The Flip Side

by James Bailey

  “We can’t get Beryl’s wheelchair into the church,” Madeline explains in hushed tones as we watch Desmond repeatedly ram the chair into the stone step, getting more annoyed each time that it doesn’t go over, jolting Beryl backward and forward.

  “Is there no ramp?” Mum asks.

  “No one can find it, and Beryl says she can’t get out of the chair.” Madeline raises her eyebrows, as we all know there is absolutely nothing wrong with Beryl.

  “Gary, go and ask the pallbearers to help lift the wheelchair,” Mum tells Dad, who scurries off, still listening to the radio.

  This is the last thing we need right now. The service is meant to be starting any moment, and I want everything to run smoothly for Mum, who has carefully organized it all, and most of all for Pap.

  “How are you feeling, Beryl?” Nan makes the mistake of asking.

  “Not good—I think I’ve got cancer now.”

  Really?

  Before she can self-diagnose any more, or I get annoyed with her for ruining the day, Dad comes back with all the pallbearers and the hearse driver, ready to help lift her.

  They carry her over the step into the church, and then due to the old, uneven stone flooring they decide to continue carrying her down the aisle as if she’s in a sedan chair. I know it’s the first funeral I’ve ever been to, but I am guessing they’re not all like this.

  As we follow behind, the organ recital starts up. Ninety-one-year-old Doris is playing “Abide with Me.” It’s both out of tune and out of time. As an accomplished organ player, Pap would be turning in his grave, if he had been buried already. I half-expect Mum to have decorated the church interior with pigeon ephemera, but the only adjustment is a large framed photo of Pap positioned at the front of the church so the congregation can remember whose funeral they are attending this week. It is one I took of him when we were all gathered in Cheddar Gorge to celebrate Nan and Pap’s fiftieth wedding anniversary.

  I struggle to hold back the tears.

  I walk down the aisle, my trousers riding high above my ankles. I ignore the fact that I can barely move my arms or breathe. Among the many people I don’t know, I do spot a few familiar faces. There is the ancient relative who gives me an out-of-date diary every Christmas, and another one who always gets my name wrong. Judging by their appearances, either of these two could be being buried this time next week. Geoff is awfully pale and looks almost as bad, presumably already anxious about the reception finger food. Karen mouths, “I’m sorry, Joshy,” to me from her seat on the far side of the pews. I’m beginning to think that’s all she can say these days. The vicar is standing behind the lectern, checking his reading material, but I swear he turns away as soon as he catches my eye. I thought now that I am friends with Jesus, he might have changed his attitude. Clearly not.

  As Nan circulates the church, thanking everyone for coming, I take my seat at the front next to Mum. She ducks her head and quietly says a prayer.

  Uncle Peter and the children are sitting in the row behind. They are all wearing sunglasses, inside.

  “How are you doing?” Peter asks, shaking my hand.

  “Could be better,” I say.

  “Tell your dad he owes me my winnings. I put money on your pap on the sweepstakes at your engagement party thing, couldn’t believe it when he died. That’s fifty quid for me.”

  In the corner of the church, Dad punches the air, presumably meaning City have equalized. He won’t be so happy when he realizes he is set to lose his winnings immediately.

  Why isn’t everyone more upset?

  Beryl is still complaining and moaning that her view isn’t adequate, so the pallbearers move her again until she has the best seat in the house and is now blocking my view. The three men from the funeral director’s quickly remember why they prefer working with dead people. After a lot of heavy lifting, huffing and puffing, they head back outside to bring the coffin in.

  When Doris’s unique take on “Abide with Me” reaches some sort of abrupt conclusion, Mum signals for the music to play. Madeline, done with her greeting duty, is now in charge of the stereo system.

  As Nan joins us in the pew, and the hubbub of hushed voices pauses, Nat King Cole’s “Smile” begins to blare out from the stereo system. The vicar gestures for everyone to stand, and I half-expect Beryl to now rise from her wheelchair.

  I listen to the lyrics and look at the photo of Pap, picturing his face winking at me. I think, ridiculously, of the Toblerone bar I never got to give to him. I can no longer hold back the tears, and my whole body starts to shake.

  This is it. This really is it.

  I don’t want to say goodbye.

  I keep anxiously turning around, waiting to see the coffin being carried in, but by the time we get to the end of the second verse I start to sense there may be something wrong. Everyone is looking around, but there is no movement. The song is only three minutes long. They’d better hurry up.

  “Josh, can you go and check what’s going on?” Mum turns to me and whispers, her eyes flowing with tears too.

  I walk back down the aisle, trying my best to stay composed. As I step outside, back into the brisk, cool air, it takes me a moment to work out what has happened.

  The hearse is no longer parked outside.

  The pallbearers are halfway down the road.

  Running.

  Chasing a tow truck.

  A tow truck that has a hearse on the back.

  The hearse that still has the coffin inside.

  I’ve heard of brides doing a runner, but this must be the first time a dead man has run away from his own funeral. In the time it took for the funeral directors to assist Beryl, the overzealous clampers decided to tow the hearse parked on the yellow lines.

  Amid the sorrow, I can’t help but follow the song’s suggestion. I smile through the tears. And then burst out laughing.

  Even to the end, Pap is still trying to escape people, social events, and the Church.

  I wave goodbye to the truck.

  And to Pap.

  37

  Not a bus but a . . .”

  “Coach?”

  “Yes! The famous bridge up the road.”

  “Um, the Clifton Suspension Bridge?”

  “Yeah, just the middle word.”

  “Oh, suspension!”

  “Yes! Um, oh, OK, this is what Josh is.”

  “Old?”

  “No, he is that, but how would you describe Josh when he plays games?”

  “Competitive?”

  “When he doesn’t win. Not a good winner, but a something something,” Jake says hurriedly, waving his arms around helplessly, as the last sand grains drop from the egg timer.

  “Oh . . . er—”

  “Time’s up! Stop!” I yell a couple of seconds before it actually is.

  “How did you not get that?”

  “What was the answer?”

  “Bad loser.”

  “Ahh, of course.”

  “Thanks very much, guys. How many did you get? Two? Or three?” I go to move their red counter around the board.

  “Just two,” Jake says, counting the cards. “That was rubbish.”

  The sports round is not his forte.

  The quiz is not on this week, as Little D is on holiday, so we’ve decided to convene in the pub to play board games instead. The smell of chips being cooked is making me hungry.

  “If I’m such a bad loser, it’s just as well we’re going to win this, then, isn’t it?” I say smugly as Jessie and I are running away with victory in Articulate against the two Jakes. Our position is greatly helped by the fact it takes the other Jake the entire duration of his turn to read the card and think of something to say. As much as they look totally loved up, this game could finally signal the end of their honeymoon phase.

  “We’re going to get another drink, but I have taken a photo of the board so you don’t move the counters.”

  “You really don’t trust me, do you?”

  “No.”
Jake laughs as the two of them grab their wallets and head to the bar.

  “What’s the latest with Lucy?” Jessie turns to ask me as soon as we’re alone.

  “No news, really. I still haven’t been able to contact her. She must have blocked my number.”

  “I probably still have the email she sent us before, if you want to write to her.”

  “I don’t know. What am I meant to do if she doesn’t want to talk to me? I feel awful about everything that happened, but as far as she’s concerned I only went to find her because of the coin and then I abandoned her when she found out.”

  “You left for very valid reasons. When she realizes the truth, I’m sure she will understand.”

  “But she said that everything was a mistake.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Josh. She was upset. Haven’t you ever said anything in the heat of the moment you didn’t mean? You have to prove to her it wasn’t a mistake. You’ve finally found the girl of your dreams, please don’t let her get away now.”

  She picks up her glass of wine and sips it. “What’s the worst that can happen? It can’t be as bad as what happened on the London Eye.”

  This feels worse already.

  “Maybe it was a daft idea all along. What am I going to do? Move to Paris with her? I’ve been offered a job here anyway.”

  “Really? What’s the job?”

  “This was one I applied for a few months ago. They’ve only just got back now. It’s for a recruitment company in the center. It’s a decent job. And I’d get a pension.”

  “Congratulations! I’m pleased for you, it’s about time someone offered you a job. I’m not sure I can see you sitting behind a desk doing a nine-to-five, though. It’s not really very you, is it? Is that what you really want?”

  “I guess I’ll see. I don’t have much other choice right now.”

  “How’s everything else?” Jessie asks.

  “OK overall, thanks. I’ve just been spending most of my time with Nan, helping her sort through all of Pap’s stuff, and making sure she’s all right. I feel so sorry for her.”

  “Is she doing OK?”

  “Well, she says she is fine, but I think she’s trying to pretend she’s OK. She only gets annoyed that she doesn’t have someone to open the jars of pickled onions.”

  “I imagine it’s just complete shock at this point. It must take ages to come to terms with it. It’s nice of you to help her sort through everything, though.”

  “I’m glad I have. Nan was going to get rid of Pap’s organ, so I stopped her doing that. And then, when we were going through his wardrobe, we found a suitcase he’d packed for the two of them with two bus tickets to Devon inside. He’d planned a surprise trip away for Nan. I wondered if he’d been inspired by my trip.”

  “Josh! Come on, does that not make you wonder what you are waiting for? Look at how short life is. You don’t know when it’s going to end.”

  I know Jessie is right, but I remain quiet.

  “What about the coin? Are you still flipping it?”

  “Yes. I did stop for a few days after Paris, and Pap, but even if it’s just to prove to you and Jake I can actually see something through, I’ve got to see out the year, now I’ve got this far doing it.”

  “You know, I’d much prefer you to prove it by seeing things through with Lucy, especially after seeing how happy she made you.” Jessie stares at me as I imagine she looks at her naughty school pupils.

  I glance away and look up enviously at the two Jakes as they return with their pints, so happy together.

  “OK, it’s our turn, right? We only need to get four to win. We can do this,” I say.

  “Yes, pass me the timer. I don’t trust you doing it yourself.” Jake reaches over.

  “What are we on?” Jessie asks as she picks up a bunch of cards ready to take her turn describing.

  “Working life.”

  “Not your specialist subject, Josh,” Jake jokes.

  38

  Come on, I promise you’ll have fun. And there will be loads of people you know.”

  I should have realized immediately that this is the very reason I won’t be having fun.

  Jake, and the coin, thought it would be a good idea for me to come along to his work Christmas party to take my mind off everything. Yet within five minutes of arriving at Bristol Zoo, I’ve been asked by seven people what I am currently up to, and my mind instantly zooms back to everything.

  Pap, Lucy, my disastrous life.

  I really don’t feel in the festive spirit.

  I’m not sure if this is the exact moment when I realize that coming to the party is a bad idea, but my concerns are certainly confirmed when I almost break my teeth attempting to bite into the stale bread that accompanies the starter.

  “God, did they cut this bread on Thursday?” Jake, sitting next to me, tries to rip it and then saw it with a knife and has no luck with either. We eat the chicken liver pâté on its own.

  “How much did we pay for this meal? Forty pounds each, wasn’t it?”

  Despite the cost to hold the event here, you wouldn’t know that we’re at the zoo. We don’t even get to enter through the main entrance; instead, we make our way in through some side door armed with two hefty bouncers presumably expecting work parties to get out of hand. The only thing that gives it away is the hideous tiger-print carpet. For forty pounds, I was expecting to be served by the orangutans.

  “Guess we’ll have to go back to the drawing board for next year. I swear these Christmas parties are more trouble than they’re worth. Everyone’s only here for all the gossip anyway.”

  “You better behave tonight then, manager, so they’re not talking about you on Monday morning.”

  “Don’t worry. Jake wants me back by midnight. I am not going to be a party animal tonight. You’re looking very smart, by the way,” he says, in a tone that conveys what I’m thinking.

  I’m severely overdressed.

  “The email you forwarded said very smart casual. I didn’t know what that meant. Is that very smart? Very casual? How do you do very smart casual? Is that smart casual but with a bow tie?”

  “I think everyone else just ignored the ‘very’ part.”

  I look around the room, and all the other men are dressed in jeans and blazers. One guy is wearing a Hawaiian shirt. There’s probably about sixty or seventy people altogether with partners in tow, and I know a handful of faces dotted around the room, either from visits to see Jake or from working with them before they switched hotels.

  “Did you hire the dinner suit just for this?”

  “No, it’s the same tux I wore to Jessie’s party actually, albeit I had to have it dry-cleaned. See, you’re not the only one who can reuse an outfit. Although judging by everyone else, you could have come in your dog onesie again and wouldn’t have looked out of place.”

  The DJ is the only other person in a suit. He is an overweight, heavily bearded kid of no more than twenty who looks like he is on day release from the local prison, but at least he’s made an effort to scrub up. As he taps his feet along to another cheesy Christmas song, I check his ankle to see if he’s wearing an electronic tag. His feet may be enjoying the music, but his face looks like he is as bored as everyone else. I question that DJs must be redundant now, given all he’s done is press play on a Spotify playlist and will stand there for the rest of the night alongside a couple of multicolored disco lights that you can buy from Poundland.

  It’s far too early for Christmas songs. Both in the evening, and in the year. It’s only the start of November. As Jake’s hotel and restaurant are always rammed during the festive period, they always celebrate outside of December. Last year, presumably to save money, they held the event in mid-January, but people complained they were well and truly over Christmas by then. This year they’ve moved it forward, which means that most people here have had two Christmas socials in less than ten months. I’ve had enough of one after ten minutes.

  The waitress looks equa
lly as miserable as she replaces our uneaten rocks of bread with roast turkey. It’s going to be a long few weeks for her. The meat is dry, and the whole plate is so salty that it’s like seawater. HR Manager Cathleen makes some comment about it being a shame that so much food is being wasted, and that the kids in Africa could have it. Someone tells Cathleen to shut up.

  While we wait for the inevitably disgusting dessert and make the most of the free booze instead, one of those fortune-telling fish that came out of someone’s cracker is being passed around. Much more exciting than my set of nail clippers. It tells Jake he is fickle, Cathleen she is passionate, and IT man Harry that he is in love, which inevitably sparks spurious gossip across the table. When it eventually reaches me, it lies motionless in my palm.

  “Um, what does it mean when it doesn’t move?”

  Anna, whom I used to annoy by leaving her to do all the courtesy calls when we worked together, reads off the scrap of paper.

  “Apparently that means ‘the dead one.’”

  Pretty fucking intelligent fish.

  As the last person finishes their meal, the DJ invites everyone onto the dance floor. It takes a while for everyone to understand this, given he holds the microphone far too close to his lips, so that it sounds more like he’s announcing a platform change for the 6:52 train to London Paddington. The mic crackles and fizzes and nearly deafens everyone with its high-pitched shrill. Even when we do realize what he says, we have to physically move all the tables and chairs to the side of the room to create a dance floor, which is littered with pulled crackers, colorful paper hats, and dropped food, most likely deliberately discarded.

  Forty pounds for this. Really?

  He cranks up a playlist that includes Wham!, Dead or Alive, Rick Astley, and Foreigner. All the middle-aged attendees sprint onto the dance floor, squashing Brussels sprouts into the carpet, slipping on stray carrots, and sending roast potatoes flying. Everyone has had far too much to drink, having smuggled in their own booze wrapped up and disguised as Christmas presents. In the corner, I notice one woman flashing her chest at someone who is definitely not her husband. I wonder why everyone decides to go crazy once a year in front of people they’re going to have to see every day.