“Wah!” went the pinch-faced woman.

“Not even close,” said Dave.

“No! Wah!” The pinch-faced woman turned away and the distinctive sound of a hand smacking a face was to be heard.

“That’s a bit harsh,” said a man’s voice. “I didn’t mean to touch your bum – I tripped on the door mat.”

“Rapist!” screamed the pinch-faced woman, leaving the door ajar.

“Let’s slip in,” said Dave.

And so the two of us slipped in.

It was a very big house. Much bigger on the inside than on the outside. But so many houses are. The big ones anyway. Estate agents refer to the phenomenon as “deceptively spacious”. But I don’t think that it’s fully scientifically understood.

“This is a very big hall,” said Dave. “It stretches away right into the distance.”

“Well, at least as far as that door at the end,” I said. “Which is the door where all the noise is coming from.”

“There’s quite a lot of noise here,” Dave obsessed. “And quite a lot of violence too.” The pinch-faced woman struggled on the floor, punching at a fat man who lay on his back. He wasn’t putting up much of a fight. In fact, he seemed to be smiling.

“Come on,” said Dave. “Follow me.”

We went along the hall, then stuck our heads round the door at the end of it. And then we viewed the wake that was going on beyond.

Having never seen a wake before I didn’t know what to expect, so I suppose that I was neither surprised nor disappointed. Nor even bewildered nor bemused. Nor was I amazed.

But I was interested.

The room that lay beyond the door was a withdrawing room. The room to which rich men of yesteryear withdrew after the completion of their feasting at the dining table, where they left the womenfolk to chat about things that womenfolk love to chat about. Particularly fashion. Such as, what particular colour commandos would be wearing that year.

The rich men withdrew to the drawing room and talked about manly things. Like port and cigars and football and shagging servant women and stuff like that. They probably talked about commandos too, but only about what colour their guns would be. It seemed pretty clear to me that if we were having good times now, and we were, those rich men of yesteryear had had better.

The room was tall and square with frescoed walls in the Copulanion style. There were over-stuffed sofas all around and about and these were crowded with red-faced men who held glasses, and all, it seemed, talked together. They talked, as far as I could hear them, mostly of P.P. Penrose. Of what a great sportsman he’d been. And of his love of sportsmanship. And of his skills as a writer. And of how amazing his Lazlo Woodbine thrillers were. And of what rubbish the Adam Earth science-fiction series was.

Although I understood their words, the manner in which they spoke them was queer to my ears. They all talked in up-and-down ways. Beginning a sentence softly, then getting louder, then all fading away once more.

“They’re all drunk,” said Dave. “They’ll all be singing shortly.”

“How does ‘shortly’ go?” I asked. Which I thought was funny, but Dave did not.

“Look there,” Dave said and he pointed.

I followed the direction of Dave’s pointing. “The coffin,” I said.

In the middle of the room, with the over-stuffed sofas and the men sat upon them with the glasses in their hands, talking queerly and on the verge of singing, lay the coffin.

Up upon a pair of wooden trestles, it was a handsome casket affair, constructed of Abarti pine in the Margrave design with Humbilian brass coffin furniture and rilled mouldings of the Hampton-Stanbrick persuasion. And it was open and from where we were standing we could see the nose of the dead Mr Penrose rising from it like a pink shark’s fin or an isosceles triangle of flesh, or in fact numerous other things of approximately the same shape.

But it was definitely a nose.

“Cool,” went Dave. “I can see his dead hooter.”

“Here’s the plan,” I said to Dave. “You create a diversion, while I perform the complicated ritual and feed him the magic herbs.”

Dave turned towards me and the expression on his face was one that I still feel unable adequately to describe. Expressing, as it did, so many mixed emotions.

I smiled encouragingly at Dave.

Dave didn’t smile back at all.

“Not a happening thing, then?” I asked.

“Speak English,” said Dave.

“I mean, you don’t think you can do it?”

“No,” said Dave. “I don’t. Why don’t we just try to mingle amongst the drunken men – bide our time, as they say, await the moment.”

“Well put,” said I. “You go first, then.”

“Not me,” said Dave. “This is your big idea.”

“No, it’s not. My big idea was to dig him up later.”

“All right,” said Dave, pushing open the door. “Let’s risk it. Let’s mingle.” And he strode right into the withdrawing room.

I followed cautiously, trying to avoid the eyes of my father. They were rather red-rimmed and starey eyes, but they were his none the less. I could see my Uncle Jonny sitting over by one of the windows and I didn’t want to look at his horrible eyes.

“’Afternoon,” said Dave, to no one in particular. “Hello there, hi.”

We made our way across the richly carpeted floor towards the coffin. It’s funny how certain things stick in your mind and even now, all these many years later, I can remember that moment so very, very clearly. What happened next. And what was said. And what it meant.

I can recall the way my feet felt, inside my shoes, as they trod over the thick pile of that carpet. And the smell of the cigarette smoke and the way it coloured the light that fell in long shafts through the tall Georgian casement windows. And the dreamlike quality of it all. We weren’t supposed to be in this room, Dave and I: it was wrong, all wrong. But we were there. And it was real.

“Stop,” said a voice and a big hand fell on my shoulder. I turned my head round and up and found myself staring into the long, thin face of Caradoc Timms, Brentford’s leading funeral director.

Caradoc Timms leaned low his long, thin face and gave me a penetrating stare with his dark and hooded eyes. “You, boy,” he said in a nasal tone. “Can’t stay away from the dead, can you?”

I made sickly laughing sounds of the nervous variety. “I’ve just come to pay my respects,” I said. “Mr Penrose is my favourite author.”

Mr Timms shook his head. “And all those times you’ve come round to my funeral parlour, asking to be taken on as an apprentice?”

“I just wanted an after-school job, to earn money for sweeties,” I whispered.

“And all the funerals you follow, when you duck down behind the tombstones and watch?”

“Research?” I suggested. “I’d still like a job, if you have one going.”

“Unhealthy boy,” said Mr Timms. “Unspeakable boy.”

“Is that my boy?” I heard the Daddy’s voice. “Is that my Gary you have there?”

“Dave,” I said. “Let’s run.”

But Dave was suddenly nowhere to be seen.

“Gary?” My father rose unsteadily from his seat upon an overstuffed sofa. “It is my Gary. Smite him for me, Timms.” And my daddy sat down again, rather heavily, and took out his pipe.

“Shall I smite you?” Mr Timms asked.

“I’d rather you didn’t.” I prepared myself to run.

“So what should I do, then? Throw you out on your ear?”

“I’d rather you just let me stay, sir. I won’t be any trouble to anyone. I’ll just sit quietly in a corner.”

Mr Timms nodded his long, thin head. “I hope I live long enough to see it,” he said.

“What, me sitting quietly? I’m sure you will.”

“Not that,” said Mr Timms. “But you at the end of a hangman’s rope.”

“What?” said I, rather startled by this statement.

“You’re a bad’n,” said Mr Timms. “A bad’n from birth. I see’m come and I see’m go. The good’ns and the bad. I’ll tuck you into your coffin when your time comes, you see if I don’t.”