Reaper Man

Contrary to general belief, Bill Door wasn't very familiar with funereal decor. Deaths didn't normally take place in tombs, except in rare and unfortunate cases. The open air, the bottoms of rivers, halfway down sharks, any amount of bedrooms, yes - tombs, no.

His business was the separation of the wheatgerm of the soul from the chaff of the mortal body, and that was usually concluded long before any of the rites associated with, when you got right down to it, a reverential form of garbage disposal.

But this room looked like the tombs of those kings who wanted to take it all with them.

Bill Door sat with his hands on his knees, looking around.

First, there were the ornaments. More teapots than one might think possible. China dogs with staring eyes. Strange cake stands. Miscellaneous statues and painted plates with cheery little messages on them: A Present from Quirm, Long Life and Happiness. They covered every flat surface in a state of total democracy, so that a rather valuable antique silver candlestick was next to a bright coloured china dog with a bone in its mouth and an expression of culpable idiocy.

Pictures hid the walls. Most of them were painted in shades of mud and showed depressed cattle standing on wet moorland in a fog.

In fact the ornaments almost concealed the furniture, but this was no loss. Apart from two chairs groaning under the weight of accumulated antimacassars, the rest of the furniture seemed to have no use whatsoever apart from supporting ornaments. There were spindly tables everywhere. The floor was layered in rag rugs. Someone had really liked making rag rugs. And, above all, and around all, and permeating all, was the smell.

It smelled of long, dull afternoons.

On a cloth-draped sideboard were two small wooden chests flanking a larger one. They must be the famous boxes full of treasure, he thought.

He became aware of ticking.

There was a clock on the wall. Someone had once had what they must have thought was the jolly idea of making a clock like an owl. When the pendulum swung, the owl's eyes went backwards and forwards in what the seriously starved of entertainment probably imagined was a humorous way. After a while. your own eyes started to oscillate in sympathy.

Miss Flitworth bustled in with a loaded tray. There was a blur of activity as she performed the alchemical ceremony of making tea, buttering scones, arranging biscuits, hooking sugar tongs on the basin...

She sat back. Then, as if she had been in a state of repose for twenty minutes, she trilled slightly breathlessly: "Well... isn't this nice."

YES, MISS FLITWORTH.

"Don't often have occasion to open up the parlour these days."

NO.

"Not since I lost my dad."

For a moment Bill Door wondered if she'd lost the late Mr. Flitworth in the parlour. Perhaps he'd taken a wrong turning among the ornaments. Then he recalled the funny little ways humans put things.

AH.

"He used to sit in that very chair, reading the almanac."

Bill Door searched his memory.

A TALL MAN, he ventured. WITH A MOUSTACHE? MISSING THE TIP OF THE LITTLE FINGER ON HIS LEFT HAND?

Miss Flitworth stared at him over the top of her cup.

"You knew him?" she said.

I THINK I MET HIM ONCE.

"He never mentioned you," said Miss FIitworth archly. ‘"Not by name. Not as Bill Door."

I DON'T THINK HE WOULD HAVE MENTIONED ME, said Bill Door slowly.

"It's all right," said Miss Flitworth. "I know all about it. Dad used to do a bit of smuggling, too. Well, this isn't a big farm. It's not what you'd call a living. He always said a body has to do what it can. I expect you were in his line of business. I've been watching you. That was your business, right enough."

Bill Door thought deeply.

GENERAL TRANSPORTATION, he said.

"That sounds like it, yes. Have you got any family, Bill?"

A DAUGHTER.

"That's nice."

I'M AFRAID WE'VE LOST TOUCH.

"That's a shame," said Miss Flitworth, and sounded as though she meant it. ‘We used to have some good times here in the old days. That was when my young man was alive, of course."

YOU HAVE A SON? said Bill, who was losing track.

She gave him a sharp look.

"I invite you to think hard about the word "Miss"," she said. "We takes things like that seriously in these parts."

MY APOLOGIES.

"No, Rufus was his name. He was a smuggler, like dad. Not as good, though. I got to admit that. He was more artistic. He used to give me all sorts of things from foreign parts, you know. Bits of jewelry and suchlike. And we used to go dancing. He had very good calves, I remember. I like to see good legs on a man."

She stared at the fire for a while.

"See... he never come back one day. Just before we were going to be wed. Dad said he never should have tried to run the mountains that close to winter, but I know he wanted to do it so's he could bring me a proper present. And he wanted to make some money and impress dad, because dad was against -"

She picked up the poker and gave the fire a more ferocious jab than it deserved.