Page 44 of Four Weddings and a Funeral Director
Mort
As seemed to be the case wherever Lily was involved, the sedate picnic had quickly turned raucous.
Lily had produced a bottle of Pimm’s, and things had become increasingly tipsy and increasingly loud, with half a dozen of the village’s locals popping by for cake (non-wormy, thankfully) and sandwiches with more layers than your average sedimentary rock.
Mort, who became a tad introspective when alcohol was involved, and accordingly avoided it for the most part – unless he was reading something that required moody introspection, like the Schopenhauer paperback that a mourner had left on a pew after an ancient philosophy professor had kicked the bucket – had excused himself before he’d blurted out something about how he actually quite liked the way their businesses had become strangely intermingled.
How he quite liked the way their lives had become intermingled.
How he wanted their bodies to become intermingled, dammit.
Sure, animated corpses in the morgue weren’t ideal.
And the fluffy poodle statues out the front of Eternal Elegance (Funeral Edition) set certain expectations about the number of hugs Mort was willing to give strangers.
But he enjoyed hearing Lily’s voice come through the decorative grille that separated their offices whenever she had a question about napkins or typefaces or just wanted to tell him she’d spotted a hummingbird outside.
If everything went back to normal, if their businesses reverted to their original forms, what reason would she have to keep doing that?
Why would Lily want to stay in Mort’s life when Mirage-by-the-Sea was brimming with an endless parade of men who’d happily sweep her off her feet?
Would she even want to stay on in town after her lease expired, or would she just pack up and head off to less picturesque but less problematic pastures?
Mort sighed and prepared to make his way down to the prep room, where Barrett Hodgkins’s body lay, waiting for Roddy to deliver a new vat of embalming fluid after last night’s moonshine switcheroo shenanigans.
(Mort had given his current vat a sniff, and had nearly burnt his eyebrows off with the low-quality alcohol of it all.)
But because life is one big slew of interruptions all the way through to the final interruption of all, the funeral home door swung open to the upbeat tones of ‘Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough’.
It was Duggo from the Grief Guys, with Sausage in tow. Sausage shuffled in over the threshold, his ultra-low belly scuffling on the doormat.
‘Duggo,’ said Mort, confused. ‘Do we have a Grief Guys meeting today? I’m out of doughnuts, but I do have some cowboy wedding cake. It’s shaped like a wagon wheel.’
Removing his hat, Duggo shook his head sadly. ‘We don’t. Which is mostly why I’m here. Do you have … anything for me to do? That I could help out with?’
Absolutely not , was Mort’s first thought. What was he going to have Duggo do? Embalm Barrett Hodgkins? Haggle for a discount on the commemorative brass plaques that had doubled in price this quarter? Censor the rude comments in the switcherooed guestbook? Gas up the hearse?
‘It’s just so hard without my Ernestina,’ Duggo went on, prodding at Mort’s jar of black cats and making a face. Mort, feeling bad for him, plated up a slice of leftover wagon wheel wedding cake and handed Duggo a fork.
Duggo dug in, but dispassionately. ‘I just rattle around the house all day with nothing to do and only Sausage to talk to. And he’s a good boy, but not the best conversationalist.’
Sausage whined sadly.
‘Sorry, Sausage, but you know it’s true.
I’ve done all the odd jobs around the place – changed to a water-saving showerhead, patched the bad shingles, straightened all the paintings.
I’ve been doing three loads of washing a day just for something to do.
And making Sausage six-course meals. Look how low his belly is getting. ’
Mort wasn’t one to body-shame, but Sausage’s belly was about as low as the tips of his ears. At least he was doing a good job of dusting the floor.
‘So I suppose that’s why I’m here. I could use the company,’ said Duggo sadly. ‘And the purpose. I’m thinking about getting one of those robot roommates. For company. I even looked at Whispering Waters, but it’s not conducive to Sausage going out for his night-time wees.’
The more Mort heard about Whispering Waters, the less sold on it he was as an option for Gramps.
Especially since Gramps was also known for his late-night wanderings.
When he wasn’t snoring the roof down, anyway.
But the germ of an idea was beginning to sprout in Mort’s brain, a bit like the seedling wedding favours that Lily presently had on display (and which hopefully wouldn’t turn into Venus flytraps).
‘Are you and Sausage up for a drive?’ asked Mort.
An hour later, Mort and the three Grief Guys – for they’d stopped to collect Stribley and Orson, both of whom had been slouching around at home watching daytime TV and snacking on Girl Scout cookies (Stribley) and shredded cheese (Orson) – pulled up at Gramps’s house.
Mort grimaced; the house was in progressively worse shape every time he saw it, and he could no longer accept that the garden looked like that because Gramps was ‘rewilding’ it.
‘Mort!’ exclaimed Gramps, wrapping Mort in one of his squeezy hugs. ‘And … friends!’
‘Heya, Gramps,’ said Stribley. ‘How’s the plumbing holding up?’
‘Good, good,’ said Gramps. ‘No clogs or glugs, and the toilet’s draining as it should.’
‘We’re here for an impromptu working bee,’ said Mort. ‘The boys have some time on their hands, and I figured you might have some work that needed doing. Between them we have a plumber, an AV guy and …’
‘I can handle the weeding,’ said Orson. ‘A dandelion-free lawn is the pinnacle of human existence. Oh, and that light. I’ll get out the bug gunk and put in a new bulb for you.’
Gramps beamed. ‘It sounds like we’re going to have a brilliant day. And if you need to stay over, I have plenty of room. Now, how do you feel about jigsaw puzzles?’