For some reason, Alexis had suddenly stopped meeting my eye. She was looking vaguely round the room, as if Richard’s walls were the source of all inspiration. Then she dragged her eyes away from the no longer brilliant white emulsion and started rootling round in a handbag so vast it makes mine look like an evening purse. ‘So tell me,’ I said impatiently after a silence long enough for Alexis to unearth a fresh packet of cigarettes, unwrap them and light one.
‘It’s Chris,’ she exhaled ominously. More silence. Chris, Alexis’s partner, is an architect in a community practice. It feels like they’ve been together longer than Mickey and Minnie. The pair of them had just finished building their dream home beyond the borders of civilization as we know it, part of a self-build scheme. And now Alexis was using the tone of voice that BBC announcers adopt when a member of the Royal family has died or separated from a spouse.
‘What about Chris?’ I asked nervously.
Alexis ran a hand through her hair then looked up at me from under her eyebrows. ‘She’s pregnant.’
Before I could say anything, the doorbell blasted out the riff from ‘Layla’ again.
I looked at her and she looked at me. What I saw was genuine happiness accompanied by a faint flicker of apprehension. What Alexis saw, I suspect, was every piece of dental work I’ve ever had done. Before I could get my vocal cords unjammed Alexis was on her feet and heading for the conservatory. ‘That’ll be your scam merchant. I’d better leg it,’ she said. ‘I’ll let myself out through your house. Give me a bell later,’ she added to her slipstream.
Feeling stunned enough to resemble someone whose entire family has been wiped out by a freak accident, I walked to the front door in a bewildered daze. The guy on the other side of it looked like a high-class undertaker’s apprentice. Dark suit, white shirt that gleamed in the streetlights like an advert for soap powder, plain dark tie. Even his hair was a gleaming black that matched his shoeshine. The only incongruity was that instead of a graveyard pallor, his skin had the kind of light tan most of us can’t afford in April. ‘Mrs Barclay?’ he asked, his voice deep and dignified.
‘That’s right,’ I said, trying for tremulous.
A hand snaked into his top pocket and came out with a business card. ‘Will Allen, Mrs Barclay. I’m very sorry for your loss,’ he said, not yet offering the card.
‘Are you a friend of Richard’s? Someone he works – worked – with?’
‘I’m afraid not, Mrs Barclay. I didn’t have the good fortune to know your late husband. No, I’m with Greenhalgh and Edwards.’ He handed the card over with a small flourish. ‘I wonder if I might have a quiet word with you?’
I looked at the card. I recognized it right away as one of the ones that come out of machines at the motorway-service areas. The ones on the M6 at Hilton Park are the best; they’ve got really smart textured card. Drop three quid in the slot, choose a logo, type in the text and you get sixty instant business cards. No questions asked. One of the great mysteries of the universe is how villains catch on to the potential of new technology way ahead of the straight community. While most punters were still eyeing the business card machines warily on their way to the toilets, the bad guys were queuing up to arm themselves with bullshit IDs. This particular piece of fiction told me Will Allen was Senior Bereavement Consultant with Greenhalgh and Edwards, Monumental Masons, The Garth, Cheadle Hulme. ‘You’d better come in,’ I said tonelessly and stepped back to let him pass me. As I closed the door, I noticed Alexis emerging from my house with a cheery wave in my direction.
Allen was moving tentatively towards the living room, the one open door off the hallway. I’d drawn the line at cleaning the whole house. ‘Come on through,’ I said, ushering him in and pointing him at the sofa Alexis had just vacated. He sat down, carefully hitching up his trousers at the knees. In the light, the charcoal grey suit looked more like Jasper Conran than Marks and Spencer; ripping off widows was clearly a profitable business.
‘Thanks for agreeing to see me, Mrs Barclay,’ Allen said, concern dripping from his warm voice. He was clean cut and clean shaven, with a disturbing resemblance to John Cusack at his most disarming. ‘Was your husband’s death very sudden?’ he asked, his eyebrows wrinkling in concern.
‘Car accident,’ I said, gulping back a sob. Hard work, acting. Almost convinces you Kevin Costner earns every dollar of the millions he gets for a movie.
‘Tragic,’ he intoned. ‘To lose him in his prime. Tragic.’ Much more of this and I wasn’t going to be acting. I was going to be weeping for real. And not from sorrow.
I made a point of looking at his business card again. ‘I don’t understand, Mr Allen. What is it you’re here about?’
‘My company is in the business of providing high quality memorials for loved ones who pass away. The quality element is especially important for someone like yourself, losing a loved one so young. You’ll want to be certain that whatever you choose to remember him by will more than stand the test of time.’ His solemn smile was close to passing the sincerity test. If I really was a grief-stricken widow, I’d have been half in love with him by now.
‘But the undertaker said he’d get that all sorted out for me,’ I said, going for the sensible-but-confused line.
‘Traditionally, we have relied on funeral directors to refer people on to us, but we’ve found that this doesn’t really lead to a satisfactory conclusion,’ Allen said confidentially. ‘When you’re making the arrangements for a funeral, there are so many different matters to consider. It’s hard under those circumstances to give a memorial the undivided attention it deserves.’
I nodded. ‘I know what you mean,’ I said wearily. ‘It all starts to blur into one after a while.’
‘And that’s exactly why we decided that a radical rethink was needed. A memorial is something that lasts, and it’s important for those of us left behind that it symbolizes the love and respect we have for the person we have lost. We at Greenhalgh and Edwards feel that the crucial issue here is that you make the decision about how to commemorate your dear husband in the peace of your own home, uncluttered by thoughts of the various elements that will make up the funeral.’
‘I see,’ I said. ‘It sounds sensible, I suppose.’
‘We think so. Tell me, Mrs Barclay, have you opted for interment or cremation?’
‘Not cremation,’ I said very firmly. ‘A proper burial, that’s what Richard would have wanted.’ But only after he was actually dead, I added mentally.
He snapped open the locks on the slim black briefcase he’d placed next to him on the sofa. ‘An excellent choice, if I may say so, Mrs Barclay. It’s important to have a place where you can mourn properly, a focus for the communication I’m sure you’ll feel between yourself and Mr Barclay for a long time to come. Now, because we’re still in the trial period of this new way of communicating with our customers, we are able to offer our high quality memorials at a significant discount of twenty per cent less than the prices quoted on our behalf by funeral directors. So that means you get much better value for your money; a memorial that previously might have seemed out of your price range suddenly becomes affordable. Because, of course, we all want the very best for our loved ones,’ he added, his voice oozing sympathy.
I bit back the overwhelming desire to rip his testicles off and have them nickel-plated as a memorial to his crass opportunism and nodded weakly. ‘I suppose,’ I said.
‘I wonder if I might take this