“Hello?” came a female voice over the intercom. I opened my eyes and moved closer to the buzzer, any notions of sleep fast disappearing.
“Mrs. Wright, it’s Paddy Buckley from Gallagher’s.”
The door in the wall vibrated.
I pushed it open and walked across a little stone garden to be met at the sliding doors by a woman dressed in a dark green cashmere skirt and jacket, and a crimson silk blouse. She had her hair up in a loose bun and wore reading glasses over baby-blue eyes. I gauged her age to be early fifties. In a certain light, she might even pass for late forties. She offered her hand.
“Hi,” she said in a soft English accent, “I’m Lucy.”
I took her hand in mine. “Paddy.”
“Come in, Paddy,” she said, while moving back from the door. I stepped over the threshold and watched her slide the door closed.
“Let me take your coat.”
I took it off and handed it to her. She had a gracious quality about her, particularly apparent when she moved. She hung the coat up and led me into the kitchen where I sat down at the table. She leaned on the back of a chair briefly, with the hint of a smile.
“Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?”
I let a little smile settle in around my eyes.
“A cup of tea would be lovely,” I said, and opened my briefcase, taking out an arrangement form and pen. Lucy put the kettle on and sat down in the chair next to me, not opposite or at the end of the table, but right beside me. The atmosphere in the house was a relaxed one. The kitchen had a bohemian character, and the fixtures, cupboards, and tiles were of another time, a forgotten era of quality and craftsmanship. There were framed oil paintings and curious mementos littering the room, and a wooden antique clock above the doorway. The farmhouse table we sat at was bathed in sunlight and pretty shadows from the philodendrons growing on the sill beside the sink. Whether she was aware of it or not, Lucy had a soothing effect. She made me feel comfortable in a way that had me wondering if the warm breeze had followed me in.
“You’re not in a rush, are you?” she asked.
“Not at all,” I said. Expressing the company’s sadness for the loss a family had experienced was something I normally didn’t do. If it had been a child who had died, I would have, because of the intensity of the loss and grief. But with someone who’d run the full course of life, it was different. To extend sympathy to a family you didn’t know when you were charging them for your services could be perceived through a cynical lens as feigned or insincere, though, of course, I was sympathetic to their loss: This was evident in my thoughtful manner and dealings with them.
Lucy considered me for the first time.
“You have kind eyes, Paddy,” she said, making me melt more into my seat. “They cancel out the roguishness in your smile.”
“Not completely,” I said, letting it surface briefly. I could quite happily listen to her talk in that accent all day long.
“You’ll have to tell me how a funeral works over here. I’ve buried both my parents in London, but I understand things work a little differently in Dublin.”
“They do. Tell me, was Michael Catholic or Church of Ireland?”
“Catholic.”
“Are you thinking of using St. Mary’s on Haddington Road?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. The funeral is usually made up of two parts: the removal the evening before and the funeral itself the following morning. Would you like to bring Michael home from the hospital, or do you think you’d prefer to remove him to the church from one of our funeral homes?”
“Oh,” said Lucy, as she took her glasses off, resting the end of one of the temples between her teeth while looking off to her left, unaware of me studying her. She was utterly feminine and, in any man’s book, beautiful. Her gaze lent the mundane and ordinary an intimate quality, imbued by a subtly seductive charisma.
“Let’s bring him back here,” she said, looking directly at me.
“Perfect. This is Monday. We could bring him back to the house here in a few hours and then, if you like, we could go to the church tomorrow evening, say at about half past five?”
Lucy nodded.
“The prayers at the church last between fifteen and twenty minutes. When they’ve finished, everyone will walk up to the top pew and sympathize with you, and then we’ll bring you home afterwards. Then on Wednesday morning, I could have a car pick you up here at half past nine or so and bring you around to the church for the funeral Mass at ten o’clock. Are you happy with ten o’clock Mass?”
“Perfectly happy.”
“And then to the cemetery or crematorium, and the car will bring you home after that. That’s pretty much how it will happen.”
“Okay,” said Lucy, as she got up and moved to the counter to prepare the tea. “That all sounds pretty straightforward.” She brought the teapot and cups to the table along with the milk and sugar. She poured two cups out and settled back into her seat.
“Shall I tell you about Michael?”
“Please,” I said. Usually, when the bereaved talk about their loved one unprompted, they unwittingly give out most of the details needed, such as the deceased’s age, place and time of death, and whether or not the family have a grave. I don’t normally write anything down while they talk. I remember the relevant information and write it down afterwards.
“God, I don’t know where to start, really. First of all, this is a release for Michael, I can tell you that. He’s been in such dreadful pain for so long now that, in a strange way, I’m happy his suffering is over. He’s been in that hospital for three years. Up until seven years ago, he was as strong as an ox, so young, so free-spirited. But then he had a stroke, his first one, the first of five. Just when he’d recover from one, he’d be hit by another, paralyzing him even further. He’s only seventy-two but looks more like he’s lived a hard ninety years. And, of course, the cancer finished him. He got it only last year. When I heard that, I thought: Why is he being put through this? It’ll kill him. And it did, along with the strokes. Each one made him worse. He lost the power of speech on his third stroke. He hasn’t spoken in years. There’s only twelve years between us, Paddy, but for the last five, it was more like nursing my father than my husband . . .”
I was surprised. In a business where I learned people’s ages every day, I’d become so good at guessing them that I was seldom off by more than a year or two. Sixty years old and looking this good? It was clear that Lucy Wright had been favored by nature, having had her aging process seemingly arrested at the age of fifty. She was much too beautiful to ever have been touched by a plastic surgeon; even her hands looked like those of a younger woman. It was so remarkable I felt compelled to say something but, given my position and circumstances, I said nothing.
“The last few years, Paddy, have been so difficult. To watch him deteriorate like that, unable to converse with him, wondering if he’s able to hear the words I whisper in his ear . . .” She stopped momentarily, bringing her hand to her mouth in an effort to calm herself. I pulled out my spare handkerchief and handed it to her. She took it and rested it against her eyes for a moment.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice trembling for the first time since we’d sat down. She cried silently for a moment.
There are a few cardinal rules in the undertaking game. One of them is to let the bereaved be bereaved. They’re supposed to be upset. Another is that the undertaker never gets upset, but remains professional at all times. Being an undertaker is like being a rock: a rock of sense in a time of confusion, a rock of dependability in a time of abandonment, a rock of sympathy, of understanding, of accommodation. But at all times detached. The undertaker is never party to the grieving process; we are there to enable the family, to facilitate them in grieving. If we become involved emotionally, then we’re of no use to the family.
I knew all this;
by now it was second nature to me. I’d never crossed the line before. But for the first time in all my years making arrangements, I felt like reaching out and taking Lucy’s hand and telling her that I understood what she was feeling, that to cry was okay. But I didn’t. I kept my hands to myself.
She pulled my handkerchief away from her eyes.
“You must go through an awful lot of hankies,” she said, and followed it with a laugh, a natural laugh that kept on going. I laughed along with her. It was a welcome release from the pain and stress of the situation, and we were both comfortable enough in each other’s company to not want to stop it. When it came to its own end, Lucy let out a sigh.
“That’s the first time I’ve laughed in such a long time.”
“Me, too,” I said.
“I don’t know how you do your job, Paddy,” she said. “Have you ever lost someone?”
I nodded.
“My wife, two years ago.” Instinctively, Lucy reached over and put her hand over mine. I opened my hand and tightened it around hers while we both looked into the pools of each other’s sorrow for a minute, saying nothing.
“Does it get easier?”
“Sometimes,” I whispered. I let the moment last another few seconds before letting go of her hand.
“But we’re here to talk about Michael,” I said, bringing it back to the business at hand. “Tell me, would you like to put a death notice in the paper?”
“Yes,” said Lucy, as she put her glasses back on. “I have this prepared here. You might have to change it a little to put it into the proper format.”
She handed it to me and I looked it over. She’d put in everything relevant: the date of death, where he was from, who he was, and the fact that he was married to Lucy and had one daughter. Save for the name and date being in the wrong place, it was perfect. Also on the piece of paper was the mobile number of the doctor Michael had been under, Dr. Brady, and the number of the grave in Glasnevin Cemetery.
“It’s perfect, just a little restructuring to do and putting the funeral arrangements along with it. Which paper would you like me to put it in?”
“The Irish Times.”
“Okay,” I said, now making a note of all these details. “How many are in that grave in Glasnevin?”
“Two, I think. Just his parents.”
“Plenty of room. Would you like any flowers, Lucy, maybe something for the top of the coffin?”
“Yes, I would. Could I have a bunch of white lilies with some green?”
“Of course. What would you like on the card? ‘In loving memory,’ or maybe something more personal?”
“Oh, let’s see, definitely something more personal . . .” She removed her glasses again and looked off out the window. A moment passed and then her emotion found its way to the surface again. She brought the hankie to her face and let it absorb the tears before taking it away, her lip quivering.
“I could have danced all night,” she managed to say.
I nodded as I watched her continue to battle her tears. I put my hand around hers and squeezed it tightly until she nodded that she was okay. I wrote the card inscription down on the sheet and decided to leave the questions for a moment.
Even though her face was tearstained and upset, Lucy remained as beautiful and graceful as when I’d first come in. She reached to the back of her head and pulled out the two pins that were holding her hair up. She gently shook her head, letting her hair loosen and fall to just below her shoulders.
“I’ve not been myself at all over the last three or four weeks. I’ve been forgetting everything: to feed the cat, what day of the week it is, and even more important things like paying credit-card bills and turning the immersion off. There’s nothing we’re forgetting, is there?”
“Did you think about how you wanted Michael dressed?”
“No, I didn’t,” she said, and got up from her chair. “Come upstairs with me and we’ll find something.”
I followed her upstairs. Because her husband had been living in the hospital for the last few years, the smell and look of the bedroom were entirely her own. It had been a while since I’d been in a beautiful woman’s bedroom. The thin white linen curtains were drawn, infusing the room with an incandescent light that pervaded every last particle of dust. As I stood behind Lucy and breathed in the air of the room, I became a little intoxicated by the sheer womanliness of it all.
The wardrobe took up a whole wall. Its doors were of the sliding kind and it was divided in the middle by a large mirror. Lucy opened the left side to reveal about twenty suits hanging neatly together and seven or eight pairs of well-polished shoes on the floor. She rested a hand on one of the jackets before dropping her head and bringing her free hand to her face. She wasn’t crying like before, but she was clearly upset. I wanted to hold her, to comfort her, to let her cry on my shoulder, but I restrained myself. Lucy dropped her hand away from the suit and started crying more openly. Then, in a single movement, she turned and rested her head on my chest, putting her arms around me and holding tightly as she continued to cry. I brought my arms up around her back and held her. I rubbed her back gently and let my face move down to the top of her head. She stopped crying after a few minutes, but she didn’t seem to want to move away.
I hadn’t been this close to a woman since Eva died, and it was beginning to take its toll. I’d found Lucy attractive the moment I’d laid eyes on her and now, having her this close to me with her hands around my waist and the smell of her perfume clouding my senses, I knew that if I didn’t get out of the embrace within another minute or so I was going to have a full-blown erection.
I moved my hand up her back and patted it a few times.
“You’re all right,” I said, but she wasn’t budging. I repeated the exercise, but still she stayed there. I felt my pulse quickening and all sorts of pleasurable rushes throughout my body, and then it happened, swelling up to being as stiff as a steel rod, it protruded away from down beside my left leg and stuck into Lucy’s waist.
She moved her head away from my chest a little and looked down. She touched it with her hand. I was overcome by a terrible sense of shame.
“Lucy, I’m dreadfully sorr—” She brought her hand to my mouth and pressed her fingers against my lips, stopping me from talking, and then moved her mouth to mine. The satisfaction rushed through me as we both settled into the kiss.
I let Lucy set the pace initially—I didn’t want to lead her into something she might later regret. The feeling of attraction, it appeared, was mutual. I ran my hands down her back as the kissing became deeper, our breathing more erratic. I unbuttoned her blouse and unzipped her skirt and felt the silky smooth skin of her hips and buttocks. She hurriedly undressed me before pushing me back on the bed. The feeling between us was primal. I looked at her as she sat astride me, taking me inside. Luscious and ripe, she was utterly gorgeous.
For the next little while, I slowly worked the rhythm to bring us both closer to climax. And then I noticed a change in her. I thought maybe I was hurting her because of the way she was groaning and grabbing my neck with every inward thrust, so I pulled back a little, but she continued even though I’d stopped going so deep. By that stage, my own horses had broken away from me and, while holding her hips, I came deep inside her. Then, as she seemed to reach orgasm herself, she opened her mouth wide as if in extreme pleasure, but made no sound. I stopped moving and studied her. She looked into my eyes and emptied her lungs with one long blow and then collapsed on top of me. And something left her. Something definite. Something infinite. Something vital. She was dead. I rolled her off me and held her face in my hands.
“Lucy?”
The notion that she’d died wasn’t one I was willing to consider. It was simply too preposterous to have happened, to even imagine.
“Lucy?” Still nothing. I checked for her pulse. There was none.
�
��LUCY?” I shook her. I shook her hard. This was absurd. It couldn’t be. But it was. It took another minute before it sank in: Lucy Wright was dead. I sat on the side of the bed with my eyes as wide open as they’d ever been. I couldn’t believe it. Lucy had gone. Passed on. Just like her husband. Just like Eva. Just like twenty-two other souls in Dublin that day. And I was alone again.
I noticed a little pill bottle on the bedside table behind the alarm clock. I picked it up and examined the label. Warfarin. It was full. My aunt had suffered from angina before she died, and she’d been taking warfarin. I checked the name. Lucy Wright. Then I heard Lucy’s voice playing back in my mind, telling me that she’d been forgetting things. Even important things, she’d said.
I put the pills back on the table and looked at Lucy’s remains. Death by fucking. There’d be no talking my way out of this one. No, Your Honor, it was her idea. Her husband had just died and she thought it would be a good idea if I followed her upstairs to her bedroom and give her the ride, make her feel a little better. No, this was something I was going to keep to myself. Forever. Nothing would be gained by telling anyone about this—at any time, for any reason. There was going to be a postmortem, that much was certain, and if they were thorough, it would be clear that she’d had sex prior to death. But one thing at a time: I had a mess to clean up.
I walked into the en suite bathroom and ran a green facecloth under the tap. I washed her genitalia thoroughly before toweling her dry. Then I dressed her. For an undertaker, dressing a remains, sometimes by yourself, is part of the job. Within five minutes, I had her dressed exactly as she’d been when she first walked into the room and had her lying on the floor as if she’d just fallen after having her heart attack. Then I fixed the bed and made sure there were no hairs left on it. I got dressed, straightened the towel in the bathroom, and brought the facecloth downstairs with me and put it in the inside pocket of my coat.
I walked back upstairs, going over the story again and again: I’d been sitting there in the kitchen with her, taking down the details, having a cup of tea, just like we had been, then when it came to the part where I asked her about the clothes, she said, “Just a minute, I’ll go and fish something out,” and then she went upstairs on her own while I went about writing everything we’d been discussing onto the arrangement form, and then after what seemed like three or four minutes, I heard a bumping noise upstairs. It sufficiently alarmed me to go up and investigate, and upon finding my way to the bedroom, I discovered Lucy’s body on the floor. I checked for a pulse, but she seemed to be dead. I came down to the kitchen and phoned the doctor immediately. It sounded a lot more plausible than what had actually happened. I ran the story around in my head until I was as familiar with it as I was with the truth.
The Last Four Days of Paddy Buckley Page 2
