Read Online Creepy and Maud by Dianne Touchell - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Dianne Touchell
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clouds, coming to rest on the copper curls of my Maud’s slightly inclined head. Her shoulders bent with grief. Her tiny white hands clenched over an embroidered handkerchief. Yes, a burial.
FIFTEEN
It is safer to accept any chance that offers itself, and extemporise a procedure to fit it, than to get a good plan matured, and wait for a chance of using it.
—Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd (1874)
Of course, she is wearing a hat on the day to cover her sins and the weather is a complete washout. Fine. Moderate south-east winds, shifting south to south-west by noon and freshening in the afternoon. The cemetery is a bit of a disappointment, as well. More plastic flowers than trees. The trees that are about look a bit worse for wear. I would have thought plant life in cemeteries would be lush and varied, verdant and shiny, if only because their roots are tapping into all that lovely decomp. I’ve got to stop getting my information aboutthese things from nineteenth-century literature.
It was easy enough to find out when and where it was all happening. I didn’t ask Maud. I thought about asking her. I even wrote the question. But I didn’t ask it. There was every possibility she wouldn’t want me there. I’m not deluded: this isn’t a relationship, this is love. As such, Maud might find my wanting to tag along a bit weird. Basically, I didn’t want to give her the opportunity of telling me to stay away and/or drawing her curtains again. After all, this isn’t about her.
I knew death and funeral notices are listed in the paper because that’s the only part of the paper my mum reads. Death and funeral notices and the telly guide. Dad calls Mum a ghoul but listens with suspicious interest when she reads out notices about people they know or names that sound familiar to them. (‘Didn’t we go to school with a Carol Jenkins? She’s about the right age.’) They like to speculate, too, especially if the death was unexpected. Mum likes the ones that say things like ‘suddenly taken’ or ‘without warning’. (‘So young—what do you reckon, Merrill? Disease or accident?’) Dad will usually take a punt. (‘Maybe her husband killed her.’) It’s lovely, actually, this intimacy they share over the funeral notices. Merrill can be quite charming while discussing the caveats of death, for all his bluster and condescension.The dog’s always at his feet under the table, however.
I checked the papers every day after Maud broke the news. The funeral notice was in two days later, although the death notices ran for four. I had never read death notices before and so hadn’t realised how little you can tell about a person from them. Everybody’s are the same. Right down to the little symbols you can buy to put above your notice. The rose resting on its side (dead rose?); the gothic RIP; the cursive SADLY MISSED; and my personal favourite—the old English script ONE OF LIFE’S TRUE GENTLEMEN, which some poor sod had printed above their notice for Maud’s nanna. (I’d ask for my money back.) This led me to one conclusion: they had to be lies. If the grieving one is falling back on the linguistic and artistic generic in their final opportunity to farewell the loved one, they must be hiding something. Not only is death funny, it’s dishonest.
I got to the cemetery before the funeral party and kept a cautious distance following them to the burial site. I’d thought I could blend in at someone else’s hole in the ground, but as they aren’t doing a lot of business today, I am a bit more exposed than I would have preferred. I take a position behind a tree that looks like it’s been ringbarked, and I watch. Maud is wearing a hat but not one I would have chosen for her. It shouldbe black, wide-brimmed and Dietrich. I could even go a couple of feathers. Instead it’s a crispy-looking straw thing with a navy-blue band. She is wearing a black dress, though. V-neck, three-quarter sleeves,
FIFTEEN
It is safer to accept any chance that offers itself, and extemporise a procedure to fit it, than to get a good plan matured, and wait for a chance of using it.
—Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd (1874)
Of course, she is wearing a hat on the day to cover her sins and the weather is a complete washout. Fine. Moderate south-east winds, shifting south to south-west by noon and freshening in the afternoon. The cemetery is a bit of a disappointment, as well. More plastic flowers than trees. The trees that are about look a bit worse for wear. I would have thought plant life in cemeteries would be lush and varied, verdant and shiny, if only because their roots are tapping into all that lovely decomp. I’ve got to stop getting my information aboutthese things from nineteenth-century literature.
It was easy enough to find out when and where it was all happening. I didn’t ask Maud. I thought about asking her. I even wrote the question. But I didn’t ask it. There was every possibility she wouldn’t want me there. I’m not deluded: this isn’t a relationship, this is love. As such, Maud might find my wanting to tag along a bit weird. Basically, I didn’t want to give her the opportunity of telling me to stay away and/or drawing her curtains again. After all, this isn’t about her.
I knew death and funeral notices are listed in the paper because that’s the only part of the paper my mum reads. Death and funeral notices and the telly guide. Dad calls Mum a ghoul but listens with suspicious interest when she reads out notices about people they know or names that sound familiar to them. (‘Didn’t we go to school with a Carol Jenkins? She’s about the right age.’) They like to speculate, too, especially if the death was unexpected. Mum likes the ones that say things like ‘suddenly taken’ or ‘without warning’. (‘So young—what do you reckon, Merrill? Disease or accident?’) Dad will usually take a punt. (‘Maybe her husband killed her.’) It’s lovely, actually, this intimacy they share over the funeral notices. Merrill can be quite charming while discussing the caveats of death, for all his bluster and condescension.The dog’s always at his feet under the table, however.
I checked the papers every day after Maud broke the news. The funeral notice was in two days later, although the death notices ran for four. I had never read death notices before and so hadn’t realised how little you can tell about a person from them. Everybody’s are the same. Right down to the little symbols you can buy to put above your notice. The rose resting on its side (dead rose?); the gothic RIP; the cursive SADLY MISSED; and my personal favourite—the old English script ONE OF LIFE’S TRUE GENTLEMEN, which some poor sod had printed above their notice for Maud’s nanna. (I’d ask for my money back.) This led me to one conclusion: they had to be lies. If the grieving one is falling back on the linguistic and artistic generic in their final opportunity to farewell the loved one, they must be hiding something. Not only is death funny, it’s dishonest.
I got to the cemetery before the funeral party and kept a cautious distance following them to the burial site. I’d thought I could blend in at someone else’s hole in the ground, but as they aren’t doing a lot of business today, I am a bit more exposed than I would have preferred. I take a position behind a tree that looks like it’s been ringbarked, and I watch. Maud is wearing a hat but not one I would have chosen for her. It shouldbe black, wide-brimmed and Dietrich. I could even go a couple of feathers. Instead it’s a crispy-looking straw thing with a navy-blue band. She is wearing a black dress, though. V-neck, three-quarter sleeves,
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