Laying out the dead ...

The papery skin of her lifeless sunken cheeks was exposed in the cold light of the white tiled cubicle. No blemish was left unregistered. Jemima Burns rested on the steel surface of the table, a perimeter gully circling round to a drain hole between her feet. Her lids had been carefully closed, eyelashes pointing downwards, and a single plastic flower, its stem rising from her folded hands, had been placed on her chest. 

Babu’s first task on his first day at the Lych Gate was to lay out Jemima Burns. 

‘If you take her feet … ,’ Roni instructed, his voice straining with the effort of lifting her trunk from trolley to table. Together they quickly arranged her head, neck, arms and legs to keep her from falling off. 

‘I need to get back to the office to wait for Dr Harriet. Could you get her ready please?’ 

Jemima had missed the party, the celebration of her life that she had been so looking forward to. The sedative unfortunately had kicked in too early. But there had been a glittery gold streamer draped from corner to corner in her room which she could enjoy in the last few hours. It was probably just as well she was unaware of the visits to her room by various members of staff to check on how she was progressing. She had sucked up the special cocktail, made without milk at her request, through a rainbow-coloured curly straw. 

‘Oh, you can see it spiralling up!’ she said as she took a breath after the first suck. Life had taught her to take pleasure in small things, the wisdom of age as she used to say to anyone who would listen. She lay back against the pillow when the glass was drained and felt the loosening of her ties to the world outside. There was a period of heavy snoring followed by slower, irregular breaths that faded away under the intermittent gaze of the nurses who visited her. It was a calm, controlled death, perfected over decades. So much better than the pain, trauma and loss experienced so harshly by generations before. 

Babu had not met Mima when she was alive. Now they were alone together there was an awkward intimacy that he felt acutely, a date which had not been consented to by the other party. He looked around. There was a bowl and sponge which he took to the sink and he made sure the water temperature was just right before he filled it half full. Of course it made no difference now she was dead, but he felt it was important. Carefully he washed her face and sponged underneath her arms, under the folds of her belly and, rolling her away, under her buttocks. That’s better, he thought. With his fingers he arranged her hair so it sat as she would have liked. No person would leave this world without flowers where he came from. He went to retrieve one from a bowl he had seen in the corridor. He arranged the white sheet shroud so Mima’s hands poked out over her chest, the pink petals providing the only colour to the scene. They were artificial. It would have to do. 

Roni led Harriet into the cubicle. Babu stepped back allowing them room to stand on either side of Mima, pressing himself against the wall. Harriet took a moment to look at Mima. 

‘Time of death was 16.45 yesterday.’ Roni broke the silence. Harriet pressed the head of her electrosteth onto the front of Mima’s chest, an unnecessary formality given the icy feel of the flesh underneath. 

‘Things are improving here Roni,’ Harriet said. ‘How nice to give her a flower. I know she would have liked that.’

Roni smiled towards Babu. ‘I think that’s down to our new member of staff. He only arrived yesterday.’

Babu stood tall as Harriet looked over at him. He wasn’t sure whether he needed to say something. Harriet’s face registered some recognition, but she backed away from mentioning her fleeting glimpse of them in the woods. 

‘Babu is in fact surgically trained in his home country.’ Roni tried to smooth away the discomfort. 

Harriet looked interested. ‘This is a bit of a come down for you then,’ instantly regretting what she had said.

‘Oh no not at all,’ Babu replied. ‘We respect the dead as much as the living at home. It was an honour to prepare this lady for you.’ 

Harriet and Roni sat in the staff room as she completed Jemima’s record on her facto10. Babu was invited to join them. Light flooded in from a window.

‘I think we should call you Bobi,’ said Roni. ‘It will be easier for our residents, and is close enough to Babu.’ 

Babu/Bobi smiled thinly, neither assenting nor protesting. ‘New country, so new name as well,’ he murmured.

  ‘What made you come all the way here?’ inquired Harriet, trying to broaden the conversation. She looked at him properly for the first time. He was tall even sitting, with shoulder length black hair tied back with a band. His limbs were slender, thinned by the privations of his long journey. And he was unscarred. No signs of biomechanics. 

‘My city was washed away.’ He looked down and paused. ‘The sea had threatened us each year for at least a decade, and we had got so used to it that we dreamt it would never happen. But then of course it did.’ 

The pain in his eyes was apparent to Harriet. He continued. ‘It was so quick. One cyclone and it was all gone. In a day. I was at the hospital on a hill out of the centre and so could help with the rescue, but there was too much to do, and so little that could be done. We lined up the thousands of bodies by the roads out of town, close to where they had washed up on the new shoreline. I tried to show them the respect they deserved, just as I showed your lady here.’

Harriet felt moved, but also ashamed. Concern about the threat to coastal cities around the world was commonplace in her childhood, the news streams full of severe weather events that affected the US eastern seaboard and around the world. People protested on the streets, money was raised. But then came the fleas. A man-made disaster, mass killing which was much closer to home. It took attention away from the climate catastrophe. All the air went out of it. Women had to deal with the loss of brothers, fathers, sons. Numbness descended. There was no energy available for wider concerns. Exhaustion took over and it was just about getting through the day.  She thought of the indifference with which she treated the dead, her emotions checked, whereas this man who had experienced such loss could still act with such sensitivity. 

‘I think we should take a walk together,’ Harriet said impulsively. ‘I think I have a lot to learn.’

*

Harriet tried but failed to cancel the goobie’s warning alarm. “Illegal alien close by”, repeated in a blaring tone and alternating with a siren sound, accompanied them on their short journey. Embarrassed, she was pleased to tumble out when the door was released. Babu followed and took a step to regard the vehicle. 

‘Oh, you don’t need to worry about that,’ Harriet said. ‘It has its settings turned way too high.’

Babu didn’t look reassured. He was nervous of being reported and then deported. 

Harriet held the single cup of steaming coffee the goobie had dispensed. It wouldn’t allow a second when she tried. 

‘Here, take this,’ she said, offering it to Babu. ‘You look as though you need it more than I do.’

Harriet looked out to sea. This clifftop was her favourite place to take a break in the middle of the day. Babu zipped up his coat then took the coffee. He shivered. The wind was rising, and the waves whipped in below them.

‘Aren’t you worried about the Atlantic current collapse?’ he asked.

Her brow furrowed slightly. She reached for some memory. Maybe as a child it had been discussed. The Atlantic circulation, responsible for the warmer water reaching the northerly latitudes around the British Isles, was being pushed south by the ice melt from the arctic. 

‘Yes, I remember it now,’ she replied, pleased to have retrieved it. ‘But it hasn’t been on any news feeds for years.’

‘Oh,’ Babu seemed surprised. ‘It was thought to have reached a tipping point some years ago. It’s going to have a big effect here.’ They strode out along the path. ‘It’s going to drop the temperature by a few degrees. It feels as though it’s already started.’ When he began his journey, the prospect of cooling seemed attractive. But the bitterly cold reality felt somewhat different.

‘You seem much more in touch with what’s happening,’ Harriet said. She was disturbed that she had lost touch with the climate crisis. But then nobody she knew was thinking about it. Here was somebody who was deeply affected by it, and strangely he seemed more alive as a result. 

‘Well,’ Harriet tried to change the tone, ‘there’s not a lot we can do about it now. It could be that Tusker is right. He says the future for humanity lies off this planet.’

Babu looked perplexed. ‘ Do you really think that? He and his kind have trashed our home, and now they are looking for somewhere else to trash.’ His arms waved angrily. 

Harriet was taken aback. She weighed up whether to reveal to Babu her job offer. He seemed nice, but was clearly upset. She would like to get to know him better. But honesty overroad any reservation.

‘I met Tusker a few days ago.’ 

Babu looked stunned.

‘I work for genie-feenie one day a week. He wants me to take a group of children up to AL1, to assess them and see how they cope. I should only be away for a few weeks,’ she blurted, nervous of his response. 

‘You should be careful of that man. Just think of the harm he has done.’