The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh Read Free Book Online Page B

Mortician, an event which occurred a month after Aimée Thanatogenos’s arrival at Whispering Glades as junior cosmetician. She remembered the bad old days before his arrival and gratefully recognized the serene hush which seemed by nature to surround him.
    Mr. Joyboy was not a handsome man by the standards of motion-picture studios. He was tall but unathletic. There was lack of shape in his head and body, a lack of color; he had scant eyebrows and invisible eyelashes; the eyes behind his pince-nez were pinkish-gray; his hair, though neat and scented, was sparse; his hands were fleshy; his best feature was perhaps his teeth and they though white and regular seemed rather too large for him; he was a trifle flat-footed and more than atrifle paunchy. But these physical defects were nugatory when set against his moral earnestness and the compelling charm of his softly resonant voice. It was as though there were an amplifier concealed somewhere within him and his speech came from some distant and august studio; everything he said might have been for a peak-hour listening period.
    Dr. Kenworthy always bought the best and Mr. Joyboy came to Whispering Glades with a great reputation. He had taken his baccalaureate in embalming in the Middle West and for some years before his appointment to Whispering Glades had been one of the Undertaking Faculty at an historic Eastern University. He had served as Chief Social Executive at two National Morticians’ Conventions. He had led a goodwill mission to the morticians of Latin America. His photograph, albeit with a somewhat ribald caption, had appeared in
Time
magazine.
    Before he came there had been murmurs in the embalming-room that Mr. Joyboy was a mere theorist. These were dispelled on the first morning. He had only to be seen with a corpse to be respected. It was like the appearance of a stranger in the hunting-field who from the moment he is seen in the saddle, before hounds move off, proclaims himself unmistakably a horseman. Mr. Joyboy was unmarried and every girl in Whispering Glades gloated on him.
    Aimée knew that her voice assumed a peculiar tone when she spoke to him. “Was he a very difficult case, Mr. Joyboy?”
    “Well, a wee bit but I think everything has turned out satisfactorily.”
    He drew the sheet back and revealed the body of Sir Francis lying naked save for a new pair of white linen drawers. It was white and slightly translucent, like weathered marble.
    “Oh, Mr. Joyboy, he’s beautiful.”
    “Yes, I fancy he has come up nicely”; he gave a little poulterer’s pinch to the thigh. “Supple,” he raised an arm and gently bent the wrist. “I think we have two or three hours before he need take the pose. The head will have to incline slightly to put the carotid suture in the shadow. The skull drained very nicely.”
    “But, Mr. Joyboy, you’ve given him the Radiant Childhood Smile.”
    “Yes, don’t you like it?”
    “Oh,
I
like it, of course, but his Waiting One did not ask for it.”
    “Miss Thanatogenos, for you the Loved Ones just naturally smile.”
    “Oh, Mr. Joyboy.”
    “It’s true, Miss Thanatogenos. It seems I am just powerless to prevent it. When I am working for you there’s something inside me says ‘He’s on his way to Miss Thanatogenos’ and my fingers just seem to take control. Haven’t you noticed it?”
    “Well, Mr. Joyboy, I did remark it only last week. ‘All the Loved Ones that come from Mr. Joyboy lately,’ I said, ‘have the most beautiful smiles.’ ”
    “All for you, Miss Thanatogenos.”
    No music was relayed here. The busy floor echoed with the swirling and gurgling of taps in the embalming-rooms, the hum of electric dryers in the cosmetic rooms. Aimée worked like a nun, intently, serenely, methodically; first the shampoo, then the shave, then the manicure. She parted the white hair, lathered the rubbery cheeks and plied the razor; she clipped the nails and probed the cuticle. Then she drew up the wheeled table on