Over My Dead Body

by Maz Evans

Never say sorry. It’s a simple mantra and one that has served me well. It has everything you need from a guiding philosophy: it’s pithy, it’s achievable and it sounds good in Latin: Numquam deprecaris.

‘Sorry is a meaningless transaction from the unimaginative to the undeserving,’ she insisted. ‘If you really care, send a hamper.’

On Tuesday, my elderly neighbour received an anonymous envelope of glitter that exploded all over her hall carpet. What is the world coming to? Bloody Royal Mail – I posted that last Thursday. You deserve every particle of Hoover-averse misery, Winnie Campbell.

Keeping up, are you? It’s a lot to take in. I’ve struggled and I’m usually the smartest person in the room. Indeed, the one time I was outsmarted has brought us here. To a seaside flat in sleepy Westmouth. Where I’m watching a familiar body being bundled into a bag. A body I never respected. A body I never particularly liked. Yet a body I already value more in its loss than I ever did in its life.

So while it’s regrettable that I’ve inconvenienced my nearest and dearest – in truth, it’s not been a great week for me either.

Only Nav and Christian were present at the crematorium that day, both studiously ignoring my one wish for the disposal of my mortal remains. Yes, they were challenging times. But I still feel a bit more effort could have been made to source a bagpiper who knew ‘Shaddap You Face’.

Thus far, 2020 has been almost unrelentingly grim. Covid. Trump. Home-baked sourdough.

But, as the weeks have worn on, I find myself bored to the point of psychosis. It got so bad, I even visited the Tate Modern.

I expected no one to see, hear or touch me – I’m a woman in her forties after all. But nor can my ethereal self dissolve through solid matter

Their son Atsi (meaning ‘eagle’) is dipping his carrot in some humous. At their Humanist Naming Day, I told Christian after a few champers that ‘Atsi’ sounded like a regulatory body for loss adjusters. I was immediately stripped of the title ‘Guiding Parent’ and forced to surrender the symbolic ‘Flame of Growth’ (Wilko candle) I had just pledged to tend.

You have plenty of time to find out that the dice are loaded, son. You didn’t need to hear it from me.

Truthfully, I have few regrets from my life. That fringe in 2002 was a disaster. And wow – should I have invested in hand sanitiser.

If you haven’t visited, mine is a typical south-west English coastal town: Londoners escape here to live, old people remain here to die. It used to be a one-horse town, but the horse now lets his stable on Airbnb for £250 a night during holiday season – you know the kind of place. It has only a small residential population and everyone, but everyone, is connected somehow. Westmouth is not so much Six Degrees of Separation as Half an Inch from Incest.

Nav greets the caterers quietly and looks at the mountains of food destined for the bin. I suppose there’s a compliment in the over-catering. Clearly he underestimated just how many people disliked me. Or at least he’d counted on them claiming compensatory post-mortem vol-au-vents.

My brother bustles in with the kids and emits a mournful groan. ‘Such a waste,’ he sighs. Everyone assumes he’s referring to the premature loss of his younger sister. I know he also means the 250 uneaten cocktail sausages. Still, Christian will have brought Tupperware. My brother is one of those who prefers food to go off in his own fridge.

‘Your sister died. Life is short. Netflix is going to be twice the parent we are today.’

The ratio of caterers to guests is such that barely has anyone had a sip of wine before their glass is instantly refilled. At least they’ll all be totally plastered within the hour. Finally someone can truthfully say it’s what I would have wanted.

I make my way down the hallway to the kitchen at the back of my house. It is absurdly large for a childless couple with a profound antipathy to cooking, but the caterers seem to be enjoying it. And who knew I had a steamer?

Okay, death I can deal with. Dungarees not so much. What is happening to me?

‘I had a bit of an accident,’ she continues, despite my absence of a discernible damn.

Mr Racing Post giggles gleefully as he circles a hot tip in his paper. I’ve got good news and bad, Grandpa. Beryl isn’t going to know about your cheeky fiver on the 3.15 at Chepstow. But you might struggle to make it to a Ladbrokes.

‘Massive heroin overdose,’ he grins. Fair play, Right Dead Fred. ‘Oh my,’ whimpers Flora, raising a hand to her mouth. My mother would have called her ‘an insufferable sissy’. I’ll reserve judgement. Briefly. ‘Oh, don’t worry, sweetheart, I wasn’t one of them junkies,’ Fred reassures us, slightly disappointing me that Westmouth doesn’t have an octogenarian drug scene where they all rave to Grime remixes of Vera Lynn. ‘You get to my age and you think, why not? Thought I’d give it a whirl. Used the wrong sort of spoon – dessert spoon instead of teaspoon! Beryl always said I never could read a recipe. “You never read the recipe!” she used to say. I tell you

Cataloguing what someone says, eats, thinks and does all day would also be, let’s face it, rather tedious. This is Limbo, Dr Price. Not Twitter.’

‘Red is for the very worst of humankind – murderers, sex offenders, insurance salespeople and so forth. Purple represents the best – aid workers, the good sort of nurses, people who keep it light on social media . . .’

You will be able to act and interact with others, just as you did on Earth.’ ‘Interact?’ I ask with a raised eyebrow. ‘If you are referring to . . . intimate relations,’ says Martin awkwardly, ‘then the answer is yes. But how curious. Men are usually the ones to ask if that is an option in Eternity. Women tend to ask if they have to.’

So there really is life after death?’ ‘I wouldn’t call it much of a life . . .’ ‘Have you met God?’ ‘We still don’t appear to be speaking.’ ‘Are you being punished?’ she whispers gleefully. ‘Please tell me you’re being punished.’ ‘I’m standing here talking to you, aren’t I, you witchfinder’s wet dream.’

As soon as you disappeared, I knew you must be dead. I could feel my house price rising . . .’

‘This is your idea of a sick joke? Like the pizza deliveries for a month?’ ‘Not as funny . . . but just as real. If you can see and hear me, it means you’re dying.’ Winnie draws a slow breath and rolls her eyes. ‘And they send you to my door to tell me this?’ she mutters. ‘How long have I got?’ ‘Well . . .’ I add, trying to sound sympathetic. ‘I wouldn’t book tickets for Hamilton . . .’

But don’t start judging me. A marriage dies long before it ends.

‘What did your father do?’ she asks. ‘He was a plumber,’ I say, feeling my jaw twitch. ‘They met when he fixed her family’s boiler. He remains the only human ever to have defrosted my mother.’

Oh dear Lord. There are some things that should just never be allowed to happen. And pensionable posh people attempting street slang is right up there with culottes and Conservative majorities.

I listen as Brian extols the virtue of his heroin like a sommelier listing the finer points of a Pinot Noir. What. The. Actual?! I’m in my own private episode of the Antiques Blowshow.

‘Just this once,’ he whispers, snatching up the remote and putting Peppa Pig on the screen. I gotta give it to Peppa and co. I’ve seen general anaesthesia not work that fast. Immediately, his toddlers are subdued into a trance-like state by the two-dimensional porcines.

He never liked me. Not since I joked that Christian was smart to have kids with the wrong man, so that when the right one came along he could have every other weekend off. Neil never did have a sense of humour. Personally, I thought it was a hilarious wedding toast.

Bognor? What the hell happened in Bognor? Nothing happens in Bognor . . . Bognor barely happens in Bognor .

This is unbelievable. I’ve already had to listen to my brother and his husband and now I’m about to watch my husband and my best friend. I’m a one-woman Daily Star feature.

‘I wasn’t lonely!’ ‘Yes, you were. You hardly had any friends. The most visitors you ever got was when I put an advert for free puppies at your address in the supermarket . . .

‘So,’ she says looking up at the wall, ‘we have six suspects. Danielle, because she says you ruined her life. Paul, because you had the power to ruin his career. Tom, because you were trying to ruin his marriage. Hannah, because you were already ruining hers. Jane, because she wanted to ruin your marriage, and Nav, because you spent many years ruining your own.’ ‘I still don’t understand why they didn’t ask you to give my eulogy,’ I sigh, eyeing up her brandy again.

These past few months have been . . . In truth, they’ve been . . . rather empty. He’s gone. You’ve gone – even you were something to do . . .’ ‘Putting all my furniture on Gumtree was not something to do,’ I point out.

‘But being alive is not the same as having a life. In youth, you fear death. In middle age, you fear dying. In old age, you fear life. So no. Death doesn’t scare me. Not half as much as living does.’

‘How do you feel about your death?’ It’s a sound question. ‘Disappointed,’ I finally respond. ‘Why?’ ‘I always presumed I had more time.’ ‘To do what?’ I pause. I can’t think of a superior answer to the truth. ‘To do better.’

Naveen Hasan. My husband. The man I married believing someone else would have had me. But also knowing that no one else would have kept me.

‘Do you know why he did it?’ she asks. ‘Mum thought it was for the life insurance,’ I sigh. ‘My parents were flat skint after the crash and really struggling. My dad would have done anything for us. Shame that didn’t include reading the small print of the policy first.’

‘Because when I got there . . . Miriam was already dead,’ he weeps. ‘I think.’ ‘You think?’ I scream. ‘You’re a bloody A&E consultant, Paul. You could have made a pretty educated guess!’

‘Someone help me!’ screams Brenda. ‘To do what?’ I say to Winnie as I follow her back into the hallway. ‘Hoover underneath him?’

We leave the house to the sound of Brenda’s visceral descriptions of the state of Paul’s corpse down the phone. But, as she screams her trauma to the emergency services, at least she’s nailed his epitaph: ‘. . . HOW THE HELL AM I GOING TO GET THAT OUT OF THE COUNTERPANE?’

‘Everyone got hurt at Rudi’s party!’ Christian laughs. ‘I mean, bless Sita for taking you all bungee-trampolining, but it was always going to be a Groupon to A&E . . .’

Bless you, kids. But honestly – the great thing about a screwed-up childhood is that it gives you loads of justification to do stupid, selfish shit when you’re older. Trust me.

When you get to my age, someone has to be the last one standing. It just so happens that I am. It was just George and I left. And now . . .’ She trails off sadly. Ouch. That can’t be fun. I should say something helpful. ‘George and me,’ I correct her. If you’re going to be sentimental, at least be syntactical.

‘But you made me suffer for it!’ she says. ‘Dan didn’t put me on the mailing list for every catalogue in creation! Dan didn’t call the local Baptist church and tell them I needed an exorcism! Dan didn’t put Wanted posters with my face on every lamppost in our neighbourhood! Say you’re sorry! Say you’re sorry now!’