IN THE MORGUE, ABBIE and Vilna stared down at Ned’s body.
“I went down to St. James Infirmary,” sang Vilna in her croaky voice.
For to see my true love there.
All laid out on a white table
So cold, so white, so bare.
They stood a little distance from the body. There was full sunshine outside, but the morgue, a plain concrete structure, was windowless, very cold and artificially lit.
“Ned liked me to sing,” Vilna observed. “I have a very fine voice, don’t you think?”
“Very fine,” said Abbie.
“He looks younger now he’s dead,” said Vilna.
“Do you think so?” asked Abbie, politely.
“Definitely,” said Vilna. She had a middle-European drawl. She lengthened the vowels and thickened the consonants. It was as if the earthy spirit of her cunt rose up to issue from her mouth.
“He’s a very handsome man, don’t you think?” said Vilna, and stretched out her hand to touch the bare, strong, muscled, cold, marble forearm. “Especially now that everything’s kind of tautened up around his chin.”
“Was,” said Abbie. “Not is. And I don’t think you should touch him.”
“You English,” said Vilna. “So inhibited! So cut off from proper emotion.”
Vilna moved to stand next to the corpse, and pulled back the sheet that reached to mid-chest. Ned was wearing a white T-shirt and a pair of thin white cotton trousers, tightened and tied in a bow with a cloth drawstring. Vilna undid the bow, loosed the string and, ignoring the fly, simply turned the fine fabric back. Now they could see the crudely sewn autopsy scar which reached almost to the crotch. The penis lay dormant, firm and thick, as if carved in stone, part of the whole.
“He’s only 49,” said Vilna, “and so good at it. What a waste!”
“Was only 49,” said Abbie.
“He doesn’t look at all dead to me,” said Vilna.
Abbie got the better of her natural abhorrence at touching anything dead. She refastened the trousers. She pulled the sheet up to Ned’s chest.
Someone had to. Vilna couldn’t be allowed to run riot.
Ned was the morgue’s only occupant. The place was situated in the yard of the undertaker’s office, where the ceremonial hearses were parked. The morgue’s shop-front faced directly on the curve of Gurney’s High Street where the sidewalk narrowed almost to non-existence. There was an urn in the window containing dried flowers, and some dead flies trapped between the double-glazing. The front door had a nice little Georgian portico often pointed out to visitors to the town, but it was hard to open. Most clients used the side door. Who, in any case, wanted to be observed as they went in and out, going about their dismal business? The vehicle used for transporting corpses—“Private Ambulance—Lightfoot and Sons”—was parked outside the porch, in the street, creating a traffic hazard on a blind curve. Few people understood why it was there, or what it was used for.
“You’re interested in the Roman cemetery,” said Mr. Lightfoot to Abbie as she emerged into the sun to wait for Vilna. The cold had got to her bones. “Tell your friends in the Bohemian Belt that I had a bagful of bones from the University today. Returned from the Roman cemetery excavation. The Bishop is coming to inter the remains with the dignity they deserve.”
Mr. Lightfoot was gaunt and thin and pale, as if he often went underground himself, in sympathy with his clients. People would pay him in advance, for fear their families would skimp on the funeral the better to prosper themselves.
“I’m glad to hear that,” said Abbie. “I’m glad to know he can finally overlook the fact that those are pagan and not Christian bones.”
“I hope you lot turn up for the ceremony,” said Mr. Lightfoot, “after the fuss you conservationists made. What this town needs is development, not undisturbed remains.”
“Of course we’ll turn up,” said Abbie. “Those of us who remain.” Ned had been prime mover in the “Save the Roman Cemetery” campaign.
“Makes no difference to me,” said Mr. Lightfoot, “if a person dies now or two thousand years ago. I agree with you: any corpse deserves the best. Mind you, I wouldn’t be saying the University sent back exactly the same bones as they took. Any old bones, any old period, they look like to me, from the back of any old curator’s shelf. But human, decidedly human. It’s the gesture that counts.”
Abbie and Vilna got into the car, unwilling to converse on such a subject at such a time.
“Will Mrs. Ludd be coming to view the body?” asked Mr. Lightfoot.
“All in good time,” said Abbie. “Is the temperature in there low enough?”
“I’ll be the best judge of that,” said Mr. Lightfoot. “It’s customary that the first ones to view a body are the widow and the children, if any. I was surprised to see you two come up. But I expect you do things differently in the Bohemian Belt: you see the body in an artistic light.”
“We do the best we can,” said Abbie, “to deal with grief; like everyone else.
“Darling, do let’s get out of this doomy place,” said Vilna, loud enough for Mr. Lightfoot to hear. “Everyone hereabouts is quite, quite mad.”
Abbie manoeuvred the car backward out of the yard. She was being harassed by Vilna; the Private Ambulance obscured her view of the road; she all but collided with a little hatchback coming into the yard. In the passenger seat, haggard, tear-stained and aghast, was a dumpy middle-aged woman. A white-haired man neither Vilna nor Abbie recognised was driving. His face was set and grim.
Abbie regained control of the car.
“I’ve cricked my neck, darling,” said Vilna. “You should be more careful.”
“But did you see who that was?” asked Abbie.
“It was Jenny,” said Vilna. “Of course.”