On the repurposing of brick kilns

Alice is sitting in the car and she is shaking. Her face is quite calm but every part of her is trembling. Her fingernails clatter against the steering wheel so she tucks her arms around her body in an attempt to hold herself still.

In the car next to her is an old man, she can see from here the tears running down his face as he clutches the small dog in his lap. Alice’s eyes blur but she thinks she can see his fingers digging into the coarse fur.

“I can’t do this” she says aloud to no one. Knowing that she has to and no doubt will. She just wants to voice her protest. That she was an unwilling participant and would have given almost anything to not be here and not do this.

That said there is nothing left to do but get out of the car. It’s cold outside but Alice is grateful for that. The chill gives her some sense of sensation.

She walks across the lawn, which is short and surrounded on all sides by dark pines. Next to the path is a victorian brick kiln. She knows this because someone has placed a sign next to it. She has to stop for a second to consider this. Did many people ask? Was it, before the sign, a common topic of conversation?

Her mind sticks on the idea, on the image of the old man from the car, clutching his spaniel, pausing to ask, ‘Excuse me, is this a Victorian brick kiln?’

She wants to laugh and also to be sick.

The building at the end of the path is perfectly round and quite new. Alice practises smiling “hello” she will say, “I am here to pick up” and here her vision falters because this is now impossible. She reconsiders, she must have some sort of order number. She jabs at her phone with numb fingers. Of course there is an order number so she can simply say hello.

How absurd. Chirps a voice at the back of her mind. How absurd. How absurd.

The girl standing behind the desk is blonde and looks very young. Is she a student? Is this her part time job. Alice swallows hard and looks down at her own grubby shoes on the clean white floor.?

‘Hello’ she says tightening her face muscles into a smile. ‘I’m here to pick up’ further speech is impossible as her eyes and nose fill with liquid. She shows her phone screen and tries to rid herself of the sensation that she is drowning.

‘Oh yes if you just wait in here I’ll go and get her’

Alice is ushered into a small room with a selection of plastic chairs and kitsch memorials memorabilia available for purchase. She stares with undisguised revulsion at a particularly hideous statuette of an elongated cat.

These people have some sense, the awful ornaments are protected by a glass cabinet and the rest of the room is carefully clear of anything you could throw. 

The blond girl comes back holding a brown paper bag. 

‘Poppy’s all tucked up in here and it’s vacuum sealed so she’s all safe. There’s some little gifts from us in the bag. So sorry for your loss’ 

Alice does not process much of this speech and is therefore relatively unmoved by it.

‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’  The girl calls as Alice dodges past her and out the door. She keeps walking fast until she’s out of the building heading up a different path towards the pine trees. She’s about halfway there when she realises the futility of the gesture. Eventually she will have to turn around and drive home.

Driving the car presents another problem. Should she put the bag in the boot? That seems…disrespectful. strapping it into the front seat, clearly overkill. She settles for placing it in the front footwell and feels conflicted about it. 

The drive is a blur, she thinks about the blonde girl and her professional smile and the man with his dog. She tries not to think about anything else.

Picking up the ridiculous brown paper bag she is once again unsure what to do with it. She discards the rubbish of seeds and leaflets and pulls out the small wooden casket which was a midrange model. Ditching the bag feels better, more solemn and fitting for the occasion. She tries putting it on the mantle piece. ‘I’m sorry’ she says experimentally. But she was right before, Poppy isn’t here. The blonde girl is an idiot or a sadist. She moves the casket to the table, carefully, her mind fills with images of dropping it.

Of course that isn’t right either. Her energy is gone so she simply lies down on the floor. The light outside fades from violet to indigo. Shadows move on the walls. She would like to stop here. The awareness that time is passing is growing in her mind. There is a limit to how long you can lie on the floor.

It’s almost dark by the time she gets up and moves into the kitchen to boil the kettle, she selects a mug she doesn’t like and throws in a teabag and a spoonful of sugar while she is waiting. She only has a trickle of milk left and the tea is the colour of old oak. She picks it up carefully with her right hand and moves over to the sink. With one continuous movement she pours the contents in a brown-gold stream over her left hand.

She stares as the skin flushes red.

Out of the corner of her eye she spots a flash of movement. Slowly she lifts her head and tries to concentrate on the darkening world outside her window. Yes there it is a flash of reflected light. She slips on her shoes and out the back door. “Poppy” she looks hard at the gathering night, searching for the flash of animal eyes. There’s that flicker of movement again as she moves further out into the dark.