‘Kindly unhand my buttocks.’
‘Madam, please. In twenty-five years of dealing with the newly departed, I’ve never encountered a corpse as fidgety as you.’
‘That’s because I’m alive.’ Jaw clenched, Teena Rama squirted ketchup on bread, endeavouring to make a sandwich.
The undertaker buzzed around behind her, an over-greedy fly at the queen of all picnics, attempting to measure her in every conceivable direction; up, down, sideways, lengthways, widthways, anyways. She was just relieved he didn’t know Multi-Dimensional Space Theorem, or they’d be there a lifetime.
Where he’d come from, she didn’t know. How he’d got there, she didn’t know. She’d only discovered his presence when his tape measure had lassoed her forehead as she’d approached the kitchen worktop. It was a safe bet Doors was involved.
Her carving knife forced through eight layers of bread, meat, lettuce, mayonnaise and ketchup. The man was ignoring a sound rule of cookery: never annoy a woman with a cutting edge.
Still carving, she tried back-kicking his shin.
He dodged, wrapping the measure round her waist, yanking it tight. All patronizing avuncularity, he said, ‘No; Madam merely believes herself to be alive. Autonomic reflex action of the muscles, after death, is a well-established phenomenon, especially in chickens. And psychosomatic wellness is common among the deceased. The number of people we at the Happy Burial Home have buried who insisted they were still alive …’
She slapped the sandwiches onto a plate, her backwards swinging fist fending him off. ‘Look,’ she stated, ‘I happen to be a doctor, and can assure you I’m in robust health. Now, if you’ll leave me alone to get on with my meal.’
The measure yanked tight around her calf. She tried to shake the man off, like he was an over-sexed terrier – with little luck.
‘I’m sure Madam’s aware that doctors are their own worst patients, often convincing themselves their symptoms are milder than they really are.’
‘Heaven knows I try not to be a violent woman, Mr Smeegle, but if you make one more attempt to measure my backside …’
He made one more attempt to measure her backside, tape yanking tight. ‘We must ensure your coffin fits in all directions. We wouldn’t want our lid popping off in front of our loved ones, would we?’
She snatched the tape from him, flung it aside and advanced, a concerted round of finger-prodding driving back the gaunt, balding man. No one finger-prodded with an authority to match Teena Rama. ‘If you must know, my height is twelve-foot-one. My hips are eighty-nine inches. My waist is three inches. My bust is a hundred-and-thirty inches. My inside leg is eight-foot-seven. I weigh two-and-a-half tons. I take a size twenty Doc Marten no.9. And my hat size is two.’ None of this was true. ‘Happy now? Would you like to record all that in your notebook then go away? Take it to your place of employment and tell your friends about it? Assuming you have any.’
‘Will Madam require enlargement?’
‘Enlargement?’
‘It’s all the rage in California – cosmetic surgery for the dear departed. It can be most distressing for family to see loved ones looking unwell. We in undertaking have a long-standing tradition of making-up corpses, dressing them in nice clothing, changing their expression to one of contented repose rather than the twisted mask of terror many tactlessly adopt at their moment of doom. Madam appreciates we must take a sensitive line, touch up the corpse a little.’
‘I’d be content if you’d stop trying to touch me up.’
‘Madam shouldn’t be overprotective of her assets.’ His gaze ran up and down her. ‘I can assure her I’m fully homosexual and am pleased to announce that, for a limited period, we are offering free cosmetic surgery to you, our ten thousandth customer. We provide a full range of services; stomach tucks, liposuction, face lifts, collagen injection. Not that Madam requires any of those treatments. What’s the saying? Die young, leave a beautiful corpse? Madam has certainly achieved that. But, perhaps …?’ His eyebrows hoisted. ‘… A few more inches on her bust?’
‘Doors?’
‘Yes, Miss Rama?’
‘Have this “person” electrocuted.’
‘Yes, Miss Rama.’
‘Madam is aware there’s a call out-fee?’
Ten thousand volts arched up from the floor, swarming round the man, striking like rattlesnakes. The room lit crackling blue.
And he screamed.
Flumpf; following a brief but spectacular dance, the undertaker collapsed in a heap. Doors cut the power. The electricity settled down, with a final malicious rattle, then slithered back into the floor.
Teena Rama stepped over the motionless figure. With a sigh, and a shake of the head, she returned to her sandwiches.
In a letter once, Danny’s brother – Brian – had claimed to have discovered something odd in a not very big cave in southern Ecuador.
Blundering into a recess, to escape killer bears, the explorer had found himself facing twenty million mammoths (his estimate) all stood shoulder to shoulder, gazing inscrutably into his eyeballs. He’d had the feeling they were surprised to see him.
Some were stood on others’ shoulders. Some had squeezed in upside down or sideways or balancing on their heads. That was the only way they could all fit into a cave so small.
Danny had always suspected bullshitting.
Excited, Brian had whipped out an Instamatic but, because they’d spent fifty million years in the dark and therefore lacked resistance to sunlight, the camera flash disintegrated them, leaving just a pile of ash.
Now no one would believe his story. And it was best they didn’t; posterity would look none too kindly on the man who’d extincted the woolly mammoth.
Now Danny stood in the kitchen doorway, worried that one loud sound might have the same effect on a newly rediscovered scientist, like she was real only so long as he stayed quiet or still. In stunned disbelief he said, ‘Teena?’ Not loud enough to disintegrate the weediest of extinct creatures.
When the girl didn’t vanish, he said it louder; ‘Teena?’
Not glancing back at him she opened the fridge, retrieving a bottle, pouring herself a glass. ‘Hello, Gary. Fancy an orange juice?’
He stepped forward then stopped, still uncertain. ‘You’re alive?’
‘Don’t tell me. Tell that idiot.’
He looked down and across at the undertaker’s motionless figure, and feared the worst. ‘Is he …?’
‘Just unconscious. Sadly, he’ll be fine in a few minutes.’
But Danny didn’t care about the undertaker anymore. Sod him. What had he ever done for Danny? Stepping over the man, he staggered forward then ran, flinging both arms round her, seeking one final assurance she was real.
And she was real, still smelling like banana milkshake, still solid and warm and soft and bendy and all the other things living people are and dead people aren’t – only more so because she was Teena Rama and Teena Rama had always been the solidest, warmest, softest, bendiest, banana milkshakiest girl who’d ever lived. Somehow you always knew she would be, without even having to touch her. And he hugged her tighter than anyone had ever been hugged.
She mumbled, as best she could with Danny’s upper arm pressed against her mouth, ‘I see the erection’s back, then.’