Five Wakes and a Wedding

by Karen Ross

  Five Wakes and a Wedding

  KAREN ROSS

  Published by AVON

  A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019

  Copyright © Karen Ross 2019

  Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

  Cover illustrations © Shutterstock

  Bells © Shutterstock.com

  Karen Ross asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Ebook Edition © July 2019 ISBN: 9780008354350

  Version: 2019-06-18

  For Francesca

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Funeral Number One

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Funeral Number Two

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Funeral Number Three

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Funeral Number Four

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Funeral Number Five

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Acknowledgements

  Nine Book Club Questions and a Suggestion

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  1

  ‘Nina! One of the fridges is making a weird noise.’ Gloria’s voice is a welcome distraction from my latest attempt at flower arranging. At least, until I realise what I’ve just heard.

  Shit.

  I abandon the cornflowers, delphiniums and rust-coloured foliage, dash through to the back room, and hurtle down the stairs that lead to the basement storage area. With every step I take, a measured ‘beep, beeep, beeeep’ – like the sound of hospital machinery hooked up to someone in a coma – grows louder.

  ‘Something must have tripped the alarm! What did you do to the fridge?’ I ask as Gloria comes into sight.

  ‘Nothing.’

  Gloria is unruffled by my accusatory tone. She’s my housemate.

  ‘I was looking for the cleaning spray,’ she says. ‘To take the whitewash off the window.’

  The fridge’s mournful signal of distress continues.

  ‘Maybe buying my equipment on eBay wasn’t such a good idea,’ I manage. ‘But at least there’s nothing in it yet.’

  As if to prove it, I open the door to the beeping fridge.

  The noise stops and is immediately replaced by the sound of a wooden object being hit – repeatedly – by a hammer. ‘That must be Edo!’

  Gloria hears the relief in my voice. She manoeuvres herself around the fridge, squeezes my shoulder and says, ‘C’mon. Let’s go see.’

  My hand is still on the fridge door. Tentatively, I close it.

  Beep

  Beeep.

  Beeeep.

  The damn thing isn’t even cold enough to keep an ice lolly from melting.

  Whereas I am shivering with anticipation.

  This is going to be an amazing day and I’m not going to let a dodgy fridge spoil a single moment. I shrug, and reopen the door to silence the skull-piercing sound. I’ll deal with it later. For now, I follow Gloria back the way I’ve just come.

  Presuming we’re not being burgled and it really is Edo, the rhythmic hammering means he’s been as good as his word. He’s made me a shop sign and it seems he’s fixing it in place. He’s been hugely secretive about the design – ‘Nina, I’m an artist! It’ll be awesome!’ – and I’m finally going to get to see what he’s done.

  Except Gloria can’t get out of the door.

  She’s inched it open, only to find herself nose to nose with a hulking white Transit van parked extremely illegally and mostly on the pavement.

  It’s Edo’s van and I realise he’s standing on the roof of it to put up the sign above the door. A good idea because it’s a lot cheaper than scaffolding. And as it’s before eight o’clock, when the Primrose Hill traffic wardens begin their daily rounds of terror, he’ll get away with it.

  Gloria steps back from the door. ‘Best to let Edo get on with it,’ she advises. ‘Anyway, how are you feeling, sweets? Ready for the off?’

  Everything’s been such a rush, there’s been no time to arrange those delphiniums let alone smell the roses. But there’s no need to pause for thought.

  ‘I’m ridiculously excited!’ I declare. ‘It’s like being a five-year-old on Christmas Eve. I’m so impatient for everything to start happening.’

  I don’t know why I didn’t do this years ago. I must have thought about it a thousand times, but never dared.

  ‘What about the fridge?’

  ‘Let’s not talk about the fridge.’

  Gloria begins to clean the display window she helped me whitewash when we started fitting out my shiny new shop. I watch the murky coating that’s kept the outside world from seeing how I’ve transformed the space disappear and think about my own transformation.

  I still can’t believe it. Only a couple of months ago, I was snuggled deep inside my own little comfort hole. It wasn’t until change started happening all around me that I even began to realise I’d been snared. Then fate gave me a push – although at the time, it felt more like a mighty kick up the arse – and after that everything fell into place.

  Now here I am. Captain of my own ship. In charge of my own destiny. Queen of my own little slice of heaven.

  I am a shopkeeper. Owner of a small business.

  It’s a tiny business in every sense and, although I have no idea where my first customer will be coming from, I’m determined to be properly prepared. Fortunately, I have more than one fridge.

  I do a slow three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn and survey my miniature kingdom. Everything looks rig
ht. Better than right. Perfect. Between us – that’s me, Gloria and especially Edo – we’ve done a great job.

  The shop had been empty for ages and we’ve definitely breathed new life into it. Floorboards sanded, filled, and painted white. Walls in a soft shade of blue. Gentle, subtle lighting. A small reception desk to the right of the door to make the shop look friendly and approachable to passers-by. A pair of comfy couches on either side of a fashionable low table. The whole effect is warm and inviting, and today, even before any of the lights are turned on, it seems the place is brighter than I’d imagined.

  Ah, that would be because Gloria has finished with the window, and Edo has shifted the van. Which means—

  Before I can complete that thought, Edo appears. Dressed in his usual uniform of ripped jeans and tight black T-shirt, his shaggy black hair frames a baby face that makes him look more like a sixth-former than a recent art school graduate. Swinging a hammer from his left hand he throws his surprisingly muscled right arm around my shoulder. Cheeky!

  ‘Come and look,’ he says. ‘I know I’ll be in trouble if the sign’s not dead straight. And I’m worried you’re not going to like it.’

  Him and me both.

  Most of the work in Edo’s portfolio is what you might – politely – call ‘out there’. Installations that make Tracy Emin’s ‘Bed’ look more sedate than a watercolour by Degas.

  And all I need is a shop sign.

  But my doubts disappear the moment I take in Edo’s work. Wow! He’s done me proud.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ I say in my best Simon Cowell impersonation, complete with theatrical pause. ‘I absolutely love it!’

  It feels … it feels official. There for all the world to see. Classic hand-painted lettering. A shop sign that manages to be cool, clean, chic and somehow rather sexy – at least I think so – and announces: ‘HAPPY ENDINGS’.

  I’m still admiring the sign when I realise my feet are no longer on the pavement. Edo has scooped me into his arms and we’re crossing the high street, dodging a dustcart and – as I begin to struggle – almost bumping into a Boris bike.

  ‘Put me down!’ I insist. ‘I’m about to become a pillar of the community.’ Edo laughs and carries me, undaunted, over the threshold of Happy Endings.

  Gloria watches with a smirk that says, Didn’t I tell you Edo’s got a giant crush on you? But I figure he’s just grateful I let him continue to live in the shop between the time I signed the lease (he was squatting there, called it one of his own installations) and today, when I open my brand-new business.

  ‘Put her down and go sort the fridge,’ Gloria orders. ‘The alarm comes on every time you close the door.’

  Edo retreats – I think he’s scared of Gloria – and a moment later, the beep-beeep-beeeeping resumes.

  Gloria turns to me and says, ‘So what’s next?’

  ‘I need to get changed before Mum and Dad arrive.’

  ‘Before you do, I want to say how proud I am of you. The way you’ve pulled everything together so quickly. You’re going to be a huge success, sweets!’

  ‘I couldn’t have done it without your help—’

  I’m interrupted by Edo yelling, ‘Great! I can see what’s wrong. Don’t worry. It’s an easy fix.’

  A moment later, Gloria and I flinch at the sharp thwack of a hammer against metal. Then silence. As if Edo has murdered the fridge with a single blow.

  For some reason – nerves, most likely, because the destruction of a key piece of equipment really isn’t funny – I laugh. Then say to Gloria, ‘You know what? This is the best day of my life!’

  ‘Really?’ Gloria looks surprised. She knows I’m not the sentimental type.

  ‘Well, maybe apart from the day Mum and Dad finally weakened and let me have a kitten … or that time at uni with Lin, when we took an impulse trip to Dieppe and ended up in Brussels. And the day I passed my driving test. Sixth time lucky.’

  ‘Didn’t know that,’ she says. ‘But it explains a lot!’

  Before she can tease me any further, Edo’s back. ‘Loose connection with the fan,’ he says. ‘Fixed. Shall I sort out these flowers?’ He notices my doubtful expression and adds reassuringly, ‘I used to arrange them at college when we did the still-life module.’

  ‘That would be great.’ We haven’t known Edo very long, but he’s a definite asset, and fast turning into a friend.

  I go through to the back room and begin to change out of my paint-stained denims and into my working clothes. I’ve been dithering for days about what to wear. I finally settled on tapered black linen trousers, teamed with a turquoise top and my smartest black jacket. The one with turned-back cuffs lined with turquoise and pink patterned silk. And, of course, my lucky silver earrings. I’d feel naked without them. It’s an outfit that makes me look professional but still me. I give myself a final once-over in the mirror, quickly apply a fresh coat of lip gloss, then rejoin my friends.

  Edo has worked magic with the flowers. Gloria has finished with the windows. The fridge is behaving itself.

  In less than an hour, Happy Endings will be open for business. And any moment now Mum and Dad will arrive to inspect what they’ve taken to calling ‘The Investment’.

  Dad stepped in after the bank took all of three minutes to turn down my application for a start-up loan. ‘You’re to take my pension pot and put it into your business.’ After he left the navy, Dad went into the construction business. Without his help, Happy Endings would never have got off the drawing board. He’s got so much faith in me it’s scary. Then again, as he says, I’ve got a great location on a busy high street, slap bang in the middle of London, how can I fail?

  And I know I can do this. It’s what I want more than anything. From now on I’m devoting myself to business. Nothing else matters. Not that there is much else, to be honest. Other than Gloria and Edo, I don’t exactly have a red-hot social life. My choice, I know. Over the past five years, I’ve become a bit of a recluse.

  But today, I can’t even begin to describe my sense of purpose. I’m nervous, yet exhilarated.

  In short, I’ve never felt more alive.

  Which is a bit odd perhaps. Because I see dead people. All the time.

  It’s an occupational hazard.

  2

  Whenever I meet someone new and we get to the bit where they ask me, ‘So what do you do?’ and I say I’m an undertaker, I get one of three reactions:

  1. ‘You’re kidding!’

  2. ‘Eeuw.’ Usually accompanied by that two-fingers-down-the-throat gesture.

  3. ‘So, okay, when you were small did you pull the wings off flies?’

  I wish I could make people understand. It’s not torture. Quite the opposite. I love my job. And is it really so strange?

  Think of it this way. I’m an organiser. An event planner. A good listener. A shoulder to cry on. A public speaker. A negotiator. A seamstress. An accomplished multi-tasker. A stylist. I can remove a stain from almost any fabric, I’m a dab hand with a make-up brush, and I’m full of good advice. For example: never wear lip gloss when you’re scattering ashes.

  When the unexpected happens, I am expected to rise to the occasion. And I do.

  Do I touch dead people? Yes, of course.

  What do they feel like? Mostly, they feel cold.

  Am I weird? I don’t think so …

  I’m just a typical millennial who enjoys shopping, movies, holidays and – mysteriously – housework. I probably keep myself to myself a bit too much but I’ve always enjoyed my own company and I’ve never been great in a crowd.

  More than anything else, I’m proud to be an undertaker. Not to mention enormously proud to be opening my own shop. It’s the biggest leap of my life and it still seems unreal – particularly when you think that until recently, I was a semi-disgraced ex-employee.

  My life started to go pear-shaped late last year when the business I worked for, a firm of undertakers run by the original owner’s great-great-great-grandson, was taken o
ver by a huge funeral group with headquarters in New York and branches on every continent.

  As soon as the deal was done we were summoned to meet our new manager, Jason Chung. ‘Nothing’s going to change,’ he promised us.

  But everything did.

  Being accountable to a manager who’d never even carried a coffin was a huge change in itself. And that was just the beginning.

  My former boss, the great-great-great grandson, was gone in a matter of weeks. He quit the day our new owners announced that from now on we would only be offering headstones made from Chinese granite, a decision that was all about profit rather than the best interests of our clients.

  Even while two sets of lawyers continued to argue about whether or not the name of the family firm could be removed – it’s there to this day, because the new owners know the public prefer to deal with supposedly genuine local firms – our professional vocabulary began to change. At staff training sessions, words like ‘care’, ‘service’, ‘respectful’ and ‘time of need’ were cast aside in favour of sentences that were strong on ‘sales’, ‘targets’, ‘commission’ and ‘underperforming’.

  That sort of mindset makes me want to throw up. In fact, at a subsequent regional training day, I was overheard during the coffee break saying something to that effect – how was I supposed to know it was Jason Chung’s mother standing behind me? – and my comments resulted in me being sent to Siberia.

  Not the place. Even though the new owners have business interests all over Europe, so far as I know, the people of Russia are not yet obliged to be commemorated with slabs of Chinese stone. No, Siberia was our name for the back office. To call it an office was actually an insult to offices.

  Thanks to Jason’s mother’s need to overshare my private conversation, I spent ten days there, closeted in a small windowless space that used to be a store room, with only the low throb of the mortuary fridges on the other side of a thin partition for company.

  Jason himself cloaked my punishment with a mirthless smile. ‘This is an excellent opportunity for Nina to focus on her administrative skills without any risk of distraction,’ he told everyone.

  In practical terms that translated as one mountain of paperwork swiftly followed by another. A cross between school detention and prison. Gloria insisted my incarceration breached several employment laws, and since she’s almost a qualified lawyer she’s probably correct.