A Trick I Learned From Dead Men (11 page)

I have nothing to say. Zipped, I am. Les has arrivederci’d leaving us none the wiser. One time alive as if he were dead and now dead as if nothing had changed. Buenos noches.

Ned leans in. He touches Lester’s arm, his hand. Examining it. I don’t recall Ned ever touching Les. Or vice versa. I don’t remember any of us touching any of us come to think of it. Ned lowers his head till it lies on Les’s chest. I check the door. I’m not embarrassed, per se. I don’t know what I am. Looks like he’s listening for a heartbeat except (a) Ned is deaf and (b) Les is dead. The blind leading the blind. Les would have loved it.

I don’t feel anything much, I wait but nothing comes. I notice the picture of the lakeside sunset is askew so I step over to straighten it. When I turn back Ned is upright again, like he never listened to nothing on Les’s chest. Like I imagined it. Maybe I did.

I replace Lester’s lid before we leave.

15

Mild with strong winds, gradually easing throughout the day

TAP TAP. I
knock and enter. Good morning, Mrs Evesham. Not the finest of days, I’m afraid. Rain just now, but brightening later, I hear. Mrs Evesham died in her sleep. Nice and easy. No fuss or fanfare. She has no idea she’s even gone. No clue. Not to worry, Mrs Evesham. Things may look different but to be perfectly frank it’s the same old same old. I bet you can’t honestly say you even noticed. Am I right?

Derek is in the back, on coffins. I can hear his radio. Howard is at a crem funeral with the others. Nice and peaceful here. Just Irene front of house; now and then you can hear her voice asking, Now why’s that happened? Looking at her screen.

Last June Reen said, Lee, you remind me of an attending angel. Everyone laughed. I felt like a knob but I took it as a compliment. She was referring to my
presence
, my walk. Because there is a style of walk and talk in my line of work that you must perfect if you want to get on. The talk is one thing, slow and soft, as if someone has died, which they have. The walk is another kettle of fish. The walk must be supervisory, sober, but light-footed. Eggshells we call it. Remember, you are not Dracula, Derek says. You learn to walk on eggshells without coming across as a ponce. Egg-shelling is my speciality, hence Irene’s comment. If you want to make it to funeral director you have to be the last word in this skill. Then you have to get the voice right. If you are not posh by birth, and no funeral directors are, then you have to learn to speak toffee, like Howard, a few plums in the mouth. People want death to be posh, nice and smart, even though, of all the things we do, it is the most common.

*

O
UTSIDE THE SKY
is flat blue. I drink instant coffee standing up. The clock doesn’t tick at all. All I hear is my breathing. Then a wood pigeon, starting his list and forgetting. I sit and look across the field at the mast. I wait for a thought, a feeling. Nothing comes. My mind is blank as, empty as the woods.

* * *

I sit in the room. I’m supposed to be hoovering, but. Here she died. Here Lester lay. Facts unfit for airing in the presence of prospective house buyers, under the rug they must be brushed, pronto.

Framed photographs. Us when we were young. I stare at us. Me and Ned with freckles, gaps in our teeth. Mum and Les, leaning, laughing up at the camera, surprised, sun-kissed. We seem alive, more than we are now. Who are these people and what are they doing? And where have they gone? I lie on the bed.

I wonder if I lie here long enough whether I might slope off too. I close my eyes. I don’t mind, make a change. Buenos noches. Adios. Not that it’s easy of course. It isn’t. Death: the most natural thing in the world is unnaturally tough to do if you’re trying too hard. And certainly not if you are clocking it before it’s had a chance to clock you. A watched pot, etcetera. Stare death in the face and watch it paralyse. Death would rather take you by surprise, creep up sideways and
bosh
.

16

Perhaps a bright start but soon somewhat cloudy, with showery rain

THE ESTATE AGENT
has organised house viewings but there are no offers as of yet. I am usually at work during house viewings but I always run the Hoover round.

Today is Sunday. There is a viewing. I tidy up. I put daffs in a pot, though they are yet to open. I put mugs on a tray, I put milk in a jug.

I can hear them moving from room to room. I am waiting upstairs, listening. I can hear them in the kitchen below. The voice of the agent, boom boom boom. Silence. I hope he is pointing out the view. Perhaps they are stunned by it.

Boom boom, off he goes again. I hear them moving out of the kitchen back to the lounge. Boom boom boom. Silence. Possibly they are regarding the view from there too and are amazed. The silence goes on too long. They
don’t
like it. They think it’s crap. I displayed the condiment giraffes on the dining table. Probably they’re trying not to laugh.

Bollocks to this. Making me out like I’m a dick. I do not want to meet them on the landing, on the stairs. I leg it to Ned’s room.

He is online, possibly nude, I don’t dwell. I walk straight past. I sign as I go.

Trousers. Now. People.

I open his window, climb, drop out through the space. I hit the trampoline below. One bounce, two, and I step quite elegantly off. I head for the mast. I stroll like always, same as. I don’t think about them seeing me or if they’re watching. I careth not. Be my guest. Fill your boots. I can just imagine the reaction of old Frilly-Ears Boom-Boom.

Ah! There we are. Look. There in the landscape! You can see a genuine rustic knob making his way to the woods for food. Very rare. Don’t move, you might scare him. Bit of local flavour for you there. Mostly, they can’t afford to live here any more. Very rare indeed.

The house will sell eventually. Some gold-carded gent will bring his architect. Together they will find a way, using steel and glass, to transform our red bricks and tiles, our pine kitchen and oil-fired Rayburn into something more or less. Something else.

Sell we must, but It’s Ned who concerns me. Viewings could be derailed. People might be put off. I’ve told him to stay in his room, told him the estate agent does the walking and talking, but. He’d think it was funny. Typical of him to jinx it for a laugh, to get on my nerves, to keep the house. Who do know?

I ring the agent.

Did you point out the views? I ask.

Of course, he says. Everything will change in the spring, it always does.

OK. No problem. If you say so. Cheers then.

A prediction. I like that. Everything will change in spring. It always does.

*

I
HAPPEN TO
know her name is Caitlin. I have no idea how she found her way into my head. She works at DFS on the industrial estate. I tell her their car park is always full, even though I’ve only been once to look at a leather four-seater. Never mind that, she says, climbing on. There are dreams when you know you’re dreaming. Game on.

Under her shirt Caitlin wears a leotard, that’s novel, I think. They put her on the till, she says, because she was too efficient in the stockroom. I don’t know what she means by that and I had no idea there were poppers on
leotards
. Took me by surprise. Caitlin is a double D cup. Here’s mud in your eye. I reckon Caitlin is wasted at DFS. Her talents, I can vouch, would make a dead man blink. I am putty in her hands. I don’t put up a fight. Like I say, she’s efficient. She deals with me swiftly, like blowing up a raft. Caitlin is the type of girl who always, even in your dreams, has mini-Kleenex about her person. There is no post-coital, time is money and Caitlin steals none, which is why they put her on the till. The clock is always ticking with her, but when she’s gone the clock stops dead. Funny. I had no idea I even fancied her. I lie there like one of our clients.

Lorelle. Lorelle. It’s you I really want.

*

I
BREW UP
. Me and Derek take five in the workshop. Derek’s had his fair share of suicides. Many a hanging, he says. Hanging is the most popular, according to him. Roughly two a year here.

You remember the name of your first suicide, he says. And your first child. Then as the years go by you muddle them up. As in life, he says.

Derek’s had five drownings, several overdoses, three jumpers, fourteen hangings and a shotgun. That was the worst, he says. You try to jigsaw them back together. No
one
views a shotgun death over here, but. If the family request a viewing you have to warn them, gently, then they use their discretion, the more violent the death the more discretion required.

Yesterday we had tortilla wraps for lunch. Derek said he’d never had a meat wrap. I got him grilled chicken, I had smokey barbecue. Derek can get philosophical when he’s eating. Life and death, it’s all the same, he says. Sometimes I forget which side I’m on, he says. I didn’t comment. I know what he means.

I get a rabbit. Olé. Beginner’s luck. I saw it under the fence, half in shadow. I aim, thinking, might as well. I steady my arm against the tree, hold my breath. Frankly, I don’t expect to hit it. Take my time, reckon it will run. Next thing it’s limp, blood on the grass. Clean kill. Nice one. I carry it home. A big buck, heavy. Skull knocks against my knee. Have to swap arms twice. When I get home it is still warm and sticky with blood.

Stew. Rabbit. Nice. I sign Ned.

He strokes the fur, examines the feet.

No, he signs. Slams the bouncy door on his way out. It quivers open.

Knob. He’d eat it if he was hungry.

I reckoned Ned would help. I’m disappointed. It’s on eHow: how to skin a rabbit. It would’ve been good. The
brothers
Hart and their rabbit dish. There are those who would put it on YouTube. We could’ve. Why not?

I lay it in the freezer in its fur. Its dark eye stares up, surprised. I close the lid.

Reckon our luck will change any minute. Stands to reason. Nothing stays the same, so. I tidy up, put the tea on. Shepherd’s pie, my own recipe, à la baked beans. I would have quite fancied being a shepherd. Wrong area, no sheep. If the farms were still going Ned would have found something by now, the last one was sold off in sections last year and ours went aeons before that. City knobs building weekend homes. Architects in leather coats arriving in wide cars, asking if the pub does decent food. Someone is converting the old barn, paddocks they want, for llamas.

Outside Ned goes up and down on the trampoline. He makes a different shape in mid-air each time. You wonder what the birds think.

The lady rings from the JobCentre to tell us Ned has an interview. A great opportunity, she calls it. Tasty, it sounds. Less than twenty miles away; a fifteen-minute train journey and a short bus ride.

But no.

No way, Gog. No can do. No way, he signs.

He won’t even go for the interview. They will get him
some
counselling, they say, but he’s far down the list as he’s not an emergency, they say.

Gracias. He is to me.

*

L
ET
’
S TO THE
pub, Lethal. Perchance to drink a half. The night is young. The ale beckoneth. I wear my new jeans and Lacostes. Chilly evening but there is winter sun on the fields, shadows closing, slow birds making last-minute loops. I walk past my old school. Buenos tardes. Never taught me nothing here. Zero. Not even Spanish. Had to buy a CD for that. I give it the finger. Everyone speaks that one.

Usuals, as per. Someone has placed a sombrero on the bear’s head. The bespattered painters and decorators are at the bar. Raven is pigeon-toed in his tight black jeans and leather jacket.

Good evetide, maestro. How goes it? He has notes in his wallet, a few twenties. He is a happy swag. We sit beside the roaring bear, as per.

Cheers, then. Rave’s glass meets mine. His leather creaks.

To all who sail.

Me and him lean back, partake of, enjoy. We are in pensive mode, as befits.

I notice Rave’s jacket is a size too small, it prevents him raising his glass all the way up to his lips, he has to dip like a bird. His hair is ink-black, combed into five stiff cones. Still got his vanity. A whiff of hairspray makes me cough. Rave inspects his beer.

Did you know that yeast has got its own genetic code? he says. They say more than likely it’s been put on earth by highly evolved alien life forms for investigative purposes. True fact, Lee.

I nod. Yeah? Cool. How’s work?

Bedlam.

Bedlam is not a word I’ve heard him use before.

We are ants, Lee. Mere ants. Living on a giant anthill. The ultimate experiment.

Seems that way sometimes, I say.

That’s because it’s a fact. Think about it. An ant doesn’t know he’s an ant, does he? Rave creaks as he leans back. He raises his eyebrows.

Reckon I might travel, I say.

Set sail pronto, shipmate. Save a berth for me, he says. Cheers.

I’m not sure Raven has ever been abroad. We had a plan four years ago to drive across America. We had a route. We started saving. I was at Viking Direct in those days on the Brimsdown Estate. We had T-shirts printed,
Rave & Lee Coast 2 Coast – Are you ready USA?
It
wasn’t
meant to rhyme. Rave’s mum got them done at Snappy Snaps. I’ve never worn mine, it’s the thought that counts. We still haven’t finalised a date yet but it won’t be this year.

Australia has been on my mind, I say.

The water goes down the wrong way, says Rave.

Reckon I could do well there. Bigger place, I say, fewer people, speak the lingo.

G’day, mate, says Rave.

But. Can’t see Ned adapting.

Gud onya, Lethal. Might join you.

We sup our beer.

I don’t answer.

I see my funeral cortège in a dream, making its way up Rowntree Road. Halting the traffic, causing obstruction. Policemen line the road. Leading the mourners are Lorelle and Caitlin, arm in arm, dressed to the nines. They seem equally distraught, fifty-fifty. Don’t cry, I want to say. C’est la vie. Do not dwell. Buonasera señoritas. I cannot tell if Caitlin is wearing a leotard.