A Cold Woman by NIKKIE HUDDART STEVE'S dreaming about her in the freezer, a snowy carpet forming on her reading glasses. Her fingernails, curling and brittle, her carefully set and faded amber hair frosted like the bunches of grapes dipped in egg white and sugar she used to put on top of her special cheesecake. He thinks she should be trying to speak. Surely there’s one last thing she needs to say. But her thin lips are glued together and the dull green eyes stare unflinchingly at the lid of the deep freeze as it lowers towards her. Her eyes close. Isn’t she even going to shout for help? Steve jumps and wakens. The bus is packed, hot and full of condensation. He’s slumped right down in his seat. The woman next to him is staring out of the window where feathery snowflakes are making a half-hearted attempt to settle. He reaches instinctively into his pocket before he remembers it’s no smoking on the bus. His hand closes instead around his only tie. He’s got no idea how to do it. All those school years of knotting and un-knotting. He closes his eyes again, trying to recall the intricate dance of hand and cloth. He used to turn the tie upside down, tucking the fat end into his shirt and letting the skinny end trail down the outside of his jumper. He’s so engrossed in his forgotten memory that he misses his stop and the driver has to roar ‘Crematorium’. He’s clocked the pub further down the road as he stumbles reluctantly off the bus, but he doesn’t look back. Instead he makes his way up the hill to the group huddled together outside the smaller Chapel of Rest. ‘I thought it would be better to have us all crowded into the small chapel rather than rattling around the bigger one,’ Sue, his sister-in-law, says as he approaches. His brother Phil gives up the pretence of listening to her and glares at Steve who lights his cigarette carefully and inhales its warmth before nodding a greeting. ‘At last.’ There’s relief behind Phil’s anger. ‘Where’s your tie?’ Steve takes it from his pocket like a peace offering. ‘Everything all right so far?’ They both know Steve should have gone in the car with the rest of them. ‘Yes.’ It’s obvious that there’s a lot more Phil wants to say, but he’s good at keeping the peace. ‘Sue chose the flowers.’ Steve glances over at the table at the sugary arrangement of huge pink roses. ‘I knew she liked her roses,’ Sue says smugly. She’s taken Steve’s tie from him and is knotting it efficiently round his neck. She smiles at him affectionately, as though he’s her own son going to his first job interview. He can never decide whether he likes Sue or not. She’s kind in a way his mother never was, but her confident assumption of camaraderie irritates him. ‘Dad, look.’ Steve’s nephew Joe is pointing as the coffin bearers open the back of the car and slide the box out. There’s a ghoulish fascination on his face that Steve can appreciate. ‘The guest of honour,’ Steve says softly. ‘Time to go in,’ Phil says too brightly. He sweeps his family before him into the chapel. Steve grinds his cigarette beneath his foot and kicks it into a crack in the paving slab. All he can think of as they carry her down the aisle is what a rip-off the coffin was. For that price you could get a lovely piece of English oak, true, simple and honest, planed and polished smooth, the kind of box you’d be proud to be seen dead in. But this thing is just a nasty veneer, covering some cheap plywood that wouldn’t be allowed airspace in his workshop. PAGE 2 | PAGE 3
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