So that’s what happened. Having put his own conditions on their marriage, he knew she had him over a barrel. Evelyn sat next to him at the wedding, but they barely spoke. He noticed how she smiled and talked with Robert and Howard, as if continuing conversations they’d been having without him knowing. Gloria held herself back, he could tell, for his sake. And that was the last he’d seen of his mother.

▪ ▪ ▪

Monday morning and a full day ahead, with three bodies to look after. He does most of the embalming now. Uncle Robert and Howard handle front of house and admin, leaving him in the solitude he relishes; alone but not alone. After a big investment last year, the mortuary, though relatively small, is one of the most modern in Britain; rotatable porcelain embalming table, porcelain sluice, high-level extractor fan and a twin gravity stand. Everything has a place in the deep, high cupboards lining the walls. The three of them budgeted and researched it together, but it was William who took the lead, who knew what he wanted. The two older men were happy that for at least some of the time, William seemed at peace.

This morning, he checks the paperwork; the death has been registered, it’s a cremation, and both doctors have signed the forms. He wheels the table to the centre of the room and removes the sheet.

‘Morning, Margery.’ He touches her yellow waxy hand then reaches behind him to flick the radio on. The acoustics in the mortuary are dreadful really, like a cavernous bathroom, but he’s grown to love it. It’s Dana and ‘All Kinds of Everything’; the simple tune has a kind of purity appropriate for this old lady with no wedding ring.

As he works, he hopes Margery will replace the bright flashes of the child’s broken head nestling under his chin. ‘Build Me Up Buttercup’ now. The procedure comes so naturally to William that sometimes when he’s finished, he can’t remember carrying out parts of it at all, but his equipment and the state of the body tell him he has. He packs her orifices now, singing loudly, then gently lifts her into her coffin. He dresses her, cuts, files and cleans her nails, combs her hair, trims her eyebrows.

He has done a good job. But today is not a good day. The body has tormented him. Too big, too old, too clean, too whole. On a day like today, he’d prefer a post mortem job; a body already cut, disrupted and crudely stitched back up by the pathologist. And, God forgive him, on a bad day, he thinks that to find a child on the table might provide some sort of exorcism for the children of his dreams.