Alice was my auntie, my mum's sister. She took me on my first foreign holiday to Spain when I was nine years old. She let me help her make jewellery and tried to teach me how to knit (fail). She never had kids of her own. She giggled like a child though. It was so infectious.
Yesterday, I went with my mum to see her dead body. It was a cold day but at least the snow had melted. The funeral directors had cast salt across the walkways to avoid clients hurting themselves. Claim culture or niceness. Hard to tell.
We went into the cold section where Alice's corpse was on display. The room was small, decorated like an old-fashioned parlour. Large pictures clung to 80s wallpaper, bland, nothing you would ever remember. A kitsch urn-shaped vase filled with artificial flowers occupied the corner on an oversized pedestal. Alice wouldn't have liked this room at all.
Her coffin was set against the far wall, its lid propped against the other corner; on it was a brass plaque stating her name, date of birth, date of death. Factual. An autistic overview of a life.
A lace sheet was draped across the top of the coffin but not across her face. I'd never seen that before and it made me curious as to why it was there. My mum speculated that it might be to prevent dust but that didn't make sense considering she'll be dust and ashes this coming Thursday. So, I looked. It seems it was there to hide the discolouration on her hands, ankles and feet. Maybe the funeral directors were skimping on the life-like make-up they use. They sure didn't like spending money on décor.
Shrouds are so creepy. I'm glad she wasn't wearing one. She was wearing her normal clothes: pink blouse with a darker pink cardigan. A long dark skirt, 10-denier tights (beige), but no shoes. I'd never seen her without shoes, half dressed, in my life. This was weirdly shocking to me. It made her appear vulnerable (if being dead isn't vulnerable enough). Through her tights, we could see the sticky plaster that had been on the inner edge of her heel. I kept finding myself staring at it and wishing they'd removed it. The colouring was a sour grey where her blood had seeped.
I looked at her face for a long time. It's always struck me that the jaw looks unnatural on a dead body. It seemed tense as though she were gritting her teeth, waiting for a punch. Previous dead relatives had had this jaw anomaly too, so I looked it up when I got home. Apparently, they stitch through the lower gum, up into the upper gum, then nostril, through the septum, down the opposite nostril, and tie it off. Probably to prevent the mouth swinging open at an inopportune moment.
Mum said she looks like she's sleeping. I nodded but couldn't bring myself to lie out loud. Looked dead to me. Why do people say they look like they're sleeping? Is it a self-comforting thing, a sort of denial, avoidance of death? I dunno.
Anyway, I don't think I'll visit any more loved ones unless they're actually alive. Whatever it was that was there, it wasn't our Alice.
Thanks for reading.
Love, @Anjkara
xx
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