For Those In Peril On The Sea

Josiah Oakshott, sole proprietor of Oakshott and Underwood Funeral Directors, sat back contentedly in his comfortable office chair.  Happily he cast his eyes around the dimly-lit, oak-panelled room that acted as his workplace.  He loved it here, particularly at this time of day when everyone had gone home at the close of a busy working day and there was only him and his clients in the mortuary, none of whom were likely to disturb his repose.  He stretched a little, settled himself back further into his seat and returned to his study of the accounts.  The peace was, however, rudely shattered by his office door crashing open to admit the dishevelled spectre of Archibald Thurble.

"I've just about had enough and that's straight!"  Archibald announced with the hint of a sob in his voice.

"Archibald!  I thought you had completed your tasks for the day and returned home.  What brings you here, now?  Surely that business with Mrs. Papodopoulous was concluded a good while ago?"

"Erm, not quite"  Archibald shuffled his feet and fidgeted with his black bowler hat.

Josiah was perplexed.  He had tasked Archibald with the simple remit to accompany Mrs. Papodopoulous as she went to scatter her husband's ashes.  Strictly speaking, there was no requirement for the presence of an undertaker at this event, but Mrs. Papodopoulous was a member of a large and rapidly ageing family and Josiah had high hopes of future business.

"I take it that you have experienced some difficulties?"  Josiah asked with a grim foreboding.

"Did we ever!" Archibald said with feeling and crashed down into the chair opposite Josiah's desk, "first she wouldn't go in our car, she insisted that we use Mr. Papodopoulous' 'cause she wanted him to be able 'to take one last spin in it'" Archibald did a passable impression of Mrs. Papodopoulous' heavily accented voice.

"That does not seem unreasonable, given the circumstances, Archibald.  I trust you were suitably sympathetic to her wishes?"

"Oh yeah, I said it wasn't a problem but I wasn't really happy 'cause it's a big car and I've never driven anything like that before.  It was a bit weird having him next to me an' all"

"Him?"

"Mr. Papodopoulous.  She insisted on having the urn strapped in the passenger seat, so he could see out, like.  Mrs. Papodopoulous was in the back."

"Well, again, not entirely unreasonable" Josiah pointed out, "we do have to make certain allowances for the feelings of the recently bereaved, as I have made clear to you on numerous occasions, Archibald"

"Yeah, well, any road, we're travelling down the dual carriageway and we get pulled over by the Police for a routine check"

"Not speeding?"  Josiah asked with trepidation.  He still shuddered whenever he remembered the occasion when Archibald, in an excess of zeal and concern for punctuality, had hurtled past the hearse carrying the coffin, with the ashen-faced family of the deceased clutching each other in fright as he reached speeds in excess of 100 mph in his attempt to reach the crematorium on time.

"Nah, nothing like that.  They were stopping people at random, checking car tax, tyres and stuff. So, they pulled us up and the first thing they asked was, was I the owner of the car?"

"Indeed, standard procedure" Josiah nodded.

"Yeah, but they got a bit shirty when I said I wasn't but he was and pointed to the urn." Archibald crossed his arms and looked suitably put-upon, " I think they thought I was trying to be funny."

"I can imagine" Josiah sighed and reached for his notepad.  From past experience he found that any foray by Archibald into the outside world nearly always required a series of apologies, so he commenced what he expected to be his list of Apologies To Make with 'Local Police' at the top.

"Mrs. Papodopoulous had to get out and explain it all to them.  They were alright after that but they kept looking at me a bit funny, I thought"

"I can't imagine why" Josiah commented, sarcastically, knowing full well the nuance would be lost on Archibald.

"Anyhow, eventually we get back on the road and head for the cliffs where Mrs. P. wanted to scatter Mr. P's ashes.  Only, when we get up there, it's blowing like bugg… nobody's business.  I said maybe we should try somewhere else but she wouldn't hear of it.  So, she gets this bag of rose petals and stands on the edge of the cliff and chucks them over, 'cause she wanted to do that first before we sent the ashes down"

"Seems a nice, romantic touch" Josiah remarked.

"Yeah, well, it's just as well she did, 'cause the wind blew all the petals back and she was covered from head to foot.  She just stood there looking like a giant pimple!"

"I hope you were demonstrated a degree of compassion, Archibald?" Josiah asked with the definite feeling that he shouldn't have entrusted Archibald with this task, after all.

"Of course!" Archibald responded, indignantly, "mind you, you've got to laugh haven't you?  I think even she saw the funny side after we'd cleaned her up a bit.  We got most of the petals back in the bag, so it was alright, really.  I said to her, with it blowing like bugg…erm, blowing quite a bit up there I thought we'd better knock that idea on the head.  Anyhow, she started getting upset and said how as she'd promised Mr. P. that she'd 'commit his body to the waves' like he wanted, so I said why don't we hire a boat and do it that way"

"Very enterprising, Archibald.  I'm pleased you sought a solution"

"Yeah, well, I thought it was a good idea and she got all enthusiastic and said that her brother had a fishing boat, so we drove down to the harbour but her brother had already gone out fishing and there was no-one else about."

"That was unfortunate, Archibald.  What action did you take?"

"Well, the foot passenger ferry was just about to set off, so we piled on that.  I thought we could just dump Mr. P. off the back when we got about half-way across the channel"

Josiah nodded.  The ferry carried foot passengers from the harbour to a headland a small distance away so that they could access the next town without having to drive the much greater distance along the coast.  "A sound enough plan, provided the Ferryman had no objections" He agreed.

"Yeah, well, I told him about it and he took it ever so seriously.  When we got about halfway across, he stopped the engine, came to the back of the boat and lowered the little flag to half-mast.  Then he got all of the other passengers to stand up and made them sing "For Those In Peril On The Sea" while Mrs. P. chucked the rose petals out and I ditched Mr. P. into the drink"

Josiah had a mental image of the assembled passengers standing precariously and singing and had to stifle a smile.  "Were the other passengers alright about it?"  He asked, eventually.

"Well, there was a party of Chinese folk and they didn't seem to know what was going on.  They didn't look at all happy.  I was surprised that the Ferry bloke did all that 'cause Mrs. P. said that Mr. P. couldn't stand him.  Apparently, he always said 'he was a cheating bastard who abused his monopolistic position'" Archibald mimicked Mrs. Papodopoulous again.

"I hope she didn't say that to him"

"Well, no, not right then.  That came later."

"Later?  In what way, later?" Josiah asked with a good deal of trepidation.

"It was when we got back after we'd dropped the Chinese folk off. The Ferryman wanted Mrs. P. to pay for three round-trip tickets and she went off at him, a bit.  In the end he settled on two return tickets and one single on the grounds that Mr. P. didn't come back, which seemed fair"

"I suppose so" Josiah shook his head, he was definitely entering that state of total disorientation which always seemed to come from being in conversation with Archibald.  "All in all, from the sound of things, I suppose it could have been worse" He reached for his notepad and added 'Ferryman' to his list.

"Yeah, if that had been the end of it.  But, as we were driving back, we got stopped again but this time by a different lot of copp…policemen, 'cause we were on the other carriageway" Archibald explained, "going in the opposite direction.  They wanted to know the same stuff, like 'is this your vehicle,sir' and all that"

"And what did you tell them, this time?"

"Well, I said that by rights I supposed it was Mrs. P. who owned it now, and she nodded like, because it used to belong to her husband, Mr. Papodopoulous, but we'd just chucked him in the ocean.  You wouldn't credit how excited they got!  Next thing we know, we're both being dragged out of the car, bent over the bonnet and frisked"

"Oh no!  Poor Mrs. Papodopoulous!"

"Oh, I don't know.  I think she quite enjoyed it.  She certainly had a gleam in her eye when they loaded us on to the van"

"Loaded you on to the van!  Why?"

"They took us to the Cop Sh…Police Station, didn't they? 'Cause they thought we'd done away with Mr. Papodopoulous, you see."

Josiah added Mrs. Papodopoulous to his ever increasing list.

"I presume, given your presence here, Archibald, that this distressing interlude was concluded satisfactorily?"

"You what?" Archibald looked puzzled.

"I guess everything's alright as you're here now!" Josiah all but shouted.

"Yeah, 'cause that Inspector turned up, you know, that one who interviewed me after all that business with Mrs. Anderby and the compost (see Last Rights) and he took one look at me and said he wasn't going through all that again, not for a big clock, and they chucked us out."

Josiah added the Detective Inspector to the list and reflected that this was probably going to cost him at least one bottle of Malt.

"I think, on reflection, Archibald" Josiah said, faintly, as he buried his face in his hands, "that I was ill-advised to entrust you with this particular mission.  It clearly involved a good deal more complexity than I ever imagined"

"Oh, don't fret Mr. O.  It wasn't all bad news."  Archibald said, stoutly, "The Ferry bloke said, for the right money, you can chuck anyone you like off the back of his boat"

"I will bear that in mind, Archibald" Josiah said, resignedly. "I will bear that in mind" He was pretty sure he had a strong candidate on the tip of his tongue.

THE END

You can find a special Christmas story about Josiah and Archibald in the collection of seasonal stories: A Christmas Cracker