The Dead I Know Read Online Free PDF Page A

slipped the handle noiselessly into the rubbish bin, shaved and blasted my skin with the bleachy-smelling water. My hair, now so short, rebelled at my every attempt to calm it. In the end I let it have its own way and fled from the mirror.
    Mam had made pancakes. I picked a piece from one and nibbled it ready to spit, but it was fine. Luscious, in fact. No soap flakes or laundry detergent. No talcum or hard cheese.
    ‘Your hair looks nice, Aaron.’
    ‘Thank you.’
    ‘Did you cut it yourself?’
    ‘No. Does it look like it?’
    ‘A little. At the front. Mind you, you did a good job.’
    ‘Thanks.’
    If Mam were an alcoholic, her mental state would be easy to explain. If she’d taken drugs or had an accident, her luck- - of-the-draw world would make more sense. Sometimes she was lucid and practical; other times she was a stormy two-year-old. There was no rhyme or flow, just what she was served. Yet, for all her shifting states, she never woke with a stranger’s broken hairbrush in her hand.
    I couldn’t knot my tie. It hung like a sash beneath my collar and across my chest. When John Barton met me at the door to his house and escorted me into the coolroom,he stripped it from my neck and hung it over his own. He knotted it deftly as he escorted me into the coolroom, then loosened it and slipped it over his head.
    ‘Can’t tie them on anyone else,’ he said, and handed me the knot. ‘Slip it on and tighten it up.’
    I did the best I could. John Barton made the final adjustments and brusquely flattened my collar over the top.
    ‘You’ll do,’ he said. He lifted a pile of green fabric and handed it to me. ‘Your apron, mask, glasses and gloves. Get them on. We have work to do.’
    I sat the pile on an empty gurney and sorted my way into them. The old man in the suit had gone. Mrs Carmel Gray was dressed. The mountain of Mr Neville Cooper was now under green cotton, his toes protruding. My dream returned as a chill down my spine.
    ‘It’s not a hospital but we have to be clean. Some people die from disease and those diseases may be transmissible from their remains. Viral infections, AIDS, hepatitis B. To be on the safe side, we avoid contact with blood, feces and mucous where we can. We’ll wear gloves.’
    I stood there, more surgeon than undertaker, and John Barton adjusted my protective clothing until he was satisfied.
    ‘After you left last night I gave Mr Cooper a wash. He’ll need to be dressed this morning. Mrs Gray is being cremated this afternoon and she needs a box.’
    I heard what he was saying but I couldn’t drag my eyes from the toes. The more I stared, the more my dream returned. There was no nail polish but the real and the dream merged; Mr Neville Cooper’s toe was dead and the toe in the dream was dead. That much I knew.
    John Barton was watching me when I escaped from the trance.
    ‘You okay?’
    I nodded.
    ‘It’s quite acceptable to be a little confused or confronted by this. I mean, it takes a bit of —’
    ‘It’s nothing,‘ I said.
    John Barton stiffened, then shrugged. ‘You’ll find a black suit bag hanging behind the door in my office. Bring it in.’
    I did as I was told. He directed me to a hook on the wall of the coolroom and instructed me to unzip the bag.
    ‘Shoes out. Socks out,’ John Barton said. ‘Is there any underwear in there?’
    Boxer shorts, as lurid as the ones on John Barton’s clothes line.
    ‘Excellent.’
    He stripped the green sheet off the body, folded it roughly and pitched it across the room at a basket. He scored and seemed pleased by the shot.
    ‘Right, over here,’ he called.
    I joined him at Mr Neville Cooper’s feet. With the sheet removed the body didn’t echo the dream. He was a dead thing, again. A shell.
    ‘Take a foot,’ he said.
    I didn’t hesitate. The skin was cold but still supple, the surface smooth.
    ‘Lift the leg. He’s a bit stiff now but we’ll stretch him out and get him dressed together.’
    There was an