The Dead I Know (2 page)

Mrs Barton whisked it from my fingers and looked me over.

‘Ah,’ John Barton said. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere.’

He tapped his chin with an index finger, then departed.

Mrs Barton held up a tape. ‘Measurements,’ she smiled, and stretched her arms wide like a scarecrow.

I imitated her and she fluttered over me, mumbling and penning numbers on a pad she pulled from her apron pocket.

When John Barton returned, he carried a sash of deep green silk. He draped it over my outstretched arm. A necktie.

‘Right,’ Mrs Barton said. ‘That’s you done.’

‘Thank you, my dear,’ John Barton said. ‘Could you arrange for Tommy So to make one jacket and two pairs of pants?’

I felt the heavy silk of the tie between my fingers. It was suddenly all too much: the haircut, the shirts and suit. I had no idea how to knot a tie.

‘Here,’ Mrs Barton said, and snatched the tie. ‘Do up your top button.’

‘You’ve done enough,’ I said, and she stopped.

The television fell quiet and it amplified the hole in the air I’d made. They stared.

‘Nonsense,’ John Barton grumbled. ‘We’ve only just begun.’

I looked at my shirt.

‘If you were starting work at McDonald’s you’d need a silly uniform and one of those delightful hairnets. Think of the tie as our hairnet and let Mrs Barton put it on for you. She’s the best in the business.’

He smoothed his own tie and Mrs Barton.tittered. ‘Bend down,’ she said.

I lowered myself to one knee and she tied the flat silken band around my neck. I felt like a character in a fairytale.

‘There you are,’ she said, and patted my shoulder.

I stood and stroked the tie. Embroidered in thread of the same green were three florid letters: JKB.

‘Now, to work,’ John Barton said.

The cup of tea would have to wait, it seemed.

3

T
HE VAN WAS A
Mercedes as well, though it felt nothing like the ride in the sedan. John Barton drove at a measured pace.

‘We’ll be collecting the body of the late Mrs Carmel Gray from Claremont. You know the place?’

He didn’t wait for an answer.

‘All I need you to do is be silent and do as you’re told. Do you understand?’

I gave a military nod, and he smiled dryly.

The breeze through the window whipped against my neck. In a curious way, I felt unburdened by the lack of hair. Something stirred in the pit of my belly and I wondered if the late Mrs Carmel Gray would like my shirt and my JKB tie and my new haircut. I wondered if I would be in the same room as the body. I wondered if I would smell the dead. Touch the dead.

Be silent. Do as I am told.

Claremont had a tradesmen’s entrance and John Barton had a key to the gate. He rattled the lock and tweaked the catch as if he’d done it a hundred times before. Thinking about it, I could see that carrying the dead through the automatic doors at the front would hardly be a good advertisement for an old people’s home. The van beeped like a delivery truck as he reversed to the ramp.

A lady in uniform propped the doors open and offered us a tired grin.

‘Morning John,’ she said.

‘The lovely Nina,’ John Barton replied.

‘You’ve got a new lad?’ Nina said, looking me over.

John Barton huffed. ‘Very perceptive of you, Nina. This is Aaron Rowe. Nina Cartwright.’

She nodded approvingly. ‘Looks a whole lot better than the last one.’

‘Wouldn’t have thought so this morning. Took a bit of cut and polish.’

I stood by, listening to sparrows fighting in the hedge along the fence, as John Barton unloaded a trolley from the back of the van. Its legs unfolded automatically, dropping wheels smoothly onto the concrete path.

‘What happened to Taylor?’ Nina Cartwright asked.

John Barton cleared his throat, suddenly awkward. ‘He moved interstate.’

‘Bound to happen, I suppose. Someone took out a contract on him then?’

He barked a laugh. ‘Nothing would surprise me.’

He motioned for me to hold the trolley and together we wheeled it through the doors and into the dim corridor. The
smell was strangely familiar, peat bog and human. My ears strained to hold the frenetic chitter of the sparrows – there was something unsettling about the quiet inside the building. There was no industry or hubbub, just numb silence. Nina whisked past, her stockings rubbing softly.

‘Room 37,’ she whispered.

A screen had been erected around Mrs Carmel Gray’s cot. John Barton wheeled the trolley right into the room and asked me to shut the door.

I inhaled through my mouth and I could taste the air. Talcum. Morning breath.

John Barton held one end of the screen and, with a nod, instructed me to take the other. He counted, we lifted, and there was the late Mrs Carmel Gray – arms holding the bedcovers to her sides, fingers cupped and mouth frozen mid-yawn.

I sighed through my nose. This was death? This was what the world feared?

I chuckled. It passed my lips as a hiccup.

John Barton shot me a questioning glance.‘Are you okay?’

I nodded and left my head bowed.

I hadn‘t laughed at Mrs Carmel Gray. I hadn’t laughed at her unseemly gape or her part-lidded stare. It was the irony that caught me off guard; almost every person alive feared Death, a commanding cloaked fi gure wielding a sickle, yet here death was a casual, sleepy release.

‘Mrs Gray won’t be needing the blanket any more, will you, dear?’ John Barton said. ‘Aaron will help you with that.’

He caught my eye and nodded. Without thinking, I held Mrs Carmel Gray’s gelid fi ngers and lifted her arm so I could draw the covering away.

‘Leave the sheet,’ John Barton murmured.

I folded the blanket and placed it on a chair.

John Barton began untucking the sheet below Mrs Carmel Gray and I did the same on the other side. He drew the top sheet over Mrs Carmel Gray’s head without pause or apology, stood at the top of the bed and motioned for me to take my place at her feet.

‘Take the lower sheet,’ he said, and screwed a fistful of it with each hand.

He counted, we lifted and the late Mrs Carmel Gray moaned a single drawn-out note. A mishandled accordion noise.

My body chilled and I almost dropped her.

‘Hush, dear,’ John Barton admonished. ‘We’re taking you home.’

Her legs landed heavily on the trolley and her body bent.

‘Lift again,’ John Barton said. ‘Straighten her up.’

I did as I was told.

John Barton tucked her arms under the top sheet and strapped her on – chest and thighs – for the ride.

‘Get the door.’

I did as I was told.

Nina Cartwright was waiting outside. She looked along the hall and ushered us out. There was nobody else there to witness our departure. Smoothly, almost without noise, we wheeled the trolley through the double doors and to the back of the van.

‘Stand clear,’ John Barton said.

I let the trolley roll. The wheels and legs folded as the van swallowed the late Mrs Carmel Gray. John Barton closed the doors quietly and nodded goodbye to Nina.

‘Close the gate,’ he said to me.

John Barton’s driving was even more composed on our way back to the office. The traffic hooted and bustled around us but the rush was lost on John Barton.

‘Ninety per cent of our work is like that,’ he said to the windscreen. ‘A quiet end to a long life well lived. They don’t put up much of a fight and we’re never in a hurry. Mostly, the families of our clients are both happy and sad to see us. Sometimes emotions run high.’

He beeped the van backwards into the garage, leaving the doors open, and killed the engine.

‘Now, I’ll get you started on the hearse and I’ll take Mrs Gray inside. Have you washed and polished a car before?’

I wanted to say yes. I’d seen it done. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘It may take a few tries to get it right but we won’t need it for a couple of days.’

Loaded with a hose, a bucket of warm water, a sponge and a complete arsenal of washing and polishing agents, I was set to work on the car. John Barton parked it on a patch of shaded grass and explained exactly what he wanted, once and clearly.

‘. . . and I don’t want to see a single spot, streak or smear of polish. Do a little bit at a time until you can see yourself in every panel. Understand?’

My nod was more of a bow this time.

I washed and dried and polished for more than an hour. Around midday a group of kids – in the same school uniform
I’d been wearing myself three days ago – made their way along the street. Off on an illicit lunch excursion to town, I suspected. I moved to the other side of the car as they drew close but they decided to cross and walked right behind me. One boy was from my class. My pulse quickened.

‘Nice car,’ he said.

One of the girls laughed.

‘Shut up,’ he said. ‘It’s a beast.’

‘What is
theend
supposed to mean?’ the girl asked.

‘You
are
joking!’ the boy said.

Damien Van Something. I caught his eye. I held his gaze for a full second. He nodded coolly and they walked on.

It seemed I was unrecognizable, already.

There was a peaceful rhythm to the cleaning and polishing. I was unrecognizable to myself.

Here was a task with boundaries and purpose, a small thing that made sense. A small thing I could do well.

Again, I felt something. A change in the weather, a shift in the season, something dawning or something setting. Some tide on the move or moon made full. Stirrings of ancient dust.

John Barton had his sleeves rolled up when he returned. He wiped his hands on a clean white cloth and made a circuit of the hearse. At one point he stooped and squinted but didn’t touch the car.

He finished his lap toe to toe with me. He examined my eyes. I held his gaze, though I couldn’t breathe.

‘You are an enigma, young man,’ he said.

I didn‘t know how to respond, but I didn’t have to. He patted my shoulder. Once.

4

M
RS
B
ARTON HAD MADE
a substantial plate of pale sandwich fingers: cheese and pickles, egg and lettuce, ham and more cheese. All the crusts had been sawn off and they were embarrassingly easy to eat. I stopped when I realized she was watching me.

‘Eat!’ she said. ‘They’ll only go to waste.’

I ate one more. I could have emptied the plate.

The phone rang three times while we had lunch. John Barton answered each call and I found myself staring at the back of his head, listening to his conversation, imagining the person on the other side.

Mrs Barton stepped between her husband and me. ‘So, do you live in town, Aaron?’

I nodded.

She was waiting for more detail. I ignored the invitation.

‘Where?’ she finally asked.

I drew a line with my finger, through their garage and off towards the beach.

‘By the water?’

I nodded again.

‘How lovely! Have you been there long?’

One more nod. John Barton hung up the phone.

‘I see,’ Mrs Barton said. ‘Live with your mother and father?’

‘Oh, leave the boy alone, dear,’ John Barton said. ‘He doesn’t need the full twenty questions now. Besides, we have work to do.’

He collected his jacket and I took it as my cue.

‘Toilet,’ he said. He pointed to the bathroom where I’d changed earlier. It was hard to believe it was the same day. I used the toilet – not because I had to but because I was doing as I was told – and found John Barton reversing the hearse into the garage. We were in the van and out the door without another word exchanged.

He stuck a note to the dash. ‘The late Mr Neville Cooper. Botany Street, number
34
. With a pick-up from a private residence we should be a little more cautious. We’ll be discreet and park as close to the house as we can. We have to plan a route with the gurney and consider door widths, the size and weight of the body, family members and the general public. You won’t need to worry about any of that. Same rules: be silent and do as you are told.’

Mr Neville Cooper was a big man who had died in his bed. His three daughters sat, red-cheeked, with their mother in the lounge. I remembered the eldest one from my first high
school, though I couldn’t recall her name. She was a year or two older than me but she had long deep-red hair that made you take a second look.

In the passage, John Barton spoke with a nurse in hushed tones.

‘One hundred and seventy kilograms,’ the nurse wheezed. ‘And don’t I know it.’

John Barton sized up the bedroom doorway and the hall. The front entry involved six concrete stairs; the rear, a single step onto rough paving and a steep slope down the driveway.

‘Back door,’ John Barton said to me. ‘Get the gurney.’

I did as I was told. It took me a full minute to find the velcro straps that held it in the van. The legs extended for me as they had for John Barton and it rattled like an errant shopping trolley over the bricks to the back step. With a push and a lift the gurney nudged at the screen door. One hand on the door and one tugging the trolley, I broached the threshold and slid quietly through the laundry and kitchen to the bedroom.

The late Mr Neville Cooper was a sandcastle of stomach under a blue sheet. Hospital machines stood mutely in the corner of the room. The gurney was higher than the bed and John Barton adjusted it until they were level.

‘Team lift,’ John Barton whispered.

‘Might I suggest a roll?’ the nurse said.

‘Very good idea,’ John Barton said, and we assembled on one side.

The nurse began untucking the sheet below the big man and I took my place beside her and helped. Two fistfuls of blue sheet each and we were ready.

John Barton counted and we lifted. The body barely moved. John Barton counted again and this time we heaved with a combined force that pitched the late Mr Neville Cooper onto his side, onto the gurney and then – with a crunching, fleshy slap – onto the floor beyond.

The nurse swore. She stepped across the room and closed the door.

The late Mr Neville Cooper had been naked under the sheets and now lay sprawled on the floorboards, his backside dirty, proud and parted. John Barton quickly covered the man’s bruised skin with the sheet and held his own mouth and nose. The smell hit me at that moment – sick man’s feces and decay – and my body lurched involuntarily.