The Last Summer of the Water Strider Read Online Free PDF

picked it up and handed it to him.
When he spoke again, his voice had changed, as if acknowledging that we now stood on the firmer ground of the commercial, rather than the spiritual, realm.
    ‘How much?’
    ‘Twenty per cent is customary. And if we could have the remainder within three working days?’
    Ray scribbled briefly, then ripped out the cheque and handed it over. Flaherty took it and inspected it assiduously.
    ‘I’m afraid you’ve dated it incorrectly, sir. Today is the twenty-seventh, not the twenty-sixth.’
    ‘Does it matter?’
    ‘It’s important to pay attention to detail, we find.’
    This seemed unnecessary, and I decided Flaherty was punishing Ray for choosing the Standard, even if he had splashed out on the brass handles. He took the cheque back, tore it in two, wrote
another one and handed it to Flaherty, who inspected it again with a care that seemed largely theatrical.
    ‘That’s all in order. Thank you, sir.’
    I watched as Ray wrote
Evie’s coffin
+
brass handles
on the stub. The phone rang, and Flaherty picked it up. Immediately his voice changed and his face lost its
equanimity and sheen of serenity.
    ‘This isn’t a good time. It’s out in the shed. Behind the fertilizer. No, not the . . . the sack. The blue sacks. Yes. Goodbye.’
    He put down the phone. His face was restored to its professional countenance. But he said nothing.
    Our business was clearly concluded, but Ray hesitated all the same. I wondered what he was waiting for.
    ‘Can I just ask? What if there is . . . I don’t know . . . What if things aren’t, don’t turn out to be . . . satisfactory?’
    For the first time, Flaherty sounded a note of impatience. Clearly the receipt of the cheque had relieved him of the need to be so dutifully civil.
    ‘Are you asking if we have a money-back guarantee, sir?’
    Ray flushed. ‘I’m just not sure how these things work.’
    ‘Any complaint would be very unusual. But of course, we are concerned that you will be satisfied, and that all due observances will be carried out efficiently and properly. Let me set your
mind at rest about that. But there is a complaints procedure if you felt unhappy in any way.’
    He reached into his drawer and brought out a glossy leaflet, the rough size of a business envelope. ‘I hope you won’t be needing it.’ He smiled without warmth.
    Ray looked at the leaflet, entirely beaten now.
    ‘I’m sure I won’t. Thank you for your help, Mr Flaherty. Come on, Adam,’ he said to me sourly, clearly under the impression that he had been fleeced but powerless to do
anything about it.
    His head hung low, he walked out of the front door. He left the leaflet lying on the counter, and I saw Flaherty, with a satisfied air, return it to his drawer. He nodded to me, as much in
dismissal as farewell, and I followed Ray out into the street.
    Not many people turned up for the funeral. Evie was a shy woman who preferred work to socializing. She had cleaned other people’s houses for small change in what spare
time she had enjoyed, a solitary occupation in itself. An only child, her parents were dead. She had two cousins, both of whom she had long lost touch with. As with my father, extended family ties
were considered extraneous to the nuclear unit.
    Ray had elected for cremation rather than burial, and the funeral took place a week after our visit to Flaherty, in a light-industrial chapel on the outskirts of an anonymous satellite town
skirting north-west London.
    There were maybe twenty people sprinkled throughout the aisles, few of whom I recognized. Ma Gibbons was there, but I found it difficult to look at her. She was the closest thing I had to a
witness to my shame. It was a chilly day for the season, and I shivered under a thin raincoat, having not wanted to ruin the effect of my one good suit – three-inch lapels, tucked at the
waist, double vent – with the bulk of a sweater.
    The vicar, a fat man with a pimple on his nose, was