Last Orders (9 page)

Vic says, ‘Put one of your bets on. I seem to recall it working before.’

I look at Vic. It’s a straight face. What’s he mean: free man?

‘That’s right,’ Vince says. ‘You could see a bit of the world. Live a little. Stop off in Bangkok.’

Vince’s head is cocked towards the driving mirror.

He says, ‘But just out of interest, where d’you want to be chucked?’

It’s like he’s a taxi-driver. So where to, guv?

‘I aint particular. I’ll leave that to Vic’

But Vic doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t say, ‘Whenever you’re ready, Ray,’ then give his little one-finger, undertaker’s salute. And I get this sudden picture of me in a car, in a cardboard box, in a big car, with just Vince driving, just Vince in his tie and cuff-links and dark glasses.

I sold him the yard, for peanuts. And he sold it for a packet.

Then I think, But I aint going to see. It doesn’t matter, it’s immaterial, because I aint going to see. Unless it’s true, like Vincey seems to think, that they’re watching, the dead ’uns, so when I’m dead I’ll be able to watch my own funeral. And they’re all watching us, even now, the old man, and Charlie Dixon and Vince’s mum and dad, and Duke, and Jack here, peeping through the cardboard, and all the dead ‘uns me and Jack and Lenny left behind in the war, lying in the desert, because we were lucky and it wasn’t our turn.

So I’d be able to see if Susie comes.

Lenny says, ‘I reckon they should chuck you over Tattenham Corner.’

I look at Lenny. It aint a straight face.

Vince says, ‘It’d firm up the going.’ Vince is all sparky, like he’s found a new game. ‘How about the rest of us? How about you, Lenny?’

‘Oh I’m with Ray, I aint choosy. It aint – material.’

The box is lying between us, like an armrest.

Vince says, ‘Ashes is material.’

Lenny looks at Vince.

‘And what about you, Vic?’

Vic lifts up his head as though he might have dozed off again.

‘Oh,’ he says, ‘that’s all arranged.’

Vince says, ‘What’s arranged?’

Vic says, ‘I bought a plot, years ago, when plots were cheap. For me and Pam. Camberwell New Cemetery.’

Everyone goes quiet. We drive along. It’s anyone’s guess what each of us is thinking but Vic’s guess is better than most, I’d say. I reckon Vic knows more than he shows. Maybe that comes from working with stiffs too.

It’s a good trade. It doesn’t exist to buy cheap and sell dear, or to palm off on the nearest mug something he doesn’t need. No one wants it, everyone requires it. There’s shysters in any trade, and they’re the worst kind of shysters who will take advantage of another person’s misfortune. There’s those I know will fleece a widow of less than a week for a solid oak coffin, satin lining, solid brass handles, the lot, when a plain veneer will do the job. I haven’t heard a corpse complain yet. There’s them that will flog coffins like Vincey here flogs cars. But the trade itself is a good trade, a steady trade. It won’t ever run short of custom.

And it’s a privilege, to my mind, an education. You see humankind at its weakest and its strongest. You see it stripped bare of its everyday concerns when it can’t help but take itself serious, when it needs a little wrapping up in solemnness and ceremony. But it doesn’t do for an undertaker to get too solemn. That’s why a joke’s not out of place. That’s why I say: Vic Tucker, at your disposal.

It’s not a trade many will choose. You have to be raised to it, father to son. It runs in a family, like death itself runs in the human race, and there’s comfort in that. The passing on. It’s not what you’d call a favoured occupation. But there’s satisfaction and pride to it. You can’t run a funeral without pride. When you step out and slow-pace in front of the hearse, in your coat and hat and gloves, you can’t do it like you’re apologizing. You have to make happen at that moment what the bereaved and bereft want to happen. You have to make the whole world stop and take notice. There’s
times when an undertaker wields more clout than a copper. But you can’t run a funeral without authority. When people don’t know what to do they have to be told, and most people don’t know left from right, they don’t know back from front, it’s a fact, in the face of death. It was the same at Jack’s do as at a thousand others. When those curtains come across and the music plays nobody knows when to turn round and go. There’s no one to say, ‘Show’s over.’ So there was Raysy, beside Amy, in the front pew, next to the aisle, looking straight ahead, and I go up to him and touch his arm and whisper in his ear, as I’ve whispered similar in I don’t know how many ears, ‘You can go now, Raysy. They’ll all follow. Amy’ll follow.’ And just for that moment Ray Johnson, known to those who know him as Lucky, was like putty in my hands, like a sleepy child I was sending off to bed.

I watched Jack clear off the meat trays, picking up the little sprigs of imitation greenery, then wash down the display counter, smoothly, without pausing, like he could do it all with his eyes closed, but carefully and deliberately, taking his time, it being a hot day. And I thought, He’s early, and it’s a while since I’ve seen him do that himself, it’s usually that lad, the one he said couldn’t tell chuck from chine and couldn’t keep a price in his head. Unless he’s gone and paid him off too. And that red and white awning’s looking tattier, it won’t last the year out.

It’s an old habit at the end of the day, to watch the other shops shutting up. A shop is meant to be looked at, that’s why it’s built round a window. You can eye the goods and watch the shopkeeper, like a fish in a tank, except that doesn’t apply in the case of an undertaker’s. A coffin shop’s
the one shop no one wants to peer into. They’re laid out according, no pun intended. Curtains, screens. No one wants to see an FD going about his business.

So I stood where I’ve often stood of a quiet evening, behind the lace curtain which runs the width of the window, above the half-partition of dark panelling. It’s a habit that comes with the trade too. Secrecy, seeing and not being seen.

Trev had the half day off, Dick was on a pick-up from Maidstone, and the rest of the crew had slipped off, the hearses parked round the back, all waxed and polished for tomorrow. So I was alone on the premises. Excepting Mr Connolly, that is, who was waiting for his wife to come and view him.

I watched Jack step outside to wind up the awning, a few twists of the handle, then go back inside, then reappear to lock up and pull down the grilles. And all that must cost a bit too, though I’ve never had the bother of it myself, because I haven’t heard of an undertaker’s being broken into lately. Not favoured in that respect either. Though I dare say there’s more in my cash safe than there is in Jack’s.

I thought, Now he’ll turn right, pat his pockets, look at his watch, wave at Des there in the dry-cleaner’s, and head for the Coach, where I might well join him in an hour or so, if Vera Connolly isn’t late. Thirsty weather. But I saw him walk instead to the kerb and look across, as if he could see me behind the lace curtain, as if I’d beckoned. Then he waited for the traffic and crossed over, so I stepped back inside quickly. Then I heard him rattle the door.

He said, ‘Evening, Vic. You coming to the Coach?’ And that was strange, because either he’d see me at the Coach or he wouldn’t, I could find my own way there. He knew if I
turned up it was usually later, since I seldom finished the day like he did, five thirty on the button.

I said, ‘I was thinking of it.’

He said, ‘Thirsty weather. Beautiful day.’

I said, ‘Beautiful day. You come to tell me that?’

He said, ‘First of June, Vic. Know what day it is?’

I looked at him. He looked around.

He said, ‘You all on your tod?’

I nodded. I said, ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ He glances at me, uncertain, as if it isn’t plain as pie he’s come for a purpose, but he sits down, where my clients sit, where the bereaved sit and discuss their requirements. Then he says, ‘Moment’s come, Vic. First of June. I’m going to sell up the shop.’

He says it like he’s confessing to a crime. Like he’s come to arrange his own funeral.

I say, ‘Well then I’ll definitely come and have that drink, as there’s something to celebrate. You buying?’ And he looks at me, narrow-eyed for a moment, as if he wasn’t asking to be made fun of, and maybe I’m not so different from all the rest of them. Scoffers.

He says, ‘I’m telling you, Vic. I aint telling no one else. Not yet.’

I say, ‘My privilege. Mum’s the word.’

But I think, But what’s the big secret, and what’s the big shame? That he’s going to quit when he’s sixty-eight, which is not before time by most people’s reckoning. That he said he’d go on till he dropped, but he hasn’t dropped, though he’s gone on. That he’s going to do what even Vincey said he ought to do years ago: cut his losses before they cut him. Maybe that’s the nub of it, that Vincey told him. And there’s Amy who nigh on gave up on him. Though he hasn’t even guessed that, or how.

I think, Pride’s a queer thing. It puffs a small man up but that’s nothing to a big man who’s afraid of looking small.

He says, ‘What’s a butcher’s shop, anyway?’

And I think, You tell me, Jack, since your whole face is saying it’s everything, and it hurts to be admitting otherwise. You wouldn’t think it was such a tragedy, taking your nose from the grindstone. I think, Cheer up, Jack. In my book butchers used to be jolly bastards, big fellers with big arms and big grins, like you once used to be. I’m supposed to be Mister Sad. It’s retirement, not defeat. And it’s only the nature of the trade that keeps me hanging on here, same age as you, lingering in the office, when I could be handing over to the boys. Because it’s the age when most people start to have need of an undertaker, the age of widows in the making, and I know Mrs Connolly will appreciate it.

He says, ‘There’s more to life than bacon, aint there?’ as if he’s not sure what that is. ‘And it’s only fair to Amy.’

I say, ‘You told her?’

He lifts up his eyes, taken aback. He says, ‘Hold on, Vic, I only made me mind up five minutes ago, swabbing down the trays.’

I thought, Well that’s more like the Jack Dodds I know. So I was witness, without knowing it, to the great Decision. There must be something that makes you look where you look when you look.

He says, ‘So I thought I better tell someone fast, I better tell Vic fast, otherwise I’ll go back on myself before I can tell Amy.’

That’s more like the Jack I know.

I say, ‘That puts me on the spot though, doesn’t it? If you don’t tell her.’

He says, ‘I’ll tell her,’ indignant, but his face drops again, as though he hasn’t worked out how he’s going to cross that
bridge, as if there’s nothing harder in the world than telling good news.

There’s an old clock in my office that ticks steady. It’s a comfort.

He says, ‘Boys okay, Vic?’

I think, Boys, they’re both over forty. But it’s what I call them: boys.

I say, ‘I’m keeping them busy.’

He looks round at the deserted office and then at me, as though to say, ‘Looks like they’re keeping you busy, Vic.’ But I know what that glint in his eye means, I’ve seen it before. It means, It’s easy for you, Vic, isn’t it, to give up, let go. With Dick and Trev. So it’s still there anyway. It would be easy for me.

It means Vince.

Well you’ve scuppered your chances there, Jack. Not even help-me-outs there.

He says, ‘You know what today is? First of June.’

I shake my head.

He says, ‘June’s birthday. June’s fiftieth birthday. First of June 1939. You know where Amy is right now?’

I say, ‘Seeing June.’

He nods, then looks at his hands. ‘She didn’t say nothing but I knew what she was thinking. That I could make an exception. Fifty years is either special or it aint. A chance to do what I aint ever done before. She said, “I’m going to see June. It’s my normal day but today’s special, isn’t it?” She said, “I’ve bought her a present, a bracelet.” She didn’t have to say nothing else, just look. She don’t give up. So I said, “I’ll see, I’ll see.” Cost me a load, Vic, just to say that.’

I think, A load of what?

‘I said I could shut the shop early, maybe, and see you there. She said, “You sure you know where it is?” I didn’t
say nothing definite, but it was like a promise. But when the time came – half an hour ago – I knew I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t change, not like that. Fifty years. June don’t know how old she is, does she? June don’t know what a bracelet’s for. So then I thought, But I can change another way. She won’t see me turning up at that hospital but I can have something to tell her. Something to compensate.’

I think, You might have done both.

He says, ‘Amy don’t give up.’

I think, Who’s talking?

He says, ‘June aint ever going to change, is she? Still a baby, aint she, a fifty-year-old baby? But maybe I can.’

I don’t think anything.

He looks at me and at the thought I’m not thinking. He looks round the office again, cagily, as if he’s half forgotten where he is and that I’m Vic Tucker, undertaker, and not the parish priest.

He cocks his head towards the door at the back of the office. He says, ‘Any lodgers?’ Usual question.

I say, ‘Just the one.’

And I can almost see him remembering it, that time when it was me who went running across to him. All on my own then too, short-staffed, and as luck would have it I had two in storage and one of them needed seeing to badly. It can be a two-man job. A hot day then too. So I thought of Jack across the road. I thought, Maybe a butcher. I said, ‘Jack, can you do me a favour?’ I had to steer him round to the back of the shop, out of earshot of a customer, to explain. He looked at me then he said, ‘No problem, Vic,’ as if I’d asked him if he could help me shift a piece of furniture. He said, ‘Will I need this?’ wiping his hands on his apron. We crossed back over, and I said before we went in, ‘You sure about this?’ and he says, looking at me sharply,
‘I’ve seen bodies.’ I thought, I saw them too, yours wasn’t the only war. Heads bobbing in the oil. I said, ‘Yes, but not women.’ But he didn’t turn a hair, didn’t bat an eyelid, as if a seventy-four-year-old woman who’d died crossing the road wasn’t any different from a joint of beef. I said, ‘Thank you, Jack. It’s not everyone.’ He said, ‘Any time, Vic. I aint everyone.’