Chapter 26
With most of the residents due to be out at the funeral, Simone was anticipating a quiet morning. Along with some of the other volunteers, she was making a ‘buffet’ for everyone’s return, a meagre affair consisting of some disturbingly cheap frozen sausage rolls, white bread sandwiches, and a box of broken biscuits from a discount food shop on the market. Not quite a wake, but something masquerading as one.
She was daydreaming about the ramen lunch to which she intended to treat herself when Steve appeared in the kitchen looking like he’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. And forwards. And sideways.
‘What the heck?’
He paced up and down, his previous mullet now a confection of butchered locks sticking up in all directions, as if held aloft by an invisible halo of statically charged balloons. There were also several bloody nicks on his face.
‘Let’s start with your hair. What happened?’
‘I tried to cut it.’
‘What did you use? A jet propeller?’
‘Don’t. I’m stressing out, man.’
‘And what about your face? Did you try to cut that too, because you’ve done a great job if so.’
‘I wet shaved. Not done it for a while.’ He pulled on a lock of his hair. ‘Can you do something with it?’
‘Put some crime scene tape around it, and cordon off the area?’
A little anguished cry escaped his lips. She’d not seen him stressed before.
‘Please?’ he said. ‘I was really hoping to be smart today. I can’t turn up like this.’
‘Can’t you wear a hat?’
‘It’s boiling out there.’
‘Okay fine. I guess I can’t do any worse.’
She grabbed some kitchen scissors and got to work. When Tasha found them, she’d made him look slightly less police mugshot, and slightly more crap passport photo.
‘I didn’t know you cut hair,’ said Tasha.
‘Neither did I.’
‘Gayle is asking if you can drive us to the crematorium.’
‘What happened to the minibus?’ said Steve.
‘It’s too mini. We won’t all fit.’
‘Isn’t there anyone else who can do it?’ asked Simone.
‘Probably. But she asked for you. Do you want to take it up with her?’
Trying to reason with Gayle was like trying to reason with a starved Rottweiler whilst wearing a coat made of pork scratchings. She sighed. Bang went her quiet morning.
‘I’ll get my keys.’
* * *
When she got to her car, she was disconcerted to see that Hozan, looking particularly murderous, would also be joining them. Brilliant. This day just got better and better. He climbed into the back seat, his gaze never leaving hers as he did so.
‘Where are we headed?’ She held her mobile, ready to input the coordinates.
‘No phones,’ said Hozan.
‘Well, I never did get round to doing theknowledge, so unless you know where you’re going, we?—’
‘Turn right out of the car park,’ he said without hesitation.
She saw Tasha smiling in the rear-view mirror. ‘He knows where he’s going. He knows everything.’
Presumably objecting to mobiles was one of his quirks. What was it these 5G conspiracy theorists banged on about? The masts were all bird-killing, cancer-causing, brainwashing, virus-spreading, autism-triggering, spy-enabling tech?
‘I’m guessing the radio isn’t allowed either,’ she said.
Hozan looked at her like she’d lost her mind. ‘Put on Heart. It’s the best music mix.’
They made their way through the streets, Hozan’s occasional monotonous instructions punctuating the anodyne fare offered up by the mid-morning DJ. Everyone seemed in a relatively sombre mood, but when the presenter announced a general knowledge quiz, Hozan sat forward in his seat and demanded she turn the volume up.
‘He loves quizzes,’ said Steve.
She also loved quizzes, not that she’d admit that out loud. Always had. Probably because she was good at them. In a world that increasingly confused knowledge with intelligence, her ability to absorb and recall meaningless nuggets of information gave her an additional platform on which to compete. Up went the volume. She stayed quiet for the first round of questions, just listened as Hozan plucked the correct information from the ether. But come round two, she couldn’t help herself, and as questions rained down, she beat him to the punch on six out of ten of them.
Steve whistled. ‘How do you know all that stuff?’
‘Yeah,’ said Tasha. ‘Those were tough.’
They were pulling into the crematorium. She’d drop them off, then go and find somewhere to park afterwards.
‘I don’t know. I just remember random stuff. Always have.’
She brought the car to a stop and Tasha and Steve climbed out.
Hozan lingered, his eyes darting as if he was searching his internal systems for something. He placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘You’re one of us,’ he said, then he climbed out without another word.
Tasha leaned in through the window. ‘I think he likes you now.’
‘Hmm. Why am I not reassured by that?’ she said.
Hozan continued to stare at her, but something had shifted in his demeanour. Distrust had been replaced with … was it sympathy? Understanding? Yep, she definitely preferred it the way it was before.
* * *
She parked up and strolled back. She’d only put an hour on the meter but didn’t expect proceedings to take long. Twenty minutes to be shunted along the conveyor belt – literally – before the next one came in. It was like YO! Sushi, only for corpses. It wasn’t so long ago she’d been through this for her mum. Hers had been a joyless affair; Simone couldn’t furnish the celebrant with much to celebrate. She’d tried to make the best of it, like baking a cake with wartime rations, and the few guests had made all the right noises in a blitz spirit kind of way, but the whole thing had left a bad taste in the mouth. When you’re talking about someone’s legacy, successfully taking their own life tends to trump any of their more humdrum achievements.
She’d barely had time to find a memorial bench and check her emails when, sure enough, people began filtering back out of the crematorium. She recognised some of yesterday’s ragtag bunch amongst them, from the midst of which emerged Jasper. He was wearing a light brown linen suit, white shirt and maroon tie, like he’d just stepped off the set of The Great Gatsby. Good job she was wearing sunglasses, because they enabled her to stare to her heart’s content without him knowing. Good lord. In a T-shirt and jeans he was fairly damned fine, but in a suit he was positively Adonic. She was enjoying the view so much that when he caught sight of her and waved, she forgot she wasn’t meant to be staring and waved straight back, thus revealing that she had in fact been staring at him the whole time.
He ventured over and sat down next to her, a little closer perhaps than the size of the bench necessitated. He stared ahead and massaged his palm with his thumb.
‘Funerals, man,’ he said. ‘Always make you want to reach out to the people you’re closest to, don’t they?’
A huge bee passed, heavy and drunk on nectar, and landed on a nearby rose bush.
‘I think his wife might object.’
‘Oh,’ he said.
‘Yeah.’
The bee crawled its way to the centre of the flower, abdomen pulsing with pleasure.
‘Funny.’ He loosened his tie and undid his top button. ‘I’d envisaged you as more of a full helping, not a bit on the side.’
A bit on the side. Not an expression she’d heard for a while. She wasn’t sure if he was complimenting or insulting her, but it was interesting he’d envisaged her as anything at all.
She shrugged. ‘It’s complicated.’
‘It sounds it.’
‘They’re separated, but still live together for the sake of the kids. And appearances.’
‘Really?’
‘It’s a weird upper-class thing. Like tweed dishcloths or Jacob Rees-Mogg.’
He smiled. ‘So how long do you have to wait?’
‘For…?’
‘Until you can be together properly.’
‘I don’t know if I’d want to settle down with him.’
Jasper’s brows furrowed. ‘This really is complicated.’
The bee was off again on a lazy arc across the aquamarine sky. She watched it until it was out of sight.
‘Men are like buses. Okay for a quick ride, but never there when you really need them.’
He shook his head. ‘Does a fairy die if you express optimism or something?’
She took off her shades and regarded him insouciantly. ‘Love is just a rumour, designed to keep people from thinking about their inexorable crawl to the grave.’
‘How poetic. I’m with you because the alternative is staring into the void of my futile existence, and you distract me sufficiently from my own mortality.’
‘You got it.’
‘Ever considered cheering up?’
She glowered at him. ‘This is my happy face.’
He laughed, a throaty chortle that seemed to break ranks from his lungs, so unexpected that she couldn’t help but laugh too.
‘Simone. I have worked with people who have been sexually trafficked, beaten up, urinated on by members of the public or lost their worldly belongings in horrible scams. But you are by far the most cynical person I have ever encountered.’
‘Why, thank you.’ She took a bow in her seat. ‘I’ve always tried to excel at everything I do.’
‘How did you get to be this way?’
‘With a lot of practice.’
He reached inside his pocket, pulled out a packet of mints, and offered her one.
‘First handkerchiefs, now mints. Did you spend seventy years frozen in the Arctic tundra, like Captain America?’
‘Okay, don’t have one.’
He went to snatch them away, but she grabbed the pack before he could. It was better than craving a cigarette.
‘How about you?’ She tried to sound casual. ‘Any girlfriend?’
‘We split up about six months ago.’
So he really was single. That made about as much sense as Crocs.
‘Ahh. Did she break your heart?’
‘No. It just wasn’t working.’
‘She dumped you?’
‘No.’
‘Did you dump her?’
‘It doesn’t always have to be about who dumped who.’
‘Relationships are always about power,’ she said.
He stood up and shrugged off his jacket; the sun had burned off what little cloud cover there’d been that morning. Over by the entrance, everyone was still milling around like they had nowhere to go. Then she remembered many of them didn’t. As Jasper was about to sit back down, she spotted a tiny money spider crawling up his trousers near the back of his knee.
‘Hang on. You’ve got a…’
She lightly placed her hand a few centimetres ahead of it, trying to encourage it onto her palm, but it detoured around the obstacle. She placed her hand slightly further up, but the spider wasn’t interested. After a couple more attempts trying to get the kamikaze little critter to safety, she realised her fingers were now on Jasper’s buttocks. He was peering down at her with a mixture of surprise and amusement.
‘…hand on my arse?’ he finished for her.
She snatched the offending digits away. ‘There’s a spider.’ She motioned for him to see for himself, but the bloody thing had disappeared. ‘It was right there.’
‘Really?’
She told him to turn around, to see if it had moved to his front. Great. Now she was looking at his crotch. Still no sign of the spider, but something akin to mortification was crawling across her face.
‘I don’t see it,’ he said, examining his own junk.
The trousers were very slim-fitting and, as he bent over, they further accentuated the bulge.
‘It was right there.’
‘Most people offer to buy me a drink before going in for the grab.’
‘I wasn’t trying to grab your arse.’
‘So you say.’
‘Why would I? It doesn’t add up.’
‘And yet here we are.’
‘I wasn’t!’
‘What would your married man think?’
She had taken the bait and he was toying with her.
‘God, you are so annoying!’ she said.
He laughed and sat back down. ‘Sorry. Couldn’t help myself. Didn’t think of you as easily embarrassed.’
‘I’m not.’
He regarded her thoughtfully. ‘Or as a rescuer of spiders. Somewhere in that cavity of a chest lies the tiniest beating heart.’
She picked up the jacket sitting between them and threw it at him. ‘I can assure you there isn’t.’
‘I’m not convinced. What about yesterday? The suits thing.’
‘Just playing to my strengths. Vacuous fashionista.’
His countenance clouded. ‘I think we both know your strengths extend beyond fashion, Simone.’
The way he said it made everything feel a little wobbly. It was as though he saw something in her that she herself only half-suspected existed. For all Tony was an asshole, there was something about him giving her a well done, or a patronising good girl, that validated her in a way she hated needing, but still required. Jasper seemed to recognise that.
‘And they can wear them for all those job interviews they’ve got lined up,’ he said.
Hmm. Perhaps he was mocking her after all.
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It was stupid. I just thought…’
She couldn’t formulate the sentence. Couldn’t say that what had started as a bit of a way to say fuck you to him had turned into a small matter of … what … pride? That she had, in some miniscule way, made the teeniest tiniest difference, and it had felt the teeniest tiniest bit unshit to do so. She let out a long sigh instead.
He reached out and gently squeezed her upper arm. ‘It wasn’t stupid, Simone. It was very considerate. I was being sarcastic. I thought that’s how you communicated?’
She felt the weight of his hand on her, noted the contrast in the colours of their skin. ‘Sarcasm is my first language,’ she managed.
Another hearse was slowly making its way up the driveway to the crematorium.
‘I think we should be heading back,’ he said.
‘Yeah.’
As they drifted towards the group, Tasha waved at her.
‘You two made up then?’ he said.
She nodded.
‘Be careful with that one. She may act tough, but she has a deep-seated need to attach. Best not to get too close, given you’re not going to be around for much longer.’
She stopped walking, making sure they remained out of earshot.
‘You might need to take that up with Gayle,’ she said. ‘Because she’s already arranged for me to take her to her scan later.’