SSSC A Last Laugh

A cardboard coffin and a few ham sandwiches would have done, but Ruth realises appearances have to be kept up, especially with that freak show of a family keeping a beady little eye on proceedings. In consequence she’s splashed out far more money than genuine tears since Arthur finally shuffled off the mortal coil.
She goes to pay her last respects on the evening before the burial. Tobin’s Funeral Directors is a small family run business nestling anonymously on a side road off the high street. The visit has been delayed for as long as possible. She’s far too busy making plans for her new life and she has no great desire to see the fat louse again but, if she must, dead and in a coffin is the preferred mode. She pushes open the front door. An entrance bell tolls and it’s like walking into a vacuum. The muted hush sucks sound from the air, replacing it with creeping stillness and a fugue of embalming fluid. The reception desk is empty. Ruth perches herself on a tobacco brown leather couch rescued from last in stock limbo and waits.
After an interminable length of time a balding scrawny head pokes out from a doorway tortoise fashion and gives a startled croak to see her there. Ruth is a touch jolted too, expecting the earnest young girl who’d visited the house earlier last week. Then she recalls a scrap of the conversation.
‘My granddad will see to you when you go to view the body.’
‘Oh I don’t know about that dear’ Ruth had answered huskily. ‘I prefer to think of him as he was,’ But this was before the snide remarks from that viper’s nest of a family had reluctantly forced her hand, obliging her to make some attempt at public grief.
‘Mr Tobin?’
The old geezer cocks his head to one side tapping one ear like a self-repairing clockwork toy. ‘Have you been waiting long my love?’
Ruth pastes on a polite smile. ‘Not too long.’
‘Damn hearing aid keeps carking out on me.’
‘Well it’s in the right place,’ she quips.
He pauses. ‘Aye?’
Christ, she resists the urge to raise her eyes and raises her voice instead. ‘I’m here to see Mr Suggett, my husband.’
‘Mrs Suggett!’ he exclaims. ‘My dear how nice to meet you at last, despite the sad circumstances.’ He shuffles forward. ‘Your husband was held in such high esteem amongst the business community of our humble little town I must tell you.’
Translated as medium sized turd in very small puddle. Ruth adds another strut to prop up her weary smile as he clasps her hand in a papery grip.
‘We’re all so sorry to see him go.’ he commiserates. ‘And how are you coping, you and those lovely children of yours? All grown up now aren’t they?’
‘Actually I’m his second wife, the children are from his first marriage.’
The old man’s condolence face slips. ‘Eh, he got married again, when was that?’
‘About five years ago actually.’ Ruth makes no attempt to stop the smile slithering away like a rats tail down a drain.
‘My memory’s getting terrible.’ He dodders across to a large book on the reception desk and leans over making a disgusting masticating noise with his gums.
‘Yes he’s in room five. This way my dear!’
She follows his painfully slow progress out of reception and down the corridor. It was Arthur’s express wish to be buried with this firm. Ruth would’ve preferred the Co-Op, much better value for money but he was a bit of a traditionalist and it shows. There’s no bright décor to offset and soften the long shadow of death here. The place borders on gothic with old carpets congested by ugly Persian weaves and wrought iron sconces casting greasy light along the regency stripe and dado rail. Ruth half expects some mad wife, broken free from the attic, to come stalking along towards them.
‘Yes we’ve done all the Suggett’s in our time my love,’ he warbles, creeping through the murk. ‘Last one we saw to was Arthur’s dear old Mum…he insisted on the best for her.’
The door to room five is a dark, panelled slab that protests noisily as the old geezer pushes it open. He ushers her in obsequiously. The room is depressingly similar in style and gloom. Five minutes max, Ruth decides crisply, having no desire to hang around in this mausoleum. She’s keen to get home to Marty, her treasure of a gardener, cum handyman, cum best lay she’s had in years.
The coffin lies in the middle of the room. She can see Arthur’s barrel chest rising from the casket like a pinstriped mountain. He had an impressive chest, Ruth concedes but not best offset by the lolling paunch and fat derriere, both mercifully minimised by his inert position.
She approaches with some trepidation. He always claimed this place could do miracles but it had been a nasty accident none the less. As she peers down she’s relieved to see he looks reasonably good…for a corpse. A faint ragged line along one side of his face is heavily disguised by the thick powder blanching his cheeks. The nose is a little more squashed than normal but apart from that, facially at least, he looks much like he always did. There’s a stiff, doll like appearance though, what with the makeup employed to add some colour. The old codger mutters something about leaving her alone for a while.
Thank you!’ Ruth remembers to insert a slight tremor into her voice and for good measure places a pale hand on the arm of Arthur’s suit.
She whips it away as though it’s radioactive as the door clicks shut. A scowl blooms unrestrained on her features.
‘Serves you right you bastard.’ The whispered hiss is spat into his face. ‘This is one time when you don’t get the last laugh darlin’.’
It was his oft-used saying. No one gets one over on Arthur Sugget. One way or another I always have the last laugh. The sadist loved revenge; he’d ruined lives and reputations over the merest slight. Her memory conjures his distinctive chuckle. A snide, shrink-wrapped kind of s'n-word', packed with malice and schadenfraude.
She regards the lantern jaw, heavy brows and brutally cropped grey hair. He has the forbidding appearance of one of those preserved Russian presidents in Red Square. The ageing yob who never grew out of the sadistic pleasure it gave him. ‘Respected my butt,’ she sneers. Arthur Suggett controlled and terrorised the whole town with his wads of talking money and thugs that did the dirty work for him when it didn’t talk loud enough.
The sombre strains of Verdi’s Requiem lurch rudely to life, piped in from a distant hi-fi and merely adding to the depressing environment. Arthur would have preferred disco, she thinks ruefully. The thought kindles a memory of her strutting into Over Thirties Night at Club Adonis, her sleek raven hair gleaming beneath the flashing lights, determined to net a rich older man.
‘Ruth, what a lovely old fashioned name doll,’ he’d purred, leering down her cleavage as she leaned in closer to hear him above the Teutonic drumbeat from the PA.
‘My mother wanted something biblical and tasteful,’ she’d breathed, neglecting to mention that, naming day aside, her mother referred to her as ‘a devil in skirts or variations on that theme from then on.
It didn’t take long to prize him from that bitch of a wife. They were some of her most creative boudoir techniques ever, not to mention the most lucrative. Within a year he was walking her up the aisle. Within two she’d stoked enough bad feeling between him and those feckless leeches he called offspring to have them cut out of the will entirely. It wasn’t difficult, paternal duty and familial loyalty were never top of his personal agenda. She stood to gain everything.
Ruth’s eyes flicker up and down the length of his body, crammed into the casket. Maybe she should have ordered something a bit more spacious. Who cares, more needless cost. Arthur’s mouth is set in a grim line as though he’s realised, post mortem, exactly what transpired behind his back. She wonders dispassionately if it’s been sewn shut and finds the idea darkly comic.
Neither of them were under any fairy tale illusions. Ruth stoically en

[edit on 6-10-2007 by ubermunche]

Excellent tale very well expressed...

Part 2

Neither of them were under any fairy tale illusions. Ruth stoically endured the round of dinner parties and social events, tolerating his leering cronies and their glaring wives. In return she was treated to jaunts and cruises and indulged in a manner to which she became rapidly accustomed. With abundant funds available she maintained her looks with regular trips to the gym, pedicurist and hair salon, playing the part of dutiful trophy wife. If Marty hadn’t come ambling into their life with come to bed eyes and that sleek, muscled body they would’ve continued to rub along fairly well.
Worse than being tempted to dally was the singularly un-circumspect way Ruth went about it. In retrospect it was only a matter of time before the cat was out of the bag.
Arthur had laid it on the line.
‘I know all about it, you give him up now or you’re out.’
‘I’ll take you to the cleaners.’ It was bravado on her part, which evidenced hollow when he laid the photos on the desk.
‘With you as a proven adulteress? I don’t think so.’ He gazed at her levelly. ‘You wont be getting much of a settlement from me doll, certainly not enough to keep you in the style you‘re used to.’
‘A private detective,‘ she raised a brow, feigning indifference. ‘You have been busy. cherie. And while we’re co-responding what about all your little slags?’
‘Suits you doesn’t it? Takes the heat off.’
Ruth couldn’t argue with that, more importantly she had no proof.
‘Just think yourself lucky that I’m giving you a second chance, and he’s not leaving with his gonads hanging from his secetueres.
Ruth glared back, shaken but defiant.
‘Our Howard’s been on the phone,’ he continued slyly, referencing one of the feckless offspring. ‘We had a long chat, bit of a rapprochement really. Shame to let these things fester, perhaps I should reconsider their inheritance after all.’
Bloody hillbilly‘s, she thought savagely. Always hovering on the sidelines, ready to put the boot in. But the threat was blatant.
‘Any way I’d best get on. Just wanted to clear the air with you doll.’
Dismissed she turned and stalked towards the door, fuming and humiliated. Then she heard that snide, knowing little s'n-word'. It was like nails drawn down the chalkboard of her rage.
Funny how the small things finally push you over the edge Ruth considers, smiling faintly.
Marty was genuinely shocked at the idea but when she began speculating about the kind of life they could have together, shored up by Arthur’s fortune, his protests became fainter, the avarice in his voice tentative. Every man has his price.
He’s such a treasure, Ruth thinks fondly. Can turn his hand to anything…cars included. Slipping into the garage it didn’t take long to tinker with Arthur’s favourite Lamborghini, the one he, and only he, was allowed to drive, bombing around on the moors like some retarded boy racer.
‘At least you died doing something you loved dearest.’ Ruth’s smile curls maliciously in the gloom.
The Requiem dies out like smoke on the air. There’s a heavy pause then the tune from Miami Vice booms cheerfully into the room.
Ruth claps a hand to her mouth to stifle a scream of mirth. They’re obviously using Top TV Themes as muzak; it takes an age for the doddering old fart to get to the hi-fi and press pause.
She’s spent long enough paying her last respects. Ruth gazes down, her face full of exaggerated sorrow. ‘Goodbye Arthur darling. May you rot in Hell.’
She walks to the door, wiping her eyes briskly to imply redness and smudged mascara and anxious to get home. She’s redoing the spare room so that Marty-after a discreet amount of time of course-can become her live in gardener cum handyman cum best lay in years and just cum, cum, cum.
Arranging her features suitably she turns the handle. She tries it again, then rattles the door.
‘Hallo,’ she taps on the wood then remembers the silly old bugger’s deaf and knocks and shouts louder. ‘Hallo, can you let me out please Mr Tobin, the doors locked.’
There’s a long sulky silence. ‘Damn,’ she mutters and bangs again harder then presses her ear to the door listening.
Eventually her patience is rewarded with a step outside.
‘Mr Tobin,’ she calls. ‘Can you hear me I’m locked in?’
‘I know that dear, there’s no need to shout I’m not that deaf.’
She pauses, puzzled. ‘Well can you open the door please.’
‘Mr Suggett had a suspicion you’d try something like this you know. He’d already changed the will back. He was worried a little accident might be arranged.’
Ruth’s blood turns to ice. She doesn’t know what alarms her more, talk of altered wills or the accusation of foul play. ‘I don’t know what you’re on about,’ she injects a weak little laugh into her voice. ‘Would you please open this door.’
‘Not really dear, this is one of the things he specified, should he meet a sudden end. He came to me about the arrangements…the real arrangements, ’ His tone is dry and smug. ‘Along with a generous donation towards our humble little business of course.’
‘Bloody Hell!’ She might have known this old sod would be in his pay as well. ‘What are you talking about Mr Tobin,’ Ruth strains to keep a light normalcy in her voice but her thoughts are unravelling. There’s a mocking silence from outside the door ‘Call the police then,’ she snaps deciding to bluff it out. They couldn’t prove a thing anyway; the car was a right off.
‘Oh no dear, I’m not keeping you in there for the police.’
The dim lights suddenly snap off, leaving her in a pitch-black void. When Mr Tobin’s voice comes again it is receding down the corridor. ‘Didn’t Mr Suggett ever tell you about our reputation, we really can do miracles dear. Give people one last chance to settle unfinished business.’
‘Will you bloody well open up!’ She hears the bell toll as the street door opens and closes. A key turns faintly in the lock.
For a moment she stands panic stricken, assailed by silence and darkness, then she begins pounding until her palms are raw, screaming for help.
She loses all track of time, it’s passage obliterated by the crashing tattoo of her fists and shrieked expletives. Outside the faint sound of traffic and life bustles by unconcerned but even that drains away as the night draws on. The darkness around her seems to perch expectantly at her exposed back.
Through the fury of her cries a covert sound suddenly intrudes. She freezes and turns, groping blindly and listening
It comes again louder. A whisper of scuffed silk and a skittering of fingers scrabbling for purchase on wood.
Then a low, knowing chuckle.

Great stuff ubermunche, ......again. I really enjoyed that.

cheers mojo.

Ubermunche.....it appears that each of your sentences pack a heavy, crafted punch.

Really enjoyable read.

Love it, uber.
As always, great characters with a ton o' depth.

Nice work.

Thanks maties. Posted this up quickly, haven't had a chance to check out the competotion yet as hellishly busy but will do so very soon. Know I'll be eaten alive with envy lol. Good luck to everyone.

I really enjoyed this. I've always secretly wished that the murdered could exact their revenge themselves and make it an open and shut case for the cops, this story gave me that satisfaction. Very well written, easy and enjoyable read.