Dark Undertakings

by Rebecca Tope

  Daphne suppressed a sigh, and nodded accommodatingly. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘If that’s what you’d like. When would you want him to be brought home?’

  ‘Monday afternoon,’ said Monica decisively. ‘Then he can have one last night with me.’

  And so it was arranged. The funeral would be at eleven-thirty on the following Tuesday. Daphne had suggested a vicar, whose name was dimly familiar to Monica, but no more than that. It was Pauline who pointed out that Tuesday would be the seventeenth, and that the following day was Monica’s fiftieth birthday.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ gasped Monica, half appalled, half amused. ‘We won’t be having the party, then.’

  ‘I’ll take you out somewhere,’ promised Pauline. ‘You mustn’t be alone. And the boys’ll want to do something. Life goes on.’

  ‘That’s true,’ echoed Daphne, looking from one to the other with some curiosity. Monica met her glance. She liked this odd businesslike undertaker, who didn’t flinch from reality. She liked the neat way that everything fitted onto the printed forms on the desk – names, dates, coffin style, newspaper announcement. There was a space for everything. She imagined a similar form waiting for herself, her name pencilled in already. It happens to us all, she thought. High or low, young or old, we all have to fill in our particulars and get ourselves disposed of in one way or another.

  ‘I’d rather not think about my birthday,’ she said. ‘Jim would have been so upset to miss it. He loved organising celebrations. He was good at that sort of thing. We were all going to go to the King’s Head.’ I should cry now, she thought, objectively. It’s at moments like this that you’re supposed to be overcome. But she didn’t feel like crying.

  ‘Just for a change,’ joked Pauline, before she could stop herself. She turned pink, and tried to control her expression. ‘I mean,’ she explained, ‘Jim was there so much anyway, it wouldn’t have been that different from being at home.’ She forced a laugh, which Monica did not echo.

  Daphne waited dispassionately. Monica could feel the other woman’s creeping indifference beginning to intrude on her initial sympathy and patience. She must have seen all this so many times before; she must know by heart the whole range of irrational reactions to the death of a spouse.

  ‘Is that everything then?’ she asked.

  ‘Just about,’ Daphne confirmed. ‘Only one more form to fill in.’ She produced a second sheet of paper with a column of questions and spaces for the replies. She asked Monica if everyone in the family knew there was to be a cremation, and whether anyone was likely to object. Then she asked whether Monica had any reason to suspect that the death was due directly or indirectly, to ‘violence, poison, privation or neglect’ – which she quickly diluted by tapping a finger on the green document supplied by the Registrar. ‘We assume everything’s above board, once we’ve got this,’ she reassured. ‘I’ll just put a “No” for that one.’

  Violence, poison, privation or neglect, Monica repeated to herself. The sinister mantra made her mouth go dry. Those, then, were the official ways in which a person could be unlawfully killed. Another neatness in this whole untidy business that was dying. ‘That’s right,’ she muttered. ‘The answer to that is no.’

  She signed the form, and after some repetition of the main details, the last ones on the threshold of the building, she and Pauline departed.

  ‘Well, that wasn’t so bad, was it,’ Pauline said, on an exhalation of relief. ‘Could’ve been a lot worse, anyway. She’s a bit odd, but nice enough.’

  Violence, poison, privation or neglect: the words kept on running through Monica’s head.

  Jim Lapsford’s printworks was in a state of suppressed panic. In effect, Jim had run the place. He organised the schedule; monitored the quality of the output; kept track of paper, ink, toner, film. Three people worked under him, and nominally there was a Chief Executive, owner of this business and several others, who put in occasional whirlwind appearances to which nobody paid much attention. Jim had been the driving force and without him, they floundered.

  ‘Perhaps we should close for the day, as a mark of respect,’ said Jodie, designer and clerical officer. She wrote all the letters; filed orders, invoices, catalogues, plates; and advised customers on the appearance of their business cards or menus. Jodie was sensible and competent. Thin, tall and beaky-nosed, she kept herself firmly detached from her all-male colleagues. Her favourite pursuit was walking, alone on the hills or along the riverbank. Jodie used her legs as her means of transport, which was enough in itself to mark her out as different. Her lofty self-sufficiency only added to people’s wariness of her.

  ‘We can do that on the day of the funeral,’ argued Jack, his eyes glittering behind his heavy spectacles. ‘No sense in closing today, when we’re in the middle of this big calendar job.’

  ‘Right,’ chimed in Ajash, the gnomish typesetter. ‘That’s right. I’ve got to press on with these party invitations, regardless. Can’t say to the customer, “Sorry, we missed your deadline because the boss died.”’ He laughed at the idea.

  ‘Well, I think you can,’ said Jodie. ‘I mean, what better reason could there be?’

  ‘Makes no sense,’ Ajash looked at her with resolution. ‘It’s a bad show about Jim, don’t get me wrong. But this work won’t wait. You know that. If we get on with it this week, work late, maybe, then we can make a proper gesture next week. We’ll all go to the funeral together.’

  ‘I still can’t believe it,’ Jodie said, for the tenth time. ‘Remember how cheerful he was on Monday afternoon? Laughing and joking. I thought he must have been high on something, he was in such a good mood.’

  ‘Probably been off with one of his lady friends,’ commented Jack, looking hard at her. ‘Better not go round saying that about taking stuff, either. Not even as a joke. Not now he’s dead.’ Jack had a hungry look about him, which Jodie had long ago realised meant nothing. He was habitually unsmiling, his features all inclined to turn downwards, and any shreds of humour he might possess were invariably couched in satire or personal jibes. Even when he tried to be kind, the most he could manage was a crooked kind of sympathy. Yet he and Jim had been good friends.

  Jodie shrugged. ‘I’m not likely to, am I?’ She returned his hard look, challenging him to say more.

  ‘Come on,’ urged Ajash. ‘There’s work to be done.’ Jodie jabbed him with a bony forefinger and he skipped backwards, with a muffled squeal.

  ‘Come on, you two!’ Jack growled. ‘This is no time for horseplay. You’re behaving like kids.’

  ‘When’s Justin going to honour us with his company?’ Ajash said. ‘Doesn’t he know when he’s needed?’

  ‘Don’t know what use you think he’s going to be,’ grumbled Jack. ‘All public relations and high-powered marketing, and can’t tell DocuTech from litho, half the time. This place’ll soon fall apart without Jim unless the management pull their finger out.’

  Jodie looked down her nose at him. ‘Don’t give us that,’ she scorned. ‘They’ll put you in the hot seat, and take someone else on. Though we all know who it won’t be.’

  Ajash gave a snorting laugh. ‘Young David, you mean,’ he said, nodding knowingly. ‘Jim put the kybosh on that idea, sure enough.’

  Jack turned away, without replying. Jodie looked from him to Ajash, and back again. ‘More fool him,’ she said softly.

  For a while, they worked in an uncomfortable silence, the whirring of Ajash’s printing press a familiar presence. But Jodie couldn’t keep quiet for long. ‘I can’t just go on as if nothing’s happened,’ she burst out. ‘Jim’s dead.’ She stared wide-eyed at Jack.

  ‘Come on, Jode,’ he reproached her. ‘It’s not like you to lose your bottle.’

  ‘I haven’t lost my bottle. It’s just – oh, I can’t get it out of my mind. I mean, Jim’s the last person you’d expect to go like that.’

  ‘That’s rubbish,’ said Jack, fiercely. ‘Who would you expect it to happen to then? It isn’t something you ever expect.
Things happen.’

  ‘Oh, you men,’ Jodie huffed. ‘You’ll never let yourselves have any feelings; never talk about what really matters.’

  ‘Get away with you.’ Jack’s anger was barely under control. ‘Don’t give us that. There’s things about nice Mr Lapsford you’d be shocked to discover, if some of us men chose to start talking.’

  ‘Shut up!’ Ajash shouted, from where he’d returned to watch over his whirling press. ‘I heard that. Just you shut up, Jack Merryfield. You’ll be sorry if I hear you speaking ill of the dead like that again.’

  ‘Silly old fool,’ muttered Jack, and threw himself down in front of one of the monitors, hammering murderously at the keyboard.

  * * *

  Doctor Lloyd’s last patient left morning surgery at ten-thirty. He spent a few minutes completing the notes on his computer, and sifting through accumulated papers on his desk. Susie would have coffee ready for him promptly at ten forty-five, and then he’d have to go out on the home visits. Wednesdays were generally relaxed, though less so than Thursdays. People didn’t fall ill on a Thursday, for some reason. Probably because the weekend was in sight, and to waste it being ill would be very bad planning. One or two accidents, children with mysterious fevers, but mainly midweek was a time for catching up with paperwork. Which reminds me, he said to himself. I’d better get those crem papers for Jim Lapsford over to Daphne. She’ll be chasing me, otherwise.

  Susie hovered over him while he filled in the medical papers in the general office, sipping his coffee. ‘Myocardial infarction, eh?’ she said, reading over his shoulder. ‘Last seen five days before death.’ She sucked in a sceptical breath.

  Doctor Lloyd sighed. ‘Don’t start that again, Susie. I’ll be glad when the blasted man is safely cremated. Why doesn’t anybody believe me?’

  ‘Who doesn’t believe you? I only said—’

  ‘The Registrar phoned me just now. Didn’t feel too happy about it. Stupid woman. The whole thing is bureaucracy gone mad, if you ask me.’

  She tutted sympathetically. ‘Well, you’d better ask Ginnie Parton to do Part Two then.’

  ‘Why?’ He looked up at her, pretending innocence. ‘What’s special about her?’

  ‘Come on,’ she widened her eyes at him, and he noticed that she was no less pale today than she had been yesterday. If she hadn’t been speaking so accusingly to him, he’d have asked her whether anything was the matter. As it was, she elaborated her point, before he could fully acknowledge his concern. ‘She’ll sign anything, sight unseen. It’s a disgrace, if you ask me.’

  ‘Not my problem, is it? She wouldn’t thank me for telling her how to do her job. Actually I was going to ask her, anyway. I don’t think I can face any more hassle over this chap. Anyone would think somebody had murdered him. Since I’m entirely satisfied that they didn’t, I’m sure I did the right thing.’

  ‘I like entirely satisfied. That has a very convincing ring to it. Now, here’s your list for home visits. You could drop in and look at Mrs Sinclair’s foot, as well.’

  ‘I only saw her on Monday.’

  ‘I know. But you’ve got loads of time, and she’s so miserable, poor thing. It would be a good deed. And who knows – she might drop dead in the night like Lapsford, and then you can do her papers without any qualms, as well.’

  ‘Susie! That’s going too far. If you’ve got something you want to say, then spit it out, without all this sniping. Are you saying Lapsford should have gone for a post-mortem? Do you want me to throw everything into reverse, and call in the Coroner? Do you?’ He leant towards her, intimidatingly, his eyes full on hers. She backed away from him.

  ‘You don’t have to shout at me,’ she sniffed, and without warning, burst into tears. ‘I’ve got enough trouble without you bawling me out,’ she wept. ‘I was only joking about the papers. I didn’t mean anything.’

  Briefly he closed his eyes. ‘I’m sorry I shouted. Do you want to tell me about this … trouble? I’ve got plenty of time.’

  She shook her head, and grabbed a tissue from the box that sat permanently on the windowsill. ‘Just the usual—’ she mumbled. ‘Bother with the boyfriend.’

  ‘Well he ought to know better,’ said Dr Lloyd, firmly. ‘He doesn’t know when he’s well off.’

  She shook her head again, with despairing emphasis. ‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘It’s totally the other way round.’

  ‘Ah,’ he nodded, with complete incomprehension.

  She flapped a hand at him, and applied the tissue again. ‘Go and do your good turn,’ she told him. ‘Mrs Sinclair’s foot, remember.’

  With some relief, he went to collect his bag and car keys. Whatever problems she was having with her boyfriend, he didn’t really want to delve into them. He knew very little about her private life, except that her dad worked at the undertakers; it seemed somehow fitting that there was that connection. Sid was always efficient and polite in the mortuary, when Dr Lloyd had to go and view a body; it somehow gave Susie an air of responsibility by association. He hoped she wasn’t going to present him with some crisis, like being pregnant or moving off to the Orkneys with the bothersome boyfriend. Susie was an asset in more ways than one. The patients often commented on her friendly demeanour and the improvements she’d brought to the surgery.

  ‘Don’t forget to phone Ginnie,’ she called after him, causing him to turn back with a sigh. Ginnie Parton was everyone’s favourite backup for cremation papers, asking no questions, and gratefully pocketing the payment.

  The conversation took barely two minutes. ‘Ginnie? Julian Lloyd here. Can you do a Part Two for me? The body’s at Plant’s. Jim Lapsford. Heart … Yes. Oh, did you? Well, I saw him last week, providentially, so there’s no Coroner involvement. I’ve written him up for MI … Yeah. Well, the signs were all there. Have a look if you like … That’s up to you. I’m taking the papers round now, so any time after lunch, he’s all yours. Great. Thanks. Everything all right, is it? … Good. Bye, then.’

  Susie watched him stride out to his car, the battered doctor’s bag firmly gripped in his left hand. I wonder if he’ll remember Mrs Sinclair, she mused.

  In the workshop, the men were hurrying over their mid-morning coffee, before getting ready for an eleven-thirty funeral. Pat, the handsome Irishman, was brushing invisible specks from the shoulders of his black coat, prior to putting it on. He stood at his locker in boxer shorts and black socks. Changing clothes was a regular part of the job. Each man had at least three different outfits: formal funeral wear; smart but less formal for collecting bodies from private houses or nursing homes; and very casual for carpentry or mortuary work. Poor Olga had never quite grown easy with the way semi-naked men greeted her almost every time she came out to their part of the building with a message or instruction. Drew knew that none of the men was entirely comfortable with it, either. They made very sure that their underpants were all-concealing, and they listened intently for the sound of women’s heels on the corridor outside. Gaynor, the local florist, was another regular visitor; a coarse woman, she seemed to make a point of catching them half-clothed, and making some withering comment. Daphne, always needing to be in control, took care to limit her appearances to times when she knew they would not be changing. She carried in her head a precise schedule of their movements, absorbed from a careful analysis of the day’s commitments every morning.

  ‘Drink up,’ Pat encouraged the others. ‘Six minutes to go, that’s all, and you’re none of you’s changed yet.’

  Vince, Sid, Drew and Little George completed Pat’s team. It was to be a simple funeral, an old woman with few relatives or friends. Drew had ‘made’ the coffin without any assistance – stapling a plain piece of white satinised nylon all around the inside of the ready-made shell, with a frill of the same material along the upper edge, and then engraving a name plate which was tacked onto the lid. Nobody was coming to see the old dear, so it didn’t much matter if the stapling went a little squiffy. But Drew had done his best
and was pleased with the result.

  He still felt a shiver of excitement when he climbed into the great shining hearse to sit alongside the coffin, with its flowers on top. ‘It’s just a disposal job,’ he’d said to Karen, in the early days, but he knew it was more than that. He was present at a real event of extreme significance, the end of someone’s life, the start of a new phase for the survivors.

  He sat behind Sid, with Vince driving. Little George made the fourth, and Pat had to get himself to the Crematorium independently. They chatted, inconsequentially as usual, the presence of the dead body in the car with them a matter of little import to the more experienced men.

  ‘Saw Mrs Lapsford coming out of the office a while ago,’ said Vince. ‘Had a friend with her. Must’ve been to make the arrangements. Bet you it’ll be Monday.’

  ‘Tuesday,’ said Sid, heavily. ‘The best times are taken on Monday, and Daphne’ll steer her onto Tuesday.’

  ‘Long time to wait,’ said Drew. ‘A whole week.’

  ‘It’ll soon pass. Plenty to do, you know. Specially when it’s so unexpected. All those people to tell, for a start-off.’ Vince adopted his tutorly tone, instructing Drew, the new boy. ‘Registrar must have taken the doctor’s word for it, then,’ Vince continued. ‘You’ll be surprised at that, Drew, my lad?’

  Drew ducked his head, anticipating scorn, but couldn’t refrain from comment. ‘It’s a scandal, I reckon. Nothing’s going to change my mind on this. There is no way that doctor could be sure what the man died of. No way at all, without a post-mortem.’

  Vince smiled. ‘Anyone with a grain of sense could see what the story was. Like I keep telling you.’

  ‘I know. But it niggles me. What’s the point of having regulations, if nobody takes any notice of them?’