Karen Ross - Five Wakes and a Wedding

‘I’m in desperate need of another bacon butty and more coffee. Say yes this time?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes please.’

Just as our refills arrive, something slots into place. ‘Haven’t I seen you before?’ I ask.

‘Is that the best you’ve got?’

‘Pardon?’

‘You’re flirting with me, right?’

‘Me? No! Of course not. I have seen you before. On rollerblades. Going past my shop.’

‘Which shop would that be?’

‘Over there.’ I point towards Happy Endings, sit back and wait for the inevitable response.

But the idiot proves the exception to the rule. ‘Noggsie’s old shop, right?’ he says pleasantly. ‘So how’s business?’

‘Okay.’ I’m not about to confess it’s non-existent. I pause for a strategic mouthful of bacon butty, while I attempt to swallow the accusation of flirting. He’s sort of right. I’m definitely enjoying his company. Since that night with Jason, I’ve started noticing men again. There’ve been one or two who I – admit it, Nina – actually fancied.

And the idiot makes three.

‘I’d better go to work,’ I say.

‘Why? Are there some dead people I don’t know about? Did I miss the news story about the avalanche in Tufnell Park last night?’

‘You’re a very bad man.’ It’s the sort of remark I’d expect from a colleague rather than a civilian, and the mock shock-horror way he says it is actually quite funny.

‘I try not to be. Stay a while.’ The idiot brushes my wrist with his fingers. ‘More coffee?’

Last time I drank four lattes for breakfast I was still awake at two o’clock the following morning.

‘Go on then,’ I say. ‘And why don’t you tell me about the paintballing?’

He needs no second invitation. ‘There’s this huge woodland site between Edinburgh and Glasgow,’ he begins. ‘All sorts of scenarios. The village hostage rescue looks the most fun. That’s where you get to use the paint thrower.’ He sees my puzzled expression and clarifies, ‘It’s basically a huge water cannon filled with paint. The ordinary paintballs are a mixture of oil, gelatine and dye, and we fire them through nitrogen-powered compressed air.’

‘Does it hurt?’

‘I have no idea.’ The idiot looks puzzled. ‘No-one’s ever marked me. I always win.’

‘You do this a lot, then?’

‘Once before. When I was seven. If it works out I’m going to sign up for this place in Oklahoma where you spend a week recreating the D-Day battles. With paint. If you pay a bit extra, you can lead the French Resistance.’

By the time the idiot has finished telling me about battle packs, paint pods, flag capturing, defensive bunker play, ravine negotiation and a legendary character called The Paint Punk, I’m thinking I’d love to go paintballing. With him.

And then I realise what’s really going on.

All this military talk … well, for a few minutes, it was just like old times.

Old times with Ryan.

My husband.

Captain Ryan Sherwood.

That day I watched him being presented with his Afghanistan Operational Service Medal was one of the proudest of my life.

And now?

I’m ashamed to realise that instead of thinking about Ryan’s funeral, I’ve been imagining myself on a date with a man who knows absolutely nothing about the savage realities of military life.

The idiot has stopped talking and for the first time in more than an hour the silence between us feels awkward.

‘You’re not how I imagined a corporate lawyer,’ I blurt out.

‘Says the lady undertaker. Sorry … there’s nothing I’d rather do than sit and talk to you for the rest of the day. But it looks like you’ve got a customer.’

I turn to see a man peering through the window of Happy Endings, then rattling on the door.

Business at last!

And a timely reminder that my priority is work.

Not relationships.

‘I’d better dash. Come on, Chopper. Thanks for breakfast. Good luck with the paintballing, and drive that thing,’ I point at his scooter, ‘more safely in future.’

‘Bye for now.’ He hesitates. Then, ‘Look, let me give you my number. Perhaps we can have dinner.’

I punch his details into my phone. Rude not to. Not as if I’m ever going to call him. But as I walk briskly across the street, rubbing the finger that used to wear a wedding ring, I acknowledge the idiot is charismatic in a man-child kind of way. Far too old to be riding a child’s toy, but at least he has good manners.

And Barclay is a pretty cool name.

‘Ah, there you are.’ The man who’s been looking into my shop hears me approaching and turns round at the sound of my footsteps.

I recognise him. Gareth Manning. Runs one of our neighbourhood’s abundance of estate agencies. I’ve overheard him several times in the street, braying with his colleagues about soaring house prices, boasting that if he learns a few phrases of Japanese he’ll be able to add a further thirty thousand to the price tag of a studio flat. He looks from me to his watch.

‘Thought you weren’t coming,’ he says.

‘So sorry I’m late.’ I quickly unlock and usher Gareth in through the door. Chopper and I follow. ‘Just give me a few moments,’ I say. I walk Chopper down to the basement and settle him onto his day bed, next to the fridges – which have been behaving themselves perfectly, although gobbling vast amounts of electricity since they have yet to accommodate anyone – and then retrace my steps.

‘Gareth, isn’t it?’ I say. We shake hands. ‘So how can I help you?’

‘I’ve come to measure up. And take pictures.’

‘For what?’ I’m bewildered because Gareth has the look of someone who’s made an appointment to see me.

‘The shop.’ Gareth flicks open the catches on his briefcase and produces a camera plus some gadget that shoots out a laser of light when he points it at the wall.

‘For what? Why?’ I’m baffled.

‘You know.’ Gareth sounds embarrassed, whereas before he was merely impatient to get on with his work. ‘The lease, and that.’

‘What about the lease?’

Now Gareth looks shifty. ‘Well, aren’t you surrendering it at the end of the month?’ He keeps his eyes studiously to the floor, then mutters, ‘Personally, I think you’ve made a good decision. No call for your kind of business around here, is there?’

If I weren’t so shocked, I’d tell Gareth that more people will die in our neighbourhood this year than will buy homes. And that we have only one undertaker, as opposed to half a dozen estate agents, all of whom seem to make a handsome living.

At least, that’s what I wish I’d said when I rerun this scene in my mind hours later. But for now, I’m dumbfounded. I can feel my face turning the colour of a pillar box. ‘Who told you that? About the lease?’

Before I can discover the source of Gareth’s misinformation, we are both startled by the sound of a ringing phone.

‘Excuse me,’ I mutter. Then, ‘Hello, Happy Endings. This is Nina speaking.’

Probably yet another cold caller trying to convince me I’m owed a fortune for payment protection insurance I know I never had in the first place.

But there’s nothing brash about the voice on the other end of the line. It’s female, shaky, and a bit muffled. ‘Is that … the undertaker?’

‘Yes, you’re through to Happy Endings,’ I repeat. ‘May I help you?’ My heart is racing. This is the call I have been waiting for. Gareth is fiddling with his laser pointy thing, and I’d like to order him to leave, but I don’t want to break off from this important phone call to speak to someone else, so I turn my back on him and listen.

‘I need to arrange a funeral.’