Archie was a craftsman, dedicated to the bodies of the deceased. Dorothy watched from the entrance to the embalming room as he dealt with Howard Bergman on the slab. Howard was typical of many clients, overweight male in his seventies, hard belly pushing against the white sheet. His arms were exposed, discoloured patches of red and orange, signs of the sepsis that killed him. It was a familiar story, crappy diet, no exercise, obesity, heart disease, diabetes which led to the loss of his lower legs, gangrene eventually leading to sepsis. A painful way to go, they used to call it blood poisoning. What could be worse than poisoned blood?
Archie was embalming him and doing cosmetic work on the arms. No one would see them when Howard wore his suit in the coffin, but that wasn’t the point.
‘Hey,’ Dorothy said, coming in.
Archie didn’t look up, kept working. ‘Hi.’
She reached the table, noticed the white sheet dropping to nothing where Howard used to have legs. ‘How’s he doing?’
He was a huge man, even without his legs he must’ve weighed two-eighty pounds. Dorothy had never got used to weight in stones, despite decades of it. Same with Celsius, some things just didn’t snag in the brain.
‘He’s fine,’ Archie said, patting Howard’s thick fingers. He put down the concealer brush and went to the embalming pump, the rhythmic shush blending with the air con sound making this seem like an engineering works rather than a place of rest.
Dorothy looked at Howard’s face, same discoloured swathes of skin as his arms.
‘Will you be able to deal with this?’
‘Sure.’
Archie had become an expert over the last decade and Dorothy didn’t know what she’d do without him. She was sure he still got unexpected pangs of grief from his mother dying a year ago, waves rushing over him at inopportune times, just as she still got with Jim. She’d stood in this room and tasted her husband’s ashes, she would always carry his atoms inside her.
‘Are we set for your embalming expert?’ Dorothy said.
‘Tomorrow morning.’
Archie had arranged for the pair of them to talk about the foot to a specialist he knew. Dorothy could’ve done it over the phone, but she was old enough to prefer human contact, and you picked up people’s body language. Humans are social animals, have been since the African plains, one of the reasons the Skelfs would always be in business. What’s more sociable than a funeral? A chance to commemorate those who have gone, come together to remember a life.
Archie pulled the sheet down exposing Howard’s hairy chest, and Dorothy wandered to the fridges, pulled a drawer out. The foot looked ridiculous on the middle of a full-sized body tray. It seemed to glow, and she felt a weird magnetic pull. She’d never thought of herself as a particularly inquisitive person, but she’d recently become obsessed with the lives of those who died around her, desperate to find out some truth, to give them a life back, some identity. First there was her husband, then the homeless joyrider who crashed into her life a year ago. And now this foot. The woman it belonged to, her life and loves, her disappointments and regrets, her ecstasy and euphoria, the mundane tedium, Dorothy wanted to know it all.
‘Dorothy?’
Indy was in the doorway beckoning with a finger.
Dorothy pushed the tray shut and followed her out.
‘I have a surprise,’ Indy said as she walked to reception. ‘For everyone. Myself included.’
Dorothy twitched her nose. ‘Good or bad?’
Indy gave her a look and opened the door to reception.
An elderly Indian couple were at the desk, two big suitcases alongside. They were short and slightly built, the woman draped in layers of beautiful bright-green sari, the man wearing a suit and overcoat.
‘This is Esha and Ravi Banerjee,’ Indy said. ‘Nana and Pappa.’
Dorothy placed her palms together. ‘Namaste.’
They smiled and returned the greeting.
Dorothy turned to Indy. ‘You never mentioned your grandparents were visiting.’
Indy’s neck muscles strained, eyes wide. ‘That’s because I didn’t know. They just turned up out of the blue.’
‘Indira told us about the wedding,’ Esha said. She had flowing black hair with white streaks through it.
‘Nana, I told you we got engaged, I never said anything about a wedding.’
‘What is an engagement without a wedding?’ Esha said. ‘Ravi and I decided it was high time to get this thing sorted with your parents.’
Dorothy frowned, Indy’s parents had been dead for years. Dorothy first met Indy when she arranged the funeral.
Esha spotted Dorothy’s confusion and turned to her granddaughter. ‘You never told her?’
‘It never came up, Nana.’
‘We have been angry with our beautiful Indira for a long time,’ Esha said.
Dorothy wondered if this was about Indy’s sexuality, she wasn’t sure how elderly Hindus would take that. ‘Why?’
‘She buried our Pratik and Giva.’
Indy gave Dorothy a desperate look. ‘I talked to Han about this, I was going to mention it. But then they just appeared.’
‘We don’t believe in burial,’ Esha said. ‘In our faith we insist on cremation.’
Indy pushed her shoulders back. ‘That’s not strictly true, Nana. Burials happen all the time these days in some sects.’
Esha waved this away. Ravi hadn’t spoken and didn’t seem likely to. Dorothy had a yearning to hear his voice.
‘Nonsense,’ Esha said. ‘Hindus don’t bury their beloveds. It has been a dagger in my heart that my son and his wife lie in the ground in this cold place.’
She waved a hand around reception, beams of sunlight pebbling the floor and walls. This was as warm and sunny as Edinburgh got.
‘So we flew from Kolkata,’ Esha said. ‘We cannot have a Banerjee wedding while Pratik and Giva are still in the ground.’
Indy blushed. ‘I told you, there are no plans yet for a wedding.’
‘Nevertheless,’ Esha said. ‘This needs to be done.’
Dorothy looked from Esha to Indy. Dust danced in the light beams between them.
‘What needs to be done, exactly?’
Esha widened her eyes.
Indy pressed her hands together.
‘They want to dig them up,’ she said.