KATY COLINS learned there is always a second chance in life.

Jilted before her wedding, she sold all she owned, filled a backpack and booked a one-way ticket to the other side of the world.

Her solo travels inspired her to pen ‘The Lonely Hearts Travel Club’ series and saw her dubbed the ‘Backpacking Bridget Jones’ by the global media. And, in a stunning twist of fate, Katy found her happy-ever-after by marrying the journalist who shared her story with the world.

She now lives in the middle of England with her husband, John, and two young children.

You can find out more about Katy, her writing and her travels at www.katycolins.com or @notwedordead on social media platforms.

Also by Katy Colins

Chasing the Sun

The Lonely Heart Travel Club series:

Destination: Thailand

Destination: India

Destination: Chile

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

Copyright © Katy Colins 2019

Katy Colins asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © June 2019 ISBN: 9780008202231

Dad, I think you’d like this one.

‘That it will never come again is

what makes life so sweet’

- EMILY DICKINSON

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Also by Katy Colins

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Acknowledgements

About the Publisher

Prologue

I straightened my chiffon scarf so the small forget-me-nots lay flat against my crisp, white shirt. A quick tug of my sleeves, brushing off imaginary fluff, a pat of my hair, tied back in a neat ponytail, and I was as ready as I would ever be. My rubber-soled shoes allowed me to silently do the last check of the small room. Every seat was presentable – the flowers arranged just so – and the windows and mirrors were spotless. Not a fingerprint or smudge in sight. The lights were set to the correct level, the gaudy air freshener that had been here when I’d arrived was where it belonged – in the bin – the synthetic lily of the valley scent no longer catching at the back of your throat. I smiled at the calming space. It looked perfect.

It had been another late night, preparing for today and the other services I had this week. I could hear my boss Frank’s voice warning me that I was going to end up burnt out if I wasn’t careful. I’d already had niggles with my neck and shoulders that he was convinced were stress-related, despite my insistences that I was fine. I’d catch up on sleep this weekend, I promised myself.

The sound of car tyres pulled me away from giving one of the red ribbons I’d looped though the end of the pews a final flourish. The family hadn’t specified a colour scheme but, as Mr Oakes had been a lifelong Liverpool FC fan, I thought they’d appreciate the gesture.

I straightened up and nodded to Leon, who was giving the sound system a once-over. He was my favourite of the team. He understood what I was trying to achieve without too much questioning, usually a slight raising of his bushy grey eyebrows or pressing his thin lips together would be all he’d say about some of my more ‘out there’ ideas. I ran a finger over the lectern. Clean as a whistle.

‘Leon, before I forget, did you get my message about next Wednesday? The Rivers family want to change their dove release from before to after the memorial slot.’

Leon nodded. ‘Don’t you worry. When would I ever let you down?’

‘Thank you.’ I was about to mention something else when a soft tinkle of an alarm began playing.

‘That’s our two-minute warning,’ I said, fishing my phone from my pocket, switching it to silent and double-checking the time.

Earlier I’d received a call that the cars had left precisely on time. I’d asked the drivers to take a slight detour that I hoped would bring some comfort to the family, if it went to plan. I had already checked the online route map for any last-minute traffic jams, diversions or roadworks, and had breathed a sigh of relief – everything looked clear.

I’d also made sure to check the weather app in case we needed to provide more umbrellas – Spring had been all over the place. I’d learnt quickly that small things like bottles of water in the cars and even sunscreen could make a huge difference. People didn’t remember to take things like that with them on days like these.

‘Seriously, Grace.’ Leon nodded at my phone, unable to hide a smile. ‘An alarm?’

‘You get on with your job and I’ll get on with mine,’ I replied politely.

‘I forgot, organisation is liberation,’ he parroted. I think it was meant to mimic me. A flourish of blush spread across his cheeks at the look I gave him.

I let it go and cleared my throat.

‘It’s time.’

He composed himself, gave a solemn nod, then pressed play. The room was suddenly filled with the sound of Gerry and the Pacemakers’ ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. It played at just the right volume from the hidden speakers that had recently been installed at my suggestion, the sound optimised so that the acoustics were the same for all the guests.

‘Show time,’ Leon whispered and pulled open the doors.

We took our positions. We were mere background players from then on. There to observe, supervise and, above all, ensure everything went to plan. The family slowly walked in, steely determination etched on their pale faces.

A light oak-veneered coffin was carried over the threshold. Heads bowed, feet shuffled, the odd gasp of breath was just audible over packets of tissues rustling. As the service got underway, I scanned my eyes around the congregation. Mr Oakes had clearly been a popular man. I’d gone to the liberty of printing off extra orders of service just in case the numbers given by his family were off slightly, and I appeared to be proven right. Nearly every seat was taken.

I sensed Leon smiling at me.

‘You’re miming the words again,’ he whispered. I looked away to hide any sign of blushing. I had a habit of doing that.

Mr Oakes’s son, Edward, made his way to the lectern. Each slow step was painful to watch. He tugged at his shirt collar and fidgeted in his black suit. Clearly a trip to the dentist or a gruelling job interview would be a walk in the park compared to this. Some people revelled in being centre stage, no matter what the occasion. Edward Oakes was not one of those people.

He took two deep breaths to compose himself. The microphone whined that he was too close, a jolting sound that clearly didn’t help with his nervous state. He jerked back and wiped his glistening forehead.

‘I’ve been asked to give a reading and then introduce the piece of music Dad loved so much.’ He swallowed and tried to focus his red-rimmed eyes on the card in his trembling hands. I ran through the short, concise speech in my head. His mother had chosen the text and the song was one they’d danced to on their wedding night.

He cleared his throat once more and began to read.

*

Before long, guests exited the room, blinking back the bright spring sunlight and exclaiming what a good service it had been.

‘He would have been proud.’

‘It summed him up perfectly. He’d have been sorry to have missed it.’

I bowed my head as they filed past.

‘Grace? Thank you.’ Mrs Oakes had come up to me and was now gripping my elbow. Her mascara had smudged and her voice trembled with emotion but she was doing a remarkable job of holding herself together. I wondered how long she would cope, keeping up this pretence.

‘You’re more than welcome. I hope everything went well?’

She let out a loud sniff. I subconsciously patted in my back pocket for the packet of tissues I always kept with me. She kept in the threat of tears and gave my arm a rub.

‘He would have been delighted. I noticed the red ribbons. A lovely touch. I didn’t know we’d mentioned him being a Liverpool fan – he was mad for them.’ She flicked her eyes heavenward and smiled sadly. ‘We were driven past his favourite pub on the way here, where he used to go and watch the games on the big screen. The landlord and the staff all lined up as we went past. It was very touching. I didn’t even know they’d been told the news.’

I’d go and thank the team for pulling that off. I’d had a long chat with the landlord, who’d insisted he do something to mark the passing of one of his locals.

‘I’m so pleased it all went to plan. You had quite the turnout too. Your husband was clearly a much-loved gentleman.’

Mrs Oakes blinked at the guests still making their way out from the ceremony room. For a second it seemed like she’d forgotten why she was here. ‘He was.’

‘I won’t keep you, but if there is anything else you need then please don’t hesitate to give me a call.’

She smiled and sniffed again. Her game face going on. ‘Oh and thank you for your lovely note, it was very thoughtful.’

I had popped it through her letterbox yesterday evening, wanting to let her know that I was thinking of her. The night before you bury your husband was never going to be a pleasant one.

‘You’re welcome. My phone number is on there if you ever can’t get me at work. Take care of yourself, Mrs Oakes.’

I left her surrounded by her family and friends and allowed myself a slight rush of pride as I walked over to my car. Another success. Mrs Oakes and the other families that I helped would never know the lengths I went to in order to deliver on the day. I was proud of the unseen ways in which I ensured a personal and heartfelt tribute to the people in my care. I took it upon myself to see the side of people that others don’t see. I knew how important this was. It made the late nights, extra work and long shifts worth it – knowing I had done as much as I possibly could.

This was not a dress rehearsal, after all. You only get one chance at the perfect goodbye.

Chapter 1

‘Morning, Mrs Craig. Can you believe it’s Friday already?’ I sang, opening the door.

Mrs Craig stayed silent.

‘It’s set to be another cold one this weekend. I just hope we don’t get the snow that they’re predicting. Can you believe it, snow in March? I wouldn’t want that to ruin your big day.’

There was still no sound from Mrs Craig.

‘Right, I’m going to put the kettle on.’

Leaving Mrs Craig to it, I settled at my desk to have my breakfast, first making sure to pop out the tiny white pills that must be taken on an empty stomach, just as Doctor Ahmed prescribed. I opened the newspaper and allowed myself ten minutes before the day properly began. Flipping straight to page thirty-four, I checked that all the names had been spelled correctly and the text was free from grammatical errors. I still remembered the waves of nausea when I’d noticed they had printed a colon instead of a semi-colon for Mrs Briars back in 2015. I glanced at the clock. I had ten minutes before the rest of the team would be in, so I decided to quickly do a last-minute check of Facebook and Instagram before any interruptions. I tried my hardest not to use those sites at work, but I’d been so busy that I was finding it tough to stay on top of things.

When the doorbell went, I didn’t need to check the video monitor to know who was waiting on the doorstep. There she was, a vision in beige. Ms Norris’s visits were like clockwork: every Friday morning, the same for the past nine months.

‘What is with this weather?’

The plump woman tutted, readjusting the flowery chiffon neck scarf that had twisted in the howling gale. It was severely tangled around her saggy, powdered jowls like some sort of butterfly-patterned noose.

‘I’m sure I never heard that nice weather man with the funny accent say anything about a hurricane this week. I just don’t know if I’m coming or going. One moment they’re saying it’s warmer than average and the next it’s like living in the North Pole. Bring on summer, I say!’

I stood up and hurried to help close the door behind her, crunching on leaves that had blown in like fallen confetti around her sensible black shoes. I’d have to get the Hoover out the minute she left. Tan-coloured tights bagged at her swollen ankles.

‘Morning, Ms Norris,’ I smiled.

Her normally sleek porcelain grey bob now resembled tousled candy floss.

‘I wasn’t expecting you to brave it out in this weather.’

‘It’ll take a bit more than Storm Elmo or whatever ridiculous name they’ve given this one to keep me indoors. Purdy doesn’t watch the weather report, so it doesn’t matter one jot to her if it’s glacial or a heatwave. When she needs a walk, she needs a walk.’

I peered past Ms Norris, now taking off her thick beige pea coat, to see Purdy tied up to the railings outside. The flat-faced pug, also beige, was shivering dramatically.

‘Er… will she be OK out there?’

Ms Norris wafted a liver-spotted hand, red-lacquered nails flashing in front of my face. ‘She’s the ultimate drama queen, that one.’

I nodded uncertainly. The pug had, thankfully, stopped shaking and was now more interested in the leaves skittering across the small drive.

‘Linda not in yet?’ She glanced over at the empty chair and blank screen of Linda’s computer. The first day Ms Norris had come in to the office she had originally been booked in with Linda, but after a series of ‘creative differences’, i.e. a bit of a personality clash, she was placed with me and we’d been working together ever since.

‘Not yet.’

‘Hmph. I should have a word with Frank about her timekeeping… Shall I just go through, dear?’ Ms Norris asked, already on her way down the corridor to the only meeting room. ‘I’ll have a cuppa, if you’re making one.’

I snapped back to attention. ‘Oh, of course, the kettle has just boiled actually.’

‘So, I’ve been thinking about songs.’ Ms Norris cleared her throat before I had the chance to put down her well-thumbed file and sit down opposite her.

‘Songs?’

‘Yes. Songs.’

I flicked a thumb through the many papers, frowning. ‘I thought we’d covered music?’

Ms Norris adjusted herself in the teal-coloured armchair. ‘Well, we had, but I’ve been thinking about my song choices and, well, I’ve changed my mind.’

I forced myself to stay impassive. This was the third time Ms Norris had been ‘thinking about her song choices’ in the last month. Not that it was a problem to amend the details, it just worried me that she would change her mind yet again before her big day.

‘Sinatra.’

‘Sinatra?’

‘I know it has been done to death but I think we should go back to “My Way” and stick with it. I don’t know what I was thinking with Vera.’

‘Right.’ I marked a thick line through ‘We’ll Meet Again’. ‘Any other thoughts whilst I have your notes here?’

‘Yes. You can take Blythe Summers off your list too. Her kids have moved her to Brighton to be near them, and spend her numbered days in some council-run nursing home being served cold soup and looking at the sea through grubby windows. Outrageous if you ask me, just so they can relieve some guilt on their part by pretending it’s what she wants. I know for a fact that she doesn’t even like the seaside that much, and I can’t say I blame her!’

I turned to the list of invitees that Ms Norris had given me a while ago. She liked to keep this up to date so that, when the time came, her friend and point of contact, Alma Dawes, would take charge of the plans, knowing the guest list was set to her requirements. ‘This is rather fun!’ she’d said when we’d first met. ‘I’ve never had a wedding so it feels exciting to be planning a big party!’

But since she’d first visited, we’d scored so many names off – people who had passed away, moved on or, perhaps most often, those she’d had a falling out with, that the guest list was looking a bit thin. But, as Ms Norris said, ‘It’s my day so I can invite who I want. The rest of them can like it or lump it.’

‘Anything else?’

Ms Norris shook her head. ‘Nope, that’s it for now. Oh! I remembered your Tupperware this week,’ she said, struggling to bend down to pick a carrier bag off the floor. She placed the empty box on the table between us with a flourish. ‘You excelled yourself this time, Grace.’

I blushed. ‘I’m glad you enjoyed them. I’ll swap you for a batch of raspberry macarons on your way out. I have to say this was your trickiest one yet.’

Our mini bake-off had started out as an innocent request from Ms Norris for a decent Victoria sponge. She was adamant that none of the coffee shops in town appeared to be able to get this simple recipe right. She proudly told me how, back in the day, she had been a bit of a star baker, but arthritis had limited her repertoire. I was at a loose end so had offered to give it a go; she insisted I used one of her recipes, and it was such a hit that I included a baking session into my weekly routine. I actually looked forward to the challenges she set me and the constructive criticism she liked to spoon out afterwards.

‘Did you use caster sugar and not granulated, like I told you?’ Her lips set in a thin line.

I nodded.

A warm smile broke out. ‘Wonderful. I’ll report back next week.’ She swallowed a mouthful of tea before continuing. ‘So, how are things with you, dear?’

‘I’m fine, thank you. Same old, same old.’

‘You got anything fun planned for the weekend?’

Same questions week in, week out.

‘The usual.’

Same answers week in, week out.

She kept her eyes on me. ‘I do wish you’d surprise me one time and tell me that you were sky diving, speed dating or getting a tattoo.’ She chuckled at the face I pulled. ‘What? It’s good to mix things up a little, Grace.’

‘Hmm.’

‘I know you can’t escape death but you can choose to live, and it’s a lot more fun with a nice man by your side.’ She paused. ‘My neighbour was telling me about her niece who’s found a lovely chap on this other dating website, Tindem or something. Apparently there are tons of them for single people, all looking for the same thing.’

She probably meant love, but I couldn’t help being cynical about the other thing many people on dating sites were looking for. I tried to ignore her pointed stare and burrowed my eyes into the dove leaflet in front of me. It costs £30 more to release a white dove at a wedding than at a funeral. Same company, same dove and same service. I looked up from the leaflet. The colour of the font and the irregularity of the pricing irritated me. Anyway, I’d sworn off dating since my ex. Henry had well and truly broken my heart, and I didn’t much fancy putting it back out there to be broken further.

‘Grace? What do you think?’

I forced a smile. ‘Yep, I’ll look into it.’

‘You must. If I was a little younger, then I’d be on there too. You’ve got youth on your side, Grace, you need to use it before it fades. Right, I’d better be off. Got a lot to do.’ She rose to her feet with a struggle. Her joints cracked as she stood.

I handed her the macarons and helped her with her coat. Purdy’s ears pricked to attention the second the door opened.

‘Bye, Grace. Hope I don’t see you soon!’

I laughed politely. Same joke every week. I couldn’t take any offence. In my job, no one ever wanted to see me again. I wouldn’t want to see me again. I watched her carefully waddle down the steps and unfasten Purdy’s lead from the railing.

With a final wave, I went to check on Mrs Craig. My regular visits might not make any difference to her day, but they mattered to me.

Chapter 2

A gust of icy wind cut through my winter coat as I waited for the temporary traffic lights to change. Amber pools of light from passing cars lit up the non-stop drizzle that fell from the heavy grey clouds. Darkness curled around me. Last week it had been bright sunshine; the row of forlorn daffodils at the roadside were presumably regretting their optimistic decision to pop open. I awkwardly used my elbow to press the button at the crossing. I’d been trapped there that morning on my way to work, forced to ignore two stocky men wearing grubby hi-viz vests who’d hollered to me from the scaffolding opposite. The workmen had long downed tools and gone home.

I’d stayed much later than I’d planned, working on the final prep for Mr Stuart’s big day next week. I hadn’t even realised what time it was. Finally, the traffic stopped and the beeps rang out. I still made sure to turn my head two, three times to check the coast was clear before I put a foot in the road. You couldn’t be too careful. I’d read recently that the number of road deaths had hit a five-year high.

‘Ah, here she is, our saving Grace,’ Raj bellowed as I walked into his shop.

‘Evening,’ I smiled.

‘Oh, wait!’ He held up a chubby hand and reached the other under the counter, which was covered in neat displays of chewing gum, reams of scratch cards and a plastic cabinet containing e-cigarette liquid. He pulled out a pocket-sized notebook and flicked through it.

‘OK, here we go.’ He cleared his throat and lowered his voice slightly. ‘Hello, Grace. How’s life?’

‘Fine, thanks.’

‘No!’

He made me jump. ‘What?’

He sighed loudly and ran a hand across his sweating brow. ‘Ah, wait. I’ve got it wrong. You’re meant to say how’s life and then I reply with, fine, pause, and how’s death! Geddit?’ He chuckled.

This was Raj’s thing. Since I’d bought the flat upstairs and he’d realised who his neighbour was and what she did for a living, he’d decided to use me as some sort of muse for his fledgling stand-up routine. A way to test out naff jokes and build up his material. It had been going on for years. If you asked him what he did he’d tell you he was a comedian, despite never performing for a paying audience in his life. His proper job was running the Minimart-post-office-deli. Every time a witty, or not so witty, one-liner came to him he’d immediately pull out his joke notebook and jot it down. Often I would ask him when he was going to actually perform this material at a stand-up night, but he’d always insist he wasn’t ready yet. I could understand why he was reluctant.

‘Good one,’ I smiled awkwardly. It was marginally better than when he insisted on saying ‘Good Mourning’ to me, heavily emphasising the mouuuurrning part, then doing a funny thing with his index fingers as if banging an imaginary drum in the air.

‘Oh, I’ve got another too. It came to me when I was helping Rani with the latest stocktake.’ He licked his lips and changed his stance as if standing under an imaginary spotlight. ‘Every year we get sent birthday cards, but how about a deathiversary card? They would really put the fun into funerals.’ He waited for my reaction.

Inside I cringed but, not wanting to hurt his feelings, I forced myself to clap weakly. ‘Ha, yeah, that would be, er, interesting.’

‘It needs a bit extra work that one. Oh, guess what!’

‘What?’

‘No, you need to guess!’

I pretended to look like I was deep in thought, clearly taking too long to come up with a suitable suggestion for this slightly tedious game.

‘Ok, I’ll tell you. You won’t get it anyway. Peter Kay messaged me back!’ He did this funny jazz hands thing and had his mouth so wide open I could see the fillings on his bottom row of teeth.

‘That’s, er, nice. Do I know him?’

‘He’s a famous comedian, Grace. He did that whole thing about garlic bread…’

I was still lost.

‘Never mind. He’s just, like, a big deal on the circuit. And now I guess I am too!’ He paused, the smile faltering slightly at my lukewarm reaction.

‘So how do you know this Peter King?’

‘Kay. I follow him on Twitter.’

I knew he was expecting me to match his levels of excitement.

He paused then scrunched up his face, thinking. ‘Well, he didn’t exactly message me. He liked a tweet. That joke I told you last week, how thinking about burial plots is the last thing you need.’

Twitter had never been my thing. From the looks of his timeline it was just him spamming comedians with some of his material. Also, I knew for a fact that Raj used a younger – and much more handsome – Bollywood actor as his profile picture. He’d shown me one time, when he’d tried to explain about likes and retweets.

‘But hey, when I do go on tour I can now say as liked by Peter Kay!’ He spread his hands across the counter as if presenting a banner.

‘Isn’t that a lie though?’

‘Nah, a bit of celebrity endorsement will do wonders for my career. Trust me.’

‘But won’t this Peter Kay find out?’

Raj shook his head. ‘He’s a busy man, Grace. Far too busy to be worrying about the likes of me. Well, for the moment at least!’ He chuckled. ‘Anyway, what can I get for you? The usual?’ He had thankfully put his joke book away.

I didn’t mind that he found my job such an amusing source of entertainment. I was used to people’s extreme reactions when they found out what I did. Being a funeral arranger is either a serious conversation starter or an awkward conversation killer. It was also one reason why I wouldn’t play the dating game, despite Ms Norris’s kind encouragement. The one and only time that I’d reluctantly agreed to go for a coffee date, just to get my mum off my back, it had ended in complete disaster. It was bad enough that it wasn’t Henry sitting across the table from me. Instead it was a slightly anaemic man named Ian whose eyebrows were so well groomed I struggled to lower my eyes to the rest of his face. When I did, it wasn’t worth it.

I’d been dreading him asking me, ‘So, what do you do?’

Explaining that I work with death on a daily basis is hard for others to get their heads around. I’m sure other people don’t go on dates and discuss the last funeral they went to, but Ian felt he needed to tell me, in detail, all about his grandad, Ron, who’d died in July 2007. I could almost taste the egg vol-au-vents served at his wake. Not exactly pillow talk. I shuddered as Ian and his overpreened eyebrows swam in my head.

‘Yes, thanks, just these.’

I watched Raj place a pint of milk and a small granary loaf into the Bag for Life I always carried.

*

Back in my flat, my coat neatly hanging on the coat stand that Mum had bought me as a moving-in present – slightly excessive to have a whole stand for just me but it passed my practicability test so it stayed. I took my notebook out of my bag and sat down at my small kitchen table to see what I needed to tick off that weekend. It was one of those compact space-saver ones with sides that could flip up if I needed to create room for more people. I wasn’t even sure it worked but it was nice to have the option.

– Check smoke alarms and change battery if required

– Sanitise sponges

– Clean inside the microwave (I made my own all-purpose cleaner using a plant spray bottle, baking soda and water)

– Wash the skirting boards

See! I didn’t have time to be larking about and bungee jumping or whatever silly things Ms Norris expected me to do. I filled my free time adequately, and before I knew it Monday would roll around again. I was very good at keeping on top of clutter in my flat, something that I was extremely proud of. Last year, Linda, my not-so-secret secret Santa, had bought me a book on cleaning that apparently everyone was reading – for what reason I have no idea. I’d flicked through it so as not to offend her, and made some exclamations on the ‘useful tips’ inside, but Linda had never been to my house, so could hardly know that I didn’t need this. Linda’s book had ended up in the charity shop bag.

Before starting anything else, I had something I needed to do. I flipped open my laptop. As I waited for the page to load I thought back to the first time I’d done this, which in turn reminded me of the first time I saw a dead body. It was during my extensive training. The female corpse was lying under a white sheet in a sterile room, with glazed eyes and a gaping mouth. She looked so… well, dead. We weren’t told her name, just that the woman had died of lung cancer in her early eighties. Routine. I vowed then to find out as much about the people in my care as I could. That woman lying stiffly on the cold steel table had a name, an identity and a back story. This desire to discover more about my clients became the motivation behind my quest to provide the perfect funerals for them, and my secret weapon had arrived in the form of Facebook.

I had been working with the family of a nineteen-year-old, Mollie Stevenson, who’d died after being hit by a car whilst crossing the road. Like many nineteen-year-olds she had been obsessed with social media, and her family proudly told me that her Facebook account had been memorialised by one of her friends. Intrigued, I’d created a Facebook profile, never having had much need for one before, and had then searched for this memorial page after work one night. It was like being given an invitation into the private life of this bubbly, happy and sociable teenage girl.

Her whole world was available for anyone to see. There were recent statuses at pop concerts, nights out and pictures of hipster meals she’d tried; endless snaps and pouting selfies with the same group of friends; numerous check-ins at places around town where she liked to go. I made sure to stay as discreet as possible, only looking and never commenting, amazed at the picture I could build up of someone’s life, even once they were dead.

I suddenly had a wealth of information about Mollie and her habits, hobbies and likes, allowing me to get creative with ways we could incorporate this into her funeral. Her mum and dad were understandably inconsolable and, although eager to give her the best send-off, you could clearly see that they were too lost in the tunnel of grief, shock and pain to think of ways to honour their daughter.

Which is where I stepped in.

Over a couple of evenings after work, I trawled through her page, and those of her friends, and was able to imagine the life Mollie had led. Her family were delighted with my suggestions of ways we could make the funeral more personal for their wonderful daughter. Obviously, I never admitted where I’d learnt this information. When Frank asked, I’d told a white lie, saying that my own (fictional) nineteen-year-old cousin loved the same sort of things that Mollie did – the trendy milkshake bar she liked to hang out at, the hula-themed nightclub in town, Arianna Grande. I knew I was stretching the definition of honesty by doing this research, but I was sure it was the right thing to do. It was as if Mollie herself was helping to plan her own funeral.

All the subterfuge was worth it when Mollie’s parents came up to me after the packed-out service, thanking me for going the extra mile. I hadn’t felt a high like it. Guests wore bright floral leis, had ‘One Last Time’ playing as they entered, and drank freakshakes at the wake. We’d managed to turn the desperately sad occasion into a unique tribute to this young woman who’d been taken way too soon.

*

Thanks to Mollie, I had learned that most people lived their lives online, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for others to discover even after they’ve died. For every funeral after Mollie’s, I scheduled in time to do my own research into the lives of the people I was lucky enough to be taking care of. After all, you can’t take this day back and repeat it. We all only get one shot at a goodbye. I took it upon myself to make sure that, for my clients, it was the closest thing to perfect it could be.

Of course, this wasn’t without its obstacles. Some people’s Facebook accounts were set to ‘private’, although it was sometimes still possible to view the biographical information they’d listed, as well as their lists of friends – many of whom had public accounts, which made it possible to glean information second-hand. Another hiccup was that many people simply didn’t have Facebook accounts. For my older clients – those who hadn’t become ‘silver-surfers’ – it was a little trickier to track them down online and build up a picture of their full lives. However, they were often in the albums of their family members, mentioned in a status celebrating a birthday or anniversary, or snapped along with their grandchildren.

Aside from Facebook and the other social media sites, there were other online avenues to explore. Google searches yielded newspaper articles, profiles on business websites, features in local community forums. Everyone, it seems, has some kind of digital footprint, and anything I could find about my clients would help to inform how their funeral would play out. This is our last moment in the spotlight, after all, and it’s the personal touches that people remember, even years later. I’ve had families come to me because of the funerals I’d arranged for people they knew, telling me that the extra details had meant so much, and had made sure it was memorable for the right reasons.

I sometimes struggled with encouraging Frank to think outside the box – not that he knew where I was getting these bolts of creativity from. He was a traditionalist at heart. He was fine with families requesting mourners wear Hawaiian shirts, matching colours, or even a quirky memento of the deceased’s hobby, as long as it wasn’t too garish. But he wasn’t as quick to get on board with the extras, like the time we had a unicorn leading the funeral procession. This was something I’d organised for a young girl, Ava Harper, aged just seven, who I’d learned had been obsessed with them. Her recent birthday party had been unicorn-themed, and I managed to find a pure white horse whose owner dressed her up as a unicorn for regular visits to the children’s hospital. Casting her red-rimmed, exhausted eyes on the tastefully decorated horse, I saw her mother smile for the first time since meeting her.

Linda and Frank didn’t know that I used social media to create my personal goodbyes. It probably wasn’t against the rules, but I’d decided it wasn’t something I needed to shout about. It was another reason I tended to do my digging at home, in the evenings or weekends. I had three services coming up that I was struggling to find details for. I was soon lost in the timelines and news feeds of people I would never get to properly meet in real life.

It was only when my stomach rumbled that I checked my watch and realised I should probably think about starting dinner.

There was a game I liked to play, which was to open the cupboard with my eyes shut and pull out a tin, and whatever I landed on was my supper. When I’d told Ms Norris about the game a few months ago she’d burst into such a fit of laughter I was worried I’d have to call an ambulance. It wasn’t right, a woman her age having such a reaction like that. I worried about her health at the best of times. When she’d finally composed herself and realised that I wasn’t laughing along too, she’d tilted her head to one side and gently patted my hand and given me a strange, desperate sort of look. I busied about and made her another cup of tea. She’s not mentioned it again and neither have I.

But I still carried on playing my game.

Chapter 3

It was my birthday. I was grateful that so far that morning neither Linda nor Frank had made a fuss. Or even acknowledged it. I’d had a text from my mum telling me she’d give me my present when she saw me next. She was busy travelling around Latvia with a new boyfriend in his retro campervan, so I wasn’t holding my breath. I’d not heard from anyone else, but then I wasn’t sure who I expected to get in touch. The one person I foolishly still wanted to hear from had long forgotten about me.

The first birthday after Henry had left me was the worst. By the end of the day I felt wrung out from all the adrenalin that had coursed through me every time my emails pinged or my phone rang, imagining it was him ringing, him emailing. Of course he hadn’t sent me a card in the post, he hadn’t sent me anything at all, not even a text message. That evening I cried and cried. He was the only person I wanted to hear from on my special day, and I got nothing. These days I didn’t raise any hope of hearing from him, and the acceptance did make the hurt a little easier to bear.

‘Ah, Grace, there you are.’ Frank wandered out of the employee bathroom wiping his hands on his pale grey suit trousers, breaking my thoughts. ‘Team meeting in five, guys!’

He wasn’t going to sing Happy Birthday like last year, was he? I wasn’t sure I could stand that level of embarrassment.

Luckily, as we took our seats around his messy oval table, there wasn’t a cake or candles or streamers to be seen. I was safe.

‘Hope you’ve all had good weekends?’ he asked Linda and I.

‘Oh yes, excellent.’ Linda slurped her tea. She would only ever drink out of the colour-changing unicorn mug that wasn’t dishwasher-friendly. ‘Ladies’ night at the Swan.’ She gave a knowing smile. ‘You should come along one of these days, Grace. Us single gals need to stick together.’

I laughed awkwardly. Linda was at least ten years older than me and fancied herself as a bit of a man-eater since her bitter divorce four years ago.

‘Maybe…’

‘Grace?’ Frank asked. ‘Good weekend?’

‘Yep, just a quiet one for me…’ I coughed as my voice crackled, reminding me that this was the first time I’d spoken to anyone since Raj in his shop on Friday evening.

‘Good. Right then.’ Frank clapped his large hands together. ‘Let’s get down to business. Linda, an update from Coffin Club please?’

Her eyes lit up. ‘I think this was the best one yet! Over two hundred exhibitors from across the world; there was loads on offer. I felt so inspired. You should come along to the next one, Grace.’

‘Er, no, well, I –’

‘Grace wouldn’t go if you paid her, isn’t that right?’ Frank chuckled.

I preferred to stay out of anything to do with Coffin Club, the affectionate name given to the annual Funeral Expo held in London. I’d managed to think up excuses to avoid going every year, until Frank had given up asking me. Linda liked to make a weekend of it anyway; she would meet up with some of her industry friends and gossip about changes to the profession, returning with armfuls of freebies.

Frank, along with my mum, thought they knew why I’d left my life in London behind me. I’d told them the cost of living, pollution, and sheer volume of people wasn’t for me. No one knew the real reason I’d fled the capital, and that was how it was going to stay.

‘Something like that.’ I cleared my throat.

‘As usual, there was showcasing of the most innovative products. Did you know that you can now add QR codes to gravestones?!’

Linda was always like this after the expo, returning buoyed up by ideas and ways we could be more future-thinking as a business, until Frank would have to gently bring her back down to earth. The funeral industry didn’t do forward-thinking very well. The ideas she always seemed most fired up about were all high-concept, and usually came with a high price tag.

‘Sorry, you know I’m not so up on my technology-speak,’ Frank admitted with a self-conscious chuckle.

‘A QR code. You know, those funny little black and white squares, a bit like a barcode, that you can scan on your phone?’ Still blank. ‘Never mind, you’d know one if you saw it. Anyway, they’re encouraging funeral homes to install this software so the families can input their loved ones’ details and then anyone with a QR reader at a gravesite can just scan it and the whole history of the person comes up!’

‘Next you’ll be telling me they’re adding phone screens and Facebook pages to tombstones,’ Frank guffawed.

Linda leant forward excitedly. ‘Actually there’s a company in Slovenia, I think, who incorporate fourteen-inch touchscreens onto headstones. At the touch of a button they share information about the deceased’s life, with videos and photos. It even has the ability to play films!’

‘Can you imagine!’ Frank said, half choking on the words. ‘The cost would be extortionate.’

I spotted Linda’s shoulders sink.

‘It’s a bit unusual,’ I said, ‘but it would be fascinating. Imagine wandering amongst graves, being able to find out the stories of the names written in the stone. Stories that we’d never get to know without some serious digging around the genealogy department of the library. It would be a great way to keep their memories alive.’

‘Exactly. Surely we could add it to the maybe list?’

‘I’ve been in this business for nearly forty years and never heard of such a thing. But I guess times have changed. People want bells and whistles and eco, vegan, plastic-free funerals nowadays…’ Frank trailed off, looking miserable. ‘OK, let’s move on. Can we have an update on the recent services? Grace, if you could start first please?’

I flicked through my notepad, ignoring a slight huff from Linda that her idea had been rejected so quickly.

‘Sure, well the Davidson family burial was well attended and went without a hitch –’

‘Ah, let me stop you there. I actually have my own feedback somewhere.’ Frank flicked through his folder. ‘Ah, here.’ He picked up a torn white envelope. ‘It was addressed to me but really it should have gone to you.’ I felt the rush of heat on my cheeks as I read the heartfelt thank you card from Mrs Davidson for the funeral we’d arranged for her husband, Ernest. A keen fisherman and golfer who’d lost his long battle with throat cancer. ‘Another one singing your praises.’

‘You’re going to need to find another blank wall to fill soon, Grace,’ Linda said.

‘I hope that’s not a hint of jealousy, Linda?’ Frank let out a tinkle of a chuckle.

‘Of course not! I was just pointing out how well Grace is doing. I think it’s very sweet receiving a card and all,’ she said, crossing her arms in front of her ample chest, belittling the heartfelt words from Mrs Davidson. ‘But can we also remember that I’ve brought in yet another prepaid funeral plan sign-up?’

‘Yes! Terribly sorry for not mentioning that. A new monthly record, actually,’ Frank spluttered.

Linda sat back in her chair and smiled smugly. People like Ms Norris, who paid upfront, and got their big day all planned out and in order whilst they were still with us, made a huge difference to the company accounts.

I needed to up my game. Linda was right, the many incredible acknowledgements from families I’d helped were heartwarming, but they didn’t always bring any further business – unlike the prepaid sign-ups that she was renowned for. Linda had this can-do attitude that I’d never seen in anyone before. I wanted to stay positive and trust in the word-of-mouth recommendations from my personal funeral services, but that wasn’t something that could be as easily counted as numbers on a page.

‘The truth is we all need to think outside the box more, without any extra budget unfortunately. Instead of pie-in-the-sky technology fads we should focus on securing more prepaid sign-ups, getting more five-star reviews, and making the effort to push what we do out there into the community – as well as continuing to provide excellent customer service.’

Simple.

‘Another thing I wanted to mention is the Love of My Light service. I know it’s ages away, but I want us to get a little more creative with it this year.’

The Love of My Light service was a sort of remembrance event held in the church at the top of town in November. There was something soul-nourishing about standing amongst those who were there for one reason: to remember the person or people they had lost, to light a candle in their honour, and to support one another in whatever stage of grief they were.

‘Last year was great,’ Frank flashed a look to Linda; it had been her project for the past few years. ‘But I’d like us to get more community-focussed. I’m not saying we should use it as a marketing opportunity, but I think it makes sense to make sure the people of Ryebrook know what we’re able to offer. Great – I think that’s everything. Back to it, team!’

*

‘What do you think about tribute wreaths, dear, the ones that spell something out, like “Nan” or “Poppa”?’ Ms Norris asked, shuffling through the pamphlets spread in front of her. ‘I’ve never had my name in lights so maybe my name in petals is the next best thing? But, then again, perhaps they are a little on the garish side. I don’t want people to go away from the day discussing the lovely service that was ruined by an in-your-face flower arrangement.’

‘Hmm.’

‘Or, even worse, imagine if the florist made a mistake with the spelling! Grace?’

‘Sorry,’ I shook my head. ‘I was miles away.’

‘Please tell me it was some delicious daydream about an attractive man?’

‘Er, no.’

She let out a deep sigh followed by a wink. ‘Shame. Well you were certainly lost in some deep thought. You need to watch you don’t get wrinkles frowning away like that.’

I raised my eyebrows dramatically to iron out any creases. ‘Sorry, very rude of me. What were you saying about flowers?’

‘That can wait. Come on, tell me what’s on your mind. I’ve not seen you looking so perplexed before.’

I wafted a hand. ‘It’s just a work thing.’

‘Linda?’

‘No – listen, it doesn’t matter.’

‘Oh blimey, Grace, will you spit it out? A problem shared is a problem halved.’

I took a deep breath. Over the many months of Ms Norris’s weekly visits we had built up an odd friendship, one I felt that I could trust enough with what was going on in my head.

‘Well, I feel like I need to do something to attract more business. Linda is doing a really good job at bringing in more prepaid funeral plans, and I just feel like I’m letting the side down.’

‘Ah, and how is Lovely Linda managing to go about this?’

‘Cold calling mostly.’

She let out a sort of ‘pfft’ noise.

Linda had no fear of calling a very recent widower, or grieving parents, and making it seem like she was helping by reminding them they ought to be considering their own funeral plans. I was much happier in my comfort zone of funeral planning, and getting lost in the detail of personal preparations. I thought it best to leave the families to focus on their grief after the funeral, not to be pestering them to think about how they wanted their own big day to be.

I found it unbelievably tough to ask someone if they’d thought about their own death and, if so, what they wanted their funeral to be like. Of course, I knew how important it was to get things laid out and decisions made so you didn’t burden those left behind, but it’s still not something people actively choose to think about. Judging by Frank’s latest team meeting, I was going to have to get over this, and quickly, whether I liked it or not. My stomach churned at the thought of it.

Ms Norris scrunched up her neat nose, thinking. ‘Hmm. Well, you both have different skill sets so the key would be to maximise on yours. I read that once, in a Bella magazine article, I think. Anyway, what I’m saying is that you’re a people person. You’re excellent at planning and have a lovely bedside manner. So, do that.’

‘Sorry? Do what?’

‘Well, I imagine many people are fascinated by what you do, but don’t have a clue what that actually is. Why don’t you tap into that and use it as a way to break some of the negative stereotypes people must have, as well as encouraging people to get their funeral plans in place?’

I looked at her blankly.

‘What I’m thinking is for you to host a sort of Ask a Funeral Arranger event. You could make it a nice and relaxed evening with a friendly, informative Q and A, to show people how warm and lovely you are so they don’t feel like they’ll be getting the hard sell. In fact, you don’t need to sell anything. Just being you will be enough.’

I tried to hide the snort that escaped as she said that. ‘I’m not sure.’

‘We could pick some of your excellent bakes and serve them with tea and coffee – that would certainly bring the crowds in! I know no one can resist a slice of your apple flapjack.’

‘Your apple flapjack,’ I corrected her.

I appreciated her help, but there was no way I could stand up in a room full of strangers. The thought alone made me feel itchy and uncomfortable. My preferred position was behind the scenes; Linda was the one who took centre stage.

‘You don’t give yourself enough credit. I’m sure you would surprise yourself. Right, I’d best be getting on, but think about my idea. I’d make sure to come along so at least you would know one friendly face!’

‘Thank you.’

I led her to the front door and helped her with her coat. Her heart was in the right place, even if her suggestions were a little off the mark.

‘Oh, and Grace?’ I turned to see a wide smile on her cheeks. ‘Happy birthday.’

She patted a five-pound note into my hands and left.

Chapter 4

Most of my morning had been spent on the phone to the crematorium, trying to stay calm as they explained that staff shortages had meant a host of unexpected delays. They also, like everyone else, tried to blame the recent snow flurries for interfering with their schedule. I downed my second cup of strong coffee, more than my daily quota, just to get me through the nerves of passing on this bad news to the families desperate to lay their loved ones to rest. Each phone call only brought frustration that I couldn’t do more. I also still had to work out a way to get some prepaid funeral plans under my belt. It had been a week since our last staff meeting and I had brought in precisely zero, to Linda’s three. I’d be taking Ms Norris up on her Ask a Funeral Arranger idea at this rate.

My stomach grumbled so I decided to take a break and have some lunch. I was tucking into a tuna salad when there was a ring on the doorbell. I stopped chewing and peered at the intercom. Frank had positioned it too high, so all I could see was the dark blonde head of a tall man bobbing around the entrance. I double-checked the calendar on my desk; we didn’t have anything in the diary. Swallowing too quickly, a piece of romaine lettuce lodged in my throat as I pressed the buzzer.

‘I’ll be right there,’ I rasped, taking my finger from the button to cough louder.

I hurriedly flicked through the diary again. Usually, family visits were arranged so we could make sure they went undisturbed and – crucially – ensure that we wouldn’t be talking with our mouths full of lunch. I scanned Linda’s messy desk and saw a Post-it note stuck to the bottom of her laptop screen. Callum Anderson visit, 27th @1pm. That must be the man bobbing up and down on the doorstep. Cursing Linda and her haphazard organisation style, I stood up and straightened my skirt.

‘Good afternoon, so sorry to keep you –’ The apology froze in my mouth. The man in front of me was wrapped in a light grey shearling jacket and was very handsome. I wasn’t good at dealing with handsome.

‘I think I’m a little early. Callum Anderson? I spoke to, er, Linda, I think?’

His deep voice was strained. His bloodshot light blue eyes, behind tortoiseshell glasses, refused to meet mine, and he was wringing his hands together so vigorously I thought he’d pull the skin off.

‘Hello, yes, please come in, Callum. I’m Grace, Grace Salmon,’ I offered a hand that he took with a strong, firm grip.

His clean, navy trainers were planted outside, as if by stepping over the doormat it would all become real. He teetered cautiously for a few seconds longer, unsure of me and this whole terrifying process he was about to embark on.

‘Salmon?’ His jaw was tense but his lips curled ever so slightly.

‘Yes, like the fish.’ Growing up, I had hated my surname. But here, in this job, it brought light relief to those who needed to make that first step into my world, and their unknown future. If I could provoke a hint of a smile with my ridiculous name then that more than made up for the years of teasing at school. ‘Would you like to come through? I’ve just made coffee, if you want one?’

I held the door open wider. He nodded then moved one foot over the step and into the neutrally decorated room.

‘Er, yeah, coffee would be great.’ He cleared his throat, glancing at the framed picture of a woodland in spring on the wall opposite.

Inoffensive, Linda had claimed as she’d roughly banged a nail into the wall when she went through the last redesign in here. It was marginally better than the daffodils in a watering can that had been there previously.

‘Black, no sugar. Thank you.’

After he was seated, I went to get the necessary paperwork and made us both a drink, knowing neither would get touched but that at least it would be something to hold onto. As the coffee machine whirred to life I scanned Linda’s desk again, hoping for something other than just Callum’s name to inform me who he was here for. Usually the initial telephone call covered the details we needed, so I wouldn’t have to go over old ground, asking people to repeat fresh, painful information that burned their tongue. But there was nothing in amongst Linda’s doodled drawings, half-finished crossword puzzles and scribbled shopping lists.

I returned to the room, bracing myself to ask Callum for the details of why he was here, again. He was hurriedly tapping out a message on his phone.

‘Here you go.’ I placed the mug on a coaster in front of him. He put his phone on the table and sat up straight. ‘So, Callum, will anyone else be joining you?’

‘My sister, Mel – er, she should be here actually. She’s always running late. I thought today, of all days, she’d be on time…’

He cleared his throat again.

‘OK. Would you like us to wait for her?’

He shook his head. ‘Let’s just get on with it.’

I opened a fresh file and pressed down on a pen. ‘I’m very sorry but my colleague didn’t pass on the information you would have given her when you made this appointment. Are you OK to tell me who we are here for?’

Callum clenched his jaw and absentmindedly played with his silver wedding band.

‘My wife. Abbie.’

‘And when did Abbie die?’

‘Sunday night. The twenty-fifth. Two days ago.’ He shook his head as if it had felt like a lifetime, not just forty-eight hours. He sighed and rubbed his hands over his face as if forcing himself to wake up and focus. ‘She died in a car accident out by Rowberry Way.’

Immediately I knew. The crash had been the talk of the Post Office. I’d overheard the girl behind the counter complaining to her colleagues that she’d had to take the long route in, as police had blocked the road to retrieve a car from a ditch. It was the Arctic cold weather, she said, and black ice on the road, combined with rows of hazardously placed oak trees lining the winding country lane. It was a death trap waiting to happen.

People take that corner too fast all the time, someone said. There should be speed cameras or better lighting, someone else loudly agreed. Probably a teenage boy racer trying to impress a girl, an old lady said, to a collective murmur of agreement, as if a death sentence served him right for his stupidity. I’d bitten my lip, waiting for them to hurry up, wondering if I would be dealing with the arrangements. Now I was sitting opposite the man whose life had changed because of that night.

‘I just need to get some details from you, if that’s OK?’

He nodded.

‘What’s Abbie’s full name?’

‘Abigail Sarah Anderson. But everyone calls her Abbie.’

‘Date of birth?’

‘Nineteenth of March. She’d only just turned thirty-three, last week.’

A shiver trailed up my spine.

We shared the same birthday.

‘Thanks.’ I tried to brush the surprise of this huge coincidence away, and turned back to the matter at hand. ‘Now I know this must all feel unreal, but do you have any thoughts at this stage of what sort of service you might like?’

He fixed his blank, bloodshot eyes on mine as if I’d just asked him if he could solve an algebra equation using morse code. He shook his head.

‘The two options are cremation or burial. If you have an idea of which Abbie would have wanted, then we can focus on that?’

He paused for a second before nodding his head assertively. ‘Cremation.’

‘OK. Now, there are a few things you’ll need to think about, such as the type of coffin you would like. In this brochure, you can see the caskets available, from wicker to cherry wood.’ I swivelled the thick guide over to him. ‘Callum, I know this is unbelievably tough. I just want you to know that whatever you want for the service – whatever Abbie would have wanted – is a possibility.’

Callum didn’t speak, but scanned his tired eyes across the images, his hands repeatedly rubbing at the same patch of skin on his arm.

‘Can you tell me about Abbie?’

For some families, all they wanted was to tell me every detail about their loved ones. For others, that question was the grenade that sent them hurtling out of the room, too tearful to carry on. I asked it so that I could hopefully pick up on the details they shared, to help them with some of the decisions they needed to make. So far, I knew that her birthday would make her an Aquarius, like me. My mum was into the whole star-sign thing, telling me that was why I was truthful and imaginative but could also be detached. I wondered if Abbie had similar attributes, or if it was a load of mumbo jumbo nonsense.

‘She just loved life. Hurricane Abbie, I’d call her. She was this… beautiful whirlwind.’ He swallowed and closed the brochure, stamping a thick hand over the front cover as if to block it out. ‘She travelled the world as a model. She’s gorgeous. She was, she is… Sorry, I’m getting confused with the right tense to use.’ He shook his head and sniffed loudly.

‘I’m here! I’m here!’ An explosion of wild, poppy-red hair burst into the room. ‘The door was unlocked so I just came in. Oh, Cal! I’m so sorry I’m late!’

At the sight of his sister, I presumed, Callum shot to his feet and let her wrap her arms around him. A waft of sweet perfume came in with her.

‘I’ll give you two a minute,’ I said, getting to my feet.

‘No! I’ve already held things up. Sorry, I’m Mel, Callum’s sister.’ She offered her hand. It was warm and soft, and a collection of bangles clinked together as I shook it.

‘This is Grace Salmon,’ Callum said, using the heel of his hand to rub at his eyes.

Mel flicked an odd look at her brother then smiled warmly at me. ‘Hello, Grace Salmon, I’m so sorry for being late. Finn just wouldn’t get his shoes on and then Noah needed a full nappy and outfit change. You should have seen the state of him. A proper poonami. Oh…’ She abruptly stopped chatting as if realising where she was. Her voice grew low and serious. ‘Oh god, sorry. Are there…’ She bobbed her head to the closed door and grimaced. ‘You know? In there…’

Callum was swiping through his phone, apparently unaware of what his sister was trying to ask. I nodded, confirming that, in the room next door, separated by a flimsy wall, was a dead body. Or as I preferred it: Mr Sullivan.

‘Oh, right.’

This was all she needed to compose herself and take a seat next to her brother, pulling her chair closer to his and unwinding a long, bobbly, mustard-yellow scarf from her neck. She was wearing a multi-coloured jumper with pompoms dangling from the cuffs of the bell sleeves. My sombre navy suit seemed even more dour in her sunshine light. She placed a hand on Callum’s and squeezed gently. His shoulders dropped a fraction at having her by his side.

‘There’s going to be an inquest, that’s what the police said,’ Mel said to me. ‘At first we didn’t know if we had to wait for that to happen before we planned the funeral, but then they said it could take months and that we were to go ahead.’

I nodded. ‘Inquests can take a while, depending on the case or the backlog that the courts are dealing with. My advice is to try and put that to one side and focus on what you can control.’

‘It was an accident,’ she added. ‘No one was to blame. It’s not like there will be a trial or anything.’ I noticed Callum hadn’t moved his eyes from the carpet. ‘It was just a horrific accident. You don’t expect black ice at this time of year. But I guess they need to tick whatever boxes they have to tick.’

‘Hopefully it won’t take too long. Your most important job right now is to take care of each other and get through as best you can. Can I just ask, Callum, will you be the main point of contact or would a member of Abbie’s family like to be involved too?’

‘She didn’t have any siblings and her parents won’t be attending.’

Mel must have seen the look on my face. ‘They weren’t very close, Abbie and her parents. They live in Borneo and rarely visit, too busy with their new life as prominent members of the Borneo Primates’ Committee to think about us. But they are arranging the catering for the wake, so that’s something, I guess.’

Callum turned to his sister. ‘We need to pick a coffin.’

‘Oh, right, of course. Well…’ Mel struggled not to purse her lips. ‘The most expensive, knowing Abbie.’ Callum flashed her a look that silenced her immediately.

‘We’ll go for this one.’ He stamped a thumb on the image of the standard light oak coffin. I wondered if Mel had clocked that it wasn’t the most expensive one.

‘Do you think you’d like something to go in the local paper? An obituary notice?’

‘Does anyone even read them?’

‘Well, it will be online and in the actual paper. It’s a good way of letting local people know, especially if you have any requests when it comes to flowers or donations.’

‘Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.’ Mel spoke for her brother.

‘No problem. Regarding timings, I will need the text sent to the paper by Wednesday – tomorrow – for it to appear in Friday’s edition. If you’re happy with that, then in terms of dates, I think we’ll be looking at the funeral to take place about a week or so after that. Possibly the Monday or Tuesday. Do you have a preference for which day or time?’ They both looked at me blankly. ‘Some people like a morning slot and others prefer for later in the day so guests can arrive if they are travelling some distance.’

‘Let’s go for Monday. It’s already the most depressing day of the week,’ Mel said, as Callum nodded in agreement. ‘I think morning would work best. You don’t want to be waiting around all day…’ Better to get it over with, Mel looked like she wanted to say.

‘The ninth, then. I’ll run it past the crematorium guys then give you a call to confirm so you can start telling people.’ I cleared my throat. ‘Have you been to many funerals? I just wondered if there was anything that you had experienced before that you might like to recreate?’

Mel took a breath. ‘Well, our mum –’

‘No.’ Callum immediately cut his sister off and flashed her a warning look. ‘We’re not regular funeral-goers.’

The room fell silent.

Mel caught my eye and bit her lip. ‘Can we leave it here for now? There’s a lot to take in, we’re still just getting our heads around the fact it’s even happened.’

‘Of course.’ I closed the file softly.

‘It still feels like we’re all in a daze,’ Mel added, getting to her feet.

‘It’s bound to feel that way but you’ve given me a lot of really helpful information already, so I can make a start.’

I watched as Mel linked an arm through Callum’s and helped steer him out, chatting about going to grab a coffee before she needed to get to the childminder’s. Mel flashed a look of gratitude back at me. I could see how desperately she wanted to do or say the right thing. Her broken-hearted brother looked as if he was on auto-pilot, wanting to be told where to go and what to do, in order to not have to think too deeply about how his life had changed in a split second.

Chapter 5

‘“Ask A Funeral Arranger,”’ read Frank. ‘“Everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask.” I think it has a great ring to it. I hope you get the outcome you deserve.’ He smiled, looking again at the printout of the e-flyer I’d created and posted on our Facebook page. ‘I have to say I was surprised that our resident wallflower would be hosting an event like this.’

You can say that again.

‘It’s good to try something different every now and then.’ I was convinced my over-the-top laugh belied how I really felt.

Since I’d decided to throw caution to the wind and invite perfect strangers to the back room of a church hall, I had to continue with this fake bravado. I’d spent ages writing and re-writing the perfect welcome speech, succinctly summing up my job role and what we offered to those who got their affairs in order with us. As long as I had those index cards in my hands I would be OK, or so I kept telling myself. Sadly, Frank couldn’t make it, and Friday nights were Linda’s regular girls’ night to drink one too many Malibu and cokes and watch the burly men of the Red Lion play darts. I’d seen her Facebook statuses. To be honest, I was grateful that she wasn’t able to pop down. I didn’t need her judging me from the sidelines. I was already a little wound up at the way her eyes had rolled and her painted lips had curled up at the edges every time Frank had mentioned tonight.

It had seemed so simple to put the evening together but, in reality, it had taken a lot more work than I’d imagined. First, I’d had to find a suitable – and free – venue. There were fire exits, disabled access and general health and safety to think of. I had followed Ms Norris’s idea of baking a selection of some of my favourite cakes, but I didn’t want to isolate anyone with dietary restrictions so had spent several evenings trapped in the kitchen making sure I would please any gluten-free, dairy-intolerant vegans who might attend. Maybe Linda’s approach of just cold-calling potential customers would have been easier. It certainly would have been quicker, and saved me a small fortune in ingredients. I just knew there was no way I’d have been able to pick up the phone to a stranger and encourage them to sign up to their funeral in the effortless way she did it.

‘Best of luck tonight, Grace. I have to say I can’t wait to hear how you get on!’ Frank smiled.

I felt my stomach do a tiny flip of anticipation.

*

Maybe the clock on the wall was wrong. It looked like it had been there for some time, after all. In fact, the whole of the room could do with a bit of TLC. No wonder they’d let me hire it for free. My eyes strayed to the peeling paint chips and scuffed wooden tables. I’d tried my best to get rid of the musty smell in here with the air freshener I’d brought with me, but it hadn’t managed to do the job. I re-checked my watch, which was showing the same time as the clock, and kept my gaze on the doors, waiting for them to open, shifting on an uncomfortable seat.

The circle of identical red plastic chairs that I’d painstakingly heaved into position around me were all empty. The only sound was the loud ticking of the annoyingly correct wall clock and my feet nervously tapping on the faded lino.

The trestle table I’d set up at the front of the room, under the stained glass window, was full of untouched cakes, neatly laid out biscuits and chilled cartons of orange juice, alongside fanned out forms and free pens. Two balloons with our company logo on bobbed forlornly over the floor, mocking me and this seemingly stupid idea.

I’d been sitting there for the past twenty minutes, psyching myself up whenever the flash of headlights swiped past the window. I swallowed the lump in my throat and shook away the tears threatening to prick my eyes. Someone had to show up, surely? Not even in my wildest nightmares about holding this event did no one turn up. But that was how it appeared to be.

I sighed loudly. Maybe I should have done more to get the word out? When I’d posted about it on our Facebook page it had received a couple of likes, which had foolishly buoyed my confidence. I thought the residents of Ryebrook would be queuing up to ask me something. Maybe I should have booked a different location? Taken a stall at the library, or had a table set up in the atrium of Asda instead? Perhaps I should have chosen to hold it on a different day of the week. People clearly didn’t want to think about their own funeral on a Friday night.

I told myself to give it another five minutes then call it quits. Linda’s face would be painful when she heard what a disaster it had been, but not as painful as sitting in an empty church hall on my own, listening to the clock hands ticking by.

When the tediously slow five minutes were up, I wearily got to my feet and pulled out the Tupperware boxes to pack away the homemade cakes. Maybe there was a homeless shelter I could go and drop them off at. Someone should benefit at least.

Suddenly I heard faint footsteps, followed by the creak of the door opening.

‘Ah, Grace! Sorry I’m late –’ the familiar voice chimed, then stopped. She glanced around the room. ‘Am I late? Or am I early?’

‘Evening, Ms Norris!’ I couldn’t help but smile at her. ‘You’re right on time. Come on in.’

‘I wasn’t sure if I could make it, which is why I didn’t mention it to you earlier. I had to see if Alma would watch Purdy for me, you see, and Alma is a bit of a stickler for a routine,’ she babbled, taking off her coat and laying it on an empty chair. ‘A bit like you, actually,’ she chuckled.

‘Well, it’s great to see you. Help yourself to some cake or a drink. You, er, you didn’t see anyone else out there did you?’

‘No dear, I’m afraid I didn’t.’

My heart sank. Stay positive, Grace.

‘I’ll just go and have a final check.’ I jogged to the creaky doors, out to an empty corridor, and peered through the main doors. Ms Norris was right; not a soul in sight.

‘So, erm, thanks again for coming. Possibly it’s the weather keeping others away…’

At that exact moment, the thin window frames, dripping in condensation, gave an almighty rattle.

‘These are delicious,’ she grinned as crumbs of chocolate brownie fell on her plum-coloured skirt.

I couldn’t help but smile. ‘It’s your recipe. I have to say that using a dash of cayenne pepper really worked.’

‘It’s been my secret ingredient for many years.’ She tapped a finger to the side of her nose.

I glanced at the clock. Seven thirty-five. We had this room for another twenty-five minutes. I couldn’t pack away now; she’d made such an effort to brave the outdoors to attend.

‘So…’ I cleared my throat and rummaged in my suit jacket pocket for my index cards. I was about to launch into my pre-prepared speech, for something to fill the time, when a loud creak stopped me.

‘Is this the funeral meet-up thing?’ asked a wobbly, high-pitched voice.

I spun on my chair to see a young boy – he couldn’t have been older than fifteen or sixteen – stick his jet-black, shaggy hair into the room. His dark eyes darted from side to side. The rest of his body remained outside, unsure whether or not to enter.

I leapt to my feet. ‘Oh yes, hi, please come in!’

The lad shuffled in, dragging his feet. He refused to smile but his serious dark brown eyes lit up when he saw the cakes on offer.

‘I’m Grace – I work at Ryebrook Funeral Home – and this is Ms Norris.’ The old lady gave a cheerful wave, dropping more crumbs to the floor.

‘I’m Marcus,’ he mumbled, sloping into the room. ‘Can I have some cake?’

‘Sure, help yourself. There’s plenty to go round.’

Hungrily, Marcus started filling his paper plate with one of everything. I glanced at the clock. Seven forty. The invite had said seven. I wasn’t very good with things not running to plan, but at least people had shown up. Never mind the fact that Marcus was not exactly our target audience, being much too young to sign up to a prepaid funeral plan.

I decided that I would still stick to my original script. I should be able to get through everything before the line dancing group needed the room at eight p.m. I stood up and cleared my throat with as much authority as I could muster. I was conscious that we looked a bit ridiculous, the three of us, sat in such a large circle of empty chairs. I focussed on the pastel-coloured cards in my hands.

‘Thank you for coming this evening. My name is Grace Salmon, and I’m a funeral arranger at Ryebrook Funeral Home. We are a small business who have been in the funeral trade for over fifty-five years. Our aim is for you to have your funeral your way, on your big day. I wanted to host this event tonight as a way to debunk some of the myths around what we do. For example, not all funeral arrangers are fans of Halloween.’

I chuckled. My awkward laugh was the only sound in the room.

‘Um. Anyway – there have been a lot of misconceptions from pop culture and horror films, but the truth is that we’re here to assist in one of the most rewarding and important events, in the most dignified way that we can. I’m going to run through a few of the other popular myths before passing over to the room for your questions –’ I stopped abruptly and looked at the clock.

‘Actually, as there’s only the three of us you probably don’t need to hear all of this…’ I sat back down, feeling self-conscious, and placed the stack of cards on the empty seat next to me. ‘We don’t have much time left before we need to go, so, er, maybe it’s easier if you ask me whatever you would like to know and I’ll try to answer as many questions as I can?’

There was a silence, only filled with Marcus loudly chewing on a slice of Bakewell tart.

‘I’ll start.’ Ms Norris raised a wrinkled hand. ‘I wanted to ask you, Grace, what made you get into a career like this?’

‘Well,’ I cleared my throat. ‘I always knew I wanted to work in a role that helped others.’

I parroted the well-worn answer. Tonight had already been a disaster; there was no chance I was going to dive into the truth.

Marcus slowly raised a skinny arm. ‘I have a question.’

I smiled at him encouragingly. He had a smear of chocolate from one of the brownies on his chin. ‘Go on.’

‘My grandma died last year and I want to know…’ He paused.

I expected him to ask what happened to her body, how embalming works or what temperature the incinerator reaches – a teenager fascinated with the ghoulish side of our world. I wasn’t prepared for what he eventually found the words to ask.

‘I want to know…’ A deep intake of breath. ‘When I’m going to start feeling happy again?’

A soft, gentle sound passed from Ms Norris’s lips.

‘I’m so sorry to hear that, Marcus.’ He was blinking rapidly and refused to take his eyes from his scuffed trainers.

I paused for a moment. ‘What was her name? Your grandma?’

‘June. She was eighty-seven, which everyone said was “a good innings” and “her time” and other things like that. I just don’t get why there’s loads of old people still alive when she isn’t. It’s not fair.’ He angrily kicked the leg of the chair next to him then flashed a wide-eyed look at Ms Norris. ‘God, sorry. I didn’t mean, like…’

‘It’s quite alright, dear. It’s very normal to be angry when you lose someone you love.’ Ms Norris bobbed her head in sympathy.

Marcus lowered his voice. ‘She was like you, actually. She loved those mini apple pies from Aldi. She’d pick off the edges and secretly give them to my dog when my mam wasn’t looking.’ He pointed to the neat line of crumbs that Ms Norris had left on her paper plate. ‘I just miss her so much.’ His voice cracked and tightly bunched-up fists flew to stem the tears from his eyes. ‘My mam thought if I came here tonight it might help…’

I’d foolishly expected questions on what options people have during a cremation, the most popular funeral songs, or whether eco-funerals were the future. Not this.

‘Do you talk about June – I mean your grandma – much at home?’ I asked gently.

Marcus shook his head.

‘When I lost my Billy I could hardly function,’ Ms Norris said, handing Marcus a tissue that he accepted. He blew his nose noisily.

‘I’m so sorry to hear that.’ I paused then turned to her. ‘Who’s Billy?’

In our regular meetings I’d never heard her mention a Billy.

‘My dog. I had Billy before Purdy. A King Charles Cavalier and exceedingly handsome if I do say so myself. Anyway, it doesn’t matter if it’s a pet or a person.’ She wafted a wrinkled hand. ‘To be honest I’ve met nicer animals than I have people in my time. When someone or something you love dies, it can make you feel like the world has spun off its axis and you’re barely holding onto the edges.’

Marcus nodded slowly in agreement.

‘That’s normal. But Marcus, your grandma would have known how much you loved her, and no one can ever take away that special bond you had.’

He let out a loud sniff and used the sleeve of his hoody to wipe his nose.

‘Ms Norris is right,’ I added. ‘Also, it might help if you spoke to someone? Maybe tell your mum how you’re feeling?’

I felt completely out of my comfort zone offering what I hoped was good advice. I was fine with planning funerals, arranging hearses and comparing coffins. I could comfort the recently bereaved by fixing as much of their pain as I could with a perfect send-off, but I wasn’t ready to deal with the raw loss and love of a teenage boy for his grandma.

‘Don’t you ever get scared of… you know… dying?’ Marcus asked Mrs Norris, looking a little more composed.

‘Not so much that it stops me from living. You can’t do anything to avoid it, but you can make the most of whatever time you have. It’s something I wish I’d learnt a long time ago,’ she said wistfully. ‘I don’t expect you to live every day as if it’s your last, or any silly nonsense like that, but I do think we should all be more aware of how lucky we are.’

‘Hashtag blessed.’ Marcus nodded along.

‘Um, exactly. What I’m saying is: you need light and shade.’

I could hear footsteps growing outside; the line dancing class waiting to get in. It was nearly eight o’clock.

‘I’m so sorry, but we have to leave it there.’

‘Is it going to be on next week?’ Marcus asked, lolling to his feet and pulling the sleeves of his hoody low over his hands. ‘I’ll try not to cry next time.’

‘Oh, well, I…’ I stuttered. ‘It was actually just a one-off evening… I’m not a trained bereavement counsellor to start with and –’

‘Hear hear! I think it’s a wonderful idea to hold it again next week. Maybe you’d get more people turning up if it was a regular thing too?’ Ms Norris said, pulling on her thick coat. ‘You’ve gone to so much effort, lovey, it would be a shame to waste it.’

A forlorn balloon bobbed past, as if on cue.

‘Er.’ I bit my lip. I couldn’t suffer the embarrassment of sitting in an empty hall for half an hour again. I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time.

‘Well, see ya next week then,’ Marcus said, slipping a brownie into each of his low slung pockets and flashing a wave as he bobbed out of the room.

‘What a lovely young man.’ Ms Norris smiled after him. ‘So brave of him to come here and open up.’

The sound of impatient huffing from outside made me jump into action. I began swiping up everything into two large reusable shopping bags.

‘It looks like I’ll see you here next week then, dear!’ Ms Norris opened the door and let the moody-faced dancers file in. We’d run over by six minutes.

‘Yeah, I guess so…’ I trailed off, hurrying to get out before being dragged into a grapevine formation.

The thought of hosting an event again would have to wait. I had somewhere to be – somewhere I desperately did not want to go, and I was running late.

Chapter 6

‘Grace!’ my mum shrieked. ‘Coo-eee! Gracie!’

Tina Salmon had always talked too loudly. She was one of those people who simply believed that the world desperately needed to hear what she had to say, whether the world liked it or not. Right then, her louder-than-average voice had to compete with the whiny strains of a saxophonist in the local band. An enthusiastic but tone-deaf singer was screeching into a microphone too close to his mouth. It was also about three hundred degrees. Bodies squeezed to get closer to the wrought- iron bar, desperate for the harassed members of staff to serve them.

Despite my protestations that I’d long given up celebrating and that my birthday had already come and gone, my mum had other ideas. It had been too long, she’d insisted, since we’d all got together, and this was the first evening all of us could make – hence my presence at a noisy bar in town. Still, I would really rather have been at home working on Mr Thomson’s service. Coming out on a Friday night wreaked havoc with my anxiety levels. Thankfully she had at least managed to get a table. She was perched on a high stool, with absolutely no lumbar support whatsoever, at a high table tucked into the corner.

I slowly headed over to her. I was still trying to put a positive spin on the Ask A Funeral Arranger event I’d rushed here from. But I just felt embarrassed. How could I have thought I could get the people of Ryebrook to come to a draughty church hall on a Friday night to hear me chattering on about funerals? The only thing to be taken from this evening was that I should trust my instincts. I’d stepped out of my comfort zone, left the safety of my flat, and put myself out there. I was annoyed at how much time I had wasted in preparing for the event, and in sitting alone in that musty hall before anyone arrived. Time I could have spent productively planning for the services I had coming up next week. I still hadn’t tracked down the perfect top hat to go as a coffin topper for Mr Deacon, a local milliner who’d recently passed away. I really wasn’t convinced that running the event again next week would have a more positive outcome, but I’d agreed to it, so it didn’t look like I had much choice.

‘Ooh! Grace! Over here!’ Mum was still waving a tanned arm in my direction, despite the fact I was heading her way. Rolls of mature skin were stuffed into the unforgiving, low-cut, shiny black vest top, and she jiggled as she beckoned me over. I sighed. Climbing into my bed seemed a long way off.

Next to her was my half-brother, Freddie, his face lit up by the blue hue of his phone screen, eyebrows knotted together, lost in some virtual world, ignoring Mum and the man on his right. That must be her new boyfriend. Tonight we were ‘being introduced’. Brian? Barry? Bobby?

‘Grace! Isn’t this brilliant!?’ Mum energetically jumped from her stool. Her cherry-red patent stilettos skidded slightly on the tiles as she pulled me into an over-the-top embrace. She smelt of cigarettes and red wine and a sickly floral perfume. She’d had her nose pierced since I saw her last.

‘Hi, Mum,’ I said, breathing through my mouth.

Freddie looked up, nodded in my direction, then went back to his phone.

‘Oh happy birthday, my darling girl!’ she shouted in my ear, pulling out an empty stool for me to sit on. The metal legs scraped in resistance. ‘Grace, this is Brendan.’

‘Alright!’ Brendan flashed a toothy, nicotine-stained grin and tilted his half-empty glass of lager in my direction. His round head nestled onto folds of stubbly flesh spilling from his tight, dark grey turtleneck. ‘So, the famous Amazing Grace. Lovely to finally meet you. Happy birthday and all that.’

‘Thanks, er, it was a couple of weeks ago but thanks.’

‘Freddie, make room for your sister!’

‘Half-sister,’ he muttered, moving over half an inch to let me get past.

‘Brendan got you a bottle of fizz to celebrate but you’ve taken so long to get here that we had to make a start,’ Mum admitted, without a hint of an apology, flicking her heavily mascaraed eyes to the upturned bottle of cava in a watery ice bucket.

She knew I didn’t drink. No matter how many times she’d tried to encourage me to lighten up and let my hair down, I had to continually repeat that I didn’t need alcohol to have a good time.

More for me then, was always her reply, after a quiet but audible, If I hadn’t given birth to you then I’d swear you’re not my daughter.

‘Ah, well, thanks. That’s very, er, thoughtful,’ I said politely to Brendan. He winked and made a clicking sound with his mouth, helping Mum get back up on her stool.

‘What took you so long, anyway?’ Mum rearranged herself with a wobble.

‘Work emergency,’ I lied. I couldn’t bear to go into the church hall disaster.

Freddie made a strange noise between his pursed lips, flecks of spittle jumping from his mouth onto the glossy tabletop. ‘What? Too many stiffs to deal with?’

Brendan smiled as if he understood the joke. Then realised he didn’t. ‘Stiffs?’

‘Yeah, did Mum not tell you?’ Freddie said.

I noticed Mum’s painted red lips tighten. She picked up a tired-looking cocktail list, zoning out from this conversation.

‘Our Grace here is the local Morticia Addams.’

Brendan looked at me and back to Freddie.

‘She’s a funeral director,’ Freddie explained.

‘Arranger. A funeral arranger,’ I corrected. Frank wouldn’t be happy with me stealing his job title. Not that detail mattered to someone like Freddie. He thought feminists were hairy, angry lesbians, and still called women ‘birds’. I’d once overheard him explain, in depth, that it was scientifically proven you couldn’t get wasted two nights in a row, something to do with the first night cancelling out the second.

‘Really?! You work with dead people!’ Brendan literally recoiled, a little precariously on his stool.

‘I’m going to get a mojito. Anyone else want one?’ Mum said loudly, pretending to be oblivious to the topic of conversation. ‘Or maybe a pornstar martini?’

‘It’s sick, innit. I see dead people…’ Freddie said in a little boy’s voice, ignoring her.

Brendan leant forward, placing an elbow in a small puddle of lager. His eyes widened. ‘Wow, Grace, you work with corpses, what’s that like?’

Inwardly I sighed.

‘It’s just my job and I love what I do.’

‘Yeah, but it’s like… you know… death.’

‘And?’

‘I’m not in denial, don’t get me wrong. I’ve even planned my funeral.’ Brendan sat up straighter. ‘I know exactly what I want.’ Mum looked up from the cocktail list. ‘I want “I Am A Cider Drinker” playing as they carry me in for a start –’

‘You’re joking? You want The Wurzels played at your funeral?’ She blurted out an incredulous laugh.

‘Why not?’ Brendan winked to hide any embarrassment. ‘They’re only like the greatest band in the world, ever!’ I could see his shine fading as Mum frowned at him. ‘Just a little underrated, that’s all.’

‘But at your funeral? I really don’t think it’s appropriate. Plus, the greatest band in the world are Queen. That’s who Freddie’s named after.’ She squashed my brother’s cheeks in her hands.

‘Alright, Mum.’ He swatted her away.

‘No. We won’t be having some country hicks play at your funeral,’ Mum decided for him. ‘Anyway, you won’t even be there so you can’t complain. Right, can we please change the subject? We’re meant to be here celebrating Grace and her birthday. You know, Grace, who is still alive!’

‘I’m going for a piss.’ Freddie sprang to his feet, making a comment about how my birthday was actually ages ago and that this was a load of bollocks.

‘So Grace, is your boyfriend joining us later?’ Brendan asked. I squirted a dollop of antibacterial hand gel in my palms and rubbed them together, hoping to avoid the question.

‘She’s single and ready to mingle!’ Mum sang.

‘Well…’ I have never been ready to mingle in my life. Just the very word made me want to uncomfortably scratch my arms and hide under my duvet.

‘Ah, I get it. I guess it must be tough finding someone because of what you… do.’

‘I don’t know why you didn’t see more of that Ian. Cheryl said he’s a lovely bloke, when I bumped into her last,’ Mum piped up, sloshing red wine from the bottle into her empty, lipstick-stained glass. How much had she got through this evening? Cheryl was my mum’s chiropodist and Ian was another of her clients.

‘Cheryl isn’t the best judge of character,’ I said tactfully, desperate to move the conversation on.

I’d never told my mum about Henry. We had promised each other not to tell anyone about us – it was part of the deal. A deal that felt like it suffocated me at times. But it was a promise I had stuck to, despite everything that had happened. The only living soul who knew was Maria, but, well, that was different.

‘You need to get yourself on Tinder,’ Freddie had returned from the bathroom, waving his lit-up phone screen in my face, the brightness blinding me for a second.

‘Ah, Tinder,’ Brendan said wistfully, before sticking his reddened face into his wine glass as Mum glared at him.

‘Right! Present time!’ Mum shrieked. ‘Freddie, put your phone away now. This is family time.’

Freddie muttered but obeyed, and slid his phone into the pocket of his tight chinos.

‘Grace, Brendan and I got you this.’ She rummaged in the tie-dye pillowcase thing that acted as a handbag. I’d have palpitations thinking about her gallivanting off to the next country on her travels with such a badly designed bag; a pick-pocketer’s dream. She pulled out a slightly crumpled gift bag that had a boiled sweet wrapper stuck to the back and an almost perfectly spherical tea-stain ring in the top right-hand corner.

‘Whoops,’ she picked off the wrapper and dropped it to the floor. ‘Right, well, happy birthday my little Gracie.’

‘You really didn’t have to…’ I started to protest as I cautiously took the packet off her and peeled it open. Last year she’d got me a clunky handmade Tunisian shell necklace. It was still in its bubble wrap, sitting patiently in the half-empty Tesco Bag for Life that was destined for my next trip to Oxfam.

‘Oh…’

I wrapped my fingers around a red and yellow hand-woven cotton bracelet. The type of thing you’d give your school friend when you were about thirteen. A tiny peace sign was threaded in the centre, next to a small metal disc that was engraved with my name.

‘It’s personalised! Do you love it? Put it on!’

I smiled tightly and let her tie it around my wrist. I could cover it up with my watch without hurting her feelings.

‘There’s something else in there too!’

The other gift was a yellow plastic radio in the shape of a bumblebee. Two slim silver antennas had been coated in black paint, it’s bulbous behind was covered in wire mesh for the speakers, and two thick black stripes over a sunflower-yellow body were the dials. There was no kind way to put it…

It was hideous.

‘It’s a radio! Isn’t it funky!’ Mum beamed, clapping her hands together. Freddie scoffed into his pint glass. ‘I picked it up at this market in Latvia and thought it would really brighten up your house. It’s about time you added a touch of personality to that place. It’s so very… sterile.’

‘Perfect for Grace then,’ Freddie said with a smirk, before Mum told him to be nice to me as it was my birthday.

Neither Mum nor Freddie visited my home very often. In fact, Freddie had only been once for about five minutes, when he was waiting for his friend to pick him up for a football match and it was chucking it down with rain. Whenever Mum was back in England, she sporadically popped in for a cup of tea but preferred to stay at the hotel near the library as she could fill up her bag with all the miniature toiletries. A low-cut top was all she needed to get a discount on a room from the male receptionist.

‘Right, wow. Thanks.’ I forced a smile, running my fingers over the chubby bee radio. There was no doubt in my mind it would be destined for the Bag for Life too.

‘My gift is… on its way,’ Freddie muttered. Code for he’d completely forgotten.

‘It’s fine. My birthday was ages ago and I really didn’t expect anything anyway.’

‘Is there really no one on the scene?’ Mum pushed. Now presents were out the way she clearly hadn’t given up on the previous conversation.

‘No. I’ve told you. I’m fine like this.’

‘You not worried about, well, you know… tick-tock, tick-tock?’

This usually happened after a bottle of wine. She would grill me about my lack of a nice young man. She would be slurring about missing out on grandchildren in another few glasses, mark my words.

‘Mum, please…’

‘I thought you said Grace were only twenty-seven? She’s got plenty of time for babies and all that.’

‘She’s thirty-three! And not getting any younger, may I add!’

I could see Brendan doing the maths in his head, working out Mum’s real age, a fact as unknown as the location of Cleopatra’s tomb. She’d been clinging onto her early fifties for the past few years.

‘You’re ancient, Grace,’ Freddie unhelpfully joined in. ‘You may as well stop being so picky and go for the next bloke that walks in here.’ He never got a grilling, despite only being three years younger than me.

‘Ooh yes! It could be fate, bringing them together!’ Mum clapped her hands and the three of us glanced towards the door. Brendan still stared at Mum, looking utterly perplexed.

‘Wait – not them.’ Mum dismissed the group coming in with a wave of her hand. ‘That’s a bunch of women.’

‘Unless… ‘Freddie raised an eyebrow and gave an unsightly smirk.

‘I’m not gay,’ I said to my glass. No one else was listening. They all had their eyes trained to the door of the bar, like a dog waiting for its owner to return.

‘Him! That one!’ Mum squealed. Freddie collapsed into a fit of laughter. In walked a man who must have been there for his first legal drink. Angry red spots burst across a painful shaving rash.

‘I don’t think –’

‘Grace! Go and talk to him!’ Mum bellowed, yanking my elbow.

‘No, I –’

‘Go on. Go and talk to him, it’s not going to kill you!’

‘I said no.’ I roughly pulled away from her grip. ‘Can we leave it please?’

‘Ooooh! Touchy!’ Freddie’s voiced raised an octave or two.

Brendan was gently rubbing Mum’s hand, frowning at me as if I’d intentionally hurt her.

‘Sorry, Mum, I said I didn’t –’

‘It’s fine, Grace. I just don’t want you to be alone for the rest of your life. But, whatever. I’m only doing it because I care. I’m going to the ladies’.’ She scraped her stool back and wobbled off.

I was half listening to Freddie waffle on to Brendan about the outrageousness of United’s Premier League position, and half wondering what possessed a man in his late fifties to wear a single silver earring, when I felt my heart stop. I blinked hard to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me but when I opened them again he was still there.

On the other side of the bar was Henry. My Henry.

The air left my body.

What the hell was he doing here?

‘Grace?’

I heard my mum’s loud voice behind me, apologising to the couple of girls on the next table for spilling their drinks as I roughly knocked past them.

Henry is here! I fought my way through the dancing crowd. The band had started up again with an energetic cover of a Bob Marley song. Elbows and hips were blocking me from getting to him. I stopped still and tried to hover on my tiptoes to get a better vantage point. Where had he gone? He was right there a second ago.

‘Grace! Where are you going?’

Mum was still calling after me but I couldn’t stop. I had to get to him.

Henry is here. Henry is here.

My feet were moving without my brain thinking. What was he wearing? He didn’t own a stripy polo shirt; he must have bought it recently.

Annoyingly, he looked good in it. He had always looked good in anything. Questions roared across my mind as I forged forward.

‘Alright, love!’ said a man with cauliflower ears and a receding hairline, smiling a toothy grin at me. ‘You won’t get served standing there.’ He’d spilt some of his pint onto his tan loafers. He wasn’t wearing socks.

‘I’m not trying to get served.’

I craned my neck to see where he’d gone. He couldn’t have just disappeared. He was right there, I was certain of it. I felt funny, not sure if I wanted to vomit or cry at how overwhelming the feeling was.

‘You want us to hoist you up? You might have a better chance of catching the barmaid’s eye then?’ The man nudged me. His equally enormous friends turned round to see who he was talking to.

‘He was just here…’

‘Who? Who was here?’ I could see him pull a face to his mates out of the corner of my eye. A booming laugh and a meaty hand slapping his back. A waft of offensive BO. ‘You alright, love? You’ve gone a bit pale.’

I shook my head.

It wasn’t him.

My eyes had deceived me. Henry’s doppelgänger, who actually didn’t look very much like him after all, was laughing with an older woman at the bar. The hair colour was almost the same but his face was all wrong. That cheeky smile, the cluster of freckles and the confident way he held himself were all missing.

Waves of heat rose to my cheeks. It was much too hot in there with all those writhing bodies jostling around me. Henry wasn’t there, of course he wasn’t. How utterly ridiculous of me to think that after all these years he’d show up in this place. As if he’d be hanging out in a dive of a bar in Ryebrook on a Friday night. What planet was I on? I blinked back the tears threatening to overcome my gritty and tired eyes. I had to get out of there immediately.

‘Hey, come back darlin’, I won’t bite!’

‘Unless you want him to!’

I ignored the looks and irritated tutting from strangers as I pushed past. Jeers of laughter followed by wolf-whistles were drowned out by the terrible music. I fought my way to the doors, inhaling lungfuls of cool air as I tumbled outside.

I scurried past the huddle of smokers flocked under one lonely heater, holding my breath so as not to be permeated by their poisonous fumes. I’d call Mum later and tell her I wasn’t feeling well, apologise for not saying bye. Thanks to the drinks she was putting away, I doubted she’d even remember my dramatic disappearance by the morning. For the first time in a long time I yearned to be anaesthetised by alcohol too.

Chapter 7

When you break up with someone it’s normal to ricochet between emotions; all the books told me that. Except this wasn’t a clean cut break-up. He’d just disappeared, and there were still so many things left unsaid. I’d tried. I really had. I hated feeling like that, struggling to pick myself up and get back on track. Usually baking helped, but I couldn’t summon up the energy to give one of Ms Norris’s recipes a go. Cleaning was the next best solution, but even that didn’t seem to be working.

I decided to call Maria. She was the only person who knew about Henry, and I could trust her not to judge me. Others wouldn’t understand. Surely I should feel OK by now. But it was like my head and heart hadn’t read the rulebook which contained the exact date you should move on after a traumatic break-up. As time had passed, I’d forced myself to see less and less of Maria, as seeing her meant being reminded of him. Every time we met, his name wasn’t far from slipping into our conversation. That’s just the way it was.

I dialled her number.

‘Grace? Wow. Long time! How are you doing, hun?’

I let out a breath I’d been holding. Her warmth radiating down the line immediately washed away any of the doubts I’d had at making this call out of the blue.

‘Hi! I know, it’s been a while…’

‘Everything OK?’

I sighed deeply.

‘Stupid question. Of course not. Why else would you be calling me?’ Her light tinkle of a laugh softened the dig.

‘Are you around for a catch-up? I could really do with seeing you… as soon as possible.’

I could hear a rustling of papers in the background. I winced. I shouldn’t have been so presumptuous that she would want to see me, especially after such a long absence.

‘Oh, hun, I’m so sorry but I’m really busy at the moment. Work is manic, you know how it is.’

Of course she was busy, what was I expecting?

‘Maybe I can move things around and give you a call back so we can organise a get-together soon? It would be good to see you again.’

I felt dejected. There was once a time when we were so close that she would have cancelled whatever was in her diary for me. Clearly too much time had passed. I tried to stay positive that she was a woman of her word; once things calmed down for her she’d be in touch. Until then I needed to keep busy and I knew exactly what to do to fill the time.

*

I curled my feet up under me, pulling my laptop closer, and logged in to Facebook. I needed to start my prep on Abbie Anderson.

As a model, she had a significant online presence, so I imagined it would be easy to discover lots of details we could incorporate into her funeral. I typed her name in the search bar and hovered my finger for a second before clicking.

I was soon looking at the life of a dead woman. Her profile picture was a flawless selfie, and luckily her account was not set to private. The last photo she had been tagged in before she died was a group shot. Four smiling faces around a dining table, each holding their wine glass up to the camera. A woman with a selfie stick in her outstretched arm to capture them all.

Shona Fitz nee Limbrick is feeling happy with – Greg Fitz, Abbie Anderson, Callum Anderson. Just found this on my phone! What a great night!! Had to share!!

Callum’s name didn’t come up in bold blue like Abbie or the others, which meant he wasn’t on Facebook. I stared at the photo, imagining their life, being a guest at one of their dinner parties. Owning a selfie stick. The men probably moaning as the women giggled at the effort of drunkenly trying to steady their hand to get everyone in the shot. It had received ninety-four likes.

There was an album from their honeymoon a few years ago. Seychelles, baby! I clicked on it. Abbie wearing a barely-there white one-piece with impractical holes cut out of it, posing effortlessly on a plump cream sun lounger, an idyllic white sandy beach and turquoise clear waters in the background. A shot of her drinking a martini with dramatic bug sunglasses on, looking away from the camera. Callum diving into an infinity pool, beads of water on his tanned torso as he froze mid-air. The two of them, noses pink from the sun, cuddled together, and grinning over a table full of seafood. They looked so utterly happy together. He looked so different from the man I’d met.

I couldn’t help myself, clicking on the photos that she was tagged in. Abbie wearing a burgundy mini dress with what looked like a cape attached to it. Her legs up to her armpits. I tried not to compare the size of my non-existent thigh gap with hers. Abbie in blood-red spike heels and leather-look leggings. Her face painted in white powder with a drop of crimson falling from her bottom lip. Plastic fangs in her mouth. A black velvet choker around her slim neck. Sharp collarbones and jutting ribs.

If looks could kill!! Ready for a hair-raising night to raise money for Princess Power!

Princess Power was a local charity for young women with terminal cancer.

Abbie’s slim, tanned arm wrapped around two attractive men wearing hot pink Hawaiian shirts. Thick gold cuffs on her wrists, her hair slicked back against her skull and a fierce pout at the camera.

Hula night, bitches! – With Owen Driscoll and @ ModelsZone

Her modelling agency, by the looks of it.

The same guy, Owen, the one with the sculptured cheekbones and glossy black hair, appeared a few more times in selfies, arty black and white modelling shoots and goofy backstage candid pics. They looked great together. Abbie had checked them into different places across Europe, probably when they were working on shoots together.

Another shot: Abbie in cargo shorts and a coral vest top, cheering at the camera from the ruins of Macchu Picchu.

We made it! #Blessed #YOLO

Abbie underwater, snorkelling past a shoal of fish, the same bright colours as her bikini.

Trying to Find Nemo! #JustKeepSwimming

Abbie jumping on an enormous plush hotel bed in a cute denim playsuit.

Paris is always a good idea!

There was a short video clip of her bending her lithe body into some impressive shapes on a beach in Turkey, taken by a drone by the looks of the crazy angles. She’d tagged in a yoga retreat company.

The only way to find zen – with @yogawarriors. Can’t wait to return next year!

It was like a car crash on the other side of the motorway. I couldn’t look away. My fingers danced on the cursor wanting to see more and more. Within twenty minutes, I’d inhaled seven years of her life.

Right, I needed to work out ways to incorporate what I’d learnt into a perfect goodbye. I pulled out a notepad and began to jot a few ideas down. She clearly enjoyed yoga and a holistic lifestyle, so maybe we could dot incense sticks around the chapel? Having such a strong online presence, maybe we could create a photo montage as a visual memento? She clearly loved to travel, so maybe this could be something to work with?

I glanced around my bare flat, aware of a strange gnawing feeling in my chest. There wasn’t a photo, personal knick-knack or random bit of clutter in sight. I bet Abbie had lots of interesting trinkets from her exotic adventures dotted around her house, each with a fascinating story. My cleaning to-do list stared back at me forlornly from the coffee table. The budget-but-practical IKEA furniture suddenly seemed impersonal and even the two duck egg cushions that came with the sofa (in the January sales) looked drab. It was as if I was seeing through someone else’s eyes for the first time. I blinked rapidly and told myself to stop overthinking things. These items were chosen for their durability, not their ability to catch dust.

What I couldn’t escape from was that I was the same age as Abbie – we even had the same birthday – yet it was clear to see from her Facebook page that I’d barely led a fraction of the life that she had. I shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. I couldn’t compete with her glamorous job, exotic travels, handsome husband and enormous posse of good-looking male and female friends. I shook my head. Two women, the exact same age, living in the same town, but completely worlds apart.

Abbie looked like the type of woman who always had perfectly polished toenails, who wore perfume every day – not just for a special occasion. She clearly had the upper arms of a yogi, volunteered her time for charity, and had seen the world, ticking off country after country that I could only dream of visiting. I bet she could speak at least one foreign language, made fresh healthy juices each morning, and was the person you realised was absent from social events.

Her perfect smile radiated off my laptop screen, eyes crinkled in a genuine laugh at the camera lens. You could tell by looking at her that she was someone you wanted on your team. She seemed so confident with who she was and the life she led. I had to keep reminding myself of the fact that this woman was no longer alive – it seemed impossible to get my head around it, and I hadn’t even known her. What must her husband and family be going through, losing such a vibrant woman with a clear zest for life?

I clicked on my own Facebook profile, using this newfound critical eye for detail to really take a good look at myself. What would someone uncover about me once I was gone? My closest friends were an eighty-three-year-old woman and a forty-something shopkeeper.

I sighed deeply.

This was Henry’s fault. I’d had close friends, a fun and exciting life in London and a promising future planned, before he ruined everything. I couldn’t help but pull at one of the threads on my sleeve at the thought of him, tugging it around my finger, watching it turn the tip an angry purple colour. I shouldn’t go there. I needed to concentrate on myself and what I could control. That was what Doctor Ahmed always said.

I shook my head. This wasn’t about Henry. This was about Abbie Anderson and giving this vivacious, inspirational woman the send-off she deserved. For the first time, I felt overwhelmed with the uncertainty of how exactly I was going to go about this.

Chapter 8

As expected, Linda had been very eager to hear about my Ask a Funeral Arranger event. I’d given a noncommittal, vague answer about how it had been a little quieter than expected, omitting the fact that only two people had turned up, one who already had a funeral plan with us and the other who was much too young to sign up for one.

‘Great. So you did get some sign-ups?’

‘Er…’

She raised an eyebrow. I wasn’t fooling her.

‘Seriously. Not one bit of interest?’

I couldn’t cope with the smugness radiating from her and the way she held her biro to her pursed lips, tapping at the smirk painted on them.

‘Oh, yes, well, I mean there was one man who seemed keen to know more…’ I lied.

‘Really?’

‘I’m just about to give him a call to confirm his appointment actually…’ I trailed out. She refused to take her eyes off me. Why had I said that? Why not admit it had been a total waste of time? I picked up my phone and for a moment thought about calling up the talking clock and pretending, but that was even more pathetic. I scrolled through my contacts list. Who could I call? Who would be receptive to me trying to sell them their own funeral? I settled on a gentleman I’d met a few months ago at a funeral service.

Please don’t pick up, please don’t pick up.

‘Hello?’ A gruff voice answered. My stomach dropped.

‘Hello, is that Mr Baxter?’

‘Yes?’

‘Oh hello, my name is Grace Salmon. I’m calling from Ryebrook Funeral Home and wondered if you had a moment to talk about your funeral?’

‘What? You what? It’s who?’

I couldn’t work out where he was, but there was music and laughter in the background. He was quite an elderly gentleman. I raised my voice.

‘It’s Grace Salmon! Is now a good time?’

I caught Linda sniggering into her raised fist as I shouted down the line.

‘Salmon? What? I can’t hear a bloody thing,’ he muttered. ‘Are you selling me something?’

This was not going well.

‘No. Well, yes. I wanted to speak to you about arrangements for your funeral, to see about making an appointment to discuss plans to lock it in at today’s prices.’ I winced. Linda made this seem so effortless.

‘My funeral? I really can’t hear a thing…’

I was losing him. To be fair I’d never had him in the first place, but I needed to keep him on the line a little longer. I thought of a different tack, one I’d seen Linda use.

‘You want to take the burden of planning your funeral away from your loved ones, don’t you?’

There was a pause. What sounded like the tinkle of a fruit machine and hearty male laughter.

‘Mr Baxter? Are you there?’

‘I don’t know who this is but I’m not interested in whatever you’re selling.’

‘No, sir, I’m not –’

‘Wait. Is this Gerald? Ah, you got me there.’ He broke into a loud guffaw. ‘Calling about my funeral, you cheeky git. He set you up to this, didn’t he?’

‘No, I don’t know anyone called Gerald…’

Linda was making spluttering noises, trying to keep her suppressed giggles in. Mr Baxter wasn’t listening to my protestations.

‘You tell him from me that I’ll get him back for this. It’s a good one, though, funeral planning. I’ll have to remember that.’

He’d hung up before I could convince him that I was genuine.

‘OK, well, I’ll see you soon then,’ I said brightly into the empty phone line, and placed the receiver down. ‘He’s going to have a think about it,’ I said to Linda, before turning round to face my screen and hide the blush on my cheeks.

‘Ladies – Abbie Anderson?’ Frank broke Linda’s spluttering of giggles as he walked over to our desks. He was eating a satsuma, juice dribbling between his chubby fingers.

‘Sorry?’

He had a tiny flake of pith trapped in his beard.

‘I’ve just taken a call from a local rag reporter about an Abbie Anderson. A model, apparently? They wanted to know if we were dealing with her service.’

‘That name rings a bell.’ Linda began rooting around her messy desk.

‘Yes, we are,’ I said. She stopped lifting up pieces of papers and stared at me. ‘Her husband and her sister-in-law visited me to start the process.’

Frank was cut off from whatever he was about to say by a loud huff.

‘I’m sure I made that appointment,’ Linda frowned.

‘Oh, well, you weren’t here when Mr Anderson arrived so I took it on. I didn’t want to turn him away.’

Frank held up a hand. ‘Just as long as we make sure to factor in that there’s media interest. She was quite a famous model, apparently. And the press loves a story of a beautiful young woman taken too soon.’ He shook his head sorrowfully. ‘We need to make sure the family are briefed and that the business is showcased at its best.’

I nodded decisively. The pressure was on. Frank took a lot of encouraging to get on board with some of my suggestions as it was; if there were going to be journalists covering Abbie’s funeral then I knew he’d want to err on the side of caution even more.

‘I’m sure you’ll do a great job, Grace. Just please remember to keep it simple and classic, our signature style.’

‘Sure thing…’ I replied, weakly.

Frank plodded off to his office. The moment his door was closed Linda angrily tapped her false nails against her keyboard.

‘I should have been looking after the Anderson funeral. But, oh well.’

‘We can work together on it if you like?’ I offered, knowing full well what her answer would be.

‘No. It’s fine. You heard what Frank said. If the press are going to be there then you’ll be under enough pressure to make sure everything runs smoothly, you don’t need my input too.’

‘Well, I –’

She cut me off by picking up the ringing phone. I suddenly felt like Abbie’s funeral was going to be one of the biggest I’d ever looked after.

Chapter 9

I got changed into the thickest and comfiest pyjamas I owned, feeling exhausted, and climbed into bed. The cool sheets were like a hug. I opened my laptop and decided to keep my head focussed on things I could control: namely, Abbie Anderson’s funeral.

I thought about Frank’s warning to keep her service simple. But I didn’t want to give anyone I cared for a traditional, impersonal send-off. I felt like I’d gotten to know Abbie during the past few evenings spent lost in her world. I didn’t need proof of just how important the perfect goodbye was. The personal services mattered; I tried not to worry about what the repercussions with my boss may be.

Abbie’s Facebook feed had filled up since I’d first found her page. Messages of remembrance, photos and inspirational quotes – usually involving angels – had been posted onto her timeline. As I looked at the photos, many including Callum, I felt this strange, deep ache in the pit of my stomach, thinking of their marriage cut short. Their future plans dissolved in a split second. But it was also a kind of envy; a resentment for what he and his beautiful wife had shared, and anger that Henry had robbed me of our future too. He’d cruelly promised me the world, and then left me clinging onto his empty words; a destiny that would never materialise, just like Callum and Abbie’s future.

I couldn’t help myself. I was soon lost in Abbie’s perfect life. A place where there was only sunshine, big smiles and happiness. No drama, no painful former relationships and no angry thoughts. Maybe if I had a life more like Abbie’s, I would feel happier? Things would be different. Better.

My Facebook feed brought up the local newspaper’s page. I clicked to read more. Abbie’s beautiful face was shown, alongside an image of a mangled car wreck. It was a short article about her death and upcoming funeral, asking for witnesses to the crash to come forward. Underneath the main picture was one hundred and seventy-two likes.

Layla Kent had written: ‘Gone too soon my sweet angel.’

Someone called Tessa Haynes had commented: ‘Still feels so unreal.’

Another person called Mark McKinney had typed a crying emoji then gone on to rant about how that road had always been a death trap. ‘The council need to do sumfin about it.’

Below that was a comment from someone whose name looked familiar. The handsome man who’d been tagged in her modelling photos, Owen Driscoll. ‘Miss you, Abbie Anderson.’

I clicked on his name, which opened up his profile page. It was set to private so all I could see was his profile picture and very basic information. His cover photo was a hand holding a bottle of lager in front of a tropical beach. He was a model, like I’d suspected, working at the same agency as Abbie.

I found myself back on Abbie’s page once more. You meet people in life who just seem to sparkle; I just happened to meet her in death. I was like a fan-girl, wanting to soak it all up. Three of Abbie’s photo albums were from fashion shoots or ‘Modelling lols’, in her words. Her beautiful face, long slim legs and petite frame were perfectly suited to the flamboyant dresses covering her. Her body curved away from the camera slightly to maximise the cut of the gown and shape of her figure.

Abbie is feeling fabulous at – Serenity Hair. A selfie in a hairdresser’s chair with freshly blow-dried blonde locks. ‘Huge thanks to the talented Andre for his serious skills! Bring on girls night tonight!’ Seventy-two likes. Fifteen comments, all massaging her ego.

From childhood to teens to thirty-three years old, I’d sported the same mid-length mousy brown hair. I stuck religiously to the recommended regular trim every six to eight weeks with Chatty Claire. One of my proudest moments was when Chatty Claire told me she’d been telling another client about how few split ends I had. That hollow praise seemed nothing looking at the glowing comments Abbie got. Her hair was so shiny. Her life was so shiny. I blew a strand of hair from my face, suddenly feeling frumpy and old. If I needed any more proof of how unadventurous I had become, it was staring back at me every time I glanced in a mirror.

Abbie had recently shared a photo of a slate spherical ball in a snowy field that linked to a page: Daniel Sterling, Artisan Artist. In amongst the many five-star reviews on his page was one from Abbie: ‘Just received the most amazing piece of art from Dan. It now has pride of place in our home. So impressed with the service and already planning my next piece with him!’

Imagine being a person who could commission their own piece of art. The thought blew my mind. I kept scrolling. The minutes ticked by as I clicked through photo after photo of Abbie. There weren’t that many photos or posts with Callum in; since he wasn’t on Facebook, maybe there was no point in tagging him. I was quickly learning that social media only mattered if others were going to see and comment.

I hated myself for thinking it, but I wanted to have just a touch of what this woman had had. The only flaw in Abbie’s perfect life seemed to be her inability to differentiate between there and their.

I’d tried my hardest to keep my ideas for personalising her service as low key as possible. Frank had been breathing down my neck, knowing that the media could now be attending, but I wanted to make sure I hadn’t missed anything crucial.

I pulled open her Instagram page. I’d already skimmed through this; a lot of the filtered photographs involved food, fitness or fashion shoots. Nothing that gave me any in-depth scope into the world behind her day job. I scrolled right back to her first-ever post from almost three years ago. No long list of hashtags, no fashion brands tagged in, instead the shot was taken of Abbie, half reclining on the floor under a lit Christmas tree. The tree was a little wonky, the decorations not matching, and her outfit of patterned leggings and bad knitted jumper with an elf on it added to the natural charm of the shot. She had her head tilted back, laughing at something, her long wavy blonde hair tumbling down her back. She looked the prettiest I’d seen her. The photo was so natural, a side to her that she’d edited out in her later posts, a side I imagined she only shared with her closest friends and husband, a side to her that I felt almost voyeuristic in seeing.

Seeing this candid shot, I couldn’t help but wonder about the sort of laid-back style she and Callum had embraced at home. Their neutrally decorated bedroom, I decided, would be spacious but full of textures, with cushions and faux fur throws over their king-sized bed. Their bathroom would have a roll-top, claw-footed bath, which sat in the centre of a large, black and white tiled floor. The room included a modern waterfall shower, with shiny silver pipes running up the wall. You would feel relaxed the moment you set foot in their house, welcomed in by a stylish log burner and maybe even an AGA stove.

Their kitchen would be modern but lived in. I imagined a fridge cluttered with magnets, worn oak work surfaces where they cooked together, dancing around each other with that ease that certain couples had. In my mind Abbie was a great cook, adventurous with her dishes, inspired by the places she’d been. Callum would be a willing guinea pig, maybe even complementing the food she prepared with his knowledge of wine. He looked like a man who would prefer wine to lager. I caught myself and shook my head with a funny sort of laugh.

What was I doing? Daydreaming about the life of a couple I could never meet? I knew that things weren’t always what they seemed behind closed doors, but for some reason I believed that the Andersons were different; they did lead the perfect life. A life that had been tragically snatched away from them. It certainly put my world into perspective. I sighed and closed down the laptop and headed to bed.

Chapter 10

Callum and Mel were sitting opposite me, both a little more composed than the previous time. Most of the families I worked with were like that. It was as if crossing into my world wasn’t as scary the second time around, just a little more wearying. I’d made them each a cup of coffee, self-consciously checking my reflection in the stainless steel of the coffee machine.

I felt slightly ashamed at how much I had been looking forward to seeing them both again. I liked building relationships with everyone who walked in, but for some reason the Andersons had stayed on my mind. It was something about the way Callum held himself, as if bracing in fight or flight mode for a threat that would never come. This facade of being OK in the face of everything. A facade that I knew could crumble in a second.

Walking in, he had looked drained. It was probably the whirlwind of jobs he needed to do before the funeral: paperwork to be completed and all the people to keep informed of every decision. It sounded like this was going to be a well-attended service.

The best thing is to keep busy, we tell families, giving them a helpful step-by-step list of things to tick off. Most can’t even see beyond the next hour, so having small tasks to complete gives them a sense of purpose to those never-ending first few days. It’ll get better after the funeral, other people say. I knew, though, that the day itself was just the beginning.

‘So my husband Nick will do a reading,’ Mel said, glancing up from a scruffy notebook in her hand. Doodles in biro at the edges. ‘Then we decided to use your guys as pallbearers; we didn’t want to put pressure on family and friends who might feel like they had to say yes if we asked them.’

Pallbearers: a weight not everyone could carry. I made a mental note to tell Raj that one.

‘Not a problem. The guys we use are extremely professional.’

‘We wondered about the eulogy. We don’t feel strong enough to speak on the day…’ She flicked a look at Callum who was scrolling on his phone. He had barely spoken apart from thanking me for the coffee. ‘But we would like to have an involvement in what’s said, if that’s OK?’

I nodded. ‘The celebrant you have chosen to oversee the service will be able to do that for you. I’ll arrange for him to come to your house so he can go through the style and content with you. He will also ask you about a choice of songs or hymns you may like, so it might be worth having a think beforehand, so you don’t feel put on the spot.’

‘Well, she had a bit of a thing about Enrique Iglesias back in the day, didn’t she? When she first met Cal they constantly had his album playing whenever I went round.’

A flash of something crossed Callum’s eyes.

‘You certainly don’t want to pick from the Now That’s What I Call Funeral playlist,’ Mel scoffed before shuddering. ‘No Robbie, no Elton and certainly no James Blunt. Sorry bro, but you don’t. We just want this to be tasteful and respectful, even if it does feel like we’re planning a party for someone who won’t even be there.’

I nodded and moved on.

‘I need to let you know that because of Abbie’s career and the tragedy of her passing, we’ve had a reporter from the local newspaper call us as they are keen to cover her funeral.’

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