Then I think, But I aint going to see. It doesn't matter, it's immaterial, because I aint going to see. Unless it's true, like Vincey seems to think, that they're watching, the dead 'uns, so when I'm dead I'll be able to watch my own funeral. And they're all watching us, even now, the old man, and Charlie Dixon and Vince's mum and dad, and Duke, and Jack here, peeping through the cardboard, and all the dead 'uns me and Jack and Lenny left behind in the war, lying in the desert, because we were lucky and it wasn't our turn.
So I'd be able to see if Susie comes.
Lenny says, 'I reckon they should chuck you over Tatten-ham Corner.'
I look at Lenny. It aint a straight face.
Vince says, 'It'd firm up the going.' Vince is all sparky, like he's found a new game. 'How about the rest of us? How about you, Lenny?'
'Oh I'm with Ray, I aint choosy. It aint - material.'
The box is lying between us, like an armrest.
Vince says, 'Ashes is material.'
Lenny looks at Vince.
'And what about you, Vie?'
Vie lifts up his head as though he might have dozed off again.
'Oh,' he says, 'that's all arranged.'
Vince says, 'What's arranged?'
Vie says, 'I bought a plot, years ago, when plots were cheap. For me and Pam. Camberwell New Cemetery.'
Everyone goes quiet. We drive along. It's anyone's guess what each of us is thinking but Vic's guess is better than most, I'd say. I reckon Vie knows more than he shows. Maybe that comes from working with stiffs too.
Vie
It's a good trade. It doesn't exist to buy cheap and sell dear, or to palm off on the nearest mug something he doesn't need. No one wants it, everyone requires it. There's shysters in any trade, and they're the worst kind of shysters who will take advantage of another person's misfortune. There's those I know will fleece a widow of less than a week for a solid oak coffin, satin lining, solid brass handles' the lot, when a plain veneer will do the job. I haven't heard a corpse complain yet. There's them that will flog coffins like Vincey here flogs cars. But the trade itself is a good trade, a steady trade. It won't ever run short of custom.
And it's a privilege, to my mind, an education. You see humankind at its weakest and its strongest. You see it stripped bare of its everyday concerns when it can't help but take itself serious, when it needs a little wrapping up in solemnness and ceremony. But it doesn't do for an undertaker to get too solemn. That's why a joke's not out of place. That's why I say: Vie Tucker, at your disposal.
It's not a trade many will choose. You have to be raised to it, father to son. It runs in a family, like death itself runs in the human race, and there's comfort in that. The passing on. It's not what you'd call a favoured occupation. But there's satisfaction and pride to it. You can't run a funeral without pride. When you step out and slow-pace in front of the hearse, in your coat and hat and gloves, you can't do it like you're apologizing. You have to make happen at that moment what the bereaved and bereft want to happen. You have to make the whole world stop and take notice. There's times when an undertaker wields more clout than a copper. But you can't run a funeral without authority. When people don't know what to do they have to be told, and most people don't know left from right, they don't know back from front, it's a fact, in the face of death. It was the same at Jack's do as at a thousand others. When those curtains come across and the music plays nobody knows when to turn round and go. There's no one to say, 'Show's over.' So there was Raysy, beside Amy, in the front pew, next to the aisle, looking straight ahead, and I go up to him and touch his arm and whisper in his ear, as I've whispered similar in I don't know how many ears, 'You can go now, Raysy. They'll all follow. Amy'll follow.' And just for that moment Ray Johnson, known to those who know him as Lucky, was like putty in my hands, like a sleepy child I was sending off to bed.
I watched Jack clear off the meat trays, picking up the little sprigs of imitation greenery, then wash down the display counter, smoothly, without pausing, like he could do it all with his eyes closed, but carefully and deliberately, taking his time, it being a hot day. And I thought, He's early, and it's a while since I've seen him do that himself, it's usually that lad, the one he said couldn't tell chuck from chine and couldn't keep a price in his head. Unless he's gone and paid him off too. And that red and white awning's looking tattier, it won't last the year out.
It's an old habit at the end of the day, to watch the other shops shutting up. A shop is meant to be looked at, that's why it's built round a window. You can eye the goods and watch the shopkeeper, like a fish in a tank, except that doesn't apply in the case of an undertaker's. A coffin shop's the one shop no one wants to peer into. They're laid out according, no pun intended. Curtains, screens. No one wants to see an FD going about his business.
So I stood where I've often stood of a quiet evening, behind the lace curtain which runs the width of the window, above the half-partition of dark panelling. It's a habit that comes with the trade too. Secrecy, seeing and not being seen.
Trev had the half day off, Dick was on a pick-up from Maidstone, and the rest of the crew had slipped off, the hearses parked round the back, all waxed and polished for tomorrow. So I was alone on the premises. Excepting Mr Connolly, that is, who was waiting for his wife to come and view him.
I watched Jack step outside to wind up the awning, a few twists of the handle, then go back inside, then reappear to lock up and pull down the grilles. And all that must cost a bit too, though I've never had the bother of it myself, because I haven't heard of an undertaker's being broken into lately. Not favoured in that respect either. Though I dare say there's more in my cash safe than there is in Jack's.
I thought, Now he'll turn right, pat his pockets, look at his watch, wave at Des there in the dry-cleaner's, and head for the Coach, where I might well join him in an hour or so, if Vera Connolly isn't late. Thirsty weather. But I saw him walk instead to the kerb and look across, as if he could see me behind the lace curtain, as if I'd beckoned. Then he waited for the traffic and crossed over, so I stepped back inside quickly. Then I heard him rattle the door.
He said, 'Evening, Vie. You coming to the Coach?' And that was strange, because either he'd see me at the Coach or he wouldn't, I could find my own way there. He knew if I turned up it was usually later, since I seldom finished the day like he did, five thirty on the button.
I said, 'I was thinking of it,'
He said, 'Thirsty weather. Beautiful day.'
I said, 'Beautiful day. You come to tell me that?'
He said, 'First of June, Vie. Know what day it is?'
I looked at him. He looked around.
He said, 'You all on your tod?'
I nodded. I said, 'Why don't you sit down?' He glances at me, uncertain, as if it isn't plain as pie he's come for a purpose, but he sits down, where my clients sit, where the bereaved sit and discuss their requirements. Then he says, 'Moment's come, Vie. First of June. I'm going to sell up the shop.'
He says it like he's confessing to a crime. Like he's come to arrange his own funeral.
I say, 'Well then I'll definitely come and have that drink, as there's something to celebrate. You buying?' And he looks at me, narrow-eyed for a moment, as if he wasn't asking to be made fun of, and maybe I'm not so different from all the rest of them. Scoffers.
He says, 'I'm telling you, Vie. I aint telling no one else. Not yet.'
I say, 'My privilege. Mum's the word.'