Anjali Joseph - The Living

I jumped up and pulled up my trousers.

She sat, looking slightly irritated, and wiped herself with her petticoat. Over there, she said. The hides were stacked near the door leading to the outer room. Somehow I hadn’t seen or smelled them. The entire room smelled of her, I mean of her cunt.

I picked up the hides and felt my ankle wobble.

Not tomorrow, she said, but the day after is fine. This sort of time. She sounded bored, like a housewife talking to a visiting workman. I said nothing and stumbled out. The rain had abated into a drizzle. There were rivulets in the narrow gullies as I walked out of the neighbourhood and back towards the main road. As I walked my clothes and hair and the hides I was carrying became damp. I reached home, said that the new delivery man hadn’t been there, that things seemed disorganised, that I’d got wet and felt a little tired. I would lie down for a minute. I got under the blanket and slept blissfully. When I woke, my mind was clear and my body light. My son returned from school. My other son was at work. My wife started cooking. The rain became heavier. Our house smelled of food, and rain, and leather. The electric bulb was put on, for it was too dark to see. I worked, cutting out soles, very calm and happy. It was out of the question to think of what had happened, or consider it a mistake. As well as the lightness in my balls, and the extreme peace, relaxation and wellbeing in my body, I had the feeling I had floated above everything — the factory line of my existence, of making chappals and feeding my children, of looking at my wife and failing to feel united with her, failing to feel that I belonged in my life. Other than this sudden sense of liberation, which it seemed no one around could perceive in me, there was nothing to say that those few minutes of the afternoon had even taken place. No one would know, and the incident of course would not be repeated. But it had happened.

It’s Granddad, I told Jason. He’s dead. Heart attack. Alison phoned me.

Was it on my birthday? His voice sounded raw.

No, the day after.

Did it take a long time?

No. He had a heart attack in the night and died just after he got to the hospital, she said. The funeral’s the day after tomorrow. They thought it’d take longer to organise. Do you want to come back?

Long silence. On the other end of the phone I heard sunshine and beer and girls and sand. I told him he should do whatever seemed best, and it’d be all right.

You’re going, though, aren’t you?

I’ll go, I said.

Alison had said she wasn’t sure there’d be room for me in the first car, with family. What with her, and Paul, and Mum, and the kids. Don’t worry about that, I said. I’ll take a taxi. Knowing she probably wanted to annoy me didn’t make me less angry. I saw myself walking in, standing at the back, leaving without anyone knowing.

In the end Jason said he’d come back. He got a ticket, but texted to say the train was late getting to London. Alison called right after. She said they’d been thinking (not Mum, not her, they) that it wouldn’t look nice if I arrived alone, so would I come to the house at 9.45 sharp to take the car with them? The kids were going to a neighbour’s house till afterwards. Was Jason coming? I said he was delayed, but on the way. He’d meet us there.

In the car, I sat in near silence. Mum was crying, angrily, and Alison was snivelling. Paul looked distracted, like the rugby was on somewhere. Through the tinted windows I stared at the things we passed. That pub that was always changing landlords and breweries, the Swan. The shop near our house, it used to be called Goblin. Now it was a Londis.

The drive was long. Mum had had her hair set. She looked old, and my first reaction was she’d done it on purpose. At some point I’d stopped noticing them getting older. They’d stuck in my head at forty-five or fifty, and when I saw them afterwards I felt surprised, then put out, as though they were trying to get my sympathy with their wrinkles and their white hair.

Alison had had her hair done too. When did Paul get so fat? His white shirt looked used, like it was his good white shirt. Alison’s outfit seemed new. Sweetheart neckline. I was wearing a black pencil dress and I liked my shoes. I’d got them in the factory shop a while ago. T-bars, with a conical heel. Viviana, if I remember correctly. Well, it’s not every day you go to your dad’s funeral, is it? What I really wanted to ask was if the casket was closed, but there was no one I felt I could ask.

The atmosphere at the crematorium was like a weird film premiere. A crowd was waiting outside, and we pulled up after the hearse and got out, very slowly, not really looking at anyone. I felt curious eyes on me. We filed into the small chapel and sat in the front row. Celebrities.

I couldn’t concentrate. I kept thinking how funny Dad would have found it — he hates churches. The priest talked about bringing him home to God. I thought about the body in the coffin, wearing a suit no doubt. Shoes on his dead feet. That must have been an operation. How many funerals must happen a day, and the schedule, and how they didn’t let you in till it was time for your slot, like the cinema. Did anyone try and sneak a double bill? I thought about everything, except Dad. And I waited for my son to arrive, kicking open the back doors like a cowboy, firing his silver pistol into the ceiling. It didn’t happen. Before long I was following the others as we touched the foot of the coffin, peeped into it. They’d put his glasses on. What was in there had nothing to do with my dad. I kept expecting to see him outside, with a joke and a plan. Then we went out, and walked to the grave. I threw a bit of earth on the coffin along with the rest, and that’s when I started crying.

In the chapel I’d caught a glimpse of Neil, Uncle Neil. At the house he was standing in the front room, in his shiny suit. I walked in and felt like turning around and leaving. But I didn’t want to go in the kitchen: my mum and Alison were there and some other women, doing helpful things with the sandwiches and talking about it being a mercy in the end, or something. I got distracted, remembering that when I’d been little I used to love being with my mum. I’d follow her from room to room till she turned and shouted, For heaven’s sake!

Kind of fucked up if you think about it, which I didn’t want to. You’re thirty-five, I reminded myself. Your son’s sixteen. Going on seventeen. A song.

Suddenly I was in the middle of a hug from Neil. Oh Je— I said, into his double-breasted jacket. He smelled of Superkings and sweat.

I know, he said. I know. You poor little girl. I got crushed again in polyester and squirmed till he let go. Anyone else would have been embarrassed. He looked happy. There were tears on his face. Did you see him? he asked.

I didn’t even think about whether he meant dead or alive. I said what I’d been planning to say from the time I left home that morning: I don’t want to talk about it.

You should talk, let it all out.

I stretched my mouth at him and backed into a corner of the room. Uncle Andy shambled in, and so did Alison with a huge tray of sandwiches. We borrowed six trays, she said. You never think, do you? About things like trays.

I wondered when I could smoke.

When Jason got there I felt less strange. He looked taller, browner. There were shadows under his eyes, and he wasn’t drinking. Hangover, eh? I said. He rolled his eyes. He was swept into a wave of women: my mother, Alison, other people. All talking shit. He was wearing the suit he bought last year in a charity shop. That boy knows how to dress when he wants to. All of a sudden I wanted to lay my head against something, the side of the sofa, plush velvet, not the one we used to have but one like it, and close my eyes. I stayed sitting up, sipping some horrible wine.