Karen Ross - Five Wakes and a Wedding

‘The business?’ asks Gloria, and I suspect this is something she has also discussed with Edo.

‘It’s only been a week,’ Edo chimes in. ‘And besides, the weather’s too good for dying.’

Even though he is being facetious, Edo has a point. More people die during winter than summer. But that’s not the issue. Every time I think about my parents, I feel sick. Sticking all their pension money next to the matchsticks in Chopper’s freshly dug hole in the ground is beginning to seem like a far better idea than allowing them to keep their investment in Happy Endings.

I feel Gloria’s hand on my arm. ‘Remember your business plan, sweetie.’ She’s doing her best to reassure me. I’ve estimated thirty funerals in the first year, so with only one week gone, I’m not even behind schedule. But neither have I earned a single penny.

‘My business plan wasn’t much more than guesswork,’ I confess. Guesswork, moreover, that didn’t even include any budget for advertising and marketing. ‘I should have thought things through more thoroughly. Maybe there’s a good reason why the shop was empty for so long after Noggsie’s first stroke left him unable to carry on – and it wasn’t just because the council rejected change-of-use applications from a bunch of hipsters who wanted to turn it into yet another café.’

‘Rubbish!’ Edo jumps in. ‘Remember what Noggsie’s son said.’ The son who lives in Australia and gave me a good deal on the rent. ‘He wanted you to have the lease because he reckoned the high street needs some proper shops again. There’s only so many cupcakes a person can eat.’

Edo’s wrong about that. Especially when they incorporate marshmallow frosting. But his intentions are good.

Enough of this.

I’m behaving like a complete wimp.

All doom and gloom and Poor Little Me just because things aren’t happening as fast as I’d hoped. Yes, when I was an employee, we could more or less guarantee how many funerals we’d handle every week, but the business had been there for decades. My empty shop window has evidently led to misunderstandings about the nature of my business but it’s sorted now: my collection of ceramic urns are modern and tasteful, although from what I’ve seen of Primrose Hill so far, there’s a danger the locals will think I’m running an art gallery.

‘You know what?’ I confess. ‘I was hoping in my heart of hearts that business would just fall into my lap. But I need to make myself known.’ There have to be cheaper ways of advertising than buying space in the local paper, which every undertaker seems to do as a matter of routine. ‘I’ve made a start already.’

I’m telling my friends about the email I sent to Zoe Banks when my phone pings. I look at the screen.

‘Ha!’ I tell them. ‘Talk of the devil, and the devil appears!’

It’s a message from Zoe.

I’m going to meet her on Monday.

Can’t wait!

Truthfully, Zoe’s email reads more like a summons than an invitation. Yes, we need to discuss what you’re doing. Monday 7.15am. Home not spa.

My own email is repeated underneath. Taking another look, it does seem to ramble a bit. But never mind that Zoe hasn’t replied at length. The important thing is that she has replied at all. Promptly, too, which is good business etiquette. Zoe must be one of those scarily efficient women who has successfully tamed her email mountain by keeping responses – even to warm and friendly messages like mine – to the bare minimum.

That fits in with Gloria’s extended briefing about Zoe and her day spa. The Beauty Spot is part of a chain that also has a presence in other wealthy pockets of London, plus outposts in Zürich, Rome, Dubai and Los Angeles. Our local branch is hidden away inside a beautiful Regency townhouse, just off the high street. I’ve always been too scared to go inside, but I’ve given the website a good going-over in preparation for this meeting.

Turns out the rumours that Zoe sells nothing that costs less than £35 are true. Really? For a bottle of bubble bath that small? And do women honestly pay three figures to have their eyebrows tidied? Especially when the first figure’s not even a one! Back in my student days, I spent less than that on a weekend in Berlin, and my eyebrows always look just fine.

I know I ought to be grateful Zoe has prioritised our meeting, but instead I’m faintly resentful I needed to be up at half past five this morning to make sure I had enough time to dither about what to wear. And redo my eyebrows four times.

I arrive at Zoe’s home – a leafy turning on the far side of the park going towards Swiss Cottage – at ten past seven. Which is just as well, because I squander the next three minutes trying to make the intercom system work. In the end, I resort to punching random numbers on the keypad, and this finally does the trick. A disembodied male voice instructs me, ‘ Step AWAY from the gates and state your name. ’

‘Nina Sherwood,’ I announce, startled.

‘ Correct. ’

What is this, an intelligence test?

‘ When the gates open, please make your way to the main entrance. ’ The voice sounds like Carson out of Downton Abbey , scolding one of the servants for being ungrateful.

At first glance, the gates – sandwiched between high brick walls – could be mistaken for a piece of sculpture, all curves and swirls, with a hint of Art Deco. Then they glide soundlessly open, and I get my first glimpse of Zoe’s home.

So this is how the one per cent of the one per cent lives … As I read online last night – doing my Zoe Banks homework before explaining to Chopper that my bed is not his bed – I am now eyeballing a piece of prime central London real estate worth £14 million. Which buys you (I continued my online research via Zoopla, Google Earth and Vogue) seven bedrooms, a private cinema, a wine cave, staff quarters and one of the largest gardens in North London, complete with its own tropical pagoda. All that, plus a ten-metre infinity pool that incorporates both wave machine and rainforest shower.

‘ This way please, Ms Sherwood. ’ Carson’s disembodied voice again, sounding even less pleased than before. I’m obviously over-gawping, so I jog the final few metres to the front door, crunching a spray of gravel in my wake. The door opens immediately, even before I can work out where the bell might be located.

I’m almost surprised not to be greeted by Carson. Instead, a man about my own age, dressed in a perfect charcoal suit – I’m guessing it costs more than the average funeral – teamed with white shirt, blue silk tie and black-rimmed round glasses is looking me up and down. The expression on his face is exactly as I had anticipated: disdain underpinned by disapproval.

But maybe I’m just flustered, because his voice is considerably more warm when he tells me, ‘This way, please.’ I follow him across a vast expanse of highly polished wooden flooring. ‘Ms Banks is running late this morning,’ he says. Late? At seven fifteen? Is this code for ‘Ms Banks has overslept?’ Apparently not, because the man continues, ‘A meeting with her architect is taking longer than anticipated. If you wait here’ – I am ushered into a space that is bigger than every room of Happy Endings put together – ‘I’ll fetch you a coffee.’

Carson leaves the room before I have a chance to say, ‘White, please, with three sugars,’ and I’m about to make myself at home on a squishy black leather couch when I hear voices coming from the adjoining room. A man and a woman speaking softly yet distinctly. I find myself heading towards a not-quite-closed door and begin earnestly to study a huge canvas on the wall. Blue splodges placed at indeterminate intervals against a backdrop of what looks like green and yellow electricity pylons, encased in an ornate frame that could easily be proper gold, although I’d have to bite it to be sure.