Uninvited (one-shot)

[Gavin Luper]

The idea for this short story bubbled up in my head on Sunday I think, and it took shape from there. I like it because the message, or the feel, that you get from it depends on how you're looking at it, so it's kind of slightly ambiguous. Reviews and criticisms would be great.

Uninvited

Lucretia woke. It must be four-thirty, she decided, because she always woke up at four-thirty on a Thursday morning. It was how her body clock ran: it had been so for years.

The woman removed her warm cotton sheets and set about her morning routine. Five minutes in the bathroom. Fifteen minutes in the shower. Two minutes preparing breakfast – a glass of tomato juice and a multivitamin. Thirty-five minutes making up her face and her hair.

It was almost five-thirty. Time to appraise her appearance. She studied the mirror and smiled at her beautiful reflection. Yes, she looked the part. She looked as she ought to. Her jet-black hair fell just short of her shoulders. Straight, sleek and smooth. Her eyebrows were heavily pencilled. She looked professional. Her thin face was so powdered it was pale. She paused a moment before the mirror, preparing herself; and then, quite spontaneously, she produced her most sincere, comforting, pitying half-smile. That’s it, she thought, regarding her reflection. Perfect.

She took the freeway to work. There was a traffic jam just before the interchange. Yes, that was normal, she thought, turning up the breakfast radio show as she waited.

The traffic jam cleared. She cruised on down the freeway and rolled up outside the parlour before seven.

‘Morning, Lucretia,’ said the receptionist, Gladys, as Lucretia breezed through the front door of the parlour.

‘Morning, Gladys,’ the woman said, ‘What do I have on today?’

The bushy-haired receptionist handed her a manila folder. ‘The Slater boy.’

‘Ah, yes, I met the family two days ago. Well, briefly. Nice people. Such a pity isn’t it?’

Gladys nodded absently, staring at the tall, dark-haired woman before her. ‘I have to say, I wonder how you do it sometimes,’ she said at length, taking a sip of her coffee. ‘It can’t be easy to go out there every day, doing what you do. I mean, you’re not just among it all, dealing with the family, the emotions … you have to organise it all, too. It must be hard.’

Lucretia moved her sharp gaze from the folder to the dumpy receptionist.

‘Not at all,’ she said shortly. ‘It’s a matter of knowing what you are dealing with, Gladys. I know what to expect with every case. I understand these people. I can read their emotions. I act accordingly.’

Gladys looked befuddled, the steam from her coffee fogging up her ugly spectacles. Lucretia gave her a curt nod and left for her office to prepare for today’s funeral.

She attended the church service out of politeness. The moment the priest blessed the congregation of the deceased’s family and friends, she set course for the exit doors. She had no need of, or interest in, the howls and wails of a grieving mother; there would be plenty of that at the cemetery, and that would be where she would meet them.

She spent thirty, thirty-five, forty minutes in the hot midday sun by the gravesite, waiting for the mourners to descend upon the resting place. The undertaker and his offsiders were there; they were ready. Then the funeral procession arrived, led by the silent black hearse and then a long tail of black clothes and bowed heads. Lucretia watched the red dirt swirling about their feet and willed them to hurry up. It was getting quite warm in the sun.

Eventually the mourners took their seats. Lucretia spoke her piece – softly, reassuringly, respectfully – and initiated proceedings. The Eulogist stood up.

‘Today, we come together to honour and celebrate the life of Damon Slater, a young man whose tragic passing has affected us all. Those who knew Damon well …’

Lucretia tuned out, because she knew what this man was going to say. She had been to this funeral a dozen times before. An eighteen-year-old boy, third son in a typical middle-class family, smashed to pieces when he drove his ute into a tree after a night on the grog. It was a cliché to her now. The Eulogist would be talking about all those good qualities the dead boy had: probably courage, and mateship, and strength, to get the men tearing up; and kindness, conscientiousness, and generosity, to break the women down. Lucretia peered at the photograph of the young, shy-looking boy, placed at the end of the casket. Maybe they would add something about his innocent good looks, too.

The Eulogist finished his piece, and there was a ringing silence in the cemetery as heads bowed and shoulders shook and tears stained the red sand.

Lucretia allowed one minute. Then she stood up and spoke gently, compassionately, and invited those people who had opted to say their own few words to do so.

A young man moved forward from his place and approached the rosewood coffin. He did not look at any of the people around him, but placed his hand in his pocket, unfolded a sheet of lined paper and cleared his throat nervously.

Lucretia knew this young man’s story, too. He was the Best Mate. Tall, tanned and fair-haired. He was the one the dead boy had gone yabbying with, played footy with and surfed with every day after school. He would speak about his mate’s courage, his sense of humour, his attitude to life. He would maybe tell a story about how much he had loved playing cricket by his side, and would finish up by calling his dead mate a ‘top bloke’.

Yes, Lucretia knew the story, and as the Best Mate began to speak, she promptly tuned out once again.

‘Damo,’ said the young man at last, looking at the photograph. His voice was hoarse. ‘Mate. I wish you coulda told me what you were going through. It didn’t have to end like this. We coulda – we coulda …’ He choked up, apparently lost. He did not cry but his eyes were redder than the dirt he stood on. Finally, he spluttered, ‘I’ll miss ya mate. Love you, man.’ And he disappeared back to his place in the silent, weeping crowd.

Lucretia emerged from her reverie and softly acknowledged the ‘warming sentiments’ of the Best Mate; she then invited the next person to speak.

Ah, yes, she thought – the Father. The stocky, ruddy-faced, curly-haired man in perhaps his early forties. Wearing a suit he probably only wore at funerals and weddings. He would speak the least – the fathers always did – and the least articulately. But he would say how proud he was of his dead son, how he had enjoyed working with him at the family business, probably something like bricklaying or carpentry, and how he wished they had more time together.

Lucretia allowed her eyes to glaze over as the big man removed his hand from his sobbing wife’s shoulder for a moment to produce a tissue, which he handed to his wife before speaking.

‘Son,’ said the Father solemnly. ‘My buddy. We just wanted you to be happy. We wanted you to feel loved. We would love you no matter who or what you were.’ His voice faltered. ‘I’m so sorry I didn’t help you. It’s my fault that you felt like you couldn’t talk about it. You tried coping alone, with … with drinking …’ He stopped completely. ‘I want you to know that what you felt, what you went through … it wasn’t weak. You were never alone. But it’s over now. You are free. You can rest now. I love you, son.’

There was a perhaps awed silence, which Lucretia did not notice; she was watching the second hand on her wristwatch, waiting for it to tick around to sixty seconds.

She was up to twenty-seven when a strangled scream rent the silence, uninvited.

‘MY BOY! MY BOOOOOOYYY!’

The Mother was shrieking for her baby. A few heads looked up in astonishment, some in confusion, some in fear. The Father was patting his wife’s back uselessly; an old woman seated next to her held her hand, but nothing could stem the flow of the mother’s grief. Salty rivulets were pouring down her red, blotchy face as she spluttered, gasping for air between sobs and cries.

‘My boy!’ she repeated in anguish, though now more quietly, in a wailing, pleading voice. ‘My boy, what have they done to y-you? Where have they taken y-you?’ She reached her arms out uselessly for the photograph on the casket, as though if she could just touch it she might be able to retrieve her Love. ‘Come back, Love, please, please … Lord, let him come back … m-my beautiful, m-my b-boy, …’

Lucretia watched the scene in silence, her features fixed in a rigid, pallid mask. She caught the undertaker’s eye, and he nodded.

She rose soundlessly and smoothed the front of her long black skirt. She didn’t wait for the mother’s wailing to desist, because she knew it never would. She spoke clearly and slowly, announcing the end of the funeral, and a moment later, there was a dull whirring sound, and a machine began to lower the coffin into the grave.

‘NOOOOOOOO!’

The Mother was distraught, shaking and crying, repeating vehement declarations of undying love for her child, her son, her boy. Damon Slater sank six feet down, to his resting place.

A single tear fell from one of Lucretia’s blue eyes and landed by her foot. She closed her eyes, wiped the weakness off her face and made a polite, sterile sign of the cross before the grave. Two hundred people followed suit. Then, slowly, very gradually, the mourners began to disperse, until only the family remained, frozen in their chairs.

A long time passed. At last, the Father helped the Mother out of her seat. The fight had gone out of her. She looked completely used up. Lucretia followed them, ushered them, to their car. In silence.

‘Thank you,’ said the Father simply. ‘Thank you so much.’

Lucretia inclined her head.

‘My deepest condolences, Mr and Mrs Slater. We will finalise arrangements tomorrow. For now, your son’s wake …’

The Mother choked.

‘You would be more than welc-’ began the Father.

‘No, thank you,’ said Lucretia crisply. ‘Goodbye.’

She nodded to the driver and watched the late model Commodore roll slowly down the gravel driveway until it turned a corner and was lost from view. She navigated her way back to the gravesite, checked that all affairs were in order with the undertaker, and then left. She did not look at the coffin again.

Back to the parlour. She farewelled Gladys politely. Back home on the freeway through rush hour. Home at six. Evening routine. Ten minutes taking off her make-up. Fifteen minutes in the shower. Ten minutes in the bathroom. Thirty-five minutes gazing into the mirror, alone, at her thin, lined, sad face; the face of an old woman.

Lucretia prepared herself a meal of thick, steaming vegetable soup, and ate heartily. Then it was eight o’clock. Time for sleep. She had a big day tomorrow.