it was felicitous that she’d conked because he needed the money. And now the old dear was in the back of the motorized hearse and dead as a dodo, he’d get her straight back to the workshop and start on making a coffin.
‘Soon be there, Mrs Cole,’ he said solicitously, glancing in his driving mirror. ‘Don’t you worry, now,’ and he pressed down on the accelerator. ‘Steady on, Wilfred, lad,’ he heard Mr Auden say. ‘This is not Pendine Sands and you’re not Malcolm Campbell trying to break the world land-speed record. Fifteen miles per hour is more than enough for a corpse.’ Wilfred put his foot on the brake as he negotiated the sharp bend at Cross Hands, remembering something else Mr Auden used to say: ‘Cars can easily provide work for undertakers.’
‘I’m driving carefully, Mrs Cole, don’t worry,’ Wilfred reassured the corpse, putting both hands on the steering wheel. ‘Did you read in the Narberth & Whitland Observer that there have been three motorcar collisions in Narberth in only six days, all at the Commercial Inn and Coach and Horses corner. It said in the paper that Aunrin Rogers’s car was knocked completely over, and Mr Edward Evans and Miss Henton were extricated from a perilous position.’ Wilfred checked the speedometer and pressed slightly harder on the brake.
He’d have to measure the poor dear for her small coffin; she wasn’t that big and had shrivelled in old age. He liked preparing the coffins. In his workshop, which he’d built in the yard behind the house, Wilfred decorated the caskets, screwing in the brass handles, the nameplate and the occasional crucifix, then trimmed the box with deep purple drapery – white for the very young – by tacking the material to the four sides. He positioned the bodies: dabbed lines of blood from the corpses’ mouths, combed dead hair and placed stiff lace handkerchiefs over waxy faces. He arranged for the photographer to come – only when the family asked, of course, and some did, especially the more old-fashioned ones. Then the photographer, Arthur Squibs of Tenby, would make a glass plate of the corpse. On occasion Wilfred even upended the coffin, as the next-of-kin requested he do, so that the body was standing upright, the head leaning heavily against the side while the photographer did one long, four-minute exposure.
‘Arthur Squibs is coming to visit you this afternoon. We’ll have to get you looking your best.’
He’d better get going, too, on preparing Mrs Cole’s body what with the weather being so warm. The rigor mortis would leave by the day after tomorrow. Good grief, these aniseed balls are strong! thought Wilfred, taking the sweet out of his mouth and throwing it in the glove compartment. And he’d tell Da to get digging.
Wilfred glanced over his shoulder to check that the plain box he used for collecting the body of the deceased was in place; he didn’t want it slipping out of the back of the hearse. The engine purred reliably, almost musically. He rolled up his sleeves. On Thursday evening he’d put a polite note through the Reeces’ door declining Saturday’s dinner invitation, saying it was no longer appropriate to accept their hospitality in respect of the now changed relations between Grace and himself. He had worried about how to decline the invitation all week and had felt much better after doing it. He felt relieved and was feeling dapper; business was flowing again. But it wasn’t only that. It was because of Flora. He had held her dear, soft body in his arms and stroked and kissed her hair. That’s all. There were many more things they could have done, might one day do, but each moment had been precious to Wilfred.
He tried to think about the proportions of the casket but his mind kept turning back to the cottage. He swerved round the corner past Templeton and saw the purple Preseli Hills in the distance. The hearse rolled down the hill smoothly. This hand here, he thought, looking at his hand on the steering wheel, touched Flora’s long hair. And my shoulders, that’s where she rested her head.
Wilfred folded down the top of the window, rested his broad arm on the ledge and reclined back in the dun leather seat. The air was fresh on his face and he felt himself expand and soar. That exquisitely gentle afternoon with Flora had marked his life. There had been an intimacy between them and although that intimacy wasn’t fully