Page 66 of Four Weddings and a Funeral Director
Or … was it Lily?
Lily, whom he’d given signals more mixed than anything that Dierdre’s KitchenAid could achieve. Lily, who’d made herself sovulnerable in showing that she cared, and whom he’d repaid by effectively shunning.
She’d probably come from the Chamber of Commerce, fresh from cancelling her lease, effective immediately.
No, not that. Anything but that.
Determined to get ahead of his intrusive thoughts, Mort paused the machine and stripped off his gloves. Hurrying upstairs, he frowned at a flash of pink peeping out from his office. Was that a fuchsia mohair rug? Where had it come from?
Mort opened the door, slumping (hopefully imperceptibly) as he saw that his visitor was not in fact Lily. And not even a student flogging novelty sunglasses as part of a fundraiser. Well, at least that meant that Lily hadn’t fled back to La Jolla just yet.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked the grizzled group of men that had gathered at the door. One was patting the poodles, which Lily had dressed up in 1980s leotards, including sweatbands and slouch socks. Where did she get the time? Or the fashions? Perhaps she’d arrived with a trunk full of dress-ups for her weird themed weddings.
Well, this was still better than the Jehovahs.
‘Is there something wrong with the plumbing?’ asked Mort, recognising the combed-over pate and overall-covered form of Andy Stribley, the local plumber. Had Gramps gone on a flushing spree while he’d been visiting? (Thanks to Stribley, Mort had lost only the one night’s sleep, having sorted out Gramps’s plumbing woes before Gramps could reprise his wall-rattling snoring endeavours … or before Lily had a reason to invite Mort over again. Mort was still kicking himself over how all of that had played out, and had a bruise on his own shin to prove it.)
‘Grief support group?’ repeated Mort. This was the first Mort was hearing about any group. He wasn’t the social club type, and had no intention of changing that.
One of the men, a rotund fellow Mort recognised from the chair-dancing funeral, scratched the shock of curly grey hair beneath his peaked cap. Orson, a name Mort remembered because Orson always followed up any introduction with:like Welles, only not very.
‘The girl next door said you did a weekly meeting for men who’ve lost their loved ones,’ said Orson. ‘Well, and women, but apparently they don’t need it as much.’
‘They’ve got hobbies,’ said another of the men, a scarecrow-like gent with a thin, scraggly beard to match his thin, scraggly aspect. Ah, Mort knew him from the cemetery – Duggo. He had a whole family plot, and a recent addition to it as well. His wife Ernestina. It had been a quiet funeral: just Duggo and his ‘doggo’, Sausage, a fluffy dachshund with very long ears and very short legs, such that the latter ended up standing on the former. Sausage was presently sniffing the butts of the poodles outside.
Mort shook his head. ‘You must have the wrong address.’
‘Nah, quite sure we’re in the right place,’ said Duggo, reeling in Sausage and picking him up. Gosh, that was a long dog, thought Mort. How did its spine work?
What would it take to get rid of them? Even the solar sales reps took the hint after you underscored for the third time that the sun didn’t shine on your particular property because of all the death and ghosts. ‘Look, it’s not a great time. I’m part-way through an embalming.’
‘Is it Mrs Prescott?’ Stribley craned his neck as though hoping to catch a glimpse of the poor old dear laid out on the coffee table in the foyer. ‘Very sad about the fall. I was always tellingher not to go up high in those slippers of hers – it’s an OSHA risk – but she always was a risk-taker.’
‘And a fiery one. She made me chilli pepper cupcakes once after I gave her some constructive feedback on the height of her wall-mounted television,’ said Orson of the chair-dancing funeral. (That’s right – he worked for an AV company, as evidenced by the branding on the pen he was presently, rather annoyingly, clicking.) ‘Went through a whole roll of TP recovering from it.’
‘Do you cater?’ asked Duggo. ‘Because I was told there’d be doughnuts. All good grief support groups have doughnuts. I saw it on TV.’
‘Grief makes you hungry,’ agreed Orson, twirling his pen.
Sausage, who’d caught a glimpse of Esmeralda perched on the banister to Mort’s apartment, gave an excitedruffand tried to squeeze past Mort.
‘Looks like we’re coming in,’ said Duggo. ‘Don’t blame me, blame the doggo.’
Mort sighed and pulled open the door fully. ‘Come through to the office. I’ll fetch some snacks.’
By the time Mort returned with a platter of baklava and tiered fruitcake left over from his recent funerals, the men had rearranged the furniture in Mort’s office, turning it into a cosy living room setup. Although for some reason the chaise longue was now turned sideways, dividing the room like an upholstered ping-pong table.
‘All we need is a widescreen there, and the game on.’ Orson made a rectangle with his hands. ‘I can hang it for you, if you’d like. I’ve got some spare brackets in my van.’
‘I like what you’ve done with this rug,’ added Duggo, as Sausage flumped down on the pink mohair, long ears lost in the shaggy carpeting. ‘Really ties the room together.’
Stribley sprawled over the armchair in the corner, flopping his legs over the side. He kicked off his shoes, revealing tartan socks with holes in them. And the likely reason that his poor wife had departed the earth, thought Mort, nose wrinkling.
Sausage, bless him, set to work on one of the stinky shoes, happily munching away on its toe until Stribley snatched it away and shoved it back on his foot. The air quality in the room noticeably improved, thankfully, as Mort had already lit a candelabrum’s worth of candles and feared he’d burn the place down.
‘I’ll be back with the coffee in a moment,’ he said. ‘Talk amongst yourselves.’
Alas, when he returned with the coffee, the men were not, in fact, talking amongst themselves. They were sitting there, all three of them (and dog) in silence, quietly eating their stale pastries and cake.
