There’s no denying the excitement, even though for the last hour each blink has scratched his tired eyes. He feels noble, heroic even, driving through the night on his own, armed with all the skills he’s learned this year. Perhaps disaster embalming is his future. Perhaps the next twenty-four hours will shape his life. When stray thoughts of his mother, physically nearer to him now than for five years, flash through his mind, he bats them away.
For the last half-mile into Aberfan, he’s opened his window to stay awake. The spindly paths are periodically washed with yellow light and he has to pull over to let open lorries pass, humpbacked with glistening heaps. A harsher halo of white light shines above the village like a foreboding star. Now, yet another policeman stands shrouded in a rain cloak, waving him down.
‘Embalmer?’ He glances through the hearse window. Despite himself, William wants to laugh; he sounds exactly like Tom Jones.
‘Yes. Password Summers.’
‘You’ll be needed in Bethania Chapel’ – the policeman leans in closer – ‘where the bodies are being put.’ With a dart of surprise, William realises the police officer is crying. Suddenly backlit by the lights of an oncoming truck, his slick mac turns silver-white. ‘Pull over a minute.’ William edges the hearse onto the verge and the officer waves the lorry on. ‘You’ll see it on your right.’
‘Thank you.’ William engages the clutch, starting to feel the urgency, the need to get on with what he’s come to do.
Aberfan is floodlit and teeming. Men swarm over a colossal, ungainly mound, some in lines, passing bucket after bucket to man after man, until the last one empties it into the waiting lorry. Others are bending and straightening, plunging shovels into the dark mountain they stand on, faces like blackened granite. When William spots the school roof jutting out of the slurry at unnatural angles, he swears softly.
Driving slowly because of all the people, he sees a flat-faced, dreary-looking building with a line of women standing outside, a few sitting on metal chairs. Another policeman is at his window immediately.
‘I’ve got embalming fluid and equipment to unload,’ he says quickly. The policeman stands back and gestures at the piece of pavement directly in front of the chapel and the waiting women. William jumps out of the car, latent energy strong in his limbs. The women stare at him with heavy, dark eyes, and with a flash of heat through his body he realises they are mothers of dead children. He opens the back of the hearse and starts to pull out the formaldehyde, standing the containers side by side. The policeman helps, and a man materialises at his side and does the same. No one speaks.
The chapel door swings open and a man strides out. He looks to William to be in his early thirties, older than him, but much younger than his uncle. He heads straight for the hearse.
‘I’m Jimmy. Jimmy Doyle.’ He doesn’t look at William, but at what he’s brought with him. ‘Thank God,’ he says quietly, when he sees the small coffins. ‘We brought a load from Ireland. The airline even took the seats out so we could fit them in, but they weren’t nearly enough.’
William doesn’t know what to say, so he just keeps pulling the fluid containers from the hearse and placing them onto the pavement.
‘As soon as you’re unloaded, I need you to help in here with identification.’
4
‘Thank you for coming.’ Jimmy puts a hand on William’s shoulder, walking him a few feet away from the gathered women. William’s feet are sticking to the pavement. ‘What’s your name?’
‘William Lavery.’
‘Were you at the dinner dance?’ William nods. ‘It’s pretty basic in there.’ Jimmy has a thick Belfast accent. He’s talking quietly so the women can’t hear. ‘Electricity and water were cut off when it happened. The fire services are doing their best, but for now it’s a hurricane lamp and buckets of water. Doors on trestles for embalming tables.
‘Bodies are brought here, wrapped in blankets. Before we arrived, the police were cleaning them to get identification from the parents. We’ve managed to get the coroner’s permission to treat the bodies without post mortems, thank God. We’ve set up a couple of stations in the vestry and a couple more in the other chapel down the road. We wash them, get them identified, treat and coffin them. Then they’re moved to the other chapel.’ Jimmy still has his hand on William’s shoulder, but he’s talking to a spot on the ground a few feet ahead of them. William tries to concentrate; there won’t be time for questions later. ‘Our biggest challenge is the slurry. It’s like tar and all you’ve got is soap and cold water. Just do the best you can.’ Jimmy rakes a hand through his red hair. ‘Now listen, William – it is William, isn’t it?’ William nods again. ‘The help we can give these people is not complicated. We do our job. We do it well, we do it quickly and we leave. We’re not priests, or friends or family. We’re embalmers. Keep your head down and your heart hard. That’s your kindness.’ He squeezes William’s shoulder. ‘Got it?’