Alice smoothed down the dead woman’s collar. Her dad often missed that detail. He prepared and dressed the bodies but didn’t always notice things like misbuttoned blouses or crooked spectacles.
There were two items for Alice to arrange. They were inside an envelope with the name Edna Mackintosh handwritten on the front. Alice slipped out a pair of square-cut diamond earrings set in silver, and a photograph of a man dressed in clothing from the 1970s – flared trousers and a shirt with a wide collar – held in a black frame.
She removed a gold stud from Edna’s left ear andre placed it with one of the ugly diamonds. But when she came to the right earlobe, there was no earring to replace. She made a note about it on the envelope, managing the pen awkwardly in her latex gloves. Her dad would need to mention it to Edna’s next of kin, as grieving families sometimes made wild accusations when jewellery was misplaced.
Alice tried to insert the diamond earring, but it wouldn’t go in. Edna’s earring must have been missing for a while, and the pierced skin had grown over before she
died. Alice considered her options. She could cut off the earring’s stem and use costume glue to stick the diamond to Edna’s ear. But that was risky. Occasionally, the glue failed. All it would take was a grieving guest to stroke Edna’s hair and the earring might fall off. A mishap like that could ruin the funeral.
And what if the relatives changed their minds and asked for the earrings to be returned? Alice didn’t want to be responsible for any damage if someone noticed dear Granny’s earrings were real diamonds and wanted them back.
Her only option was to re-pierce Edna’s earlobe. Piercing an ear was new to Alice but she didn’t want to fetch her dad to do it. He had already spent long hours embalming Edna, then bending her arm into a suitable position to hold the photo frame. It would be silly to call him for such a simple task…
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