Mike Lockley: House clearance with a difference

Jul 2 2010

THIS doesn’t feel right, I whispered while delicately placing another fragile bone china item, clothed in newspaper, in one of the many cardboard boxes scattered on the floor.

“I mean,” I stuttered, casting a pleading glance at my wife, “it seems a bit, well…undignified.”

“It’s what he would’ve wanted,” she snapped while removing a heavy gilt-framed mirror from the wall.

I plucked up the courage to ask my beloved: “You don’t think he might have wanted us to wait until he was in the Chapel of Rest?”

Julie eyed the body in the corner of the room. “I’m not asking you,” she huffed, “to remove valuables from his body.”

A look of panic suddenly spread across her face. “He definitely isn’t wearing the gold Rolex, is he?”

“He definitely isn’t wearing the gold Rolex,” I assured her. “It was on the dressing table. I put it in the cardboard box over there.”

Yet another death in the family. This time, however, the sadness surrounding the loss of a loved one threatens to be overshadowed by an unseemly family squabble over the deceased’s chattels and accoutrements, which are many.

My wife was there at the end. At 2.30am, she barked a curt ‘He’s gone – bring a tea-chest’ down the phone.

“Why?” I stammered. “Where the hell do you want me to take him? You can’t just hand dead people over at the counter of the first funeral directors you come to. There’s a certain protocol involved, papers to…”

“Shut up!” she spat down the phone. “The box isn’t for him, it’s for the Capo di Monte figurines, which he wanted me to have.”

Seven hours later, four boxes had already been filled with dainty pottery, silver and gilt-edged glassware.

“Look in the loft,” barked She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed.