by Wendy Jones
He folded the sandpaper in half and brushed the dust from his hands. He’d been impulsive before, there was that time he punched boss-eyed Sidney Thomas during a game of hidihop on the castle field and given him a bloody nose because he’d been chanting, ‘Wilfred Price got no mam! Wilfred Price got no mam!’ His impetuousness, he thought, was something to do with being an undertaker and spending so much time around death, because death was absolutely certain and being a bit rash in life balanced that certainty a little.
He remembered too, though, how womanly Grace had looked in the yellow dress she had worn to that picnic. It was a lovely dress. She was an attractive woman. And he truly hadn’t wanted to hurt her. But if Wilfred had learned anything through all this, it was not to be impulsive. Beautiful women and lovely dresses: it wasn’t enough.
Grace yanked the head off a lavender flower and rubbed it between her fingers, crushing the small, lilac petals to release their scent. She held her fingertips to her nose, inhaling the soothing aroma of lavender oil. Lavender oil healed burned skin. But it wasn’t Grace’s fair skin that was burning – the spring sun was too weak for that. It was inside her that a fire was beginning to rage, threatening to scour her out and leave sooty ashes.
Grace shifted in the deckchair – why were these things so uncomfortable to sit in? She was slumped, her spine curved and her back aching. Splices of the conversation with Wilfred kept flashing into her mind.
‘Wilfred? Where have you been?’ It had come out all wrong, Grace had realized a split second after she had said it. Then Wilfred’s consoling of her, ‘Please could you move so these people can get in?’ and the sure strength of his touch on her arm. The memories were so full of heat and they caused her to blush violently with shame. That couple had overheard! She twisted in the deckchair and turned the other way, wiping her eyes: her new Elizabeth Arden mascara that was supposed to be waterproof rubbed off on to her hand. And she’d cried! Wilfred had seen her actually cry; cry because she’d cared, because she liked him, had all her hopes pinned on him. And she didn’t want to care. So she imagined herself once again, standing outside the Angel, this time answering back. ‘Really, Wilfred? It is such a relief you said it. Actually, I was going to say the same to you. It would have been disastrous!’ and laughing elegantly, reaching up to her hair and smoothing it behind her ears. Then she imagined commenting on the weather before dashing into the Star Supply Stores with Wilfred looking after her wistfully, Wilfred the hurt one.
Grace tried to reconfigure the memory so she had some dignity, so Wilfred would see her as the light, carefree woman she wished to seem: casual, informal, unburdened. She wanted to care for the marriage as little as he cared for it.
A bee landed on the frame of the deckchair; it appeared unsure which way the flowers and the nectar were so it hovered lazily, as lost and lacking in direction as she was. The deckchair irritated Grace – the ticking was scratchy – and the lackadaisical bee irritated her. Perhaps she could take the bee, grab it in the palm of her hand, encase it and squash it while it buzzed frantically and abruptly stung her. It would be easy to crush. She, Grace, could also crush, kill and cause death. Perhaps the violence of the bee’s panic would ignite the fire of feelings she knew she was holding deep inside her.
Grace twisted, edging her hand near the resting bee. She could just cup her hand over it … but the bee would sting her and she might jump and yelp and cry and rage, might ultimately erupt with everything pent up within her. She would issue such an almighty scream that she – and Narberth – would explode ferociously into an ever-expanding nothingness. She doubted that Narberth, even the world itself, could contain the rage and pain and the shame that she felt sitting here in the deckchair in the back garden. The honeybee, still resting on the beech frame, buzzed obliviously. She watched it do a quiet two-step on the wood.
But perhaps, Grace thought, Wilfred loved her really. And it was all a mistake. At that thought, her heart soared and it seemed as if the sun suddenly burst out from behind the clouds and illuminated the day. But Wilfred had meant it. He had repeated it. He said he didn’t want to marry her not once, but twice, maybe three times when hearing it just once made her feel hope itself was lost. She closed her eyes while her shame attacked her and humiliation seeped out of her skin. Why didn’t Wilfred want to marry her? She needed to know. Although the why was no longer as burning a question as the one that now preoccupied her: was her monthly period late?
2
Mister Wilfred Price, Purveyor of Superior Funerals
The following morning Flora Myffanwy Edwards was in her bedroom bending down tucking in her bedsheet when she heard an ominous thud downstairs; there was a moment of silence before her mother’s voice rose up.
‘Decimus? Decimus!’ Then, ‘Flora! Come quick. Decimus!’
Alarmed by the anxiety in her mother’s voice, Flora stood up straight. She ran swiftly down both flights of stairs, one hand on the banister, the other on the wall to balance herself. In the hallway her mother was leaning over her father, who was slumped on the red hall rug, lying on his stomach.
‘He fell. He was talking, then he fell. He was right as rain, telling me about a carthorse he’d seen with a lame leg,’ her mother gabbled by way of explanation, ‘then he collapsed, just like that. Dihuna! Bryn. Dihuna! Wake up!’
Flora looked at her father lying prostrate. Her mind was suddenly extremely clear.
‘I’ll get a doctor.’ She stepped carefully around her father. She must sprint to the post office. No, she would cycle; it was quicker. She dashed round the back to the outhouse, jumped on her bicycle and set off. The rubber pedals were heavy at first, resisting her weight, but once she cycled up the incline it would be downhill, and then she would go much faster.
At the post office, she flung open the garden gate, crying out, ‘Mr Lewis – I need to use the telephone!’
The post-office master appeared from round the side of his house holding a cluster of India rubber bands. ‘What is it, Flora?’
‘It’s Father, he’s fallen.’
Mr Lewis, sensing Flora’s panic, immediately opened the red front door of the Stepaside post office, which was a one-roomed building tacked on the side of his cottage, and rushed to the wall telephone. He dialled one, nought, nought.
The telephone rang sonorously. Eventually a voice answered, ‘Operator speaking.’
‘Operator, it’s Bryn Lewis.’
‘Morning, Bryn, how are you then? I’ve heard they’ve put central heating in the post—’
‘Doctor Hedley. Immediately, please.’
‘Doctor Hedley’s not here, he’s gone to the British Empire Exhibition in London. There’s no doctor in Stepaside, you’ll have to get the doctor from Narberth.’
‘Narberth? But that’s almost seven miles away!’ exclaimed Flora, overhearing.
‘I’m connecting you right now.’ Flora heard a telephone bell reverberate feebly in the distance. She waited long seconds for someone on the other end to lift the receiver.
‘This is Narberth 102.’
‘We need a doctor. A doctor straight away,’ stated Mr Lewis. ‘At White Hook. On Cliff Road.’
Mrs Reece knew to write the address exactly.
‘Is that Kilgetty?’ she enquired.
‘No – further. Stepaside.’
A portentous voice came down the line. ‘This is Doctor Reece speaking.’ The doctor had taken the receiver from his wife. ‘What seems to be the matter?’
‘It’s Decimus Edwards of White Hook, Cliff Road, Doctor. Tell him, Flora.’
‘He’s fallen,’ said Flora urgently into the receiver.
‘Is he breathing?’
‘I think so.’
‘I will drive over promptly in my motorcar. Cliff Road, you say? White Hook. Stepaside. Wait outside the gate for me.’
When Flora reached White Hook, she pitched her bicycle against the gatepost, pinned back a curl of her brown hair and turned to the direction of Narberth. The exertion
of cycling had tired her, her back was damp with sweat so that her cotton blouse was sticking to her skin and her hair was loose and dishevelled. She listened for the sound of a motorcar. Come on, Doctor, come on. She listened, but she couldn’t hear a car.
It began raining hard so Flora moved to stand under the branches of the cedar tree. What if her father was really sick? What if something had happened to him? No, he was fine. He had fallen, that’s all, she told herself. Probably he had banged his head and was unconscious. She would stay calm. He must have tripped on the stair carpet – she did it often herself, catching her foot on the corner. Of course her mam would have been frightened but, by now, he would have come round, her mam would have helped him into his armchair in the parlour, made a cold compress from a flannel and put it on his forehead, perhaps holding it to his temples as well.
Soon she would be able to have some lunch, warm soup and a leek pasty, then perhaps go to the cove and find some shells to photograph. Father would be mortified that she had called the doctor. ‘Dim byd oedd e, yr holl ffws am ddim,’ he would say. ‘All that fuss for nothing.’ He’d have a quiet rest of the day and a nasty bump, then no doubt be up and about tomorrow, back in the forge, levelling horses’ hooves and nailing on shoes.
Suddenly she saw a dark green Austin Seven approaching. Flora started waving desperately. ‘Doctor! Here!’ The car slowed and Flora pointed the way up the drive, towards her family home. At the top of the drive, Dr Reece stopped the car by the kitchen window and stepped out. Flora was startled by how tall and severe he looked.
‘This way, Doctor. You came quickly,’ she added gratefully. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing, but thank you for coming anyway.’
Dr Reece nodded, unsmiling. At the porch he stopped, wiped his feet on the mat and said, ‘After you,’ so Flora entered her home first, walking hurriedly through the kitchen and into the hall. Her father was still there on the red rug in exactly the same position but her mother was no longer with him.
‘Mam?’ she called. ‘The doctor is here. Mam?’
Mrs Edwards emerged from the parlour, eyes rimmed red; she was tucking a handkerchief into her cuff and there was the sharp smell of ammonia in the air. She must have been inhaling her smelling salts.
‘Good morning, Doctor Reece.’ Mrs Edwards spoke formally to the doctor who was already down on one knee by her husband’s head. The doctor was searching for a pulse in his patient’s wrist and simultaneously studying his pocket watch. He then opened his doctor’s bag and brought out a stethoscope.
‘Would you mind helping?’ he asked. Flora moved forward, her mother hesitated. ‘I need to turn him on to his back.’
Flora, Dr Reece and her mother carefully rolled her father over, Flora holding his head in both hands, and he sighed loudly as they laid him supine. Flora’s heart skipped at the sound of his breath, though his face was almost mauve.
The doctor leaned over, swiftly unknotting her father’s tie and undoing his shirt, accidentally ripping free a button. The button fell on the tiles and bounced a few times before coming to a standstill. Dr Reece pressed the stethoscope to her father’s chest and listened intently. The room was hushed while he concentrated, his eyes shut. As he got up from his knees, he picked up the small bone button, offered it to Flora and said, ‘I’m sorry.’
She rushed forward, taking the button from the doctor’s hand. ‘I can easily sew it on later,’ she said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I can easily sew on the shirt-button later, it won’t take a moment.’
‘No, I’m sorry, your father has passed away.’
‘Could it not wait until tomorrow night, Da?’ Wilfred asked, putting down a half-eaten pie on the Daily Express crossword and finally taking his mind away from Grace and his guilt over hurting her. He sat back in the chair and watched his da ready himself to leave. It was dark outside and rain was drumming heavily on the windowpane. His da would get soaked – absolutely drenched – within a few minutes of going out of the back door despite his felt hat, fustian coat and the heavy leather gloves sticking out of the pockets. At least it wasn’t cold.
‘You could always dig tomorrow night,’ Wilfred suggested, stretching his arm along the back of the chair.
‘No,’ his da replied, tying some twine around his coat for a belt. ‘If it rains again the ground will be waterlogged.’ He was right: it rained frequently in South Wales. ‘No point putting it off. Got to be done. Should be home by around four in the morning,’ his da said, adjusting his hat.
The grave was for a chap from right out Stepaside way. He’d keeled over yesterday, just like that. Wasn’t ill. Been nothing wrong with him at all, as far as his wife could see. Out of the blue, she’d told Wilfred when he’d gone to collect the body on Sunday evening. Must have been a stroke.
‘The deceased was five foot seven, or thereabouts,’ Wilfred stated, taking a bite of steak and kidney pie, ‘and portly around the middle.’
‘I’ll dig a standard size grave, then,’ his da replied, while looking around for his muffler, ‘maybe slightly larger girth. The Reverend Waldo Williams said to dig next to the fenced plot belonging to the Nicholas family.’
‘Nice spot. Crowded part of the graveyard, mind,’ Wilfred remarked, brushing crumbs off the newspaper.
‘You’re right. I’ll take the oilcloth and put it over Edward Thomas and his son’s headstone to stop it getting splattered with mud.’
‘But Da, you’ll be digging up to your knees in water once you’re a few feet down.’
‘Aye, aye,’ his da replied, pulling the end of his muffler out from under a tin of Smith’s potato crisps.
Wilfred sometimes wished his father didn’t dig graves for a living. Funerals, like this one on Thursday for a man in his late fifties, the same age as his da – and surely someone’s father – brought it home to Wilfred. His father might catch something on his chest digging in hinderable rain like this. Wilfred knew from his work that you could never be too careful with a cough. On a night like this he would have liked to see his da inside by the fire. But his da wouldn’t be hearing of it.
‘They need me,’ he would say. ‘And I need them.’
It was the day of the funeral. Flora looked at her shoes – they were polished to what her father would have called ‘within an inch of their life’, and were reflecting tangents of light. Her father had always expected gleaming shoes, probably because of his days in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. Her silk stockings were new, her hair was finger-waved and she was wearing an ebony-coloured blouse that was stiff with starch. They were her silk crêpe mourning clothes which she’d last worn for her fiancé’s funeral, that unbearable, soul-destroying day six years ago.
Flora was waiting in the kitchen with her mother for the funeral director to come from Narberth at half past two. It would make sense to wait for the undertaker in the hall but since Daddy had passed away – so abruptly and unexpectedly – in the hallway, neither she nor her mam wanted to linger there so instead they were huddled by the gas stove.
‘Have you got everything?’ her mother asked, warming her hands. ‘You won’t be taking your camera with you?’
‘No, of course not,’ Flora replied, though she felt almost naked without her Kodak Brownie.
Flora clicked open her handbag. She had two linen handkerchiefs with her. At the funeral service for her fiancé, Albert, she had only taken one hanky – her best one, naturally, the one edged with her grandmother’s handmade lace – and by the end of the service it was sodden and useless. That was when she’d realized lace handkerchiefs weren’t only genteel accessories for ladies but necessary and hardworking objects that helped to keep one respectful and one’s grief discreet. All her handkerchiefs had a small, cursive F embroidered in sea-green on them – her grandmother’s work again. It was as if the tears dabbed into her handkerchiefs were named and labelled.
‘A stiff upper lip for Daddy’s sake,’ her mam encouraged.
‘Yes, Mam,’ Flora said, mo
ving closer to her mother. Flora felt it was more a case of a numb upper lip, numb face, numb – everything. She had been so utterly shocked to see her daddy there, dead, in the hall on Sunday morning, lying on the red rug and the geometric tiles, that she hadn’t been able to feel anything else since. She’d gone through the motions of getting up, washing herself, dressing, eating – at her mam’s insistence – small amounts at each meal but really she could barely swallow water, never mind eat food. Somehow she’d done what she needed to do for five, dazed days.
‘Daddy would appreciate the effort you’ve made with your shoes,’ her mam commented, her voice quavering.
Flora checked the time on the kitchen clock. People spoke about funerals honouring the dead. Flora, though, only wanted the funeral service to be over with because the day felt so intolerable. She knew there would be a service, a burial, and high tea afterwards but she felt benumbed and was expecting nothing from the day.
‘He’ll be here in a minute. He knows the way,’ her mam said anxiously.
The undertaker had come immediately to collect the body, so soon it was almost unseemly. Flora had been unable to go downstairs to meet him – she was too upset and had told her mam to say she was resting in her room. A few days later the funeral hymns had been chosen: ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross’ and – Daddy’s favourite – ‘Bydd Myrdd o Rhyfeddodau’, then the order of service had been printed on thick white card with a black rim. She imagined the grave had also been dug. Finally, she had hand-washed her best blouse which she had last worn, utterly heartbroken, in 1918, and now again.
