I couldn’t help the way my eyes flicked to the container I was clutching.
TEN
I probably shouldn’t have called her a hag, that was rude. But if you’re bag blocking seats on the bus on a busy Friday afternoon, you pretty much do deserve to be called a hag. There had been no seats left on the bottom level, and when this woman who looked like a shrivelled old plum, in a tartan scarf, ignored my polite requests to move her bag, I lost it a little bit. I wasn’t about to risk it with a man-spreader on the top deck; I wantedthatfree seat.
But I definitely shouldn’t have grumbled under my breath that she was a ‘vile old hag’. I decided it was probably worth making my escape before I got booted off the bus by some social justice vigilantes. Besides, the woman looked like she was in her hundreds, she might soon be one of my clients, then who’d have the last laugh?
‘Should have given up your seat,’ I’d say as I doodled a vulva on her cold cheek like Greta and I used to do. I wouldn’t actually do this, by the way, I’m not that awful, but it was a fun thing to think about when I was feeling incandescent with righteous fury.
Walking home, with a single rucksack strap over my shoulder and Bill’s bougie container clutched to my chest, did give me plenty of time to think, however. Feet dragging, I mulled over Uncle Phil’s offer. It was flattering, I suppose, to be offeredto step into the role as the big cheese, and having the supreme power to immediately show Clive and Eddie the door was certainly alluring. Yet this job was never meant to launch my career in funeral directing. Humbling as it was to be given the opportunity, working for Camborne and Sons – or Camborne and Nieces as it should really be called – hadn’t sparked anything inside me, and didn’t I owe it to Uncle Phil to feel more excitement at the thought of career advancement there? The hard cold truth of it, I suppose, was that I still didn’t really know what I wanted. Going back to writing or journalism felt like a dead end. There was no significant other I had to factor into my decisions, and I wasn’t shelving any grand passion. After Greta, I’d mostly been treading water because I had no idea where I wanted to swim. I was almost thirty, wasn’t I meant to have some kind of direction by now?
Ten minutes into my walk, Mum finally got decent-enough signal on the beach I imagined her sunbathing on to call and ask how I was doing.
‘Can’t believe it’s been over two years since Greta,’ she had murmured in the first few minutes of the call as if she had finally galvanised enough courage to address the elephant in the room. Funny how when someone dies, their name can be used as a noun for the day they died too.
I told her I was doing okay. She and Dad sent their love and ran through their travel itinerary: they’d be in Sri Lanka tomorrow and I wished the population of the country well.
Mum and Dad always considered themselves a superior tier of Brit abroad, after all, between them they spoke about eighteen languages. So instead of the classic ‘DO. YOU. HAVE. FISH. AND. CHIPS?’ they’d bellow at some poor restaurant staff, they’d simply ask for the Yorkshire Tea Gold in Tamil in the tea-growing region of the central highlands.
Bill and Ben’s cars were both parked in the driveway which was a semi-positive omen: Bill was home, but at least I had Ben to take some of the brunt of his pedantry for me. Thinking ahead, I carefully opened my rucksack, slipped the container inside andmade sure it was completely obscured from sight. If he saw that I’d taken one of his fancy lunchboxes he might combust so violently they’d name the city-sized crater after him.
‘Hey,’ Bill greeted me from the kitchen, tilting his head slightly past the door frame as I walked into the hallway. The waft of his secret cigarettes hit me like an uppercut to the jaw. As I walked towards him, I noticed he had an ever-so-fresh crescent-shaped scar etched onto his jaw that was far too deep to be from a razor but I didn’t have the courage to ask him about that. How I wished it was a secret stripping injury though.
‘Hi,’ I replied, with as much energy as someone who worked a full-time job as well as moonlighting as a part-time cardiovascular surgeon was able to rally. I brushed my shoes on the doormat with an almost devout precision. Bill watched my every minute move as if inspecting the soles of the boots to ensure not one tiny speck of dirt had made it inside. It took me a little while to fully unlace my shoes so I could yank them off, and made me quietly pray for a Velcro comeback. It wasn’t just the tobacco that was nauseating to my nostrils, it was the cloyingly floral red in his hand that hit my nose before I even clocked the glass. The pungent scent made me gag a little; I still felt quite fragile from yesterday. I took off my rucksack and placed it by the door to the garden, praying he wouldn’t notice the faint clang of the container in my rucksack shifting against my notepad.
‘You haven’t seen my lunch container, have you?’ Bill asked, certainly sharply and maybe a little – albeit rightfully – accusatorially as I joined him in the kitchen to wash out the mug from this morning I had forgotten about.
‘No,’ I replied on an inhale as I scratched my chin with my index and middle fingers. ‘No, I haven’t, I’m afraid. When did you last have it?’
His eyes narrowed, lids drooping as his eyebrows clambered up his forehead in a clear expression of disbelief. I know it’s one of those really annoying questions, but I thought that was the go-tothing to say when someone said they lost something. Surely that’s better than just, ‘I don’t know.’
‘Bother,’ he muttered, enunciating the final sounds of the word with an unconvinced and almost growl-like groan. I realised, as his hand missed the side to steady himself, that this clearly wasn’t his first glass. Normally Bill was a whisky man so I was surprised he was hitting the vino tonight.
‘Do you want a glass of wine?’ he asked, luring me into the kitchen when all I wanted was to make my escape to the shed. ‘There’s enough left in the bottle,’ he remarked.
I was surprised by the generosity. I don’t think Bill had ever offered me anything. I was too dumbfounded to answer straight away, so he continued speaking.
‘Ben’s gone to bed, and it’s a Shiraz. Don’t know how good it’ll be in a few days so may as well make the most of it.’
‘I’m okay, actually,’ I stammered, still startled by his apparent generosity. I worried he might be offended, but at the moment I could barely stomach anything other than water, let alone wine.
‘Suit yourself,’ he muttered, refilling his glass. He twisted his body to face me and then pouted his lips as if he was trying to detect the location of an ulcer within his mouth. ‘Listen, Ruth. Ben and I have bothreallyloved having you here, we really have. You’ve really been such a delightful guest to have around the house…’
Uh-oh.
‘But things are really difficult for us right now, and I don’t know how much longer we can put you up for, I’m afraid.’
He gave an overexaggerated attempt at a pained wince before loosening his facial muscles to drink a few more significant gulps of wine, staring at me the whole time he did it.
‘Oh,’ I said quietly. It felt strange hearing this from Bill instead of Ben. I thought when I had outstayed my welcome, Ben would be the one to take me round the back of the barn with the shotgun. Maybe Ben couldn’t face telling me and had sent Bill to do his dirty work. I tried to keep my composure despite the drop in mystomach, maybe that was why the two of them had been acting so weird of late. ‘That’s okay, Bill. Seriously, no worries at all,’ I replied, trying desperately not to let my voice quiver.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Bill said flatly, without even a fake trace of emotion in his voice. ‘But it’s been well over a year now, and we all knew this was temporary, while you got back on your feet.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ I said, my voice unnaturally high as I nodded vigorously, trying to appear agreeable while I stared down at the material of my boots. Inside, I was panicking. Where the hell was I going to go now? What the hell was I meant to do now? I couldn’t afford anywhere by myself on my salary. I would have to take over the funeral home, if only for the pay bump it would provide and potential accommodation if I was brave enough to go full-vampire and sleep in a coffin.
A long pause stretched out between us. I kept standing there awkwardly in the kitchen, hands in my pockets, while Bill leaned on the kitchen counter with one hand and held his wine glass with a ‘you know, I actually went to a wine tasting experience once’ grip in the other.
‘It’s just… Ben and I, we need our space. We need time to be a couple right now, you know. You understand, right?’
