Surtsey looked at her bedside table hoping to see Hal’s hash pipe. She saw a glass of water and lunged for it, gulping it down, cold in her throat. She gasped as she finished it.
‘Ms Mackenzie?’
‘I don’t know about a plan. I don’t have a plan.’
‘Then you’ll need to organise a funeral director to come and collect your mum.’
‘You mean her body.’
‘Yes. If you don’t have a funeral director in mind I can recommend a local one.’
‘Who has a funeral director in mind?’
Silence.
Surtsey sighed. ‘I’m sorry, a recommendation would be good. But don’t we need to get the coroner or whatever first?’
‘When death isn’t suspicious there’s no need to contact the coroner or police. I’m registered to sign the death certificate and a funeral director takes care of the deceased’s body after that.’
‘What about cause of death?’
‘We know the cause of death,’ the nurse said. ‘As we have already discussed.’
‘So that’s it? Can I at least see her?’
‘Of course,’ the nurse said. ‘That was my next question. Would you like to see her here as she is, or later after the funeral director has prepared her?’
‘Prepared her how?’
‘It’s rather delicate.’
‘Try me.’
‘Bodies decompose and that process starts immediately. Your mother is fine right now, but we’re required by law to have her taken care of as soon as possible. If you want to come in and see her, it’s best to do it sooner rather than later.’
Surtsey pictured Iona sprawled across her bed, in a thick, booze-sodden sleep, oblivious to this wrecking ball through their lives.
‘OK,’ she said eventually. ‘I’ll be round to see her as soon as possible.’
27
She stood outside Iona’s room staring at the door. The whitewash was peeling at the edges, the wood scuffed and chipped around the door handle. Who would repaint the door when it needed done? Surtsey ran a finger over one dent around head height, remembered throwing a trainer at her sister only to have the door slammed in the way. She touched the mark now, tried to remember what the trainer was like. Four large wooden letters were stuck to Iona’s door across the middle, fairy lights set into them, but the batteries had run out on the final ‘A’, leaving ‘ION’. A charged particle, quick to react. Surtsey tried to think of a joke about that.
She knocked. ‘Iona?’
Knocked again.
Nothing.
She pushed the door open. The place was a midden, stale booze and dope and sweat in the air.
Iona was out for the count, hair over her face, her arm flung over a naked guy on top of the bedclothes. His head was turned away but Surtsey could see a grey beard, a sinewy, weathered body, tight buttocks and a fat cock. Against his dark skin, Iona looked pale and beautiful.
‘Iona,’ Surtsey said.
Iona came to the surface slowly.
‘What time is it?’
‘We need to talk.’
‘Fuck off.’ Iona put an arm across her face, covering her eyes.
Surtsey sighed. This was never going to come again, this moment when her sister didn’t know. Once Surtsey spoke, it was over.
‘Mum died, Iona.’
She expected protestation, disbelief, but maybe something in her voice got across.
Iona sat up, not bothering to cover herself. ‘What?’
‘The hospice just called.’
‘What happened?’
‘She died in her sleep last night. It’s over.’
Iona rubbed her head. ‘No, that’s not right.’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘But you saw her yesterday.’
Surtsey stood feeling awkward, trying not to look at the naked man still asleep.
Iona breathed deeply. ‘This is just…’
‘Put something on and come downstairs.’
‘Fuck, this isn’t happening.’
‘I’m sorry.’
A look of clarity on Iona’s face when she heard that. She looked at Surtsey, something terrible in her eyes.
‘Me too,’ she said.
The guy in bed rolled over, still sleeping, and Surtsey recognised him without his glasses. Bastian.
‘What the fuck?’ she said.
She stared at him for a moment, then looked at Iona.
‘You’re fucking this guy?’
‘So what?’
‘He’s the leader of those New Thule morons.’
Iona frowned. ‘So what?’
Surtsey shoved at Bastian’s chest, hard. ‘Hey.’
He stirred and took a second to come to.
Surtsey turned to her sister. ‘I honestly can’t fucking believe you.’
She spoke to Bastian, who was putting his glasses on.
‘You get the fuck out of my house,’ she said. ‘And stay away from my little sister.’
28
They scurried along the prom, sharp easterly taking the edge off the thin sunshine. A woman threw a ball along the shoreline for her Labrador, some old guy doing tai chi facing out to sea. The Inch had a wreath of white cloud around its base, like bubbles in a bath. The sun would burn that off or the wind would blow it away, and the island would soon be exposed.
Iona ran her hands through her hair, fluffing it backwards and forwards.
Surtsey pictured her sister underneath Bastian, grunting and groaning as he thrust away, then they both climaxed, but the faces got mixed up and it was her and Tom going at it on the Inch. She remembered Tom’s phone, the messages last night. They seemed irrelevant now.
Iona lagged behind, out of breath. Surtsey concentrated on the air in and out of her lungs.
Iona stopped.
‘Come on,’ Surtsey said.
A defiant look. ‘Let’s just take a fucking minute, shall we?’
‘I said we’d be there as soon as possible.’
‘She’s dead.’
‘So?’
‘What’s the rush? She’s not going anywhere.’
Surtsey breathed deeply and looked out to sea. She couldn’t see Berwick Law in this visibility or the Paps of Fife across the water. She could just make out an oil tanker smudging the horizon.
‘She’s going off,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘The nurse told me. They need to get her refrigerated.’
‘Christ.’ Iona put a hand out.
Surtsey realised she was crying, shoulders shaking, heaving breath, snot from her nose right there on the prom as a woman went past pushing a double buggy. She imagined Louise walking along the prom with Surtsey and Iona at that age, coping with the handful, happy in the moment, enjoying the sunshine and the wind and the fact that they were all alive
