“No,” said Dad, a bit too quick. “Long gone.”
But I didn’t see as how it could be. Even then, rich customers, or guilty ones by Dad’s reckoning, were few and far between. And he looked shifty.
I let him go out drinking down the Arms by himself. And no sooner had he gone than I went out to rummage through the sheds. I was damned if I wasn’t going to find the oak, though I had my suspicions that he’d gone and sold it. At a loss, no doubt. Moving the planks of cut lengths was hard work, where once it would have been nothing, and I didn’t find anything but elm and pine. There was a lean-to right at the back, but I didn’t see that he would have put valuable wood in there. It was just used for offcuts and logs and bits of old rubbish he could never bear to give away. But he used to keep a couple of made-up cheap coffins in there in case of emergencies. It was worth a look. Ivy hung down like curtains in front of the doors, and I could get only one fully open. But I slipped inside, glad I’d brought a lamp. There was a coffin shell standing upright without its lid, a flimsy thing, and a stack of planks. I moved the coffin and took down the top planks and directed my light behind.
The light found oak almost immediately; I could tell by the color and the grain even though it was half in shadow. I could see that this was a coffin. Made up, finished. I lifted the lamp higher. A perfect, beautiful coffin. I took more planks away, getting out of breath, and then squeezed past the remainder. The coffin was carefully balanced on trestles. I touched it, and it was smooth and waxed. I could see its pale shape clearly, but I set the lamp by it to stare at the delicate inlay, the lozenges set into the side, the hand-cut beading, and the chamfered lid edge. The handles were splayed in the shape of acanthus leaves. I touched them; they were solid brass. It was a masterwork.
What on earth was such a piece doing stored in here? Why on earth hadn’t Dad said? And when had he made it—if it was him, and who else could it have been; nobody had these skills now—and how on earth had he ever afforded the materials? How the hell long had it taken him? Longer than any corpse might wait for it, I thought. Then as I ran my hand over the lid, so pleasing to touch because of the layers of wax and polish, I touched the edge of a coffin plate and bent over to see it in more detail. It was brass, too, and I saw it had a name on it, and dates set within a finely etched wreath of laurel. I lifted the lamp and leaned forward, feeling my skin tingle a little.
Francis Percy Stanton, August 18, 1891–July 1, 1916
RIP
The lamp went out, and I stood there in the darkness for a long while. Nothing is ever as you believe it to be.
So we soldiered on, Dad and I and the lad (who learned to make good, basic coffins in the end). Dad got older and more tired, and I got older and more resigned. Anyway, the old man liked us living together, and I liked it well enough; or at least I had grown used to it and he needed me. I saw that now. I never said a word to him about what I’d seen that night.
The Armistice came and went and I was trotted out with all the other village lads who’d served. Even poor Wilf Gates, whose brother brought him to the Arms in his chair. They’d carry him in and there he’d sit by the bar, dribbling a bit and having his special drink in his old mug. It looked like ale but wasn’t, on account of his light-headedness. Now they pinned his campaign medal to his chest, over his bib. There was bunting in the church hall, and tea and music and kissing.
All the while, there was another enemy creeping from the Continent. Not so long after the Armistice, we both caught the Spanish flu, Dad and me. It was a bitter thing that just as there were plenty of deaths and all close at hand, he should fall ill himself. Jim nursed us both, sometimes with his girl helping: an odd sort of family we were by then—and I came through, but Dad slipped away at Christmas. He was sixty-eight years old, and he’d probably had enough.
I went out the next day and found the coffin. My coffin. In daylight, it was as fine as I remembered, and I found I was shaking a little. This time I lifted the lid and found it lined with quilted ivory silk and tiny silk-covered buttons and the top edge fitted with brass studs. A pillow in the same silk. I levered off the nameplate and took it to keep as a testament. Then I took one of our stock plates and I cut a new one for him, though his one for me had been far better work. Then I called Mr. Rook the undertaker.
Jim was set to marry at Easter, and his girl’s father was a farmer in need of a strong hand, and I was fitter every day but at a loss with Dad gone. I had no interest in the coffin business, and anyway these days you could buy a coffin from Manchester or Bristol, ready-made, for half the price. That was the dark shadow that had lain over Dad in his last years. The great funerals were a thing of the past, the coffin was soon in the ground and the demand for bespoke wasn’t there.