Deader Still

by Jordaina Sydney Robinson

  “Yes.” I nodded and he arched an eyebrow at me, disbelief all over his face. “I made it in the sense that I went to the canteen and got it for you and kept it warm all the way back here. In my book, that still counts.”

  He picked up his knife and fork and moved the food around the plate as if he were checking for a booby trap. Finding nothing suspicious he gestured to the food with his fork. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” I smiled happily and sat on the side of his bed, waiting for him to eat.

  He looked from his breakfast to my smiling face. “What do you want?”

  “I want to go to my funeral.”

  “No.”

  I folded my hands primly in my lap and sat straighter. “Let me rephrase. I’m going to my funeral. I’m telling you in the sense of honesty and trust. I’m telling you in an attempt to make this truly dictatorial and abhorrently, oppressively suffocating relationship work.”

  “You’re not going.” Oz cut a small piece of sausage and bit into it with caution.

  “I am.”

  He finished chewing, swallowed, and then took a large swig of the coffee. “You’re not.”

  “I am.”

  He gestured to me with his mug. “You’re not. If I have to tie you to the bed to stop you, I will.”

  I glanced at the wooden corner posts of his bed. It did look quite sturdy. “Why would you tie me to the bed?”

  He looked from me to the bed. “I didn’t necessarily mean this bed. I meant that if I had to tie you to a heavy piece of furniture somewhere in the house to prevent you from going, then I would.”

  “Okay,” I drew the word out as I smoothed out a small patch of the duvet and then looked up at him from underneath my lashes. “But that wasn’t what you said.”

  “You’re not going.” He took two more large mouthfuls of coffee. I decided the quick intake of caffeine was because he felt that he needed his wits about him when talking to me. I felt quite proud of that.

  “I could say that I’d beat you to the garden and leave before you could grab me since, I’m assuming, you’re naked under the duvet and it would be inappropriate for you to chase me around the house like that.”

  Oz held the tray with one hand and used the other to pull the duvet a little higher. So, so definitely naked.

  “Or I could say that I’ve put sleeping pills in the coffee you’re so happily chugging down.”

  Oz paused and pulled the half empty cup from his mouth to look inside it.

  “Or I could’ve lied and got Lucy to cover for me,” I said. “But I didn’t. I’m asking you to take me as part of my adjustment process. I’m trying. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  He put the coffee down and briefly covered his eyes with one hand. That’s when I knew I had him.

  He sighed. “What time?”

  “Nine.”

  “On one condition.” Oz wrapped both of his very strong looking hands around the mug of coffee and stared at my wide-eyed, hopeful expression.

  “I just made you breakfast. What more do you want?”

  “A five thousand word essay explaining how this has helped your adjustment. That way, it can go in your file and it looks like you’re genuinely trying to adjust.”

  I winced. “Five thousand? Really? That seems like an awful lot to me. And what do you mean ‘genuinely trying to adjust’?”

  “This is about hearing how great of a person everyone thought you were, right?” Oz jabbed his fork in my direction before stabbing a small piece of bacon.

  I stood and backed up to the door. I knew when to retreat. “Soooo, you’ll be good to go by nine?”

  Chapter Two

  “I cannot believe you told him,” Sabrina said for the fifth time as we milled around on the pavement outside the church with the other mourners waiting for my coffin to arrive.

  The church looked like it had been randomly dropped in the centre of town, the front doors literally opening up onto the pavement. There was a charity shop on one side and a household goods superstore on the other.

  I checked Oz was out of earshot before I spoke. “I’m working on a twenty-eighty split.”

  Clad in his usual flip-flops, shorts and black faded t-shirt of a pre-millennium rock band, Oz was keeping his distance from the alive mourners by hovering on the kerb outside the charity shop. He was flanked by my two male housemates, both of whom were in their late forties. Mark wore a similar outfit to Oz, only with a plain white t-shirt. I loved Mark. He rarely spoke to me. That made him my favourite housemate. Clem, who was loudly complaining about our morning activity, no pun intended, was wearing full-length black trousers and a white shirt. He was the only one who blended in with the alive mourners. Not that he needed to blend in, since they couldn’t see us anyway.

  “I figure, if I tell him about twenty per cent of the illegal stuff I do, that should make it easier to get away with the other eighty per cent,” I said.

  Sabrina inclined her head. “Or it could just make him more suspicious.”

  “I’ve got to try something. He’s difficult to lie to.”

  Sabrina clasped her hands together and twisted back and forth at the waist like a little girl. “’Cause he’s so handsome?”

  I ignored her mockery. “No, because he can tell.”

  She stopped twisting like a halfwit. “What?”

  “Yeah. He can tell when I lie. He can tell a half lie and a lie by omission too.”

  Parole officers, or guardians depending on their mood and what you’d done wrong, all had emotional bonds with their charges in case we got into some kind of trouble. Or we lied. Oz explained it away as a good thing since he’d know if I was upset or in danger and could find me wherever I was. Personally, I saw it as just one more way the bureau kept a tight leash on us all.

  Sabrina frowned at me. “The emotional bond tells him that?”

  “Can’t your guardian tell?”

  Sabrina shrugged. “She doesn’t really question me about anything. So he can tell a lie by omission? That’s technically when you’re telling the truth.”

  “I know! But mainly I think he just assumes I’m always lying to him.”

  “Why?”

  I adjusted my fringe against the breeze. “Because I’m always lying to him.”

  Sabrina narrowed her eyes at Oz from across the mourners. “Yeah, good idea to go with that split then.”

  “I’d have thought your friends would’ve been prettier.” Lucy, housemate number three, spoke from behind us. “That one in the black looks really rough.”

  “It’s a funeral,” Sabrina said. “Describing someone by the colour of their clothes isn’t the best identifier.”

  “And it’s a funeral, not a fashion show,” Pam, housemate number four, chastised. Pam must have been in her late sixties and wore her multi-coloured floral sundress and floppy straw hat with the grace of an old-fashioned movie star. So much for it not being a fashion show.

  “But surely the same rules apply here as they do in life?” Lucy said and gestured to her new skinny-fit baby-blue jeans and oversized orange batwing jumper. “I made the effort.”

  Sabrina cast a glance my way and I shook my head. No, we were not going to comment on the outfit. The colour of the jumper complimented Lucy’s olive skin tone and the wide neckline managed to give her black bob more swing, but that was the best I could say. For someone in her late twenties I’d have thought she’d have found her style by now. Unless this was her style. I glanced down at the hot pink strappy sandals she’d accessorised the outfit with. No, I refused to believe this was her style.

  Someone slipped their cold hand into mine and gave it a squeeze. I turned to see Petal, housemate number five and the youngest in her late teens, give me a shy smile before she let go and pirouetted through the mourners to Mark, her mane of blonde fluff flying out behind her. She was dressed for summer in white capri pants and a pale pink vest. Everyone was making the most of the heatwave since it was England and our summers were, at
best, unpredictable. Everyone except Sabrina and me. We were in our jumpsuits, ready for our community service sentences after the funeral and because they were the only clothes we had. For some reason that didn’t seem to bother Sabrina but it bothered me. A lot. At least Oz had finally bought me some shoes. They weren’t glamorous, just simple white ballet pumps, but still a huge improvement on the flowery flip-flops Petal had loaned me.

  The hearse finally pulled up and after a little fussing both my uncles, my dad and three cousins carried my coffin inside. While everyone took their seats, Sabrina and I made our way up to the altar and stood behind the coffin, mainly because it was the only place to stand where we were out of everyone’s way and it offered the best view of the church. Oz and my housemates stood by the entrance, Lucy pointing out fashion disasters to Petal and Pam.

  Once everyone was seated, the priest started to say something about life and Heaven. My mother stood up. Everyone’s eyes on her as she strolled to the coffin and tugged at the lid. My mother was tiny. She just topped five feet with a very slight build. She’d pulled her wispy, pale blonde hair into a ponytail which accentuated her sharp cheekbones and fragility.

  “What’s she doing?” Sabrina asked, and stepped around to the front of the coffin to look.

  I followed Sabrina around. “I think she’s opening it.”

  The priest climbed down from his pulpit and gently removed my mother’s hands from the coffin. My dad came up behind her and tried to lead her back to the pew. My dad looked like a mountain compared to her with his tall, broad and fit physique gone slightly to seed. She shook them both off.

  “I want it open.” My mum folded her arms and refused to move. “I want everyone to be able to see my beautiful girl.” The priest said something to her. She ignored him and turned to my dad. “I want it open.”

  He held her gaze for a long moment, ran a hand through his short dark hair and then turned to the priest with a shrug. “She wants it open.” My dad didn’t even pause. He knew better than to argue with her, divorced or not. He heaved the lid up and made sure it had locked open. He looked down at me and shook his head with a small smile, reaching out and stroking my corpse’s cheek. “Troublemaker right to the end.”

  “At least now I understand where you get your attitude from,” Oz said from behind me. With the drama, I’d not seen him sneak up.

  I scoffed at him. “That’s not attitude. That’s just my mum explaining how she wants this to go. If she were giving attitude, there would be blood and broken bones. And a lot of swearing.”

  Oz nodded. “Good to know.”

  Edith appeared at the head of my coffin and peered down at my corpse’s face, surveying our earlier hard work. “You look beautiful,” she said to me, then glanced over my shoulder. “And you must be Oz?”

  Oz narrowed his eyes at Edith as she approached but shook her offered hand. “I am. Who are you?”

  Edith’s lips kicked up into a genuine smile. “My name’s Janice, dear. Bridget and I work together. I wanted to make sure she made the most of this experience to really help her to move on.” To my mind she oversold the last line to the point of sarcasm. I glanced at Sabrina who was biting her lip and staring up at the ceiling. Yep, she’d heard it too.

  “That’s really good of you.” Oz’s tone said all three of us had heard it. “What is it that you do?”

  “Come, now, dear. You know we’re not supposed to talk about that,” Edith chastised him gently and moved to greet Sabrina. That was another stupid rule. Despite the colour of your jumpsuit uniform telling everyone what your job was, you still weren’t supposed to discuss it. Or even acknowledge it. Yet another reason it made dating difficult. It was almost like the bureau just didn’t want us to have any fun. At all.

  My mum turned her back on the priest, who was still trying to talk to her, and addressed the congregation, her voice carrying through the church. “If anyone hasn’t said goodbye yet, you can do it now while this man is speaking.”

  “Your mum’s not religious then?” Sabrina laughed as the affronted priest climbed back up on his pulpit.

  “She thinks once you die that’s it,” I said as we all shuffled back to the foot of the coffin.

  “Won’t she have a surprise when she gets here?” Sabrina said.

  “I hope she doesn’t come here,” I said, watching her beckon people up to the coffin.

  “You want her to ascend or go to Heaven or whatever?” Sabrina asked.

  “Well, she’s my mum, so, yeah, obviously.”

  Oz leaned into me a little. “But …?”

  I raised an eyebrow at Sabrina. Maybe now she’d understand the twenty-eighty split better. “But I also do not want to spend an eternity with that woman. I moved away for a reason.”

  “Jeez, Bridget, you look gorgeous.” Petal peered over the side of the coffin. “Almost as pretty as real-life you.”

  “I think she means it the other way round than I did,” Sabrina said when she saw my frown.

  “Can you make me look like that?” Lucy asked, looking over Petal’s shoulder.

  I nodded and Oz narrowed his eyes at me. “You’ve not looked at what they’ve done to you. How do you know you can make Lucy look like that?”

  I shrugged. “I’m just that good.”

  “Uh-huh.” Oz focused on me and I matched his stare with a smile.

  “Who’s that?” Sabrina asked, distracting Oz and pointing to a tall, slim man hovering near the entrance of the church.

  “That tall, dark, handsome, cheating scumbag is Michael … the-cheating-scumbag.” My lip curled on his name. I couldn’t help it. He sauntered into the church in a perfectly fitting black suit as if he were attending a formal evening do. He’d slicked his dark hair into a 1940s side parting which complimented his delicate features, though maybe death had improved my eyesight because suddenly he didn’t look all that great anymore.

  Sabrina pulled her head back as if she’d smelled something rancid. “Really? That’s him?”

  “Yeah.” I looked from her downturned mouth to Michael-the-cheating-scumbag. It turned my stomach a little that I kind of understood her reaction. I’d thought I’d have felt something. Maybe a touch of longing for our life, for my alive life, when I saw him but all I felt when I looked at him was confusion about what I’d seen in him.

  “He’s just so …” Sabrina shook her head and gave a one-shoulder shrug.

  Edith grimaced as she gave him a once over. “He has nice hair, dear.” She didn’t phrase it as a compliment, more like his only redeeming feature.

  “Is that his … sister?” Oz pointed to the short blonde on his arm wearing what looked suspiciously like my favourite Donna Karan little black dress. With a square neckline, cap sleeves and a split up the right thigh it was not a funeral dress. Michael-the-cheating-scumbag gave her a full-on kiss in the middle of the aisle before heading up to my casket.

  I stared, my mouth hanging open. I didn’t know what I was angrier about. That he’d had the nerve to bring his trollop to my funeral or that he’d let her raid my closet for something to wear. No, I did know. It was that he’d let her in my closet. “You son of a b—”

  “Hey.” Oz clamped one hand over my mouth and one around my waist to stop me from tackling Michael-the-cheating-scumbag as he approached. I didn’t struggle too much because I didn’t want to mess up my hair, but that was the only reason. When I stilled, Oz unwrapped his arms but stood close enough to grab me again.

  “I loved you, Bridget.” Michael-the-cheating-scumbag reached down to touch my dead cheek but his hand stopped short.

  I took a step forward and felt Oz grab the back of my jumpsuit to prevent me advancing further. “You brought your harlot to my funeral. Exactly how much can you love me?”

  Sabrina coughed. “I’m not normally one to split hairs but he said ‘loved’.”

  I pointed a finger a Sabrina, my eyebrows inching up in warning. “That’s not helpful.”

  Michael-the-cheating-scumbag p
atted my dead forehead as if I were a dog. “I know you’d want me to move on and be happy.”

  “No. I want you to die a horrible, painful and excruciatingly long death and then, just when you think it’s over, I want you to arrive here and have to spend your afterlife cleaning the men’s locker room. That’s what I want.”

  Sabrina grinned at me. “And you were going to marry that.”

  “Shut up.” I let Oz tug me back a little. I stood, arms folded, scowling at Michael-the-cheating-scumbag.

  Edith nodded. “He is quite the catch, dear.”

  “And that’s quite enough from you as well,” I snarled at Edith.

  Michael-the-cheating-scumbag turned away from the coffin and came face-to-face with my mum. She’d sneaked up behind him when he’d been saying his oh-so-tender goodbye. She raised her hand and slapped him so hard across the face his teeth clicked together. I’d called her right after I’d found him in bed with The Trollop. Doesn’t matter what you’ve done or how much you argue, when the chips are down, you can always depend on your mum.

  “I’d have thought she was more of a puncher,” Edith mused as she watched.

  I nodded. “She is, but someone told her that slapping hurts their face more than your hand whereas punching, for someone tiny like her, is the opposite.”

  My dad got to my mum just as she raised her hand to slap Michael-the-cheating-scumbag again. Michael-the-cheating-scumbag cowered back and misjudged his footing. He turned to catch himself and pressed his hand on my corpse’s stomach. There was a loud hissing noise like wind escaping a balloon. My corpse’s perfectly applied fake eyelashes fluttered and her lips parted as she sighed. The stench of death, and all the rotting associated with it, emanated out of her and drifted through the air, steadily filling the church.

  Sabrina gagged. “Oh my god.”

  I stared in horror as mourners coughed and covered their noses, trying to keep the malodour out of their lungs. And I'd been worried a sallow complexion would leave a tainted memory of me in their minds! This was so much worse.