Floored

by Sara Barnard

  SASHA

  Somehow, Michela’s work experience at the local paper has turned into a job. It’s just tea rounds and picture research, but the way she talks about it you’d think she was the editor.

  ‘Ooh, quick! Grab a copy, will you?’

  I don’t know why I need to be quick. There’s more copies on the table by the door than there are people in the cafe. Michela snatches the paper off me and starts flipping through it as we wait for the elderly lady in front to pay for her pot of tea.

  Her hands shake so much that the cup rattles on its saucer as she lifts the tray.

  ‘Would you like any help?’ I start to reach out when she freezes me with a look.

  ‘Not from the likes of you,’ she says, her mouth pinched in disgust as she turns away muttering. ‘Coming over here . . . Think they can do what they like . . .’

  Seriously? I am so pale that she must have been looking really hard for an excuse to air her misplaced xenophobia like that. It’s times like these I daydream of being the kind of person who might reply, ‘Yes, I came all the way from the Royal Oldham to offer to carry your tea tray. The likes of me are THE WORST.’

  Ha! Yeah . . . No.

  ‘Sash?’ Michela slaps me with the paper. ‘You want anything?’

  I want a hot chocolate. I want a Bakewell slice.

  ‘Tap water’s fine.’ Tap water’s free.

  At the table, Michela shows me the picture of a man in a UPS shirt sitting on a log and points at the caption, telling me she wrote it: Courier delivered from death by falling tree.

  ‘Was it the tree that delivered him from death?’ I ask. ‘Or was he delivered from death-by-tree?’

  ‘You what?’ Michela says round a mouthful of crisps.

  ‘Nothing,’ I say, flipping the paper shut and regretting it.

  There, on the front page, is a picture of Hugo Delaney, hero of the never-ending hour standing in front of the UKB building. He looks like a newsreader in his suit and tie, top button artfully undone, just to give him an edge.

  ‘I’d bang that so hard, his brains’d fall out,’ Michela says, sucking the salt off her fingers as I make an involuntarily gagging noise. ‘What? You’d prefer that?’ She pokes a damp finger on the insert of the boy that was in that nerdy series about vampires.

  ‘I would, actually,’ I say. ‘At least Dawson Sharman seems nice.’

  ‘And how would you know?’ she says, scrumpling up her empty packet.

  Because I was there.

  But no one knows that. Not even my dad. Who knows what happened to that package I was delivering? Who cares? I watched a man die. And then I left before anyone found out. As far as the rest of the world’s concerned, there were only five teens trapped in that lift. Not six.

  If only that had been true.

  My eyes drift to the bottom of the article: The funeral of Steven Jeffords will take place at 2 p.m., Monday 30 July at Agecroft Cemetery and Crematorium.

  I wonder if Michela wrote that.

  HUGO

  Here we go a-bloody-gain.

  Back up to the stupid North. Past the shitty chimneys.

  It starts raining the second we pass them – like the weather just knows where it is on a map. God, the North is so depressing. No wonder that guy just went and bloody died. It was probably out of protest.

  I let out a snort. Which isn’t attractive, but I’m the only one in first class at this ridiculous time of morning. I can’t believe Mum’s making me go to the fucking funeral. Like the whole thing wasn’t pathetic enough. Now I have to carry a freakin’ WREATH around while some news photographer takes some shots for the broadsheets. She was NOT happy with that hell-faced stage-school brat making headlines over me in the news coverage. I mean, The Times led on ‘Politician’s Son Is a Hero’, but the tabloids went for the TV star. Mum went so ballistic, you would think someone had DIED . . . Oh yeah, they did. BANTER.

  I can’t believe I’m being dragged up here again so soon. Work experience was such a waste of time. I didn’t pull that girl, I didn’t get any bylines, and the stupid editor ignored all my suggestions for stories. What is wrong with people? I swear it was discrimination because I’m southern. Northerners get so het up about the giant North/South divide, like it’s an actual thing. Whereas we’re all, like, ‘Dudes, we don’t care. And our house could buy, like, TWELVE castles in your shithole town.’

  But at least I don’t have to stay the night. I can just rock up to this pathetic photo-shoot funeral, pretend I’m sad that some postie popped his clogs, make my parents happy, and be home in time for David’s party tonight. Cassie keeps messaging to check I’ll be ‘feeling OK to come tonight’. That’s the one good thing about this whole dead-guy thing. Girls totally love it. They think I’m all sensitive and damaged now. I’ve got this great move where, whenever a girl asks about it, I hunch my shoulders and mutter, ‘I don’t want to talk about it, OK?’ Then I apologize for being abrupt and say it’s been ‘so difficult’. The clincher is when I eventually tell them, ‘For some reason, I feel I can talk to you about it though.’

  Instant score. Back of the net. Double points. It’s worked three times already, and will work again tonight with Cassie. Plus, I look so good in this suit Mum ordered specially.

  Anyway, it’s not like I’m lying. For some annoying reason, I can’t get the pathetic dead guy’s face out of my head. Maybe it’s just a reminder to not end up a sad sack like him . . .

  The sun’s coming out again, now it’s recovered from the horror of being somewhere they put gravy on their chips. That’s good. I can wear my new sunglasses so nobody can tell I don’t give a flying fuck about this dead guy, and this stupid funeral, and how very traumatic it must’ve been, and get on with my life.

  VELVET

  Is it just me, or do all black dresses look a bit slutty? Forget that – I don’t even need to ask the question. It’s definitely me. Mum says I could make a nun’s habit look inappropriate.

  The best I’ve been able to find is a plain dress of Mum’s that’s a bit too big for me, so at least isn’t obscenely tight. It’s too short, but there’s not much I can do about that except wear flat shoes and hope for the best.

  It’s not like I’ve ever been to a funeral before, so I have no idea what is actually expected. And obviously I can’t ask anyone, because nobody knows I’m going. They would all think I’ve gone mad.

  Maybe I have gone mad. For some reason, going to this stranger’s funeral seems important. It seems like the right thing to do. I know nobody would understand. They’re already baffled that I ditched work experience and came home, even though Mum’s quite pleased to have me back early.

  What else could I do? I asked the universe for a sign, and I got one. I knew I should never have got in that lift. I knew I didn’t belong there. I don’t need to tell Mum or Chelsea or anyone else the whole story. Ever. A man died, and there was nothing I could do, and life will probably never be quite the same again. They don’t need to know that.

  I’m home now, and I just want everything to go back to normal. I can get a job for the summer, help out in the hotel, and hang out with my friends on the beach. Like a normal person. That’s all I want. I’m hoping maybe going to the funeral will make me feel normal again, get this out of my system.

  ‘Have you turned into a goth or something?’

  I literally jump at the sound of Chelsea’s voice, then do an exaggerated eye roll and try to style it out.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ I mutter.

  ‘Seriously, babe – you look like you’re going to a funeral. What’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing!’

  FML. Great comeback, Velvet. I’m always being told I’m too smart for my own good, but then, without fail, it deserts me when I need it most – i.e. when Chelsea’s being a bitch.

  ‘Well then, get changed and let’s go down the seafront. I’m not being seen with you in actual public until you look like a normal person.’

  That word again. ‘Normal’
. It seems to follow me everywhere I go. More to the point – shit – what can I tell Chelsea? She just won’t get it. It’s not worth the hassle.

  Suddenly I have a brainwave – in the form of Hugo Delaney’s ridiculously handsome face. I didn’t figure out who he was at the time, but he’s been smirking at me from every newspaper in the local shop, totally freaking me out.

  ‘I can’t,’ I tell Chelsea. ‘Long story.’

  ‘So tell me the short version.’

  ‘I’ve got a date. With a posh boy.’

  JOE

  I’m pulling on my suit jacket when my phone beeps. It’s a WhatsApp from Ivy.

  What you doing today? Wanna come round mine?

  Sorry. Promised I’d do something with my mum. Tomorrow instead?

  I press ‘send’ before the guilt can set in.

  Ivy and I have always had this policy: brutal honesty. And, until recently, I’ve never been tempted to break it. It’s just that if I tell her I’m going to the bloke from the lift’s funeral, she’s bound to want to come with me. And for whatever reason, I feel like this is something I need to do alone. More than that, it’s something I want to do alone.

  Spoiler alert: I didn’t end up doing work experience at the UKB. After we’d been rescued from the lift and grilled by three different sets of people, I was returned to Miss Harley, by which point it was time to get back on the bus and return to Skiddington. I think Miss Harley was too embarrassed by the fact she’d completely failed to notice I was missing to punish me. To be honest, getting that close to the inner sanctum of the UKB before being yanked away was punishment enough.

  ‘You look smart,’ Mum says when I stick my head round the living-room door to say goodbye.

  I glance down at my one and only suit. This will be the third funeral I’ve worn it to this year. In February, one of my granddads died, followed by my grandma in May. One of the downsides of having older parents: your grandparents are that bit older too. I’ve only got one grandparent left now – my granddad on my mum’s side.

  ‘Where are you off to again?’ Mum asks.

  ‘Ivy’s,’ I lie.

  I wait for Mum to ask me why I’m wearing a suit to hang out at Ivy’s house, but she doesn’t. She just tells me to have a nice day and goes back to frowning at the TV guide spread out on her lap.

  I’m waiting at the bus stop, sweating like crazy, when I spot Tyler Matheson and his cronies mucking around on their bikes outside the Tesco Express opposite. I press myself into the corner of the bus shelter, my head down, and will them not to notice me. I spent the final week of term having the piss taken out of me for ‘getting lost’ on the school trip to the UKB; the last thing I want is to give them further ammunition by letting them see me wearing a black suit on the hottest day of the year so far.

  I’m relieved when the bus comes early and I can shove Tyler from my thoughts and focus on the day ahead.

  Now, I’m not particularly proud of this, but the thing is, there’s more to today’s excursion than paying my respects to Steven Jeffords. Call me dim, but it wasn’t until I read the article in the newspaper that I realized exactly who I’d been sharing that lift with. While Ivy was busy freaking out over the fact I’d been mere centimetres away from Dawson Sharman (she’s a diehard Dedman High fan), I was busy freaking out about his mum: basically one of the biggest cheeses at the UKB. Not only that, but the other guy in the lift, this posh guy called Hugo, also has a hotshot producer mum. I have literally no idea how I’m going to turn this to my advantage (neither Dawson or Hugo were exactly friendly while we were waiting to be interviewed), but I can’t shift the feeling that the universe put me in that lift for a reason, and now it’s up to me to act on it.

  That’s not all though. There’s something else tugging me. Or rather, someone else.

  Another thing I haven’t told Ivy about.

  A girl.

  A girl called Velvet.

  It’s the sort of day people wish for at their wedding, not a funeral: sun hanging high and bright in an azure sky. Joe, who is always early for everything, arrives first, his shirt sticking to his back as he walks through the cemetery past the rows of headstones that he tries not to look at for too long.

  Or at least he thinks he’s first, but Kaitlyn is already there, sheltering from the sun under a tree. Hugo doesn’t notice her either, just the flowers she’s holding. Cheap, he thinks, as his car pulls up outside the crematorium. ‘Wait here,’ he tells the driver, reaching for the wreath on the back seat next to him. It feels reassuringly heavy in his hand as he slides out of the car into the sunshine. He was concerned it was too simple, but now he’s seen those tragic petrol station carnations, he knows his mother’s assistant got it spot on. White calla lilies and eucalyptus. Classic. Tasteful.

  Plus, they look great with his suit.

  Hugo pretends not to notice the photographer as he walks around the back of the car towards the crematorium, but glances over his shoulder as he does to make sure the photographer gets a shot of him in profile, the wreath in his hand. He lingers in the doorway, ready to take off his sunglasses so the photographer can get one of the sombre smiles he’s been practising since his mother told him that he had to go to the funeral, but before he can, he hears someone say, ‘Oi! This is a funeral. Have some respect!’ And there she is, the girl from the lift, in a black dress about an inch short of decent.

  The photographer just laughs, then laughs again when Velvet flips him the bird and tells him to put that on the front page, before striding towards the crematorium. She sees Hugo, but pretends not to, her legs a little weaker as she passes, leaving a cloud of scorn and Ted Baker perfume in her wake. Hugo follows her into the crematorium, so focused on her arse that he almost walks straight into her when she stops suddenly. It’s empty: just two other people and the coffin, which is sitting on a platform in front of a red velvet curtain. She’s never been to a funeral, but she’s seen them loads of times on the telly. Isn’t there supposed to be a hearse and pall-bearers and sad music?

  There aren’t even any flowers.

  Hugo is thinking the same, because he checks his watch, wondering if he got the time wrong. Sasha has been sitting in the back row of the crematorium for the last half hour, asking herself the same thing. She was about to leave when Dawson walked in, and she knew she was in the right place. He didn’t recognize her, dipping his head when he saw the coffin and choosing a seat as far away from it as possible. Now Velvet and Hugo are there, and Sasha can’t look at them either, her hands balled into fists as the memory of what happened that day punches her repeatedly in the chest. So she takes a deep breath and stares at the stained-glass window that is sending splinters of coloured light around the room. It’s almost too pretty, Joe thinks as he takes a seat – like the persistent peony in his neighbour’s overgrown garden that comes back every June despite being almost choked by weeds.

  Kaitlyn is the last to summon the courage to walk in. She brought flowers, Dawson notices when she sits two rows ahead of him. Proper flowers, like the ones his aunt wanted at her funeral. No lilies, she’d insisted, and no black. She wanted colour and steelpans and for everyone to get drunk after.

  She would have hated this.

  An air of uneasiness settles over the crematorium. They all look at the coffin, then at each other, then back at the open doors to the crematorium as they wait, unsure what to do. A bell rings and a priest emerges. He walks slowly to the coffin and stops.

  ‘Please rise,’ he says.

  They look at one another as it finally dawns on them: this is it.

  No one else is coming.

  Sasha Harris created group ‘Lift People’

  Sasha Harris added Joe Lindsay

  Sasha Harris added Velvet Brown

  Sasha Harris added Kaitlyn Thomas

  Sasha Harris added Dawson Sharman

  Sasha Harris added Hugo Delaney

  Sasha:

  Hey guys!!!

  Joe:

  Hello
<
br />   Kaitlyn:

  Hey everyone

  Velvet:

  Heyyy

  Dawson:

  Hi all

  Sasha:

  WE NEED A NAME

  Joe:

  Um . . . The Secret Six?

  Or is that a bit Enid Blyton?

  Kaitlyn:

  Just a touch

  Velvet:

  *Googles who’s Enid Blyton*?!! OH OK I get it

  Sasha:

  HA! Me too, Velvet!!!

  Joe:

  You’re missing out guys

  Dawson:

  Not to be the ultimate buzzkill, but the original books are ever so slightly massively racist . . . And sexist. My mum hates them. My nan bought me Folk of the Faraway Tree once, and Mum shredded it up for my hamster. Fun fact, there

  Joe:

  Noted

  Any other, slightly sexier suggestions?

  Velvet:

  Ummm, the sexy six???

  Kaitlyn:

  This escalated quickly

  Dawson:

  That would have been the perfect name if we’d met on an escalator. OK . . . Sexy lift things . . . Going down?

  Pushing buttons? Something about shafts?

  Sasha:

  LOL

  Hugo:

  Oh, hi everyone. Loving how we’ve made a WhatsApp group born out of a funeral sexy . . . That’s quite impressive.

  Joe:

  Perhaps using the word ‘sexy’ was a mistake . . .

  Kaitlyn: