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Chapter 8
To crown my disgust, I saw the Bubba coming down my steps the following morning. The kitchen light was on. I could not hide. Besides, I wanted to talk to her, anger bucking me up.
‘Let me in then, let me in, can’t you?’ she called impatiently as I struggled with the bolts: the gullible little Miss Piggy. I faced the Bubba, a sweating frump with a wolfish heart. She had brought a Terry’s Chocolate Orange, to sweeten me up, perhaps, although the last thing on earth I wanted to do was make sweet talk with her.
She immediately took one of the chairs and surveyed the basement décor. ‘Well,’ she said at length. ‘It’s not Sex and the City is it? No cappuccino machine?’ she sneered. ‘I thought you would have one of those, being one of the chattering classes.’
‘I can offer you tea if you want. I’m straight out of coffee,’ I told her. ‘I’ve just got out of hospital.’
‘Oh well, you can’t have everything. As long as it’s wet and warm.’ She patted the table. ‘Sit down. It’s you I wanted, not coffee.’
‘That’s funny,’ I said. ‘Because I was just about to get in touch with you. I had a visitor last night. You didn’t give Roy Woods my address, did you, when you gave him his mother’s ashes?’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Dr Veil is thinking of making a complaint. And so will I,’ I went on boldly. ‘When I find out who gave out my address.’
The Bubba rolled her eyes theatrically at me, and gave me that mean smile. ‘Hold your fire, Moonshine,’ she said. ‘You really dropped us in it with this accident of yours. That Woods has been round to the office twice this week, asking for his mother’s file. He complained about the cremation.’
‘So you gave him my address?’
‘Of course I didn’t give him your bloody address,’ she said, although I didn’t believe her. ‘These people have ways and means. I’ve had dog shit pushed through my door by one family of bastards. They thought the old father had money stashed away. They thought I took it.’ She sniffed. ‘That Mrs Woods had nothing at all, except all those old scarves. I couldn’t be bothered with them all so I gave them back to her son. I told him the taxpayer paid for his mother’s funeral, but was he grateful? No, he wanted a grave. A grave,’ she laughed. ‘You know how much that costs? I told him. I said if he’d got the wherewithal to buy a grave in London, he could have a list of undertakers with my compliments. He wasn’t satisfied with that though, said he thought since we’d cremated her, we should pay for her to have a fancy memorial, can you believe the cheek? When he saw I wasn’t giving in, he said he’d take the ashes with him and make his own arrangements, which is only right and proper. He should have been there for his bloody mother. It was all above board. I know how to do my job. Besides, I read your boyfriend’s post-mortem report,’ she said slyly. ‘He doesn’t waste his time now, does he? In and out like a ferret down a rabbit hole. I hope he takes more time than that with you.’
I held her gaze, for once not reddening or blanching or dropping my eyes at her nosey fat foul mouth. What was it with the Bubba, I wondered? She was just an overweight jobsworth. In ten years time, she’d be a sad old woman like Edith Woods. How could I allow her to do this to me?
‘Where’s your loo?’ she asked, standing up.
‘Through there.’
I sat, revolted, hearing urine stream from her in a torrent beyond the half closed bathroom door. Through it I saw her opened up legs (she always sat with legs apart in the office), the twenty denier tights she wore pulled down around her knees. ‘I’ve got to go out in a minute,’ I said as she returned, pulling her tomato-coloured skirt down at the back. We could have this out at the office, I thought, in front of the Coroner. ‘I’ve got some things to do in Camden Town.’
‘Watch it, lady, you’re supposed to be on sick leave.’ She looked me up and down. ‘I take it you’ll be nice and fit for work on Monday then.’
‘I won’t,’ I said. ‘In fact, I don’t think I’ll be doing the job for that much longer.’
‘Maybe you won’t,’ she said. ‘But don’t think you can jump before you’re pushed.’
‘Is this why you came round?’ I wasn’t frightened of the sack. There was a job with my name on it waiting at the undertakers, Byrne & Co – in gilt-edging too. And I could always go back to the mortuary. I didn’t need a reference from the Bubba for either of these options. Then, of course, there was the counselling, though this was receding back over the horizon now. Some counsellor I would make, judging by the way I’d dealt with poor Roy Woods.
‘You can’t leave us now, Moonshine, not just because of this loony.’ Bubba nodded. ‘But I can see you’re not your usual cheerful self,’ she conceded. ‘You’ll be all right when you get back in the saddle. It gets to you at times. I know. You’re talking to the expert here. You can’t leave me.’
‘I can,’ I said, and it was as though a light was switched on in my head. ‘In fact, I already did. I’ve had enough.’
‘Don’t think you can try to finger me for your cock up with this Woods man and his mother,’ she said, pointing her fat fist at me.
‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ I smiled. ‘Can’t speak for Dr Veil though.’
‘What the hell does he know?’
‘I just want to put it behind me,’ I told her. ‘I want a change of scene. Getting pushed off the bus like that, it could have been a wake-up call.’
‘Soft as butter, aren’t you?’ she returned. ‘You think the world owes you a living. I know your type, Louise Moon, over-educated but stupid really, stupid as hell. You need a few hard knocks. Well don’t think I’ll be accepting your resignation,’ she said finally. ‘You’ll get your cards first.’
I picked up the Chocolate Orange and held it out to her. I thought she was going to knock it out of my hands, but she suddenly decided to give ground.
‘Look, let’s give it a few days,’ she said shortly. ‘Give you time to straighten yourself out.’
I was still holding out the Chocolate Orange. ‘I’ll be writing to Coroner Carey.’
‘You bitch,’ she snapped. ‘You think you’re better than me just because you went to university.’
‘Not at all. If I am better than you, it is not because of that. It was never like that, I never thought like that, why should I? You were the one in charge. You had responsibility for me,’ I said pointedly. I was feeling anxious now, in case she turned as ugly as she looked. What had brought her here: to keep me sweet or warn me to keep stum about the ashes in the Tesco bag? I endeavoured to steer her towards the door.
‘You’re the worst and rudest employee that has ever crossed my path,’ she said, a little weakly, I thought, for the Bubba. I realised I had her on the ropes. Other colleagues would come forward now if I did, wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t they? But we were such a spineless lot. Why were we so afraid of this fat woman? It wasn’t as though the job was even worth having.
At last she got through the door and I forced myself to stand just inside it, watching her climb up to the pavement, her tomato-coloured backside trembling a little from the effort. Then I shut the door, loudly enough to make it sound like a final retort, and went to write a letter of resignation, addressing this to Coroner Carey in strictest confidence. After some thought about how I should shop the Bubba, I spinelessly decided it wasn’t worth the effort: I’d be called back into the place, made to write out a formal complaint, attend a formal investigation. I hadn’t the stomach for that, nor the inclination. I was just glad to be shut. So I simply wrote that, although I had found some satisfaction in the job, and thanked Coroner Carey for his trust in appointing me, I had other projects in the offing and it was time for me to move on. My notice, I calculated when I re-read the letter, would expire before my sick leave, which would leave me stupidly out of pocket, but I wanted out. To stick it for another month in order to claim that extra sick pay would have felt like taking blood money, not to mention a bloodletting from the Bubba for
backing down. So I placed the letter in a plain brown envelope and walked round to the post office to send it on its way.
As I was coming out of the post office, glancing idly up from the paper I had purchased, I saw Roy Woods ambling towards me through the slow moving traffic on the High Road. It was Roy and there was no mistake about it, nor any mistake that he had seen me too. I walked on slowly, feeling my headache worsen with every step, expecting him to catch me up, and feeling that I had no other option but to let him. I lingered uncertainly at the top of my steps, not wanting to go down into the basement area, out of sight of passers by. When I turned at last to face him, I noticed his right hand was bandaged. His left hand dangled the infamous Tesco carrier bag. I wilted a little at that. I now knew what it contained.
‘I’m glad you came back,’ I said, trying my best to sound relaxed and amiable. ‘I’m sorry for what I did to you last night. I’m afraid I misunderstood.’
He said nothing for a moment, but stood watching me, appraising me, I guess, as I was appraising him, his fusty layers of outdoor wear, his cheeks wedged plumply in between his greasy curls and thick black beard. He had a very healthy colour.
‘Dr Veil told me what happened,’ I continued. ‘I want to apologise unreservedly for injuring you. I didn’t know you had been to the office already, about your mother. I’ve been off work, as they might have told you. I haven’t been well.’
‘You look all right to me,’ he said. ‘She’s a big teaser.’
‘I’m sorry …?’
He bent his face a fraction closer to mine. ‘She was a day tripper,’ he said. ‘One way ticket, yeah. It took me so long to find out. But I found out.’
The penny dropped. ‘That’s from a Beatles song, isn’t it? Yes, I remember.’ I held the folded paper up in a pathetic sign of triumph.
‘Any chance of the cup that cheers?’ he said, putting me right on the spot again. I searched my brain for excuses, but the obvious answer was blocking me: Don’t let him in. Leave Roy alone, Dr Veil had warned. If I let him over my threshold, I would be asking for trouble. But I felt I owed Roy something, a sop to a suffering man, the price of a teabag at least.
I fought to keep the neutral expression upon my face as I gestured for him to precede me down to my basement. If he killed me, that would be the end of it. But what kind of end would it be? ‘Sit down,’ I told him, as he contemplated the chair the Bubba had sat in and waited for the kettle to boil. ‘Where are you from in Liverpool?’ I asked.
‘Bootle. The place that bootles o’er its back into the sea.’ He gave a sudden chuckle. ‘Not posh like where John and Paul came from. They’ve made John’s house into a museum now. I’ve been saving up to go and see it. They’ve even called Speke airport after him. I think it was the least they could bloody well do, don’t you?’
He set the carrier upon the table, where it folded over slightly upon itself. I could see the outline of a cardboard box.
‘The Beatles were a bit before my time,’ I said. ‘I remember Hello Goodbye. It came out around Christmas time. I must have been what, three, four?’
‘You’re no spring chicken then,’ he laughed. ‘I’m no red rooster either, so don’t fret. I‘ve not come to rape you, Louise.’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ I cackled, though my hands were shaking as I poured the boiling water into the teapot. He knew my first name. I could have murdered the Bubba. I wished I could put her under this spotlight, draw her nails out, one by one, make her feel some of this torture.
‘Roy … can I call you Roy?’ He nodded. ‘I’m so very sorry about your mother,’ I repeated, trying to look him in the eye. ‘I’m sorry you were told like that.’
‘I’ve got her ashes here.’ He tapped the Tesco carrier. ‘Not much to show is it?’
‘It’s the person she was that counts. Your memories of her won’t die.’ I checked myself. Not the leaflet stuff, not here. No more leaflets ever. No penny dreadful sorries from the Office of the Coroner.
‘She had me put away, you know that?’ He took out the box and shook it so that I heard its contents whisper. ‘What am I supposed to do with these?’
‘You could get an urn,’ I suggested brightly. ‘I know someone, the undertaker who arranged the funeral. I’m sure he’d let you have a look in his yard. He’s got the most fantastic memorial garden. Knock spots off Regent’s Park,’ I finished. My mouth felt full of cotton.
‘I don’t want an urn, Mz Moon, I’ve got a box.’
‘Please call me Louise. Then I don’t see …’
‘No, you don’t, do you?’ He put the box back in the bag and sat back looking at me. He had not touched his tea. ‘Like I told that woman you work with, I want a proper memorial for my mam, in the park. I want a rose bush, a place so I can go and talk to her.’
‘Well that should be quite simple to arrange,’ I said, digging myself into a hole because the arrangement of memorials had nothing to do with our office. Bubba was right about that. We just removed the dead for burial or cremation, and then we closed the file.
‘I can show you where if you like,’ he offered.
I swallowed, moistening my lips. Maybe I could fix something myself, in restoration for his injured hand and bruised grief. It should be easy to plant a rose, get hold of a small plaque. Mr Byrne would know.
‘I don’t know why you say goodbye. I say hello,’ Roy said mildly. ‘Have you got any sugar?’
‘What? Oh, yes.’ I fetched him the jar. ‘Hello Goodbye. The Beatles, right?’
‘Not one of their best.’
‘No.’ I had a sudden recall, the sight of myself in little girl’s tights, dancing around the front room, the 45 rpm single in the radiogram, my brother coming in and shutting the door. Hey- la, hey hello-a. ‘I remember it well,’ I muttered. Too well.
‘Lady Madonna, lying on the bed, listen to the music running through your head. They wrote a lot about Our Lady. When I’m in my hour of darkness, Mother Mary comes to me. Are you a Cathlolic, Louise?’
‘No, I’m not anything,’ I said. I had no real faith at all. I clutched at straws. I worked with the dead. I knew how the story ended.
‘Are you?’
‘Nah.’ He shook his head. ‘Born into the Church of England like my dad. Mam was religious though.’
‘Yes, so I heard.’
‘You heard? Who told you that about her?’
‘A friend of hers, Mrs Blank. She said your mother was a …’ I struggled to get the word out. ‘Wasn’t she a theosophist?’
‘That’s what they call it, is it?’ He gave a mirthless laugh. ‘We didn’t get on too well, me and my mam. We didn’t communicate. That’s not to say … I mean, she was my mam.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ I repeated, when I should have said nothing at all. What did these sorries mean? I wasn’t sorry Edith was dead. I was sorry for myself, for the mess I was in now, with her next of kin. ‘I heard they were trying to find you a room somewhere. Have you got any further with that?’
‘Yeah, Hammond House. They got an ambulance to drop me off there late last night.’
‘I know it,’ I said. ‘Are you going to be staying there long?’ I thought again of that pale edifice that housed I did not know how many homeless men. You could not call that place a home by any extension of the word.
‘Dunno. I asked Sam Veil if I could go back with him for a bit, but he said he couldn’t swing it.’
No room at the inn, I thought, remembering the mortuary technician’s words when he showed me Roy’s dead mother, bundled into a dirty bedsheet while the fridges waited to be fixed. At least she didn’t have to face the vexed question of where to sleep at night.
I noticed that Roy was rocking backward and forwards now. What had Veil called it? – that awful psychotic twitching. Maybe he was hearing another Beatles song, a memory playing deep inside himself, making him sway along. He looked more composed that I was. I saw how white his teeth were. How did he manage to keep them so clean, out on the st
reets?
‘Shall I make some fresh tea?’ I offered, noticing that he had drunk his down already.
‘That woman who was here with you just now, the one who gave me these,’ he tapped the box. ‘Is she a friend of yours?’
‘No, not at all,’ I said, wondering if he had been watching me all morning. ‘The opposite in fact. I just gave in my notice on my job.’
‘Oh yeah? You’re lucky to have a job to give up.’
‘You haven’t then?’
‘I didn’t say that.’ He took the fresh mug of tea. ‘I’ve got my own line. You have to, once you’ve had the label stuck on you.’
‘Label?’
‘Schizophrenic. They stick it on you like the Star of David or the leper’s bell. They don’t give you a job if you’re schizophrenic.’ He crossed his fingers and spat ‘Ward off the evil eye.’
‘That can’t be right.’
‘It can’t be, but it is. Like I said, I’ve got my line.’
‘Did she tell you where I lived when you went to the office?’ I asked him, wanting to get the evidence straight from the victim in this case, in case I needed it. ‘My boss, that woman who was here?’
‘Her, no.’ He was staring at the Tesco carrier. ‘No, I followed you back from Sammy Veil’s that night. I was going to pay a call on him, but then I changed my mind. I was coming over your way anyway.’
I set my mug of hot tea down on the table again in case I scalded myself. My hands were trembling. I had been to Veil’s house once, the day we removed Roy’s mother.
Grave Truths Page 7