book-review – A Year of Time

‘Morning Alden.’

‘Ms Woodwhite,’ Alden brings the trolley to a stop. ‘Eleanor Winter the police released her body this morning.’

‘Thank you, if you could help me get Eleanor on the table, I would be grateful.’

Alden and I have done this many times, once Eleanor is safely resting on the slab, I sign off the required paperwork, see Alden out and then I read the police handover that Eleanor brought in with her. Her family have already been in touch, they identified Eleanor while she was still at the police mortuary, and they’ve requested a closed casket funeral.

Twenty-three-year-old medical student, she’d taken a gap year to travel, the baby of the family with two older sisters, she loved reading, liked to dance and apparently was an excellent cook. Pretty, well the young woman in the photo is. Eleanor suffered in the last hours of her life, and the trauma of this is evident when I open her body bag, it’s hard to match her corpse to the smiling photo in her file.

I put the radio on, and music fills the room, ‘Hello Eleanor, I’m Catharine I ‘am going to get you ready.’

My duty to Eleanor is simpler than normal, her internal organs have been removed by the police coroner, her body sewed neatly back together. Still, I wash her again and her body tells me that she fought. I massage her limbs working out the rigor mortis that has set in, then shave her, after all these years I find it easier to shave the dead than the living, bring a razor to my own legs and I will draw blood. Her lips are burst, she lost teeth, and her jaw has been dislocated it takes me a while to wire it straight and then shut. What were her last words, I have a feeling she didn’t beg, I sense defiance.

While the arterial embalming runs, I drink coffee, reply to emails and handover Mr Lamont. He has been here for two weeks now, waiting for his sons to travel back across the Atlantic in order to bury him in the family plot on Mull. They collect him and they don’t remind me in anyway of their father, who was a lean and wry witted man. They have been softened and rounded off by their time in America. They place their fathers cardboard coffin in the back of a rental van and away the Lamont’s go.

The bell rings and a childhood friend of Eleanor’s stands at the door, she has brought clothes for her friend to buried in. I bring her into my office and offer her comfort, I listen to her stories about Eleanor, and they fit with who I have come to imagine my client was. Her friends heart lightens, and I am glad, because Eleanor’s was a life that should be celebrated. As I see her friend off, she hesitates, then takes from her bag a battered copy of the Hobbit.

‘Please can you put this in with El?’

Eleanor is to be buried in soft cotton pajama’s printed with dogs, the pictures are cute and colourful, the fabric is worn. I dress her in them as the sunsets, I sort her hair, brushing it out, gently smoothing it into place, so it falls upon her shoulders. Though it is to be a closed casket funeral, I apply light make, bringing the appearance of life back to cold skin, the flush of love and laughter to bruised cheeks. I fold her left arm across her waist and bring her right hand to rest over her heart, under it I place her book. She is ready.

Black tea leaves, peppermint rolled and then chopped, a crushed bay leaf, a snip of rosemary, cinnamon, two birch leaves, a teaspoon of dried powdered willow bark (measure carefully), orange peel, three pink peppercorns and honey (be generous).

I brew familiar recipe in a chipped blue teapot which once belong to my grandmother Tilda. She taught me the recipe, just as she taught me how to deal with the dead. Once its ready, I take it out onto the porch which is heavy with the scent of magnolia and clematis, it’s a warm night and the stars seem strangely distant. I pour two cups and sit back to wait.

It isn’t long before I hear footsteps light and sure of themselves, the screen door swings open and out comes Eleanor. She’s golden, full of promise and ready for what comes next. I gesture to her cup of tea; she sits down, and we drink.

After a while she asks, ‘Why is it we never love the people we ought to?’

‘He handed himself in.’

‘I deserved better.’

‘You did.’

We drink in silence, finishing our tea. For a while she sits holding her empty cup, in the palm of her hands. I don’t rush her; she has all the time in the world. Eventually she places the empty vessel on the table and stands.

‘I’m ready now.’

‘I know.’

I gather the empty cups and head back inside alone.

‘Time is priceless, but its free. You can’t own it, you can us it. You can spend it. But you can’t keep it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back.’

‘That’s good. A pseudo philosopher once took a shit here. Pass some bog roll.’

Fiona’s hand appears under the stall wall, she’s wearing emerald, green nail polish, which is heavily chipped, I take the sandpaper she offers.

‘Thanks – Call Gregs ma for a good time.’

‘Is there a number?’ Fiona asks.

‘Several.’

‘Don’t drink water, fish have sex in it.’

‘Solid advice.’

The toilet next door flushes.

‘You ladies do know this is gents, right?’ Callum asks.

‘Wash your hands!’ Fiona shouts.

The tap runs and a second later Fiona shrieks. By now I am finished and am hiking up my tights, which have twisted something rotten.

‘Callum Brown!’ Fiona roars. ‘I can’t believe you tee-pee’d me!’

‘Ha!’ Callum snorts.

I unlock my cubicle and stagger out, somehow in the last few minutes I seem to have gotten drunker – the inebriating stench of the men’s toilets. Callum standing at the sink wetting another handful of loo roll.

‘I wouldn’t,’ I warn him.

‘I’ll take my chances.’

I shake my head at his stupidity, Fiona is a force to be reckoned with. After washing my hands and give myself the once over. My eyeliner is halfway down my cheeks, so I push it back up, and smear some concealer over the grey stains its left behind. Callum launches his second barrage of missiles at Fiona, who screams. She is going to kill him.

Her cubicle door flies open, and she stands with her head lowered, eyes ablaze, like a bull about to charge, she’s even kicked off her heels, they lie discarded on the floor. Given the state of the tiles this was either very brave or very foolish of her.

‘Shit!’ Callum shouts and he takes off.

Fiona’s after him like a hound. ‘I’m telling mum!’ she brays.

What is about family gatherings that causes us to revert back to our formative years, I wonder. Perhaps the intellectual who wrote that nonsense about time might be able to answer that question. I leave the bathroom just as Uncle Angus tries to enter it, he looks at me in confusion, so I tell him that this is the ladies.

‘Oh, sorry.’ He wanders down the hall to the actual women’s, stops in front of the door then turns back to me, ‘Una! You’ll get me arrested for being some sort of creep!’

Laughing I make my way back into the packed bar. I know nearly everyone here, villagers, friends and family. The air is heavy with the warmth of our crush and thick with conversation. I can hear Fiona and Callum over all of this, they are still arguing, but unlike when we were young, neither of them is crying and no punches have been thrown. I force my way through to the bar and try to get the young server’s attention, but before I can Betty Tolworth starts bellowing for silence. I glance at the clock, surely it’s not that late? But right enough it’s 11:50. When nobody responds Betty smiles at me, picks up the large metal bell she keeps behind the bar and is rumoured to have once used to break up a fight.

‘Would you like the honour?’ she asks.

Taken aback by this gesture of trust and the offering of such power, I smile devilishly, and snatch up the bell eagerly.

‘On you go,’ she says.

With a heady sense of authority, I start swinging my arm and the bells tolling silences the White Harts custodians (even Callum and Fiona). Carried away by all of this I find myself shouting, ‘Bring out your dead.’

‘When you’re quite finished Una,’ Betty says. She’s standing arms folded and eyebrow raised, but she’s smiling. ‘You all know what that means! Out! All of you! Every last one of you.’

‘What about Brian?’ Someone asks. Brain is fast asleep, propped up at the far end of the bar.

‘I’ll deal with Brain,’ Betty says ominously.

And with that we start making our way out, there’s a scrummage at the door as people pull on coats, search for cigarettes and make sure they have everyone they arrived with. Its cold outside, it’s been a harsh December, even the river has frozen over. We crowd into the small car park like a milling herd of sheep. I spot Duncan and Isles who are huddled smoking by the beer garden gate and make my way over to them, ‘Cuz!’ Duncan greets me as he taps out a cigarette for me, I’m drunk enough to take it, and regret it almost instantly when the smoke hits my throat and the world spins.

The sound of feet rushing over gravel announces Callum’s arrival. He’s flushed and looks pleased with himself, I assume because he’s managed to get the better of his sister. The rest of our clan slowly gathers as we stamp our feet and huddle against the cold. Uncle Angus stinks of whisky, his cheeks are furnace red and he sways on his feet like he’s moving to a tune only he can hear. Fiona managed to sneak two pints out with her, and we pass these between us as we wait.

Behind us the church bell begins to toll, the crowd counts along with the strikes, ‘Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one! Happy New Year!!’ we bellow as one.

Inside the White Hart the piano starts up – Old Lang Syne. I hear the back door to the pub bang open and Betty calls out, ‘Friends and family only.’

And at Hogmanay everyone is family or a friend.

Mind Burble

I am writing at the moment, just slowly and mainly my focus is on editing. I hate editing, and I really struggle to get on with it.
This short piece was written for a workshop. The quote ‘Time is priceless, but its free. You can’t own it, you can us it. You can spend it. But you can’t keep it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back.’ – comes from Harvey MacKay and was the prompt we were set for the workshop.

The title – Lang may yer lum reek, is a Scottish new years greeting, or indeed Hogmanay greeting and is essentially a blessing. Lang means long, yer means your and a lum is a chimney. Thus it means may you never be without fuel for your fire, or indeed warmth, health and good fortune.

Tag: book-review

Tea

Lang may yer lum reek

Mind Burble