being male – but this iron bed wasn’t a sanctuary. People who were sleeping in the desert in Arabia with a stone for a pillow were right now more comfortable than he was. And getting a better night’s sleep. The bed was an altercation of a wedding bed in an austere room. Did he have an acrimonious marriage? There were many A words that applied to his marriage.
Wilfred lay stock-still. To take his mind off things he began thinking about his work. He was surprised when he began to tot up how many funerals he must have been to – at least a hundred – and in each and every one of them he had maintained what Mr Ogmore Auden had called ‘a composed and serious demeanour’. Even when he was only fourteen, when he began his apprenticeship and was very excited by his prospects, he’d still just about behaved in a sober manner around the departed.
Sometimes it had been hard – what young man doesn’t want to fool around sometimes? Nevertheless he’d managed to stay solemn, even in 1922 when Narberth won the Rugby Cup, or when they’d done a funeral the day before Narberth carnival, even when the lisping vicar from Princes Gate gave the peroration and stroked the lectern with his hand the whole time; Wilfred had still maintained the proper demeanour, though he had been desperate to laugh. But today he had felt more desolate and more burdened than he had ever done in any funeral he had attended, and this, his own wedding day. His one and only wedding day. Wilfred’s heart was full of misery.
That morning he had barely been able to get out of bed; his legs had felt like lead. He almost couldn’t be bothered to shave. He didn’t eat breakfast. But he’d been at the register office at five to two as Dr Reece had told him to be – commanded him to be, more like. Dr Reece was a bully, Wilfred thought. He had married Grace because her father was a horrible, hectoring, browbeating bully. If he hadn’t been so intimidating Wilfred might have been able to explain. Why didn’t people listen to one another? Wilfred thought hotly. Why didn’t they just listen! If people could explain themselves, then there could be understanding. But no, some people – quite a lot of people even, Wilfred thought – were bullies. They wanted other people to do what they wanted them to do, and if they had the power, like Dr Reece did, then sometimes they used that power, bossed people around and messed up their lives. It was appalling. It was audacious. It was an abomination. Wilfred struggled to find the words, big, powerful words that would express the big, powerful feelings he had now that he felt so small and powerless over his own life. Marry Grace! Marry Grace. He had. Now they were in bed together. What had Dr Reece said? ‘You’ve made your bed. Now you lie in it.’
The kitchen was smoky and smelled of fried food. Wilfred had come home for breakfast every day of his married life so far, and today Wilfred’s father had cooked his son’s favourite meal: fried eggs and cockles, with bacon and sausages, and slices of fried potato they called Specials. Wilfred had loved Specials since he was a tiny boy and his Auntie Blodwen had taught his father how to cook them: ‘Peel the new tyatas, slice them into thick circles,’ Auntie Blodwen instructed, ‘then fry them in a lump of lard till they’re golden brown. That’ll put some fat on the boy. He’s got legs on him like a flamingo.’ His father eventually mastered the recipe and, ever since, Wilfred and his da had eaten Specials every Sunday morning, on their birthdays, after a night at the graveyard or whenever they needed strengthening.
‘Eat up, Wilfred, lad,’ his da encouraged, but Wilfred was pushing the black pudding around his plate, his body slumped, his head resting in his hands. He wasn’t even reading the Undertaker’s Journal in front of him.
‘Wilf, you’ll be a bag of bones if you don’t eat. And no good to anyone. You’ll make yourself ill, now.’ Wilfred’s da could have added, ‘Think of your wife,’ but he knew well enough that thinking about his wife was the reason Wilfred couldn’t eat.
‘Don’t you want to eat breakfast at the Reeces’?’ his da asked gently. ‘Mrs Reece is a tidy cook.’ Wilfred pushed the leftover Specials to the side