The Clutter Corpse

by Simon Brett

  ‘Bruce is not interested in tennis,’ she volunteered. ‘Golf’s his game. He’s a member at the West Sussex, you know.’ She seemed as keen as he had been to mention this fact. ‘Try to keep him away from the television when one of the Majors is on.’

  Finally, as the kitchen door closed behind the housekeeper, I decided we’d had enough small talk. ‘You know why I’m here, Mrs Tallis?’

  ‘Oh, please call me “Jeanette”.’

  ‘Very well, Jeanette. But you do know why I’m here?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ she responded with airy charm. ‘Kerry did mention something about my clothes-buying habits.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She shrugged. ‘I like clothes. I always have.’ She dropped into a little girl voice. ‘Is it so unusual for someone of our gender to like clothes?’

  ‘No, it’s not unusual,’ I agreed. ‘It’s really a matter of scale.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Buying clothes is perfectly natural – and so long as you can afford them, it’s not a problem.’

  ‘Well, honestly, darling …’ Jeanette gestured winsomely around the huge sitting room and the view of the garden. ‘I don’t think you need worry about that. Bruce does look after us very well.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure he does.’ I hesitated as to which direction to go in, something I wouldn’t do now. My SpaceWoman years have greatly improved my client skills, but at that stage I was still feeling my way. ‘The fact is, Jeanette, there does come a point where buying excessive amounts of clothes might be a sign of something more serious …’

  ‘Oh, are you saying I’m bonkers? Due to check in at the funny farm? Like Imelda Marcos?’

  ‘No, I am not saying that,’ I replied evenly. ‘But, whether she wore them all or not, Imelda Marcos did at least get her shoes out of the boxes.’

  Jeanette Tallis stared at me for a second, then abruptly turned away and focused a look of reproach on her stepdaughter. ‘Have you shown her the Old Stables?’

  Kerry shrugged helplessly. ‘I had to, Jeanette. I’ve been getting really worried about you.’

  ‘It’s not your business to worry about me. I’m fine.’

  Kerry gave me a ‘See what I mean?’ look. I tried again with Jeanette. ‘Can I ask you why you have so many clothes stowed away there? In the Old Stables?’

  ‘I’d have thought the answer was obvious.’

  ‘Not to me.’

  ‘Well,’ she said on a laugh, ‘because all of my wardrobes are full!’

  I did not allow this attempt at humour to deflect me. ‘It still seems to me to be unusual behaviour,’ I said.

  She was riled now. ‘It may seem that to you, but may I ask what bloody business is it of yours?’

  Before I had a chance, Kerry was answering for me. ‘Ellen is a declutterer. She helps people who have problems with hoarding.’

  ‘I do not have problems with hoarding!’ Jeanette spat out. ‘And I wish you’d bloody get off my case!’ This was addressed to her stepdaughter, not to me.

  ‘I’m not on your case,’ said Kerry, infinitely reasonable. ‘I want you and Daddy to be happy. I’m just trying to help you.’

  ‘The day I need help from you I’ll be in a sad state!’ Jeanette flashed back.

  ‘Listen,’ I said, trying to maintain the peace, ‘if you wouldn’t mind my just making a preliminary assessment of what’s been happening …’

  ‘And what would that involve?’

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like you to show me your wardrobes in the house …’

  Her well-brought-up politeness did not allow her to give a flat refusal to the suggestion. ‘I can’t see what possible use that could be to you.’

  ‘And then if we could both go and have a look at the Old Stables …?’

  ‘Again, I don’t see how that’s necessary.’

  ‘It would help me make my assessment,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, go on, Jeanette,’ Kerry urged. ‘Let’s do as Ellen says, and have a look at your dressing room.’

  ‘Very well,’ said her stepmother, defeated.

  The wardrobes upstairs gave no sign of being owned by a hoarder. The design of the master suite provided two huge his-’n’-hers dressing rooms either side, adjoining two his-’n’-hers bathrooms behind the bedroom’s back wall.

  Jeanette’s built-in cupboards were arranged as if ready for a military inspection. There were sections for dresses, skirts, trousers and tops, neat drawers for underwear and accessories. And I couldn’t help noticing that, on stands on her dressing table, there was a lavish display of expensive jewellery. Whether Jeanette herself kept everything so regimented, or whether it was done by the housekeeper or other staff members, for many women it would have been the dream dressing room.

  And, though it contained more clothes than most could afford, there were not more than would be needed by a wealthy woman who was required to attend many business functions.

  I had of course already seen the contents of the Old Stables, but I was intrigued to witness how Jeanette Tallis would react to someone else being allowed into her private domain.

  As before, Kerry led the way across the garden and unlocked the doors. As they were opened, I observed no change of expression on Jeanette’s face.

  Kerry, about to speak, was interrupted by the ringing of her mobile phone. A quick look at the screen told her it was someone she wanted to speak to in private, so she moved away from us.

  The moment she did, I felt the fierce grip of Jeanette’s hand on my arm. ‘You know what she’s trying to do, don’t you?’ she hissed. ‘She’s gaslighting me! She’s trying to make me think I’m going mad!’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I am. This is all a set-up. That’s why she rang you.’

  ‘But it wasn’t Kerry who rang me.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. It was your husband. Bruce.’

  The look Jeanette Tallis focused on me when I said that really did make me worry about her sanity. It was positively beatific.

  EIGHT

  Quite honestly, I didn’t know how to proceed. As I said, I’d only just set up the business, I was feeling my way. And, after recent events, my confidence was still very low. There was no doubt that Jeanette Tallis had a problem, but maybe it was one that needed the services of a psychiatrist rather than a novice declutterer.

  I considered consulting Hilary about the case – she was training as a psychotherapist by then – but my pride wouldn’t let me. Though she never came across to me as judgemental, to be consulting outsiders so soon into my new career seemed to me like a cop-out.

  But what could I actually do to justify the generous daily rate that Bruce Tallis was prepared to pay for my services? I had by then come to an arrangement with Dodge, so if it got to the point of emptying the Old Stables and returning the contents to the various suppliers, I felt up to organizing that. I thought, however generous their ‘free returns’ policy might be, the scale of Jeanette’s buying would require special measures. There’d be a lot of paperwork involved, but I was prepared to take that on.

  Of course, none of this could happen without the perpetrator’s agreement. Bruce Tallis just wanted the problem to go away, he wasn’t up for hands-on involvement. And, though Kerry would, I’m sure, have been more than ready to act for her stepmother, that was not the point. The directive, the impetus to stop the hoarding and start emptying the Old Stables, had to come from Jeanette herself.

  What surprised me – and made me feel almost guilty for having my problems so easily solved – was how quickly that directive came.

  I had a call the very next day from Jeanette Tallis, sounding very composed and businesslike. Nothing in her manner suggested that our last encounter had involved discussion of her mental health.

  ‘Ellen,’ she said, ‘I have decided I do want you to empty the contents of the Old Stables.’

  ‘Well, that’s a relief. Are you feeling—?’

  But Jeanette Tallis was n
ot about to discuss her feelings. ‘Make the arrangements as soon as possible. If there are any details you need to talk to someone about, contact Kerry in the first instance. She’ll consult me if necessary. Whatever you do, don’t involve my husband. He’s far too busy to get caught up in domestic details like this. Now, when would you be able to start?’

  ‘I could come over tomorrow and begin to make an inventory of the stuff.’

  ‘Fine. Neither my husband nor I will be here. We’re going to Paris for a few days, staying at the Georges Cinq. Not a business trip, you understand. Time out for just the two of us.’ This seemed to give her great satisfaction. ‘Kerry may well be here tomorrow, I don’t know about her movements. But I’ll make sure Ramiro and Constancia know you’ll be coming, so they’ll recognize your rather comical little car.’ I didn’t have time to respond on the Yeti’s behalf, as she went on, ‘And the sooner you can get the job finished, the better.’

  She spoke as if the problem was one that had been foisted on her, rather than of her own making.

  ‘One thing …’ I managed to interject. ‘The companies to whom the stuff is returned will probably insist on having invoices.’

  ‘You’ll find all of them either inside the boxes or taped on the outside. And, as I said, the sooner you can sort the place out, the better.’

  Again, she spoke as if the task for which I had been brought in had nothing to do with her.

  I enjoy jobs that have a finite end. That’s part of the appeal of decluttering to me. You start with a space that’s full to overflowing with stuff, and you end up with an empty space, into which less stuff can be put in a more organized way. My fear of being overwhelmed by the size of a task has diminished with experience, but it’s still always there.

  From a child, I knew that everything was achievable. The lack of parenting I received from Fleur made me self-reliant. For every task, the only commodity required was time. So, I have developed the skill of reducing jobs to manageable component parts. If I clear that lot today, then I will have more space to clear that other lot tomorrow … Set yourself small, attainable goals, that’s my mantra. And I’ve followed the same principle in managing my emotional life too. After any reverse, take small steps forward. That attitude will help you deal with the inevitable steps backward.

  Oh dear, there’s me sounding like some glib self-help guru. When my own life is filled with so many examples of that advice failing.

  Anyway, what I’m saying here is that the technicalities of the challenge at the Tallises’ Old Stables appealed to me. Unlike many of the jobs I would encounter, the environment was clean. I wouldn’t be up against fungus, maggots or rodents. Also, the space was organized, even though there might be question marks over the sanity of the person who organized it.

  Before I left home, I didn’t move the flattened cardboard boxes from the Yeti’s boot, but I did add some collapsible large plastic containers. Though the post-Wimbledon good weather showed no signs of breaking, I knew I’d have to stack some of the Old Stables boxes in the open, and I didn’t want to risk rain damage, particularly as the goods were all being returned. I was still learning, adding items to my SpaceWoman kit as the need arose.

  There was no sign of any of the Tallises when I arrived sharp at nine the following morning. As Jeanette had promised, the staff were expecting me. It wasn’t Ramiro who answered the door, but the short, dark woman who’d brought the coffee on my previous visit and who I now knew was called Constancia. I think, from the names, they were probably Portuguese. A husband and wife couple, as I’d surmised, who ran the Tallises’ estate.

  She introduced herself, handed me a key to the Old Stables, and invited me to come in through the house. But I had my small trolley of equipment with me, so I said I’d go round the outside.

  I also refused offers of coffee and tea. I had a bottle of water with me and preferred to be independent in a situation like this. Whether Constancia knew why I was at the house or had a view on the contents of the Old Stables and how they had got there, I had no means of knowing. And I’m sure she was far too professional to pass comment on her employers’ behaviour.

  Once I was at the location, I opened the Old Stables doors and cast a more professional eye on the stack of boxes inside. Remembering the collapsible ladder, I hadn’t brought one of my own.

  I had planned my approach to the task. As I moved each box, I would make a note on my laptop of the details from its receipt. I would then group the garments in my plastic containers, according to where they had come from. Though many had been ordered through Amazon, a lot had come from individual designers.

  In the moments when I got bored with shifting boxes – and there were quite a few of them; it wasn’t the most stimulating work I had ever encountered – I would get on the mobile and check the returns policies of the various companies involved. As I suspected, it was not going to be as simple as just taking the boxes down to the Post Office. The scale on which the ordering had taken place, and in many cases the time that had elapsed, meant that their ordinary agreements did not apply. Some of the firms flatly refused to take the goods back, and those who did wanted them delivered to depots somewhere.

  The task was a very boring one but, as I said, it was finite. I could look ahead to a time when it would be completed. I was very diligent about the paperwork; I knew I was doing an efficient job. My competence gave me confidence. Though I hoped that future commissions might be more interesting, I began to believe that I could make a go of SpaceWoman as a business.

  And of course, I was being paid. Bruce Tallis, unwilling to get involved in detail, had agreed so readily to the hourly rate I proposed that I wished I’d asked for more. But the terms were still generous.

  One thing I couldn’t help noticing was that my work was being watched. By Ramiro, the ‘butler’. The first couple of times he came out on to the paving round the swimming pool, I thought it was on some domestic chore. But it happened too often for that explanation to hold water. I wondered if he was checking to see that I wasn’t skiving. And if that were the reason, was it his own curiosity he was satisfying? Or was he following orders from a suspicious employer?

  The more dealings I had with the companies from whom the clothes had been bought, the more I realized I would need transport to return the goods to various depots around the country. This was the perfect job for Dodge, whose services I had by then used a few times. But it would incur further expenditure that I had not cleared in my initial talk with Bruce Tallis.

  So, following his instructions, I rang Kerry’s mobile. It seemed a long time before she answered, and when she did, her voice was bleary, as if she’d just been woken up. I had no idea where she was speaking from, one of the few drawbacks of mobile phones.

  She quickly agreed to the additional expense of employing Dodge, and then asked how I was proposing to handle the refunded money.

  ‘I was going to ask you that, Kerry. I mean, we are talking about five figures here. Presumably – what … it would go into your mother’s bank account?’

  ‘I’ll have to check that with Daddy,’ she said, as if I were making some great imposition on her time.

  ‘Well, if you could let me know as soon as possible. Some of the companies are happy to just put the money back on the card with which the clothes were bought. Others are less accommodating.’

  ‘OK. Leave it with me. I’ll talk to Daddy today.’

  ‘Oh, of course, he and Jeanette are in Paris, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes, he’s bribing her with luxury again.’ I thought that was an odd thing to say but passed no comment. ‘Don’t worry,’ she went on, ‘Daddy’ll stop anything to take a call from me.’ She giggled. ‘I’ll call you with the bank details later.’

  Which she duly did.

  It wasn’t as simple as just sending Dodge off with a load of boxes and addresses to deliver them to. The details were so complicated that I had to join him in his immaculate 1951 Morris Commercial CV9/40 Tipper.

&n
bsp; Kerry was at Lorimers the first time he appeared. Dodge was at his shyest and she showed no interest in him at all. Nor in me either, come to that. The business between us was concluded, and she had no expectation of meeting me again.

  To my surprise, though, there was one person on the premises who seemed to have been impressed by my performance, and that was Constancia. As Dodge and I were sweeping out the Old Stables after we’d put the last load on to the Tipper, she came out of the house towards us.

  ‘You have done a good job,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You work hard. I have watched you through the kitchen window.’

  I couldn’t help saying, ‘You haven’t watched me as much as Ramiro has.’

  ‘Ah.’ She spread her hands wide. ‘My husband, he always prefers to watch other people working than doing anything himself.’

  I grinned. I wasn’t about to make any further comment. She could criticize him; it wasn’t my place to do so.

  ‘He has dreams, Ramiro. He has dreams of saving enough money to go back to Albufeira and opening a restaurant there. He says soon we will have money, enough money. I do not believe him. It is another dream, a fantasy. You see, though Ramiro would do anything for money, he is not good at saving it. The restaurant in Albufeira will remain what it always has been – just a dream.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, because it seemed appropriate.

  ‘Don’t be sorry for me,’ Constancia responded with a harsh cackle of laughter. ‘If the restaurant ever opened, guess who would be doing all the work to run it?’

  I grinned the automatic grin of gender solidarity.

  Constancia gestured towards the empty Old Stables. ‘This is a strange job you have to do here,’ she said.

  Once again, I didn’t pass comment, unwilling to sound critical of Jeanette Tallis.

  ‘The rich, they have ways of their own,’ Constancia observed. ‘Well, you have done a good job,’ she repeated, and went back into the house.