“Why do they dislike him so much?” I asked, watching them as they stood there in their black ties, popping mini quiches into their mouths and muttering quietly. They had none of Nick’s style, or class. They certainly weren’t a threat.
“Envy,” said Eugenie. “It always comes down to that. Let them talk. Dor says you’re to be Nick’s apprentice, and that you’re hugely talented – a breath of fresh air. How did you get into the funeral business, anyway?”
I swallowed hard, trying to draw my eyes from the funeral directors. It was no use guessing what they might be saying. Part of me wanted to wander up to them and ask if they ever knew of a young woman called Louisa.
“Grace?”
I flinched. “Oh? Oh, it’s silly really. I needed a place to stay, and work, and I’ve got some experience with death...I’m hard-working, and I enjoy working alone...”
Without meaning to, I found myself telling Eugenie all about Heather House, and why I’d left it in a hurry. I even told her about my father dying in front of us, and mother cradling him in her lap, not wanting to let him go, and how she dissolved into her own illness after that. I knew I was oversharing, the alcohol making my mouth loose. For some reason, I felt I could open up to her safely, and share parts of me that so few people knew. When I told her about Tom, her eyes widened in fascination.
“That’s unreal,” she said, once I’d finished. “Does hethink it’s the bloody 1700s? Good for you for kicking him square in the bollocks.”
“I didn’t mean to. I just...had to get away,” I said, with a shrug.
“You don’t have to be coy with me, Grace. I’d have deliberately kicked him as many times as my leg would allow, and then some. He’d be lucky to have any gonads left,” said Eugenie. She took another bite of her apple and chewed thoughtfully. “You talk about your parents dying as if you saw a parakeet fall off its perch, rather than...well, you know. Their deaths.”
“Death is a part of life on a farm, even if it is a small one,” I said. “I’d find cows buried in the snow, days and weeks later...they’d be in a terrible state. The smell alone was bad enough, but the bodies....” I shook my head. “It all becomes one and the same thing, once you’ve seen enough of it.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, her eyes turning to dark curious pools as she furrowed her brow.
“Bodies. Death,” I said.
A silence fell between us briefly. Eugenie looked troubled, like she had more questions than she could ever have time to ask.
I gasped, a hand over my mouth and my stomach heaving, as Eugenie raised the apple to her mouth again. Nestled in her cupped hand was a rotting fig.
“Grace.” Dorian took me by the shoulders and turned me away from her. “Come and meet some of my friends – they’re all in the industry. They’re dying to meet the new apprentice.”
I glanced uneasily at Eugenie, but the fig had returnedto an apple again. She nibbled it down to the core and tossed it carelessly behind her onto the buffet table. My heart raced, wondering if I really was losing my mind.
Eugenie draped an arm around my shoulders, her feather boa tickling my cheek.
“Come on, Grace – let’s show you off to these industry snobs,” she said.
As the alcohol sank in, I felt lighter, happier, and glad to be surrounded by new friends. I daren’t call them friends, but Dorian and Eugenie insisted, and I found myself able to shrug off my old insecurities for one night.
I met more accountants, and mortuary apprentices from other firms, and stonemasons and carpenters and florists and god only knew who else. There were so many names that I hadn’t a hope of remembering them all. In one evening I met more people than I’d ever known in my life back in Heather House. Some of the funeral directors clustered together eyed me suspiciously, but none made any attempt to introduce themselves.
Dorian and Eugenie kept close, occasionally fighting over custody of me. They took care of me, like I was a new child in their class at school. As the evening drew in, the room was lit up with fairy-lights and a band began to play music. Eugenie invited me to dance, and I found the alcohol made me so happy and free that I didn’t care a jot what I looked like.
“What is this a fundraiser for, again?” I asked her as we danced, shouting over the music.
“I haven’t the foggiest idea,” she said. “Do you want to blow off Dor and share a cab with me when we get out of here?”
“Of course,” I said, struggling to raise my voice over the band. “Won’t he be upset with me?”
Eugenie shook her head, grinning. I noticed how her makeup was smeared and how sweat beaded on her forehead, but it only made her more endearing. She was a carefree woman having a good time, and so was I, for the first time in my life.
“He’s off dry-humping a stonemason from Ash & Sons as we speak,” she said.
We threw our heads back in laughter, clasping onto one another’s hands.
When it was time to leave, a mournful feeling took over me. I didn’t want to go and lose this part of me that I had just discovered. Eugenie and I stumbled down the steps together and staggered our way to a cab-stand. We took the long journey first to Crowthorne House, through heavy traffic and even heavier rain. Eugenie lived in a loft conversion not too far away in Muswell Hill with her theatre friends, and didn’t mind stopping at my place first.
“I’m so glad I met you,” I said, with surprising clarity.
“Let’s be friends, okay? I’ll give you a call,” she said, throwing her arms around my neck in a clumsy hug.
