The Last Four Days of Paddy Buckley

by Jeremy Massey

“Thursday. We’ll go to the church Wednesday evening.”

  “Okay. Do you want ten or eleven o’clock Mass on the Thursday morning, in Pius X, is it?”

  “Twelve o’clock in the Pro-Cathedral.”

  “Right,” I said, making a note of everything. “Mr. Cullen, your brother is lying in St. James’s at the moment; do you want to have the removal from Donal’s house or would you prefer to use the funeral home?”

  “The funeral home. I want complete privacy while Donal is there; no other funerals are to be going out of the place. Clear?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. The young man in the tracksuit who’d opened the door to me came in carrying a tray with a cup of instant coffee on it. He placed it on the table beside me.

  “Do you want milk?” he said.

  “Just a little sugar,” I said, and added it myself from the bowl on the tray.

  “Thanks, Richie,” said Sean, and Richie left us.

  “How old is Donal?” I asked, looking at Vincent, having no problem watching myself keep my composure.

  “Forty-one” came the answer.

  “Is he married?”

  “Yes.”

  I wondered where the wife was, as, technically, she was chief mourner, but I didn’t question it.

  “Does he have any children?”

  “No.”

  “Did you think about a death notice for the paper?”

  “That’s taken care of,” said Sean.

  “Right,” I said. “There’s an offering for the church, it’s usually two hundred—”

  “Make it a grand,” said Vincent, cutting me off. I wrote down the details as the two men continued to stare at me.

  Before I could get another question in, Vincent started tapping the desk with the nail of his index finger, slowly and deliberately. I decided against asking anything further and waited. From my perched position, I looked at Sean to see his reaction, but he was giving nothing away, wearing the expression of a man fishing happily on a lake.

  “Tell me about the embalming, Paddy,” said Vincent.

  “What do you want to know about it?”

  “The process, how it works.”

  “Well, basically, it’s a small injection to delay the decomposition of the remains.”

  Vincent just looked at me, letting the ticking of his desk clock punctuate the silence.

  “A small injection,” he repeated back to me.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Save the granny speech, Paddy, and tell me how it fucking works.” There wasn’t the slightest change of emotion in Vincent’s voice. Sean was almost smiling, looking at me while barely nodding his head, as much as to say, Spit it out there, man, we’re not precious.

  These were the kind of details nobody needed to know and even fewer wanted to know. A frank, unvarnished explanation would be upsetting to most people, especially when the imagined remains in the conversation was their relative; plus, the sugarcoated one-liner that I’d just proffered usually sufficed whenever a family member asked about the process. But these were no ordinary family members. These were guys who didn’t mind killing people to get what they wanted, and they dealt in nearly as much death as I did. To them, death was part of the deal. Besides, who was I to deny Vincent Cullen?

  “All right. The process happens in three stages. First of all, you’ve got to find one of the body’s six main accessible arteries. There’s one just on the inside of each upper arm near the armpit, there’s another on either side of the neck, and another at the top end of each leg, just beside the groin. The underarm ones are what you’d usually work off. You make an incision a little over an inch long, find the artery, and cut an opening in it. You then put in an L-shaped tube pointed in towards the body and tie it off with a bit of ligature. Through that tube, you inject what we call arterial fluid, which is a pink chemical formula that clears any discoloration in the skin, like at the end of the fingernails or at the back of the neck or the ears, wherever the blood might have collected. The arterial fluid clears that away completely; you can actually see the collected blood disappearing. This is all being pumped around the artery system by an electric pump. After that’s cleared—”

  “How long does that take?” said Sean, no longer almost smiling but focusing fully, along with Vincent, on what I was telling them.

  “Not long, maybe ten, fifteen minutes, depending on the condition and size of the remains. After that, you stitch up the arm and get out the trocar, which is a long, hollow, needlelike instrument about two feet long and twice as thick as a pen with three or four little holes at the pointed end of it. If you were to draw a triangle using the base of the sternum and the navel as the base and draw the top over the body’s left side, the top of that triangle is where you make the incision with the trocar. The electric pump that the trocar is connected to by a long tube is now turned to vacuum. You puncture all the vital organs with the trocar and remove the blood, which works its way through the pump machine and out through another tube into a five-liter glass jar. You get the most blood out of the heart and lungs, and the rest of it from the abdominal and thoracic cavities. When you’ve finished that, you disconnect the trocar from the electric pump and attach a pint bottle of formaldehyde to the end of the tube and briefly go through the organs again, emptying the bottle, letting the formaldehyde work its way into them, putting a stop to any further decomposition . . . and that’s basically it. After that, you could have the remains on display for months if you wanted to.”

  “When you puncture the organs, does it take much effort?” said Vincent. He asked as if he’d done it before and was looking to have his procedural style validated.

  “Yeah, you’ve got to get your back into it,” I said.

  Vincent gently pinched the stubble on his chin while continuing to look at me, along with Sean, both apparently grateful for the candid explanation.

  I watched myself sitting with them from my viewpoint up at the ceiling, and as Vincent seemed to navigate our meeting into another pocket of silence, I let my attention wander.

  Down in a darkened corner at the other end of the room, I noticed a shimmering, like a pair of orange jewels. After another moment, it became clear what it was: a dog curled up like a sleeping fox but with open eyes that glimmered.

  For the first time since I’d been in my dislocated state, I felt enveloped by a rush of fear, not because I’d sighted the dog, but because the dog had sighted me in my suspended, shifted state and appeared to have been looking at me there for quite some time.

  And then, as if I were inhabiting two spaces at once, I felt the disconcerting sensation of shifting uncomfortably in my chair and being slapped back into my body simultaneously. I tried to repeat my dislocating trick but couldn’t. I was locked inside my skin again. The shock of the sudden change brought about the beginnings of a panic attack, which I found almost impossible to mask.

  How could the dog have spotted me, and was there even a dog there in the first place? Compelled to check, I turned around in my seat and looked to the end of the room where I saw the same dog rising to its feet, staring at me now, at my face, in my chair.

  I turned back around to Vincent, who’d noticed the change in me and was quite at home in the silence again. Even though I’d been sitting here all along, being this close to Vincent in the firing line of his stare was a new experience, and a very unsettling one. Sean, too, seemed to be studying me, wondering where my panic had come from.

  The dog, up on all fours now, walked over to my chair. Still looking into my eyes, it began to sniff around my face, its snout twitching from side to side. I’d never seen a dog like it. Its eyes had an almost human aspect to them, only with something stranger still. And its markings were unusual: rusty like a fox, with a white chest and bushy tail, but with an added blackness through its coat. It was bigger than a fox, reminding me more of a wolf, but clearly it
was neither. The dog’s nose was now an inch from my cheekbone.

  Even as it invaded my space, I didn’t mind the dog so much; in fact, I’d always had a great affinity with dogs. It was being back in my body with my fear and guilt and pounding heart, and being this close to Vincent with his penetrating gaze, that had brought on the panic.

  I could feel the sweat collecting at the top of my brow and dripping down both sides of my face, which I wanted to wipe off, but didn’t dare.

  “What’s the story with the dog?” I said, still looking at its ever-watchful eyes.

  Nobody said anything for another minute or so, and I had no more questions to ask.

  “She’s smelling your fear, Paddy,” said Vincent, practically in a whisper. “Dechtire,” he said. “By my side.”

  The dog licked its lips and moved to Vincent’s side.

  My eyes darted from the dog to Vincent, to Sean, and back down to my briefcase. I could hear how irregular my breathing was, and I was squirming in my seat. I took out the coffin catalog, which I held out to Vincent, whose gaze now lowered to my trembling hand. Each moment was getting worse. As I tried to control the shaking in my hand, Sean reached over and took the catalog from me with a slight mocking smile and slowly started leafing through the pages, never once looking down at them, but continuing to stare at me all the while.

  Desperate, I looked to the floor, feeling the burning heat of Vincent’s disapproval along with my shame and the river of sweat collecting on my collar. As irrational as I knew it was, I was convinced that somehow Vincent knew I’d mowed his brother down and that he was about to announce it to me. I waited, knowing full well the funeral arrangements we were making had come to a grinding halt.

  When Vincent spoke, he spoke much slower than he had up to this point.

  “We’ll come down to the funeral home later, Paddy, and finish the arrangements then. All right?”

  “Okay,” I said, my mouth so dry I’d whispered the word. I accepted the catalog back from Sean and put the arrangement sheet away. Both Vincent and Sean were on their feet before I’d closed the briefcase. Sean held the door open as I walked out of the room with my head bowed, and then he closed it behind me.

  I felt like I’d just been squeezed through a mangle. Was this what I’d been reduced to: a muddled, sleep-deprived mental patient with the biggest secret in Dublin? I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer. I had to tell someone.

  THIRTEEN

  10:50 a.m.

  I closed the door to the back office behind me and sank to my knees, gripping my hair in despair. Vincent Cullen was going to check up on me, that was a certainty. I could only hope he’d write me off as a pathetic loser, but after my panicky display in his study, how far would his suspicions extend? I’d never felt guiltier than I had in his study, and there was no explanation for my collapse into panic, unless he’d put it down to the dog. Maybe he’d just request to have somebody else run the funeral. But considering the way my luck had been going, I wasn’t expecting him to let me off the hook.

  I needed to talk to Christy, to tell him what I’d done, to share the burden of my horrible crime, which I hoped would alleviate some of the mortal fear I found so impossible to shake. The relief of owning up, of admitting the truth, couldn’t be mine. It was a road I knew I couldn’t go down. Never in my life had I shirked the blame when it was mine. I’d always put my hand up no matter how severe the repercussions would be. But now something had changed in me. I don’t know if fear had taken hold of my soul or if I was frightened by the hellish consequences I’d face if I admitted everything. I only knew that with the Lucy Wright situation and the far larger one of Donal Cullen, both of which I was one hundred percent culpable, I couldn’t take the rap. It would destroy me.

  Corrine arrived in with an empty cup and stopped in her tracks. I was no longer sweating like I’d been up in Cullen’s house, but I still must have looked like I’d run all the way from Stephen’s Green.

  “Are you all right?” she said.

  I took out a cigarette and lit it.

  “I’ll be all right in a minute,” I said. Corrine was a smart woman. She didn’t ask questions. She kept to herself and never got involved in anyone’s dramas, preferring instead to live her life privately away from the land of funerals.

  “If you mind the phones for me, I’ll make you a cup of tea,” she said.

  “Deal,” I said, and moved out towards the front office.

  “Oh, and Paddy!” she shouted after me. I cocked my ear. “Eddie Daly was on. Lucy Wright is clear.”

  “Great,” I said. Incredible how inconsequential it seemed now beside the Cullen conundrum. Granted, Lucy’s death was on my head, but the price for my crime, had I been made pay, would have been my reputation. Not my life.

  I popped my head into the middle office to see Christy on a call. I signaled for him to join me when he was finished, and then went to answer the ringing phone in the front office.

  “Gallagher’s Funerals, good morning,” I said.

  The voice on the other end was frantic.

  “Hello, who am I speaking to, please?” It was an English accent, and familiar.

  “Paddy Buckley here.”

  “Oh, yes, Paddy. I talked to you yesterday . . . this is Derek Kershaw in Manchester . . .”

  “Everything all right, Derek?”

  “No . . . no, I’m finished. I’m afraid I’ve made the most dreadful mistake . . .”

  “What happened?” I said.

  “I’ve sent you the wrong body . . .”

  “That’s not good, Derek. The Hayes family is expecting him up at the funeral home at lunchtime. How soon can you organize a flight?”

  “No, it’s quite irredeemable . . . there’s another remains whose people didn’t want a funeral at all, just a straightforward cremation without a service . . . she had no family, just a nephew who hardly knew her . . .”

  Kershaw had been drinking and was slurring his words.

  “Derek, can you organize a flight today?” I said clearly.

  “I’ve not only sent you the wrong body,” said Kershaw, in tears now, “I’ve cremated your man . . .”

  Something inside me came alive. Ordinarily, this would have been enough to send the whole office into complete turmoil, me included, but a deep equanimity took a grip of me in an instant, and for the first time since I fell back into my body at Vincent Cullen’s, it felt like I belonged in my skin again.

  In every industry, horrible things go wrong every day, things incendiary enough to close down a business; and more times than not, somebody manages to keep a lid on it; and nobody the wiser. By some crazy cosmic decree, this happened to be a week full of lightning strikes in the same place, and I, for some unfathomable reason, was attracting them. Yet paradoxically, instead of being fried to a crisp, I’d been thrown into the eye of the storm.

  I listened to Kershaw’s defeated whimpering in my ear. I looked at the crimson wool fabric on the carpet. I watched Corrine’s hand steadily place the mug of tea down on the desk in front of me. And I saw the grandfather clock keeping time as it had for forty years in exactly the same place.

  It was then that I realized everything was perfect.

  I turned away from Corrine, who’d just answered another call, and lowered my voice.

  “Derek, let me understand you. You sent us the wrong body and the Hayes remains we were expecting you’ve cremated in Manchester. Is that it?” I asked in a calm, level voice.

  “That’s it,” Derek whispered.

  “Who knows about this?”

  “No one, just my son and I,” he said.

  Christy came in from the middle office and sat down in front of me.

  “Right, keep it to yourselves. Tell no one. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, but what good—”

  I cut him off. “Just give me
an hour. Don’t do anything or tell anyone. Sit tight. I’ll ring you back in an hour.” I put down the phone.

  “What’s going on?” said Christy, with a lowering brow.

  I winked for his complicity.

  “Corrine,” I said, “has the Hayes remains been delivered?”

  “It’s in the side parlor,” she said, sipping her tea while studying the Times’s Simplex crossword.

  Christy followed me into the side parlor where the closed Hayes coffin rested on a bier. I closed the door behind us and spoke very quietly.

  “Now, I need you to keep a level head and your mouth shut when I tell you this.”

  “What?”

  “Kershaw has cremated Dermot Hayes in Manchester.”

  “Stop it,” said Christy.

  “I’m telling you,” I said.

  “None of your fucking messing now, Buckley,” said Christy defensively, but he knew by my eyes that I was serious. He brought his hand to his head and sat slowly down on the couch.

  “Mother of fuck,” he said, before looking at me suddenly. “Who’s he sent us?”

  Within a minute, we had the screws out. I lifted the lid off the coffin and we looked inside. It was a plump old woman in her eighties, minus her dentures.

  “Oh, Jesus,” said Christy. “What the fuck are we going to do?”

  “Keep it down.”

  “Paddy, this could close us down. Do you realize that?”

  “No, it couldn’t. It could close Kershaw down. Now, if you relax for a minute, we can make it so nobody gets closed down.”

  Christy wasn’t one bit happy.

  “How are we going to do that, Buckley?”

  —

  FRANK GALLAGHER SPENT a large part of each day up in his office, writing letters, doing the books, and looking after business in general. He was involved in a handful of community projects around the areas in Dublin he had funeral homes, as well as being a prominent figure in the national and international funeral associations he belonged to. He took these involvements seriously and gave them considerable time and energy.