The Last Minute

by Eleanor Updale

  Exchanging platitudes with the mourner outside the church, the vicar can’t quite catch whether the dead man was called Ron or Don.

  Meanwhile Stuart is balancing the risks of appearing at his interview with a loose shoelace or an even bigger split in the seat of his trousers.

  TOCK

  26 seconds to go . . .

  ‘PLEASE! ONE MOMENT . . .’ says Nick, as Janine sets about rearranging the tubs of flowers outside her shop. She doesn’t want to be rude, but she can’t bear to look him in the eye. She knows he’s got to do his job, but she has no money to spare, and his presence can only drive away trade.

  It looks like more fun on the other side of the road, outside the baker’s, where Lotte is re-enacting the Isadora Duncan scarf disaster with flamboyant gestures worthy of a silent film. Joe, the baker, is watching with an indulgent smile, unaware that his mother is calling him again.

  Janine’s mother is calling too. Janine knows she is, even though she can’t hear a thing. The old lady shouts for Janine constantly, but does not recognize her when she appears. Secretly, Janine longs for the day when a physical illness ends her mother’s mental turmoil, and Janine and Calum can start to live their own lives at last.

  ‘ . . . fantastic restaurant . . .’ Matey speaks as if he has experience of the sort of place the two friends visit on Pete’s final night out.

  Lucy is stuck just inside the newsagent’s door, behind the two women who entered the shop just before her. They are sisters with matching large rear ends. They’re bending over to rest on the low shelf of the lottery stand, and can’t help blocking her way into the narrow aisle. A garish poster above their heads shrieks that it’s a Double Rollover, with an estimated jackpot of twenty-three million pounds. Lucy can’t blame them for wanting a chance of winning that. Funny to think that a quick decision to stop and buy a ticket might change your life completely. Maybe she’ll get one herself. She suspects that Chloe’s mitten fell off beyond the lottery stand, near the parenting magazines, where she paused for an illicit read on her way round the shop earlier. She’d been scanning an article about ‘The Terrible Twos’ while twenty-three-month-old Chloe bellowed in her pushchair – desperate to get hold of a strand of tinsel dangling just out of her reach.

  Lucy is amazed that Christmas decorations still have any impact on Chloe – after all, they’ve been up since September (four months: more than a sixth of Chloe’s life!) – but now they are working their magic again, and Chloe is reaching out towards a display of chocolate Santas near the door. Lucy can’t get past the women. She can’t go round the other way, by the counter, because Stefano is standing there opening his cigarette packet, and the man with the rucksack is paying for his battery and some matches. For the first time, Lucy notices his foreign accent.

  Up in the air, the woman in seat 42C nods towards the young man by the window. His eyes are closed now, and he’s still chanting under his breath. He’s got a phone, she mouths at Donovan.

  ‘ . . . and three . . .’

  Things are getting very smelly in the launderette.

  Bottom or shoe? Stuart ponders, convinced that his decision will mean the difference between success and failure at his interview.

  TICK

  25 seconds to go . . .

  DANIEL DONOVAN HAS read about phones being used to set off bombs. He knows that, though everyone’s luggage has been scrutinized, the cargo hold may be full of commercial parcels that haven’t been checked so thoroughly. Any one of them might include a detonator waiting for a signal from a mobile, and now they’re over land on their descent to the airport, an explosion in the air would wipe out not just the people on the plane, but anyone hit by the debris below. If the man in seat 42A is a terrorist, he has to be stopped. Daniel must act. He reaches towards the oblong shape in the chanting man’s shirt pocket.

  The tale of Pete and Jack painting the town continues: ‘ . . . ordered up all . . .’ Looking down the hill, Matey sees Lorraine Lee, determinedly slogging towards him up the incline, her arms pumping, her head bobbing from side to side. Her strained face shows all the commitment of the serious runner. She’s hurting, but in a few moments she will be able to stop for her wonderful chocolate drink, and that rush of contentment that Maggie knows her exercise class could experience, too, if only they would put in a bit more effort.

  ‘ . . . and four.’

  The coach bounces to a stop, and some of the children topple over in their race to the back. Miss Hunter flips her hair, and makes her noise again: ‘Guuuurrrrrr 8C!’ but she knows she’s done it too often today, and her powers of control are on the wane. She’s taught some difficult classes in her time, but this bunch of undisciplined and ungrateful idiots are the pits. Do they really believe that she doesn’t know what they are getting up to? More likely they don’t care. She doesn’t know why she bothers, and deeply regrets being persuaded by the headmaster to stay on for another year at Heathwick School. She was quite frank with him when she went to resign in July – she’d never much liked teaching, anyway, and only stuck with it for the long holidays – but he was already in trouble for losing too many staff too quickly and, with a mixture of flattery and bullying, persuaded her to come back in the autumn. She didn’t have anything else lined up anyway, and for a brief but decisive moment she believed him when he said that things would look different after the summer break. But this will definitely be her last year. With any luck, she might be able to swing things so that this is her last school trip. If she doesn’t make a move now, she’ll end up as one of those bitter old teachers marking time on the way to retirement. Sometimes she feels like that already, though she’s only thirty-six. Flicking her hair behind her ears yet again, she looks across to the dance studio (‘ . . . and four . . .’). How she envies the women who have the time to lie down and wave their legs in the air while she has to feign interest in Shakespeare yet again. Will she ever be like the pregnant mother with the pretty little toddler she was watching a minute ago?

  Juliet Morgan stands in the café with her mug in one hand and her laptop balanced on the other. She’s struggling not to spill her coffee, or let the lid of her computer shut. If it does, she will be cut off from the Internet just seconds before the auction ends. It looks as if a table may become free just in time: the mourners are squeezing between the tables and pushchairs on their way to the door. Max is still at the window: ‘Ith wiverthin. Beep . . .’

  ‘Sorry. I’m busy,’ says Janine, pulling a few wilting leaves off some chrysanthemums, and still not looking up at Nick.

  At the cash dispenser, the taxi passenger looks at his watch.

  And up the hill, Stuart Penton practises walking backwards with dignity. If he’s sure he can leave the interview room without revealing the state of his rear end, it will be worth tying his shoelace.

  TOCK

  24 seconds to go . . .

  ON THE PLANE, the chanting man grabs Daniel Donovan’s wrist. The flight attendants at the front of the cabin, who had strapped themselves in for landing, unbuckle their seat belts.

  ‘ . . . and five . . .’

  Ritzi is still pulling. She wants to go to the park, but she’d settle for the biscuit in the pushchair. Bernie yanks at the dog’s lead while Matey carries on talking about Jack and Pete’s night of excess: ‘ . . . they could eat.’

  Young PC Lewis, rather to his own surprise, has got the cars to copy the bus by reversing, and at last there is space for Sally Thorpe to move her Mini back a little. A gap is opening up between her car and the back of the coach. The carriage driver steps ahead of Dime and Dollar, ready to lead them out into the road when the space is wide enough for the hearse to come through.

  In the café, Juliet inches carefully towards the empty table.

  Miss Hunter is flicking her hair behind her ears again, still pondering the future. Maybe she should just drop everything – do something bold for once. She doesn’t have to waste her teaching experience; she could go somewhere where her efforts will be appr
eciated – where people want to learn. She’ll look on the Internet tonight for volunteer programmes and opportunities abroad.

  Someone else on the coach is thinking about the future. Jeff Quinn sits alone, behind two girls who are writing other people’s initials on the plastic armrests with felt-tip pens. He’s reading a martial arts magazine. With his floppy fringe and gap-toothed smile, he’s more popular than Kayleigh but, like her, he feels different from the other kids in the class. He’s got an ambition – an obsession, some would say – to get into the British judo team. His dedication to his sport marks him out from the rest of 8C. Over the years, he’s faced his share of ridicule (mainly from Lenny Gibbon), but the fact that his passion is judo, and not something like bird watching or archaeology, is a wonderful protection against the bullies.

  The teachers sometimes give him a hard time, though. Last term, Mr Quinn was hauled up before the head for taking Jeff out of school for a judo masterclass in York. Apparently the ‘unauthorized leave’ made the truancy figures look bad. But why an extra bout of sport was worse for him than yet another day of ineffectual and disrupted lessons was a mystery to Jeff, and to his parents. They took the line that he’d be better off building up a skill that came naturally than straining to hear a supply teacher attempting to explain algebra over the Heathwick hubbub.

  Jeff has already done some training before school this morning, and eaten the perfect breakfast to set him up for the county junior trials tonight. It’s the biggest contest he’s been involved in so far, and his whole body is humming with a mixture of excitement and nervousness. He knows there will be talent scouts there, and some of the best trainers in the country. Maybe one of them will offer to take him on. He’d been reluctant to come on the theatre trip, but his father didn’t want to get into more trouble, and anyway thought it would be the best thing to take Jeff out of himself in the build-up to tonight’s event. But so far nothing has driven from Jeff’s mind the possibilities that lie ahead of him. For months he’s been waiting for today – picturing by turns triumph and humiliation. He’s imagined the weight of a medal around his neck, and an article in the local paper comparing him to the young diver who won gold at the World Championships. He’d love to be famous, and there’s no way he can see himself getting into the news for anything else.

  In the newsagent’s, Stefano from the launderette is pulling faces to distract Chloe from the chocolate. With her dark hair and bright eyes, she reminds him of his sister’s child. He’s in no hurry to get back to work over the road. He doesn’t know that his father, Marco, is desperate for his return. He’s getting quite worried about the fumes now, though he can’t show it with a customer in the shop.

  TICK

  23 seconds to go . . .

  MARCO WRITES OUT a ticket for the service wash. His eyes are watering because of the fumes. He knows it’s unsafe to have the dry-cleaning machine in pieces, and he’s not sure where the stopper for the valve ended up after it rolled away.

  The vicar strides into the church to grab a copy of the Order of Service. He needs to check the first name of the deceased. He’s ninety per cent sure it’s Ronald, but pretty certain that the man he just met called him Don.

  Nick, the charity worker, won’t give up. ‘Won’t take long,’ he says, sliding past Janine to block the way into her shop, so that she’ll have no option but to stay on the pavement and listen to him.

  Through her one good eye, Gillie Dougall sees them there. Janine is due to deliver the table decorations at 10.30. What if she’s late? What if the order has gone missing? There’s a funeral today – she’s bound to be very busy. What if the traffic is still bad then, and Janine gets held up? Gillie had better check. She’ll pop back as soon as she’s got the cake safely into her car. If only she could get the grit out of her eye.

  ‘ . . . and six . . .’

  Daniel Donovan instinctively swings his free hand towards the chanting man’s chin. The flight attendant darts back down the aisle from the intercom to help her colleagues. In the cockpit, the co-pilot has heard enough to know that he should call for calm.

  ‘Joe!’ Sheila Harman still can’t get a response.

  ‘No hurry,’ says her husband unconvincingly, as he explores the pockets of the jacket he wore the day before.

  Outside the baker’s, where Joe is out of earshot of his mother, Paul is too polite to stop Lotte’s tale of Isadora Duncan’s tragic designer scarf, even though he’s finding the depth of her interest in the accident rather alarming. She’s told him what the scarf was made of (silk), who designed it (some Russian artist Paul has never heard of), and what Isadora said when the car set off (‘Adieu, mes amis!’). Now Lotte translates for Paul’s benefit, gracefully swishing invisible fabric over her shoulder as she declaims, in a throaty foreign accent, ‘Farewell, my friends . . .’

  Deanna, seeing that Paul shows no sign of breaking away from the conversation, decides that if he’s still talking when she gets past the photographer, she’ll walk beyond the coffee shop to join him outside the baker’s. The woman Paul’s with has her back to Deanna, and she can’t make out who it is. She hopes it isn’t a relative or anyone he can’t break away from. Whoever she is, she’s acting in a very familiar manner – hanging onto Paul’s arm, and speaking with her face very close to his. Surely Paul won’t invite her to join them in the café? Deanna wants him to herself after so long apart.

  The funeral director steps into the road, beckoning the horses into the line of traffic, but staying close enough to Matey to be able to hear what Jack and Pete are up to in his joke.

  ‘They drank right . . .’

  Dime and Dollar, as calm as ever despite the noisy drills and car horns around them, seem to sense that they are about to go on public display. They toss their heads, and lift their right forelegs in perfect unison. They are flawlessly groomed, their jet-black coats gleaming as brightly as the brass fittings on the complicated leather harnesses that attach them to the hearse. The driver, who will climb up into position as soon as he has led them out, carries a long thin whip, but he only needs it for show. Dime and Dollar trust him absolutely, and he trusts them. They can sense what he wants them to do from his tone of voice and the subtle tugs on their reins. He’s been with them since he was a boy. He helped train them, and cared for them through the anxious time when work was scarce and it seemed that the family firm might not survive – which of course meant that neither would they. But then some film work had come along, a pop singer started a fashion for horse-drawn weddings and, as if by a miracle, on the very day the bank demanded a new business plan, Frank had enquired about hiring the pair to pull his special hearse.

  It’s been a happy partnership, and today Frank will walk in front of the procession with pride, knowing that Dime and Dollar will be at their best for him, as they are every time they come to Heathwick. They could do without the roadworks, of course, but Frank knows it will take more than that to upset these fine horses; and anyway, he’ll be astounded if the workmen don’t down tools when the fabulous carriage pulls onto the street. Once they’re ready, he’ll ask the policeman to clear the road up ahead, so they can set off, at walking pace, for the church.

  Stuart Penton can’t muster such a sense of decorum. He bends forward, raising his knee at the same time, in the hope of minimizing the strain on the seat of his trousers as he attempts to tie his shoelace.

  TOCK

  22 seconds to go . . .

  STUART TOPPLES OVER, onto something left behind by a dog whose owner was less scrupulous than Bernie.

  Outside the bakery, Lotte continues in character, flinging out her arms and declaring: ‘Je vais à la gloire!’ Paul knows what that means: ‘I’m going to glory.’ It all seems a bit far-fetched. He thinks it’s unlikely that anyone would really come up with appropriate words on the point of unexpected death, but all the same, he and Joe, the baker, are enjoying Lotte’s impromptu street performance.

  Across the road, down by the newsagent’s, Bernie’s cor
responding mime – trying to explain his plight to Mrs Wilkins – is still going on, but with much less finesse and audience appreciation. But Matey is getting more attention as he gets more lively, telling the story of the dying man and his friend painting the town: ‘ . . . through the night.’

  ‘ . . . and seven . . .’

  Marco’s customer doesn’t have the right money. Marco struggles to open his cash box to get change. The fumes from the dismantled machine are slowing him down.

  Someone on the coach has farted. Charmaine and Chenelle are the first to smell it. They stop singing, and cry out ‘Phowarrr!’ in unison.

  Juliet Morgan and Sam the barista are both making for the mourners’ emptying table. Sam, with his antibacterial spray at the ready, wants to wipe it before she sits down. He’s intrigued by the way she’s clinging to her laptop, with the lid half open, as if she’s in the middle of some important work, and desperate to crack on with it.

  Mariam has mopped up the worst of the water, and is singing again.

  At last, Kelly Viner hears a click, and then the sound of her father’s phone ringing. It’s taken only six seconds to get through, but it seemed like hours to Kelly, who would like to get out and walk away from the car. She wishes she’d never learned to drive at all.

  Sheila Harman calls out to Joe again.

  And the co-pilot of the aircraft switches on his microphone.

  TICK

  21 seconds to go . . .

  JULIET WOULD LIKE a clean table, but she doesn’t want to wait for Sam to do his job. She’ll take the chance to grab the mourners’ space before a plump woman with two children, who was in front of her in the queue but is still waiting at the counter for a selection of brightly coloured milkshakes and a piece of chocolate cake with three spoons. If Juliet doesn’t get there first, she’ll end up having to perch on a stool at the back of the café. There won’t be much room there for her computer, and the auction clock is counting down.