A Trick I Learned from Dead Men - By Kitty Aldridge Page 0,2

side, right in front of you. Mr Keegan’s done. Other two need doing. Is that kettle on?

Mr Keegan is going to wear his own clothes. Winchester coffin. White lining. No crucifix. Personal Effects: Panama Slim Panatellas 6 Pack. Omega watch, initials engraved. Letters. Photograph of a smiling woman. Everything must be recorded in the big book. Everything is written down.

Mr Tomlinson is wearing his own clothes, to include a PJ Brown construction helmet. Embalm yes. Viewing to be arranged (TBA) but yes. Cremation. He will lose his hat in that case. Health & Safety v. Health & Safety, ironic. But not as ironic as the cremation of the fireman last year. Death is full of irony.

Mrs Ferguson: Oyster gown. Oyster frill. The Ripon. Embalm no. Ashes Casket: Standard. Personal Effects: Musical box. Photograph of canal boat. Packet of Bird’s Custard Powder. Viewings: TBA. Jewellery: TBA. I wonder if the boat was owned or rented. I’ve never tried Bird’s custard.

Mr Muldarney is causing a stir. The Basic Coffin. Blue frill. Gown. Embalm no. Viewing: TBA. Awaiting crem details. Personal Effects: A photograph of a little boy, smiling. Set of teeth. An onion.

Yours truly despatched to Somerfield for said onion. If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry. I said that to Derek. I produced the onion from behind my back. He said, Don’t piss about, Lee, there’s three still to do.

Nil effects it says on Mrs Parkinson’s column. Derek puts her in the basic pink and matching coffin frill. No viewings. Derek brushes her hair out of respect, but he doesn’t fetch his make-up box. I check her sheet and tuck it under her plate. All done and dusted.

* * *

Two funerals out. Four in their boxes. Three out tomorrow, two Thursday, two Friday; busy but not murder. Five out is madness, happens now and then, total insanity. Getting from one to the next, it’ll turn your hair grey, it did Mikey driving the hearse, fact. You can’t put your foot down.

*

WE LIVE IN the end cottage on Cinders Lane, where it meets Lye’s Cross. Our mum remarried: Lester has been ill of late. He is on medication. He has to write down his dosages, or else he gets muddled. He had to take early redundancy from his work at Dinnages. Downhill ever since, worse after she died. Our real dad is a plant operator; currently we are not sure exactly of his whereabouts.

As I raise my door key, I catch sight of my brother, Ned, stepping out of his bedroom window on the first floor. Ned is not everyone’s cup of tea. I hear the twang of springs. Ned appears over the hedge in mid-air, frog legs, then drops out of sight again. Twang. I let myself in. I am the eldest.

She used to say, Lee, if you can’t love your own blood, then who?

We got the trampoline second hand: an Emperor twelve-footer (no safety net), thirty-nine pounds off eBay.

I put the tea on, sausages. I boil water for spuds. I open a tin of peas.

Cup of tea would be nice if you’re making, Lester shouts at the TV. I’ve only got one pair of hands, I say. I put the kettle on. Extreme Makeover, he watches it around the clock. She would’ve switched it off. Different since she died.

Ned seems to step out of the wall, gives me a jolt.

Fuck! Fright you me, I sign him. He laughs.

My brother was not born deaf. His deafness arrived in disguise when he was four months old. His deafness is my fault, this has been proved. I don’t dwell because you can’t turn back time.

Ned looks at the steam coming off the spuds, hair in his eyes, sweat on his nose.

Gravy? Gravy? he signs.

Patience, I sign back. Bollocks, I think to myself.

He is breathing through his open mouth, air whistling through the gap in his teeth, his long bare toes are splayed, his back slightly curved. In the old days I used to imagine him with a tail. He spins out, slamming the door. Ned’s got a temper, always did. She used to say he got it off the elves. Whatever.

You wouldn’t think we were brothers. Ned has a mole below his lip, like a girl, his hair belongs to our mother, thick, shiny; if it wasn’t for his stubbly Adam’s apple you might be fooled. I have someone else’s hair entirely, frizzy, our dad’s probably. If I knew his whereabouts I would complain. I have no moles or free gifts from nature. I