Five Wakes and a Wedding

by Karen Ross

  ‘I’ve come to say sorry,’ she says at once. ‘I was too hasty. I’ve taken Gloria’s advice and put out the flowers at slightly above cost. Selling like hot cakes, and I might even make a small profit. I just panicked yesterday. Got myself into a right state over cashflow. And Zoe really wound me up, kept saying it was all your fault. But it wasn’t. Everyone knows that now.’

  This is reassuring.

  ‘Julie, do you belong to the Traders Association?’ I ask.

  She has the grace to blush. ‘Yes, I heard they had a meeting about you last week. Sorry to hear they’ve turned down your application.’ She twirls the yellow roses awkwardly in her hands. ‘I don’t know why Zoe’s got such a bee in her bonnet about your shop but if it’s any consolation she gave the betting shop a rough ride when they arrived and they’re doing all right now.’

  ‘Well that’s good to know.’

  ‘Mind you,’ Julie continues, ‘Zoe’s not entirely wrong about Happy Endings. The thing is, Nina, people around here … they just don’t die very often.’ Julie clocks my baffled expression and explains, ‘You’d be amazed how many of the old brigade have two or three homes. They tend to pop off to the sunshine of the Caribbean or Florida before they pop off for good. Then they get buried abroad for tax purposes. And you realise how much the neighbourhood’s changing? All those rock stars, teachers, accountants, journalists, doctors, writers and the like who came here in the seventies and eighties … they’re all coming up to retirement, selling their homes for a fortune, and moving out of London. It’s a young people’s place now.’

  Julie’s not making me feel any better, but she’s in full flow. ‘You only have to stick your head round the door of the wine bar at six thirty every night. More hedge fund managers than you can shake a stick at. Technology entrepreneurs who look like they’re not old enough to drink. You know, the clever boys who’ve just sold their businesses to Google for more money than I’ll earn in a lifetime. Accompanied by supermodels who make me want to slit my throat. Especially when I spot them running up the hill, chased by their hot personal trainers. And the expats, of course. Sometimes on the streets of Primrose Hill, you’d think the first language is Russian.’

  ‘But your business is doing all right?’ I ask.

  ‘Touch wood.’ Julie places a hand on my desk, almost dropping the roses as she does so. ‘Thanks to the fact that so many people think of flowers as part of their interior design schemes. And the ladies who send flowers to one another on a regular basis, like they’re playing pass the parcel, bless their little Amex gold cards. I do pretty well with weddings, too. Mostly second-timers and third-time-luckies. But not so often with the funerals. Not compared to other florists.’ Julie stops to think. ‘Noggsie’s the only funeral we’ve done all year.’

  ‘In that case, we must be due for another one soon,’ Edo says. He might have been tapping away on his phone, but he’s evidently been listening carefully. ‘Statistically speaking, of course.’

  Julie gives a superstitious shudder. ‘I’d better get back. Only popped in to give these to you.’ She places the yellow roses into my hands.

  ‘There’s no need!’ I protest.

  ‘Oh, they’re not from me. I’m just the messenger.’

  Inside the small envelope there’s a handwritten note.

  Hope you’re alive and well! Let’s have supper the week after next. Can you do the Wednesday, 8pm at the Blueberry Café? Kelli xxx.

  Dad would be so jealous.

  17

  In the aftermath of what I’ve come to think of as #Kelligate, I’ve had plenty of time on my hands to meet the needs of anyone who requires a funeral. An entire week. And – as always – no takers. Yet I think I’ve spent my time wisely because you sometimes have to slow down before you can speed up.

  My inspiration has come from Dad

  Being ex-navy he’s always impeccably organised and I’ve heard him talk on several occasions about the soldier who jumped on his horse and rode off in all directions.

  With this in mind, I abandoned my usual routine – rushing round the neighbourhood with my thrown-together leaflets, posting a few random tweets, then polishing every inch of every skirting board in the shop and generally chasing my tail into a whirlwind of panic because the customers still aren’t coming – and backtracked instead.

  I forced myself to sit quietly and focus on the reasons why my business has failed to take off. And, in the end, I realised the answer was as simple as it was complicated. People don’t understand what I’m offering.

  With my old employers, this was never an issue. The shop in Queen’s Park was part of the neighbourhood furniture with a reputation that had been built up decade by decade. People were familiar with its presence and there was never any hostility.

  Whereas in Primrose Hill … I mustn’t get things out of proportion. It’s probably only Zoe Banks who actively resents the sudden appearance of Happy Endings – and her extreme response is most likely the result of being too scared to confront what my shop’s presence signifies. Everyone is going to die,

  Anyway, I arrive at the shop this morning before eight o’clock, feeling enthusiastic. Optimistic, even. I need to stop feeling apologetic about the nature of my business. It’s my immediate job to make sure the neighbourhood understands what I’m offering – or would like to offer – and why it’s a little bit different. Sure, I can organise a traditional religious funeral, and if that’s what someone wants, I’ll gladly do it – won’t I just! – but times are changing. Funerals, too. And from now on, I’m going to make sure Happy Endings gets the message across about the end-of-life choices that are available to us all.

  Put it this way. I didn’t know I wanted a red silk skater dress until I noticed one on Oxford Street when I was passing H&M. That was my lightning-bolt moment, when I decided to junk my own display of tasteful yet innovative cremation urns and replace them with a more arresting window display.

  Or to put it another way, today is the day death comes out of the closet. Yes, it’s Sunday but I can’t wait to get started so I make myself a quick coffee, park it on my desk, then return to the basement to fetch my recent purchases. For two days, I ran around London like one of those manic candidates on The Apprentice doing the scavenger hunt challenge, collecting everything I needed and haggling for the best prices.

  Now I begin by carefully unpacking a large flatscreen TV and bolting it onto its stand. After a couple of false starts, followed by a sausage roll from a family pack I’ve been keeping in the fridge (I’ve graduated to the Comfort Eater’s Diet, with exactly the results you would imagine) and a YouTube tutorial that guides me through the set-up, I’ve got the new TV sitting in the shop window, facing outwards, with an onscreen message announcing it’s connected to an equally new DVD player.

  I insert one of the discs that arrived yesterday into the DVD player, then press a couple of buttons on the handset that comes with it.

  Success!

  For less than five hundred quid I’ve built myself what Edo would call a moving installation. Or, in my language, I’ve now got the beginnings of an attention-grabbing window display. At least, I hope so.

  Let’s take a look. I go outside into the street and pretend to be a passer-by. Yep, that picture on the TV is definitely going to get noticed and hopefully stop people in their tracks. I stand and watch a mini-movie unfold.

  It begins with a beaming infant, dressed in white. The image morphs into a schoolboy, all big grin and missing front teeth. Now he’s a teenager with a helmet of blond hair accompanied by a sulky expression. But adolescence is fleeting. Two seconds pass and the boy becomes a man. He looks confident and happy and I wonder if he’s posing for his student ID card. The picture’s so sharp I can see he’s wearing eyeliner. I bet his mother loved that! Now the image of a startlingly handsome thirtysomething fills the screen but before you know it the hairline is receding. Next, dressed in an expensive jacket, shirt and tie, the man is suddenly my senior. A few seconds mo
re, and the bags that appear under his eyes fill me with unexpected regret. And look! Three deep sets of frown lines beat a path across his forehead. Whatever’s happened to make his life such a disappointment as he enters middle-age? I don’t have time to dwell on it because now there’s a caption. ‘Simon.’ I read. ‘The first 49 years. Tune in for the next instalment in 2045.’ Then the screen goes blank. Until the beaming infant dressed in white reappears and the time-lapse sequence starts again.

  Amazing what you can buy these days. I have no idea how something so brilliant has been created, but I say a silent thank you to Simon – whoever he is – and his photography project and go back inside the shop. That’s phase one complete. Now for the fun stuff.

  It takes me the whole afternoon, punctuated by another trip to the park with Chopper – this time, uneventful – before I’m satisfied. When I’m finally finished, my shop window is beyond transformed and Simon’s changing face is a perfect backdrop to my collection of props.

  I hadn’t realised what a tight squeeze it would be to get everything in, but the vintage bike that came from a cycle shop on the Old Kent Road looks even better than I’d hoped with its fresh coat of black paint and newly white-walled tyres. It sits securely on a kick-back stand and is ridden by a life-sized skeleton I saw advertised on Gumtree. (One previous owner, who decided to study physics rather than medicine, persuaded to take fifty quid in cash when I met him at Colliers Wood for the handover. And yes, I did get a lot of strange looks when I brought it back here via the Northern Line.) The skeleton is dressed in a flowing black gown with a red lining that I discovered hanging from a rail in Camden Market and his costume is completed by a dented top hat and a jaunty bowtie.

  How do you get a skeleton to ride a bike? With difficulty. It took two tubes of superglue to secure the skeleton’s feet to the bicycle pedals, make sure his hands gripped the handlebars and get his bony backside stuck firmly in the saddle. Then his skull had to be fixed to the top hat, by way of three transparent strings attached to a window pillar, and tugged tight to make sure he has perfect posture. I pull back the gown to reveal the skeleton’s naked right forearm, then turn my attention to the next element of my window display.

  Getting the long brown cardboard tube to sit securely in the bike’s front basket proves tricky but eventually I manage it. Another trip into the street – it’s turning into a glorious evening – and I’m well pleased. This is even better than I’d hoped. The words on the tube are nice and clear. ‘Imagine you could come back to life through nature’. And underneath, in a smaller but still easily visible font, ‘This cremation urn will transform you into a maple tree’.

  My final task is to fix a narrow black and white banner along the bottom of the shop window.

  TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY FUNERALS

  Meaningful ceremonies that reflect the life the passions and the personality of someone you loved

  I go back outside to admire my day’s work. Have I overdone it? Simon’s ever-changing face is intriguing and almost hypnotic. The skeleton on the bike should raise a smile. The biodegradable cremation urn echoes the trend for greener funerals. And the banner, while understated, leaves no room for doubt about the nature – or approach – of my business.

  ‘Justin, look! That’s so cool!’

  I jump at the sound of a strange voice.

  Standing behind me, a woman has paused to take a closer look at my window display. She’s pointing at the cremation urn.

  The man gives her a hug. ‘I think you’re more weeping willow than maple tree,’ he teases.

  ‘No! Have me turned into a cherry blossom.’

  ‘That’s easily done.’ I’ve interrupted their conversation but neither seems to mind.

  ‘Really?’ The woman is intrigued. ‘So how does it work?’

  ‘The ashes go in first,’ I say. ‘Then you add soil, fertiliser, and the sapling of your choice, before planting the whole thing.’

  ‘So long-term, we could replace cemeteries with forests,’ the man muses. ‘Plant generations of a family together somewhere beautiful.’

  ‘And prove there’s life after death.’ The woman’s tone is more playful. She turns to face me. ‘It’s your shop?’

  ‘Yes.’ Across the road I notice Barclay sitting at the café sipping a cold drink and chatting animatedly with a beautiful woman who looks to be in her early twenties.

  Oh.

  So he’s got a girlfriend. Maybe even a wife. He’s also got a huge red kite – almost the size of a hang-glider – which is attracting plenty of attention from passers-by, not least because the words ‘I’ve never flown a kite’ are written on it and it’s blocking half the pavement.

  With difficulty, I focus on the woman next to me. The potential cherry blossom.

  ‘I keep telling Justin we need to make our wills,’ she’s saying. ‘But it’s one of those things we never get round to. Anyway, brilliant shop window. And it’s good to know funerals don’t have to be all about religion. You know, with vicars who don’t even know how to say your name properly. That’s what happened to my aunt. Her name was spelled R-O-I-S-I-N, and you're supposed to say Rosheen. But the stupid vicar turned her into a raisin.’ The woman glances at her watch. ‘We’re going to be late for hot yoga,’ she says. ‘But good to meet you. And you should enter your window in a competition or something. I bet you’d win.’

  ‘Glad you like it.’

  That’s the most positive conversation I’ve ever had about my business with anyone who is neither friend nor family. Please let it be a turning point.

  I watch the happy couple stroll towards the hill. They pass the café where Barclay was sitting just a few moments ago. He’s no longer there. Wife … girlfriend … whatever. I’m not going to let it spoil my day.

  He was obviously just being polite when he offered to take me to lunch. And since I’ve forced myself onto a new diet that consists mostly of butternut squash and eggs I’d be a difficult date anyway.

  I banish Barclay from my mind and drift back inside Happy Endings on a little cloud of happiness. I’ve achieved so much today. Just one funeral, that’s all I need. Well, obviously not all I need but it would be a start. From now on I’m going to maintain the faith, spend more time building my brand and do plenty of positive thinking. In fact, I’ll get started right away and map out the content I need for my website. I’m going to build it myself, which means I’ll learn a whole new set of skills – and save a whole lot of money. In which case … maybe I will buy that red skater dress. It’s been weeks since I allowed myself the luxury of new clothes.

  Instead of building my business, I find myself checking whether the dress is available online, when I hear a text arriving on my phone. I fish it out of my bag.

  Barclay.

  Good to see you working on a Sunday. You looked too busy to interrupt. Let’s have our business lunch next Friday, OK? Bx

  Three minutes later and I’ve bought the red skater dress, feeling only moderately guilty about this misuse of Dad’s money.

  I spend the next twenty minutes overanalysing Barclay’s text. Business, he says. Well that’s okay. I can do that. Even if he is married. I’m pondering the significance of the ‘x’ when the sound of the shop doorbell startles me.

  I look up from my computer half-expecting to see Barclay. But no. It’s a man who looks vaguely familiar. It takes me a moment to place him. That’s right. Ned Newman. Mrs Happy’s husband. I saw them together the other day in the pharmacy, where she was complaining about the quality of her eyedrop medication.

  Ned Newman is peering impatiently through the shop door, and from the sour expression on his face, I don’t think he’s come to congratulate me on my window display.

  The moment I open up, he thrusts a white envelope into my hands.

  ‘For you.’

  ‘Um, thank you. What is it?’

  Ned looks shifty. ‘Business correspondence.’

  ‘About?’

  ‘About the roof. We had anothe
r big leak through our upstairs ceiling last night. The roofer’s done his best, but we’ve had to put down buckets all over the bedroom floor. The whole thing needs to be replaced as soon as possible. It’s all in there.’ Ned gestures at the envelope in my hands.

  ‘I still don’t see why it’s anything to do with me. As I told Mrs H … your wife, I’m sure it’s my landlord you should be talking to. Noggsie’s son.’

  ‘Read the letter and get back to us.’ Without wasting any further words on me, Ned turns away.

  I stand and watch as he goes outside and gets into the passenger seat of a white van. The words ‘Sheet Hot Roofing’ are written on its side.

  18

  ‘Look, here’s my bomb! What do you think?’

  My response is to anxiously scan the café in case someone’s overheard what Gloria said. We’re having breakfast across the street from Happy Endings because there’s something she wants to celebrate with me. Thankfully no-one’s looking nervously at our table even though Gloria has now produced what is unmistakably a bomb-shaped item – round with a fuse, like something you’d see in a cartoon –from her bag.

  She places it proudly on the table and taps the rust-coloured outer covering with her index finger. ‘It’s made from recycled paper shell,’ she says. ‘We fill them with organic peat-free compost, and a gram of wildflower seeds.’

  ‘Who’s we?’

  ‘My guerrilla gardening group. With a bit of help from Edo. He designed the bomb mould.’

  ‘So how does it work?’

  ‘You have to soak it first. Then throw it high in the air. Like a grenade.’ Gloria grins. ‘After a few weeks, you get billowing flowers wherever the seeds land. That’s the theory, anyway. I’m going to experiment by lobbing a couple over the fence to brighten up that hideous piece of waste ground next to the school.’