6. TOO MANY COOKS, AND NO BROTH

What to do with a corpse that should be six feet down?

I didn’t hear the emergency vehicles as they raced to a standstill outside my door, but my sunflower did.

“You’ve cocked this up, all right,” it hummed from outside the door, and I couldn’t help, in my ignorance, wondering what I’d cocked up.

“You can shut up,” I tried to say, but there’s nothing less capable of any kind of movement as a stiff. But I guess the plant somehow understood me because I’m sure it started sulking.

Then the action began. I think.

If there was a splintering crash I didn’t hear it. If my ancient and rather inadequate front door gave up the ghost at the first wallop, I had no idea. What I did hear was the sound my fourth wife might have made when greeting all manner of officials, though as I couldn’t actually hear anything in the normally accepted meaning of the term there must have been some other as yet undiscovered mode of communication between us, one that reflected the nuances of speech without actually being speech.

I’ve never believed in undiscovered modes of communication.

“He’s phishing dead so I want his will read,” she said, ”I had to put up with the barstable for long enough, and I want my cut of his fortune! And he must have one because he never spent a farting farthing on me!”

My fifth ex-wife screeched up, “You lying b***h!” she shrieked, “you divorced him so you divorced all rights. His loot is my loot as you’ll find out in court of law.”

“I might have born his babies if he’d known how to futtocky do it,” snarled number Four, “but he was useless, and no matter how caring a wife is that’s one job she can’y futtockingly do for herself, come hell or high water..

“Me too, and he never bothered to buy the Viagra I diagnosed for him!” screeched number five. “Useless prat.”

“Now then, now then, now then, ladies!” thundered the voice of a police officer. At least I believe it was a police officer. No other profession offers such decibel training. “Let the pathologist get a look-see,” he added.

Besides the dramatis personae so far mentioned there were a couple of paramedics vomiting quietly in a corner. That might have upset me, but I realised I’d never have to clear it up so I let it go.

“Make way,” came the familiar pseudo-voice of the pathologist, “I was deep in conference with my assistant when the call came, and I need to get back to finish a few important points and make appropriate touches.”

See him lick his lips.

I sensed him shuffle up to me, forcing his way between a small army of emergency officials and proceeding to gaze down at my decomposing body. Then I sensed his gasp as he wiped one hand across his forehead. He’d clearly recognised me, or not me, my scars caused by his post mortem examination.

“Who’s behind this?” he asked, “what trickery is this? What absolutely depraved kind of joke is this, and what moron thinks it funny?”

”Sir...” began the authoritarian policeman, clearly confused.

“I only sliced this fellow up this morning!” complained the pathologist, “I told the world that he was dead! I filled in the appropriate forms in triplicate and was discussing matters with my assistant when the undertaker came and carted him off. And now he’s back here. Not in a wooden box or any kind of carton, but on a settee and exploding with maggots!”

That summed me up, all right. Especially the exploding bit, because I almost sneezed.

“He phishing lives here!” howled wife number four. “I should know because before our divorce I lived here with him, and hated every moment of it!”

“You hated it? Not as much as me, you foul-mouthed tart!” shrieked Marianne.

And it was at this point I learned that nothing on planet Earth is private when an angered woman is in full flow and pouring forth a stream of what she sees as home truths. It’s true I was never great in the baby-making department despite encouragement from every woman I’ve been in intimate surroundings with. I might have been, given the right partner to share my fluids with, but all five of my wives were the wrong partners. I don’t know why I married them. It certainly had nothing to do with lust.

Or love. Not that either.

A tirade, underlining my inadequacies, ensued and with the exception of her spitefully and grossly inaccurately mentioning three centimetres in passing I guess most of it contained an element of truth. Given a voice I might have intervened with a few choice remarks about personal hygiene and bingo, but death had silenced me and I had to acknowledge the spiteful babbling that was Philomena in the sort of silence that I hated.

Apparently the undertaker was called for, dragged out of a high profile funeral before the drinks were served, and not best pleased.

“I carted him off. Of course I did! Planted him good and proper in an exclusive little corner of the corporation cemetery,” he growled.

“Then what’s he doing here?” demanded the pathologist. “I saw you carting his box off.”

“You must have done, though you seemed to be otherwise engaged,” grumbled the undertaker.

“I was consulting with my assistant,” explained the pathologist, not quite sure what he might inadvertently allowed the undertaker to see.

“So who was in the coffin if you buried it, and where is it?” asked the policeman.

“Six feet down. In the graveyard with the other stiffs,” replied the undertaker. “I was there and supervised it myself. Everything was done according to all relevant bye-laws and the like. He was planted six feet down and no messing.”

“No he wasn’t. He’s lying on his bleeding sofa dribbling maggots!” pointed out the policeman.

Two paramedics, having recovered from a bout of sickness, vomited again, in the same corner.

“There’ll have to be an enquiry,” suggested the pathologist, who clearly wanted his own part in what must have been a gross error seen as pure and white.

“And an exhumation,” growled the policeman, “from now on everything is to be done nice and neat and proper. This man needs to be exhumed before he can be planted.”

“You’re a phishing silly groat!” snarled Philomena, “you can’t exhume someone until he’s down there, and look: he’s lying on his sofa as dead as a dodo and twice as smelly!”

“Oh dear,” sighed the policeman, “oh deary, deary me.”

“Tee hee,” giggled the sunflower the other side of my smashed front door, “Tee hee hee. There’s too many cooks, and no broth!”

© Peter Rogerson 27.08.19