Grave Concern (3 page)

Grave Concern, Inc. was located beneath the community bowling alley, which resided in what had once been the town's community centre. While Kate had been knocking about in the larger world, the aged building, a millstone around the municipal neck, had been snaffled at a bargain by Bill Chambers, a local entrepreneur. Its many clubrooms were now divided up into small retail and office space.

When Kate had first apprised him of the nature of her business, Chambers, an old classmate, yanked off his dirty glasses and squinted meaningfully. Bill, or Billy, as she remembered him, their having parted scholarly company when Billy revisited Grade 3, clearly had some skepticism about the prospects of such a “quiet” (as he termed it) enterprise. But, as other offers for the space were not forthcoming, Bill acquiesced, on condition of a larger deposit than was, strictly speaking, necessary. Kate, meanwhile, considered her luck: Grave Concern's tiny storefront came with its own fortuitously attached “office,” at one time the photo club's small darkroom, which, being more or less useless for revenue generation, Bill threw in for free.

Only once having signed the lease and moved into the new office space did Kate come to understand the full implications of the term “overhead.” First came the Mothers to Pin Setters (fondly, if inaccurately, known as the PMS league), a kind of self-help gathering of depressed postpartum moms who bowled their way to new life and sociability on Wednesday afternoons. Thursdays saw the disquieting descent of the Singing a New Toonie Head Pins, a motley collection of casual bowlers from up and down the valley. Each paid a toonie a time to be placed on a constantly shifting roster of teams, booked in week by week according to a complex algorithm developed and understood by none other than Foxy Raymond at the behest of the hapless Bill Chambers. Fridays saw the arrival of the Early Birds, a group of aged bowlers named not for the hour they bowled (ten till twelve), but for the hope that some gentle activity would, like their namesake, keep their nemesis, the worms, at bay. This sprightly crew had an unfortunate tendency to drop and dribble rather than actually
bowl
the balls, which made the last day of the week, which should have been a happy one for Kate, rather more migraine-inducing than ever.

Regardless even of Kate's innocence of the true implications of “overhead,” her confident lessee's face had been a fake. Neither then nor now had Kate any idea how she'd keep up with the rent unless locals stepped up the dying. Grave Concern, after all, required a certain briskness of bodies. Why? Because, first, a critical mass must be reached to yield a sufficient subset of bereaved who would even consider Kate's service; and second, it took time for those same bereaved to relinquish the guilt and fear of censure said service invoked.

Kate kneed the computer's ON button and plugged her camera in. She sincerely hoped the Niedmeyer photos would show all right, what with having been snapped just minutes ago virtually in the dark.

Of Kate's menu of grave-visit offerings, Adele had selected the Photo Finish option, which guaranteed same-day mailed or emailed Before and After photos of the grave, showing how the grave visitor (Kate herself, of course, barring expansion) had cleaned up the site and laid fresh flowers or whatever was requested. Photo Finish was the cheapest option; all options, in fact, included photos. Plot Driven, the next step up, added weeding and grass trimming around the stone itself as well as that of one unserviced family member plot. The Grave Beyond, Kate's deluxe package, appended to the standard service both regular stone polishing and basic Photo Finish on a second grave of the client's choosing. The Grave Beyond also allowed for special idiosyncratic requests, such as the verbal delivery of particular prayers, poems, songs, or confidences to the dead. Each option had further price points within it, depending on the specificity and frequency of visits.

Luckily, it being winter, Kate had had little cleanup to do at Nathan's grave. Actually, none. There wasn't much action at the cemetery these days, the snow being calf-deep. However, she'd had to arrange the flowers so the pink showed up well against both snow (white) and stone (black). And find something suitable for a ribbon (luckily, once she'd dug down through the snow, she found the last bouquet's ribbon well preserved). Then she'd had to adjust her camera manually with frozen fingers and try to bounce the light as much as possible off the stone itself in the falling dark, without getting reflective glare. A certain professional flare was expected in photo results, which Kate generally delivered. At the graveyard, she hadn't been able to gauge the results by her camera's display, which was scratched all to hell. Well, now she'd see.

Kate clicked “Import” and glanced up at the clock: 5:15 p.m. She blinked a long blink, afraid of what the screen might reveal. But it was all right. The photos were pretty good, not great, but good enough. Dear old Adele would be pleased.

Kate attached the photos to an email and pressed “Send.” Sat back in her wonky secretary's chair circa 1978, well satisfied. Pleased, even. Not such a bad business, after all. Her doubts about the prospects of a grave-tending venture somewhat quelled, Hope reared its head, and so did Kate, lifting her eyes from her computer and gazing into the distance.

Maddening in every other sense, the office nevertheless undeniably boasted a million-dollar view. A carpet of grass rolled down a gentle slope to River Road. On the far side of the road along the riverbank, a few majestic red and white pines still unmolested by the Pine Rapids Beautification Committee waved their feathery foliage in the breeze. Beyond, the Pine River continuously whispered of its storied past, when it had carried the mighty giants felled by larger-than-life loggers all the way to the junction at Big River, where Valleyview now stood. There, the mighty timbers had been squared, made up in giant cribs and piloted still farther down the liquid highway — to the grand St. Lawrence, and thence by ship across the sea.

It was a bloody shame, of course, these ancient old-growth forests winding up as ship masts of the imperial British fleet. A catastrophe, you could say, despite what local legend would have one think. Which just proved a truth Kate was grasping all the more firmly with the approach of her fiftieth birthday: that most things in life could be understood as though reflected in a mirror — at shiny face value or from the shadowy rear. You could gawk at a grand past of hardy souls setting forth to wrest civilization from merciless wilderness; marvel at the doughty fur traders, heaving twice their weight on their backs — singing all the while; stand in awe of First Nations tribes, moving in seasonal cycles with the land. The grand romantic story. Or you could step through the looking glass, where darker truths prevailed. Like famine and desperation, carnage and exploitation, rape and pillage and war. Nature “red in tooth and claw,” as Tennyson so aptly wrote. (Pretty good, Kate considered, for a guy who'd never attended a Junior B Lumber Kings game of a Saturday night.)

Kate put her feet up on the desk by the computer and pushed the secretarial chair back to its limit, in order to pursue further this train of thought. Like it or not, narrative would pile up. And Pine Rapids was full of it. Rife with romance. Pulsating with plot. Haunted by hagiography. Layer upon layer of the stuff. A tragicomic bloody compost heap.

At 5:28, an email popped up on Kate's screen:

My dear Kate: Thank you for sending along the pictures. I can forgive them being a day late. I understand things are busy, this time of year. However, I am not as inclined to excuse the fact that, despite their excellent quality (perhaps a little on the dark side), the photos you sent are not of my dear Nathan's grave but that of Norman Litwiller, who rests in the row behind. The roses are lovely indeed. I can only hope Norman was more fond of pink than Nathan, who can't stand the shade. Could you please redo? Happy Hanukah! Your trusting customer, Adele Niedmeyer

Kate put fist to forehead and groaned. Dropped head to desk.

A blast of cold air from her office door brought it up again.

“Well, if it isn't Hank Dixon!” she said, working up a grin. “What can I do for you? Have a seat!”

Hank Dixon took his time, having apparently to check out each corner of the room before making the momentous decision to sit down. Kate sighed. All she wanted was a hot bath and her bed.

“How's she goin'?” said Hank, in his slow, thoughtful drawl.

Kate shrugged in a way that said,
As well as can be expected
.

“Heard about that business up on Wycliffe Road, I expect?”

Under the desk, Kate's knee bounced at a furious rate. “Madge Fitzgerald's dog? Too bad, that.”

“Madge is pretty broken up about it.”

“I can imagine.” Kate's mind was racing — was Hank hinting dog-grave visitations? And what would one put on a canine crypt — rawhide chews? “What was the mayor doing out there, anyway?”

“That's the sixty-four-million-dollar question, ain't it, right there,” said Hank. “Only one other house up there, beyond Madge, like.”

Okay, okay, she'd ask. “And who's that, Hank?”

“Little Bo Peep!” Hank snorted. “That's what I call her. Bogna … Bojana something. Polish name, like. Family's been out there for years; she stayed and kept the place. Anyway, there's been some talk, eh, about her and You Know Who.”

Kate knew Who but did not particularly want to hear the What.

“So, Hank, you made an appointment. What was it you wanted here?”

“Gonna sound weird.”

“I've heard weird.”

Hank looked around again, the four corners, the door. “Fact is I've been having my own dog troubles.”

“Oh?”

“You know that white house with the brown trim, out the Cemetery Road?”

“Sure. Pass it regularly.”

“Well, I don't know about you, but I never go by in my truck that mutt don't come out of there like ten bats out of hell, givin' chase, like, snappin' at my wheels. Wouldn't be so bad 'cept when I get out to pay respects to the folks, the bloody hound won't leave me alone — snarlin' and yappin' right up to the grave. Nearly took off my hand the other day.”

Kate smiled. “I'd say you don't need me, Hank. You need the mayor.”

“Seriously,” continued Hank without so much as a grin, “it's right unsettling, ain't it. So I'm thinkin' maybe I'd get you to do that visitin' ” — Hank waved his hands, indicating Kate's business. “So, I'm just trying to get an idea, like, of the cost …”

Kate explained the various services and charges, while Hank nodded sagely but with little comprehension in his eyes. She suspected he was still dazed by the very fact of having landed here in her office at all. Why not save him the embarrassment? Kate handed him her brochure.

“Take it home, Hank, think it over, and get back to me. All the details you need are right in there.”

What with Christmas bearing down, the next few weeks saw Kate nearly run off her feet. Overall this was a good thing, because between cemetery trips and related business, daily deliveries for Flower Power, and the odd Christmas party, Kate pretty much forgot about the …
Thing
. In recent graveyard trips, it hadn't reappeared, thank God. And sleep, which had been about as reliable as a two-timing boyfriend, finally moved back in for keeps.