The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
The Posy Ring
Her
It’s a relief to stop thinking about Auchenblae for a while. On Saturday morning she and her father go to the antique fair as planned. They stuff as many boxes and cartons as possible into Daisy’s car, most of it from the small storage unit they hired a few years ago.
This involves getting up so early – a bleeding ungodly hour, says her father – that Rob can hardly keep his eyes open and Daisy drives while he leans back in the passenger seat and tries to doze.
They would have packed everything the night before, but it never seems wise to leave it in the car overnight, in the city.
“This place wouldn’t hold a fraction of the things from Auchenblae,” she remarks as they lock up the unit.
“If I wanted to keep some of it. And I’d have to clear the house before I sold it. Or let somebody else do it.”
“So you”re still thinking of selling it, are you?” Rob yawns widely.
She had woken up in the middle of the previous night and couldn’t get back to sleep with the worry of it all.
But then everything seems so much worse at three or four in the morning.
She switches constantly between excitement and panic.
“I don’t know.”
jam
Half an hour later, they manage to find a parking space not too far from the entrance to the suburban hall where this monthly fair is held, and then lug and trundle everything into the foyer.
“If I don’t get a coffee soon, I’m going to kill somebody,” Rob remarks, mildly.
The organisers are late, an accident on the motorway causing a mega traffic jam, and the exhibitors have to wait among the assorted trolleys and boxes until the keyholder arrives.
The stallholders are an eclectic mix of young hopefuls, middle-aged and some elderly dealers who are either winding down to full retirement or desperately trying to supplement their pensions.
They will cheerfully tell her that they have “done quite well”, when in reality they’ve only made the price of the stall, but she knows that they’re a kindly bunch on the whole.
She and her father have nicknames for
Traffic
some of them: Mr Desperate, Mrs Grumpy, the Hippy Sisters, Green Welly Man. She sometimes wonders what they call her.
The sale is held in a familiar draughty hall that smells of frying bacon from the pop-up cafeteria tucked at the far end.
The smell is appetising at first, but by the end of the afternoon, it always becomes sickening.
She’s made up a picnic: sandwiches and fruit and a flask of black coffee that her father falls on as though it is nectar.
Around lunchtime Rob will invariably wander off and come back with trays of chips and more coffee in paper cups, because they will have drunk the whole flask before mid-day but never seem to get round to buying a spare flask.
Fairs invariably make Daisy hungry. She once managed to secure a stall at a mixed crafts and collectables fair opposite a couple selling home-made chocolates. They were very liberal with free samples for their fellow stall-holders and by the end of the day Daisy felt faintly sick.
The inheritance
She has a feeling that as soon as Rob is off on his trip, any of his healthy eating will be abandoned.
She has to remind herself that it isn’t her job to police his behaviour, just as it isn’t really his job to police hers any more. Not that he ever did. She must decide for herself what she wants to do.
The inheritance, and everything that comes with it, is hers and hers alone.
He doesn’t want her money and won’t accept it, even though she’d be happy to give him some of it. Until now, they’ve been sporadically comfortable, with periods of borderline hardship.
Daisy has grown up with it and doesn’t mind it. She knows that money doesn’t necessarily buy happiness, but it certainly makes the occasional misery a whole lot easier to bear.
The hall has rows of folding tables, carefully arranged, with exhibitor names on printouts taped to them. If people encroach on somebody else’s space, disputes can break out.
She covers her two ugly tables with a white linen cloth with shamrocks and roses woven into it, and tries to make the stall look enticing. Rob follows her about, tweaking this and that.
Occasionally people ask if they can buy the cloth, but it’s so useful that she always hangs on to it, even though it’s difficult to wash and almost impossible to iron. I have a whole trunk full of these now, she thinks. Perhaps more.
Footfall is poor. May is generally a bad month for customers, and she finds this surprising, because she loves May and June better than any other time of year.
But the so-so sales must have something to do with the bank holidays at either end of the month. Maybe people have other things to spend their money on.
Autograph
Some of the early customers are fellow dealers who are looking for a bargain. Rob stands his ground about prices and she’s irritated to note, as she always is, that they’ll offer him slightly more than they offer her.
They think they can bully her. They never try to bully him. Sometimes they even recognise him.
“Aren’t you Rob Graham? You play the fiddle, don’t you?”
Once or twice somebody has asked for his autograph. He pretends to be surprised but he’s tickled pink, she can tell.
He isn’t exactly famous, so any recognition is a bonus. Still, Glasgow always likes to celebrate its own.
Mid-morning is busier; then there’s the lunchtime slump. A shower in the early afternoon brings more people in. Finally, there’s a very quiet time before the lastminute rush of those folk who think they’ll get a bargain during the free-for-all at the end.
She sometimes makes most of her money in the last half-hour. People see something, think they might want it and then make up their minds at the last minute.
Fairs pass by a lot faster when they’re busy, and this one is just busy enough, but she’s still feeling uncharacteristically jaded and bored with the whole procedure.
She has to remind herself that it isn’t job to police his behaviour, just as it isn’t really his job to police hers any more
Dundee funeral director Paul Craigie looked at the fire spreading into his premises and just held his head in his hands.
Last January’s blaze on Clepington Road was so ferocious it required 10 fire appliances to extinguish.
The fire started in takeaway China, China and quickly spread to neighbouring Affertons Funeral Care.
Mr Craigie recalled: “It was the first weekend in about four years that we did not have bodies within the premises, which was a blessing.
“Had we had remains there…it just doesn’t bear thinking about.
“I remember it was a Saturday and I was at home. I’d put my phone down for five minutes and when I picked it up there were 20 missed calls.
“I rushed down – I think I was still in my slippers. What I saw was seriously distressing, certainly a head-in-the-hands moment.
“I was just standing in the street with the other onlookers, thinking where do we go from here?”
Temporary premises were hastily arranged and the business was able to start trading again within three weeks.
The company, which was founded in 2013, had been growing strongly at between 10 to 15% a year.
But after the fire, Affertons had to fight a perception that it was no longer in business.
“There was no question the business would continue,” Mr Craigie said.
“Some people thought we’d gone out of business, which combined with the fire meant there was a small drop in our numbers for the first time last year.
“But ultimately we fared better than we thought we would last year.”
The business, which is owned by Balhousie Care Group’s Tony Banks, is now making a major investment in permanent new premises.
It will move into the former House of Pisces tropical fish shop in Strathmartine Road this summer.
The substantial premises have been stripped with work ongoing to form funeral service rooms, private viewing rooms and garage facilities for the vehicle fleet.
Mr Craigie said: “It is 10 times bigger than Clepington Road and more. It’s a great location and it’s going to take us to the next level in Dundee.
“Everything will be under one roof for us – two arrangement rooms, two viewings rooms, a mortuary, a garage and most importantly a service room which will be fairly hi-tech.
“There will be facilities for streaming services from there live. It will have everything we require.
“We had hoped to have our new premises ready by the end of last year.
“But, like many construction projects, we’ve been delayed because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Although there is going to be significant investment, it won’t be reflected in higher costs.
Dundee-based Mckenna Group – with more than 20 years of electrical and mechanical experience – has been awarded the contract to transform the property.
It will provide the electrical and plumbing installations along with the fire and security systems.
Ian Mckenna, director of Mckenna Group, said: “We are delighted to have been awarded the contract for Affertons’ new property, the planning of which highlights the compassion they show for their recently bereaved clients.
“The facilities and investment being made will prove a fantastic funeral provision for Dundee.”