‘Fletcher, please,’ said Fiona. ‘That’s my father.’
Austin, picking up a bottle, said: ‘Mom’s right. Don’t be so gross.’
‘I’m sorry, Mom. I don’t want to say the wrong thing,’ said Fletcher, ‘but realistically, if you’re going to do this here, we need to do it tomorrow.’
‘It feels completely wrong’ I said. ‘We just stick him in the ground – no funeral, no coffin, just cover him with dirt?’
‘Oh, Eden,’ said Mom, ‘I know it feels icky but you know what? It’s actually a sustainable decision. Those funeral homes, they charge an absolute fortune and it’s all a racket. They show you the brochures for the coffins and if you don’t choose the most expensive one, they make you feel guilty. This is the new way. I read a story in the New Yorker just recently, about people being buried upright in a muslin bag with a tree on top. How lovely is that? The corpse provides the nutrients. New growth. Back into the soil.’
Fletcher said: ‘Bodies do belong in the earth. My class got a fresh corpse to work on the year I started, and a box of hide beetles, to clean it up. The natural process is fascinating. Then when you see a fake skeleton, all white plastic bones, jaw hanging open, on wheels, it looks ridiculous next to the real thing. I’ll have no trouble handling Pop. It’s just a matter of how we do it.’
‘Yes, how are we going to manage?’ said Tim, lifting his own Budweiser to his lips. ‘Between me and the boys, I think we should be able to get him up there, providing we have a trolley of some kind. Although I don’t relish the digging. That’s clay in that cemetery. And it’s got to be a decent depth.’
Fletcher nodded.
‘We have to be frank about the practicalities,’ he said. ‘There’s a reason people used to put the graveyard in the churchyard. It’s so they didn’t have to cart bodies. They’re heavy.’
‘Why is the cemetery all the way up the hill?’ I asked.
‘The original Owen – your pop’s pop – insisted on being buried up there,’ said Fiona. ‘He wanted a view over the entire estate, king of all he surveyed. Then of course, everyone else who died had to follow him up there. But like Tim was saying, they would have had horses, or ranch hands.’
‘And we don’t have either,’ said Mom.
‘Do you know how hard it is to dig down six feet?’ said Austin. He was sitting in the end chair, side on to the blond-wood table, bare feet protruding from the frayed ends of his jeans. ‘Or maybe that’s just from the movies.’
‘Six feet was so animals wouldn’t come and dig somebody up,’ said Fletcher.
‘Fletcher, please,’ said Fiona, turning in her chair to bury her face in Tim’s chest.
‘Hey, hey. Are you having second thoughts?’ asked Tim. He put his beer down, and tried to see into her face. ‘Just tell us if you are. You’re his daughter. His flesh and blood.’
Fiona sniffed and raised her face slightly, like she was pleased to at least get that recognition. She was Owen’s daughter. Not a grandchild. Not an in-law. Therefore, in this matter, the decision-maker.
‘I know what he wanted,’ she said, newly resolute. ‘I guess I never really thought it through to this day. Or else I thought Jack would be here to work it out. And I am worrying: what if we get into trouble?’
Mom snorted, not angrily but in a dismissive way.
‘What if we get into trouble? What about all the trouble we had that other time we sent a body away?’ she said. ‘No, I have no qualms about carrying out Owen’s last wishes. I am happy to do what needs to be done. To me, though … well, I have to agree with you, Tim, obviously it would be a lot easier if we didn’t have to cart him up there. If we had ashes.’
‘Yes, that’s what I was thinking,’ said Fiona, nodding. ‘Why don’t we just call an ambulance and have him cremated, and then we can bury the ashes, like we did with Mom?’
‘No, no!’ my Mom said, dismissively again. ‘That’s exactly what he didn’t want.’
‘I think we can trust them to handle it,’ said Tim. ‘What happened to Nell, that really was a one-off.’
‘Not quite a one-off,’ said Fletcher, lips paused over his beer bottle. ‘There were heaps of corpses it happened to, right?’
‘That’s not really the issue,’ said Mom. ‘This issue is what Owen wanted.’
Fiona sighed, as if to acknowledge the unavoidable nature of things. ‘Well, then, we should think about how we’re going to dig a grave. I’m sorry to have to ask you to do it, Tim. And the boys. It’s going to take most of the day.’
‘Okay,’ said Mom, like she’d just hit on something. ‘Wait. I do have an idea.’
Everyone turned to look at her. The conversation had already been surreal and I couldn’t even guess what she was going to say.
‘We can do it here,’ she said.
‘Do what here?’ asked Austin.
‘The cremation. We can do it here. We have a fire.’
Fiona looked confused. I didn’t know what Mom was getting at either.
‘What do you mean, we have a fire?’ asked Fletcher, although it looked like his mind was already starting to come to grips with what Mom was suggesting.
‘There’s an incinerator behind Alden Castle,’ she said.
‘You mean the pizza oven?’ said Austin, his lips expanding suddenly into an evil grin, like this was a particularly gruesome scene in a teenage horror flick. ‘No way, Auntie Jes. That’s just wrong.’
* * *
They decided on 10am as the perfect time for the cremation. Fletcher and Austin would get the fire going. Mom and Fiona would dress Pop. Tim would have to go into Paso and pick up Great Aunt Margaret from the retirement village. I could take whatever role I wanted, or no role at all.
‘Auntie Margaret knows?’ I said.
Mom nodded.
‘Yes, of course. We called her yesterday. And she understands that this is what Owen wanted.’
‘And Penelope?’ I added. ‘Are you going to tell her what you’re doing?’
‘I already have. But I can’t imagine she wants to take part,’ said Mom. ‘I mean, the cremation will be no fun, and the burial … it’s so far up the hill.’
‘We still have to ask her,’ I said. ‘I’ll call her in her cottage.’
But before I got the chance, Penelope arrived at the pavilion, pale and grief-stricken. Rex had driven her, in one of the station trucks. It was the first time I’d seen him out of their cottage in maybe ten years. He looked concerned for Penelope. He reeked of cigarettes.
‘I know I said my goodbyes to Owen yesterday,’ Penelope said, ‘but I wanted to see you Eden, to say how sorry I am.’
She held out her arms and I accepted her embrace. We cried on each other’s shoulders, both of us apologising for snotting all over the other.
‘He had a long life,’ she said. ‘A good, long life.’
Austin came onto the deck. He was wearing rubber boots and gardening gloves and one of Penelope’s old aprons, and he had a hair tie around the end of his scruffy ginger beard.
‘To keep it clear of the flames,’ he said.
Austin had already explained how he should be in charge, because he knew the oven best, because he was the one who turned the incinerator into a pizza oven in the first place, inspired by a friend in San Francisco who had one in his courtyard garden and told him how to do it. This was a few summers back, when Austin had still been a schoolboy and a visitor on the estate. He’d moved the opening from the top to the front, covered the bricks with cladding, and painted the whole oven bright white. Then he’d bought a long-handled pizza paddle on eBay, and asked Penelope to make dough for the pizza in the breadmaker, and after the initial excitement, it hardly got used.
‘But it should still work fine,’ said Austin. ‘Nothing can fall in it anymore. Remember when we cleared it out the first time, the bird’s nest inside? But if there’s some dry leaves, that will work as kindling. Pine cones would be good, too. Plus, we’ve got starter fuel and a lighter.’
Fletcher said: ‘There’s still wood on the pile down there, isn’t there?’
‘I think so,’ said Austin.
We watched them go, and Penelope and Rex soon followed, back to their own cottage. Fiona and Mom went upstairs to start dressing Pop. They had already debated outfits: Mom had been for the navy robe with the crest on the breast, over the pair of baggy grey knickers they’d found him in.
‘No, no, the white suit,’ said Fiona. ‘We should bury him in the old white suit.’
I said I’d wait for Tim to come back with Margaret, and when they arrived I helped her from the car. She wore the same elasticized denim jeans she’d worn to dinner, or a pair just like them.
‘So he finally gave up the ghost,’ she said.
‘I guess,’ I sighed.
‘Don’t be sad,’ she said. ‘He had a good life.’
We climbed the glass staircase to find Fiona by Pop’s bed, gently trying to get the limbs to bend a little, through the rigor mortis, and complaining at Mom’s rougher handling of him.
‘You’re going to hurt him!’ she cried.
‘I don’t think that’s possible,’ said Margaret, wryly.
‘Oh, I know. I just mean, let’s be gentle!’
‘He can’t feel anything,’ said Margaret. She had not approached the bed, but reached into her pocket for a packet of nicotine chewing gum. ‘He’s gone. And it’s not a bad way to go. What do you think, Fi, that we all want to die a lingering death like Nell? No. This is perfect.’
‘This suit is too big,’ said Mom, yanking the fabric. ‘How can it be too big?’
‘He shrank when he got old,’ observed Margaret, and so he had. The suit was swimming over the lavender shirt and a polka-dot pocket square.
‘Do we need shoes?’ asked Fiona, doubtfully.
‘Of course!’ said Margaret. ‘You can’t send him to heaven in socks.’
Mom fetched a pair and took care doing up the laces.
Finally, he was dressed.
‘If everyone’s said their goodbyes, I’d like to say mine,’ said Margaret.
We bowed our heads, and retreated, leaving them alone. I don’t know what Margaret said or did, whether she kissed him or tucked a cigarette into his top pocket or what. I waited at the top of the stairs to help her down. Then there was nothing for any of us to do but wait on the deck for Tim and the others to come back and say the fire was lit and the oven hot. Margaret took the gum from her mouth, took out her cigarettes and lit up, the smell mingling with the faint wisps of smoke coming from the oven at the end of the road.
Finally they came back: Fletcher, Tim and Austin, all three with sooty hands and dirty boots.
‘Fire’s lit. Is he still upstairs?’ said Fletcher.
Fiona, crying, said: ‘We dressed him, but we can’t move him.’
‘It’s fine,’ said Tim. ‘Of course you can’t. Come on, boys.’
They left their boots by the bi-folds and went up the glass staircase. Tim folded the base sheet around Pop’s head and body and they carried him like a thin man in a hammock, with Fletcher and Tim at one end, and Austin at the feet, and placed him in the back of Tim’s flat-bed truck.
‘Who wants to drive?’ said Austin, putting his boots back on.
‘I’ll do it,’ said Fletcher, and Austin tossed him the keys.
‘I think I’ll stay here,’ said Margaret. ‘I don’t have to watch the cremation, do I? I mainly came for the wake.’
‘Maybe I’ll stay here too,’ said Fiona.
‘Well, if you’re not going, I’m not either,’ I said.
‘Then I guess I’ll stay too,’ said Mom.
Tim made a face, like: ‘So this is my job, then?’ But he nodded, and said: ‘Yes, okay. I think that’s probably a good idea. We’ll go do this part, and then whoever wants to make the trek can come up to the cemetery and bury the ashes.’
We watched them drive away, with Pop in a sheet, but loose in the back. Fiona was crying. Margaret still smoking, until Mom called her to come inside and have a cup of tea.
‘It’s going to be hours,’ she said, but less than thirty minutes later, we heard Tim calling from the deck.
‘God, I’m so sorry,’ he said.
He was standing at the base of the steps, smelling faintly of smoke even at that distance, his expression telling us something had gone wrong.
‘What happened?’ cried Fiona.
‘Oh Fi. We just can’t do it.’
Mom was alarmed. ‘What do you mean?’ she said.
‘We tried,’ said Tim. ‘We lifted him in … the sheet and his suit caught fire – but it just wasn’t working, and Fi … the smell.’
‘But where is he now?’ cried Fiona.
‘He’s back in the truck. Please don’t be upset, Fi, but the way he smelt … it was like cooking. Then we saw what looked like a dust cloud on the horizon. I was thinking about Don Burnbank next door, with his binoculars out, sniffing the wind …’
‘Oh my God, stop!’ cried Fiona. ‘But what are we going to do? We can’t send him to the morgue now. You put him in the incinerator and took him out again! How is that going to look?’
‘We’ll just explain,’ said Tim.
‘Just explain? Are you joking?’
They looked at each other, Tim apologetic and Fiona in full-on panic mode, with a red rash creeping up her neck into her face. I was barely able to think, let alone speak, for the horror of what was happening. Were these people adults?
And then I took control.
I had no choice. Who else was going to do it?
‘Okay. We will bury him in the cemetery, like he wanted,’ I said. ‘We can all go, and we can all help.’
I stepped back into the pavilion to fetch a puffer jacket, with a zip up to my neck. Mom shrugged and took my lead, zipping a puffer over her blouse, and Fiona did the same. We walked as a group – Margaret didn’t come, of course; she’d never make it up the trail – down to the castle to find Fletcher and Austin standing beside the flat-bed truck, with Austin still holding the pizza paddle, and Pop lying flat, under a scorched sheet.
The mouth of the oven glowed red and there was a strange smell in the air.
Feeling that heat and smelling what must be cooked flesh, I almost vomited.
‘We need some kind of cart, or else the wheelbarrow,’ I said.
Austin nodded, saying: ‘Come on.’
Mom said: ‘Yes, let’s do it. This is a nightmare, but as soon as he’s in the ground – resting in peace, like he wanted – we are all going to feel so much better.’
That’s when I felt the first fat drops of rain.
‘Just like when Mom died,’ said Fiona.
Austin fetched the wheelbarrow from the wood store. It wasn’t really suitable for the hiking trail, but better than nothing.
‘We can take turns digging,’ said Fletcher.
‘And carrying the shovels,’ said Tim, having fetched those, too.
We started up the hiking trail, with Fletcher going first, seeing if he could push Pop up the trail, before deciding that it might be easier to drag the wheelbarrow up. Fletcher took one handle and Austin the other. It was still hard going, with the clay beneath our boots and shoes and the front wheel, and the rain coming down more and more steadily as the hour passed.
Finally we arrived. Mom lifted her ballet flats to reveal soles caked with clay.
‘Ruined,’ she said.
Fletcher, Austin and Tim took turns digging the hole. I did my bit too, before Fletcher called time on the depth, saying, ‘That’s got to be enough.’
Austin disagreed. ‘It’s not deep enough. I was joking about six feet under, but we’ve got to do better than that.’
Fletcher jumped down and stood in the wet hole. It came to just past his knees.
‘I think it’s fine,’ said Mom. ‘Not perfect, but fine. There’s nothing on the estate that’s going to … I mean, we don’t have wild dogs. This isn’t Arizona. Nothing is going to happen to him.�
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‘Deer don’t dig, do they?’ asked Austin.
‘Of course they don’t!’ said Fletcher.
‘Come on, now, everyone stop bickering,’ said Mom. Her hair was plastered to her skull and mascara was running down her face. ‘Tim, Fletcher, can you please lift Owen in?’
Fletched nodded and reached for Pop’s covered body in the wheelbarrow. One of his legs, in the white suit pants, was sticking out. The sheets around his head were soaked, and sucking in, towards his open mouth and eyeballs. I felt like I wanted to scream.
‘I’ll take this end, Austin, buddy, if you take the other end,’ said Fletcher. He bent at the knee to take Pop from under his armpits. ‘You got him? Okay. Go.’
They lifted him, shuffled to the right, and laid him in gently. Fletcher picked up one shovel and passed the other to Austin.
‘No, wait,’ said Mom. ‘Does anyone want to say anything?’
‘I’d like to say something,’ said Fiona.
We turned to look at her.
‘Go on,’ said Tim tenderly.
‘I guess what I want to say is, I can hardly believe I’m here, doing this. I know it’s what Dad wanted, so it’s a strange feeling, like I’m doing something wrong even though I know it’s right. And also that I know life wasn’t easy for Dad. People think it was because he inherited this estate but it proved a burden. He never could make a living and I think he maybe always wanted to sell it and yet he didn’t want to be the one who lost it for the family. And now look at us, happily selling it. But that’s okay. So what I really want to say is: Thank you, Dad. Thank you for everything.’
‘I second that,’ said Tim. ‘He was a fantastic father and grandfather. A patriotic American. I’m going to miss him.’
‘Me too,’ said Austin.
‘I think I might even miss him,’ said Fletcher.
I looked over at Mom. I hadn’t seen or heard her cry since she’d broken the news to me, and maybe it was exhaustion, and maybe the stress of everything – who knows what? – but by Pop’s graveside, she suddenly broke down, saying: ‘I’d agree with all of that. Owen was very welcoming to me when I first arrived at Alden Castle. And I have wonderful memories of sharing the castle with him and Nell. He was a terrific father-in-law, a great dad to Jack, and of course he was a wonderful pop to Eden.’
The Lucky One Page 17
