Nathan bristled but checked his anger. He didn’t want the rest of the weekend to be a battleground. ‘I’m listening,’ he said tersely.
Laura ripped a few pages out of the pad and passed them over; digging into her bag, she produced a pen and handed that over too.
Nathan picked the pen up and waited. ‘So, I’m your secretary now, am I?’
Laura smiled. ‘Just for a little while. Now, I know you spend a lot of time with the girls doing the fun stuff. What you also need to do now, is the mundane stuff, like ironing and prepping.’
‘I do prepping.’
‘You occasionally iron a skirt or fill a water bottle. Right, we’ll start with school stuff. Millie and Chloe need their uniforms washed and ironed at the weekend. I’ll make sure there’s a week’s worth ready but next weekend you’ll need to be prepared. You’ll need five white blouses each, five skirts, and either tights or socks depending on the weather. Probably tights will be the order of the day most of the time.’ Laura paused and nodded as Nathan took notes. ‘Daisy just needs normal clothes for nursery but, if it looks like it’s going to be wet, try and pick older outfits as she’ll end up covered in mud. Before the girls go to school you need to do their hair. Millie likes a little side-pleat and you need to use tiny little hairbands for that—’
‘I don’t know how to do pleats.’
‘Millie will show you; it’s not difficult. You need to make sure Millie and Chloe have a snack for the morning and a bottle of water each. Yes, before you speak I know you do them, but with all the other stuff going on you might forget so write it down. They both eat school lunches, so you don’t need to worry about that, but Daisy needs a packed lunch every day. She likes ham or cheese in her sandwiches but not both together, despite what she says. She also needs at least three bits of fruit, though she only ever eats two.’
‘So why not just put two in, then?’
Laura glanced up. ‘Because if you put in two pieces, she’ll only eat one.’
‘What happens if you put four pieces in?’
‘She still only eats two. Now, you also need to make sure you’ve got the list of stuff they do after school and nursery. You already do most of this, but let’s run through it anyway. Monday at 5 p.m. Millie goes to dancing and Chloe to football.’
‘Daisy stays with me.’
‘She does. Tuesday and Wednesday are free nights. Thursday Chloe has swimming lessons at 4.30 and Daisy goes to Gym Tots; they’re both in the same place so that’s easy but remember Millie’s iPad. Saturday morning Millie and Chloe go to drama but I’m not sure Chloe’s that keen, so you might have to let her drop out.’
‘I thought she loved it.’
‘She did, but now I’m not so sure. Sunday is free as you know, but instead of watching the football you’ll need to catch up on your ironing and cleaning. Most evenings try and get Millie and Chloe to do their reading and homework before you put the TV on for them because, as you know, otherwise it’s a nightmare trying to get them away from it.’
‘It all sounds like a riot.’
‘You’ll cope, but I’ll put everything on a list, so you don’t forget. You need to hoover every day, the kitchen floor needs cleaning with the steam mop every night after the carnage that is dinner time is over, but you usually do that anyway, and the fridge needs cleaning at least once a month and sometimes more. There’s loads more, but that’ll do for now. I’ll write everything down on a master list for you, so you have it all handy. I’ll also email it all over to you because, knowing you, you’ll lose the list in a day or two.’
‘I won’t.’
‘You will. This way you’ll always have a copy.’
‘A reminder of how much my wife loves me.’
Laura sighed. ‘A reminder that, regardless of what you think, Nathan, we need to put the girls before everything.’
‘Running away from them isn’t exactly a good example of that, is it?’
‘I’m not having this conversation with you, Nathan. It’s pointless, we’ve been there already. I’m doing this for everyone’s benefit. Now, tomorrow I’m taking the girls into town as I need to get some new clothes for work and there’s a sale on at Clarks, so I’ll try and get Chloe some new school shoes because she’s nearly grown out of her last ones. Sunday we’ll try and do something as a family, but we need to try and be civil to each other so that it’s not a total disaster, okay?’
Nathan nodded. ‘Maybe the zoo if the weather looks nice?’
‘Yeah, good idea, that’ll keep everyone busy and we can visit your relatives.’
‘My relatives?’
‘Yeah, the chimps.’
He managed to laugh.
I’d just finished working with Sid on what we called a ‘stinker’. Not a nice description but an accurate one. This poor old soul had died about a month ago in her council flat in Leith and had lain undiscovered throughout Christmas and New Year, until a neighbour had phoned environmental health about the ‘smelly drains’.
We didn’t know much about her, as was often the case with ‘stinkers’. Although the weather had been very cold she’d had the heating set at maximum when she’d died so the decomposition had advanced considerably and bits of her had started to fall apart like an over-cooked Christmas turkey – except there would be no gravy, pleasant aroma or feel-good factor associated with this one.
The cause of death couldn’t be established from our post-mortem and Sid hoped the lab reports would give some clue to any grieving relative that came out of the woodwork.
I felt a little sad even though I’d worked on dozens of these over the years. It always surprised me that so many people in our digital and fast-moving world died seemingly friendless and unnoticed. Maybe one day we’d all have little devices built into our bodies that sent out a signal when we were about to die. At least then she could have updated her status on Facebook with a message saying: ‘sorry I can’t watch the video of your daughter singing an out of tune song because I’ve just died’. Then she might not have lain undiscovered for weeks.
We cleaned ourselves up, changed into new scrubs and went for a bite of lunch. When I first started in the mortuary the thought of even looking at food after such a stomach-churning morning would have made me ill but it’s amazing how time and exposure dull your senses. My tummy rumbled at the promise of some watery National Health canteen soup.
Sid said he’d started a diet, though I wasn’t sure why as he had virtually no body fat at all. I’d asked him about it and he’d replied, ‘I have cellulite everywhere’ – words I’m pretty sure a straight bloke would never utter – and then he ordered a baked potato with no filling. Personally, I’d rather eat cardboard.
‘So, Kat, how’s your love life?’ Most of our conversations started this way. He had an unhealthy interest in my love life, which tended to be a short conversation. Occasionally he’d announce, ‘I’m going to a punk reunion gig this weekend.’ I had real problems picturing him among some of the throng of gobbing pseudo-violent psychopaths that must attend those things. Sid always reminded me of Marcus from Nick Hornby’s novel About a Boy, a real fish out of water at the best of times.
‘My love life