Common People

by Tony Birch

  ‘At the commencement of the financial year, every year, Miss Henson writes to the listed authority for whom we hold remains. Occasionally we hear back from people.’

  ‘What do they say?’

  ‘Some are bemused. Perhaps the daughter or grandchild of the original signatory, who, having inherited a family property discovers that they are also the custodian of a great aunt’s ashes. Others ask that we dispose of the remains ourselves, which we do, in a dignified manner. And occasionally someone will call and admit, with some embarrassment, to having simply forgotten to collect the remains in the same manner they may have left a suit at the dry-cleaners.’

  Mr Carver placed the palm of his hand on his chest and sighed. ‘I do not expect that you will be able to successfully return each of our holdings, but I must be sure that every effort has been made to do so before I walk out of here for the final time.’ He looked across to Sophie with genuine sincerity. ‘Are you able to do that for me? Make every effort?’

  ‘Yes of course. With the more recent entries it should be a fairly straightforward matter of contacting the signatory. It may be best doing that in person, either by telephone or a home visit.’ Sophie placed a hand on the ledger. ‘May I?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She picked it up and flicked through the pages as she explained her approach. ‘But with the older entries, it is possible the original signatory may have moved or passed away. In that case, I’ll begin with some research at the registry office – Births, Deaths and Marriages – to try and locate the next of kin.’ She patted Mr Carver on the back of his hand, surprising them both. ‘You’d be amazed how easy it is to find some people these days. Most people have a Facebook page, even my own gran.’

  Mr Carver turned up his nose. ‘Facebook. People seem to have forgotten the virtue of humility.’ He stared up at the pressed metal ceiling. ‘I’ve been with the family for over forty years. Most people believe it is a morbid trade but it’s nothing of the sort.’ He stood up and offered Sophie his hand. ‘In the short time that you will be with us, I hope you discover it to be an experience of great dignity.’

  Sophie left the funeral parlour expecting nothing of the sort. She did not disrespect the dead, but nor did she hold them in reverence. She’d pored over many records of life and death in her work, some quite tragic. She was driven by a commitment to historical accuracy, not emotion.

  Sophie enjoyed the new work. She began with the most recent funerals and found that in most instances the relatives had, as Mr Carver indicated, simply forgotten to collect the labelled ashes, finding themselves too busy to visit the funeral parlour. The remains were often those of an elderly relative who had lived alone and was widowed. Most of the cases were dealt with over the telephone, where it was agreed that the ashes would be collected. In some instances, families reneged on the arrangement and the ashes remained on the shelf waiting to be collected. As a matter of urgency, it was decided that the ashes would be sent to the next of kin by registered mail.

  ‘Is this legal, sending the ashes through the post?’ Sophie asked Miss Henson over morning tea, following a conversation she’d had with the youngest son of an eighty-five-year-old woman, who’d been awaiting collection for over two years. He’d moved interstate, to the far north–west coast. Sophie had managed to track him down through the family lawyer.

  ‘He’s too busy to come down this way and is happy for us to send her through the mail. Is that allowed?’

  ‘It is perfectly legal,’ Miss Henson explained. ‘Although it has never been a regular practice of Raven and Sons,’ she added. ‘Until now. Mr Carver made this decison as a matter of necessity.’

  ‘Why not?’ Sophie asked. ‘Until now?’

  ‘When cremations were first introduced, the postal system was used to return the remains to family, particularly to those living in rural areas.’

  Sophie waited patiently for Miss Henson to continue, as a means of explaining the apparent contradiction. But Miss Henson did not go on. As was her habit, she appeared to drift off, turning her head from left to right, as if mysteriously searching for a voice calling her name.

  ‘But not Raven’s?’ Sophie prompted her.

  ‘We did.’

  ‘We did?’

  ‘Briefly, until a terrible situation arose. The remains of a Mr Arnold Winter were posted to his wife, who lived out on a farm in the northern hills. Several months later we had a phone call from Mrs Winter, the man’s wife, enquiring after her husband’s ashes, which she claimed she had never received. It was established that the remains had in fact been delivered, but unfortunately to the wrong address.’

  ‘How could that be?’ Sophie asked. ‘Surely no one would want the ashes of a dead person who they didn’t know.’

  ‘Indeed. What occurred in this instance was that the ashes were delivered to another Mrs Winter in the same district. A Mrs Winter who had also lost her husband. A most peculiar coincidence. The ashes were lost forever.’

  The more explanation Miss Henson provided, the more confused Sophie became. She leaned across the desk in an effort to gain Miss Henson’s full attention.

  ‘Lost? When it was discovered that the ashes had been mistakenly sent to Mrs Winter number two, did somebody attempt to retrieve them?’

  ‘Of course we did!’ Miss Henson appeared offended. ‘Old Mr Raven made the trip himself. But it was too late.’

  Miss Henson fell silent again.

  ‘Too late?’ Sophie asked. ‘How could it be too late?’

  ‘When Mr Raven arrived at the property and explained the situation, the second Mrs Winter finally understood why she had been sent two parcels and not one.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, her husband’s ashes arrived about a week after his funeral, then a few days later a second parcel arrived. Our parcel.’ Recalling the incident from decades earlier Miss Henson’s face flushed with anger. ‘The ridiculous woman had concluded that her husband had been sent back to her in separate lots. He was a big man, she told Mr Raven.’

  Sophie still didn’t quite get it. ‘But how were they lost? The ashes. She could have handed them back to Mr Raven that day. Surely?’

  ‘Surely not. When Mr Raven asked where Mr Winter was, our Mr Winter, the woman invited him onto the patio.’

  ‘The patio?’

  ‘Yes. The patio.’ Miss Henson looked so distressed that Sophie wondered if she would be able to go on.

  ‘And?’

  ‘On the patio Mrs Winter pointed to a pair of sculptures. Crude examples, as relayed to Mrs Raven by her husband.’

  ‘Of?’

  ‘Of rabbits. The family had a deep affection for rabbits, apparently. Also, Mrs Winter was an amateur artist. She claimed that on his death bed her husband had requested that following his death his ashes be mixed into the potter’s clay that his wife used for her art, and that she sculpt him into an animal of her choosing.’

  While Sophie’s face showed little expression, she was thinking of ways to excuse herself from the room so that she could burst into laughter.

  ‘And she chose a rabbit?’

  ‘One that she fashioned the very same day her husband’s ashes were returned to her, and a second rabbit when the remains of our Mr Winter later showed up. You can imagine how Mrs Raven felt when Mr Raven returned with a plaster rabbit under one arm and explained that it was Mr Winter.’

  Sophie held the back of her hand to her mouth. ‘Did you send him on to our Mrs Winter?’

  ‘She wouldn’t hear of it. Mrs Raven explained what had occurred over the telephone, and offered to personally drive the rabbit … I mean Mr Winter … to her home. Mrs Winter hung up on her and the next week we received a letter from Mrs Winter’s lawyer threatening to sue. A cheque for one thousand dollars was posted to her by the end of the month.’

  ‘And the rabbit?’ Sophie asked as
she stood; ready to run from the room.

  ‘We did the only proper thing, of course.’

  ‘And what was that?’

  ‘We held a dignified service and buried him. Naturally.’

  By the time that Sophie’s six-month contract was up, the shelf of the dead had thinned dramatically. She had managed to locate either a family member or close friend willing to claim the ashes or grant permission for them to be disposed of. Each time she entered the storeroom Sophie would pick up the parcel she had held that first morning with Mr Carver. She had done all she could to locate the family, without success. The signing authority listed in the original ledger entry was a Mr Marcus Foley, aged forty-seven. Through research conducted in the registry office, Sophie discovered that Marcus Foley was the father of a child, Peter Marcus Foley, who died a little over a week after birth, in July 1958. Both the father and Mrs Lisa Dawn Foley, the child’s mother, had since passed away. Sophie did further research of the electoral rolls and contacted an old friend from her university days, Max, who worked in the state probate office. Looking for a next of kin, Sophie asked him to check the register of wills and public trustee, with no success. As each parcel disappeared from the shelf, P. Foley appeared more alone and abandoned.

  On her final day at Raven and Sons, Sophie once again went into the storeroom, picked up P. Foley and nursed him in her arms. Sophie took pride in her professionalism and efficiency. It annoyed her greatly that she had not been able to return the ashes of the newborn. But more than that, and to her own surprise, Sophie realised that she had formed an attachment to the deceased baby and was overwhelmed with a sense of responsibility towards his remains. As she was about to return the parcel to its place on the shelf, Sophie noticed something stuck in a fold of the paper. She released the fold. A fossilised earwig fell into the palm of her hand. She examined it closely. Even in death the insect had somehow remained perfectly formed. Sophie returned the embalmed corpse to its tomb and placed the remains on the shelf. On her way out of the office that afternoon, Sophie made a sudden decision. Before leaving Raven and Sons for the last time she returned to the storeroom and placed the ashes of P. Foley in her handbag.

  As her final job, that afternoon, Sophie drove across the river to the eastern suburbs. She had an address written on a piece of paper, the directions programmed into her mobile phone, and her handbag resting on the passenger seat. Forty minutes later she arrived in a street of neat post-war bungalows, with flowered gardens and modern cars parked in the driveways. While the houses were aged, young families were out on their lawns, walking dogs, their children riding bicycles. Sophie stopped outside number one-seventeen and got out of the car. The driveway was empty. She walked to the front door and rang the bell, several times. She felt so uncharacteristically anxious that she was relieved when no one answered. As she turned to leave she noticed an elderly woman looking at her from over the fence of the house next door. Sophie smiled at the woman and started to walk past her but changed her mind.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she began. ‘Do you know the people who live here?’

  ‘Not really,’ the woman shrugged. ‘It’s a rental property. They’ve been here for three years, maybe. A young couple. I say hello, but that’s about it. They’re away. They are most weekends.’

  ‘Actually, I was looking for people who lived here some time ago,’ Sophie said. ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘We built the place. Myself and my late husband, Eric. Sixty years ago.’

  ‘Do you remember anyone by the name of Foley.’

  The woman’s eyes lit up. ‘Of course. Lisa. Her and Marcus, they did the same as us. Their house went up a couple of years after ours. In those days the newspapers called us suburban pioneers.’

  ‘And when did they move out?’

  ‘Oh,’ the woman’s voice dropped. ‘They were here four … no … just on five years. And then …’ Her voice trailed off.

  ‘They lost a child. I know,’ Sophie said.

  ‘Yes. Yes. Poor Lisa. She tried to put it behind her. But couldn’t. Then one day, without notice, they were gone. A furniture van was parked here one day and the For Sale sign went up the next. She didn’t even say goodbye. It upset me at the time. I didn’t understand what she must have been going through until my own son was born.’ The old woman made the sign of the cross above her heart. ‘And I don’t want to imagine what it would be like.’

  ‘Do you know where they went to?’

  ‘No. I never saw them again. Or heard from them.’ She looked at Sophie more closely. ‘Are you family?’

  ‘No. No. It’s a legal matter.’

  The woman turned away, deciding that the matter was none of her business.

  Sophie returned to her genealogical work, constructing family trees from the flimsiest of emotional connections but she could not forget about P. Foley. Each morning before she left the house Sophie would look across to the box of ashes on the bookshelf above the television, sitting where she had left them next to a maidenhair fern. She would contemplate ways of how she could return the ashes to the new owner of Raven and Sons without having to explain how she had come by them in the first place. She once called the funeral parlour to speak with Mr Carver and was surprised when the telephone was answered by a stranger who informed her that both Mr Carver and Miss Henson were no longer with the business.

  ‘Where did they go?’ Sophie asked.

  ‘Into a retirement home, if they were lucky,’ the voice chuckled. ‘What an ancient pair.’

  Late one night Sophie was asleep on the couch with a rug over her knees when she was woken by her mobile phone. It was her old friend, Max.

  ‘Hey, Soph. Did I wake you?’

  ‘You did. But I’m glad. Otherwise I’d have woken up in the morning not knowing where I was.’

  ‘Maybe you need a man to get you into bed early?’

  ‘It’s why I don’t have one. So I can go to bed when I like. What did you call for Max, other than to proposition me? Which you could do at a more decent hour, by the way.’

  ‘You remember that name you asked me to chase up before Christmas? It was Foley. P. Foley.’

  Sophie glanced across the room to the ashes. ‘Sure I do. Why?’

  ‘Well, I found him.’

  She sat up. ‘Found him? You sure?’

  ‘I am. Unless it’s a remarkable coincidence. I have the details of a Mr P. Foley, born on the twenty-second of July, nineteen fifty-eight.’

  ‘Well, yeah. That’s the same name and date. But you said mister.’

  ‘That’s right. I’d done an initial word search and nothing came up. Over the last month we’ve been in the process of decommissioning the old card index. By law, we have to cross-reference before they can be destroyed and I was sent a list of names that had missed the e-transfer. Your man Foley was on it.’

  ‘But it makes no sense, Max. I was dealing with a week-old baby who died, not an adult. Can’t be the same person.’

  ‘Hmmm. Well, sorry to wake you, Soph. I thought it might be of help. Let’s catch up for lunch soon.’

  ‘Sure, sure. Hey, Max, why did you have this guy’s details?’

  ‘He was the administrator of a trust for his mother after his father died and she went into a home.’

  ‘Do you have an address?’

  The inner-city terrace was two storeys with a metal lace verandah, the kind of home Sophie sometimes dreamed of having for herself. She parked across the street and waited in her car, listening to the radio and watching the house. Just before dark, a man walked along the street, stopped at the front gate and checked the mailbox. To Sophie’s eyes he could be in his mid-fifties. He was slim, balding and fit looking.

  The man went into the house and closed the door. It took Sophie five minutes to pluck up enough courage to knock at the door herself. She could hear footsteps padding along a hallway. She
was surprised when a young woman, barely in her twenties, answered the door.

  ‘Hello,’ the girl smiled, as if Sophie was an old family friend.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Sophie said, awkwardly. ‘I’m after a Mr Foley.’

  ‘Mr Foley?’ the girl laughed. ‘Dad. Sure. Come in.’

  The girl ushered Sophie along a hallway of polished wooden boards, through a kitchen and into a lounge room overlooking a neat cottage garden.

  ‘Wait here. He’s upstairs. I’ll call him. Who should I say you are?’

  ‘Sophie.’

  ‘Sophie? Okay.’

  The girl went back into the hall and called up the stairway. ‘Dad! Dad! Sophie’s here for you.’

  A few minutes later Sophie heard footsteps descending the stairs. The man she had seen in the street appeared in the kitchen. He looked a little puzzled. ‘Sophie?’

  ‘Mr Foley? Peter Foley?’

  ‘Sorry, who are you?’

  ‘I’m here from, well, on behalf of our business.’

  ‘And what business is that?’

  ‘We’re a funeral business.’

  ‘A funeral business? I don’t know what you told my daughter but I have no interest in talking to a salesperson. I don’t want to be rude but …’

  ‘You are Peter Foley, born on the twenty-second of July, nineteen fifty-eight?’

  ‘Well, that is my birthdate. Yes. How do you know that? And it’s Paul, by the way.’

  ‘Your parents were Lisa and Marcus?’

  ‘Yes.’ He looked suspiciously at Sophie. ‘What’s this about?’

  Sophie opened her handbag and took out a photocopied page from the funeral parlour ledger. ‘Please, let me show you.’

  She placed the piece of paper on the kitchen bench and pointed to the entry that specified the remains, including the father’s name and signature.

  Paul Foley could make no sense of what he was reading.

  ‘That is my father’s signature. And yes, it is my name and birthdate. But it’s a mistake. As you can see,’ he ran a palm across his own heart. ‘I’m alive.’