FUR COATS AND A FUNERAL

Alice stood at the church door wrapped in her new mink coat.
She had see the expensive cars outside and thought she
recognised one of them. A funeral was taking place. There
were about twenty to thirty people in the church, mostly
dressed in black. Many of the women were wearing furs like
hers.

She stood and watched the service reach its conclusion. The
bearers, picked up the coffin and, with the vicar in the lead
and the congregation following, started towards her. She
stepped aside and had the feeling that one or two of them
gave her suspicious looks. She recognised a frizzy-haired
teenage girl who's eyes opened wide when they met hers. Then
she smiled and passed by with the rest.

Alice waited until they had gone then sat down in one of the
pews. There, she wrapped herself in the fur and, feeling
warm and comfortable, began to dose off.

"Excuse me." A youth of about eighteen, wearing a black
overcoat and black shiny shoes, was standing over her.
"Sorry to disturb you but the others have all gone to the
house. I've been asked to wait around and pick up
stragglers. I was waiting until you finished praying, but
it... er... has been rather along time. My car's outside."

He led out through the churchyard to the vehicle she thought
she had recognised earlier. It was a bright red Aston
Martin. She looked at the young man again but failed to
place him. "Grandfather bought it for Christmas," he
explained. "He... er... doesn't need it now."

Alice had never ridden in an Aston Martin. She got in and
soon they left the town behind. They drove in silence for
ten minutes then turned off the road, through some tall open
iron gates, into the grounds of a large mock Tudor house.
The youth stopped the car by the front entrance, got out and
opened the passenger door. She followed him up a flight of
three steps to the main door which he pushed open before him.

"Can I take your coat?" he asked.

She shook her head. "No."

"It's very warm inside."

"I'm cold"
He led her into a large oak-panelled room where she
recognised some of the people she had seen at the funeral.
They were intent on their own conversations but stopped and
stared when she entered. Then, almost in the same moment,
they turned away as if she had not existed. A buffet was set
out on long white-clothed tables. The youth guided her to
one on which were glasses of amber liquid. "Would you like
some sherry?"

Her eyes lit up. "I don't mind if I do."

He handed her one of the glasses. "If you excuse me. I must
pop upstairs for a few moments. I'm sure there must be lots
of people here you know."

As soon as he had gone, she drained her glass, swapped it for
a full one and bustled across to the food.

"Hello, I saw you at the church. I'm Margaret Clayburn,
Jack's widow." The words were spoken by a stout middle aged
woman with purple-rinsed hair.

Alice had grabbed a cold meat sandwich from a pile on a large
plate and it was half way to her mouth. "Hello," she
retorted and took a huge bite.

"Didn't someone offer to take your coat?"

"Too cold," spluttered Alice, her mouth full of bread and
ham.

"Come with me. I'll get you something to warm you up."

The woman led her to another table containing some shallow
glass tumblers and several bottles of spirits. She poured
her a large brandy and watched as Alice downed it in several
large gulps. "Did you know Jack well?" she asked.

Alice looked down at her glass but did not reply.

The woman continued, "I know he had a lot of lady friends but
he's gone now. I don't want there to be any recriminations.
I expect you loved him nearly as much as I did, in your own
way." She let the words lie there waiting for a reply. When
none came, she continued with an uncertain tone to her voice.
"I've ... I've known about his little peccadilloes for some
time. There's no need to feel ashamed. I...I... hope you
don't expect to gain anything from his will."

Alice continued studying her glass in silence.

Margaret gave a world weary sigh. "Well I'd better go and
mingle now. Please stay and help yourself to more brandy.
It's... a... been nice meeting you." She crossed to a small
group of people standing by a bay window and Alice turned
back to the spirit bottles.

"Hello there!"

She turned slowly and faced a thin, dapper middle-aged man.

His speech was slightly slurred. "I'm Jamez, Jack's brother.
I don't thinks we've met."

She avoided his gaze and studied the floor.

He smiled. "There's no need to be shy, my dear. I'm not
goin' to interrogate you, Margaret's prob'ly done tha'
already. I saw her talkin' to you. Us Clayburn's don't miz
much.

She began to edge towards the doorway.

"Tell me, my dear, are you goin' to be here tomorrow at th'
readin' of his will?"

She shook her head.

"So he hazn't left you anythin'?"

She shook her head and wished he would go away.

"I see. No matter." He moved closer. "Jack always had the
knack of picking, shall we say rather lively women. I wonder
if we might get together later on in the week. There must be
a lol 'bout our family that he's never told you and I'd
certainly like to hear more about you. Where are you from?"

She remained silent.

"Tell you wha' I'll give you my card." He reached into his
pocket, took out a wallet, extracted the card and held it out
to her.

She stood in rigid silence, her arms hanging heavily at her
sides.

He sighed, "I'll leave it here then," and placed it on the
table beside her. "Toodle-loo." Then he retreated towards
the other guests.

"Gosh, Hello!" It was the frizzy haired girl she had seen
earlier.

Alice smiled at her nervously.

The girl giggled. "Good to see you here. You must be
creating quite a stir." She took Alice's arm. "Come with
me." She led her out of the house and down the steps to
where the youth, who had driven her earlier, was cramming a
number of fur coats into the boot of the Aston Martin.

"My fiancee," explained the girl. "Isn't he hunky. How's it
going, Jeremy?" she asked excitedly.

"All done, Annabel." He closed the lid on the coats and
turned round. "What's she doing with you?"

"She's coming with us."

"But!"

"No buts, Jeremy. Get in the back dearie."

They helped Alice on to the narrow rear seat, and soon they
were out of the drive way and on to the open road.

"We're liberating the coats," expounded Annabel. "We think
it wrong of rich people to wear the skins of poor defenceless
animals. But they're dead now, and it will be a shame for
those poor creatures to have suffered in vein. We're going
to give it to the poor and needy to keep them warm in
winter."

"I thought we were going to burn them on the village green as
a protested!" interjected Jeremy.

"Seeing this old lady in the high street on the way to the
funeral gave me a better idea, which is why I gave her that
ghastly mink your mother bought for me as an engagement
present. Pity you weren't in the Aston with me or you'd have
seen it immediately."

"You know I had to travel with mother. Anyway we don't know
any poor or needy!"

"I do," murmured Alice.

They drove back to the church and helped Alice retrieved an
old wire supermarket trolley, containing her worldly
belongings, from where she had hidden it in the bushes. She
watched while they transferred the furs to the trolley and
then drive off.

She slipped two bottles of spirit out of her ample fur
sleeves and secreted them amongst the garments. Then,
satisfied that they were well hidden, she began pushing the
trolley towards the high street in the direction of the Oxfam
shop.

THE END

If you have read this story and would like to give me feed-back, please
e-mail me at kjahans@ntlworld.com

Keith Jahans
http://peatmore.com