Poor old Pearl. Ken is sitting in reception with his hands together between his knees. He is remembering when he met Pearl, in
1960. Things are coming back to him he’d not thought of since: the smell of the creamery, Jepson’s, as you went through the door, sweet and suffocating in a way, and the steam rising while the old girl poured from one pot into something like eight cuppas; and the slops going down the steel griddle, the dumb-waiter going up, shouts of warning, a wet cloth going round an ashtray and on to the next, the ashtray spinning, making wet rings on the table; and her sitting there in a tight frock with her sister’s cardie on her shoulders, one button done up, trying to talk big, finishing every sentence ‘I’m sure’.
Audrey’s at the computer doing a name plaque. She gets Roger to check the details for her against the sheet of paper in her ring binder. Roger slips a pocketful of wrappers from his sweatpants into the wastepaper basket, sideways. He stops at the little printer tucked away on the rolling shelf behind the reception, gives it a little chuck under the chin as it obediently engraves the plastic faux-brass plaque. Then he disappears through the double doors into the great beyond, the mortuary.
Audrey squints at the computer screen and taps it.
‘We had John Hickmott’s family in today, Ken. They said they had a reading but no music chosen, then the young lad pipes up, What about “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”? He loved that one. Dear God, I said, don’t you think it’s a bit inappropriate? Mind you, if I had a penny for all the times it’s “All Things Bright And Beautiful”.’ She shakes her head. ‘That John Hickmott, now he had a good death, like your Pat. His last words, according to his wife, were: “I feel like shit.” He went off to make them a cup of tea and she found him ten minutes later, sitting at the kitchen table, dead, and the kettle boiled. Lovely way to go, that.’
‘“All Things Bright And Beautiful”,’ he repeats grimly, shaking his head. ‘That’s no good. You want to get it right. You only die once. Some are more rousing than others. “At The Name Of Jesus” or “Onward Christian Soldiers”; they’re stirring. But what you’re after is something on the way it goes – a man’s life, you know – how quick it goes.’
‘I could murder a cuppa, couldn’t you?’ Audrey says. ‘Where’s that Andy? He’s supposed to be on teas today. It’s gone eleven. I said to him, to Andy, You were friends with John Hickmott; why don’t you say something at the crem? They haven’t got a vicar of their own. He loves it, does our Andy. He’s what you call a lay preacher. Loves it. This one time, Ken, he was warming up for the service and he came down the stairs here, just above where we’re sitting, reading from his booklet, and he reads ever so slowly, a word with every footstep, and he’s saying very solemnly, “For . . . the . . . Lord . . . himself . . . shall . . . descend . . . from . . . heaven . . . with . . . the . . . voice . . . of . . . the . . . archangel . . . and with . . . the . . . trumpet . . . of . . . God . . . and with a shout . . .” when all of a sudden Roger, Roger of all people, bursts out, If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit join our club! She leans forward on her elbows and whispers, ‘I think it gives him the willies – the death thing – and sometimes he just sort of breaks loose.’
Ken cocks his head. ‘Thinking about it, Audrey, make sure you’ve got on my plan that I don’t want no embalming, ta. Put that down, will ya? Be just like them lot to have me done. I’ll have Psalm 90 read out, though, if you could put that. “You bring our years to an end, as if it were a tale that is told.” That’s a good one, that is.’ He stands painfully, putting a hand to his lower waist and grimacing. ‘Just going for a jimmy, if you don’t mind.’
‘You help yourself, Ken.’
Passing by, he touches her shoulder. He can feel the thick bra strap through her blouse.
Poor old Pearl, he thinks to himself as he staggers into the toilet. He wrenches the door closed behind him as he squeezes into the confined space. In a moment of panic, in the dark, he loses his footing and scrabbles with his hands for the light. And as he does, he says to himself, Dear God, don’t let my boys turn out like me.
When the light comes on, he looks into the mirror at the face which surprises him daily; only the eyes give back any of his idea of himself.
He doesn’t stand to pee any more; he undoes his trousers, lets them slide and lowers himself down to sit and enjoy come what may. Dribs and drabs. Ah, for the days of pissing a bottle over like knocking down a skittle with a bowling ball. He is sitting there like Max Wall, shoulders back, chest out, gripping his lapels and straining. He lets one fly and it’s more than air. Never mind. He likes a wooden toilet seat.
We must have a water closet indoors, Pat said, and she saved up and got them one. It was sandwiches for dinner, toast for breakfast and cake for tea. A bit of ham from time to time, Shippam’s paste and the occasional boiled egg. The only downside to it all was the constipation.
When he was seeing Pearl, he used to go home with a quarter of liver pâté for Pat. He didn’t dare tell her he was seeing someone. You’re not leaving me, are you? she said, when he told her they were getting married. He was thirty-eight then. You want children, I expect. I never had none. I couldn’t, could I? Had to look after you, didn’t I? She had a knack for making you feel bad. Women did. She used to say, So long as you’re happy, in that way of hers.
He looks left and right, to the side, on the floor, and over to the vanity stand. No bleeding paper! He sighs.
‘You all right in there, Ken?’ comes Audrey’s voice. He leans forward to seek the roll.
‘Yes, yes,’ he says. All he needs is her forcing the door to find him arse in the air, scavenging. With his trousers around his knees, he leans towards the slatted door of the long cupboard to the right of the sink unit and yanks it open by the brass knob. It’s shelved and inside, side by side, are dark brown plastic containers, row upon row of them stickered with names. Christ All Sodding Mighty! There are dead people in the lav.
‘Did you say something, Ken?’
There are also a couple of toilet rolls, mercifully. He unwinds, bandages his hand, wipes his behind in a sawing motion. He looks. He jettisons. He starts unwinding and bandaging again, staring gloomily ahead; there are Jeans and Joans and Grahams in there. He closes the door with his foot and sits there, shaking his head, saying to himself, Dead people in jam jars! And then he thinks to himself, Christ, that’ll be me, Ken Goodyew. And out of nowhere comes another trickle of wee. The miserable little sound says it all.
He emerges sideways, like he’s hiding something. One shoulder is higher than the other. He clears his throat to get her attention.
‘I shall have meself a burial, Audrey, if you could write that down an’ all.’
She offers him a finger of her KitKat. ‘Any reason, Ken?’
‘I’m a Christian. I believe in the Resurrection, don’ I?’
‘That’s cool, Ken. That’s cool. Fair enough.’ She looks at him contemplatively.
‘Just going to have a sit-down in the family room, being as no one’s in there. I feel a bit outta sorts. It takes it out of you, dunnit?’
‘You go ahead, sweetheart. Help yourself.’
Like a dog on wheels being pulled in fits and starts, he goes mechanically along the corridor past the two chapels of rest. He peeps into the maroon of one of them. It’s a narrow room, just big enough for a coffin lengthways and a person at each side with one or two more at the foot. It’s carpeted in dark red and the point of focus, behind the head of the coffin, is a stained-glass window with a brass crucifix on its ledge and, on a lower shelf, the alternative option, a white porcelain dove.
‘I’ll have the cross,’ he says wearily. ‘Stuff the dove.’
The family room beyond is rustic with leather sofas and a fireplace. He drops himself on to the sofa, nodding along the items on the far ledge under the two frosted windows: the dried flowers, the box of tissues, the Bible. Yes, this is where they will sit when Audrey says to them, in her matter-of-fact sort of way,
‘It’s all been arranged and paid for by your father.’ He couldn’t even trust you not to cock that up.
He wipes his eyes with his cuffs, one by one. It feels as if there’s the weight of a hand on either of his shoulders, pressing down on him. He starts, and his neck jars trying to see who’s there, behind him.
It’s his old dad in his string vest, braces down, with a tea towel around his neck, as he used to look when he shaved at the kitchen sink.
‘Cor dear, scared the living daylights out of me. What you doin’ behind me like that?’
I always was, son. I always was right behind you.