Crusher by Niall Leonard Page B

and it still looked pretty smart. His charcoal one would have looked even smarter, but I needed that one myself for the funeral, even if my shoulders strained the seams of the jacket and I couldn’t quite button it closed. Dad’s fair hair and scruffy beard—tinged with grey—had been combed, maybe even been trimmed. If they’d used any make-up, I couldn’t tell. His skin was the colour it had always been; but it was too still, unnaturally still, deathly still. When I touched his forehead it was cold. I had a sudden urge to kiss it all the same, the way he used to kiss me, even when I got to be taller than him, but I held back, thinking that would look too weird and creepy.
    Then I realized I didn’t give a shit what it looked like, and I leaned down, and I kissed his forehead. It was like kissing a smooth round stone coated in cold wax.
    Stone was standing in the corner, hands clasped over his crotch. “Thanks, Mr. Stone,” I said. “He looks OK.” Stone nodded. I wasn’t sure if I’d said the right thing. I didn’t know if there was a right thing to say. I hadn’t prayed since I was a little kid at Catholic school, and I hadn’t cried since Mum left. I wasn’t going to start now; neither did anyone any good.
    “Will you be staying to greet friends and relatives?” asked Stone, as I turned to leave.
    “I haven’t told any of his friends yet,” I said.
    “It’s just we’ve already had a call from a lady wanting to pay her respects,” said Stone. “Although I didn’t get her name, I’m sorry.”
    “Did she say when she was coming?”
    “I told her she could view the body any time after two.”
    “I can’t stay. There’s a meeting I have to go to.” It sounded like a feeble excuse, but that couldn’t be helped.
    “Not to worry,” he said. “We’ll see to it.”
    I left, but I didn’t go back home. I took a window seat in the cafe opposite instead. Originally the owner had wanted to create a chic French bistro, but the locals’ constant demand for egg and chips had worn him down, and now the sad smell of stale chip fat clashed with the cheery red gingham decor. I ordered a coffee and got a big cafetière that must have held four or fivecups, but I didn’t neck it; I didn’t want to be in the loo when this woman, whoever she was, turned up to pay her respects. I had an inkling of who she might be. I had thought the cafe would be an ideal vantage point, but I hadn’t allowed for the bus stop right outside. Every ten minutes a double-decker would pull up and sit there rumbling, blocking the view. When the second one turned up I was still craning my neck to see the undertaker’s front door when I realized the woman I was looking for had just climbed off the bus.
    Though I was practically next to her, on the other side of the window, Elsa Kendrick the social worker seemed too preoccupied to notice me. She pulled up the collar of her coat, checked the traffic and hurried across the road towards Parker and Parker. I thought about going after her, but buttonholing her in the Chapel of Rest over my dad’s body didn’t seem like a good idea. Besides, she’d lied to me once, and she could just as easily lie to me again, and walk away leaving me none the wiser. I decided to take a leaf out of the Guvnor’s book.
    I went to the counter and paid for my coffee, keeping one eye on the door of the undertaker’s premises across the road. About twenty minutes later Kendrick re-appeared, a hanky clenched in her hand, her face downcast, her eyes and nose reddened. Turning left she walked to the bus stop on the far side of the road, justup from Parker and Parker, to head back the way she had come. I waited in the cafe until the north-bound double-decker appeared, counted to ten while Kendrick boarded with the other passengers, then dashed out of the cafe and across the road. The bus driver was just closing the doors when I got to the stop, but when I joined my hands in jokey supplication he opened