Clive woke up in a coffin. He was fairly sure he wasn’t dead. For one thing, the casket was open, not under. For another, Phil Anbury was staring down at him, and he didn’t look pleased.

“So... that explains who broke the lock!” the Undertaker bristled. But before Clive could explain... “Come on! We’ve got work to do!”

Clive uncrossed his arms from his chest and sat up quickly. His back was sore. Turns out coffins weren’t nearly as comfy as they look!

He tried to remember how he’d gotten here... He recalled that blissful kiss with Isabella, and then an unfortunate run in with the Bridge guards on the north side after he’d managed to scale the gate; a pursuit, turning down an alley, seeing the sign (thank God he could read!), breaking the lock (surprisingly easy), and, seeing no other place to sleep, crawling into the first vacant coffin he could find.

“Work?” Clive asked sleepily.

The Undertaker was busy with something in his hands and did not look at him. “Your training.”

“Training?”

“Yes. Do you want to be an Undertaker or don’t you?”

“Well, I... it wasn’t really my original–”

Suddenly the Undertaker’s face was but inches from his own. Clive was beginning to realise this was the Undertaker’s preferred conversational distance. “No-one cares what you were, BOY, or even what you wished you were! Has, had, coulda, woulda, shoulda! All that matters is what you are, and what you will be! Got it?” Clive nodded quickly. “Now, what do you want to be?”131

“I want to be an Undertaker!”

“Louder!” roared the Undertaker.

“I WANT to be an Undertaker!”

“Scream it!”

“I WANT to be an UNDERTAKER!”

“Wake the dead!!”

Clive was now hollering desperately like his feet were on fire: “I WANT TO BE AN UNDERTAKER!!!”

“Good! Now, we can begin! Hold this!”

Clive stood and received a tape-like strip of off-white material with knots at even intervals. “What’s this?”

“This is an Undertaker’s most prized possession: his thong!”

“A thong? What’s it made of?”

“Ostrich skin.”

“You mean this used to be alive! Disgustful!” Clive made to toss the tape to the floor...

The Undertaker leapt towards him with a bark and seized his hand painfully by the wrist. “This thong is of the finest white leather! There’s only one village in the whole world that produces it, a hidden village in far distant Giapan, the land of the sun that rises above the land. It is not dyed! It was washed in the sacred waters of the Itchy-kitchy river, rubbed with mystical salts and herbs, and polished across the copper buttocks of teenage eunuchs! It is priceless beyond your ability to even comprehend! From this moment hence, you shall allow it to touch nothing but air and your own skin! When you walk, it shall hang about your neck! When you sleep, you shall cradle it in your arms! With it, you shall measure the foul and noxious dead, yet your thong shall remain unsullied! An Undertaker’s thong is like his soul – and must be spotless! SPOTLESS! Do you understand?”

Clive was almost too awe-struck to nod.

“Good! Now hold it up in one hand!”

Clive did so. The thong dangled towards the floor.

“Higher! It must never brush the ground!”

Clive’s arm was above head height. The thong cleared the floor, barely.

“Good! Now keep it there!” The Undertaker made to leave.

Clive’s eyes followed in their sockets. “Phil, how long do I have to do this? Only, my arm’s beginning to ache...”

“Until I say stop!” And, with that, Anbury disappeared into the shadows of the parlour.

Minutes passed.

Clive’s shoulder was slowly transmuting into forge-red iron... Who ever knew a scrap of leather could be so heavy? Clive risked a surreptitious glance behind. Nothing moved: the darkness was devoid of Phil-sign. Perhaps he’d popped out for a quick one?

Quickly, Clive lowered his arm and rolled his shoulder. Surely, a quick break wouldn’t hurt? What Phil didn’t know wouldn’t hurt h–

A small trowel came whomping out of the darkness and clocked Clive smartly on the forehead! “Ow! Phil, that hurt!” Clive complained, rubbing at his skull.

“I have three more up each sleeve, and two more strapped to my legs!” intoned Phil’s unseen voice. “Now, since merely holding your thong up in one hand is clearly too easy for you, let’s try it again! Only this time, standing on one leg...”

What followed, as Clive reinvented the vrikshasana while dangling a thong of finest white leather, was a three hour lecture on the intricacies of 17th Century measurements, delivered by the Undertaker in well-paced concentric circles: there was the poppyseed that was a third of a barleycorn, itself a third of an inch; there was the digit that was the width of a finger, and three such digits that equaled a nail. A palm was three inches, but a hand was four. There was the shaftment, the width of the hand and outstretched thumb, but that was different from the span which was thumb to little finger. Feet and yards will be familiar to modern readers of the Imperial persuasion; less familiar, the cubit which measured fingertips to elbow, and the ell, the distance from the outstretched hand to the opposite shoulder (tailors loved that one). Finally, the fathom measured the distance of both arms outstretched.

Clive listened dutifully, nodding and trying to commit the names to memory, but the agony in his shoulder made this difficult, and all he recalled later was that the shaftment of a poppy had no feet.

Vespers saw him hammering nails into solid masonry. The masonry won.

Thus passed Clive’s first day of training. When he was finally allowed to crawl back into his coffin, the hard wood felt like padded silk beneath his throbbing shoulders.

Conspicuously, Jerry was nowhere to be seen.

The next day began much the same. Again, the Undertaker was staring down at him, all eyes and beard inverted. With a single curt gesture, he bade Clive follow.

Clive was relieved that the Undertaker had made no mention of the thong currently hanging around his neck like a noose, and instead they were moving deeper into the workshop where the coffins were made. A parallel pair of half-finished caskets had been raised on trestles in the centre of the room. Finally, he was going to learn something of the craft, maybe even some carpentry! To date, the full sum of Clive’s knowledge regarding wood was that, with pyrotechnic stage effects involving gunpowder and naphtha, it did not mix.

The Undertaker stopped beside them. “Touch the coffins. Do not touch the floor.”

“Pardon?” said Clive.

“Touch both of the coffins. Do not touch the floor.”

“Well, that seems easy enough!” Clive walked over and put a hand on each of the coffins, one after the other. “Done. But I don’t see how–”

The Undertaker closed his eyes, summoning the patience. “Touch both of the coffins, at the same time.”

Stolen novel; please report.

Clive stretched out and did so.

“Do not touch the floor.”

Clive looked at the floor, and back at the coffins. “But... my legs are on the floor!”

“So climb up onto the coffins! They’re sturdy enough: Jerry made them!”

“Speaking of Jerry, where is he? I thought he’d be here...”

“Never mind, Jerry! He comes and goes as he pleases; sometimes I don’t see him for days; he manages his quotas and that’s all that matters. Given how little I pay him, it’s a miracle he even does that!”

“But I’d really feel more comfortable if–”

“Forget about Jerry! Forget about Isabella! Forget everything! Until I say, there is nothing outside this room! The world ceases to exist at the door to the parlour! Understood?”

“I think so.” Clive was thinking. “But there must be something outside the door. I mean the sun’s still there for one... air... birds...”

“Get up on the coffins. Now!”

“Rightio then!”

Clive mounted the coffins gingerly, trying not to topple them from the less-than-sturdy looking trestles. He put a hand and a foot on each coffin, straddling the gap in the doggie position.

The Undertaker moved round to the side. “Now... keep your hands on both coffins.”

“Why?”

“Because otherwise you’re going to fall!”

“What?”

The Undertaker began to pull at the trestle. The trestle, and the coffin upon it, juddered across the floor. Clive suddenly found the gap between the coffins widening. “Stop, Phil, what are you doing!” Clive’s arms and legs were angling horizontal, his torso now suspended in mid-air. Anbury did not stop until Clive was fully spread-eagled between the caskets, his body level with the lids. Clive’s eyes were wide with panic! “What is this?”

“Today’s training, of course!”

“I thought I was learning to be an Undertaker, not a gymnast! I’m supposed to be learning about dead bodies, not doing the splits!”

“Look down!”

“It’s hard to look anywhere else!”

“Look at the floor below you.”

Clive turned his face to the floor. He nearly lost his grip right then and there! There was a face looking right back at him! The eyes and mouth were open, teeth bared as if in scream or ecstasy, but there was no sound or movement. The head was haloed by a white hood. Clive recognised him immediately.

“Yes!” said the Undertaker. “The dead druid from the Alchemist’s laboratory! Jerry brought him in two days ago.” The Undertaker began to circle the caskets. “Notice the white pallor of the skin. You can’t see it from where you are, but his back looks like he’s been kicked repeatedly by a horse! Blood sinks with gravity. And so will you, right on top of this corpse, if you are too weak to support yourself!”

Clive’s shoulders and chest were already screaming.

The Undertaker cared not. “See that sheen? Liquid from burst blisters. Soon, his body will begin to swell like a pregnant maid; veins will blacken; bloody foam will flow from his mouth and nose. That’s when the smell gets really interesting. Often the stench of putrefaction is the first tangible sign the neighbours have that the old miser upstairs has finally expired. And the insects too begin to take notice: flies lay their eggs; maggots hatch from every orifice, natural or manmade.”

Clive’s arm felt numb. He could no longer speak.

The Undertaker knelt down beside the dead druid. “Every day, for a week, you will hang like this, face to face with death. You will observe the process first hand. You will come to know every purplish hue, every noxious fetor, more intimately than any lover, for these are the dinner bells of custom that shall never ring themselves! We are pioneers, Clive! The first of a new breed of funeral directors! Most do not even know we exist. We must seek out new pastures, show the world that men’s passing deserves a touch more pomp and ceremony than a barrow cart and the local handyman. Only then will the recently deceaseds’ relatives seek us out, and lavish us with their coin. Do you understand?”

Clive nodded weakly. Sweat dripped from his brow onto the face of the druid below. His palms were slick. His body was inching lower. He was going to fall... He turned his head to the side, and tried to stop breathing...

The Undertaker nodded. Rising to his feet, he returned to the trestle, and pushed it back together with a slam! The druid beneath the coffins vanished mercifully from view.

Clive gasped, and rolled off the top of the coffins, crashing gratefully onto the empty floor beside. He lay on his back, gagging for air. Turning his head, he looked at the druid a few feet to his right, in much the same position as him.

The Undertaker looked down at him disapprovingly. “Your thong is on the floor. Pick it up!”

Clive got shakily to his feet. “Go to hell!” he wheezed.

The Undertaker’s eyebrows rose, not much, but it was interesting to see that they still could. “I BEG your pardon?”

“You heard me!” said Clive. “I didn’t sign up for this! You and Jerry, you’re both insane! And WHERE IS THAT MAN, anyway? He recruits me and then leaves me to the tender mercies of the old rack! No, thank you! I’m done! I quit! I’m out!”

The Undertaker chuckled quietly. “I’ve seen your ilk before... You’ve barely lasted, what, two days in the city? Chinless wonder from the countryside, thinks to make it big in London Town! But, when the going gets tough, there’s nowhere left to run but back to mummykins.”

To no small surprise of his own, Clive felt his fingers balling into fists!

But the Undertaker wasn’t done. “Devon, wasn’t it? Jerry’s told me all about you! Dreams of being an act-or. The man who burned down the only theatre that would ever have him! The man who murdered Hamlet, and not as Laertes!”

Now it was Clive’s eyebrows’ turn to jump.

“Yes!” sneered the Undertaker. “I know theatre. I’ve been to Drury Lane. And do you know what I learned? Isabella, or even Milly, have a fairer chance at an acting gig than you ever will! So run along now, Clive! Enjoy the rest of your life... as second spear-carrier, Balthasar or, more likely, an actresses’ dressing room’s Hucklebitch!”

That last was exquisite in its annunciation. The Undertaker’s eyes smiled cruelly.

That did it.

Clive reached for the nearest weapon to hand, namely a rather dilapidated looking gardening fork, and charged with a roar... “It’s HUCKLEFISHHHH!”

The Undertaker hardly seemed to move. As Clive’s raised fork plunged towards his pate, his own long shovel was in his hands, rising to meet it! The force of the overhead parry jarred Clive’s already taxed shoulders to the bone, but he cared not! All he saw was fury!

And fury saw him too! Beneath their locked weapons, the Undertaker snarled into Clive’s face: “Don’t you see what I’m trying to do, here? I’m trying to help you, Clive!”

“Forcing me to hold a thong above my head?” Clive spat back, “Doing the splits above a corpse? How’s that supposed to help me become an undertaker, or funeral director, or whatever?”

“FINALLY!” Anbury roared, hurling Clive backwards with a mighty heave!

Clive stopped. “Sorry?”

“Finally!” Anbury repeated. “Finally, you are asking the right questions!”

The unexpected recognition left Clive both confused and somewhat disarmed. “I... I don’t follow!”

“No, you do not! And that is why you fail! Stay here!”

The Undertaker walked over to the parlour door, opened it, and gestured to someone outside. “Come on, you lot! It’s time! Lord knows it took him long enough!”

A man walked into the parlour, followed by a woman, followed by another lady, followed by a man... and this went on... All in all, ten Londoners entered, a mix of genders, statures, and professions, conjoined only by the fact that their clothes were all somewhat the worse for wear. Unemployed(able) then. They formed an orderly line in the centre of the room, and waited for the Undertaker to close the door.

Clive blinked. “Who are they?”

The Undertaker approached. “They are what you have been training for!”

Clive pointed. “Job seekers?”

“Cadavers in waiting!”

“You had them loitering around out there for two days just in case I threw a tissy?”

“They’ve been well paid!”

“I thought you had no money?”

“Paid in promissory service! I’ve offered them free burials – best deal of their lives! I needed test subjects: they agreed!”

“Test subjects? They’re not even dead!”

“Not yet... But one day, they will be, and it will be your task to take their measurements for the coffins their relatives wish to buy!” The Undertaker raised his own thong before Clive’s face. “This leather was chosen for its softness: a nail imprint will remain for hours, but will then quite vanish. With this tool, and these marks, you will be able to swiftly note the heights of their bodies and the widths of their shoulders. Measuring one customer at a time is easy – but death is not always so abstemious! What if some unforeseen calamity delivered ten, a dozen, a hundred or more, all at once? How could you cope with such an abundance of demand? Observe...”

The Undertaker took his place at the start of the line. “Look smart, you lot. Stiff! Put your hands by your sides. Now...”

What happened next was almost too fast to follow. No-one so old should have been able to move so fast. The thong snapped across shoulders, whipped up to crowns and down to toes, so fast that it left a white afterimage in the shape of a crucifix. The Undertaker crabbed the line in thirteen seconds flat.

Clive stared dumbly, open-mouthed. “I... I-I... I don’t believe it!”

The Undertaker came closer and showed him the markings on the tape. Each marking was at a fractionally different angle, a code to indicate which body it belonged to. “Now, your turn!”

“I couldn’t possibly...”

“Try.”

Clive took the same position at the start of the line as Anbury had. The not-so-dead bodies glanced at him nervously, but remained stiff, as instructed.

Clive let his thong dangle from his raised hand in readiness, as he had done for hours the previous day. He rolled his shoulders. They felt different, somehow... looser.

The Undertaker pulled a chained pocket timepiece from a vest pocket, and regarded the hands. “Begin!” he intoned.

Clive stepped to the right. The tape whipped up and down in his hands and he pressed a mark into the leather with his nail. Next came the horizontal – Clive’s chest had been burning from straddling the coffins, but his arms obeyed him now, snapping with a speed that he did not know they possessed! Nail to leather, and on to the next! Whip, snap. Whip snap! He was sidestepping without slowing now. He couldn’t believe his arms could move this fast! Whip snap! Whipsnap! And suddenly – it was done!

Clive breathed slowly, and closed his eyes. His world condensed to a tiny bubble of success. He raised the thong, and brought it to Phil.

Phil looked at it. “We’ll have to work on your clavocode, and you poked Fannie there in the eye, but, for a first time decemeasure, that was... adequate.” Phil turned to the walking cadavers. “Dismissed, you lot! Same time tomorrow!”

Clive watched them go. “Wait, Phil... what was my time?”

Phil raised the pocket watch. “Sixteen seconds.”

Clive blinked. Three seconds faster and he would have equaled Phil’s.

The Undertaker gave Clive a long look. “Do you see now?”

“I do.”

“Good. Now, it’s time for your thong katas. And those nails aren’t going to hammer themselves, are they?”

“No... sir!”

That night, Clive enjoyed the soundest sleep he had had in years.

That was, at least, until someone broke into the parlour...