Page 40 of Four Weddings and a Funeral Director

Mort

Mort was in hell. He’d never seen such a …

festive … wedding reception. The barn had been dressed to, as a cowboy might say, hog heaven.

The guests sat on whiskey barrel chairs around huge round tables dressed with horse blankets and centrepieces that ranged from candle-topped saddles to fake saguaro cacti hung with string lights.

Some of the drunker members of the wedding party were doubling down by doing shots at the saloon, which had a full vintage storefront and swinging doors and staged shoot-outs held at half-hour intervals (upon learning about Mort’s new social club, Lily had enlisted the Grief Guys to do the honours).

The Pauls had retreated to some of the cowhide armchairs that Lily had arranged into miniature living room setups.

Fringed leather vests, cowboy boots, and ten-gallon hats bobbed and weaved around the room as the guests snacked on fried pickles and brisket that had been smoked on-site overnight.

Mort had never felt so out of place. He said as much to Lily, who’d just now boot-scooted up to him in a flurry of sparkly pink.

‘Never felt so out of place yet ,’ she said, waggling her hips. ‘Wait till you see the Christmas in July wedding setup – I’ve got Tink on stationery, and she’s outdone herself. Besides, you’d make a good Santa. Just let that five o’clock shadow grow out a bit.’

Mort rubbed his cheek, trying to come up with a good comeback for that. But Lily had been swept away by a tall blond cowboy in a tasselled leather vest sporting a hobby horse in one hand. Kicking up a booted foot, she waggled her fingers at Mort.

Mort nibbled on his corn on the cob, which was a challenge given that his jaw was so firmly clenched from all the banjo music.

‘Damn, this moonshine is strong ,’ croaked a guy in chaps and a dramatically printed flannel shirt. He perched on a nearby barrel, his eyes watering. ‘Who needs a nostril hair trimmer when you’ve got this?’

He waved his glass demonstratively under Mort’s nose.

Mort’s eyes widened – and watered. Oh no. That was no moonshine. And not because Mort had any idea what moonshine smelled like. But he did know what embalming fluid smelled like. And the guy in chaps was about to be immortalised at the age of thirty-five for life.

Mort slapped the drink to the floor.

‘Oops, sorry. Nervous tic,’ he said.

‘You’re okay,’ said the guy, flagging down one of the cowboy waiters hurrying around in flannel aprons. ‘Plenty more of that sloshing around.’

Which was precisely the problem. Where was Lily?

Mort glanced about, trying to spot her blonde curls and pink cowboy hat amidst the line dancing hordes and the costumed ‘horses’ trotting around the room.

But Lily was, as usual, by far the smallest person in the room – and even with her pink outfit it was impossible to pick her out from amongst the leather vests and blinding belt buckles.

‘Lily!’

He pushed through a crowd of whooping cowboys testing their lasso skills on one of the Pauls, who stood on a stool making bodybuilding poses.

(Fortunately for the Paul, they had no such skills.) Then shoved through a Jell-O pistol shoot-out.

(Messy, and squelchy, although the Grief Guys were fully in character.) Then fought his way through the Dolly Parton shrine, which featured an enormous Dolly crafted from flowers. (Beautiful, just like Dolly.)

He found Lily reorganising the hobby horses on the back wall.

‘There you are!’ he exclaimed, relieved.

‘Miss me, partner?’ she drawled, in a regrettable, but still adorable, southern accent. She pressed the hobby horse’s ear, making the horse neigh dramatically.

‘Very much.’ Mort leaned close. ‘We have to swap out the drinks, immediately.’

Lily frowned, trying to see where he was going with this. ‘What’s going on? Are they making the martinis with vodka? Are the champagne snobs refusing the prosecco?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Did someone get into the secret stash of absinthe? The boys promised me that was for their inner circle only.’

Poor Lily had erroneously assumed that if the switcheroo had struck once, she’d be safe for the rest of the night. Wrong. As the Greek funeral had shown him, the switcheroo knew no limits.

‘Embalming fluid,’ he said. ‘The spirits have been switched out for embalming fluid.’

Lily’s clutch on the hobby horse grew so tight that it unleashed a series of whinnies. ‘So, how bad are we talking here? What kind of side effects? Will it help them age gracefully?’

Ah, the sweet summer child.

‘They might not get the chance to age if they keep it up. We’re talking blindness, if we’re lucky. Death, if we’re not.’

Over at the Queen Dolly shrine, one of the Dolly worshippers broke into an anguished, caterwauling rendition of ‘Jolene’, with the lyrics rewritten to be about the 2019 version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats .

‘Although death doesn’t sound so bad right now,’ Mort admitted.

‘It could be worse. You could be gamely trying to stick a Rosa landing.’

Lily pointed to where Rosa the bull was bucking and spinning, her hydraulics in fine form. No fewer than three would-be cowboys were sitting groaning beside her, clutching various parts of their anatomy. A sexy male nurse was tending to them with novelty Band-Aids and platters of ribs and fries.

To be fair, fries did fix a lot of things. Except perhaps an artery blockage. And the effects of the formaldehyde shots that a group of cowboys were toasting with over the saloon bar.

Mort raced forward, swiping the shots off the bar. The shot glasses shattered, exploding around the bartender’s cowboy boots.

The Grief Guys, who were just about to run in to reprise their shoot-out, backed off. Duggo (who had a dressed-up Sausage on a leash) shot Mort a confused look.

‘I’ll explain later,’ Mort told him. ‘Come back in ten.’

‘Dude, what the fuck!’ exclaimed a guy with hair so sun-bleached it was translucent. He wore a shark tooth on a leather strap around his tanned neck, and cowhide patches on his jeans. Ah, a surfer cowboy.

‘Sorry. I’m ten months sober …’ extemporised Mort. ‘And it hurts to see you hurting yourselves like this.’

‘Aw, man. Thank you for thinking of us.’ The surfer guy wrapped Mort up in a brutal hug. ‘I love this sobriety journey for you. If you want to come on my podcast and talk about it, let me know. Here’s my card. I’m one half of The Dudes Hang Low.’

Wheezing for air, Mort took the card.

But then, disaster.

Bernard stood, whacking a cowbell with a butter knife to get everyone’s attention.

‘It’s speeches time, cowbabes! And then after the worst of you have roasted us like the brisket very kindly provided by the Flaming Galah, we’re going to boot scoot up a frenzy. Does everyone have a drink?’

A murmur went up as everyone raised their glasses.

‘ No! ’ shouted Lily and Mort together.

‘Barkeep, get those two in the back a drink,’ said Amos, raising his glass of moonshine. ‘We can’t have empty hands at an event like this.’

‘Not him – he’s sober,’ shouted the surfer guy, pointing at Mort.

Mort waved awkwardly as everyone congratulated him on his sobriety.

Lily took the helm, drawing the attention away from him with an even worse pronouncement. ‘I mean … no, we can’t toast with the basic moonshine! That’s not how cowboys do it. This stuff hasn’t even been stirred with a raccoon’s penis bone.’

‘A what now?’ whispered Mort.

‘It’s a whole thing. Google it sometime,’ murmured Lily.

‘Don’t,’ said the surfer guy, holding out his hands placatingly. ‘It’s better someone in your position doesn’t know.’

Lily turned her attention back to the guests. ‘If you’ve got moonshine in your hand, get yourself to the spittoon because the good stuff’s coming around.’

A puzzled murmur went up around the crowd.

‘Sit tight: the Grief Guys are coming around with the bubbly. It’s three times stronger, and not made in a Red State.’

The confusion shifted to approval.

Lily jumped on her walkie-talkie, sending out an urgent announcement to Mort’s gang of gents.

‘ Champagne in every glass, stat .’

The Grief Guys hurried about, pouring bubbly and handing out champagne flutes as the speeches began. ( Bloody hell, but they were rude. Was it normal for speeches to be this rude? Or was this a switcheroo thing?)

‘Not a switcheroo thing,’ Lily said, smiling mischievously as one of the guests made a joke so off-colour that even Pantone didn’t have a number for it.

She reached out to clink glasses with Mort, then looped her arm through his as they sipped.

Mort indulged her, because it was extremely hard not to indulge Lily.

Oh, but he wanted to kiss her again. But after how badly he’d messed up last time, it was probably best to keep a respectful distance.

Even if Lily was a vision in glittery pink right next to him, so close that their shoulders, their arms, their hips, kept brushing in a way that felt too close – and nowhere near close enough.

It was a cruel and unusual punishment. Just like the fact that in a few months, she’d be gone from his life entirely.

‘Just make sure the gents dispose of the embalming fluid thoughtfully,’ said Mort, as they leaned against the back wall, slowly drinking their champagne. ‘It’s highly …’

A fireball erupted in the night sky, eliciting whoops and cheers from the tipsy crowd.

And also from Lily, who was clapping riotously.

‘Yes, that,’ said Mort, rubbing his temples. There were far too many unexpected events at weddings. It was impossible to keep track of all the moving pieces.

‘Wow,’ Lily exclaimed. ‘Free fireworks!’

‘No one died,’ reported a guest with an astonishing handlebar moustache so long and styled that it seemed to have been taken from an actual bicycle. ‘No one died!’

‘To not dying!’ cheersed someone in a sexy cow outfit. (Mort wasn’t sure whether they’d misinterpreted the dress code, or accurately interpreted it.)

‘Cheers to that!’ said a guest, raising a wayward glass of embalming fluid.

‘Oop, not that one.’ Lily jumped up on a chair to switch out the drink for a Salty Dog. ‘This one’s stronger.’

‘I like you,’ said the guest, knocking back the cocktail, then wrapping Lily in a drunken hug. ‘Anyone who brings me drinks is a friend of Jack’s.’

‘I wouldn’t want it any other way.’ Lily gave Jack a good-natured pat on the head, then climbed back down to the floor.

‘ Amazing ,’ purred Amos, who was sidling past with Bernard. ‘First the Paul-bearers, and now surprise fireworks? I love you as much as I love Bernard. Almost.’

‘I’ll let it slide just this once,’ said Bernard, whose grin took up most of his face. ‘Because the feeling’s mutual.’

Lily winked and gave them both a kiss on the cheek.

The band kicked up, breaking out into a fascinating bluegrass rendition of ‘I Will Survive’.

Amos clapped his hands in delight. ‘Sorry, babe, but we can’t not dance to this.’

The newlyweds raced off towards the dance floor, which was densely populated with everyone who hadn’t (yet) been injured by Rosa the mechanical bull.

‘Well then,’ said Lily to Mort, teasingly, ‘I suppose we might as well hit the dance floor.’

Mort swallowed.

Lily regarded him thoughtfully. ‘Ah, but you don’t dance.’

Mort raised an eyebrow. ‘I dance. Just not to … this.’

Lily managed a wobbly, champagne-influenced turn in her cowboy boots. ‘Oh, I just think you’re scared. I hear that dancing is correlated with an increase in torn Achilles tendons. You might even get stabbed with a stiletto and die.’

‘I don’t know who you’ve been dancing with, but that’s not typically how these things go. Besides, the floor is more likely to collapse than anything.’

‘Well, then, prove me wrong.’ Lily murmured something into her walkie-talkie, and as if on cue, the lights dimmed. The gentle intro to ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ shimmered across the room.

‘I’ve heard you playing this on the pianola,’ whispered Lily.

‘All right, I can’t say no to that. May I?’ Tipping back her cowboy hat so he could see her face, Mort gently put one hand against Lily’s back, his fingertips lightly grazing her bare skin. With his other he reached for her hand, gently enclosing her fingers in his.

‘Look at you, Mr Slow Dance.’

‘You don’t run a funeral home without learning some tips from the old ladies,’ said Mort, pulling her in.

She was so small in his arms, yet strong.

There was a fiery strength to her that he loved: the strength of a huge personality squished into a tiny package.

She seemed to overflow with it, with a brightness and energy that Mort suspected you’d be able to see even with the lights dimmed.

As the rest of the crowd pressed onto the floor, rocking and swaying together, Mort and Lily danced quietly on the sidelines.

Lily followed his lead so beautifully – she’d definitely partner-danced before.

Even slightly addled from the champagne, she was strong and balanced on her feet, adding little footwork embellishments that provided the perfect flourish to the music.

Mort was impressed, and enthralled. He could have danced with her for hours, moving smoothly across the dance floor, in time with the music, in time with each other.

But any funeral director knows that all good things come to an end.

The lights dimmed. The guy on the banjo picked up a fiddle and bowed a handful of notes that sent fear trickling down Mort’s spine.

The microphone squealed as he howled: ‘Who’s ready for “Cotton Eye Joe”? Get in line, folks!’