“Shit the bed,” Keith said.
* * *
—
Later that morning, Peggy and Andrew arrived for a property inspection at 122 Unsworth Road feeling shell-shocked.
“I really can’t lose this job,” Peggy said.
Andrew decided to try to stay calm rather than add fuel to the fire.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” he said.
“And you’re basing that on . . . ?”
“Um . . .” The calm quickly deserted him. “Blind optimism?” He laughed nervously.
“I’m glad you’re not a doctor giving life-expectancy odds to a patient,” Peggy said.
They got into their protective gear, and Andrew looked at the frosted glass window of number 122 and really rather wished he and Peggy were anywhere else but here.
“Nothing like sorting through a dead bloke’s stuff as a cheery distraction, eh?” Peggy said, putting the key in the lock. “Ready?”
She shunted the door open and gasped. Andrew braced himself for what lay beyond her. He must have carried out more than a hundred property inspections in his time, and all these homes, no matter what their condition, left an impression on him, some little detail standing out: a gaudy ornament, a troubling stain, a heartbreaking note. Smells, too, stayed with him. And not just the horrendous ones. There had been lavender and engine oil and pine needles too. As time passed he stopped being able to match the memory to the person or the house. But once Peggy stood to one side and he saw past her, he knew for sure that he would always remember Alan Carter and 122 Unsworth Road.
At first, it wasn’t clear what exactly he was looking at. The floors, radiators, tables, shelves—every available surface—were covered with little wooden objects. Andrew dropped down to the floor and picked one up.
“It’s a duck,” he said, suddenly feeling a bit stupid for saying that out loud.
“I think they all are,” Peggy said, crouching down next to him. If this was a dream, Andrew wasn’t quite sure what his subconscious was going for here.
“Are they little toys—was he a collector or something?” he said.
“I don’t . . . blimey, you know what, I reckon he’s carved all of these himself, you know. There’s got to be thousands of them.”
There was a path through the middle of the carvings, presumably made by those first on the scene.
“Remind me who this guy is?” Peggy said.
Andrew found the document in his bag.
“Alan Carter. No obvious next of kin, according to the coroner. God, I know it’s been busy but you’d have thought she’d have mentioned this.”
Peggy picked up one of the ducks from a dressing table and ran a finger across the top of its head, then down the curve of its neck.
“So the question currently running through my mind, other than ‘What the fuck?,’ of course, is . . . why ducks?”
“Maybe he just loved . . . ducks,” Andrew said.
Peggy laughed. “I love ducks. My daughter Suze actually painted me a mallard for a Mother’s Day present a few years ago. But I’m not so much of a fan that I’d want to go and whittle a million of them.”
Before Andrew had a chance to speculate further there was a knock at the door. He went to answer it, for some reason briefly imagining a human-sized duck on the other side, there to offer its condolences in a series of solemn quacks. Instead, it was a man with beady blue eyes and Friar Tuck hair.
“Knock knock,” the man said. “You from the council? They said you’d be around today. I’m Martin, from next door? It was me who called the police about Alan, the poor chap. I thought I might . . .” He trailed off as he saw the carvings.
“Didn’t you know?” Peggy said. The man shook his head, looking bewildered.
“No. I mean, the thing is, I’d knock on Alan’s door every now and then, say hello, but that was it. Come to think of it, he never opened the door more than to show his face. He kept himself to himself, as the saying goes.” He gestured to the carvings. “Is it okay if I have a closer look?”
“By all means,” Andrew said. He exchanged a glance with Peggy. He wondered if she’d been starting to think the same as him, that despite all the intricacy and craftsmanship, at some point they would likely have to work out if the ducks had any discernible value that could be used to cover Alan Carter’s funeral.
* * *
—
When Martin the neighbor left, Andrew and Peggy reluctantly got on with the job they were there to do. An hour later they were packing up and getting ready to leave, a thorough search of the place for documents revealing only a folder with neatly filed utility bills, and a Radio Times that looked like it had been rolled up for the purposes of killing flies, but nothing that gave any clues to a next of kin.
Peggy stopped by the front door so suddenly that Andrew nearly walked straight into her, just about managing to keep his balance, like a javelin thrower post-throw.
“What is it?” he said.
“I just don’t want to leave this one without trying absolutely everything to find out if he’s got family, you know?”
Andrew checked the time. “I suppose one more sweep couldn’t hurt.”
Peggy beamed, as if Andrew were sanctioning one more go on a bouncy castle rather than an additional search through a dead man’s belongings.
“Take a room each?” he said.
Peggy saluted. “Sir yes sir!”
Andrew thought he might have something when he found a piece of paper that had fallen behind the drawers in a kitchen cupboard, but it was just an old shopping list, yellowed with age. It looked like they were all out of options, but then Peggy had a breakthrough. Andrew found her kneeling on the floor, reaching around the side of the fridge.
“I can see a bit of paper or something trapped there,” she said.
“Hang on,” Andrew said. He took hold of the fridge and rocked it back and forth in little jerks to move it to one side.
Whatever it was, it was covered in a thin layer of grime.
“It’s a photo,” Peggy said, wiping it clean with her sleeve to reveal two people looking back at them. They wore slightly sheepish smiles, as if they’d been waiting a long time to be exposed by someone clearing the dirt away. The man was dressed in a wax jacket with a flat cap tucked under his arm. His silver hair was fighting a losing battle against the wind to stay in place. There were pronounced crow’s-feet around his eyes and wavy wrinkles on his forehead like ridges on a sand dune. The woman had frizzy brown hair tinged with gray, and was wearing a mauve cardigan and matching hoop earrings, an element of fortune-teller about her. She looked to be in her fifties, the man perhaps in his sixties. The photographer had cut them off at the waist, making enough space for a sign above their heads that read: “And a few lilies blow.” There were more signs behind that but the writing was out of focus.
“Is that Alan, do we think?” Andrew said.
“I guess so,” Peggy said. “What about the woman?”
“They’re obviously together in the photograph. His wife? Or ex-wife? Hang on, is that a name badge on her cardigan?”
“It just says ‘staff,’ I think,” Peggy said. She pointed to the sign. “‘And a few lilies blow.’ I feel like I should know that.”
Andrew decided that this was enough of a reason to break his usual rule and use his phone.
“It’s from a poem,” he said, scrolling down the screen. “Gerard Manley Hopkins:
I have desired to go
Where springs not fail
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
And a few lilies blow.”
Peggy ran her fingertips slowly over the photo, as if hoping to glean information simply by touch.
“Oh my god,” she said suddenly. “I think I know where this is. There’s this big secondhand booksho
p near where my sister lives—oh, what the hell’s it called?” She flicked the photo back and forth impatiently as she tried to remember, and that’s when they both caught a glimpse of something written on the back, in slanting blue pen:
“B’s birthday, April 4th, 1992. We met after lunch at Barter Books and strolled down to the river. Then we had sandwiches on our favorite bench and fed the ducks.”
— CHAPTER 15 —
Andrew watched the funeral director lay the simple wreath at the unmarked grave and wondered how long it would be before it wilted away to nothing. The council usually paid for the wreaths, but recently when he’d asked for funds to do so it had led to increasingly tedious and depressing exchanges of e-mails that got him nowhere. At least he was still able to pay for obituaries in the local paper, as long as the wording was kept to a minimum. In this particular case he’d only been able to achieve an acceptable length by omitting the deceased’s middle name, the sparsity of the notice barely leaving room for sentiment: “Derek Albrighton, died peacefully on July 14th, aged eighty-four.” He supposed one small advantage of the restricted word limit was that he couldn’t act on the temptation to add, “post-cake, mid-wank.”
He met Peggy in a café that overlooked some railway tracks.
“You know cranes, right?” she said, looking out of the window as Andrew sat down.
“The construction machine or the long-necked bird?” Andrew said.
“The former, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“When you see one of those massive ones by a skyscraper, do you ever wonder if they had to use another crane to build that crane? Or did it just get up there by itself? I suppose it’s all a metaphor for how the universe was created. Or something.”
A commuter train rattled past.
“I’m glad I’m sitting down,” Andrew said. “That’s quite a lot to take in.” Peggy stuck her tongue out at him.
“So how was it today—did anybody show up at the church?” she said.
“Sadly not.”
“You see, this is what I’m worried about,” Peggy said, taking a swig of ginger beer.
“What do you mean?” Andrew said, wondering if maybe he should start drinking ginger beer.
Peggy looked sheepish and reached into her bag, bringing out the photo of Alan Carter and “B.”
“I just can’t stop thinking about this,” she said.
It had been a week since they’d visited Alan’s house and Andrew had tried to convince Peggy that they’d done all they could, that she’d go mad if she kept thinking about it, but she clearly hadn’t let it go. Reluctantly, he took the photo from her. “And you’re sure it’s . . . where was it again?”
“Barter Books. It’s a secondhand bookshop in Northumberland. I Googled it just to make sure, and it’s definitely the right place. My sister moved to a village nearby a few years ago and we usually pop in on the way to visiting her.”
Andrew studied the now familiar sight of Alan and his grinning companion.
“I just can’t bear the thought of him being buried alone if there’s someone out there who loved him and should be there—or at least be given the opportunity to be there.”
“But that’s the point, isn’t it?” Andrew said. “Unfortunately, the cold truth of it is that when we get in touch with these people there’s usually a reason they’re not in contact with the person who’s died.”
“Yeah, but that’s not always the case, is it?” Peggy said, her eyes wide, imploring Andrew to understand. “It’s hardly ever because there’s been some great dramatic falling-out. At worst it’s a stupid argument over money, and more often than not it’s just out of laziness that they’ve fallen out of touch.”
Andrew went to speak but Peggy jumped in again.
“What about that woman you called last week—the one whose brother died. She didn’t have a bad word to say about him—she was just embarrassed more than anything because she’d stopped bothering to call or visit him.”
Andrew immediately thought of Sally and felt his neck starting to prickle.
“I mean, what a sorry state of affairs society’s in,” Peggy continued, “and so utterly British, to be that stubborn and proud. I mean . . .” She stopped, seemingly aware from Andrew’s body language that he was uncomfortable with where this was going. She quickly changed the subject and offered to buy him an “overpriced, possibly stale” cookie.
“I couldn’t possibly ask you to do that,” Andrew said, putting his hands up in mock earnestness.
“Oh, but I insist,” Peggy said. As she went up to the counter, Andrew looked at the photograph again. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been so dismissive. Maybe there was a way of pursuing this without getting too deeply invested. He looked over at Peggy, who was taking the cookie-selection process very seriously despite the obvious impatience of the waitress. As usual, Andrew had made his textbook packed lunch that morning, but he’d pretended he hadn’t when Peggy suggested they go out for lunch. He looked again at the photo. Maybe there wasn’t too much harm in hearing Peggy out.
“So, what do you want to do?” he said when she returned, proffering cookies.
“I want to go there,” she said, tapping the photo. “To Barter Books. And find this woman—find ‘B.’”
“Isn’t that a bit . . . I mean, isn’t it incredibly unlikely that she’s still working there?”
Peggy scratched at an imaginary stain on the tablecloth. Andrew narrowed his eyes.
“Have you already contacted them?”
“Maybe,” Peggy said, her mouth twitching as she tried to hide a burgeoning smile.
“And?” Andrew said, and Peggy leaned forward and began to speak with a rapidity unusual even for her: “I phoned a lass there and spoke to her about it and I explained about the photo and what I did for a living and that I was a regular visitor and I asked whether there was anyone working there whose name began with B with brown and gray frizzy hair that might now actually be a bit more gray than brown and if they used to know someone called Alan.”
She paused for breath.
“Right. And . . . ?” Andrew said.
“And, well, she said she couldn’t give out specific details about staff members, but there were some people who’d been working there for a good long while and I was very welcome to pop in the next time I was up visiting my sister.” Peggy opened her arms wide as if to say, See?
“So you’re saying you want to go to this bookshop on the off chance that the person in the photograph with Alan is still working there?” Andrew said.
Peggy nodded emphatically, as if there had been a language barrier and she had finally broken through to him.
“Okay,” Andrew said, “to play devil’s advocate—”
“Oh, you bloody love playing bloody devil’s bloody advocate,” Peggy said, flicking a crumb in his direction.
“Say it is her—the woman in the photo—what will you say?” Andrew flicked the crumb back to signify the ball was in her court again.
Peggy thought for a moment. “I think I’ll just have to do that on the day. Improvise, you know?”
Andrew went to speak but Peggy jumped in first. “Oh, come on, where’s the harm?” she said, reaching over and taking his hand, which was halfway to delivering a cookie to his face. “Look, I’ve got it all worked out, right. I hadn’t even thought about a holiday this summer, but god knows I need one—the kids, too, and”—she released Andrew’s hand and a bit of cookie fell onto the table—“Steve’s been staying at a friend’s, recently . . . Anyway, my plan is to go up and see my sister the week after next and drop in on Barter Books while I’m there.”
Andrew tilted his head from side to side, weighing this up. “Okay, well in fairness, if you’re going up to see your sister, it’s not quite as . . . mad.”
Peggy put the photo back in her bag.
“I’d invite you to come up too, but I assume you’ll be busy with the family.”
“Ermm, well . . .” Andrew floundered, trying to think on his feet. It had seemed like a genuine invitation from Peggy, not simply out of politeness. “I’ll have to check,” he said, “but, actually . . . Diane was planning to take the kids down to visit her mum that week. In Eastbourne.”
“And you’re not going too?” Peggy said.
“No, probably not,” Andrew said, willing his brain into gear. “I, um, don’t really get on with Diane’s parents. Bit of a long story.”
“Oh?” Peggy said. She wasn’t going to let him finish there, clearly, but this wasn’t something that had ever made it to Andrew’s master spreadsheet.
“It’s a bit complicated, but basically her mum never approved of us getting together in the first place, because I was always seen as a bit unsuitable. So we’ve never really been able to see eye to eye and it just causes tension whenever we meet.”
Peggy went to say something, then stopped.
“What?” Andrew said, a little too defensively, panicking at the thought that she wasn’t convinced by this story.
“Oh, nothing. It’s just, I can’t imagine you being deemed unsuitable,” she said. “You’re far too . . . nice . . . and . . . you know . . .”
Andrew really didn’t know. He took advantage of Peggy’s being flustered for once and thought about what he should do. The simplest option would be to stay at home and avoid further questions about his family life. But there was just something about the idea of getting to spend a whole week with Peggy—on what felt like an adventure, too—that was too exciting and scary a prospect to miss. If this wasn’t going out of his comfort zone, then what was? He had to go for it.
“Anyway,” he said, as casually as possible, “I’ll have a think about Northumberland. There’s a good chance I can come and it, er, wouldn’t be weird or anything, for me to do that, would it.”
How Not to Die Alone Page 15