JG's Pages for Poets  ( and the occasional prose)

Page No S7

A second story from BILL MELROSE

FINDING AUNT JUNIPER

  We never did get to Aunt Juniper’s funeral.  It all started that winter when the miners stopped digging coal.  To make sure it was dark as well as freezing, the power workers went on strike.  Not to be outdone, the dustmen let the rubbish pile up in the streets and the gravediggers stopped digging as well.  The man in the street carried on with the spirit that had got him through Dunkirk.  “Don’t you know there’s a strike on?” he said.  In the middle of it all, Aunt Juniper dropped dead.

  Her neighbour had told the policeman that I was her nearest relative.  She’d not taken the milk in and they’d broken down the door.  The policeman gave me a lift in his car.  There she was, slumped in her armchair.  You’re supposed to look peaceful when you die but she looked pretty miserable to me.  At least she was quiet, which was a relief.

                  “That’s her,” I said.  I hadn’t seen her for a couple of months but she hadn’t changed a lot. 

                  “What happens now?”

                  “ Her G.P. has confirmed death, but he can’t give a death certificate.  He hasn’t seen her for a few months.”

                  “But she’s quite old.  Can’t he just sign her up?” 

                  “I’m afraid not.  He has to inform the Coroner.  There’ll probably be a post-mortem.  Anyway, don’t you worry.  We’ll make sure your aunt gets to the City Mortuary.  Not everyone’s on strike.  Mind you, there was a big queue last time I was there.”

  Aunt Juniper’s name wasn’t really Juniper.  She was my mother’s sister Frances, Frances Berry, and she loved her gin.  She used to drink it to cheer herself up, without any noticeable success. My cousin Gina and I were her only relatives, and Gina had managed to avoid her for twenty years by going to Australia.  I had no excuse.  I lived about fifteen minutes away, so I called in every three or four months.  Let’s face it, she was a drunk.  Not a loud, happy drunk, but a sly drunk, a gin bottle in stocking drawer sort of drunk.  I phoned Gina to tell her the news.

  The policeman hadn’t been joking.  What with no heat and the wheezy chests, the old people were piling up as well.  It was a week before the Coroner’s report came through.  The Registrar of Births and Deaths phoned me up.

                  “It’s about the late Miss Berry.  I wonder if you could call at the office.  We need your signature.  Everything’s all right.  She died of natural causes.”

                  “Did they miss the liver?”

                  “I’m sorry?”

                  “Nothing.”

I picked up the Death Certificate and a green form to take to the undertaker.  Mr. Pringle didn’t seem to be in any rush.

                  “We don’t know where to put them,” he said, “the bodies, I mean.  The racks are full and we can hardly get the cars out of the garage with all those boxes lying about.  Don’t worry, though, we’ll get her.  If she’s not in the actual City Mortuary, she’s probably in the yard at the back.”

  Gina phoned to say that she was coming over for the funeral and would do a bit of touring while she was here.  Normally, she might not have been in time, but the way things were going she could have hitchhiked from Alice Springs and still made it. 

  Gina, all health and bronze, had only been here about five minutes when Mr. Pringle rang.

                  “We’ve got a problem,” he said.  “It’s this strike.  It’s caused a big blockage and everything behind it has got bunged up.”

It sounded like plumbing, but I knew what he was on about.  I’d seen pictures in the papers of gravediggers sitting round braziers wearing mitts and balaclavas.  I remember wondering where they’d managed to get the fuel. 

                  “Your aunt wasn’t in the City Mortuary or the yard.  No use looking in the Infirmary.  They’ve been choc-a-block for weeks with their own stuff.  Our best bet is to try the old district hospitals.  They’ve reopened a couple of their mortuaries.”

Mr. Pringle’s voice oozed reassurance, though he was probably finding it difficult to provide a discreet and efficient service when he couldn’t find the body.

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