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

“Jeanie wouldn’t have let me have a wake,” Julius says to Bridget. “She was dead set against it.”

Luke Emerson, the roofer from East Grafton, Richard Letford, who sometimes hires Julius when he needs an extra hand with fitting a kitchen, and Jenks arrive at the same time. They gather beside the beer and hem Julius in, between the dresser and the table.

“She was a fine woman all right,” Luke says as though continuing a conversation. Bottles of beer are handed round. Jenks, his cigarette in his mouth, shakes Julius’s hand. “I appreciate the invitation,” he says. Julius isn’t certain that he did invite Jenks, or that Jenks ever met Dot. “I remember your mum,” he says, and seems to be thinking about what should come next. Julius tries to pull his hand away but Jenks grips it tighter and shakes it some more. “Vegetables,” he says, and lets go. “Carrots,” he says, removing his cigarette and taking a swig of his beer. “Those posh ones with the leaves on. Don’t know why, it’s more work, slicing them off. Should be cheaper.”

“And beetroots,” Luke says.

Jenks swings round. “Potatoes with mud all over them, like a muddy spud is supposed to be better for you.”

“Can’t go wrong with a few brussels sprouts,” Richard says.

“On the stalk though,” Jenks says. “What’s that about?”

Julius leans in towards Richard and asks, “Got any work coming up? I’m a bit short at the moment.”

“Sorry, mate,” Richard says. “It’s all pretty quiet. No one’s booking any big projects.”

“Me neither,” Luke says. “Too bloody quiet. It’s those Eastern Europeans, working for peanuts.”

“Sooner we’re out of there, the better,” Richard says.

As the conversation moves on, Julius looks behind him and sees that the room has filled with a dozen people. Through the mass of bodies, he spies Shelley Swift in profile beside the door to the left staircase, talking to the man who sets up the stalls at the Tuesday market. She has had her hair cut, and whereas the rest of her skin that he’s already seen—her face and shoulders, cleavage, arms, hands, and legs from the knees down—is a reddish colour, the back of her neck is a milky white. He remembers the feel of her tongue on his lips, the smell of her lemon soap, although it has gone from his fingers.

As though she knows he’s watching, Shelley Swift turns and smiles straight at him, takes a sip from her glass, and turns back to the market stall man. Julius is suddenly parched and he tips up his bottle, finishing his beer. Jenks hands him another and Julius edges between the people and the rising volume towards Shelley Swift.

“I’m so sorry about Dot.” Julius frowns at the woman with her hand on his arm, trying to bring her name to mind. He knows she runs the B&B in the village.

“Kate Gill,” she says.

“Kate,” he says, embarrassed that he forgot, although delivering the eggs had been Dot and Jeanie’s job. Bridget must have told her about the wake. Kate is saying something and he refocuses his attention.

“Will Jeanie look after them on her own now?”

“Look after who?” Julius says.

“The chickens. Only it’ll be a lot of work, won’t it? The size of the garden—Dot showed me round it once. I suppose you’ll be able to help.”

Julius stares at his bottle of beer and sees that it’s already empty. “Can I get you another drink?” he asks and takes her glass before she can reply. He slips away just as Stu comes up. Julius opens another bottle and moves counterclockwise around the table, heading once more for Shelley Swift. Bridget intercepts him.

“This is Dr. Holloway,” she says, introducing a large man. They shake hands.

“How was the service?” the doctor asks. Julius knows he should have prepared himself for this question—everyone is going to ask it.

“Fine, fine,” he says. He looks at his hands, picks a rind out from under a nail. “It was simple. Nice. Nice and simple.”

“Just the two of you, was it, Julius?” Bridget says, and he wonders if she’s only upset that she wasn’t invited or whether she suspects something.

“Julius,” the doctor says. “Julius Seeder!” He laughs, deep and booming. “I get it now.”

“Wasn’t that down to Frank?” Bridget says. “Dot told me that he thought your name sounded grand, important, and neither of them realized what they’d done until you were five and started school.”

Julius no longer minds about his name. In the playground, as soon as he’d learned to punch, no one teased him much about it.

“In the end, it is impossible not to become what others believe you are,” Dr. Holloway says.

Julius is only half listening, one eye and one ear on the corner of the room between the sofa and the left staircase.

“Something Julius Caesar said. I find the words truer the older I get.” There is a gap in the conversation and then the doctor says, “How’s your sister doing? Is she about?”

“Excuse me,” Julius says. “Just got to . . .” He points vaguely across the room and inches himself past the doctor and Bridget, knocking the plate of malt loaf with his hip.

“Careful there,” says a man coming the other way, catching the plate before it falls. It’s the bloke who sets up the market stalls. Julius tries to see who Shelley Swift is talking to now.

“Do you know the thing I always remember about your mum?” the man says.

Julius shakes his head. He can’t remember this man’s name either.

“In winter, on those mornings when it’s cold enough to freeze your bloody bollocks off, so cold that if you’ve got damp fingers, they’ll stick to the metal poles, Dot would arrive with a couple of hard-boiled eggs in her coat pockets. She gave me them, once. Hot. Said they’d keep my hands warm and give me something to eat later. That’s a woman with her head screwed on right, I thought. A sensible woman. A good woman.”

What will they say about him when he’s gone? Julius wonders.