Rachel steps into the bay of her bedroom window. The windowpane is streaked with seagull s**t and skeins of dirt from the crematorium smokestack, but all that matters to Rachel is that the funeral-goers see her strip.
Steadying herself in the window, she checks her phone again. 9.40am. Almost time. But no sooner has she angled her half-naked body towards the hearse, a big-assed Mercedes E-class, than the sound of footsteps on the upstairs landing stops her dead.
‘There’s stuff to go on the line,’ yells Fay.
The idea of being caught, mid-strip, by her mother, makes Rachel want to douse herself in acid.
‘Mam. I’m changing. Don’t come in!’
But Fay is in the doorway already, reflected in the dressing table mirror opposite the bedroom door. Their perspectives meet now on the underwear, str
