My Dearest Jonah (10 page)

“Well I’ll bear you in mind in case I ever fancy a change of career. It sure is beautiful here.”

“Why thank you, darling,” she said, taking a fan from her sleeve and wafting those rouged Baby Jane cheeks. “We do our best. You girls have fun.”

“Oh we will. Bye Jemima darling,” said Eve, leading me out of the door.

“It was a pleasure to meet you,” I said, following suit.

“And you, my dear, and you. Just you remember what I said. Always a place for a girl like you in a joint like this.”

“She’s a doll,” said Eve, walking fast ahead of me so that I had to skip each third step to catch up.

“One in a million,” I said, sipping from the bottle. “Say, how long you planning on staying?” I asked as I arrived by her side and began to regulate my pace accordingly.
She carried a small suitcase in one hand and a hat box in the other, both of which seemed to pull heavily on her arms.

“Oh don’t worry about me. I just like to keep an eye on what’s mine. Every worldly possession I have is kept safe in these here boxes.”

I linked my arm through hers and went to relieve her of the suitcase at which she recoiled.

“No!” she yelled, before adapting her tone. “This one if you would, it’s lighter.”

I took the box, still linked by the arm, and she took the open bottle from me.

“To friendship!” she hollered at the dirty moon before taking a sip. She handed me the bottle and I held it awkwardly along with the box.

“To friendship!” I took a sip as we tottered off into the darkness, laughing at nothing in particular.

We drank and talked until my dim night-light’s glow became redundant. Eve told me about Dylan, her current beau and - like the one before that and the one before that -
the love of her life. Dylan had six tattoos and seven children by five women. His entire bottom row of teeth was solid gold. “Like treasure!” Eve swooned as she dragged the tip of her
cigarette across her stomach and breathed in sharply at the sting. “He says that I’m going to be his lucky number six.”

I lay back so that we were side by side on my bed, our feet resting on the tin wall above the headboard. “Where’d that come from?” I asked, gently pressing the bruise above her
wrist.

She shrugged and fell silent, but, true to her nature, became deafened by the quiet. “Dylan likes things just so,” she said eventually. “He only wants me to learn. He’s a
real gem.”

“He should be shot like a lame dog.”

“Don’t ever say that, Verity!” she moaned, close to tears. “It’s not his fault, he can’t help it.”

It was not, it transpired, the first time Eve had found herself in such situations. In fact it soon emerged as somewhat of a character trait. Eve enjoyed the kind of love that left you
bejewelled with purple welts and red streaks as ornament to some intense unity.

“I just like it more when you can feel each moment as it happens, good or bad. Safe and comfortable never won no awards. Never set the world on fire. At least this way you always know he
feels something. Which is better than nothing, don’t you think?”

“Well I don’t think it’s right.”

“Well you don’t have to worry. Me and Dylan’s going to be together for the rest of time, he just wants to make sure it’s perfect. Forever’s an awfully long time
when something’s not right. It’s his way, and that’s that.” I shook my head and she rolled to face me. “You really want to worry for me, you worry about that rackety
old building. The other week a tile from the ceiling fell onto Prudence in bed and cut clean through her mattress. Luckily she sleeps with her legs in two different time zones or else she’d
have lost her main source of income, if you know what I’m saying.”

I laughed and so did Eve. “You can stay here you know. I don’t take much space myself.”

“You mean that?” she said, sitting upright in the bed.

“Practicalities be damned,” I said, stubbing the cigarette out into a saucer on the floor.

“Oh Verity, you’re a lifesaver! You’ll think you’ve got a live in maid or something. It won’t matter that it’s so small. I’ll be so quiet and so careful
you’ll just about have the whole place to yourself.” She lunged towards me and threw her arms around my neck. “Say, let me test my luck and go for one more ask,” she said,
pouring tequila into two coffee cups I had stolen from the diner, on what once seemed the rare chance I’d ever be required to serve houseguests.

“What would that be?”

“Dance with me.”

I rolled my eyes and took the whole cupful of liquor in one mouthful.

“Miss Jemima takes real good care of us girls. And it’s got to be more interesting than flipping pancakes all the live long day.”

“I like flipping pancakes. Sometimes they even let me press waffles.”

“Dream big!” sneered Eve.

I poured two final drinks and, with a shrug of my shoulders, clinked my cup against hers.

“Verity... was that a yes?” she asked leaning in closer to me.

“To decadence... ” I rolled my eyes and swallowed the drink in one go. “To decadence!”

You asked me, Jonah, how I came to be where I am, and so there it is: I said yes. I suppose Eve hit upon something within me, highlighted, for want of a better word, the
knowledge within us all that life could be so much bigger if only we said yes more often, if we dived feet first instead of eternally hesitating at the periphery whilst something grander plays
forever out of frame. This has always been my trouble. I want everything but seem content to want. I want blonde hair. I want brown eyes and olive skin. I want to be able to wear strapless dresses
without checking my tits every second like a leaking new mother lest I endure the horror of a rogue nipple in a public space. I want to be black. I want to be gay. I want to have known handprints
on the thighs of my prepubescent skin from some drunken parent whose demise was the happiest day of my life. I want to experience the eternal whimsy that comes with a gilded upbringing. I want to
be colour blind; to see the world but not hear it and hear it but not see it. I want to be confined to a wheelchair and irreversibly contorted into a spasm so acute that it makes fellow diners in
any restaurant I m in feel nauseous and unable to finish their entrées. I want to experience spirituality so succinct I would kill, or perhaps die for it. I want bangs. I want to feel what
the sweating virgin offering me bargain life insurance feels like each time I and every other sane human being slams the phone down on him with a fading obscenity. All these things I want but can
never have. This is my problem Jonah – the enormity of life is so utterly breathtaking in its scope, I often think it such a shame that we only get to live it the once.

I was asked and I said yes.

I wonder just how many tragedies began with those very words.

With love,

Verity

Dear Verity,

I arrived early as to make a good impression. Sunday should, by rights, have been my day of rest. Though I figured that by this point in my life I’d had so long to rest
that I was working in arrears, so didn’t much mind the android chirp of my alarm at six thirty and the drone of my muscles as I got up and into the shower. Leftover smoke still clung to my
pillow like perfume of some departed lover, so I bundled the covers in a ball and threw them into the middle of the kitchen floor to be dealt with at a later date. At such ungodly hours the thought
of food flipped my stomach so I took a sip of water straight from the faucet (a perk of solitary living) and stepped out the door into the surprisingly chilly early morning light.

God’s most devoted followers were already prepped and seated as the sun dissolved the web of dew blanketing the church’s kept lawns. Maxwell stood at a distance spouting his zeal
having become disillusioned with what he felt to be the wan passion of our given preacher.

‘... so I implore you ladies and gentlemen, step out of the wilderness... step away from these lives of sin... you have to find something to believe in, and let it rule you. Only then will
you be truly found... ’

His cries became diluted by the bells of Sunday’s first service, which began to thunder and chime as I made my way through the cornfields; discordant at first, just finding their feet, and
then as if by magic the strands of a tune began to weave together until sweet music filled the air. I found myself powering forward to their faintly militant beat until I’d crossed the whole
first field without realising it.

The Hare and Sons Funeral Parlour, Caleb’s pride and joy, stood on a stretch of dead grass about a mile from the nearest residential street. Its faux gothic spires
swirled up towards the heavens like birthday candle smoke. The lawn that surrounded it was yellow and fading and the front of the house was in urgent need of treatment. Caleb was removing dead
heads from a hanging basket as I walked towards the house. He stood stout and unshaven in his stocking feet, wearing battered denim and a string wife-beater.

“Beautiful morning out,” I said, offering my hand.

“Well aren’t you the early bird. Bodes well for our imminent venture.”

“Potential,” I added, defiantly. “Still don’t know if I’m up to the challenge.”

“I trust my instincts,” he said, tossing the shrunken heads of the plants into a dirt pile beneath the porch. “Come on round back let me show you.”

We walked to the back of the house, past the stained windows of the service room, which glowed red and warm in the formative light.

“You want a coffee? I’ll get you a coffee,” said Caleb as we passed an open doorway to the back of the house. “Mary,” he yelled without altering his pace.
“Mary, two cups of Joe when you’ve got a minute,” he shouted as we made our way towards the neverending stretch of the garden. At the back of the house an ugly new addition had
been tacked shoddily to the building like some hurried afterthought. Beyond it the gentle hills rolled down towards a small ravine, around which shrubbery grew in brilliant greens and reds. To the
furthest edge sat a barn around which chips of various woods piled high and flew upwards on the breeze. “That over there’s the workshop. That’ll be part two of the grand
tour,” said Caleb, standing in the doorway, shivering slightly. “Come on in.”

I followed him into the extension at the back of the house. It was a large room, white and utilitarian, with a gentle top note of fresh wood permeating the muggy stench of death. I itched my
nose and looked around. Along either side of the room two rows of oblong boxes were lined in reverent symmetry. There were four either side creating a makeshift runway all the way towards the door
to the kitchen. I remained towards the back as Caleb walked down the centre of the arrangement. Holding his hands out widely he pulled back the pall of the first two boxes. The crisp sheets
billowed up and made a flapping sound like a flock of doves alarmed by gunshot. As they fell gently to the floor Caleb turned to me and nodded down towards two pristine coffins – one thin,
heartbreakingly practical pine box, the other a more elaborate yew; smoothed at the edges and polished into a rich liquor of speckled brown.

“What do you think?” he asked, surveying his craftwork. For Caleb death no longer the held the dark eroticism it might do to you or me; its shimmering eternity merely a formality in
his lifelong devotion to careful craft, to customer service and repeat business; to profit. Each fatality in a town where everyone was related to someone who knew someone was, to the sole funeral
director, nothing but business, and good business at that judging by the assortment of vehicles parked in the lot beside the house.

“They sure are beautiful. Any of them...
occupied?
”

He laughed as the back door swung open and a dour woman in a plaid dress made her way towards him carrying a tray with two steaming cups.

“No siree, these babies are, how do you want me to put it,
awaiting their deposit
,
”
he chuckled. His wife did not. “This one here’s our economy line,
funerals paid for by the state or town collections you understand,” he tapped the pine structure and it made a cheap, empty yelp of a sound. “This here’s our executive collection.
You want to be chauffer driven to St Peter this is the woman for you.”

“Some coffee, dear,” said the woman warily. “Careful, it’s hot. There’s milk and sugar in the decanter. I’ll leave it on the edge here.” She placed the
tray down on the one and only bench in the room and walked away. Caleb patted her on the rear as she passed, causing her to jump and carry on with her business, seemingly immune to both his sense
of fun and his touch.

We took the coffees and sipped them slowly as we walked towards the furthest edge of the garden, led by the pained cries of wood on metal. As the noise dipped we were granted a gilded silence.
Caleb turned to face me and as his mouth opened to talk the shriek began again - loud and coarse - making it seem like malevolent spirits were leaving his body. “ - od damn Rich!” he
concluded as the sound stopped. “You want to look inside?”

“Let’s do it.”

Inside the workhouse lengths of wood lay unorganised on worktops. Three circular saws took pride of place in the centre of the room where an older man stood, blowing dust from a six foot plank
of mahogany.

“This is Richard, our only craftsman since Jacob went from employee to customer.”

“WHAT?” yelled Richard through thick safety goggles, removing his ear protectors and placing them around their neck.

“This is Jonah. Given the word he’s going to be helping out around here.”

“Oh,” said Richard, moving towards me. He wiped his dusty hands on his overalls, if anything more filthy than his palms themselves, and extended it to me. “It’s a
pleasure to meet you.”

“Morning, sir.”

“Can’t say I won’t welcome the help. Summer’s a busy time. The heat gives the old ’uns that extra kick. Last year we were stacking them in the ground like
pancakes.”

Caleb rolled his eyes at me.

“Ask me it’s irresponsible. Sooner they all get to grips with burning the better,” Richard said, walking back across the workroom towards his current project, which he began
sanding by hand with a square of paper.