The Loved One Read Free Page A

the wagon.
    “Shall we discuss arrangements now, or would you prefer to call in the morning?”
    “I’m a pretty busy man mornings,” said Mr. Heinkel. “Come into the study.”
    There was a tray on the desk. They helped themselves to whisky.
    “I have our brochure here setting out our service. Were you thinking of interment or incineration?”
    “Pardon me?”
    “Buried or burned?”
    “Burned, I guess.”
    “I have some photographs here of various styles of urn.”
    “The best will be good enough.”
    “Would you require a niche in our columbarium or do you prefer to keep the remains at home?”
    “What you said first.”
    “And the religious rites? We have a pastor who is always pleased to assist.”
    “Well, Mr.—?”
    “Barlow.”
    “Mr. Barlow, we’re neither of us what you might call very church-going people, but I think on an occasion like this Mrs. Heinkel would want all the comfort you can offer.”
    “Our Grade A service includes several unique features. At the moment of committal, a white dove, symbolizing the deceased’s soul, is liberated over the crematorium.”
    “Yes,” said Mr. Heinkel, “I reckon Mrs. Heinkel would appreciate the dove.”
    “And every anniversary a card of remembrance is mailed without further charge. It reads:
Your little Arthur is thinking of you in heaven today and wagging his tail.
”
    “That’s a very beautiful thought, Mr. Barlow.”
    “Then if you will just sign the order…”
    Mrs. Heinkel bowed gravely to him as he passed through the hall. Mr. Heinkel accompanied him to the door of his car. “It has been a great pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Barlow. You have certainly relieved me of a great responsibility.”
    “That is what the Happier Hunting Ground aims to do,” said Dennis, and drove away.
    At the administrative building, he carried the dog to the refrigerator. It was a capacious chamber, already occupied by two or three other small cadavers. Next to a Siamese cat stood a tin of fruit juice and a plate of sandwiches. Dennis took this supper into the reception room and, as he ate it, resumed his interrupted reading.

Two
    W eeks passed, the rain came, invitations dwindled and ceased. Dennis Barlow was happy in his work. Artists are by nature versatile and precise; they only repine when involved with the monotonous and the makeshift. Dennis had observed this during the recent war; a poetic friend of his in the Grenadiers was an enthusiast to the end, while he himself fretted almost to death as a wingless officer in Transport Command.
    He had been dealing with Air Priorities at an Italian port when his first, his only book came out. England was no nest of singing-birds in that decade; lamas scanned the snows in vain for a reincarnation of Rupert Brooke. Dennis’s poems, appearing among the buzz-bombs and the jaunty, deeply depressing publications of His Majesty’s Stationery Office, achieved undesignedly something of the effect of the resistance Press of occupied Europe. They were extravagantly praised and butfor the paper restrictions would have sold like a novel. On the day
The Sunday Times
reached Caserta with a two-column review, Dennis was offered the post of personal assistant to an air marshal. He sulkily declined, remained in “Priorities” and was presented in his absence with half a dozen literary prizes. On his discharge he came to Hollywood to help write the life of Shelley for the films.
    There in the Megalopolitan studios he found reproduced, and enhanced by the nervous agitation endemic to the place, all the gross futility of service life. He repined, despaired, fled.
    And now he was content; adept in a worthy trade, giving satisfaction to Mr. Schultz, keeping Miss Poski guessing. For the first time he knew what it was to “explore an avenue”; his way was narrow but it was dignified and umbrageous and it led to limitless distances.
    Not all his customers were as open-handed and tractable as the Heinkels. Some boggled