The Likely Resolutions of Oliver Clock Read online

  Or I could give her a flower. Marie liked to joke that if you poked a stick under her and popped her in a tub of water she wouldn’t look out of place. She was like a rose, a single, fully bloomed rose. If I gave her one, could I tweak her heart and make her happy?

  Or I could buy her a book on the secret to happiness and write a note on the inside cover. Would I begin with ‘Dearest Marie’ or ‘My dear Marie’? And end with ‘Lots of love’ or ‘Love, Oliver’? Were two kisses more genuine or less affectionate than four? Would she even get the message?

  More wine.

  At least with Marie I didn’t have to explain what I did for a living.

  Which had helped the last time I had gone on a date nearly two years ago – with Jean’s niece, Shelley – and was what made me agree to go on a date with her in the first place. My previous attempts at enlightening my subjects were rarely successful. My quip – ‘I make a living from the dead’ – was usually met with blank stares and swallowed winces. What’s more, you were always on call, day and night. People keep on dying. Few appreciate a dinner date being interrupted by the death of a stranger. ‘That’ll be a call from the dead,’ I’d laugh. They never did.

  With Shelley, I thought, she would not need to wince, grimace or turn away. And if she did, it would have nothing to do with my job.

  So the date was off to a good start before it had even begun, and to celebrate I bought candles during my lunch break. Red ones, long and tapered. I had to borrow candle holders from Jean, who nudged and winked ridiculously for a woman of her age. I also bought a selection of cheeses – a rotund Stinking Bishop, a mature Cheddar and a mild Stilton – plus crackers, grapes, serviettes – also red – and a Coldplay CD to update my music collection. The plan, I decided, was to meet at the cinema, see a movie, share some popcorn and go back to my place for cheese and wine. Nothing fancy. A perfectly relaxing, casual evening in which, if I found conversation lacking, we could at least discuss the film. I had even decided to fling off my boat shoes on arrival and leave them lying where they landed to show how much of a relaxed, easy-going guy I was.

  But I should have watched the movie trailer. Although I enjoyed it, I had underestimated the amount of violence it contained. Sudden limb removals, brain explosions and crazed characters meant quietly spoken Shelley spent a large proportion of the film with her eyes covered. I instigated a swift exit during the credits and apologised profusely as soon as we were hit by the bright lights of the foyer. Shelley, bless her, told me not to worry and even managed to find something positive to say: ‘It had a good storyline and was quite well acted. I think.’

  My offer of a cosy living room, a bottle of expensive wine and a neatly arranged cheese platter was to be the perfect antidote to highly strung nerves. Although I immediately regretted the purchase of the Stinking Bishop. Its stench slapped me on the cheeks as soon as I flung open the fridge door. I gave another round of jovial apologies.

  ‘I can assure you, it tastes wonderful,’ I called from the kitchen as I took out the prearranged platter from the fridge. ‘I’m a sucker for a decent cheese and have been known to linger too long in the specialty shop around the corner.’

  ‘What about the gourmet ice cream place?’ Shelley called back. I wondered if it was because of the pungent odour that she had decided to remain in the living room.

  ‘Been there, too,’ I replied, finding two cheese knives to add to the assortment and placing them diametrically opposite each other. I checked my hair in the glass oven door and wiped the bench for the second time.

  ‘Their panna cotta gelato is delicious. Maybe we could go sometime?’ Shelley’s voice spun a web into the kitchen and wove warmth around me. I was sure the movie had been a mere blip in the evening.

  Buoyed by the prospect that Shelley hadn’t written me off completely and that she shared my love of food, I decided we would eat in the living room, despite my fear of errant cracker crumbs slipping between the sofa cushions. But just as I was lifting the platter the lights went out. The purring of the fridge stopped. An ‘Ooh’ came from the living room.

  ‘I think we’ve had a power cut,’ I called out. ‘No need to be scared.’ It seemed rude not to reassure her.

  ‘Do you want some help?’ she said. I heard her get up.

  ‘No, it’s OK. You stay there. I’ll find a torch. I’ve got one somewhere.’

  I riffled around my drawer of miscellany for a torch, then remembered the candles and praised the good timing of a power cut. I took them to the living room and lit them on the coffee table, trying not to shine the torch directly into Shelley’s eyes. I couldn’t help but notice how lovely she looked in the glow of candlelight, yet could not dwell on the moment for fear I appeared about to interrogate her with the torch. I hurried back to the kitchen to get the cheese and wine. Two more trips later – as I had forgotten the serviettes – I finally sat down.

  ‘If it’s not one thing, it’s another,’ I said awkwardly.

  ‘You were a class act under dire circumstances,’ she said, raising her glass. Her jumper matched the colour of her eyes, a murky olive that in soft light was rather flattering. We clinked empty tumblers.

  ‘Would you like me to fill your glass?’ I laughed. She giggled along with me until I lingered too long in her eyes while attempting to multitask. There was a fumble of arms crossing, glass avoiding glass and a candle teetering in its holder. The flame caught Shelley’s fringe. Its speed shocked. I did the first thing that came to mind: flung red wine in her face to douse the fire as she slapped her forehead with a serviette. She squealed and looked at me, stunned. Wine dripped off her nose and the smell of singed hair took over from the Stinking Bishop.

  ‘Oh my God, what’s happened to my hair?’ Her hands flapped and touched what was left of her fringe.

  The hairs on my arm curled, my jaw dropped. I didn’t like to say she now resembled Friar Tuck.

  ‘I need a mirror. Where’s the bathroom?’ She leapt up and felt her way between the sofa and the coffee table and headed down the hallway. I shone the torch to help light her way.

  ‘It’s not that bad,’ I called out, following.

  ‘Quick, the torch,’ she said, beckoning me into the bathroom.

  I stood behind her and held the torch below her chin at bench level. It gave off a ghoulish light around her face. With the unflattering shadows and her tear-reddened eyes, one could argue Friar Tuck now more closely resembled Herman Munster from The Addams Family. She let out a wail. I put my arm around her.

  ‘It will grow back,’ I said. She shrugged me off and started crying again. ‘I’m really sorry.’

  She nodded and let me take her back to the living room, to her spot on the sofa. I offered her some cheese. She declined. I ate two chunks in quick succession, then the lights came back on and I got the urge to clean. With a warm cloth and knife I prised the quick-drying candle drippings off the coffee table, dabbed at the wine stain on the sofa, vacuumed the grapes from the carpet. Shelley watched, lifted her feet so I could get the nozzle under the sofa. She offered to help and asked for a cloth but I insisted she stay right where she was, I’d be done in a minute and everything would be just as it was. Except it wasn’t.

  Maybe it was the leaving of a lidless Jif bottle on the coffee table that was my undoing, its lemon-fresh bleach smell mixing unfavourably with the aroma of spilt wine. Or perhaps it was my clumsy dabbing of her jeans too close to her inner thigh that put her off. I didn’t want her looking like she’d been in a food fight. Either way, I knew I was at the bottom of the slippery slope of date death. No amount of apologising was going to change anything. She sat on the edge of the sofa. I tried to make conversation and drank more wine in a short space of time than I should have. But it was no good. We both knew the evening was over. When she muttered an excuse about ‘an early start in the morning’, I would have hugged her from relief if it hadn’t been inappropriate. I called a taxi and it couldn’t come quick enough.

  I haven’t been on
a date since Shelley. The experience drained my confidence, rattled my nerves. I was scared of having another date collapse and being unable to revive it. But with Marie being unhappy, could my luck be changing?

  The Dance

  I still couldn’t get Marie out of my head. Or more precisely, the thought of asking her out. It was unlike me. I normally talked myself out of things, telling myself that something was not possible, that I wasn’t up to it. In this instance I had at least two reasons to answer back to my mental dialogue: Marie was still married and I didn’t wish to have an affair. Anyway, I decided, Marie wasn’t unhappy enough to leave her husband for me, nor was she interested in me in the way I was her. Just because I wasn’t a fan of Henry didn’t mean she couldn’t be married to him. The fact that he seemed to spend incredibly long hours at work and then forget dinner dates (which he did only a few months ago) peeved me even more than it seemed to upset Marie, who was either resigned to it or adept at covering up her discontent. I also had to consider the possibility that my lack of admiration for Henry was based on pure jealousy and nothing else. For I couldn’t ignore the fact that he was an exceedingly good-looking man with the biceps of a gym attendee, who lavished Marie with jewellery I doubted I would have been able to afford. I’m not sure all of that justified the arrogance he exuded but, then, who was I to judge? I told myself these things as I arrived at the local church, where we were meeting to set up the funeral of a well-known art dealer who had unexpectedly and controversially passed away. It was the first time I had seen Marie since my reawakened desire to be with her took hold. But I had to remain professional. We would not be alone. This was a business matter, after all.

  As soon as I walked in the smell hit me. Although ‘aroma’ was probably a better word, as ‘smell’ assumed at best something neutral, neither particularly aromatic nor dislikeable, like just-washed, unfragranced skin or milk. It was an aroma that mingled oak-scented pews with lilies, stocks, hydrangeas, roses, fern and eucalyptus leaves. Zesty and new mixed with woody and old. It was Marie, the whole of Marie, if I had to condense her into a smell, which was quite a thought and not the sort I wished to have as I greeted her inside the church. All I could think about was Marie being bottled as a scent and me wearing it as a cologne. What an idea! Me, wearing Marie as a cologne, dabbed on my neck, sloshed on my wrists. Me, smelling like Marie, taking her with me wherever I went, leaving a fragrant trail of wondrousness. Was this what it felt like to swoon?

  I reached for a pew to steady myself. Drew in a few deep breaths. Then Marie saw me. She walked down the aisle and welcomed me with outstretched arms and a large smile, as she always did, seemingly unaware of how giddy I was with emotion. I mustered an aura of professionalism and put on my public face, the one that didn’t show how desperate I was to go on a date with her, the one that didn’t reveal my thoughts of her as a tailor-made perfume. I jiggled my tie knot and tugged at my suit lapels to heighten my air of impeccable manners. I gave her a quick peck on the cheek before her arms could envelop me and decided to stay there forever, then I said hello to Marie’s assistant, Sarah, and the organist, who had arrived to practise his pieces.

  I still couldn’t look her in the eye. I couldn’t let myself be swallowed whole into a world in which I was not allowed. I pulled out my running sheet and spoke to the minister about the next day’s proceedings. There was a frisson of tension in the air, as we were all aware that this was no ordinary funeral. It was high profile and would be under the beady eye of the media and a family whose name reeked of money and infamy. For half an hour we worked diligently as the sonorous chords of the organ resonated around us and rose up to the stained-glass windows as if about to shatter them.

  When Peter, the organist, finished, we all clapped and Marie called out, ‘Can I request a song?’

  I nearly died when she took my hands in hers. We were close enough to kiss again. I was close enough to smell whatever perfume she was wearing, even though I felt so adrift I couldn’t smell a thing.

  ‘Come on, Oliver, let’s dance.’

  All I could think about was the half-drunk bottle of red wine I’d waltzed so beautifully with the other night, spinning and sidestepping like a pro. It would be our second dance. As Peter pumped out the cheery church tune ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’, our hands locked, Sarah sang and Marie led me on a fast, rather out-of-step waltz before the pulpit. I could feel her breath, feel her deltoids. I could have nibbled her ear if I’d wanted to. I forced myself to focus on everything but her very nibbleable ear: the wooden pews, the steps to the vestry, the collection box, the aisle. When that song ended, another one started – ‘Be Thou My Vision’, a title which couldn’t have been more apt, but with a tune that turned our pseudo-waltz into a static sway. Marie smiled at me. I had locked eyes with her without meaning to. I smiled back. Wondered about my wonderings.

  ‘This is fun, isn’t it?’ She smiled. ‘Work should never be too serious, don’t you think?’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more,’ I said, fixing my gaze on her fringe.

  ‘Life is serious enough as it is.’

  We jerked side to side like a metronome. I wondered what she meant by life being serious enough. But instead of asking, I said, ‘Sorry, I’m not a great dancer,’ and laughed.

  ‘You’re better than Henry. At least you’re happy to give it a go.’

  ‘He might feel awkward dancing,’ I said, trying to make her, and by default her husband, feel better.

  ‘Or he might not,’ she muttered.

  Another sentence left dangling in the air like fog waiting to dissipate. Then the song finished and she released her grip and applauded Peter. We all clapped and the moment was lost. The moment I didn’t know how to tackle. The moment in which I could have found out more but didn’t. My best friend Andy, whom I’ve known since high school and flat-shared with in our twenties, would have known what to do. He was the libertine to my bashfulness, his approach to women the opposite to mine. He was one of those guys who had the knack of attracting girls without even realising it. Or maybe he did and was calling their bluff, which seemed an all too complicated strategy to me. Whatever his tactics, he was brilliant at exuding charm and feigning indifference at the same time. Nonchalance was his middle name.

  Once, in a bid to understand Andy’s inherent yet absent-minded charisma and what kind of pheromones oozed from his pores, I decided to conduct an experiment. Every day for a month I secretly sprayed myself with his cologne, always on the days or nights I thought I might be in the company of eligible girls. It was ironic that the day I met my last serious girlfriend, Claire, was the one day I had forgotten to spray.

  The Power Walk

  The art dealer’s funeral was a success, as they should always be. An unsuccessful funeral is when mourners don’t cry, the funeral director doesn’t get complimented and flowers fall from the arrangements. Marie ensures no flowers fall, ever.

  Marie again. She was still at the forefront of my mind. So much so that, a couple of days later, I did something I’d never done before. I climbed into a coffin. It was resolution number one, which had been preying on my mind – Thou shalt not grow too large to fit comfortably into a standard-size coffin – in which I must start exercising. I could slim down for Marie, I thought. I would wait to ask her out until I had lost some of my podge, the excess around my belly that had accumulated from pre-dinner cheese and crackers, after-dinner mints and the occasional serving of cheesecake mid-afternoon, as well as the wine, the port, the creamy pastas and beef stews . . . the list could go on. It would give me time to properly assess Marie’s situation, work out how to get myself into tip-top shape, and practise the best way to ask her out. I had never been so motivated to get fit.

  And so, when no one else was around – Roger had gone for a lunch break and Jean was at the bank – I got a chair and placed it next to one of our mahogany display coffins perched on a fabric-covered trestle. The lid was already open, revealing the shiny folds of white silk lining. Th
ere would be no harm in jumping in to check the ease with which I could slide into its cavern and feel the tightness of its fit. Who needed tape measures when you had standard-size coffins with which to assess your measurements? Before I did, I nipped back to reception, then into the kitchenette and the hallway, to ensure I was still flying solo. When I had given myself the all-clear, I scuttled back to the display room, slipped off my shoes and jacket, climbed on to the chair and stepped into the coffin. Taking care not to damage the silk with my feet, I slid into it and stared at the ceiling. My hips were snug against the sides and my arms wedged next to them. I was about to wiggle and move my limbs to assess the fit when a voice called my name. The shock of hearing another human in close range made me sit up with a start or, at least, attempt to sit up with a start. I could only lift my head, which inadvertently gave me the answer to my question. I needed to lose weight.

  ‘Oliver?’ It was Mum. Where had she come from? I wasn’t expecting her until later. ‘What are you doing?’ She sounded worried.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, trying to pretend everything was normal and that I hadn’t just abandoned all the cheese in my fridge, the salted peanuts in the pantry and that Mum hadn’t caught me happily lying in a coffin . . . oh, it didn’t bear thinking about.

  ‘You’re in a coffin.’ Her hands were on her hips, a cotton cardigan across her shoulders and a belt trying to find her waist.

  ‘A customer came in asking how comfortable they were and I wanted to be sure I had been honest with her. You know the importance we place on customer service.’

  ‘You need to get out.’

  ‘Yes, Mum,’ I said. ‘Do you mind giving me a hand?’

  Afterwards, Mum said I was ‘unprofessional’.

  ‘Imagine if you’d been eating a chocolate bar,’ she said. ‘It would have gone everywhere. That’s why I never liked you eating chocolate anywhere other than the kitchen.’