Page 28 of Four Weddings and a Funeral Director

Mort

Mort always enjoyed a quiet browse of a vintage shop.

They were such peaceful, still places, ones where every creaking footstep counted and items were picked up and replaced with care.

He especially liked Then Again, which was run by the magnificently churlish Theo Giordano, who’d plonked himself and his ever-present vintage New Yorker issue behind the counter some forty years ago and had never left.

Theo never asked you whether you were looking for something in particular, or whether you needed help, or if he could interest you in a twenty per cent off sale or a fundraiser for some obscure charity whose name was so depressing that you simply had to buy an armload’s worth of flavoured popcorn or consign your soul to hell.

Theo simply unlocked the front door in the morning, spent all day reading luminary short fiction of years past, then locked the door at night.

It was a charmed existence, and just quietly, Mort wouldn’t have minded being dropped on Theo’s doorstep as a baby, if this was how his life might have turned out.

Although maybe it was for the best. The man was of so few words that if he’d raised Mort, Mort might never have learned to talk.

But he’d be very knowledgeable about the short stories of thirty years ago.

Anyway, Mort was here on business today.

Well, mostly business. And a bit of … not pleasure, exactly, but curiosity .

For the pink-and-black grille between the Eternal Elegances had informed him that Lily was heading this way in search of plates, which had reminded Mort that he had a client’s record collection that needed dealing with.

And if Lily happened to arrive while Mort was still browsing the shelves, so be it.

‘Mort?’ A familiar pair of large blue eyes regarded Mort through a gap in the wall of vintage records. An equally familiar pair of pink lips quirked into a grin. ‘Fancy seeing you here. Shopping for some new tunes?’

‘I’m helping a family with an estate sale,’ said Mort.

‘Always good to diversify your income streams. Have you considered becoming an influencer? I think you’d be fab. Morbid Mort would kill it as a live-streamer.’

Mort shook his head in disbelief. ‘I’ve never been more disappointed in you.’

‘I should hope you’ve never been disappointed in me at all.’ Lily hefted a hideously ugly brass sculpture of a hand making a thumbs up.

If only she knew the half of it.

‘I’m actually fairly impressed with how you’re handling this whole switcheroo thing. You were very sanguine regarding the maggots.’

‘Ah, the maggots. My only other option was to go screaming into the night, which would have been terrible for my Yelp reviews.’ Lily upended the sculpture to make an ostentatious thumbs down.

The sculpture clanged against the shelf, but unfortunately didn’t break.

‘Besides, switcheroo or not, the show must go on. And believe me, when it comes to weddings, they must go on. Bridezillas are no joke.’

‘I bet. At least the dead don’t complain. Just their families. Hence this trip. There’s been a whole … kerfuffle—’

‘Kerfuffle! Such an emotive word.’ Lily returned the sculpture to its thumbs-up position. ‘Must be serious.’

‘ Kerfuffle ,’ repeated Mort. ‘Regarding someone’s uncle’s music collection. Some guy with a statement moustache came in offering to take it off their hands for the princely sum of a hundred bucks.’

‘And you think it’s worth more than a hundred bucks.’

‘I think we’re definitely looking at a few extra zeros.’

Lily set down the thumb. ‘Righteous indignation looks good on you. And maybe a moustache, too. You could beat that guy at his own facial hair game.’

‘Absolutely not.’ Mort picked up a terrible still life of some pomegranates – or possibly juggler’s balls (or possibly a juggler’s balls) – positioning its oversized frame as a way to hide the fact that the colour was rising in his cheeks, like the first flush of embalming fluid through a corpse.

No, not like that. Goodness, this job was doing a number on him.

Or was it Lily? Lily with her bright eyes and brighter personality and, brightest of all, those outfits that appeared to have come straight out of a My Little Pony cartoon?

‘Death can be expensive. And it can bring out the grifters. I want to make sure that they’re not getting ripped off. Theo’s going to look into it for me when he’s done with his current short story.’

‘Almost there,’ came Theo’s creaky voice over his magazine. ‘Just at the good bit. Well, I think so – you never can tell with literary fiction. Just another ten pages to go.’

‘So how’s the plate shopping going?’ asked Mort.

Lily cocked her head. ‘How did you know about the plate shopping?’

Mort spluttered. He couldn’t exactly say eavesdropping and borderline stalking , could he?

‘Your basket,’ he said eventually, pointing at the mismatched plates Lily was pushing along the floor in a wheeled floral basket – her own? Was it normal to have a floral rolly cart? How did one procure such a thing? ‘I like the practicality,’ he added.

‘Thank you.’ She beamed, scooting the basket back and forth. ‘Well, I need 250 plates – all different – and so far I have ten. And also a jigsaw puzzle in a jar for Gramps. Anyway, daisies, starbursts, Puebla, lapis, floral, rooster … That one’s for me.’

Of course it was. Nothing said Lily more than a hand-painted rooster plate. Except maybe a floral rolly cart that Mort was just now seeing was embellished with a flying rainbow bread-cat sticker. Mort had no idea what this was meant to symbolise, and was afraid to ask.

‘Dierdre at The Hot Pot might be able to help,’ offered Mort. ‘When it comes to crockery she puts the Smithsonian to shame.’

Lily smacked herself on the forehead, the vintage rings she’d picked out from the shop’s jewellery overflow bowl glinting.

‘Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?’ She paused.

‘How is she with ridiculous menus for the trend-forward and ingredient-averse? We’re talking more substitutions than teachers in a school plagued with norovirus. ’

Mort shook his head. Dierdre did her best, but there was a limit to the bullshit a small business could reasonably handle without having to close their doors.

‘Actually,’ he mused, ‘I do have someone who could help you.’

‘Whispering Waters,’ read Lily, who upon Mort’s recommendation had made the smart decision to come back for her cartful of plates.

They’d hiked to the top of the promenade to arrive at an ivy-clad steamship-style building that loomed, all curved walls and metal-framed windows and sad-eyed sculptures surrounded by tulips.

‘I’m getting distinct end-of-life-care vibes here, Mort,’ she added, running a hand along the railing that travelled the entire length of the pathway from the street to the front door.

The paramedic sitting on the front step sipping a cup of coffee probably didn’t help much with that impression, either.

‘No, it’s not like that,’ he said, perhaps a touch defensively. ‘It’s just … a retirement community. Angela and I have been talking about a place here.’

Lily balked. ‘A place here? For whom? Not for Gramps, surely.’

Mort swallowed. ‘He can’t manage that huge house all by himself. Even I can barely manage it. And it’s at the point where everything needs to be redone or it’ll just crumble into the ground.’

‘House to house, dust to dust.’ Lily nudged a toe at one of the plaques in the ground. Of course it happened to commemorate someone dead. No matter what he did, Mort wasn’t going to come out of this discussion looking like the good guy.

‘It’s not a done deal. It’s just an option. Something needs to change about Gramps’s living situation, is all.’

Lily nodded in that thoughtful way that Mort suspected meant she was internally screaming at him in outrage.

‘Well, are we going in? Because I suspect that this place knows all about bland, inedible food with limited ingredients.’

‘I hope you’re not speaking disparagingly of Jell-O,’ said Mort.

‘Oh no,’ said Lily, ‘we stan a Jell-O.’

The plastic alarm duck by the front entrance quacked as Mort pushed open the front door, gesturing for Lily to go ahead.

Inside, the home was as cosy as Angela’s brochures had claimed: all streamlined wood panelling, sturdily upholstered furniture and ornate fixtures brimming with the softest of light.

Golden oldies crooned on an antique gramophone, and everything smelt ambitiously of lavender, as though the residents had been making potpourri for arts and crafts for a solid six months.

A few residents sat about, reading the paper or musing over chessboards.

An old guy with a knitted blankie over his legs and a skein of yarn in his lap carefully stood, giving Mort a wave. ‘Mort! It’s Mort!’

Mort smiled, although his heart wrenched slightly – the last time he’d seen Edward was at Edward’s sister’s funeral about six months ago.

A few years ago, though, Edward had been one of Rerunning Up That Hill’s most devoted patrons, showing up just about every day for the matinee session, and occasionally even banging out a few crowd favourites on the piano.

But time, and death, marched on. Now there was just Edward.

‘Good to see you, Edward,’ said Mort. ‘How’s life treating you?’

Edward chuckled. ‘Well, it’s a treat to still be here. Who’s your girl?’

Mort coughed. ‘She’s not … I don’t …’

‘I’m Lily.’ Lily waved sunnily, bestowing one of her trademark giant grins upon Edward, who drank it up like a desert plant a longed for rainfall. ‘Did you make that blanket, Edward? Think you could do me a frog when you get a chance?’

‘Could I do you a frog? Of course I could do you a frog!’ Edward beamed. ‘She’s a keeper, Mort. You’d better hang on to her. Or I’ll give you what for.’

He made a fist.