The World is a Wedding

by Wendy Jones

  ‘Of course. I’ll leave the lid there,’ said Wilfred, propping it up next to three lucky horseshoes tacked to a beam.

  ‘The Reverend Waldo Williams said the funeral would be this coming Thursday. Is there anything I need to do with the body?’

  ‘Keep the room well ventilated and the lid on at night and when you haven’t got visitors. Anything untoward or leakages, then do telephone my office immediately.’ Wilfred didn’t have an office: he had the Bakelite telephone screwed to the wall by the front door, he wrote invoices on the kitchen table, and did his thinking—well, everywhere—but ‘office’ sounded formal, and formality was what one wanted from an undertaker. ‘Good day to you, Mrs. Owen. And my sincerest condolences.’

  As Wilfred stooped to leave the parlour, he glanced back over his shoulder and saw the family arranged as if in a photograph, in what Flora would call a ‘still life’—with Mrs. Owen standing beside the coffin, her sons side-by-side at its foot and the father laid out, still, and at peace.

  Wilfred got into his hearse, touched the walnut veneer fondly and put the key in the ignition. Mrs. Owen, particularly, had the wisdom and the years to accept death, to take it in her stride without adding drama to it. But Wilfred couldn’t help feeling a new sadness, one that he’d had since his own baby had died, an understanding that as he buried one person it was as if, in some intangible way, he were burying his child. He had been an undertaker for almost nine years, and it wasn’t until now that he understood what a funeral was.

  He sighed. All those B words—baccivorous, bice-blue and biliverdin, bilateral, bimanous, Baconian, bathykolpian—for nothing. How could their baby be born dead? It was as if birth and death were stuck together, when they should be separated: birth at the beginning of life, death at the end, and seventy years in between. ‘And the days of our years are threescore years and ten,’ the Bible said. That was the time allotted to man.

  Then he thought about Grace and wondered if Flora had got a prescription from Dr. Reece this morning. Wilfred turned the key and started the engine of the hearse. At least he could be kind to Grace now, make amends for his unkindness to her; at least he could lift that weight from his mind. As long as he didn’t have to bury her.

  ‘This is it,’ Flora said.

  Grace was lying in the bed in Wilfred’s father’s room.

  ‘It says “To be taken three times a day”.’ Flora unscrewed the small jar of medicine and spooned the pink powder into a glass of water. ‘He didn’t say what it did; only that this is what he would prescribe. I bought it in the apothecary.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Grace, drinking the powdered water.

  ‘And you need bed rest.’

  There was a knock at the door downstairs. Grace and Flora Myffanwy looked up and waited. There was a knock again.

  ‘Wilfred has gone to collect a body,’ Flora Myffanwy said. ‘I had better go and see who it is. It might be a customer for the wallpaper shop.’ She looked at the baby, who was fast asleep in the bed. ‘I won’t be long.’

  Grace heard Flora call hello and her feet running lightly down the stairs, heard a woman’s voice say something. Grace tried hard to listen but didn’t recognise the softly spoken voice. She wondered if the woman downstairs would know her; she surely would. Grace huddled very carefully under the blankets, not daring to disturb the baby, who was sleeping with his curled hands either side of his head.

  Her father. Flora had seen her father this morning. Grace remembered the last time she had seen him. It was at Narberth station. He had given her an envelope and she had opened it on the train. Write, it said, that’s all. She hadn’t written. She had wanted to but didn’t know what to say. If she couldn’t speak the truth then she couldn’t say anything, and felt condemned to silence. Only truth would loosen her tongue.

  Grace pulled the blanket up. Her hip bones ached, her head ached and she was continually hot then cold. Her mouth was dry and so she drank some water, but as soon as she took a sip, one mouthful was too much. She pulled the blankets over her head and buried herself under them. She moved restlessly onto her side and wrapped herself round the limp body of her small child, his chest moving up and down rapidly. Even her eyelids ached. Something was raging through her body, wracking her with heat, then making her shiver. Her teeth ached and her hair felt thin and flat to the touch. She needed to see a doctor. She needed her family; she needed to see her father. She knew he would be alarmed if he knew how sick she was, and he was rarely alarmed. She needed medicine. Sitting up clumsily in bed, she drank some more of the powedered water then lay down and fell into a fetid, drugged and disturbed sleep.

  ‘Mrs. Probert!’ Flora said with surprise, opening the door.

  ‘Is it an awkward moment? You said if I ever wanted to visit . . .’ Mrs. Probert asked hesitantly. ‘I know it was months ago now.’

  ‘No, not at all,’ said Flora with feeling, but with some anxiety. ‘There’s lovely to see you again.’ Mrs. Probert had a fresh bruise on her face.

  ‘Please sit down. Would you like to take a cup of tea?’ asked Flora, topping up the teapot with boiling water from the copper kettle. She hoped that the baby wouldn’t cry, or that Mrs. Probert wouldn’t hear it. And if the baby cried, Flora thought, she would say nothing and smile.

  ‘I made a pot of tea just now; it should still be hot.’ Flora placed the teapot, which was round and friendly in shape, on the clean tablecloth. Her mother had given her the tea set for their wedding present. She upended the teapot and the leaves span outwards in a steaming circle of boiling water.

  ‘Would you like some milk? Oh . . . would you mind if we had black tea, as I have hardly any milk,’ she said, remembering the milk was for Grace and the baby. ‘Perhaps you would like sugar in your tea?’

  Mrs. Probert nodded gratefully.

  Flora opened the door so that the bustle from the street outside might mask any sounds from inside.

  ‘Your kitchen is very clean,’ Mrs. Probert remarked, looking around, spotting the ball of dough resting in a bowl on the kitchen table. ‘Don’t let me interrupt you with your baking. Or shall I help you?’ So the two women stood side by side making and patting Welsh cakes, placing them on the bakestone, turning them when they were golden, and filling the kitchen with the warm aroma of butter, allspice and nutmeg.

  ‘Thank you for coming to warn me, on the day of the tug-of-war,’ Mrs. Probert began. Flora looked at the woman’s battered face. Wilfred had told her that Mr. Probert had played violin in chapel when he was young. He seemed so angry and brutish, Flora couldn’t imagine him having the sensitivity to play music.

  ‘I walked around Narberth today,’ Mrs. Probert continued, with some hope in her voice.

  ‘Are you getting stronger?’ Flora asked, remembering why Mrs. Probert was walking around the town. She noticed that the woman’s fingernails were bitten down to the quick.

  Mrs. Probert nodded. ‘I have a plan. I walk around Narberth every day, and when I am in the house and Mr. Probert is out, I wear the lipstick you gave me. I want to stay strong for the future and I want to feel like a woman, even if only a little.’ She patted a stray sultana into the Welsh-cake mixture.

  ‘I’m so sorry for giving you my lipstick and the trouble it caused you,’ Flora said.

  ‘No, sorry I am. I only hope Wilfred can forgive Mr. Probert. I heard he gave Wilfred a bloodied nose and made a terrible mess of the new shop.’

  ‘It was all easily tidied,’ Flora replied. She put some more uncooked Welsh cakes on the bakestone. There was a spark and a refinement to Mrs. Probert; Flora could see it, even though her clothes were old and she was so thin and worn.

  ‘And you have had troubles of your own,’ Mrs. Probert added.

  Flora paused, not knowing how to talk about what had happened to her.

  ‘Would you like to help yourself to a Welsh cake?’ she asked, still unable to talk about t
he experience she’d had. ‘They will be ready to eat in a minute or two.’ There was a cough from upstairs.

  ‘Is Wilfred here? Mrs. Probert asked, surprised. ‘Am I disturbing you?’

  ‘Not at all, only doing the things that need to be done,’ said Flora, putting some freshly-baked Welsh cakes from the cooling-rack onto a cake-plate.

  ‘May I tell you something? Between you, me and the doorpost?’ Mrs. Probert asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Could you shut the door?’ Flora went and pulled the back door to and sat at the table with Mrs. Probert.

  ‘Mr. Probert gets very angry, and into blind rages,’ she began. ‘And when he’s drunk too much beer at the Dragon Inn he gets terrible headaches and sits with his head in his hands, crying. Dr. Reece says he drinks too much.’

  Flora nodded, listening. She heard a sound from upstairs that she pretended not to notice.

  ‘He does drink too much,’ Mrs. Probert added. ‘Dr. Reece is right.’ She pushed a lank strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Dr. Reece says he should stop.’

  Flora didn’t see how Mrs. Probert could have a better life if Mr. Probert didn’t stop drinking.

  ‘So if I am strong and feel like a woman, I could marry again,’ she said unexpectedly.

  Was Mr. Probert seeing another woman and Mrs. Probert was going to divorce him for adultery?

  ‘There is something wrong with his brain and he can’t control himself when it comes to drink. He sees red so quickly these days,’ she explained.

  ‘But I wouldn’t want you to make too many excuses for him,’ Flora said, then added quickly, ‘I’m sorry, I have been too forward.’

  Mrs. Probert shook her head. ‘Dr. Reece said there is a growth in his brain. The rages are because of it.’ She looked down and said quietly, ‘So I came to ask if Wilfred would be willing to bury him when the time comes.’

  Flora nodded, taken aback. She didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Dr. Reece said there is no cure because it is the brain.’

  Flora expected Mrs. Probert to cry, but she didn’t.

  ‘I can endure it because I understand, and because Dr. Reece said it won’t be very long. But I have had enough. I hope, one day, I can marry again.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘I’d rather nobody knows, Mrs. Price. And Mr. Probert would be humiliated to think that Wilfred knew his difficulties. He doesn’t like pity.’

  ‘Certainly, Mrs. Probert.’

  ‘I don’t want to wash my dirty linen in public.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Only it would be reassuring to know that Wilfred will be able to provide his services when they are needed. Before he was ill, Mr. Probert always spoke very highly of Wilfred.’

  ‘You cannot imagine the state it is in,’ Mrs. Estella Newton-Lewis said, leading Wilfred through her elegant hall into the parlour, where a five-foot strip of wallpaper was hanging from the ceiling and swinging loosely. ‘I’m confident you will be able to sort it out, Wilfred.’

  Wilfred didn’t know what he was doing; he had unthinkingly embarked upon a paint and wallpaper shop without any knowledge or particular skill. Him and his fancy ideas. He had been impulsive again. And now he was having a baptism of fire in the art of wallpapering.

  ‘My sisters Eugenie and Cecilia are here again from Llanddewi Velfrey, and Mrs. Prout is reading our tea leaves,’ exclaimed Mrs. Estella Newton-Lewis.

  Wilfred saw the three women gathered eagerly at the tea table, which was laid with starched, embroidered linen and set with a porcelain china tea set. Mrs. Prout, like an old tortoise, was hunched with a teacup in her hand, contemplating the tea leaves.

  ‘Good afternoon, ladies. I hope I won’t be in your way,’ declared Wilfred, putting down his stepladder.

  ‘Things aren’t sticking together for you, I see,’ sneered Mrs. Prout, narrowing her eyes. She pulled her paisley shawl around her shoulders.

  ‘There’s dreadful,’ confessed Wilfred, examining the large flap of wallpaper that was hanging from the ceiling almost to the floor. He spread out a piece of white canvas and put a pot of glue and his toolbox onto it. It had been difficult decorating Mrs. Newton-Lewis’s parlour in the first place, trying to work among so many lamp-stands, chairs, antique cut-glass decanters and Chinese vases. It was even more difficult to decorate during a tea party.

  ‘Mmm,’ muttered Mrs. Prout. ‘I see your mother . . .’ The three sisters gasped, grasping each other.

  ‘She is well.’

  They sighed.

  ‘And there is a birthday coming.’

  ‘That will be mine!’ cried Mrs. Newton-Lewis delightedly. ‘What do the tea leaves say about me buying a copper warming-pan with a fruitwood handle from the Golden Sheaf Antiques? Perhaps for my birthday?’

  Mrs. Prout examined the teacup, drawing back her head to squint into it. ‘I see a shop.’

  ‘Oh!’ the sisters cried in unison.

  ‘With . . . with . . . with . . .’ Mrs. Prout slumped as if asleep.

  ‘Is she all right?’ Mrs. Newton-Lewis mouthed to her sisters.

  ‘. . . furniture, small ornaments and oil paintings,’ Mrs. Prout continued.

  ‘Oh, yes!’ said Mrs. Newton-Lewis. ‘I have always longed to have a shop like that.’

  ‘Selling wallpaper and paint,’ stated Mrs. Prout.

  ‘And where is this shop?’

  Mrs. Prout indicated that more tea was to be poured into Mrs. Newton-Lewis’s teacup. It was, and Mrs. Newton-Lewis drank quickly and delicately from it.

  ‘In Narberth.’

  The sisters gasped. ‘Oh, how exciting! I always knew you should have a shop selling beautiful objects for the home,’ said the older sister. ‘Then there would be two wallpaper shops in Narberth!’

  ‘And you’d be so very good at it,’ encouraged the younger sister.

  Wilfred was listening, all the while spreading paste on the underside of the hanging wallpaper. He set out his wooden stepladder, climbed up, then carefully pressed the wallpaper against the ceiling. A paint and wallpaper shop in Narberth—owned by Mrs. Newton-Lewis. Wilfred knew Mrs. Newton-Lewis would have a wonderful wallpaper shop, the eel’s hips—he only had to look around her beautiful, considered parlour to see how stylish she was. Whereas Wilfred didn’t know anything about style. He was a man; his favourite colour was blue. He only knew that red and green should never be seen except with a colour in between. And he didn’t know much about decorating either.

  Wilfred patted the wallpaper—it was barely sticking to the ceiling and was full of bumps. He had spent four hard years as an apprentice learning to become an undertaker, but had only ever glimpsed at Home Decorative Interior Suggestions on how to decorate. Even so, perhaps he should advertise. Narberth’s very best wallpaper shop. That was a good sentence to put in the Narberth & Whitland Observer. All tastes catered for. Although, on reflection, he didn’t think there were many tastes in Narberth. Everybody liked their houses the same—indeed, everybody copied Mrs. Newton-Lewis and did what she advised them to do.

  Wilfred examined the crumpled wallpaper stuck wonkily on the ceiling. He took a small hammer and a tack from his dungaree pocket, placed the tack discreetly on the edge of the wallpaper and knocked it in as quietly as he could. The sisters stopped their excited chatter.

  ‘Are you knocking nails into my plasterwork, Wilfred?’ Mrs. Newton-Lewis asked, with a note of surprise.

  ‘Well, you see, Mrs. Newton-Lewis, it helps it stay on the ceiling.’

  ‘Is that usual? I have never seen that in my French magazines.’

  ‘It is the Welsh way, Mrs. Newton-Lewis.’

  ‘Wilfred, come and have your tea leaves read,’ enjoined Mrs. Newton-Lewis’s younger sister. She poured a cup of tea for him.

  ‘I have just had a cup of tea,’ said Wilfred.
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  ‘Oh, come on, Wilfred,’ said Mrs. Newton-Lewis, strolling over to the ladder and putting her hand on his leg flirtatiously. Wilfred climbed down, drank the cup of Japanese tea and handed the remains to Mrs. Prout.

  ‘I see a tall tower,’ stated Mrs. Prout.

  ‘I can’t think of a tower anywhere in Narberth,’ the younger sister said.

  ‘No, this is not in Narberth.’

  ‘Perhaps you mean the church-tower—a funeral,’ said Mrs. Newton-Lewis helpfully.

  ‘This is the tallest tower in the world.’

  The four tea drinkers looked puzzled. The tallest tower in the world wasn’t in Wales.

  ‘It is in America.’

  Wilfred wondered how he, an undertaker in Narberth, could drink a cup of tea and create a tower made of tea leaves that was in America. He didn’t know he was capable of it.

  ‘I expect you’re going to receive a postcard of a tower from America,’ suggested the eldest sister.

  ‘Wilfred is in the tower in America,’ declared Mrs. Prout.

  ‘Well, I can’t see that,’ Wilfred rejoined.

  ‘Well, I can,’ snapped Mrs. Prout.

  ‘I had better get on with the wallpapering then, before I cross the Atlantic!’ said Wilfred and the sisters laughed.

  ‘I told you Mrs. Prout was wonderful,’ said Mrs. Newton-Lewis. ‘She knows everything.’

  ‘And there is death around you, Wilfred Price,’ Mrs. Prout murmured into the teacup. ‘Much closer than you know.’

  15.

  RELINQUISH

  What can we do for you?’ Wilfred asked Grace with some despair. He was standing next to the bed, Flora beside him.

  For three days, she’d lain in a stew of blankets with lurid dreams seducing her away from the world. She woke on her side from dreams where she had been trying to run, the blankets kicked off. Where could she run to? She knew what she was running from—a meeting with her parents, or rather her mother, in which any semblance of hope she had of her mother forgiving her would be crushed. And away from the devastation of her life.