John McGahern - By the Lake

“Poor Johnny,” Mary clasped their hands. Her face was filled with a strange serenity, as if she had been transported by the shock and excitement of the death to a more spiritual place.

As they shook hands and took their place among the mourners, the muted voices all around them were agreeing: “I know it’s sad but when you think about it maybe it was all for the better. He wasn’t old. No family. What had he to head back to? Nobody related next or near. Sad as it is, when you think about it, it could not have happened any better if it had been planned. Of course it would have been better if it had never happened — but sooner or later none of us can escape that — God help us all,” and there was a palpable sense of satisfaction that they stood safely and solidly outside all that their words agreed.

The small car that had waited outside the gate beyond the alder tree returned with Jamesie. He was very agitated. The muted voices stopped as he went up to Ruttledge.

“We sent out word far and wide and can find no trace of Patrick. Nobody appears to know where he’s gone.”

“Why is it so necessary to find Patrick?”

“He always lays the body out!”

Jamesie looked anxiously around. The house was full and though it was now well after midnight people were still coming to the house. The cardboard boxes on the oval table were full of food and drink. By custom, nothing could be offered until the corpse was laid out and viewed.

“I’ll lay Johnny out,” Ruttledge offered.

“Will you be able?” Jamesie searched his face. The house went silent.

“I worked in hospitals when I was a student.” Ruttledge tried to hide his own anxiety.

“Do you think …?” Jamesie was uncertain.

“I’m sure, especially if I can get any help.”

“I’ll help,” a man volunteered, Tom Kelly, a neighbour Ruttledge knew slightly. He worked as a hairdresser in Dublin, was home visiting his mother, and had accompanied her to the house.

“You’ll need a glass first,” Jamesie said, and poured each man a glass of whiskey and waited until they drank it down as if it was essential for facing into such a task. He handed Ruttledge a flat cardboard box. “Jimmy Joe McKiernan said everything is there.”

Mary poured a basin of steaming water. She had towels, scissors, a sponge, a razor, a pair of white starched sheets, a pillowslip. She and Jamesie led the two men down into the closed lower room. Johnny lay on the bed in his shirt and trousers. His feet were bare.

“Poor Johnny,” Mary said dreamily before moving to leave the room.

Jamesie stood by her shoulder but did not speak. He was strained and taut.

“If there’s anything you want, just knock hard on the door and Jamesie will come down,” Mary said.

“Is there cotton wool?” Ruttledge asked.

The flat box contained a large bag of cotton wool, a white habit, rosary beads, a bar of soap, a disposable razor. Jamesie closed the door firmly as he and Mary left the room.

“We’ll have to get off the clothes.”

For a moment, as he held the still warm flesh in his hand, he thought of themselves in the busy evening street of a few hours ago, all the darts flying true from this now lifeless hand. It did not take an ambush to bring about such quick and irrecoverable change.

By lifting the hips, the trousers were pulled free. There was a wallet, coins, a penknife, a comb, a bunch of keys, betting slips, rosary beads in a small worn purse. With more difficulty they drew the strong thick arms out of the shirtsleeves and pulled the shirt loose. The long cotton undershirt was more difficult still. The body was heavy and surprisingly loose.

“Cut it off.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to do like the shirt?”

“It’s too tight.” Ruttledge handed Tom Kelly the pair of scissors and when he looked doubtful added, “He won’t need it any more.”

“There’s no earthly edge on these scissors. You can never get scissors with an edge in the country. They use them for everything,” Tom Kelly complained.

When at last he got the incision made, the cotton tore easily. They did likewise with the underpants. The only thing that remained on the body was a large silver digital watch, the red numerals pulsing out the seconds like a mechanical heart eerily alive in the stillness.

“He won’t need that any more either,” the hairdresser removed the watch, but it continued to pulse in the glass ashtray until it distracted Ruttledge, and he turned it face down. He then noticed and removed his hearing-aid.

They closed the ears and the nostrils with the cotton wool, and when they turned him over to close the rectum, dentures fell from his mouth. The rectum absorbed almost all the cotton wool. The act was as intimate and warm as the act of sex. The innate sacredness of each single life stood out more starkly in death than in the whole of its natural life. To see him naked was also to know what his character and clothes had disguised — the wonderful physical specimen he had been. That perfect coordination of hand and eye that had caused so many wildfowl to fall like stones from the air had been no accident. That hand, too, had now fallen.

“We’d be better to lift him down to the floor.”

“Are you sure?”

“We’ll have more room and we have to make the bed.”

In the sheet they lifted him from the bed. Tom Kelly shaved him with quick firm professional strokes and nicked the line of the sideburns level with the closed eyes while Ruttledge washed and dried the body.

“Does he need a quick trim?”

“Whatever you think.”

Taking a comb and complaining all the time about the scissors, Tom Kelly trimmed and combed the hair. When they were almost finished, the door burst open. By throwing himself against the door Ruttledge managed to shut it again before it swung wide. Profuse apologies came from the other side of the door. They noticed a large old-fashioned key in the lock and turned the key.

“It would have been terrible if he was seen like this on the floor.”

“We should have noticed the key in the first place.”

“It’s locked now anyhow.”

They changed the sheet and the pillowslip. Very carefully they lifted the great weight back on to the bed. They arranged his feet and took the habit. It was a glowing white, a cloth breastplate with long sleeves, four white ribbons. The cuffs and breastplate were embroidered with gold thread. They eased the hands and arms into the sleeves, lifted the back to secure the breastplate by tying the ribbons.

“They skimp on everything these days,” Tom Kelly complained. “There was a time when every dead person was given a full habit.”

“It makes it easier for us. Nobody will know the difference. What’ll we do about the beads?”

“We’ll give him his own beads.”

Tom Kelly took the beads from the small purse and twined them through his fingers before arranging his hands on the breastplate. They then drew up the sheet and placed the hands on the fold. One eye had opened and was closed gently again.

“We are almost through.”

“All we have to do is get the mouth right.”

Tom Kelly fixed the dentures in place. With cotton wool he moulded the mouth and face into shape slowly and with meticulous care.

“It looks perfect,” Ruttledge said, but as he spoke a final press caused the dentures to fall loose. This occurred a number of times: all would look in place and then come undone through striving for too much perfection.

“I can hear people getting restless.”

“Mark you well my words,” Tom Kelly answered. “Everything we have done will be remarked upon. Everything we have done will be well gone over.”

The whole slow process began again. There was no doubting the growing impatience and restlessness beyond the door for the wake to begin.