The Last Summer of the Water Strider Read Online Free PDF Page A

out back. I wondered again what horrors
were held there behind the reassuring, wood-panelled vestibule.
    ‘Do you . . .’ Ray hesitated for a long time. I was wondering if he was going to be shamed into plumping for something more expensive after all.
    ‘I’m not trying to be funny or anything. But do you accept Dividend Stamps?’
    The expression on Flaherty’s face never wavered. But he did wait for several seconds before answering, as if the question needed to be taken apart, examined, then put together again.
    ‘I’m afraid not, sir. We are a quite separate concern from the supermarket chain.’
    My mother had books of the stamps piled up at home. She always squirrelled them away but never got round to using them, hoping to save up for a big premium item. This would have certainly fitted
the bill.
    I almost left the shop, so visceral was my embarrassment. Instead I stared fixedly at a knot of wood on the floor. Ray seemed aware that he had committed a faux pas. Clearly trying to move the
conversation along, he pointed blindly down at the catalogue again.
    ‘The Standard. Does it come with the handles?’
    ‘No, sir, I’m afraid the handles are extra. You have a choice – brass, chrome or steel.’
    ‘Perhaps,’ Ray was addressing me now, ‘we could go for the Standard, um, thing and put some nice handles on it. You know. To jazz it up.’
    Flaherty seemed very slightly encouraged by this turn in the conversation. He immediately suggested the solid brass handles, which were the most expensive by some good amount. He reached into a
drawer and fetched one out.
    ‘Hold it,’ he said to my father. ‘Feel the weight.’
    Ray dutifully did so, lofting it up then bringing it down, as if he were competing in a ‘guess the weight of the cake’ competition at the local church fair. Then Flaherty hit him
with the price. With all six handles, it was almost the price of another Standard, but this time my father, no doubt aware that he had violated some unwritten principle of bereavement with his
request regarding the stamps, seemed determined on his course.
    ‘We have to show some respect, don’t you think, Adam? Let’s have the brass handles. Shall we?’
    He looked up at Flaherty.
    ‘Good choice, sir,’ Flaherty said quietly, replacing the handle in his desk then scribbling with a pencil on a white blotter. ‘A nice combination of styles. The practical and
the decorative. It’s a common election.’
    Election.
A weird Victorian term, which I supposed they used as part of a toolbox of arcane language, hoping it would elevate undertakers out of the crafts and into the professions.
    ‘Well. That’s it then.’ Ray looked at me with an expression that somehow managed to simultaneously combine apology, anxiety, regret and relief.
    Flaherty’s smile – now more flagrantly mercantile – remained pasted in place as he totted up some figures on the blotter. He flipped it around to show my father.
    ‘Will this be satisfactory?’
    Ray stared at the figure long and hard.
    ‘Does it include everything?’ he said eventually.
    ‘Gratuities for the pallbearers are sometimes proffered, but it is not compulsory. There is normally a pecuniary gesture towards the vicar who performs the service. You are C of
E?’
    Ray nodded.
    ‘But apart from those small items, it represents the full cost.’
    Still Ray hesitated.
    ‘Of course, if it is beyond your budget—’
    ‘No,’ said Ray, a little too quickly. ‘Something like this. It demands a certain . . .’
    Ray struggled for the word. Flaherty stepped in.
    ‘Gravitas.’
    ‘Yes.’
    Flaherty paused, as if wanting to make sure that Ray’s level of commitment was not too fragile to survive an actual transaction. Finally he spoke.
    ‘Then we’re settled. There’s just the matter of the deposit.’
    Ray had clearly expected this. He reached to his inside jacket pocket and tugged out his chequebook, which he immediately fumbled and dropped on the floor. I