Something to Live For

by Richard Roper

  “You all right?” she said when she’d caught up with him.

  Andrew cleared his throat. “Yes, fine,” he said. “Thought I might have a migraine coming on, but thankfully not.” He nodded back at the builder. “What were you talking to him about?”

  “Oh,” Peggy said, still seeming distracted with concern for him, “he made some unsolicited comments about my appearance so I took the time to explain that I sensed a deep, unquenchable sadness in his eyes. Are you sure you’re okay, though?”

  “Yes, fine,” Andrew said, realizing too late that his arms were rigid at his sides, like a toy soldier’s.

  They set off again, and even though he braced himself, the distant crash of rubble still made him jump.

  * * *

  —

  The deceased’s flat was part of the Acorn Gardens estate. The name was written in white on a green sign featuring the names of the various blocks on the estate: Huckleberry House, Lavender House, Rose Petal House. Underneath that someone had spray-painted “Fuck cops,” and underneath that a sketch of a cock and balls.

  “Blimey,” Peggy said.

  “It’s okay. I’ve actually been here before, I think. Nobody bothered me that time so I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Andrew said, in part trying to reassure himself.

  “Oh no, I’m sure it will be. I just meant that.” Peggy nodded at the sketch. “Impressive detail.”

  “Ah, right. Yes.”

  As they walked through the estate Andrew noticed people closing their windows and parents calling their kids inside, as if it were a Western and he was an outlaw hell-bent on chaos. He just hoped his attempted friendly smile conveyed the fact it was a coverall and some Febreze in his bag, rather than a shotgun.

  The flat was on the first floor of Huckleberry House. Andrew paused at the bottom of the concrete steps and turned to face Peggy.

  “How much detail has Cameron gone into with you about what happens at the property inspections?” he said.

  “Not a huge amount,” Peggy said. “It would be great if you could fill me in a bit more. Because I’ll level with you, Andrew, I’m ever-so-slightly completely bloody terrified.” She laughed nervously. Andrew dropped his gaze. Part of him wanted to laugh along to reassure her, but at the same time he was aware that if there were any neighbors or friends of the deceased watching it wouldn’t look very professional. He squatted and reached into his bag.

  “Here you go,” he said, handing Peggy a pair of surgical gloves and mask. “So, the deceased’s name is Eric White. He was sixty-two. The coroner referred the death to us because from what they can tell from the initial search by police there’s no obvious sign of a next of kin. So we’ve got two goals today: firstly to piece together as much as we can about Eric and find out if there really isn’t a next of kin, and secondly to try and work out if he’s got enough money to pay for the funeral.”

  “Wow, okay,” Peggy said. “And what’s the going rate for a funeral these days?”

  “It depends,” Andrew said. “Average cost is about four thousand. But if the deceased hasn’t got any sort of estate, and no relatives or anyone else willing to pay for it, then the council are legally obliged to bury them. Without frills—no headstone, flowers, private plot and the like—that’s about a grand.”

  “Jeez,” Peggy said, snapping a glove on. “Does that happen a lot—the council doing that?”

  “Increasingly,” Andrew said. “In the last five years or so there’s been about a twelve percent increase in public health funerals. More and more people are passing away on their own, so we’re always busy.”

  Peggy shivered.

  “Sorry, I know it’s a bit bleak,” Andrew said.

  “No, it’s that expression—‘pass away.’ I know it’s meant to soften the blow, but it just seems so, I dunno, flimsy.”

  “I agree, actually,” Andrew said. “I don’t usually say it myself. But sometimes people prefer it described that way.”

  Peggy cracked her knuckles. “Ah, you’re all right, Andrew. I’m quite hard to shock. Ha—cut to me in five minutes’ time legging it out of here.” From the couple of wafts Andrew had already smelled coming through the door, he wouldn’t be at all surprised if that was what happened. What was the protocol then? Would he have to chase after her?

  “So what else did the coroner have to say about this poor chap?” Peggy asked.

  “Well, the neighbors realized they hadn’t seen him for a while and called the police, who forced entry and found his body. He was in the living room and he’d been there for a while so was in a fairly bad state of decomposition.”

  Peggy reached up and twiddled one of her earrings.

  “Does that mean it might be a bit . . .” She tapped her nose.

  “Afraid so,” Andrew said. “It will have had time to air out a bit, but you can’t . . . it’s hard to explain, but . . . it’s a very specific sort of smell.”

  Peggy was starting to look a little pale.

  “But that’s where this comes in,” Andrew said quickly, holding up the aftershave, sounding unintentionally like he was in an advert. He shook the bottle and sprayed it liberally inside his mask, then did the same for Peggy, who strapped her mask over her nose and mouth.

  “I’m not entirely sure this is what Paco Rabanne had in mind,” came her muffled voice. This time Andrew smiled for real, and though Peggy’s mouth was obscured he could tell from her eyes that she was smiling back.

  “I’ve tried all sorts of different things over the years—but it’s only ever the expensive stuff that seems to work.”

  He took the keys from an envelope in his bag.

  “I’ll go and have a quick look first, if that’s okay?”

  “Be my guest,” Peggy said.

  With the key in the lock, this was usually the point where Andrew took a moment to remind himself why he was there: that he was to treat the place with as much respect as possible, no matter how bad the conditions. He was by no means a spiritual person, but he tried to make sure he carried out his work as if the deceased were watching on. On this occasion, not wanting to make Peggy any more uncomfortable than she already was, he only went through this little ritual—putting his phone on silent, too—after he’d stepped inside and shut the door gently behind him.

  When Peggy had asked him about the smell, he was glad he’d managed to censor himself. Truthfully, what she was about to experience would change her forever. Because, as Andrew had discovered, once you’ve smelled death it never leaves you. Once, not long after his first-ever house inspection, he’d been walking through an underpass and had caught the same smell of decomposition as he’d experienced at the house. Glancing to one side, he saw among the leaves and rubbish on the floor a small stretch of police tape. It still made him shudder whenever he thought about it, to feel so highly tuned to death.

  It was hard to tell from the little hallway what condition the flat was going to be in. In Andrew’s experience, the places fell into two categories: either they were immaculately clean—no dust, no cobwebs, not a thing out of place—or they were overpoweringly squalid. It was the former that Andrew found the most upsetting by far, because to him it never felt as simple as the deceased’s just being house-proud. Instead, it seemed more likely that they knew that when they died they were going to be found by a stranger and couldn’t bear the thought of leaving a mess. It was like a more extreme version of people who spent the morning feverishly tidying in preparation for the cleaner. Of course there was a certain dignity to it, but it made Andrew’s heart break to think that, for some people, the moments immediately following their death were more of a pressing concern than whatever time they had left to live. Chaos, on the other hand—clutter and filth and decay—never felt quite as upsetting. Maybe the deceased had just been unable to look after themselves properly in their last days, but Andrew liked to think that they were actually givi
ng the finger to convention. Nobody had bothered to hang around to look after them, so why should they carry on giving a shit? You can’t go gently into the good night when you’re laughing uproariously imagining some mug from the council slipping on some shit on the bathroom floor.

  The fact that he was forced to shoulder open the door to the little living room suggested this was going to be the latter of the two scenarios, and, sure enough, the smell hit him with an overwhelming intensity, greedily seeking out his nostrils. He usually refrained if possible from spraying air freshener, but to really be able to spend time there he would have to. He fired off a generous burst in each corner, picking his way through the mess, and reserved the most prolonged spray for the center of the room. He would have opened the grimy window but the key was presumably lost somewhere in all the clutter. The floor was covered by an ocean of blue corner-shop bags stuffed with empty crisp packets and cans of soft drinks. In one corner, a mound of clothes. In another, newspapers and mail, mostly unopened. In the middle of the room there was a green camping chair, a can of cherry Coke in each cup holder, opposite a television that was propped up on an uneven pile of telephone directories, so that it sloped to one side. Andrew wondered if Eric had suffered from a crick in his neck from having to angle his head at the listing screen. On the floor in front of the chair was an upturned microwave meal, yellow rice spilled all around it. That was probably where it happened. That chair. Andrew was about to make a start on the pile of mail when he remembered Peggy.

  “How is it?” she said when he stepped outside.

  “It’s pretty messy, and the smell isn’t . . . ideal. You can always wait outside if you’d prefer.”

  “No,” Peggy said, clenching and unclenching her hands at her sides. “If I don’t do it the first time then I never will.”

  She followed him into the living room, and apart from the fact she was holding her mask to her face so firmly her knuckles were faintly white, she didn’t seem too distressed. They surveyed the living room together.

  “Wow,” Peggy eventually mumbled through her mask. “There’s something so, I dunno, static about all this. It’s like the place died with him.”

  Andrew had never really thought about it that way. But there was something eerily still about it all. They reflected in silence for a moment. If Andrew had known any profound quotes about death this would have been the perfect time for one. It was then that an ice-cream van went past outside, cheerily blasting out “Popeye the Sailor Man.”

  * * *

  —

  Under Andrew’s instruction, they began to sort through all the paper.

  “So what am I actually looking for?” Peggy said.

  “Photos, letters, Christmas or birthday cards—anything that might indicate a family member, their phone number or a return address. Oh, and any bank statements so we can get a sense of his finances.”

  “And a will, presumably?”

  “Yes, that too. That usually depends on whether he’s got a next of kin. The vast majority of people without one won’t have a will.”

  “Makes sense, I guess. Here’s hoping you had a bit of cash, Eric old boy.”

  They worked methodically, Peggy following Andrew’s lead by clearing a space as best as possible on the floor and creating separate piles for documents depending on whether they contained any useful information or not. There were utility bills and a TV license reminder, along with a catalog from the official Fulham Football Club shop, scores of takeaway menus, a warranty for a kettle and an appeal from the Shelter charity.

  “I think I’ve got something,” Peggy said after twenty minutes of fruitless searching. It was a Christmas card, featuring some laughing monkeys in Christmas hats with the caption: “Chimply Having a Wonderful Christmastime!” Inside, in handwriting so small it was as if the person were trying to remain anonymous, it read:

  To Uncle Eric,

  Happy Christmas

  Love from Karen

  “He’s got a niece then,” Peggy said.

  “Looks like it. Any other cards there?”

  Peggy dug about and did her best not to flinch when a horribly dozy fly was disturbed and flew past her face.

  “Here’s another one. A birthday card. Let’s see now. Yep, it’s from Karen again. Hang on, there’s something else written here: ‘If you ever want to give me a call, here’s my new number.’”

  “There we go,” Andrew said. Ordinarily he would have called the number there and then, but he felt self-conscious with Peggy beside him so he decided to wait until they were back at the office.

  “Is that it, then?” Peggy said, making subtle movements toward the door.

  “We still need to see about his financial situation,” Andrew said. “We know he had a small amount in a current account, but there might be something else here.”

  “Cash?” Peggy said, looking around at all the mess.

  “You’d be surprised,” Andrew said. “The bedroom’s usually a good place to start.”

  Peggy watched from the doorway as Andrew headed for the single bed and dropped to his knees. The light coming from the window was catching the dust in the air. Every time he shifted on the floor another bloom of it billowed up, disturbing the rest. He tried not to grimace. This was the part that he found hardest, because it felt even more invasive to be poking around in someone’s bedroom.

  He made sure to tuck his sleeves into his protective gloves before reaching under the mattress at one end, slowly sweeping his hand along.

  “Say he does have ten grand stashed away somewhere,” Peggy said. “But he hasn’t got a next of kin. Where would the money go?”

  “Well,” Andrew said, readjusting his position, “any cash or assets he has first of all go to paying for the funeral. What’s left over is kept in the safe at the office. If nothing comes to light about someone who’s clearly entitled to the money—extended family and so on—then it goes to the Crown Estate.”

  “What, so old Betty Windsor gets her hands on it?” Peggy said.

  “Um, sort of,” Andrew said, sneezing as some dust went up his nose. He found nothing on the first sweep, but after bracing himself and reaching in further he touched something soft and lumpy. It was a sock—Fulham FC branded—and inside was a bundle of notes, mostly twenties, held in place by an elastic band. For no discernible reason the elastic band had been almost entirely colored in with blue pen. Whether it denoted something vitally important or was just an act of idle doodling, Andrew wasn’t sure. It was this kind of detail that stayed with him long afterward: odd little elements of a forgotten life, the reasons for their existence unknowable, leaving him with a subtle feeling of unresolved tension, like seeing a question written down without a question mark.

  From the amount of notes there he knew it was going to be enough for Eric to cover the cost of his funeral. It would be up to his niece how much she wanted to help out too.

  “So, is that it?” Peggy said. Andrew could tell she was now really rather keen to be outside and breathe fresh air again. He remembered that feeling from his own first time—that first gulp of polluted London air was like being reborn.

  “Yep, that’s us done.”

  He gave the place one final check in case they’d missed anything. They were just preparing to leave when they heard movement by the front door.

  The man in the hallway clearly hadn’t been expecting anyone to be there, judging from the surprise on his face and the fact he immediately took two steps back toward the door when he saw them. He was squat and noticeably perspiring—a bowling ball of a beer belly threatening to escape from under his polo shirt. Andrew braced himself for confrontation. God, how he despised encounters with these cynical, desperate opportunists.

  “You police?” the man said, eyeing their protective gloves.

  “No,” Andrew said, making himself look the man in the eye. “We’re from the co
uncil.”

  The fact the man visibly relaxed at this point—even taking a step forward—was enough for Andrew to know why he was there.

  “You knew the deceased?” he asked, trying to stand tall in the small hope the man might mistake him for a retired bare-knuckle boxer rather than someone who got vaguely out of breath watching snooker.

  “Yeah, that’s right. Eric.”

  A pause.

  “Real shame about, you know, him passing on and that.”

  “Are you a friend or relative?” Peggy said.

  The man looked her up and down and scratched his chin, as if appraising a secondhand car.

  “Friend. We were tight. Really tight. We went way back.”

  As the man went to smooth what remained of his greasy hair against his head, Andrew noticed his trembling hand.

  “How long we talking?” Peggy said.

  Andrew was glad Peggy was taking the lead. The way she spoke, the steeliness of her voice, sounded much more authoritative.

  “Oh, blimey, there’s a question. A long old time,” the man said. “You lose track of these things, don’t you?”

  Apparently confident that Peggy and Andrew weren’t anything to worry about, he was now distracted by trying to look past them into the living room. He took another step forward.

  “We were just about to lock up,” Andrew said, showing the key in his hand. The man eyed it with barely concealed magpie-like intent.

  “Right, yeah,” the man said. “I was just here to pay my respects and whathaveyou. As I say we were good mates. I don’t know if you found a will or anything . . .”