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Chapter 11, edited extract

Louisa had had breakfast that morning with a man called Tim, the son of her mother’s best friend. Louisa said Tim in rather a funny way, Clare thought – quickly and with emphasis, as if it wasn’t actually a name – and Louisa would say it that way every time she spoke about him. (Later, Louisa told Clare she’d spent most of her life calling Tim a nickname that no longer felt appropriate, certainly not in a business sense. But how hard it was to change someone’s name; to call them something else with ease.) Tim had been living in Melbourne for the last fifteen years, but a few months ago he moved to Sydney, and they’d caught up.

‘Tim’s bought his own funeral home and he’s offered me some work,’ Louisa said.

Clare instantly frowned. ‘Work?’

‘Your face did something very funny just then, Clare,’ Louisa said.

‘What sort of work would you do in a funeral home?’ she asked.

‘Catering,’ Louisa said. ‘Funeral catering. In the industry it’s actually called bereavement catering. Tim said he could pass work on to me. The lady the funeral home has been using has moved to New Zealand and there’s an opening.’

‘Can you cook?’ Amir asked.

Louisa nodded. ‘I worked as a chef in my early thirties; nothing too serious, but I’m good.’

‘You’ve never mentioned that,’ Clare said. Though it did strike her there was potentially a lot Louisa hadn’t mentioned.

‘And apparently,’ Louisa went on, ‘the New Zealand lady was making a killing.’

Amir openly appreciated that remark.

‘Are you being serious?’ Clare asked. She really couldn’t tell.

‘Yes, I’m being serious. If you think about it, it’s an excellent business idea. It involves catering for the wakes and Tim says it’s a solid money earner and there’s plenty of work. The baby boomers aren’t young anymore. And Tim pointed out all the practical advantages of it. The working hours are particularly reasonable for a cooking job – no nights, no weekends. Funerals are almost always on a weekday and during the day. So that’s great. And the client expectations are supposedly very low. There’s no pressure to produce anything too fancy. He said that all people need at a wake is a bit of nourishment, and they’d be over the moon just to be eating anything other than Aunty Edna’s egg sandwiches.’

‘I’m loving the sound of this,’ Amir said.

Clare sat silent. This was such unexpected news. Already, she felt bereft at the thought of Louisa’s absence.

‘It’s obvious when you think about it,’ Louisa said, with her enthusiasm clearly rising. At least half of her sentences were now directed at Amir; her head swivelled between the two of them. ‘We’re living in an era where everything is outsourced.’

That was true.

‘I’m not sure of the logical market, though,’ Louisa added, as though the subject had suddenly occurred to her. ‘The more food-centric cultures might not be interested. They’d probably all pitch in with the food.’ She paused. ‘The stoic Anglo-Saxons? They’re not generally so handy with food.’

‘Hindus don’t have any food at their funerals,’ Amir said. ‘So rule us out.’

*

Clare straightened in her seat, realising Louisa was now addressing her. ‘The thing is, Clare,’ Louisa was saying calmly, ‘I was wondering if I could ask you for a little help – just with the first wake, and maybe even the second? Just while I get established and follow up a couple of leads with some people I know in the hospitality industry. I’m worried that if I hold off too long Tim will find someone else.’

Clare almost started. ‘Help from me?’

‘All I really need is another pair of hands. You don’t need to be a good cook. Although,’ Louisa said, with her head now turned towards the kitchen, a finger flicked towards the block of heavy-weight knives on the bench, the shelves of cookbooks, the row of steel utensils hanging above the cooktop, ‘it’s pretty obvious somebody in this house can cook.’

Clare acknowledged that with a half-smile. She and David both adored cooking.

‘I just thought,’ Louisa said, ‘that it might be a good way for you to fill in some of your free time while you’re on your long service leave. We could have some fun and make some money.’

Have some fun? She couldn’t do that. She couldn’t work at a funeral.

‘I’ve eaten Clare’s cooking,’ Amir said. ‘I’d turn up at one of your funerals.’

Louisa leant forward. ‘What if you come with me when I meet Tim again tomorrow morning, Clare? You could hear it all from the horse’s mouth and then decide.’

*

They swung into Tim’s driveway in a gravel-crunching arc. He was waiting for them, standing in the doorway at the front of his building, and he smiled and waved the moment he saw them. He directed them to park beside a hearse being washed and Clare’s stomach lurched as Louisa’s small ute followed the path of his arm. Her eyes went from the large funeral home sign to Tim and then to the hearse, big and black and glinting in the sunlight. She felt queasy by the time they pulled up.

Tim met them at the car. He looked about Clare’s age, and he smiled at them warmly; he was a generous-looking person, she decided. He was average height with light brown hair, and he was wearing tailored beige pants, a white open-necked business shirt and stylish pointy-toed brown shoes. Where was the dark suit and the tall thin figure she’d had in her mind? She looked again at Tim. There was not one obvious concession to oddity.

He turned out to be thoroughly likeable. He led them into an office decorated in Scandinavian tones, with polished blond wood and fine minimalist furniture. Sunlight streamed into the room, and it all created an aura of warmth Clare would have very much liked to have pulled off in her own home. They sat in three comfortable armchairs placed in a circle around a small coffee table and held cups of tea on their laps.

Early in the conversation, Clare sensed Tim zoning in on her. Had he sensed her discomfort or had Louisa forewarned him? He went out of his way to explain to her why he did what he did; what it was about his job that he found so satisfying. He’d now been a funeral director for ten years. Before that, he’d worked as a builder.

‘I was having trouble with my back,’ he explained, ‘and I was tired of being exposed to the elements. I started looking for a different type of job, and when I saw an ad to work in a funeral home, I answered it mainly as a personal dare, not really expecting to get the job and not really understanding what was involved. And here I am, ten years later.’

He didn’t think what he did was so extraordinary. Dying was the one thing they were all going to do. He simply provided a much-needed service, and his role was varied: a first responder, a guardian, a carer; sometimes a provider of comfort, a friend in grief. Acknowledgement of a mourner’s grief, of its existence and importance, often its magnitude, was the first step in helping them to heal, he’d found. He loved his job and not only for the acts of giving it involved. ‘We can learn a lot about something from its opposite,’ he said. ‘Like learning about peace from war. This job gives me daily reminders about life.’

He paused for a moment, allowing a silence to settle, then got down to business. ‘Okay,’ he said, clasping his hands together. ‘This catering idea. If you can get the ball rolling quickly enough, I’m more than happy to start referring work to you. I really want to help you do this.’ He turned to Clare. ‘Isn’t Louisa’s cooking amazing?’

‘I haven’t actually tasted any of her cooking,’ Clare said.

‘None? Not even the lemon tart?’

‘Tarte au citron,’ Louisa corrected. She turned to Clare. ‘It’s my speciality.’

‘Piquant,’ Tim said, ‘doesn’t even begin to describe it.’

Clare smiled.

‘The quality of the cooking isn’t under question,’ Tim went on. ‘What you need to consider with this business is its quirks. The short notice and the numbers. The numbers can vary a lot, and occasionally they’re very big. It requires good organisation.’

Clare looked at Louisa.

Good organisation hung in the air between them.

Tim was looking at Clare again and his point was obvious. He thought she was on board. And he was telling her that she would be the carrier of the organisational banner.

‘I’ve improved, Tim,’ Louisa said, and Tim gave her what looked to Clare like a completely unconvinced nod.