Alright, love? Nice day at work?
Yes, ta. Dinner ready soon?
Pop the telly on and I’ll call you when it’s ready. Coveralls in the laundry basket, please, Gaz. I’ll put them in the wash overnight.
Fair enough.
He had, as instructed, put his coveralls in the laundry basket. Just as he had every weeknight. He was as predictable as rain, her Gary. Monday to Friday, he’d come when called. Sat down at their tiny little table in their homely little kitchen. He’d talk her through his day when prompted. She’d tell him about hers if he looked tired. Saturday they ate out. Here, at the Royal Oak. Sundays was roast dinner in rotation between her parents’, her brother’s and Gary’s step-mum’s when she was about. Their tiny two-up, two-down row house had long since been too small to contain all of the Greens and Youngs.
Three weeks ago Thursday she’d made toad-in-the-hole. She’d popped it into the oven, realized they were out of ketchup, called out to Gaz that she was going to nip out to the shop to get some while it baked, then, once back, table set, telly still burbling away in the lounge, Neighbours wrapping up its jingle in the kitchen, she’d set out the ketchup and called to Gaz that his tea was ready. He hadn’t come.
He’d been hanging in the stairwell. Quiet as a mouse.
Bog standard suicide, one detective had whispered to another. As if her Gary was just one in a crowd of thousands of men casually heading up to the loft to end it all before their tea. The detective had said a couple of other things as well. Things she simply wasn’t ready to take on board just yet. She supposed this particular detective had yet to attend sensitivity training. Which reminded her …
She marched over to the coffee table, aware of her body moving with a different voltage. It was purposeful marching. She’d not marched anywhere except, perhaps, in Girl Guides? Had they marched in Girl Guides?
Flo was pulling her handbag onto her shoulder, alongside another girl Sue recognised from the 111 Call Centre. Indian, perhaps? Dark hair, dramatic make-up, and tall. A good head taller than Sue, as were most people, but this girl seemed to own her height in the same way Sue shrunk into her petiteness.
As she closed the space between them, Sue wondered if Flo thought her a bit simple, calling 111 as she had when it was clearly a 999 call. The simple truth was, she had known at the time it wasn’t an emergency and she hadn’t wanted to make a fuss. It wasn’t as if an ambulance racing over could have done anything. In the end, of course, an ambulance had come. Not until after the police had deemed it alright to move Gary and the Technical Coroner had taken whatever notes she’d needed for the inquest. It had sounded so suspect, having an inquest. But apparently that too was bog standard.
The paramedics had waited their turn, then stomped their boots outside, their reflective clothing glinting in the streetlights, and, after struggling a bit with the stretcher in the stairwell and commenting on how warm it was in the snug little house, revealed some rather tired looking coveralls. Apparently it had been a busy day what with the unseasonal amount of black ice on the roads and, of course, flu season. All of it had been conducted briskly and businesslike. As if they’d come to measure up the stairs for a new carpet, not cut her husband down and take him away in a body bag.
The Indian girl – Raven, if she remembered correctly – refused a cup of coffee with a wave of her hand and crinkle of her nose. She was a quiet, big boned girl, but Sue couldn’t picture her a different size. Or, frankly, at a different volume. Something about the defensive way she carried herself wouldn’t have suited a chatty, willowy girl. Such an awful lot of make-up. It was impossible to tell if she was naturally pretty or crafted to look so. The pitch-black eyeliner did show off her rather mystical-looking eyes to great effect and today, she supposed, it was appropriate.
‘Sue, love.’ Her mother announced across the near-empty room. ‘I’ll wrap these up before they go completely rancid.’
Sue looked at her mother who gave her a what look in return. She turned back to Flo and gave her arm a quick pat. One she hoped said, I’m going to sort this little coffee situation out for you. She needed to sort something today. Just one, solitary, thing.
‘Give my friend a cup of coffee, please,’ Sue said to the catering woman catching Flo’s startled look out of the corner of her eye.
The catering woman stared at her as if she’d spoken Swahili.
In all honesty, she felt as though she was speaking Swahili. Sue didn’t give commands. She took them.
When the woman did nothing, Sue’s ire rose with an unfamiliar, volcanic fury. ‘Could you please give my friend here a cup of coffee?’ The words marched out in staccato bites.
‘She’s been through an ordeal today and coffee is the only thing that will make it better. Fresh coffee.’ In all honesty, she didn’t know whether Gary’s funeral had upset Flo in the least, but white lies didn’t seem to matter so much in the face of an absence of civility.
‘I’ll pack the coronation chicken up for the children, shall I?’ Sue’s mother said to no one in particular.
‘I wouldn’t mind it in a takeaway cup if you have it, love.’ Flo shot Sue a cheeky smile, ‘If that’s
