Last Orders

  What you learn in this business is how to keep your mouth shut.

  There were brick walls and a gateway and a drive and gardens and trees, so that though it was the edge of London you might have been arriving at someone’s country mansion. Except the mansion had got mixed up with what looked like an old-style barracks block, with grilles on the windows, and, once through the main entrance, there was the usual sour-milk smell of Institution, the usual squeaky corridors leading off, the usual rattle of things being shifted by trolley.

  The receptionist looked at my ID and the forms, and I thought, Some day someone will do this for June, someone will come with the papers. Release of the body. It’ll be the next main event. The receptionist picked up her phone and tapped out a number, then looked at me, the way people do when they’re on a phone as if they’re not looking at you at all but at the same time they’re staring. She had hair permed stiff as wire and glasses hanging from her neck on a chain, and I thought, She’s been here long enough to view everyone as inferior, everyone as suspicious. Long enough to know that if you put her in charge she’d run it a whole lot better. Beaky face, twisty mouth. She held the receiver clamped to her ear, starting to look cross at being kept waiting and starting to look cross at me for seeing her being kept waiting, and I thought, as I do sometimes, it helps to calm things down, And you too, sweetheart, one day, you too. Release of the body.

  Then she said crisply into the phone, ‘I see. I’ll tell him,’ then to me, with a sort of relish, ‘You’ll have to wait. The superintendent’s on a late lunch, he won’t be back till three.’

  I said, ‘I can wait,’ thinking, I’m damn glad I didn’t send Trev.

  She scanned the forms again, as if they might have changed, then handed them back, looking at the next thing on her desk, like I was being dismissed. Then just at the point when she knew I was going to ask, she said with a little huff, as if I should know, ‘Round the back of the main building and across the service yard.’

  But I would’ve known anyway. There’s always an incinerator chimney. There’s always a blank double door like the back exit of a cinema. If there’s no one about and there’s no other sign, you bang with your fist on the double door. Someone comes to a window and sees the Maria reversed up.

  She said, ‘Three o’clock.’

  It’s a sort of distaste. Stigma, that’s the word. Like you don’t want to know the man who takes away your rubbish. I’m used to it, it’s natural. The old man used to say an undertaker’s half lord, half leper. You shouldn’t hold it against.

  I thought of asking: Is there somewhere I could get a bite? Then reckoned better of it. Then I thought, for a mad moment: Twenty minutes – I could see June. Just see her. Out of plain curiosity, out of I don’t know what. See what Jack never sees. I could find out and just go, a black jacket will take you most places. But then I thought, No, seeing June might not be so hard, might not be so bad, but first you had to get past this charmer.

  I said, ‘Three o’clock,’ folding the forms back into my pocket.

  But I looked towards where the corridors led off, thinking, So this is where. And this is where Amy comes twice a week, year in year out. I wonder if she says hello to this cow, I wonder if she gets a smile.

  And it wasn’t till then that I realized that today was Thursday. Thursday afternoons: it was one of Amy’s afternoons. And I felt myself sort of bracing up, lifting my shoulders and tugging my lapel, the way you do when you might meet someone unplanned, the way an undertaker has to do most of the time. You never know who you might bump into, you never know whose toes you might tread on. It’s not just a job, it’s a place in the community. That’s what the old man said. There’s some who say I’m the next best thing to a vicar, and I say, ‘That’s all right. Call me Vic.’

  So I stopped being the humble pick-up man. I became the full-scale, knock-’em-dead funeral director, and she must’ve seen, because I made her eyes flick away from me.

  I said, ‘Nice out, I’ll take a stroll.’

  It was an airy, breezy day, the sunshine coming in quick splashes. I walked out on to the forecourt, checked the Maria was parked okay, then took one of the paths that fanned out across the lawns, feeling like a truant, feeling that I was enjoying this, the boss doing the hired man’s job, this slipping in and out of a part like the sun dodging the clouds. Feeling that for twenty minutes I had a special angle on the world.

  There were rose beds and trees. Patients were out exercising, taking the air too. What do you call them? Patients? Inmates? Residents? Some of them moving oddly or standing oddly still. A thin man came towards me, his lips and his fingers clenched round the stub of a cigarette as if he was trying to pull a long piece of string from his mouth, but it was pulling back. Others looked quite normal, only the old clothes gave them away. But even then. So if you weren’t careful. And how would you explain? So you think you’re an undertaker, do you? You better come along with us.

  I sat on one of the benches while the sun came out and went in, came out and went in again. The man with the cigarette turned and came back, as if I’d taken his bench, and as he passed me he snarled like a dog, dribbling, his teeth showing. I wasn’t afraid. Have no fear. I wondered if Amy was afraid, whether she’d been afraid when she first came. But women aren’t afraid, or not of the same things. I thought, You see all the dead, all the bent and broken or plain stretched-out dead, and you think, These people are strangers now, total strangers. But it’s the living who are strangers, it’s the living whose shapes you can’t ever guess.

  And that’s when I saw them. There must be something that makes you look. Sitting on a bench, on a bench on another path, in front and to the left. I saw Amy’s head of brown hair, the breeze stirring it, the sun putting colour into it, and that way she had of sitting, plain and straight and simple, as if she was waiting her turn. But not before I saw Ray, looking small beside her, almost like her kid. His little coconut-shy head, and that way of scratching his neck, I’d recognize that gesture anywhere, the fingers reaching right into his collar as if a whole mouse had dived in there. I thought, I wonder if he knows, he’s definitely thinning on top, bit of pink showing through.

  If I’d taken another path I might have walked straight past them. But now I slunk back, behind them, to the van, half thinking I should tread on tiptoe, and then I saw it, it must’ve been there all the time but you don’t see what you don’t expect to see: Ray’s camper, on the far side of the car park, sludge-green and cream, that funny bit on top that opens up like an accordion for extra head-space.

  I climbed back into the Maria. From the front of the van I could see them clearly, fifty yards, ten o’clock, Ray on the side of the bench nearest me. It seemed to me that though they made the shapes of two separate people sitting on the same bench, so you might have thought it was just a chance encounter, they also made a single shape that was the two of them together.

  Ray leant forward and lit a cigarette, cupping his hands against the breeze. Then he took a puff, took the cigarette from his mouth and with the same hand, elbow on knee, stroked his bottom lip with his thumb. There was a paper bag wedged between them with the remains of something, because Amy dipped her hand into it and threw crumbs for the birds pecking near their feet, sparrows, pigeons. She did this quickly, with a jerk of her arm, as if she half wanted to shoo the birds away, not feed them, but the crumbs kept them coming back. Ray didn’t feed the birds. He smoked and rubbed his lip and scratched his neck. Then he sat back and at that exact moment Amy leant forward as if they were a machine that worked like that. She stroked her leg just below the knee as if she had an ache there.

  I looked at my watch: nigh on three. But the superintendent could wait. I’d waited for him. Though it’s a serious transaction, release of the body. You need the signature and the verification and the date and time, and you shouldn’t be late for the dead, just because they’re dead. One of my rules. Don’t dilly-dally with the deceased. I’d’ve given Tony a bollocking.
r />   Five past three and they were still there on the bench, and nothing in the van to pass the time, save an old thumbed A to Z and the forms in my pocket. But I had them by heart. Jane Esther Patterson. Date of birth, date of death. She was eighty-seven. Cause of death: cerebral haemorrhage. Next of kin: John Reginald Patterson. Son. I must ask the superintendent, if he’s not shirty with me, how long she’d been in for.

  (I did. He said twenty-eight years.)

  I watched Amy lean back, without Ray leaning forward this time, and dip her hand again, briskly, into the bag and throw. You felt they both wished they hadn’t stuck that bag between them. Then Amy picked up the bag and started crumpling it into a ball and brushing down her skirt as if she was about to stand up, and just before she did, Ray reached out and clasped her far shoulder, then shifted his hand to the back of her neck, the fingers reaching under her hair, just like they’d done into his own collar. As if he’d been meaning to do that all along, or something like it, but it was only her moving to get up and him not having another chance that pushed him to it. Then Amy hesitated for a bit, her head sort of wriggling against Ray’s hand. Then she got up like she’d meant to, and Ray jumped up too like he was on a spring and they started walking back towards the car park.

  I hunched down in my seat but I don’t suppose they could see me, with the reflections on the windscreen, if they were looking anyway. It was like just for a moment they’d been two younger people and now they were two older people trying to act their age. It made them look funny. But I suppose if you were going to look funny, this was the place to do it. Amy dropped the balled-up paper bag into a litter bin and Ray flicked his fag-end a few feet in front of him and stepped on it. They walked separately, like people being careful to walk separately, as if they just happened to be on parallel courses.

  I suppose it can happen a lot here. Visitors crossing paths. Time to spare, burdens to share. Regular lonely-hearts’ club.

  They passed maybe four or five car-widths to the left of me and this time I ducked right down, nose to the passenger seat, acting funny too. Then I lost them as they passed out of sight behind the back of the van. But I watched in the wing mirror, and I had a clear view of the main gate out of the side window. It’s one thing about a van, you can see over the roof of a car next to you. I heard an engine start and a bit of reverse gear, then I saw the camper creeping out towards the gate, past the little ‘Out/In’ bollard with its arrows pointing. The turn to go back was left. The other way took you out of London: Ewell, Epsom, Leatherhead. I watched Ray brake, flash his indicator and turn right.

  You shouldn’t judge. What you learn in this business is to keep a secret.

  RAY

  I said I felt about as Lucky as I’d ever felt. Being Lucky.

  So he said, smiling, he felt about as Jack as he’d ever been, or was ever going to be. About as sweet jack all.

  Then he looked at me and I thought, just for a second, He aint saying it’s down to me? Like when they first brought him in here, before the op, before he knew, and I felt everyone looking at me sort of special, like I was the man of the hour. Ray’ll swing it, Ray’ll fix it. All Jack needs is a dose of his old mate Raysy. And while we’re at it, we’ll take a bet on the surgeon doing a top-notch job.

  I thought, It’s a terrible burden having all this luck.

  But he looks at me as if he can see how he’s putting me on the spot, when it’s not me who ought to feel on the spot, it’s him. And he says, like he’s shaking his head at what I’m thinking, ‘I’ve come to terms, Raysy,’ slow and firm. He says it again as if I haven’t heard. ‘I’ve come to terms. It’s Amy I’m thinking of.’

  Which makes me hold my eyes, wide open, on his as if I’m lost if I so much as blink.

  He says, ‘I’ve come to terms, but I aint squared up with Amy.’ I look at him. I don’t move an eyelid. ‘I don’t want to leave her in the lurch.’

  I say, ‘It’s not your fault that you—’

  He says, ‘It’s not that. I aint played straight with her.’

  I look at him. He looks at me.

  He says, ‘It’s money I’m talking about. We was all set up to buy that place in Margate, weren’t we? Westgate. And the whole world thought this was cos Jack Dodds had finally seen the light and decided to start a new life. And everyone thought it was a crying shame that just when he did, he finds out there aint going to be no more life.’

  I say, ‘Including me, Jack.’

  He says, ‘Including you. Including Amy. Except what everyone don’t know is I had to sell up or fold up. That’s why I did it. What the whole world don’t know is I took out a loan to save the shop five years ago, and it comes up in a month. Wouldn’t have been no problem. I sell the shop, sell the house, buy a little bungalow in Margate, a little tinpot bungalow, and I scrape through on the difference, just about. Except now it’s all off, aint it? All bets off, eh?’

  He looks at me like I should know best.

  I say, ‘Why not’ve sold up five years ago and paid yourself what you went and borrowed?’

  He says, ‘Cos then I had to make a living, didn’t I?’

  I look at him.

  He says, ‘I’m a butcher, Raysy. That’s what I am.’

  I keep looking at him. It’s him and it’s not him. It’s like he’s been hiding. He says, ‘It’s something I aint got to do now, make a living.’

  I say, ‘So you never – saw no light?’

  He says, ‘No, Raysy.’ I don’t believe him. ‘And no new life, eh? Not for me.’

  He looks at me.

  I say, ‘How much?’

  He says, ‘Seven large ones when I took it on. Now they’ll want nearer twenty.’

  He sees me whistle silently.

  He says, ‘We’re not talking bank managers. It was a special sort of a loan. A private loan.’

  I say, ‘Not Vince?’

  And he laughs. He tips back his head and cackles so it hurts him and I find myself reaching for a paper bowl, I find myself looking at his call-nurse button. ‘Vince?’ he says, half choking. ‘Vincey wouldn’t’ve lent me money if I was dying, would he?’

  I say, ‘So who?’

  He says, ‘Vincey wouldn’t’ve forked out for the shop, would he? He wanted me to sign on at the supermarket.’

  ‘So who?’

  ‘One of his mates, from the early days. One of his – business pals. Rough stuff, you understand.’

  He looks at me like he’s in for a scolding.

  I say, ‘You’d’ve been better off taking a long shot on a two-year-old. You’d’ve been better off coming to Uncle Lucky.’

  Even as I say it I see which way the wind’s blowing.

  He says, ‘Would’ve been a big ’un, Raysy. Where would I have got the ante? But it’s funny you mention that.’

  He looks at me, starting to smile, so I nip in quick. I say, ‘You told Amy about all this?’

  He shakes his head.

  I say, ‘You going to?’

  He says, ‘That’s a tricky one, aint it? What I’m hoping is I won’t ever have to, there won’t be no need. It’s funny you mention her.’

  He pokes with his finger at the empty paper bowl I’ve been holding all the while. He says, ‘You look like you’re begging, holding that.’

  I put the bowl back where I got it.

  He says, ‘I don’t know what she’s going to do. I mean, when I’m— She might want to stay put. She might want to go ahead with that bungalow anyway. It aint kiboshed yet, it could still go through. Either way, I don’t want no debt-collector knocking on her door. I don’t want her finding out she’s got twenty grand less than she thought she had.’

  It’s like he wants me to tell him the solution.

  He says, ‘That’s a nest-egg, aint it? Twenty grand. That’s what they call a nest-egg.’

  I say, ‘So, for all she knows, it was just you seeing the light too. It was just you going for a new life. Glory hallelujah.’

  He looks at me as if I?
??d know the answer to that too.

  He says, ‘Some things are best not known.’

  I say, ‘Why Margate?’

  He says, ‘I don’t want to leave her in the lurch. I want to see her right.’ And his eyes shut suddenly, the lids drop in that heavy way, as if it’s more than he can do to keep them open, like he’s nipped out for a moment without saying and left me guessing.

  Then he opens his eyes, as if he never knew he’d shut ’em.

  I say, ‘So what do you think she’s going to do?’

  He says, ‘Depends. Maybe you’d know what she’s going to do.’

  I look at him.

  He says, ‘I need a winner, Raysy. I need a winner like I’ve never needed.’ He lifts his right arm slowly off the bedcover. What with the tubes going in it, it looks like he’s not lifting it but it’s being lifted, like the arm of a puppet. ‘And I’ve got the ante this time.’

  He moves his hand towards the bedside cabinet and opens the little drawer, the drawer with his few odds and ends in it. His hand shakes. He struggles with the drawer and I half go to help him but I know it wouldn’t do to help him because there aren’t many things he can still do for himself.

  He takes out his wallet. I’ve never seen Jack Dodds’ wallet look so fat.

  He says, ‘Here, have a look inside. Back compartment.’

  He hands it to me. I take it and flip it open while he watches me. I don’t see no photograph. There’s a great wodge of notes.

  He says, ‘There’s a thousand smackers. Eight hundred in fifties and a bunch of twenties.’

  I look. I rub the top note with my thumb. I say, ‘You’ve got a thousand, cash, in this place?’