Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller (best large ereader txt) 📕

burned into ash and chucked somewhere? I heard on the radio once that 98 percent of the ash in one of those little boxes doesn’t come from the person who’s been cremated. The ash from all the bodies that have been burned that day gets mixed up and shovelled into pots and handed to the families. We could be scattering anyone’s ashes.”

She is thinking of their father whose body was cremated and ashes scattered on the fields that he loved, and from the way that Julius looks back, she knows he is too. There was never going to be an open coffin or a lingering moment over Frank’s body. And his cremation, Jeanie considers now, might have been Dot’s attempt to erase what her children saw.

“If we do it the way everyone else does it, we still don’t know how we’re going to pay for it,” she adds.

“Okay.”

“What?” Jeanie says. She didn’t expect him to agree. She hadn’t really thought about the spot near the apple trees until she said it.

“Okay, let’s bury her in the garden. We don’t need to tell anyone. We can say we’re having a private ceremony.”

After that decision, so quickly and easily made, Jeanie cuts the knickers, and while she is laying them over the body, Julius cuts the dress.

“At least it was fast,” he says. “She didn’t suffer.”

Jeanie makes a croak of agreement although she’s not sure how fast it would have been. She tries not to think about how long their mother may have lain on the cold flags alone and conscious, but unable to move or cry out.

“She wouldn’t have wanted to spend the rest of her days sitting in a chair, staring out the window and not even able to wipe up her own drool.”

“No one would want that,” Jeanie says.

When they’ve finished tucking in the clothes, Julius says, “What about her wedding ring?”

“What about it?”

“We should take it off, don’t you think?”

“But it’s hers.”

“She’s not going to need it.”

“Will we?” Jeanie’s question comes out more forcefully than she was expecting. “Besides, she never took it off when she was alive, so why should we take it off now?”

“Yes, she did.”

“No, she didn’t.” Jeanie is suddenly angry that Julius should think he knew their mother better. “Not even when we were gardening. I would remember.”

“She used to put it in that flowered china dish on the windowsill behind the scullery sink.”

“She never took it off.”

“Well, what do you think we should do about it now?”

“Take it, if you really want it. If you think you’ll have a use for it.”

“You might have a use for it.” He winks.

“Why would that be? Don’t be ridiculous.” She refuses to smile.

“You never know. How about . . . Doug Fletcher? He always seems jolly.”

“From the fish and chip shop!”

“What’s wrong with that? Free batter bits at the end of an evening.”

“He’s married for starters.”

They cover Dot’s body.

In the morning, after Julius leaves for work, Jeanie looks again at their mother, lifting back the top half of the sheet. The ring has gone.

7

Jeanie opens her handbag and checks that the medical certificate is tucked into the side pocket. Next to her, Bridget keeps one hand on the steering wheel and with the other flips open a packet of cigarettes and takes one out. She feels in the compartment below the dash and her hand draws out a box of matches, searches again, and finds a lighter which she flicks alight, holds to the end of the cigarette. Bridget smokes too much, Jeanie thinks as she moves her feet amongst the mess of empty crisp packets, old leaves, plastic water bottles, and the dried crumbs of mud from the soles of boots which fills the footwell. She prods her window down and then up, and jabs at it twice more to keep it cracked open. They are driving so slowly, every car that comes up behind overtakes them.

“I could have gone on the bus,” Jeanie says. In truth, there is only one bus a day to Devizes and it would have got her there too late to leave her enough time to catch the one back. And, of course, she is grateful that she can save the bus fare. She’s not sure there was enough in the tin to cover it.

“It’s hard managing these life-changing events on your own,” Bridget says. She sounds like she’s speaking the words from the leaflet Jeanie was given by the doctor, along with the medical certificate. Julius read some of the leaflet aloud in the evening at home and chucked it on the fire. Jeanie watches the cows in the fields, and the hedgerows, and the lines of oaks go past. Her mother is dead and yet oak trees are still growing, cows continue to eat grass. Bridget pushes her window down and taps her cigarette on the edge of the glass. The ash blows into the car, and the wind whips it up and flings it about. She takes another drag and lobs the cigarette out of the window.

“It’s kind of you to offer to come in with me, but thinking about it, I’d rather do it on my own.” Jeanie grips her handbag, determined.

“Don’t be silly,” Bridget says. “I don’t mind. I had to do it when Dad died, so I know how it works. Stu went on his own when Nath was born, I was in the hospital. He wanted to wait until I was out so we could go together but they kept me in for two weeks. Women’s problems, you know. That’s why we never had any more.” Bridget moves her hand above her stomach, indicating Jeanie doesn’t know what. “I thought it was sweet that he wanted us to go to the register office together, he was so excited about being a dad.”

“No,” Jeanie cuts in. “I can do it. Thanks.”

Bridget looks over at her and the car moves towards the verge, bumping along the shoulder until Bridget straightens the wheel.

“Suit yourself.”

They’re silent