Memento Mori

by Muriel Spark

  Miss Doreen Valvona was a good reader, she had the best eyes in the ward. Each morning at eleven she read aloud everyone’s horoscope from the newspaper, holding it close to her brown nose and, behind her glasses, to the black eyes which came from her Italian father. She knew by heart everyone’s Zodiacal sign. “Granny Green—Virgo,” she would say. “‘A day for bold measures. Close partnerships are beneficial. A wonderful period for entertaining.’”

  “Read us it again. My hearing aid wasn’t fixed.”

  “No, you’ll have to wait. Granny Duncan’s next. Granny Duncan—Scorpio. ‘Go all out for what you want to-day. Plenty of variety and gaiety to keep you on your toes.’”

  Granny Valvona remembered everyone’s horoscope all the day, checking up to see the points where it came true, so that, after Dame Lettie Colston had been to visit Granny Taylor, the old family servant, a cry arose from Granny Valvona: “What did I tell you in your horoscope? Listen while I read it out again. Granny Taylor—Gemini. ‘You are in wonderful form to-day. Exceptionally bright social potents are indicated.’”

  “‘Portents,’” said Miss Taylor. “Not potents.”

  Granny Valvona looked again. She spelt it out. “Potents,” she said. Miss Taylor gave it up, murmuring, “I see.”

  “Well?” said Granny Valvona. “Wasn’t that a remarkable forecast? ‘You are in wonderful form to-day. Exceptionally bright social’…Now isn’t that your visitor foretold, Granny Taylor?”

  “Yes indeed, Granny Valvona.”

  “Some dame!” said the littlest nurse, who could not make out why Granny Taylor had so seriously called her visitor “Dame Lettie.” She had heard of dames as jokes, and at the pictures.

  “Wait, nurse, I’ll read your horoscope. What’s your month?”

  “I’ve to go, Granny Valvoni. Sister’s on the hunt.”

  “Don’t call my name Valvoni, it’s Valvona. It ends with an ah.”

  “Ah,” said the little nurse, and disappeared with a hop and a skip.

  “Taylor was in wonderful form to-day,” Dame Lettie told her brother.

  “You’ve been to see Taylor? You are really very good,” said Godfrey. “But you look tired, I hope you haven’t tired yourself.”

  “Indeed, I felt I could have changed places with Taylor. Those people are so fortunate these days. Central heating, everything they want, plenty of company.”

  “Is she in with nice people?”

  “Who—Taylor? Well they all look splendid and clean. Taylor always says she is perfectly satisfied with everything. So she should be.”

  “Got all her faculties still?” Godfrey was obsessed by the question of old people and their faculties.

  “Certainly. She asked for you and Charmian. She cries a little of course at the mention of Charmian. Of course she was fond of Charmian.”

  Godfrey looked at her closely. “You look ill, Lettie.”

  “Utter nonsense. I’m in wonderful form to-day. I’ve never felt more fit in my life.”

  “I don’t think you should return to Hampstead,” he said.

  “After tea. I’ve arranged to go home after tea, and after tea I’m going.”

  “There was a telephone call for you,” said Godfrey.

  “Who was it?”

  “That chap again.”

  “Really? Have you rung the C.I.D.?”

  “Yes. In fact, they’re coming round to-night to have a talk with us. They are rather puzzled about some aspects of the case.”

  “What did the man say? What did he say?”

  “Lettie, don’t upset yourself. You know very well what he said.”

  “I go back to Hampstead after tea,” said Lettie.

  “But the C.I.D.—”

  “Tell them I have returned to Hampstead.”

  Charmian came unsteadily in. “Ah, Taylor, have you enjoyed your walk? You look in wonderful form to-day.”

  “Mrs. Anthony is late with tea,” said Dame Lettie, moving her chair so that her back was turned to Charmian.

  “You must not sleep alone at Hampstead,” said Godfrey. “Call on Lisa Brooke and ask her to stop with you for a few days. The police will soon get the man.”

  “Lisa Brooke be damned,” said Dame Lettie, which would have been an alarming statement if intended seriously, for Lisa Brooke was not many moments dead, as Godfrey discovered in The Times obituary the next morning.

  Chapter Three

  Lisa Brooke died in her seventy-third year, after her second stroke. She had taken nine months to die, and in fact it was only a year before her death that, feeling rather ill, she had decided to reform her life, and reminding herself how attractive she still was, offered up the new idea, her celibacy, to the Lord to whom no gift whatsoever is unacceptable.

  It did not occur to Godfrey as he marched into a pew in the crematorium chapel that anyone else present had ever been Lisa’s lover except himself. It did not even come to mind that he had been Lisa’s lover, for he had never been her lover in any part of England, only Spain and Belgium, and at the moment he was busy with statistics. There were sixteen people present. On first analysis it emerged that five were relatives of Lisa. Next, among the remaining eleven, Godfrey elicited Lisa’s lawyer, her housekeeper, the bank manager. Lettie had just arrived. Then there was himself. That left six, only one of whom he recognised, but all of whom were presumably Lisa’s hangers-on, and he was glad their fountain of ready cash had dried up. All those years of daylight robbery; and many a time he had told Lisa, “A child of six could do better than that,” when she displayed one of the paintings, outrages committed by one of her pets. “If he hasn’t made his way in the world by now,” he had said, time and again, of old Percy Mannering the poet, “he never will. You are a fool, Lisa, letting him drink your gin and shout his poetry in your ears.”

  Percy Mannering, almost eighty, stood with his lean stoop as the coffin was borne up the aisle. Godfrey stared hard at the poet’s red-veined hatchet cheekbones and thin nose. He thought, I bet he’s regretting the termination of his income. They’ve all bled poor Lisa white…. The poet was, in fact, in a state of excitement. Lisa’s death had filled him with thrilling awe, for though he knew the general axiom that death was everyone’s lot he could never realise the particular case; each new death gave him something fresh to feel. It came to him as the service began that within a few minutes Lisa’s coffin would start sliding down into the furnace, and he saw as in a fiery vision her flame-tinted hair aglow as always, competing with the angry tresses of the fire below. He grinned like an elated wolf and shed tears of human grief as if he were half-beast, half-man, instead of half-poet, half-man. Godfrey watched him and thought, He must be senile. He has probably lost his faculties.

  The coffin began to slide slowly down the slope towards a gap in the wall while the organ played something soft and religious. Godfrey, who was not a believer, was profoundly touched by this ensemble, and decided once and for all to be cremated when his time came. “There goes Lisa Brooke,” he said to himself as he saw the last tilt of the coffin. The prow, thought the poet, lifts, and the ship goes under with the skipper on board…No, that’s too banal, Lisa herself as the ship is a better idea. Godfrey looked round him and thought, She should have been good for another ten years, but what can you expect with all that drink and all these spongers? So furiously did he glare about him that he startled the faces which caught his eye.

  Tubby Dame Lettie caught up with her brother in the aisle as he moved with the others to the porch. “What’s the matter with you, Godfrey?” Lettie breathed.

  The chaplain was shaking doleful hands with everyone at the door. As Godfrey gave his hand he said over his shoulder to Lettie, “The matter with me? What d’you mean what’s the matter with me? What’s the matter with you?”

  Lettie, as she dabbed her eyes, whispered, “Don’t talk so loud. Don’t glare so. Everyone’s looking at you.”

  On the floor of the long porch was a muster of flowers done up, some in tasteful bu
nches, one or two in old-fashioned wreaths. These were being inspected by Lisa’s relatives, her middle-aged nephew and his wife, her parched elder sister Janet Sidebottome who had been a missionary in India at a time when it was India, her brother Ronald Sidebottome who had long since retired from the City and Ronald’s Australian wife who had been christened Tempest. Godfrey did not immediately identify them, for he saw only the row of their several behinds as they stooped to examine the cards attached to each tribute.

  “Look, Ronald, isn’t this sweet? A tiny bunch of violets—oh, see, it says, ‘Thank you, Lisa dear, for all those wonderful times, with love from Tony.’”

  “Rather odd words. Are you sure—”

  “Who’s Tony, I wonder?”

  “See, Janet, this huge yellow rose wreath here from Mrs. Pettigrew. It must have cost her a fortune.”

  “What did you say?” said Janet who did not hear well.

  “A wreath from Mrs. Pettigrew. It must have cost a fortune.”

  “Sh-sh-sh,” said Janet, looking round. True enough, Mrs. Pettigrew, Lisa’s old housekeeper, was approaching in her well-dressed confident manner. Janet, cramped from the card-inspection, straightened painfully and turned to meet Mrs. Pettigrew. She let the woman grip her hand.

  “Thank you for all you have done for my sister,” said Janet sternly.

  “It was a pleasure.” Mrs. Pettigrew spoke in a surprisingly soft voice. It was understood Janet was thinking of the will. “I loved Mrs. Brooke, poor soul.”

  Janet inclined her head graciously, firmly withdrew her hand and rudely turned her back.

  “Can we see the ashes?” loudly enquired Percy Mannering as he emerged from the chapel. “Is there any hope of seeing them?” At the noise he made, Lisa’s nephew and wife jumped nervily and looked round.

  “I want to see those ashes if possible.” The poet had cornered Dame Lettie, pressing his hungry demand. Lettie felt there was something unhealthy about the man. She moved away.

  “That’s one of Lisa’s artists,” she whispered to John Sidebottome, not meaning to prompt him to say “Oh!” and lift his hat in Percy’s direction, as he did.

  Godfrey stepped backwards and stood on a spray of pink carnations. “Oh—sorry,” he said to the carnations, stepping off them quickly, and then was vexed at his folly, and knew that in any case no one had seen him after all. He ambled away from the trampled flowers.

  “What’s that fellow want with the ashes?” he said to Lettie.

  “He wants to see them. Wants to see if they’ve gone grey. He is quite disgusting.”

  “Of course they will be grey. The fellow must have lost his faculties. if he ever had any.”

  “I don’t know about faculties,” said Lettie. “Certainly he has no feelings.”

  Tempest Sidebottome, blue-haired and well corseted was saying in a voice which carried away out to the Garden of Remembrance. “To some people there’s just nothing that’s sacred.”

  “Madam,” said Percy, baring his sparse green teeth in a smile, “the ashes of Lisa Brooke will always be sacred to me. I desire to see them, kiss them if they are cool enough. Where’s that cleric? He’ll have the ashes.”

  “Do you see over there—Lisa’s housekeeper?” Lettie said to Godfrey.

  “Yes, yes, I wonder—”

  “That’s what I’m wondering,” said Lettie, who was wondering if Mrs. Pettigrew wanted a job, and if so would agree to undertake the personal care of Charmian.

  “But I think we would need a younger woman. That one must be getting on,” said Godfrey, “if I remember aright.”

  “Mrs. Pettigrew has a constitution like a horse,” said Dame Lettie, casting a horse-dealer’s glance over Mrs. Pettigrew’s upright form. “And it is impossible to get younger women.”

  “Has she got all her faculties?”

  “Of course. She had poor Lisa right under her thumb.”

  “I hardly think Charmian would want—”

  “Charmian needs to be bullied. What Charmian needs is a firm hand. She will simply go to pieces if you don’t keep at her. Charmian needs a firm hand. It’s the only way.”

  “But what about Mrs. Anthony?” said Godfrey. “The woman might not get on with Mrs. Anthony. It would be tragic if we lost her.”

  “If you don’t find someone soon to look after Charmian you will certainly lose Mrs. Anthony. Charmian is too much of a handful for Mrs. Anthony. You will lose Mrs. Anthony. Charmian keeps calling her Taylor. She is bound to resent it. Who are you staring at?”

  Godfrey was staring at a short bent man walking with the aid of two sticks round a corner of the chapel. “Who is that man?” said Godfrey. “He looks familiar.”

  Tempest Sidebottome fussed over to the little man who beamed up at her with a fresh face under his wide black hat. He spoke in a shrill boyish tone. “Afraid I’m late,” he said. “Is the party over? Are you all Lisa’s sinisters and bothers?”

  “That’s Guy Leet,” said Godfrey, at once recognising him, for Guy had always used to call sisters and brothers sinisters and bothers. “The little rotter,” said Godfrey, “he used to be after Charmian. It must be thirty-odd years since last I saw him. He can’t be more than seventy-five and just see what he’s come to.”

  Tables at a tea-shop near Golders Green had been reserved for Lisa’s post-crematorial party. Godfrey had intended to miss the tea party but the arrival of Guy Leet had changed his mind. He was magnetized by the sight of the clever little man doubled over his sticks, and could not keep his eyes off the arthritic hobbling of Guy making his way among the funeral flowers.

  “Better join them for tea,” he said to Lettie, “hadn’t we?”

  “What for?” said Lettie, looking round the company. “We can have tea at home. Come back with me for tea, we can have it at home.”

  “I think we’d better join them,” said Godfrey. “We might have a word with Mrs. Pettigrew about her taking on Charmian.”

  Lettie saw Godfrey’s gaze following the hunched figure of Guy Leet who, on his sticks, had now reached the door of his taxi. Several of the party helped Guy inside, then joined him. As they drove off, Godfrey said, “Little rotter. Supposed to be a critic. Tried to take liberties with all the lady novelists, and then he was a theatre critic and he was after the actresses. You’ll remember him, I daresay.”

  “Vaguely,” said Lettie. “He never got much change out of me,”

  “He was never after you,” said Godfrey.

  At the tea-shop Dame Lettie and Godfrey found the mourners being organised into their places by Tempest Sidebottome, big and firm in her corsets, aged seventy-five, with that accumulated energy which strikes despair in the hearts of jaded youth, and which now fairly intimidated even the two comparative youngsters in the group, Lisa’s nephew and his wife who were not long past fifty.

  “Ronald, sit down here and stay put,” Tempest said to her husband, who put on his glasses and sat down.

  Godfrey was casting about for Guy Leet, but in the course of doing so his sight was waylaid by the tables on which were set silver-plate cakestands with thin bread and butter on the bottom tier, cut fruitcake above that, and on the top, a pile of iced cakes wrapped in cellophane paper. Godfrey began to feel a passionate longing for his tea, and he pushed past Dame Lettie to stand conspicuously near the organiser, Tempest. She did notice him right away and allotted him a seat at a table. “Lettie,” he called then, “come over here. We’re sitting here.”

  “Dame Lettie,” said Tempest over his head, “you must come and sit with us, my dear. Over here beside Ronald.”

  Damned snob, thought Godfrey. I suppose she thinks Lettie is somebody.

  Someone leant over to offer him a cigarette which was a filter-tip. However, he said, “Thanks, I’ll keep it for after tea.” Then looking up, he saw the wolf grin on the face of the man who was offering him the packet with a trembling hand. Godfrey plucked out a cigarette and placed it beside his plate. He was angry at being put beside Percy Mannering, not onl
y because Percy had been one of Lisa’s spongers, but also because he must surely be senile with that grin and frightful teeth, and Godfrey felt the poet would not be able to manage his teacup with those shaking hands.

  He was right, for Percy spilled a lot of his tea on the cloth. He ought to be in a home, thought Godfrey. Tempest glanced at their table every now and then and tuttutted a lot, but she did this all round, as if it were a children’s beanfeast. Percy was oblivious of the mess he was making or of anyone’s disapproval. Two others sat at their table, Janet Sidebottome and Mrs. Pettigrew. The poet had taken it for granted that he was the most distinguished and therefore the leader of conversation.

  “One time I fell out with Lisa,” he roared, “was when she took up Dylan Thomas.” He pronounced the first name Dye-lan. “Dylan Thomas,” he said, “and Lisa was good to him. Do you know, if I was to go to Heaven and find Dylan Thomas there, I’d prefer to go to HELL. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Lisa hasn’t gone to Hell for aiding and abetting him in his poetry, so-called.”

  Janet Sidebottome bent her ear closer to Percy. “What did you say about poor Lisa? I don’t hear well.”

  “I say,” he said, “I wonder if Lisa’s gone to Hell because of her-”

  “From respect to my dear sister,” said Janet, with a hostile look, “I don’t think we will discuss—”

  “Dye-lan Thomas died from D.T.” said the old poet, becoming gleeful. “You see the coincidence? His initials were D. T. and he died from D.T. Hah!”

  “In respect for my late sister—”

  “Poetry!” said Percy. “Dylan Thomas didn’t know the meaning of the word. As I said to Lisa, I said, ‘You’re, making a bloody fool of yourself supporting that charlatan. It isn’t poetry, it’s a leg-pull.’ She didn’t see it, nobody saw it, but I’m telling you his verse was all a HOAX.”