‘Turned up late morning, just to torture me.’
He hurries over to one of the lounges and brushes it down with loud whacks, arcing his flat hand through the air and creating a cloud of dust motes that is actually quite cinematic in the morning light.
‘And no one except me ever dusts anything!’
Once I saw Judy watching raptly while he cleaned a wall fan. Vincent moves likes he’s dancing, she said in an undertone as he waved a damp cloth near the blades. And having witnessed him undulate the vacuum cleaner around Aurelia’s many times, I have to agree: he has a dramatic litheness that is rare.
‘Your son is late too,’ I say to Vincent as Simon pushes through the door, using one shoulder to prop it open as he kicks forward a box of biscuits and milk. He drops two plastic shopping bags full of tissues in front of Judy’s desk before rummaging around in his pockets for the receipt.
‘We should make a move,’ my mother says to me. ‘Only a couple of hours until it starts.’
People turn up early if the person who has died is young. It’s because their discomfort is so agitating that they can’t sit patiently at home or in the car outside. The earliest anyone ever turned up was three hours before the service. That was for an eight-year-old who had drowned in a neighbour’s pool. The mother couldn’t bear another moment without being near him; she was already walking up the drive as we were turning on the computers for the day. It seemed like the whole town came to the funeral, gazing at the boy in his small coffin while his mother stood at the lectern with wide, shell-shocked eyes and spoke about him in the present tense. When I saw her a year later in the local greengrocer, she was choosing mandarins with the robotic action of a person who had nowhere to be. It looked like she was just passing time until she could be with him again. Drowning—years more slowly than he did, but drowning nonetheless.
My mother and I take jumpers from the hallway cupboard and pull them on, then push through the heavy door into the prep room, adjusting to the temperature and the vinegary smell of the chemicals. I switch to breathing through my mouth, and loosen up the muscles in my back by twisting from side to side. It’s a big audience today and I need to do a good job. I’ve read some of Vincent’s books on meditation and everything is related to the mind and the breath apparently. The mind is a muscle, the body is a vessel. If you’re anxious you can dilute the feeling using willpower. Dissipate. Dissipate. Dissipate.
Jennifer is laid out in a mid-range coffin in the centre of the room. She is about my age, with broad features, heavy eyelids and a Cupid’s bow for a mouth. As I lean closer, I can see that Vincent has flooded her body with a rose-coloured wave of formaldehyde, which makes her look pink and full. I brush her fringe either side of her face, and straighten the green dress she’s wearing so that it is square across her shoulders. Everyone I see in this room is special in their own way. You can’t tell me that a cold body is bad, because to me it’s not even close. Sometimes I try to explain to people that the shell of a hermit crab is beautiful whether it’s empty or being used. It’s a sculpture. It’s a home. It’s natural, organic, delicate. I love the shell. The shell is magical.
‘They want her hair in a low bun, some pieces around her face,’ my mother says as she walks over to the bench and opens an envelope. ‘The grandmother’s pearl earrings are in here somewhere.’
She shakes a wad of tissues out onto the bench for me. I’ve always found jewellery difficult because it’s such a tender and slow process. I can’t rush through unclasping and reclasping precious things. Anyone in this industry will tell you that putting a necklace on someone, or pushing an earring into an ear, is an intimate thing.
I unzip Jennifer’s make-up bag and spread the contents across the metal countertop near the sink. There’s a terracotta blusher. Fawn eyebrow pencil. Pencil shavings. Mango lip gloss. A tube of tinted sunscreen. A bent eyebrow brush. Mascara, and four lipsticks. Along either side of the zipper are her faded fingerprints in foundation. A beige pattern of her flight path as she got ready each day, opening and closing this case.
My mother slides the trolley over and I pick out some of the make-up to add to it. As I wheel it across to Jennifer, there’s a brief knock at the door, then Vincent opens it, clutching a bunch of young irises to his chest.
‘These just came but it looks like too many to me,’ he says, placing them on the bench.
‘No, that’s how many I need,’ I say.
There’s silence in the room while I adjust the position of Jennifer so that one hand covers the other completely.
‘Who did you see last night? Was it the mechanic?’ Vincent asks, leaning casually against the cupboard.
‘You can’t ask that,’ says my mother. ‘Let her be.’
‘Just a friend,’ I say.
‘Josephine and I would love to meet some of your friends one day,’ he says.
‘Sure,’ I say.
‘She’s just blowing off steam,’ my mother tells him. ‘It’s totally natural.’
‘I’m just checking she’s not depressed,’ says Vincent.
‘She’s doing fine,’ says my mother. ‘Aren’t you, Amelia?’
‘I’m fine, I’m happy,’ I say.
I hold up a few of the foundations next to Jennifer’s face so I can see which one will suit, and settle on two. It’s good practice to use the client’s personal make-up mixed with some industry standards. For an undamaged face like Jennifer’s, you can just use an oil-based, full coverage foundation. Chemist brands are highly pigmented and do the job well. Most of us are already using the make-up that
