Authors: Nicola Barker
She didn’t respond so he added, ‘He bought some silver material from Melissa to use to line his …’ He paused. ‘… To line the coffin he was making.’
John’s mother nodded silently and carried on with what she was doing. She finished stirring the tea in the pot and got out some cups and saucers. Even though Melissa had spent a fair amount of time in John’s kitchen on her last visit, cleaning up and filling the dishwasher, she had failed to detect what a large and beautiful collection of crockery John had accumulated. It surprised her. She was also confused about the various things that had been said about him, but she didn’t want to say anything out of turn.
John’s mother asked them how they took their tea, followed their specifications and handed them their cups. She said, ‘I was hoping that you both might be able to explain that thing in the front room to me. I mentioned it to his old boss at the advertising agency but he didn’t know anything about it.’
They entered the living room one after the other. Melissa still half expected it to be full of chips of wood and dust, she
still half expected to see John curled up on the sofa, asleep. But he was dead and gone. His mother said, ‘There was a post-mortem but apparently the body is still in a reasonable condition. Sometimes they have to cut away half the face, but they didn’t have to do that with John.’ She paused, for a second and then added, ‘Thank God.’
They had all unintentionally stood in a formal sort of semi-circle around the coffin, each holding their tea in front of them as if they were at the opening of an exhibition at an art gallery, perusing the works on show.
The coffin had been put back together and was on the woodwork table. It seemed enormous and fantastical in this small front room, like a space ship, something intergalactic. Steve smiled at it in wonder and couldn’t resist saying, ‘This is such a beautiful thing, absolutely incredible.’
John’s mother clattered her teaspoon around in her saucer. After a short pause she said, ‘Am I correct in assuming that this is a … that this is some kind of a coffin? I don’t know what else to think.’
Melissa nodded at her. ‘He’s been making it over the past few weeks. Every time I came to see him it was all he talked about, all he could think of.’
She stared at it again, nervously. After a short silence Steve said, ‘It’s a real work of art, a real show of craftsmanship. Every detail is spot on. He hasn’t quite finished the lettering, though.’ He noticed a small bit of the material that John had asked for peeping out of the corner of the coffin. ‘Is it lined yet? Did he manage that?’
Melissa turned on him. ‘Steve, John’s dead now. I don’t think his mother wants to talk about this thing. It doesn’t matter any more.’ She felt angry at Steve, but the sharpness in her voice, like the top note on a penny whistle, was derived chiefly from her disappointment at finding out that John had deceived her in order to try and make her take him seriously. She got a sort of black gratification from finding out that her
initial impressions of him had been accurate. She stared at the coffin with hatred and wanted to destroy it. John’s mother was saying, ‘Well, that is actually part of what I don’t understand. I want to know what made John do this, it just doesn’t make sense.’
Melissa answered gently, ‘Maybe this project was just like a symptom of his illness. Maybe it was just a distraction.’
Suddenly her words were like weapons. She heard her voice speaking in this room, John’s room, and it was as though she was listening to someone else, and this person was destroying all the things that John had said before, covering up his ideas and aspirations, burying them. John was dead now and what he thought no longer had any bearing. It didn’t matter.
Steve turned to her, surprised. ‘I don’t think that’s very accurate or fair, Melissa. John was always perfectly coherent whenever we … you met him. He obviously wanted to do this thing, to create this coffin. It was like a parting gift, an avowal of intention. It was obviously very important to him, given that in the end he sacrificed everything for it.’
As he finished speaking he turned to look at John’s mother. Her face seemed puffy, as if she wanted to cry. She said, ‘I can’t pretend that I’m not bitter about this. There was a letter that I wrote him on the doormat when we got into the house, a whole pile of letters there that he never bothered opening. It’s like he knowingly denied telling me that he was dying, like he gave all that he had left into making this thing and forgot about me. It would be untrue to pretend that I don’t almost hate this coffin for that reason.’
Melissa nodded immediately. ‘I think that it was a destructive and ugly idea in the first place. It trivializes everything, it pretends to be frivolous, but look what it did to John, how it cut short what little life he had left to live.’
John’s mother was frowning as she listened to Melissa. She looked uncertain and worried. Steve saw this expression and felt compelled to interrupt. ‘I think Melissa’s wrong. John has
created something very wonderful here, something that has lived on beyond him, that explains how he felt, that gave him purpose. I think that this coffin is almost like a gift to all those people that knew him and loved him in life …’ He knew that he was essentially talking rubbish, but felt that it was suddenly necessary. ‘That’s why he must be buried in it; it must be completed and used.’
Melissa turned on him, aghast. ‘You’ve got to be kidding! There’s no way that this thing can be used now. After everything that’s happened it would be obscene. This coffin is just a bundle of ideas, it shouldn’t really have been constructed, let alone completed at such a cost.’
John’s mother stood between them and stared at the coffin. She was unsure as to the relationship between the two of them. She wondered if they were a proper couple or if they were just friends. They were dressed in such strange clothes, in her eyes, that they seemed to slot into the same nightmare part of her consciousness as the coffin; somewhere modern and foreign and inexplicable. She wondered how much John had actually liked the girl. In the end she wanted only to do what was best for him.
Melissa was speaking again and she tried to listen to her. She said, ‘When we first met John he was buying the material to line this thing. Even then, in retrospect, he was obviously unwell. He wanted to pretend that he was fine, but he wasn’t. He said that he was building this coffin for someone else then, and I believed him. I think that was true.’
She knew now that this wasn’t true, but didn’t care.
Steve laughed. ‘Of course that’s not true! It’s bloody obvious that John was building this for himself. He knew that he was dying and he wanted to leave his mark. It’s perfectly laudable.’
Melissa frowned. ‘I don’t think that your artistic pretensions are appropriate here, Steve. This situation is more serious than that, more is at stake than a few silly ideas.’
Steve slammed his tea cup down on to the work-bench next to the coffin and a small portion of the tea spilled into the saucer and followed the base of the cup into a closed circle like a dyke. He saw this and thought, ‘Eventually my lips will be the drawbridge.’ Then he turned on Melissa. ‘I can’t believe that you’re being so stubborn and thoughtless and insensitive. All that matters is that we do what John would have wanted, that we do what would have made him happy. This coffin is what he wanted, it’s the thing that made him happy before he died.’
Melissa started to cry and shouted, ‘But John’s dead now, isn’t he? Nothing can make any difference to that. He’s done what he wanted and now it’s time for other people to do what they want.’
John’s mother looked at both of them and then said firmly, ‘For God’s sake stop arguing. I know what’s best for John. What’s best for John is that we remember him and respect what he’s made; maybe that we even make use of it. I don’t care if it’s embarrassing, I don’t care so long as it would have made him happy.’
Steve touched her arm gently and said, ‘I’ll finish the coffin for you if you like, and then you can make up your mind properly. I’ll start now.’
He unzipped his tracksuit top, slung it on to the sofa and said to Melissa, ‘Was he going to line the coffin on top and bottom using those silver tacks?’
The tacks were by the side of the coffin, glossy and ready for use. Melissa was still crying. She said, ‘How the hell should I know? I don’t want to stay here now, I want to go home.’
John’s mother handed her a tissue and watched as she wiped her eyes. Then she said to Steve, ‘Just do the best you can.’
Melissa was worried that her make-up had run, and went into the bathroom to blot her eyes. After a few minutes she returned and watched Steve in silence as he opened the coffin
and unfolded the material to see how much there was. John’s mother sat on the sofa and was staring past Steve and out of the window where the light shone in through the nets and glimmered on the coffin’s lid.
Melissa thought, ‘I’m going to do so much more with my life than this.’ In her mind were a dozen plans. She debated setting up a clothes stall on Camden Market or going to work for Oxfam, ‘To do some real good,’ she thought.
After a few minutes she turned and left the room and then the house without saying anything else.
The silence in the room was interrupted only by the sounds of Steve working on the coffin, draping material and pushing in tacks. He debated how to mix the colours to complete John’s work on the label. Under his hands the coffin felt like a crystal or a diamond, cold and complete, infinitely beautiful. As he worked, he couldn’t stop smiling.
When Gerald walked out on her after seven years of marriage, Rosemary realized that she would have to acquaint herself with certain aspects of household management that hitherto had remained a complete mystery to her.
After three months she had conquered the damp above the tiles on the inside of the outside wall in the bathroom. She had also learned how to use the electronic meat knife. Her slices of chicken and beef were all perfectly proportioned and as thick as half of one of her fingernails, consistent in width, wonderful.
She had one friend, Emily, who worked as an estate agent in Finsbury Park. Often Emily worked evenings, showing potential clients around properties. Emily was also heavily involved with a pen-pal called Rolf who lived in Milton Keynes and sent her long, sweet letters, occasionally enclosing poems by Stevie Smith and Margaret Atwood. Rolf knew that Stevie Smith had lived in Palmers Green and that Emily lived in a nearby street. He imagined that Emily was a bit like Stevie Smith; creative, explosive, repressed. He liked the way she wrote her ’e’s. Each letter was full of pzazz.
Rosemary cooked a lot of meat, seasoned it, sliced it, but Emily was usually busy in the evenings so she would set the table for one and open a small bottle of wine. Invariably she left the rest of the meat on a plate in the back garden, hoping to lure a fox on to the premises, or a badger. It never occurred to her to cook less. Part of her was still hoping that one night Gerald might return home, open the door with his key and declare that he had finally abandoned his new life with Claire from Accounts.
The meat was eaten, but not by a fox. It was consumed nightly by a tom cat whose behavioural problems had made
him un-house-trainable. This cat Rosemary later came to call Rasputin, because he was a complex mixture of evil and confusion.
Initially Rasputin had belonged to an old man who was dirty and who had mistreated him, kicked him when he passed by and fed him on a whim. When the old man had died, Rasputin had been cast out into the world; a world whose gentleness and kindness were absolute in comparison to what he had sadly come to understand to be ‘the norm’.
Rosemary had no particular attachment to the feline species. She liked animals in general but had never owned one because Gerald had suffered from a fur allergy which had been a perpetual cause of discomfort and asthma.
Rosemary had compensated for her lack by diverting all her affectionate energies into the large pool dedicated to keeping Gerald happy. Her favourite petting part of his body was the area of curly dark hair which descended from his belly button to his genital cluster. She padded this area like a fussy mother cat, pulling out tangles and combing it with her fingertips, stroking the hair into a glorious chestnut shine.
Gerald didn’t mind. He always washed after sex with other women. He knew that his pubis smelled of lemon.
Four months after Gerald’s departure Rosemary started attending a cookery class. She began to diversify in the culinary field. One evening she prepared a passable spaghetti, the next she created a particularly successful vegetarian stir-fry. She began to understand the joys of Cookery-for-One. There were no leftovers.
Rasputin (as yet unnamed) sniffed around in her back garden and located only an empty plate. He pushed the plate around with his nose for several minutes and then, throwing caution to the wind, attacked Rosemary’s dustbin with the sort of savagery reserved in the feline species only for breeds of exotic large cat like the puma and the tiger. He became one hundred per cent primitive.
Rosemary was watching
Bergerac
when she heard a terrible combination of clattering and smashing, tearing and throaty howls from outside. She quickly made her way into her kitchen and switched on the strip light. It flashed several times as she walked to the window and then lit up fully and reflected its light on to her small back garden.
Her initial sighting of Rasputin by the bins was rather dramatic. The flashing of her strip light created the effect of a strobe at a disco, and Rasputin was the unfortunate epileptic stuck on the dancefloor in the throes of a fit. He had a large piece of tin foil snapped tight in his mouth – the foil had some smears of beef fat stuck to its silvery surface – and was rolling around on the concrete by the bins as though he was actually on the steep slope of a descending hill. He rolled (like a spinning top but sideways) from the bins to the far picket fence and then back from the fence to the bins. He was like a bubonic sausage, tumbling around in a frying pan, fizzing and crackling and ready to burst.
This display lasted for two or three minutes and then ended as suddenly as it had begun. Rasputin sat up straight, dropped the tin foil, licked his lips and then turned his head to peruse the scattered contents of the upturned dustbin.
He remained still and thoughtful for what seemed like an age. Rosemary was impressed by his deep cognitive reverie, his apparent contemplative serenity.
She liked him. He was thin and his face, neck and upper legs were covered in pinky sores. His coat was an intermittent ginger, and his eyes were half covered in their white sleep-sheaths. He was a bit like a mantra (she thought). When he was still and thoughtful there was something lulling and repetitive about him, something that pulsated calmness and tranquillity.
She went to the fridge and got out a bottle of milk which she poured into a breakfast bowl. She then opened a tin of spam and crushed it up with a fork on a plate. Every so often she peeked out of the window to make sure that he hadn’t
moved. Rasputin remained erect and immobile. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Rosemary moving about in her kitchen. The core of mad wilderness inside his scraggy chest fluttered and pulsated. He remained still, watching the light shimmering on the edges of his whiskers.
Rosemary opened her back door with infinite gentleness, bent down slowly and placed her bowl and her plate gingerly on the back step. She was sure the cat would run away.
Rasputin watched her and growled gently to himself. His throat vibrated like a guitar string. After a couple of seconds, before Rosemary had withdrawn – he didn’t give a damn – he stood up, stretched, and then marched towards the back step, Rosemary and the two plates. He wolfed down the spam and then (unlike most cats, who lap their milk with spiky tongues) he placed his face into the bowl of milk and sucked at the liquid with great force. He drank an inch or so (in depth) and then stared at Rosemary with a dripping visage. She smiled and offered him her hand to smell. He bit her hand and then dashed between her legs and into the house.
After washing her hand and dabbing it with TCP, Rosemary stealthily crept around the house, trying to locate Rasputin (by now he had been named), but he was nowhere to be found. The only indication of his presence was a large pool of smelly cat urine in the centre of her living-room carpet. Following ten or so minutes of fruitless searching she made herself a cup of tea and tried to concentrate on
Bergerac
again.
Rasputin sidled around the house like a blotchy marmalade shadow. He marked certain items of furniture with his own special cat scent, located in glands between and behind his whiskers. His tail was fluffed out like a stick of candy floss, his mood was predatory.
Eventually he returned to the living room. He sensed a tension in the air, he knew that Rosemary was ill at ease, uncertain as to his whereabouts, vulnerable. He tiptoed under the sofa where she sat and stared out at her two legs which
looked to him like two pinkly fleshed chicken limbs; tempting, bitable.
Rosemary watched the concluding sequences of
Bergerac
and then, after yawning and gently touching and inspecting her still-throbbing bitten hand, stood up, picked up her tea cup and took several steps in the direction of the kitchen. Rasputin saw Rosemary’s lovely chicken legs move away, tensed his body and then sprang at them. He curled his midriff around her left leg with the aid of his front paws and pummelled the calf of this leg with his powerful back paws. He bit whatever flesh came to hand.
Rosemary was taken entirely by surprise. Her immediate impulse was to hit at the cat with the tea mug which she still held in her hand. The mug cracked resolutely against Rasputin’s skull and front teeth. She hit him three times before he released his grip and shot away in the direction of the hallway like a terrier down a rabbit hole.
Rosemary’s legs were substantially cut and bloodied. She dropped the cup – as though it burned her hand – then ran into the kitchen and shut the door. She poured some water into the sink and used some damp kitchen towel to wipe down her leg. After seeing to her cuts and bites she dug around in the cupboard under the sink and located an old pair of Wellington boots which she pulled gently on to each leg. As she completed this task and considered her options the doorbell rang.
Emily was on her doorstep, tired after a long day at work and keen to get her feet up with a nice cup of tea. Rosemary opened the door four or five inches wide and peered out at her. Emily smiled. ‘Can I come in?’ Rosemary looked warily behind her and opened the door slightly wider. She said, ‘I’m sorry Emily, but it’s a bit difficult at the moment.’
Emily’s eyes lit up. ‘Is it Gerald?’ She peered past Rosemary and into the hallway.
Rosemary shook her head. ‘No, it’s this cat I’ve got in the house. He’s a bit wild. I think he might bite you if you come in.’
Emily frowned. ‘Why on earth are you wearing your Wellingtons?’
Rosemary looked down self-consciously. ‘Well, he just bit my legs, so I put these on so he couldn’t bite me again. He’s slightly maladjusted but I’m sure he’ll settle down given time.’
Emily scowled and looked suitably petulant. ‘So I can’t come in for tea and a chat because you’ve got a wild cat rampaging about the house? For God’s sake, Rosemary, get rid of it. You don’t need this sort of responsibility at the moment. You’re too vulnerable. It’s silly.’
Rosemary bit her lip and looked uncomfortable. ‘There’s no need to say it, Emily, I know you’re thinking that I’ve only let this cat into my home because I recently lost Gerald and I’m trying to fill the vacuum that he’s left in my life, but it isn’t like that. I didn’t really invite him in, he sort of …’
Emily interrupted impatiently. ‘I wasn’t going to say that at all. In fact I was going to suggest that you took him to the vet’s in the morning. If he’s a stray he could have worms. Maybe you should have a TB jab if he’s bitten you.’
As Emily spoke, a loud crashing commenced upstairs in the vicinity of Rosemary’s bedroom. Rasputin had located Rosemary’s dressing-table mirror, make-up and perfume. Rosemary smiled apologetically and said, ‘I’m sorry Emily, I must go,’ then closed the door and ran towards the sound.
The following morning – Rasputin had been locked in the hall cupboard for the night, but not without a fight – Rosemary spent several hours luring Rasputin into a strong cardboard box to take him to the vet’s. She decided to wear her Wellingtons in case he escaped in the surgery, although she was sure that she must look rather foolish.
The vet stared uneasily at the howling cardboard box as Rosemary placed it on the surgery table. He said, ‘What’s in there, a banshee?’
Rosemary laughed. ‘No, it’s a cat. He’s called Rasputin. I
wanted you to look him over to make sure that he’s in good health. I’ve kind of adopted him. He’s a bit highly strung.’
The vet frowned when he caught sight of Rosemary’s left hand as she used it to push a stray piece of hair behind one of her ears, ‘He’s scratched you to pieces.’
She nodded. ‘He got my legs last night, that’s why I’m wearing my wellies.’
The vet put on a pair of padded gloves and opened the box. Rosemary half expected Rasputin to burst out of the box like a streak of lightning, but he didn’t. So she moved closer to the box and peered inside.
Rasputin was lying in the corner of the box, on his side, limp and frothing. His eyes were rolling about distractedly and his mouth was covered in foam. The vet stared at him for several seconds and then closed the box again. He shook his head and took off his gloves. ‘I’m afraid that I’m going to have to put this animal down.’
Rosemary was devastated, ‘He wasn’t like this before, honestly. He was fine up until now. He’s just a bit erratic. I’m sure he’ll be all right.’
The vet shook his head. ‘He’s obviously brain-damaged. He’s dangerous. It’s kinder to put him out of his misery.’
Rosemary put her arms around the box and picked it up. ‘He hasn’t got brain damage, he’s just been mistreated and is a bit wild. I’m sure I can give him a good home.’
The vet smiled but didn’t look happy. ‘There’s nothing you can do for this animal. I’m afraid that I’m going to have to insist that you give him to me. Keeping him alive is cruel. If you don’t give him to me I’ll be forced to report you to the RSPCA.’
Rosemary didn’t put the box down; she took several steps backwards towards the door. ‘I know he gets excitable, but …’
She thought of the previous evening when she had seen him sitting still in the garden, deep in his reverie, peaceful, benign. ‘Sometimes he can be very gentle and peaceful. I’ve seen it. I’m sure that he’ll be all right.’
She turned and left the surgery.
The following three days were nightmarish. Rasputin took over the upstairs landing and Rosemary’s bedroom. He sprayed this territory with his cat scent and refused to allow Rosemary access to these two rooms. He had the advantage of height – which he used to the best of his ability – so that he could launch attacks on Rosemary from the top step of the stairs, thereby avoiding all intercourse with her Wellington boots. When he wanted feeding he sidled downstairs and mewed plaintively. At these times he seemed almost normal. Unfortunately, as soon as the food had been provided he became intensely tetchy and aggressive. Rosemary took to standing in the garden while he ate, fearing for his digestion and her skin. She bought him a cat litter box but he proudly refused to interact with it. Instead he left sizeable deposits on the carpets and urinated like a giraffe.
On the second day a stranger knocked at Rosemary’s door. She answered promptly, carefully peering up the stairway before venturing into the hall, and stared out at him through the crack in the door.