The Last Four Days of Paddy Buckley (3 page)

The wardrobe took up a whole wall. Its doors were of the sliding kind and it was divided in the middle by a large mirror. Lucy opened the left side to reveal about twenty suits hanging neatly together and seven or eight pairs of well-polished shoes on the floor. She rested a hand on one of the jackets before dropping her head and bringing her free hand to her face. She wasn't crying like before, but she was clearly upset. I wanted to hold her, to comfort her, to let her cry on my shoulder, but I restrained myself. Lucy dropped her hand away from the suit and started crying more openly. Then, in a single movement, she turned and rested her head on my chest, putting her arms around me and holding tightly as she continued to cry. I brought my arms up around her back and held her. I rubbed her back gently and let my face move down to the top of her head. She stopped crying after a few minutes, but she didn't seem to want to move away.

I hadn't been this close to a woman since Eva died, and it was beginning to take its toll. I'd found Lucy attractive the moment I'd laid eyes on her and now, having her this close to me with her hands around my waist and the smell of her perfume clouding my senses, I knew that if I didn't get out of the embrace within another minute or so I was going to have a full-blown erection.

I moved my hand up her back and patted it a few times.

“You're all right,” I said, but she wasn't budging. I repeated the exercise, but still she stayed there. I felt my pulse quickening and all sorts of pleasurable rushes throughout my body, and then it happened, swelling up to being as stiff as a steel rod, it protruded away from down beside my left leg and stuck into Lucy's waist.

She moved her head away from my chest a little and looked down. She touched it with her hand. I was overcome by a terrible sense of shame.

“Lucy, I'm dreadfully sorr—” She brought her hand to my mouth and pressed her fingers against my lips, stopping me from talking, and then moved her mouth to mine. The satisfaction rushed through me as we both settled into the kiss.

I let Lucy set the pace initially—I didn't want to lead her into something she might later regret. The feeling of attraction, it appeared, was mutual. I ran my hands down her back as the kissing became deeper, our breathing more erratic. I unbuttoned her blouse and unzipped her skirt and felt the silky smooth skin of her hips and buttocks. She hurriedly undressed me before pushing me back on the bed. The feeling between us was primal. I looked at her as she sat astride me, taking me inside. Luscious and ripe, she was utterly gorgeous.

For the next little while, I slowly worked the rhythm to bring us both closer to climax. And then I noticed a change in her. I thought maybe I was hurting her because of the way she was groaning and grabbing my neck with every inward thrust, so I pulled back a little, but she continued even though I'd stopped going so deep. By that stage, my own horses had broken away from me and, while holding her hips, I came deep inside her. Then, as she seemed to reach orgasm herself, she opened her mouth wide as if in extreme pleasure, but made no sound. I stopped moving and studied her. She looked into my eyes and emptied her lungs with one long blow and then collapsed on top of me. And something left her. Something definite. Something infinite. Something vital. She was dead. I rolled her off me and held her face in my hands.

“Lucy?”

The notion that she'd died wasn't one I was willing to consider. It was simply too preposterous to have happened, to even imagine.

“Lucy?” Still nothing. I checked for her pulse. There was none.

“LUCY?” I shook her. I shook her hard. This was absurd. It couldn't be. But it was. It took another minute before it sank in: Lucy Wright was dead. I sat on the side of the bed with my eyes as wide open as they'd ever been. I couldn't believe it. Lucy had gone. Passed on. Just like her husband. Just like Eva. Just like twenty-two other souls in Dublin that day. And I was alone again.

I noticed a little pill bottle on the bedside table behind the alarm clock. I picked it up and examined the label. Warfarin. It was full. My aunt had suffered from angina before she died, and she'd been taking warfarin. I checked the name. Lucy Wright. Then I heard Lucy's voice playing back in my mind, telling me that she'd been forgetting things. Even important things, she'd said.

I put the pills back on the table and looked at Lucy's remains. Death by fucking. There'd be no talking my way out of this one.
No, Your Honor, it was her idea. Her husband had just died and she thought it would be a good idea if I followed her upstairs to her bedroom and give her the ride, make her feel a little better.
No, this was something I was going to keep to myself. Forever. Nothing would be gained by telling anyone about this—at any time, for any reason. There was going to be a postmortem, that much was certain, and if they were thorough, it would be clear that she'd had sex prior to death. But one thing at a time: I had a mess to clean up.

I walked into the en suite bathroom and ran a green facecloth under the tap. I washed her genitalia thoroughly before toweling her dry. Then I dressed her. For an undertaker, dressing a remains, sometimes by yourself, is part of the job. Within five minutes, I had her dressed exactly as she'd been when she first walked into the room and had her lying on the floor as if she'd just fallen after having her heart attack. Then I fixed the bed and made sure there were no hairs left on it. I got dressed, straightened the towel in the bathroom, and brought the facecloth downstairs with me and put it in the inside pocket of my coat.

I walked back upstairs, going over the story again and again: I'd been sitting there in the kitchen with her, taking down the details, having a cup of tea, just like we had been, then when it came to the part where I asked her about the clothes, she said, “Just a minute, I'll go and fish something out,” and then she went upstairs on her own while I went about writing everything we'd been discussing onto the arrangement form, and then after what seemed like three or four minutes, I heard a bumping noise upstairs. It sufficiently alarmed me to go up and investigate, and upon finding my way to the bedroom, I discovered Lucy's body on the floor. I checked for a pulse, but she seemed to be dead. I came down to the kitchen and phoned the doctor immediately. It sounded a lot more plausible than what had actually happened. I ran the story around in my head until I was as familiar with it as I was with the truth.

I read Dr. Brady's number off Lucy's notes and punched it into my phone.

“Hello?” came the voice at the other end.

“Dr. Brady?”

“Yes?”

“This is Paddy Buckley from Gallagher's Funeral Directors.”

“Hello, Paddy, what can I do for you?”

“I'm out at Michael and Lucy Wright's place in Pembroke Lane, and there's been an . . . incident. I was making arrangements with Lucy for her husband's funeral, and when she went upstairs to get her husband's suit, she dropped dead . . .”

“What!”

“She dropped dead. I heard a thump so I went up to see was everything okay and I found her lying there . . . dead.”

Dr. Brady's voice was filled with levelheaded alarm.

“Are you sure she's dead?”

I've been around dead bodies all my life, I think I'd know when one of them's dead. “Pretty sure, Doctor, yeah.”

“Is there any other family there?”

“No, I'm here on my own.”

“Have you phoned for an ambulance?”

“No. You're the first person I've rung. It literally happened a few minutes ago.”

“Okay, phone for an ambulance and wait there. That's all you can do.”

“Okay, will do. Thanks, Doctor.”

I ended the call and noticed Lucy's glasses and my handkerchief on the table. I put my hankie back in my pocket and looked around for anything else I might have missed. It had all happened so fast. My hands were shaking, and I was beginning to feel nauseous. A low panic was rising inside me. A little voice piped up in my head. It said,
Keep moving, Paddy. It was her time, just like it was Eva's time. Everything's going to be okay. Just keep moving.

I phoned for an ambulance. Then I phoned the office and told Frank the same story I'd told Dr. Brady. Frank expressed his surprise and told me he'd free me up from any other work while I dealt with it.

Then, as I was sitting there waiting for the ambulance, a cat strolled in from another room and mewed hello. It was a long-haired gray Persian with yellow eyes. It brushed against my leg, purring furiously. I saw that the bowl in the corner was empty so I got up, opened a few cupboards, and found the cat food, which I poured into the bowl before filling a saucer with water and placing it down beside the food.

While I was still there on my hunkers, watching the cat tear into its meal, I heard the sliding glass doors open and close. I stood up just as a woman walked into the kitchen and stopped by the door.

My heart started to pound. I knew immediately that this was Michael and Lucy Wright's daughter, Brigid. I remembered reading her name in the death notice, but apart from having registered to myself that she existed, I'd given her no further thought.

And now here she was.

I was sure it was her because of the resemblance to her mother, only Brigid was thirty years younger and even more attractive. She wore jeans, a blue T-shirt, and a tweed sports jacket. She had shoulder-length wispy brown hair, dark brown eyes, and a purity and savvy to her stare that froze the moment for me, stretching those small few seconds into what felt like minutes.

“You must be the funeral director,” she said.

“That's right. Paddy,” I said, preparing myself to tell her of her very recent bereavement.

“I'm Brigid,” she said. “Is my mother here?”

“Yes . . . Brigid, will you sit down for a minute, please?” I gestured to the nearest chair at the kitchen table and we both sat down a few chairs away from each other. A little knot formed in my throat.

“Brigid, your mother went upstairs twenty minutes ago to get a suit for your father to be dressed in, and . . . there's no easy way to say this . . . she collapsed and died while she was up there . . .”

Brigid brought her hand to her mouth as the blood drained from her face.

“I've been on to Dr. Brady and there's an ambulance on its way. I'm so sorry to have to tell you. I can hardly believe it myself, I can't imagine how hard it is for you to hear it like this . . .”

“Where is she?” She barely whispered the words as the tears began to spill down her cheeks.

“In her bedroom,” I said. Brigid got up from her chair and crouched down as if reacting to a searing pain deep in her solar plexus.

This was a first for me. Usually the family were the ones to tell the undertaker of their bereavement. I stayed sitting on the edge of my chair as Brigid stood up and walked around in confused little circles.

“Oh, God,” she said, holding both hands to her face now, leaning back against the wall and sinking slowly to her knees. I could see her hands were trembling. She looked into my eyes.

“Can I see her?”

“Of course . . . would you like me to bring you up?”

She nodded. I helped her up from the floor and led the way upstairs. I stopped just inside the bedroom door and gestured for Brigid to step in ahead of me. She moved past me and got down on her knees beside her mother's remains. Instead of breaking down like I thought she might, she smiled at her mother with a serene sadness while tears streamed down her cheeks. I stepped into the bathroom and picked up a box of tissues, which I handed to her.

She pushed her hair behind her ear before pulling a tissue out and wiping her tears.

“Soul mates till the end,” she said, with a bigger, braver smile. “It's so romantic.”

“I'll leave you with your mum, Brigid. I'll be in the kitchen,” I said softly, and walked quietly down the stairs, letting out a long soundless whistle.

Another dream over. Lucy had woken up. As I sat on the couch in the living room, I took in the large collection of photographs on the wall detailing Michael and Lucy's life together. It had all the hallmarks of a charmed life.

The turnabout in the last hour had been surreal. And now here I sat looking at the gallery of two lives that had ended, just minutes ago in Lucy's case. And her daughter sitting with her remains upstairs, thinking it was romantic. If she only knew the truth: that the man sitting downstairs, who'd presented himself as an innocent witness and caring facilitator, may as well be the grim reaper himself, not only dealing in death but bringing it everywhere with him as if it were an infectious disease.

I was torn on my culpability. On the one hand, of course, if I'd maintained a professional code of behavior, Lucy would be alive and well. But on the other, on a level not subject to roles and conduct and societal dictums, what had happened up to the point of Lucy's passing had actually been quite beautiful and tender, maybe even healing. If she hadn't died, it would just have been one of those spontaneous encounters in life that had been noncommittal and serendipitous. But she had died, and now I had a big fat lie to peddle.

The ambulance arrived and I opened the door to the paramedics. The driver was a middle-aged man with a gray beard and pudgy face. His partner was a raven-haired, freckled woman in her twenties with a lively intelligence in her eyes who was clearly the leader of the two. I recognized her face from a hospital mortuary somewhere.

“You're from Gallagher's, aren't you?” she said.

“That's right,” I said. “Paddy Buckley.”

“What happened here, Paddy?” she said.

“The woman who lives here, Lucy Wright, went upstairs to get some clothes and dropped dead while she was up there. I'll bring you up. Her daughter's with her,” I said.

“What's the daughter's name?” she asked.