by Allyson Bird
It did not take long to arrange the white roses and light the four candles. Two of the four funeral directors left, leaving Frances and Gerald. Vince swallowed and almost wished that Frances would stick around a little longer. He was not looking forward to spending seven days with a corpse, even if it was mild mannered Mary.
Gerald stepped forwards and took a screwdriver from his pocket. Puzzled, Vince looked across at Frances. She simply shrugged. Gerald started unscrewing the casket lid.
“Whoa, what’s going on here?”
“Another little stipulation, Mr. Taylor,” she replied.
“What stipulation?”
“An open casket for the next seven days.”
“Christ, you have to be kidding, right?”
Gerald spoke for the first time. “We don’t usually joke about these things, sir.”
Well, not in front of the customer, thought Vince. Lord knows what they get up to behind closed doors.
It didn’t take long to get the lid off. Vince crept closer; after all he was an educated man and knew they put make-up on bodies—right?
Wrong.
Mary looked terrible. He saw her face briefly as the casket lid was removed but then a froth of white burst forth, like an airbag in a very bad accident. Mary was wearing the horrible wedding dress that she wore on their wedding day, the one that meringued and then settled into a stiff bell shape. Now, it threatened to show all underneath. She looked very undignified.
It was the undertakers turn to look uncomfortable. Gerald glowered at his sister. “I thought you had sorted that?”
Frances stifled a giggle. “I have some tape in the hearse. I’ll have it sorted in a jiffy.” She ran out of the room and Vince thought he could hear her suppressed laughter in the hall and all the way down the icy path. She returned in a few moments with some white tape, having managed to composed herself. Gerald held the stiff taffeta down whist Frances went to work with the tape. Vince looked on in disbelief as they tried to tape the dress around Mary’s ankles, with very little success.
Astounded at what he saw Vince shook his head. “Just a suggestion, but wouldn’t be an idea to remove the hoop underskirt?”
“Ah, well—I think we might have to.” Both of the funeral directors were growing more flustered as the dress kept bouncing up and slapping them in the face. Frances finally removed the hoop underskirt as Gerald held up Mary’s grey legs. Vince tried not to notice the creaking of limbs. With the aplomb of a magician’s assistant Frances presented the hoop skirt.
“Right, now we can go.”
“Just like that?” Vince stared at the body of his dead wife. Mary looked like she had been dead for several weeks and the cold weather hadn’t done her any favours either.
“I have to spend seven days and seven nights in the house with—with that?”
No answer.
“I need a drink.”
Vince helped himself to the bourbon as Frances moved to the front door.
“Mr. Taylor, I’ll leave you with my phone number in case the flowers die. See you in a week.”
“Is—is she going to be all right like, like that? For a week?”
Frances smiled. “Keep the heating turned off in that room and she’ll be just fine. It’s going to be five-below tonight.”
Vince was anything but fine. He was exhausted and found himself wandering around with a full glass all afternoon. He turned the heating down in the parlour and lowered the temperature in the rest of the house as well. It grew dark early and as darkness descended he grew more and more uncomfortable. He couldn’t eat…but what he could do was drink—and he did—until he collapsed in a heap on the bed.
At precisely 3 a.m. Vince awakened with a start and his head felt as though it was going to crack open like an egg into a frying pan. He stumbled downstairs to check on Mary; the candles had gone out.
“Aw, what the fuck,” he mumbled as he lit them again.
“They w-went out w-whilst you were a-a-sleep.”
Vince froze. It was Mary’s voice.
“Sweet Jesus, I’m going mad,” he said.
He crept up to the casket and peered at his wife.
“I s-said you—”
Vince jumped at the sight of her mouth creaking open and nearly shat himself.
“You let th-th-them go out,” she said, obviously having great difficulty speaking (he supposed, crazily, what with her being dead and all).
It took a few seconds for Vince to register what was happening.
“You bitch. You’re not going to get the better of me. You’re supposed to be dead!”
“D-dead?” said Mary. Her filmed eyes tried to focus upon him.
“Yes, dead. Dead so you don’t embarrass me anymore, dead so I don’t have to go to bed with a fucking corpse.”
Mary’s tight grin became wider and Vince fled the room.
“I’ll teach you to mock me. You just watch, I’ll get through this week and I’ll get your money.”
Vince knew exactly where to look. He fumbled through her dresser until he found Mary’s sewing basket. He needed a stout needle and thick cotton thread; his hands were shaking as he threaded the needle.
“Right. I’ll soon sort this out,” he said as she tried to speak again.
He was clumsy with the first few stitches but the rest went in just fine. Vince took a swig from the bourbon bottle, stood back and admired his handiwork. The horror of what he had done struck him at that moment. He had used black cotton. Mary now looked like some patchwork doll that had misbehaved and then some peevish child had put some gigantic oversized stitches on her. Vince then ran back to her dresser and found a piece of cloth left over from the Brother Rabbit curtains. He rushed back and placed it over her face, like some naughty child covering up his trouble, and then threw himself into an armchair. It was at this point that Vince got very, very drunk and became oblivious to everything until the morning.
With a head that pounded like a thousand Hiroshima bombs all exploding at once, Vince woke up. It was well into the morning. Tuesday. It was only Tuesday and he had the whole week to go. He was still in his nightmare situation—and Mary was still there in her nightmare situation too. She still had the remnant of the Brother Rabbit patterned cloth on her face, which Vince was most definitely not going to remove. He might have the biggest hangover in all creation but he was still well aware of what he had done.
He rubbed the stubble on his chin, lit the pillar candles (which had gone out, again), checked that the white roses were still fine, left and locked the room. Frances had given him a copy of the instructions that his wife had written before her death. He took them upstairs, placed them on the dressing table, and then had a shower.
As the day grew shorter he began to feel a little better. No matter what happened next, he was not going to leave the house and lose his fortune. He had enough supplies in the freezer and what he didn’t have, he could always ring out for. In fact, if he wanted, he could have one of those Chinese takeaways that his wife would not have in the house when she was alive.
By the time it got really dark he was feeling much, much better. He had eaten his Chinese, and not bothered to clear up after himself either. Mary would not have liked that, he thought, and grinned. Just before midnight he was ready for bed and he definitely was not going to unlock the parlour and check on the candles. Who would know if he let them go out anyway?
Vince was woken from a heavy sleep by the slamming of a door. He was sure that he had made certain both the front and the back door were locked. He could see that the moon was full. He was about to close the curtains when he saw Mary, in her white wedding dress, with her mouth all sewn shut—hanging out the washing.
This was all too much for Vince. He staggered down the stairs to the back door and flung it open. He did not shout. He said in a low voice. “Mary! Mary!” He tried to attract her attention—the attention of a corpse.
Mary carried on hanging out her washing, standing in the snow, as if the sun was
shining brightly. She had found one of her pink, floor-length nightgowns and was stiffly hanging it on the line. In the light of the doorway Vince imagined his silhouette could be clearly seen. Mary turned her head and as the light from the kitchen behind him fell upon her face he could see that she had been trying to unpick the stitches on her mouth.
Vince checked out the neighbourhood, looking across at the nearest neighbour’s house. Shit! How could he forget who lived there?! The house belonged to Geoff Newbury, the coroner—what would he say if he saw the corpse he had pronounced dead a few days earlier, hanging the washing out on her line? How was he to get her to come in? In fact, the answer came straight away as Mary pegged out the last of his socks on the line, picked up the basket with an awful snapping of…something…and made her way back to the house.
Now what should I do? he thought. Then it came to him: if she has no hands, she can’t do anything.
For some reason, known only to the dead Mary, she preferred the comfort of her casket to sitting on her sofa and it was there that she headed. As she passed Vince, who pulled away from the smell of embalming fluid, she whispered in his ear, through the side of her mouth where she had worked the stitches loose.
“C-Candles, Vince. C-Candles.”
“Shit! Fuck the candles. Get inside quick, before anyone sees you.”
It took a long time for Mary to get back to her casket, appearing happy to have finished one task. She found the matches and attempted to light her candles.
“Aw, for fuck’s sake Mary—leave the damn things alone.”
Vince grabbed the matches and lit the candles. Addled, Mary managed to get back inside the casket, unaided.
She didn’t even wince when Vince found his old butcher tools in the cellar and cut her hands off. Before he went to bed that next night he placed her hands next to her feet at the bottom of the coffin.
“There, that’ll stop you fiddling with things tonight,” he said smugly.
Vince had ordered in a whole case of bourbon to get him through the week. He had opened another bottle before his little operation, to steady his nerves. As he got into bed a blizzard blew in and the snow began piling up in a drift at the back door, as if it didn’t want Mary to get out again either.
At precisely 3 a.m. he felt the bedclothes moving and could feel something cold fumbling against his skin. He sat up and in a drunken stupor and reached for the lamp. As light flooded the room he saw Mary clutching the covers of his bed in the stumps where her hands should have been.
Vince nearly hit the ceiling as he jumped out of bed. “Ah, man—that’s gross,” he said. “Shit—you can’t have been trying to get into bed with me, that’s just wrong!”
With all the charm of a partially preserved corpse Mary gave him that half-stitched smile again.
“Now listen, Mary, get back to your casket—or I’ll give up on the money and leave you here on your own—got it—all alone?”
His threat seemed to do the trick, for Mary stopped smiling, manoeuvred her way to the stairs and descended them with great difficulty. At one point Vince had to catch hold of her wedding gown to stop her falling. Once she was in her casket he turned to the bottle again and spent much of the next day drunk, and cursing his luck.
“She ain’t going to get the better of me, she just ain’t.”
Vince looked her up and down where she lay, still and quiet in her casket. He checked her hands were still there, next to her feet. He rubbed his chin, thinking about what to do next. “You can’t walk if you don’t have feet, right?” Out came his old butcher tools again.
Nothing happened that night. But Vince was so out of it with the alcohol he had necked that night, that a noise loud enough to wake the dead would not have awakened him. At daybreak he stumbled down the stairs, unlocked the parlour door and entered the room. Mary was quiet. He had found another pair of William Morris curtains (Mary had changed the pattern every two years when she had the parlour decorated), and placed one of them over her, up to her neck where she lay in the casket. This pattern was called African Marigold and she had been quite proud of the imitation Prussian blue dye that had been used in the making of it.
“Right, no mouth to talk with, no hands to mess with, and no feet to walk away with, well—guess that just about wraps it up, Mary—just a few more days to go and you’ll be in the ground and I’ll be the richer for it.”
The days were turning into one, long, drunken nightmare for Vince. He was at a bottle day and night and he had no trouble getting through them now that Mary couldn’t move. But something was bugging Vince—he just couldn’t put his finger on it. It was in the late afternoon of no particular day (he’d lost count), that the door bell rang.
Vince answered it and was greeted by a young woman with an enormous bunch of white roses. The girl silently handed him a card. On it, in Mary’s own handwriting, were the words:
By now it will be the sixth day since I was laid out and the day before the funeral. You will need the fresh roses now because the bouquet of the first day will be a bit faded and I want everything to look great for tomorrow.
Your devoted wife, Mary.
And by the way I want one rose to be placed in my hands for when the family comes round to pay their respects before the funeral.
“Shit,” was all Vince was capable of saying to that as he slammed the door, put his back against it and slipped down to the floor with the enormous bunch of roses still in his hands. He only hoped he could come up with a solution to the problem that bits of Mary were in the four corners of the casket. He was thinking hard on how he could get away with keeping the casket open and still get the money.
“Christ, how can I place a rose in her hands? They’re at the bottom of her feet?”
Vince had to admit it wasn’t going well at all; only twenty-four hours to go and he had messed up, big style. How on earth was he going to get his money now? He struggled to his feet and made himself exchange the faded roses for the fresh ones, making sure they had enough water to get through the next twenty-four hours. Then Vince turned to the bourbon that was going to get him through the next twenty-four hours.
He looked across at Mary’s face, covered with the Brother Rabbit cloth, and at her body with the African Marigold curtain—Now what? he thought.
Before he had time to think much more about the mess he was in there came another knock at the door. He hesitated, thought ‘Fuck it!’ and opened the door. Before him was Frances St. Germaine, dressed in her smart business suit, white shirt and black tie.
“Good morning Mr. Taylor. I thought I would drop by and see if you are ready for tomorrow?” she didn’t fail to notice the bourbon bottle in his hand. “May I come in?”
Vince started to sob but he let her in. He pointed at the parlour door.
“You might as well see. I ain’t going to get the money now anyway.”
Frances entered the parlour, noticed that the candles had gone out but was pleased how beautiful the white roses looked. Then she looked into the casket.
“Why is your wife covered with—?” She took away the Brother Rabbit cloth and saw Mary’s black cotton mouth, with the stitches slightly unravelled at one side.
Frances turned to look at Vince, who shrugged through his blubbering.
“Did you do this?”
Vince nodded, and sniffed. “She just wouldn’t shut up. I had to do it—she was walking and talking, and driving me mad.” Vince flopped into the armchair. “What’s the use—who would believe me?”
The Brother Rabbit cloth was placed back over Mary’s face. “I believe you,” Francis admitted, shivering nevertheless.
“What? You do—why?”
“Because I saw someone do all that once before.”
“Who?”
“Miriam Newbury. When I was preparing her body for the funeral, she sat right up and talked to me.”
“She did?” Vince stopped snivelling.
“She told me who killed her.”
“Who?”
“The same man that killed Mary. Both women rose before their burial. They were killed by the same man, but I wouldn’t know how to go about proving that.”
Frances uncovered Mary. She was horrified when she saw where Vince had placed his wife’s feet and hands.
Just then there was a knock at the door.
“What am I going to do?” Vince clawed at his hair.
“I’m not going to cover up what you have done,” said Frances.
Frances opened the door and let the sheriff in. As he walked down the hall, Vince practically blocked him.
“Tell him Frances. Tell him what you told me about the dead women talking.”
“Now Vince, calm down,” said Jake, “What’s with who talking?”
Frances took Jake into the parlour and showed him poor Mary. He looked Frances straight in the eye and shook his head.
“Will you do what you can for Mary?”
“I will. I’ll try to put it right but it will be a closed casket before the funeral.”
That just set Vince to wailing one more time. Within seconds the sheriff was marching Vince out the door, into the car and off through the melting snow to the Madison County Law Enforcement Centre. Jake took Vince away and left Frances to make all the arrangements. She looked down at poor Mary. “Who would believe me if I told, Mary? Who would believe me?”
The funeral was a strange affair, as lavish as Mary had planned, and those who had paid their respects at the house marvelled at the gold and white casket with the lid firmly closed. They loved the tall pillar candles and the beautiful white roses, and even Mary’s William Morris Brother Rabbit curtains. Frances thought that they were hideous and in very bad taste, but, what did her opinion matter?
The snow had almost disappeared, much to the relief of the gravedigger though not because the ground would have been hard but because he hated the cold. After the brief graveside service the few mourners drifted away. Frances stayed until they left. She stood a little away from the sheriff and Coroner Newbury.
