Death in Brunswick by Boyd Oxlade Read Free Book Online Page B

Baroque, not to say Rococo. The headstones were long, low, built of expensive marble and black shiny granite. There were masses of gold lettering. Many graves had glass cabinets containing plaster statues and, disconcertingly, photographs of their occupants. On a few, by some stonemason’s witchcraft, portraits of the dead were impregnated into the marble. They shimmered wraithlike in the warm sunlight. There was a profusion of plastic flowers and here and there Dave could see stout black-clad Italian women tidying, watering and praying. It made a pleasant and homely scene.
    He saw old Mick now, working slowly on the hill. Dodging behind a line of shiny black slabs Dave approached him from behind.
    â€˜Get a move on, you old bugger!’
    The ancient gravedigger started and flicked a spray of gravel into the air.
    â€˜Dave, Dave, you naughty boy! Good you come.’
    Grinning with a line of pink gums, Mick climbed rheumatically out of the grave. He was tall and remarkably spare—his old legs were so bowed that Dave could see three tombstones between his knees.
    Mick was near retirement. He had worked at the cemetery for twenty years. Dave, who had never worked anywhere more than eight or nine months, found this extraordinary. The old man was a devoutly religious Hungarian Catholic and was often shocked by Dave’s irreverence, and, being a 1956 expatriate, even more shocked by Dave’s politics—but they got on very well. Dave was fond of him and Mick relied on Dave’s muscles to do the work the old man could no longer get through. He wore a faded pair of pinstriped suit pants and a khaki shirt. Rain or shine, a waterproof hat sat on his bald head. White stubble covered his sunken cheeks.
    â€˜Easy, this one, Dave. Five foot nine only.’
    He flexed his knees repeatedly like a decrepit policeman and he indicated a rusty iron probe lying nearby. This was pushed into family plots till it met the resistance of the previously buried coffin. It was marked off in feet and inches.
    Dave grunted, looking at the modest grave and the low tombstone. ‘Maria Di Marco D: 1954. Ora Pro Nobis ’. A heap of marble chips and clay lay on a green plastic groundsheet draped over the next slab. The hole was about knee deep, carefully trimmed into a neat coffin shape.
    â€˜Jesus, Mick, it’s a bit narrow, old mate.’
    Dave stepped in, grabbing his pick and hefting it easily. He stretched and looked round.
    â€˜What a great day! No wonder you’ve been here, what is it? A hundred years?’
    â€˜You wait till winter comes, boy. Not so good then!’
    â€˜ Vait till Vinterre ! Go on, you old Dracula, fuck off and get some lunch. And bring back some props. This digging looks a bit soft.’
    â€˜Yes, Dave, I do that. You a good boy, but you fucking red. ’
    Mick had caught sight of the faded hammer and sickle tattooed on Dave’s shoulder.
    â€˜Go on, you silly old bugger, and if you see Bluey, tell him to lay off the piss. The boss’ll be around sometime this arvo to check out this hole.’
    Mick shuffled off and Dave knew that he wouldn’t see him for a couple of hours. The ancient Magyar had some hiding place over near the Jewish section where he went and read Hungarian newspapers in peace.
    *
    Dave dug out the damp clay, working easily and getting into the slow pick and shovel rhythm.
    Funny how it gets wetter as you go down. There must be underground springs up here on the hill. No wonder they didn’t last long, buried in this—what’s clay? Acid or alkaline?
    He couldn’t remember. In his time at the cemetery he had not actually seen any corpses, but he had found bones, pitted and brittle. Old Mick reckoned that the coffins lasted longer than the bodies.
    It was getting hotter. He took off his T-shirt; there was thick grey hair growing on his back. He was a little bored—he wished he had brought a radio. The only sounds he could hear were