Down Among the Dead Men (26 page)

‘But that’s not the point,’ said Ed, not quite banging his head against the wall, but close to it. ‘It’s a game you have to play, Michelle.’

‘It’s a stupid game,’ I told him, and I meant it.

‘Yes,’ he agreed tiredly. ‘But in order to get that piece of paper and make your CV look good, you have to play.’

So we went on and on. Sometimes I thought I was making good progress, but then I’d make a really dumb mistake and feel very dispirited about how it was going. A few weeks in was a
particularly bad time when I answered a question Ed had set about the circulation of blood.

‘It’s a good answer,’ he said as he handed it back to me the next day. I was about to congratulate myself and be all modest about it when he added, ‘Unfortunately, it
wasn’t the answer to the question I asked.’

I stared at him. ‘What do you mean? Yes, it was. You asked about the circulation and that’s what I’ve written about.’

‘The question asked you to describe the
coronary
circulation.’

‘And?’

‘You’ve talked about the circulation of blood in general.’ I still didn’t quite see, so he explained. ‘The
coronary
circulation is purely the blood supply of
the heart. The three arteries and the venous system on the surface of the heart muscle.’

At this, I felt about two inches high. He tried to cheer me up. ‘Never mind. At least you’ve done some revision on an important subject.’

And all the while, I was aware that Gramp was ill. I tried to get to talk to him, if not see him, at least once a week, and every time he seemed just that little bit weaker, slightly more tired.
I guess I knew what was coming, but didn’t want to think about it too much.

As the day of the exam approached, Ed, who had been gradually increasing the pressure, relented. ‘If you don’t know it now, then you never will,’ he said, which just made me
think, Then I certainly never will. ‘It’s important you relax now. Too much stress and it’ll only hinder your performance. Just a bit of light revision, and you’ll be
fine.’

Which was all very well, but I knew better than he did how much I didn’t know, and all the stupid mistakes I’d made kept coming back to me. It got so that I was waking in the small
hours of the morning with all this going through my head, plus worries about Gramp’s illness mixed in.

FORTY-EIGHT

Gramp had been admitted to a hospice to die. It was a beautiful building, almost like an old stately home, surrounded by well-tended gardens. He was having trouble walking
because of his breathlessness, so the staff had made sure he had a bed by the window. They were fantastic, even down to the cleaners who greeted you by name when you arrived. Gramp was happy to be
there, and it was the right time for him, he had asked to go. He had become frail, and the robust, able man I had known had turned into a slow elderly gentleman. He had not lost his sense of humour
though. My Gramp was still there inside the frail body he now owned.

He had only been there a couple of days when Dad rang me at work. ‘Hi, love,’ he said in a soft voice.

‘What’s up, Pops?’ I asked.

‘I think you need to come down to the hospice. Gramp is not good and I don’t think it will be long now.’

‘OK,’ I replied, feeling suddenly afraid, like being kicked in the stomach, hard.

Clive had told me that I could go, and that I should go, but I didn’t know what to do. I was surrounded by dead bodies, but deep down I was so afraid to go to the hospice because it was
steeped in death. I rang Luke who offered to come and get me, but I had to do this on my own. Within half an hour I had left the mortuary and was slowly walking the short distance to the hospice.
It was almost as if my legs didn’t want to take me there, even though my head and heart wanted to go. The twenty-minute walk from the hospital to the hospice this time took me forty-five
minutes, a walk I knew well, but if you had asked me that evening, I couldn’t have told you how I got there. It was almost as if autopilot had kicked in good and proper.

I entered the big wooden doors of the hospice just as it started to get dark about four o’clock. There was a huge spray of lilies in the vestibule and the smell was overpowering. One of
the domestic assistants was polishing the wooden chest they stood on. I looked at her and smiled, asked her how she was, then mumbled something about the dark evenings. ‘I’m so sorry
for your loss, Miss Williams,’ was her response.

I was stunned. I was too late. My selfish dawdling and deciding what was best for me meant I had missed my last chance to see my Gramp breathing. Talk about being kicked in the stomach again,
although I felt I deserved to be kicked a lot harder at that moment. I suddenly froze: was Dad going to be angry with me? He had rung two or so hours ago asking me to go. I sat down on the nearest
chair and took a few deep breaths.

After composing myself for a few minutes, I climbed the wooden stairs up to the area where Gramp’s bed was. The curtains were drawn around him, and I could see Mum and Dad’s feet
behind the gap at the bottom. ‘Dad?’ I said quietly, not knowing what the reaction would be. I felt as though I had totally let him down. This was about his father; how on earth would I
feel in this situation, especially when you knew that your daughter had a fantastic relationship with your dad. My head was doing somersaults. Dad came out from behind the curtain. As he did I
glimpsed Gramp. He was sitting up, dressed in his pyjamas, pale and thin, eyes closed but jaw hanging down.

Dad put his arm around me, and I asked him if he was all right. ‘Do you want to come in?’ Dad asked me, and again I froze. The NO that came out of my mouth shocked me. It was very
stern and sure. The slight glimpse I had had of Gramp through the curtain was enough. ‘OK, that’s fine, love, whatever you want to do; Mum and I will be staying a little longer and
Michael is on his way. Luke not with you?’

‘No,’ I answered, staring at the curtain. ‘I’ll wait downstairs for you both, Dad. I’m sorry.’ Dad tightened his grip on my shoulder then went back to Mum and
Gramp.

As I walked down the stairs to find the chair I had sat in earlier, I met Michael who had just arrived. ‘Am I too late?’ he asked. Heaven knows what happened next, but it was at this
point that I began to cry. That uncontrollable sob, the sort I had witnessed so many families experience in my months at the mortuary. Michael got me to my seat, and said gently, ‘I guess
that I am, then.’ He was smiling slightly, in the caring way that you only recognize from the people you most love, and on seeing his smile and his face, I did what people in those families
also do; I apologized to him.

I now understand the relief that this can give a person who is bereaved and in shock; the ability to grieve is helpful for most, although the guilt of not sitting with Gramp after his death ten
minutes earlier had become a little overwhelming.

I told Michael he should go and let Mum and Dad know he was there, and toyed with the idea of going back up myself, but I didn’t feel ready. Michael climbed the stairs, but came back down
to me almost immediately. We stayed for a couple of hours while we waited for our parents, drinking far too much dodgy coffee from the vending machine, freezing while out in the cold smoking too
much, as the smell of the lilies started to choke us both.

We chatted about times past, mainly how we remembered Gramp when we were just youngsters and how, when we had visited Nan and Gramp, he would tell us that ‘a little bird’ told him
stuff about our progress at school and our achievements. We were always amazed at how he knew this, not thinking for a minute that Mum and Dad would speak to them over the telephone of an evening
while we were safely tucked up in bed.

We ended up giggling at some points.

Eventually, we all went on to my parents’ house and things were talked over. Luke met us there, but took a back seat and was there for support and to keep the kettle hot. This was the
first time I had really been involved in the death of a family member. As I was older, and considering what I did for a living, my parents felt no need to hide me from death.

The funeral arrangements were made the next day with a local undertaker, for a week later, and I knew they would treat Gramp to the level we expected, and with the respect he demanded. This was
one of the bonuses about my job. As I’ve said, I had come to know a lot of undertakers and found out what they think of the job they are doing. Some of them just want to pay the bills and, I
suppose, to have a quiet life, because the one definite thing with the dead is that they will never answer back, but there are a few who genuinely care. When they arrive to collect a body, they are
gentle, they talk to the deceased and the respect is there. Some of the others will just pull the body over from our trolley onto their stretcher as if it’s a lump of meat, strap it in then
wheel it away. I was not having that, no way. Also, another thing I had learnt was that it was important for us that the funeral director was an independent trader; a lot of companies are owned by
American chains, and they work by sales figures. I decided that I wanted us to use the same people that dealt with little Lizzie last year – Tony, from Phelps & Stayton. I told my family
about his compassion and commitment, and all agreed.

I arranged with Tony that they would collect Gramp as soon as possible, and spoke to the consultant at the hospice, using my position to lay it on thick, and he kindly pushed through the
paperwork that accompanies a death. I also knew that it was important that I see Gramp at the funeral parlour – I don’t know why, maybe the guilt of not being able to look at him
straight after his death, or maybe to see if they had got everything to my expected standards at the funeral parlour; not that I doubted Tony, but just needing reassurance, I suppose. Mum also
wanted to check that Gramp was correctly dressed for his send-off, so we decided to go and see him together.

It was a cold March evening, and we had an appointment at Phelps & Stayton for four o’clock. It was only up the road from the hospital so I met Mum there. With her she had a packet of
playing cards, twenty cigarettes (‘just in case he fancies one,’ although he had given up when Nan got ill after twenty-five years of smoking) and a lighter. These were going in the
coffin with Gramp. ‘I’m not putting any photos in with Gramp, Michelle; he won’t be forgetting us,’ Mum said to me before we went in.

When we entered, Tony treated me as bereaved family, and not like his colleague from the hospital that was with her mum. He took us into the chapel of rest and said he would leave us and to take
as long as we wanted. I was amazed by the chapel. Soft lighting, soft music being pumped in the background, that scent of lilies again, but this time serving a purpose by taking away the smell of
embalming fluid, as well as heavy, clean carpets and plush office-type chairs.

In the middle of the room was Gramp, laid out in his coffin. The lining of the coffin was pure white satin. When we had been to Phelps & Stayton to meet with Tony to arrange the funeral, we
had a choice of three colours for the lining, baby blue, baby pink or white, all of them being in a strange-looking so-called ‘satin’ material. I had asked Tony if there were any other
options available, like possibly cotton padded lining, but no.

So there was Gramp, looking very smart in his favourite suit, which was now too big for him. I knew that Tony would have pinned it at the back to make it a better fit, and was sure that Mum must
have figured this out too, but it was left unspoken, although Mum did check to see if he had his underwear on. I understood this fully, and her reasons why.

Before Gramp went into the hospice, Mum and Dad had taken on his care. He had a home help a couple of times a week, but my parents decided this was nowhere near enough. So, Mum would go to see
Gramp before her shift started at nine in the morning. She would take him the daily national paper, any groceries he needed, daily stuff like bread and milk, make him a cup of tea, help him with
any personal necessities, ensure his bed was clean – which had been moved into his living room for the heat and the TV – then she would go off to work only to return at two thirty to do
it all again, but this time bringing the local paper. Dad would also go up every evening at six and sort out his mail, make more tea, compose a shopping list for the ‘big’ weekly shop
day by day, and ensure Gramp was settled for the evening with good access to the telephone if he needed it. Dad did curse himself for this action one evening though, when Gramp had rung the police
to ask them for a cup of tea, as he did not want to disturb Dad.

So, as in life, Mum needed everything to be right for Gramp, because this made her settled.

Thank God, he was wearing the underwear that Mum had so meticulously folded and placed into Gramp’s overnight bag for Tony. I had thought at one point that Mum was going to request that
she dress Gramp, but no. I was pleased that I had gone to see him. He looked so peaceful. No heavy make-up to hide the imperfections that death brings, just carefully adjusted lighting to present
him in the best way. Dressed to perfection, thanks to Tony, and his suit had definitely not been cut up the back and placed over him and tucked under (another trick that some undertakers pull),
which I had checked while Mum was faffing with her handbag; as I knew he would, Tony had taken time to dress Gramp properly. Mum placed the packet of playing cards in Gramp’s top pocket, and
his cigarettes and lighter on the inside pocket. We were both fully aware that these were going to end up in the fire with Gramp at the crematorium, but it was comforting for us and we needed to do
it.

We stayed for half an hour, sitting either side of the coffin; occasionally, we spoke to Gramp and chatted between ourselves over him. All the time I was there, at the funeral parlour, it had
been making things better for me. Although I knew that this was not about me in the slightest, I had been struggling with what to feel and how to react. I needed to come to terms with Gramp’s
death and accept it, and had thought I would know how. For God’s sake, I worked with the dead after all, and had done so for quite a while now; I had thought that I was becoming the expert,
the expected expert, and that was how I had felt.