Great! She bet Jess was there already. I’m quite early, she’d be saying. I’ll just sit here and catch up on a few things. Like she had anything to catch up on. She’d have been up since 5.30 a.m. micro-scheduling the day ahead. She’d once told Laura that if she didn’t make herself get up at 5.30, the day ‘just ran away from her’. Laura, who routinely hit the snooze button until about seven and a half minutes before she had to get Billy to school and herself to work, had been utterly appalled. What normal person routinely gets up at that hour? In her book, it wasn’t even morning.
Six minutes until the next bus. Six minutes! Laura took a discreet swig of Gaviscon and hoped she wouldn’t spontaneously combust.
By the time she had got to the hospice the other day, Jess had already spoken to the funeral director. We’re meeting Robert the day after tomorrow at 11 a.m. Robert? Christ, how had the two of them become bessies so quickly?
When Laura got off the bus she immediately started running again. Was it normal to be so out of breath so quickly? She needed to lose some weight and get fit. Jess ran four times a week (of course she did). Thinking about her sister made Laura speed up a little, despite the wheezing. It was nearly twenty past eleven and she knew Jess would have started the meeting without her. In fact, she may well have their mother buried by now. Time is money.
Finally, the funeral parlour loomed into view. Robert Butler & Sons, a family firm (was this supposed to make death feel cosy and unthreatening?). It was sandwiched between a shoe shop and a convenience store. And Laura couldn’t help but notice that there was a huge poster for The Walking Dead just around the corner.
‘Robert Butler,’ a rotund man said, proffering a bear-like and slightly sweaty hand. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’
Was he sorry? This was his business, for goodness’ sake. If people didn’t die, he didn’t eat. No, she was being unfair. He could be sorry and not sorry in different ways. Besides, someone had to do this job. She must stop being so weird.
‘Did you have far to come?’ Robert said.
Laura shook her head. ‘Dulwich.’ Robert gave a purr of approval. It was strange that despite having rented a flat on Croxted Road for years, Laura had never really thought of herself as a Dulwich person. She didn’t know the Farrow & Ball paint chart off by heart, had never thrown a dinner party and happily ate non-organic carrots. Jon’s ambivalence about the area was even more pronounced and he’d been known to tell strangers he lived ‘near Brixton’, presumably because Dulwich just didn’t seem like an edgy enough hood for a white public schoolboy who grew up in Surrey.
Robert ushered Laura into a small, murkily lit room where her immaculate-looking sister was already arranged elegantly on a sofa. Jess – who hated people being late – glanced at her watch in a move so classically passive-aggressive that Laura had to resist the urge to chuck the half-drunk green tea her sister was holding all over her.
And was that Mum’s necklace Jess was wearing – the one Dad had bought her? Blimey, she hadn’t wasted much time getting her hands on that.
Laura was determined she was not going to apologize for being late. Or chuck green tea at anyone. Or wrench necklaces from their throats. ‘There’s a poster for The Walking Dead right outside!’
Both Jess and Robert stared at her.
‘Unfortunate media placement, don’t you think?’
‘Umm … May I get you some tea or coffee?’ Robert said.
Well, so much for lightening the mood. ‘Yes, coffee please.’
‘How do you take it?’ Robert asked.
‘Milk and two sugars please.’
‘I’ve given up sugar,’ Jess said. ‘And I feel like a different person.’
Try giving up being smug, Laura thought irritably.
A few minutes later Robert reappeared with a rather muddy-looking cup of coffee and picked up his notebook. ‘Now, where were we?’
And suddenly, there were so many decisions to be made. Where did they want the service? What time? Cremation or burial? Pine or oak? Chrome handles or gold? Live music or a playlist?
Laura’s head pounded. She didn’t know the answers to any of this stuff. She had tried to talk to her mum about some of it but now, sitting here in this unfeasibly hot little room, she could hardly remember what she’d said. She knew her mother wanted to be cremated but that was about it.
Jess, of course, was absolutely the opposite and fired back answers as quickly as a quiz show contestant. St Anthony’s. Next Friday. Cremation. Oak. Fastest fingers on the buzzers!
Laura almost wanted to disagree with some of the decisions, just on principle. Had Jess really ascertained that live music was critically important to their mother? Or was that just something Jess wanted? Laura wouldn’t put it past her sister to be considering the reaction of her Instagram followers. Jess Tomlinson, Mistress of the Tasteful Funeral.
‘We’ll have more choice if we have a playlist,’ Laura found herself blurting out.
Robert stopped scribbling in his notebook and scratched his head with a sweaty paw.
‘We can have Mum’s favourite songs,’ Laura continued. Don’t ask me what, don’t ask me what!
‘Like what?’ Jess said, straight-backed, discouraging and palpably amazed to have her decisions questioned.
Laura’s head spun. She could barely think of a single song, let alone one her mother had loved. What the bloody hell was she going to suggest? ‘Another One Bites the Dust’? ‘Err …’
‘It’s just she did say she wanted live music.’
Laura sighed. ‘Fine.’
‘But if you’re not hap—’
‘Fine.’
Robert scribbled in his notepad. Did they know how many readings they were having and who would be doing them?
Laura sat back in her seat and stared out of the window. Let Jess sort everything out. She’d probably have made a spreadsheet by now. She was, after all, The Big Sister, Chief of Chivvying, Queen of the Family WhatsApp.
Laura let her mind drift to the night before. Her friend Amy had popped over with a huge bunch of flowers. Amy and Laura worked together at Natter magazine and, coincidentally, lived a few roads apart.
‘I’m so, so sorry,’ Amy had said to Laura, her eyes filling with tears, at which point her toddler Josh, who was balanced on her hip, started to cry too and Laura had been the one dry-eyed person in the awkward three-person hug. Laura felt like a bit of a fraud. She had had a very complicated relationship with her mum. Yes, she was sad. But also a bit relieved. And she knew that made her a terrible person, but it also happened to be true.
She tuned back into the conversation in the funeral director’s just as it turned to flowers. Jess – of course – had very strong feelings about them. There were to be no chrysanthemums and no lilies, she said, shuddering at the very thought. They also didn’t want red and they didn’t want pink.
Even Robert looked a bit bemused. There were two florists he normally recommended, both local. Now, he said, that just about concluded things for the day but there was just one other matter. Would the deceased want make-up?
Laura and Jess didn’t miss a beat. Yes, the deceased absolutely would.
On that much, at least, the two of them could agree.