‘Well, we’ll finish these few bits and then we just need a decision on the coffin. Where is the funeral? When is the funeral? That kind of thing. There’s actually quite a bit. Is Mrs Jones coming down?’
Ali stood up abruptly, wiping her face haphazardly. ‘I’ll just pop out and call her. She should be on her way.’ As she turned she gave Liv a meaningful look and a flick of her head. Liv got the message and followed her outside, where Ali immediately commenced pacing between two black traffic cones.
‘Where do you think they get these?’ Ali kicked one. ‘I wish I smoked right now.’
‘Do you actually think you might be preggers? Is it definitely possible, like?’
Ali scanned back over the past few weeks. She’d been trying to limit contact with Sam but he was very, very cute and what was the point in having a slightly fake boyfriend if you couldn’t enjoy the real perks?
‘You were careful at least – right, Ali?’ Liv was looking stern.
‘Well, it was tricky because, with me being pregnant and all, condoms just didn’t seem like the right—’
‘Ali!’ Liv exploded. ‘Are you telling me that in playing fake pregnant you’ve got yourself fully fucking pregs for real?’
‘I was using precautions – I was using the period app.’
Liv was now pacing around after her and Ali felt like she was being pursued. ‘Ali, that app thing is like the rhythm method and every youngest kid in every family ever might as well be called Little Rhythm Method because that is how effective that bullshit is. And that’s when you’ve got the friggin’ date programmed right.’
A passing man looked mildly alarmed, catching the last of Liv’s rant.
‘Screaming at a crying person outside a funeral home doesn’t make for good optics,’ Ali shot back at her and burst into fresh tears. ‘Please will you go and get me a pregnancy test? I need to figure out whether this day is going to be a garden variety plan-my-dad’s-funeral-shitshow or whether there is a legit my-life-is-fucked-and-I’m-up-the-pole-without-a-paddle kind of vibe going on.’
‘Yes, yes. You’re right. I’m sorry. Maybe I’m having contact hormones or something. You’ll be fine. It’s going to be fine. Well, not fine but … oh god, I’m shutting up now. I’ll be back ASAP.’
Ali slumped down to her hunkers as Liv dashed back to the car.
Ali gazed at the cars driving past. More people having normal days and here she was having a pregnancy scare at a funeral home. What the actual fuck. She tried to detect something, anything in her tummy. Some hint at a new life. Mainly she was just imagining a tadpole with Sam’s face bashing into the wall of her uterus. Weird to think she even had a uterus. In all the pregnancy chat of the last few months, it had felt so remote, as if it had nothing to do with her. It was like a story she was writing about someone else’s life.
Did she feel pregnant? She did feel gross, but that could be from sleeping in a chair and eating nothing but crap biscuits and milky tea for the last twelve hours. She was shattered but, again, sitting up in a chair all night wasn’t exactly restful. She had been tired for weeks. She tried doing the maths, measuring the timeline against her fake pregnancy, which only served to inspire a fresh wave of nausea and terror. Jesus, the Insta-pregnancy.
Ali took out her phone. Even though she’d deleted the app, the email inbox was still jammed with vitriol. She hadn’t had the nerve to google her name yet, but presumably the story was already everywhere. It was a strange sensation. She knew that just on the other side of this screen was a tsunami of haters baying for her blood, calling her pathetic and ugly and a weirdo. She still wasn’t feeling it, but she knew the anguish, shame and regret were all poised to annihilate her the second this numb daze lifted.
Questions started to bombard her. What should she do? Should she make a statement? A mea culpa post on Instagram? Get Liv to go on and explain that she was ‘suffering from stress’ like a Hollywood celebrity? Say she was missing? Ill? Mad? A liar? Planning a funeral?
She just had to get through the funeral and then she’d deal with it, whatever that meant.
Ali’s thoughts were interrupted by the approach of Mini’s trademark heels and clipped phone voice. Ali felt a flash of sympathy for Erasmus, who had, to date, never got a thing right as far as Mini was concerned. Ali could relate. Eleanor was trailing behind looking harried and carrying some of Miles’s suits.
‘I said no! Not the afternoon,’ Mini barked and, peering down at Ali, added, ‘What are you doing down there? You look like a vagrant. Not you! I was talking to my daughter! I’m going in now to make arrangements, I’ll check in later, Father.’
Ali wearily stood up and brushed herself off.
‘Did you just say “Father”?’ Ali eyed Mini suspiciously as they all trooped back inside the dim foyer of the funeral home.
‘Yes, Erasmus – of all people – found me the most perfect priest for the funeral.’
‘But we’re not even … Catholic or anything? You just had me specify no cross on the coffin to these lads?’ whispered Ali. Since when did her parents have any interest in religion?
‘Oh, don’t worry. I told him no prayers or any shiteology about god.’ Mini waved away Ali’s concerns. ‘He’s just going to do an MC thing. To add a bit of gravitas. He’s kind of a showbiz priest.’
To Ali this sounded, if anything, even more concerning than a traditional priest. She raised an eyebrow at Eleanor as Mini bustled in to the funeral directors, who hastily stopped chatting and adopted funereal manners once more. Eleanor leaned close as they took their seats. ‘She asked Erasmus to google “burial at sea” but I think we’ve talked her out of it. She might be in shock.’
‘Yeah … me too,’ murmured Ali, gazing at the paisley cravat poking out of the jacket Eleanor was holding, Miles always wore it to opening night at the theatre.
Liv appeared at the door behind them, and Ali muttered her excuses and followed her friend to the ladies.
Liv read the instructions. ‘Piss on it for at least five seconds, it says.’
