Dark Undertakings

by Rebecca Tope

  This was proving to be a quiet September, so far. Although in these days of overheated nursing homes and medical technology, there were no reliable seasonal fluctuations in the death rate, the autumn was still a time when traditionally thoughts turn to endings. All around, the leaves withered and dropped, grass turned brown and rank, fungus appeared and dead wood was gathered in for fuel. With the dying summer, old people could lose hope, or the will to live. With the cleansing bonfires and pruning of November, the chances of increased activity at the undertaker’s were high.

  In preparation for this, Daphne was arranging for new stationery to be printed, a fresh consignment of coffins to be ordered in, and repairs to the flower racks put in motion. In the mortuary, the triple-tiered fridges, with space for six corpses, would have to last at least another year, probably two. Somehow Sid always managed to avoid any excessive overflow.

  There was space for another three bodies in the viewing chapel, and two or three in the side room where finished coffins were kept. Bradbourne had a population of 25,000, which meant that more than six deaths in a week was unusual. But Daphne, with her ear constantly alert for trends, knew that a third fridge, with three more spaces, would be an asset. There were two new blocks of sheltered housing going up to the north of the town, as well as a sizeable housing development under construction with a mix of starter homes, flats and medium-sized houses. The demographic reality was that a number of them would be bought by retired couples, in the declining years of their lives.

  Finally, as the sky grew dark outside, Daphne made her last tour of inspection, before going home. She went into the chapel, checking that the flowers would do for another day or two, turning off any lights, flicking at a newly-formed cobweb in a high corner. Then into the mortuary, always kept neat and clean, the floor scrubbed and the embalming equipment stored tidily next to the sink. Glancing at the labels on the doors, she remembered Jim Lapsford, and supposed that the wife would be in the next day.

  Daphne knew Jim, of course. They had been at Chamber of Commerce meetings together, had rubbed shoulders at various parties and lunches, passed each other in pubs and car parks. She knew something about him, too: his reputation as a womaniser, the jokes that no wife or daughter was safe with him. The insatiable Lapsford had even flirted with her. She had wondered, only a few weeks ago, what made him do it. Although an apparently cheerful man, always ready with a joke, the look in his eye that evening when she had found herself the object of his predation, had not been a contented one. There had been a need, a pleading, which had made her instinctively wary. When it came to relationships, Daphne was the needy one.

  The body was on the top rack, at eye level, and the tray would not roll out easily for a casual look. Daphne was not a tall woman, and she had to stand on tiptoe to get any kind of view of his face. She almost gave up the idea, but something prompted her to persist. She reached in, pulled the white plastic from around his head and craned her neck to look at him. His cheeks were full, mottling very slightly as the blood collected around his jawbone and ears. The hair was strong, slightly wavy, giving him a look of vigour, even in death. He wore bright blue pyjamas, old-fashioned and rather endearing. Eyes half-closed, lips parted to show the inside of his mouth, he was exactly as she remembered him. Funny how these heart attack victims so often seemed to glow with health.

  In her early years in the job, Daphne had fantasised about Fate, and how there seemed sometimes to be some sort of cosmic mistake. She imagined the great loom of destiny, its fabric endlessly woven and patterned, with sudden breaking of thread from some accident or carelessness in the weaving. The person who was controlled by that thread would abruptly die, perhaps while crossing the street or making love. Heart failure, aneurism, stroke. In the old days, they’d called it a ‘seizure’. It always came out of the blue, leaving shockwaves that could last for years.

  The inside of Jim Lapsford’s gaping mouth looked an unusually bright pink, but Daphne did not inspect it any closer. Her job did not involve any medical investigation. A second doctor would have to come along in a day or so, and endorse Julian Lloyd’s findings. In the process, the only really important fact had already been established – that Lapsford was in fact dead, and could be safely cremated.

  And so she locked all the doors, turned out all the lights, went out to the back yard where her neat new Ford Fiesta waited for her, and finally went home, secure in the knowledge that another day had passed satisfactorily.

  In Primrose Close, lights were on behind closed curtains, and front driveways were filled with cars. Monica Lapsford had eaten a small supper of scrambled egg, and was sipping coffee in her front room. She had come a long way since waking that morning. She was now firmly in the realm of widowhood, her feet on a new path, the past and future all mixed up and merged together on this momentous day when everything had changed.

  The scrambled egg had been a mistake, though she had chosen it with a powerful instinct. It gave rise to a sweet recollection: twenty-eight years ago, when her contractions had begun, proclaiming the imminent birth of Philip, Jim had sat with her in the kitchen, making her eat scrambled eggs. He had been calm and wonderfully kind. They’d lived in a village, not too far away, with a now long-vanished maternity hospital only a mile distant. Together, they had walked and talked, laughed and groaned, anticipating the baby, but refusing to be rushed into the clatter and stress of hospital procedures. They even debated whether to stay at home and demand that a midwife come to them. The scrambled egg story had been told many times subsequently.

  How brave we were, marvelled Monica now. And what good parents we made to those boys when they were small. David had caused them sleepless nights and a lot of agonising, but they had stuck with it, supporting him faithfully, fighting his corner against teachers and doctors. They had been united in their determination to bring the boy through whatever tribulations might assault him. In that respect, they’d done a very fair job.

  Once started, the memories of Jim at his kindest and best were impossible to suppress. Jim it was who got up and made tea every morning, collecting the early post and bringing it up to Monica, dozing lazily. At the same time as he performed small, uxorious kindnesses, he had hinted that there was plenty of space in the marriage once the boys had moved out. They ought not to cling too tightly to each other. They would go out separately, as well as together, and not restrict each other’s movements. What Monica thought about this had not been relevant – Jim had increasingly followed his own prescription, to the point when he was out four or five evenings a week, and a large part of the weekend as well. Monica had learnt not to ask any questions about where he had been.

  She had gradually come to the conclusion that Jim had a tottie, a floozie, a bit on the side, either already in existence or very much in mind. But she had not voiced her assumption. Carefully, she had smiled and nodded, and talked vaguely about evening classes and jaunts with women friends. Then she had signed up for electrolysis to zap the wiry new hairs on her chin, as well as joining Weightwatchers and a local gym. Within six months, she was so in love with her trim new self, that Jim’s activities caused her only fleeting worries.

  Jim had been lavish in his admiration, stressing how young and lovely she looked, and for a while he had come home earlier from the King’s Head and introduced her to one or two new bedtime intimacies, gleaned, she assumed, from his growing collection of erotic novels. He bought glamorous underwear and scented candles. ‘Takes me back to when I first married you,’ he said. ‘You’ll have all the blokes after you, at this rate.’ Monica merely smiled, non-committal, and kept her own counsel. When he began to read out to her passages from the paperbacks, she had taken a deep breath and gone along with it. If he needed that sort of thing in order to sustain his virility, she supposed she would have to indulge him.

  At our age, Monica had thought, it’s pretty good that we do it at all. She had friends who hadn’t had sex with their husbands for a decade or more. She and Jim both seemed to be
come anxious if they went for more than a week between encounters. Monica supposed that as there was so little else that they did together, this was all they had to keep the marriage even partially alive. The first time that Jim had failed to perform had been a year ago, and Monica had unthinkingly accused him of spending so much time with some girlfriend or other that he hadn’t anything left for her. He had laughed it off, and blamed the beer he’d been drinking. But Monica had cursed herself, noting the panic in his eyes.

  Now, holding the coffee mug between her hands, she tried to imagine the solitary bed, night after lonely night. Never to feel Jim’s warm skin, generously coated with dark hair; never to share all those silly little private moments. She had heard widows speak of ‘amputation’, losing half of themselves, never recovering from the dreadful loss. Well, no, it wasn’t going to be like that for her. Jim had given shape to her life; he had been a kind of mirror, reflecting her wifely persona back at herself – but he hadn’t been part of her. She still felt whole without him. And having the bed to herself might be pleasant, in a way. She could get cosy brushed cotton sheets, which Jim hated. Maybe even have a duvet, which Jim had always vetoed as newfangled and insubstantial.

  But meanwhile, there was all the paraphernalia of death to be endured. Today there had only been a trickle of visitors – by the end of the week it would probably be a deluge. She should tidy up, buy extra coffee and biscuits and milk in, prepare polite platitudes. When Jodie from the printworks had come to the door looking for Jim, while the boys were still here, Monica had been at a total loss as to how to tell her the news. Even responding to the known and trusted Pauline’s avalanche of sympathetic concern over the phone had been an ordeal. She had cut her friend short, and told her quite mendaciously that she had both her sons with her, throwing her the consolation prize of coming along to help arrange the funeral the next morning.

  Tomorrow she had to knuckle down to business. Collect the certificate from Dr Lloyd, then to the Registrar, then to the undertaker. She ought to call in at the printworks, too, and commiserate properly with Jim’s workmates – his second family. She had to at least try to be generous in allowing them to miss him as much as she herself did.

  When the doorbell rang, Monica jumped a little, and then sighed, putting down the empty mug and getting tiredly to her feet. She had a good idea who it would be, an idea which proved correct when she opened the door. Dottie and Sarah from next door stood side by side, shoulder to ribcage, beaming sympathetic smiles on her. ‘Come in,’ she invited limply. They were both widows, after all. They must have some inkling of how chaotic it was.

  ‘It was very good of your Philip to come and tell us the news this morning,’ Sarah began. ‘He said he thought you wouldn’t mind us popping round this evening. We’ll only stay a minute, of course.’

  Both women were agog, darting little glances around the room, as if searching for signs of disturbance. Death surely must leave its trace, not just in the air, but visibly on the furniture. Or perhaps, thought Monica, they were looking for evidence that she had already begun to dispose of Jim’s possessions.

  ‘How are you managing?’ asked Sarah. ‘We’ll be happy, of course, to do anything we can to help. We thought perhaps, on the day of the funeral, we could keep an eye on the house for you. You do hear terrible stories about burglaries …’

  ‘That’s very kind. I haven’t really given much thought to the funeral yet. It seems an awful hurdle to have to face at the moment.’

  ‘Oh, but it can help tremendously,’ said Dottie. ‘I found it was the funeral that kept me going. Everybody was so kind, and it was exactly as Arthur said he wanted. A really good send-off.’

  ‘I don’t think Jim set much store by funerals,’ said Monica, thoughtfully. ‘I can’t remember a single instance where we talked about it, except that he wanted to be cremated. It’s just a disposal matter, really, isn’t it? Seems to me rather a lot of fuss and bother, actually.’

  ‘Oh, no, dear,’ Dottie corrected. ‘It’s so important to have a ceremony of some kind, to mark the passing. I’ve always thought so. I hate these modern cremations, so quick and bare. You mustn’t let them hurry you.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’ll be very simple.’ Monica refused to sound apologetic.

  ‘But Jim had so many friends,’ Sarah reminded her. ‘They’ll all want to pay their respects and see him on his way.’

  Funny, thought Monica, how we use the language of travel – of going on a voyage from one place to another. Though, in a sense, that was exactly what had happened. Even if the other realm was non-existence, total annihilation, (as she strongly suspected was the case), the dead did make a kind of transit. The idea expanded and took on more meaning, as she considered it. The Ferryman, with his penny fee; the Styx and the great dog guarding it; the long tunnel that people went down when they momentarily died on operating tables, the one with the bright light at the end of it. What was happening to Jim? Where had he gone? Was he in some horrible fridge, or lying on a cold slate slab? She had no idea what might go on in the murky, mysterious backrooms of an undertaker’s premises.

  ‘But before the funeral,’ Sarah pursued, ‘there must be something we can do. All those jobs – I remember it clearly. Flowers, newspaper notices, telling everybody … it just goes on and on.’

  Monica sighed, feeling overburdened. ‘I think it’ll go quite smoothly,’ she said. ‘And of course the boys will be a great support.’

  ‘Of course,’ agree Dottie, directing a look at Sarah. ‘You’re very lucky in your boys.’

  ‘And you’ve got a lot of friends, I know,’ added Sarah. ‘At times like this, friends are so precious.’

  ‘Well, thank you very much for popping in,’ said Monica. ‘It was really kind of you.’ She was saved from further insincerities by the warbling of the telephone. She smiled and raised her hand in valediction before moving to the phone. ‘Hello,’ was all her neighbours heard her say, before they were forced to retreat and close the door behind them.

  ‘You’ve heard then?’ Monica pursued, after they’d gone. ‘Yes, it’s been a long day … No, don’t come round tonight. It wouldn’t be right … Tomorrow – I’ll phone you tomorrow … I know you do, but you shouldn’t be saying it to me now. Night night.’

  She went upstairs, although it was still too early to try to sleep. The bed hadn’t been made, since Jim had been lifted professionally from amongst the tangled sheets that she would definitely have to change. Funny how she hadn’t thought of that before now. How could she possibly sleep on sheets that had housed a dead body? And yet, they held the last impression of Jim. His last traces. Once washed and put away, there’d be nothing left of his final hours.

  Slowly, she lay down in Jim’s place, on his side of the bed, and tried to capture a sense of him. His smell was faintly there, the pillow indented by his head. Something slightly abrasive rubbed her cheek, and she sat up to look. There was a dried stain, greenish-brown, a few inches long, on the pillow. It must have dribbled from Jim’s dead mouth; she rubbed her cheek fiercely, disgustedly, at the thought. Then she picked up the pillow and quickly stripped the case from it, trying not to look at the stain. But as she threw it into the washing basket, it stared up at her. There were flecks of something brownish sticking to the cotton, amongst the dried crust. Had he actually been sick, she wondered?

  Taking a deep breath, she went back and pulled the sheets off the bed. No place for sentiment now. Clean sheets; blankets tucked well in. If she was to sleep at all tonight, she would need to be comfortable. After all, tomorrow would be a busy day.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Wednesday

  In the morning, Monica woke to a disturbing noise. Downstairs, shut firmly in the kitchen, the dog was squeaking, as if it wanted to go out. Before she could gather her wits, she was stumbling downstairs to see to it. She had no real feelings of affection towards Cassie; soon, she would have to make a decision about the animal’s future. For now, she just wished it would keep quie
t and out of her way.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she demanded, blearily searching out the little white body. The dog was under the table, shivering, a pool of vomit a little way away. ‘Oh, no!’ She opened the back door and scooted the dog out with one bare foot. ‘Go out, will you!’ she said.

  Averting her face, she fetched the mop bucket, and clumsily removed the offending sick. Darn dog, she thought. Whatever next? She shook out a double-page of last week’s local paper and trod it down delicately, to soak up any residual dampness. By the time she’d got dressed, it could be thrown away.

  By half past nine, she had pulled herself together enough to go along to the Registrar, via the doctor’s surgery, where she collected Dr Lloyd’s certificate from Susie on reception. Susie smiled at her, meeting her eye full on, and said, ‘I am so sorry, Mrs Lapsford, at your sad loss.’ She had been on a one-day training course about patient relations, and had been advised to confront death and terminal illness calmly but honestly. Avoidance helps no one, they said.

  Monica was surprised. She hadn’t expected any recognition or acknowledgement, and the near-intimacy of Susie’s words felt warm and consoling. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That’s really nice of you.’ The girl struck her as pale; the smile contained pain, which surely couldn’t all be for Monica’s plight.

  ‘Doctor Lloyd asked me to say that he’d be very happy to talk to you if you feel you need him,’ Susie continued. ‘You know – if you have trouble sleeping, or anything. It must have been an awful shock for you.’ She paused and swallowed. ‘And he wondered whether it’s to be a cremation?’