Charred

 “I want a discount!”

Marvin sighed.  He was in the back office of Kev’s Crematorium trying to deal with the week’s invoices but the person who had come in five minutes ago had a piercing voice and it was getting louder.  He looked at the stack of papers in the blue plastic in-tray and decided that he wasn’t going to go out and see what the commotion was about until he’d got at least half-way through them.  He pulled the top of the pile towards him and frowned at the number on it, which seemed too large.  He checked the name at the top of the invoice: Kev’s Caskets.

“Jesus, Kev,” he muttered.  Kev was his boss and the owner of many of the funeral-related businesses in the town — something of a one-horse town, only the horse had died a few years back and Kev delighted in telling the tale of how he’d buried it — and ought to know better than to mix the ‘invoices’ between the businesses up with the actual invoices that needed paying.  “You’ll give me a heart attack one of these days,” he finished, wondering if his wife would get a discount from Kev if he did.  He filed Kev’s invoice in a lever-arch file on a shelf behind him and pulled the next invoice from the pile.

“No, ‘cos the job’s half-done, right?” came the shrill voice from the outer office.  Marvin couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation: Jill would be on duty at the moment and she was quietly spoken even when she was angry.  He tried not to think about the implications of that statement and looked at the invoice.  This one was from a local florist and was easy to approve.  He tapped at the keyboard bringing up the online banking application and paying the bill.  He still remembered the days when every invoice needed a ledger entry and a cheque written out — by hand! — and felt that modern technology had made huge improvements in his quality of life.  The invoice, now handled, was filed in a different lever arch folder on a different shelf.

“Well, I want partial credit then!”

Marvin picked up the next invoice and then hesitated.  That could be interpreted in two ways and neither sounded like the kind of thing that you’d expect to hear in a crematorium.  Jill must have answered fairly quickly, and probably with no, as the next thing he heard was,

“You can’t go taking all the credit for this!  Either I get a discount or you put my name on it.”

Marvin forced himself to read the invoice but it was hard work.  He was becoming curious as to what the conversation was really all about.  The next invoice wasn’t actually an invoice but a letter from someone who’d had their husband cremated.  He was about to drop it into the bin, as sentiments didn’t pay for a business, until he noticed that the last paragraph was actually a demand for a partial refund.

“20% isn’t a lot!”

“It might be,” murmured Marvin.  The letter was asking for a 20% refund as well because the corpse’s height had been under 160cm in life and the letter-writer seemed to think that cremation was like certain kinds of pizza and charged by the metre.  He dropped it into the bin; if they could find a lawyer to submit the claim he’d have their lawyer refute it, but there was no point entertaining these people.

“Is there an instalment plan?”

Marvin’s fingers let the next invoice fall from them.  Jill would have to come and interrupt him about this; they generally didn’t offer credit, preferring payment up front, but sometimes they extended the payment period a little when there were good reasons for it.  Like publicity.  He waited, and sure enough, there was a tap on the door.

“Come,” he said, and the door swung open just enough for Jill to squeeze through the gap and close it behind her.  She leant on it, and Marvin saw the door handle depress as though someone outside was trying to follow her.

“Trouble?” he said, as though he’d not heard anything.

“Sort of,” said Jill.  She was middle-aged and plump and had the look of a woman who didn’t want to be a grandmother but wasn’t being given much choice.  She rubbed her left temple as though trying to stave off a headache.  “There’s a woman outside who wants a discount.”

“No,’ said Marvin.

“I know, I told her that already.  But she’s saying that the body is already partially cremated and she shouldn’t have to pay for the bit that’s already done.”

“Already done…?”  Marvin mentally added this to the list of things he felt no-one working in a crematorium should have to hear.

“Quite.  I told her that it’s a fixed fee, not based on height, weight, or shape but she keeps arguing.  She wants to have the cremation done in instalments now.”

“No,” said Marvin automatically, but then his brain caught up.  “Wait, you mean she wants to pay for it in instalments, right?”

“No,” said Jill.  “She wants to have bits cremated as she can find the money for them.  She suggested doing the head last as she’d like to be able to keep talking to the… the deceased, I suppose.”

Marvin’s mouth moved but no sound came out.  Jill nodded, looking sympathetic.  “I had the same reaction,” she said.  “I mean, where would we even keep the body?”

“We wouldn’t,” said Marvin.  He hated being labelled autistic, but his automatic response to questions, even rhetorical ones, was to try and answer them and his teachers had been fond of labelling him.  “We’d cremate the whole thing and just release portions of the ashes as she pays for them.”

Jill’s eyes widened.  “Can I tell her that?” she asked, sounding relieved.

“No,” said Marvin, back in his comfort zone.  “And we’re not doing it, but you just asked a —“

“Question,” they said together.  Jill nodded.  “Right,” she said.  “Never mind, but it’s not a bad idea, mind you.”

“It’s a terrible idea,” said Marvin.  “People will come in and get 15g of mummy or daddy and decide that since it’s only ash the rest doesn’t matter.  We’ll lose a fortune.”

“What if we did keep the heads though, and only did them last?”

Marvin’s mouth worked before his brain could tell it this was a bad idea.  “Then we’d probably get into trouble with the police,” he said.  “Damn it, you know not to ask me questions like that!”

Jill grinned.  “Yes,” she said, “but I’ve got to go out there and try and get this woman to see sense.  I deserve a little entertainment too, you know.”

Marvin forced a smile.  “Just keep telling her no,” he said.  “Sooner or later it’ll sink in.  And no sketching up a design for a cabinet for the heads of the lay-away-cremation customers!”