Human Remains

chatty back then. Now I find that they leave me alone and avoid falling into conversation with me, unless circumstances force them to do so. Even then they seem to look at me warily. I think Martha views me as something of a personal challenge.
    My father’s funeral was held on a Saturday to enable his work colleagues to come along. There was considerable debate about whether I should be allowed to attend. I remember overhearing a conversation between my mother and her friend a few days before.
    ‘You know what he’s like,’ my mother was saying. ‘He thinks about things so much.’
    ‘But he’s nearly an adult, Delia. It might help him come to terms with things.’
    In the end my mother relented – although it might have also been due to the lack of available babysitters to keep an eye on me. As it ended up being such a dramatic occasion, I remain glad to this day that I got the chance to attend.
    I had no appropriate outfit so I wore my school uniform, even the blazer and cap. It was a hot day, with fierce, unrelenting sunshine, and of course the assembled throng were all dressed in black. My mother even had on her black coat, the one with the mink collar he’d bought her in New York. Everyone sweltered on the way to the church, gained some relief during the service and then sweltered outside for the interment. Bored beyond bored, I roasted and sweated – my shirt was damp under my blazer. I stood next to my mother and thought about something I’d read: how King Henry VIII’s body was so bloated by decomposition gases while it was being transported from Whitehall to Windsor that the coffin burst open overnight. The next morning they found dogs feeding on the remains of the king. And that was in winter! What would the body of my father look like, given that it was the height of summer? I considered that his body, held in storage for nearly three weeks pending the post mortem and the inquest, might actually still be frozen, defrosting slowly in that box like a melting choc ice. I felt compelled to touch the wood, to feel if it was cold. As the vicar warbled on, I took a step forward towards the coffin, which was on a bed of plastic green grass of the sort you see covering the tables at the greengrocer’s. My mother, who must have panicked at my sudden movement, lurched forward, her hand out to grab my shoulder, and stumbled over the uneven ground. In doing so, she knocked me over too and we both ended up lying inches from the open grave. The shock of it all, or maybe the excessive heat and her ridiculous coat, or maybe even the gin she’d consumed earlier to fortify herself for the ordeal ahead, caused her to vomit as people rushed to pull her to her feet. I couldn’t help laughing at them, being sprayed with vomit as my mother continued to heave. Some of the mourners started to retch themselves. The vicar’s face…
    It was the primary topic of conversation at the wake which followed. All conceivable options were considered: my mother had fainted and I had tried to catch her; she’d suddenly been taken unwell and had fallen against me; we were both so grief-stricken that one or both of us were trying to throw ourselves into the grave. My mother, pale and weeping, replenishing her bloodstream with more gin and fanning herself with the Order of Service, kept a close eye on me at the wake and, afterwards, it was never spoken of again.
     

Briarstone Chronicle
     
    March
Dead Woman Lay Undiscovered ‘For Up To A Year’, Police Report
     
    The body of a woman was discovered yesterday at a house in Laurel Crescent, Briarstone. A police spokesperson said that the body was in an advanced state of decomposition and was found in the bedroom to the rear of the detached property.
    The building is one of several in Laurel Crescent scheduled for demolition and police were called after construction workers noticed that the building was apparently still occupied.
    Letters found at the address indicate that the deceased may have lain undiscovered for up to a year. The name of the deceased has not been made public as police and the coroner try to trace relatives or anyone who may have known the woman.
     

Judith
     
    My name is Judith May Bingham, and when I died I was ninety-one.
    I was afraid of many things until the end, which sounds very silly now because of course at the end nothing matters, nothing matters at all. I was afraid of the people who lived next door, the teenage boys who came and went whenever