow night that’s breaking my heart. Does no one realise I’m in love and the only man I will ever love will leave me and go to the ball with Bernie?”
“If he’s that thick then aw I can say,” commented Bella as she bent over and pinched not only another of Carrie’s chips but half of her boiled ham as well, “is that ye’re better aff withoot him.”
“Carrie, are you saying you haven’t plucked up the courage to tell that bloke you haven’t got a dress?” demanded Rachel indignantly, slapping Bella’s hand away before she could steal yet another of Carrie’s chips.
“I’d rather commit suicide than do that,” wept Carrie, taking the last chip on her plate and handing it to Bella.
“Right!” Rachel went on. “You can leave early with me to go back to work.”