The rest of the day had passed much as funerals usually do, except with no clowns. Paul had located crisps he was satisfied with, but made no secret of the fact that he didn’t really care too much about the fact Bartholomew was dead. Even the somewhat sudden and possibly suspicious way he’d died didn’t seem to be arousing much comment. Susan found herself circulating, making small talk with people many of whom she didn’t know, and the same sort of conversation would crop up again and again:
SUSAN (to batty old lady, absent-minded elderly gentleman or whoever else she happened to be talking to): So – did you know the deceased?
FUNERAL-GOER: Yes, I did. He will certainly… leave his mark. Um, his shoes won’t easily be filled. How do you know him?
SUSAN: I – er – know him through a cousin of mine. I used to work for him, you know… odd jobs around the house –
It was only later, when everybody was slowly dispersing to go home, that she’d found a small lump in her throat and couldn’t explain why. And now, leaning against the oven in her kitchen, she still couldn’t explain why. “Yes, I did care that he’d died,” she said. “But I’m not sure why. I mean, I didn’t know him. Why’s this so important to you, anyway? You didn’t know him either.”
“No, you’re right. But I suppose the fact I’ve got a sort of family connection with him counts for something, even if he wasn’t particularly pleasant. I wasn’t busy today, anyway, and I fancied some tea with salt in.”
“It’s Friday,” she remembered. “How come you’re not at work?”
“I couldn’t be arsed,” he shrugged, “so I pulled a sickie.”
“Come on then,” she said decisively, “let’s go into town. I need to do a few things.”
Once they’d got into town, which involved negotiating three overpriced buses and took them an hour and twelve minutes, they went to Susan’s favourite bookshop, the kind that is becoming increasingly rare these days: family-owned and -run, huge, cluttered, but friendly, and staffed by people who knew what you were looking for and had in all probability already read it. She’d unearthed countless fascinatingly dull tomes about the British East India Company, Queen Victoria, 80s shoe fashions and Amazing Chickens – this one wasn’t actually dull at all, since it was basically a picture book which featured 126 full-colour photos of different prizewinning species of chicken. It also had a coffee shop, which had been added in the last year or so due to public demand, as the nearest Starbucks was over fifteen yards away across a road which was occasionally busy enough to have cars on. Susan and Paul found a vacant table in the coffee shop, and sat down, Susan with a pile of books she wanted to look at.
“Since you’re ill,” she said, giving extra stress to the word ill, “you can help me with this. I need to find some info about Sir Robert Clive and whether bushy moustaches had anything to do with Monty Python.”
“I’ve got things to do too, you know,” Paul protested. “What if somebody from work sees me here?”
“What are the chances of that? You’ve said yourself that nobody you work with has ever read a book. And I know what you’d be doing if you weren’t here – buggering around on the Playstation, probably.”
Paul said nothing, but conceded it was a fair point. When he got days off, unless he’d actually organised something to do with them he tended to use them without knowing what he’d done afterwards. The last time he’d claimed to be ill had been a few weeks ago – he had to be careful, because he knew they kept records – and he had ended up trying to learn how to beatbox, using the tube from an empty kitchen roll, because he’d seen someone doing it on Richard and Judy. He’d made three cups of tea, farted about on the internet for a bit, gone for a walk, and watched one of his vast collection of DVDs for the third time, but apart from the small start he’d made cleaning the bathroom, and the beatboxing, he hadn’t really achieved much. He was, when pushed, capable of great things, or at least fairly OK things. Once he had drunkenly agreed to take part in a marathon, which he’d spent the next six months halfheartedly training for and crapping himself about, and when the day arrived the friends he’d agreed to do it with had chickened out and didn’t bother turning up; they later claimed to have had hangovers that made it impossible for them to move. To his credit, though, he’d gone ahead, finishing in about five and a half hours, and raised several hundred pounds for a local charity that specialised in providing better polo training for advantaged teenagers. In return, he’d been off work for four days with chapped testicles, and even now had back trouble from time to time because of it.
They’d been there for about half an hour, and Susan was on her third coffee, when she noticed Paul suddenly freeze. His chair faced outwards into the shop, and it seemed as if he’d caught sight of someone he didn’t want to see.
“What?” Susan began, but before she could turn round to see who it was, whoever it was bumbled up to them.
“Ah, hello, Paul,” the whoever began, and as he passed Susan she caught a whiff of ancient cologne. She noticed he had a bushy moustache, and discreetly marked the page she was looking at before closing the book, so as not to cause offence. “I didn’t expect you would be around today. I thought you were ill?”
Paul suddenly, but seamlessly, had gone from interested browser of arcane history books to brave recoverer from typhoid and scarlet fever. “Well,” he managed, “I am. I’ve been in bed all day, but my sister Susan here suggested I come out for half an hour to get some fresh air. Er – Sister Susan, this is Cedric.”
Cedric looked at Susan quizzically, as if trying to imagine her in a wimple and habit, but failing. She tried to look like what she thought a nun might look like, which was pretty hard since she’d actually never seen one in the wild. Her only frame of reference was the 1989 film Nuns on the Run, with Robbie Coltrane and Eric Idle, so she tried to look a bit fat, male and grumpy, as if she was only in drag because she was being chased by gangsters.
“Very – ah – pleased to meet you, Sister,” Cedric said politely. “Paul, you should perhaps get some rest? You don’t look quite well enough to be coming back to work yet.”
“N-no, Cedric, I don’t feel very good,” Paul admitted. “I was going to self-certify myself for now, and then see what happened.”
“You can always work from home,” Cedric suggested. “We could get you a laptop.”
“Oh… that’s very kind of you, er, Cedric,” Paul countered somewhat forcefully, “but I er – I don’t think in my present condition I should be staring at small brightly-lit screens, do you think Sister?”
“No,” Susan agreed. “You should be in neutral lighting conditions, really. No bright lights, no exertion, and plenty of rest.”
“Well, let me know how you’re feeling tomorrow,” Cedric offered. “We can arrange cover, if need be.”
“Thank you, Cedric, that’s very nice of you.”
Please, please just bugger off.
“Well, I won’t keep you,” Cedric said pleasantly, “you seem to have a lot of –“ he glanced at the pile of heavy history books – “work to do.”
“We’re researching cures,” Susan said brightly, and immediately regretted it. “Trepanning, leeches, that sort of thing. We’re a very – erm – traditional order.”
Cedric nodded, looking somewhat bemused. “Well, good day to you,” he said, and ambled off.
As soon as he’d gone, Paul got up to leave. “What are you doing?” Susan asked him.
“I’ve had enough,” Paul said. “What the hell were you thinking of talking about trepanning, for God’s sake?”
“Sorry, that came out unintentionally,” Susan admitted.
“Well, that’s me fucked anyway,” Paul huffed. “I’ve already had 27 days off sick this year, and it’s only May. They’ve got me on some kind of warning system thing.”
“I really wouldn’t worry about it,” Susan said, although she was a bit worried about it. “You know how fast councils work, it’d take them ‘til Christmas to do anything.”
Two weeks later, Paul knocked at her door. “I’ve been fired,” he said. “They said they couldn’t legitimately pay someone who never bothered to turn up for work, and even when he was there didn’t put in any effort. Can I sleep on your sofa?”
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