Ronald thought about Hilda and Keith. He supposed their life was much like his and Nancy’s, although Nancy knocked spots off Hilda where housekeeping was concerned. In the Nortons’ bungalow you’d find the sewing machine on the dining-room table and meals being eaten in the kitchen. There would be magazines, or even books, left face downwards on the sofa, keeping the reader’s place. Hilda and Lynn were always reading. He and Nancy had no time for that, apart from what was required in the way of business, and his own little cache at the shop.
In the Nortons’ bungalow, washing up was stacked to be done later; meals were not dished up properly but were served straight from saucepans, and had an air of being flung together. But it was nice visiting. You needn’t worry about a bit of mud attached to your shoe, for Hilda never noticed such things and anyway the floor probably needed hoovering; she only cleaned up once a week, whereas Nancy dusted every day. She thought Hilda very slovenly.
The Nortons slept in a double bed. Nancy said it was disgusting, at their age. That Sunday morning, Ronald wondered if Hilda and Keith got together still. Older couples did. He’d learned that.
He’d visit her on Monday. She’d be expecting him. Dorothea. He said the name aloud to a wizened sprout stalk.
He’d tell Nancy he had promised to price a bureau for her.
His heart sang as he counted the hours till Monday evening.
Susan Wyatt slept late on Sunday morning. When she came downstairs, her mother was sitting in the kitchen in her dressing gown, drinking coffee. She looked haggard, old – even ill.
‘You all right, Mum?’ Susan asked sharply.
‘A bit hung over,’ Dorothea admitted.
She’d produced a good meal for Susan, the evening before. She’d taken some chicken joints out of the freezer and casseroled them in wine sauce from a tin, adding more wine. There were raspberries, also from the freezer, and cheese, and she’d opened a litre bottle of chain-store claret, which they’d finished between them. They’d watched an instalment of the latest television costume series, then a comedy show which Susan had thought puerile but at which Dorothea had laughed a lot. Then Leo, Susan’s boyfriend, had telephoned, and after that Susan had gone off to bed. Dorothea had stayed up late, drinking gin. Susan would be horrified if she discovered that her mother often carried the remnants of a bottle up to bed with her, so this time she poured a generous measure into a tumbler and bore that off; it looked as innocent as water. Now her head was bursting.
What was to be done about her, Susan wondered. She felt exasperated pity; she loved her mother, but was frightened by her visible deterioration. Daddy had died three years ago, after all; by now she should be coping. Other people did. It was tough, of course, and had been very sudden. Susan had been dreadfully shocked herself, and sad; she still missed him, though it had been better since Leo appeared. It would be a good thing if her mother would re-marry, remove the worry on to someone else’s shoulders. Surely there must be some kindly widower about? On the other hand, older people grew set in their ways and might find adjustment difficult. But in later age one probably didn’t expect so much from another person. Once or twice recently her mother had been difficult to understand on the telephone. She was drinking much too much – that was evident.
‘Have you seen the doctor lately?’ Susan asked.
‘There’s no need,’ said Dorothea. Her doctor had prescribed sleeping pills and tranquillisers after Harry’s death, but the last time she had seen him he had said she must wean herself from sedatives. She could not tell her daughter that the rest of her life, stretching ahead for perhaps twenty years or more, was something she could not bear to contemplate. ‘I’m fine,’ she said brightly.
‘If you’d get a job,’ sighed Susan. ‘It might be fun.’
‘But what?’ said Dorothea. They’d had this conversation before. She had no real qualifications. She’d done a secretarial course, way back, but had met Harry and married him before it was over; she could type a bit, but couldn’t do shorthand to save her life and thought herself far too old to learn. She’d never been the least bit clever.
‘A hotel receptionist,’ Susan said, inspired. Her mother’s poise and social know-how would be of use in such a post.
‘I’m too old,’ said Dorothea. ‘They want young, pretty girls, like you. Besides, it would be such a tie. I wouldn’t be able to get away to visit Mark and the children.’
But she hardly ever travelled to Yorkshire to see Mark, her son. She didn’t get on all that well with his wife. She didn’t seem able to make any sort of effort. Susan guessed that her friends must be losing patience with her.
There seemed no way that Susan could help. At least, though not exactly rich, her mother was quite nicely off, which saved a lot of worry, though perhaps if she wasn’t and had to do something about it she’d pull herself together. Mark didn’t want the responsibility of their mother; he meant his sister, the daughter, to shoulder the load.
One day the house would have to go. It was much too big for one person, but they all loved it, and at the moment Dorothea could afford to run it. Mrs Simmons came in to clean four times a week and Joe Cunliffe did the garden, leaving rose pruning and a few minor tasks to Dorothea. It all went on just the same as when Susan’s father had been alive, but there was this great gap where he had been.
Her mother was only fifty-two, not really old at all. She did Meals on Wheels occasionally, and a few other village things from time to time – or had done. There was less talk of that lately. But then fêtes and things didn’t happen in the winter.
Susan decided to drop the subject of her mother’s problems. She told her that Leo was coming to lunch. On the telephone the night before he’d said he missed her and he’d come to fetch her.
Dorothea hadn’t faced the thought of Sunday lunch yet. She’d feel more human later. She rather liked Leo, who had fixed the sticking windscreen wipers on her Saab the last time he had come down. And it was always nice to have a man in the house.
There was a shoulder of lamb in the freezer. If she put it in water, maybe it would thaw.
After lunch, Leo washed Dorothea’s car. The lamb had been rather pink about the bone, and not exactly tender, but heaped with gravy and red currant jelly, and surrounded by peas and roast potatoes, it was not too bad. Dorothea had found some mince pies left from Christmas in the freezer, and had opened each of them and spooned in brandy to buck them up.
‘He’s very energetic, isn’t he?’ she remarked, looking out of the sitting-room window to where Leo was vigorously leathering the Saab. He wore Harry’s gum boots, and the sleeves of his guernsey sweater were rolled up, revealing strong, pale arms.
‘Mm.’ Susan was flicking through a colour supplement. ‘Doesn’t like sitting still. Doesn’t read much. Likes to be up and doing,’ she said. ‘He’s very physical. He’ll probably want to go for a walk when he’s done the car.’
Dorothea would have liked a sleep herself. Her eyes felt dry and hot, the eyelids heavy. She piled a log on the fire. ‘He’s nice,’ she offered.
‘Mm.’
Dorothea sighed. She remembered other young men who had been produced; there was a suave one in advertising whose manners had been just too good, and during whose brief reign Susan had her naturally wavy hair done Afro style and taken to wearing tall boots and skin-tight pants with a bright green belted shirt, looking, her mother thought, like a fugitive from Sherwood Forest. She had reverted, now, to what still seemed uniform – blue jeans and a bulky sweater, with her hair falling softly to her shoulders. She looked very pretty. Dorothea wondered if she was happy; she wanted to mention it, but feared to be intrusive.
‘It’s kind of him to do the car,’ she said. Leo seemed to her like a puppy, eager to please, and full of energy that might explode if it were to be suppressed.
When the car was done, just as Susan had foretold, Leo suggested a walk. The sun broke faintly through the clouds as they set off over the garden and climbed the fence into the field
beyond, to join the public footpath, which linked up eventually by means of stiles with Church Lane.
‘Why don’t you get a dog?’ asked Leo, who had a problem over what to call Dorothea. Somehow he could not bring himself to use her first name, though instructed to do so, yet addressing her as Mrs Wyatt seemed so formal. So far, he’d managed not to call her anything. Dorothea had noticed his difficulty; it had not been shared by Susan’s other young men and it made her feel antique.
‘They’re a tie,’ she answered. She’d had a spaniel which, old and smelly, had had to be put down shortly after Harry died. She’d had no heart to get another.
‘You could take it for walks,’ Leo persisted.
‘It’s a good idea, Mummy,’ said Susan, who had already thought simply of appearing with a puppy.
‘I’ll think about it,’ Dorothea said. ‘When the summer comes.’ A puppy would need training. She could not tell Susan that sometimes she slept so heavily, and so late, that a puppy might whimper for a long time and be unheard.
Striding out in her green Wellingtons, she resolved to pull herself together when the summer came. She’d cut out the gin and take up some healthy sport – swimming perhaps, or even tennis; she was not too old. There was a club in Tellingford. But she knew she wouldn’t really do it.
When they climbed the stile into Church Lane and worked their way back to the High Street, they met other walkers out enjoying the thin winter sunshine. There were parents with children in pushchairs and dawdling toddlers, and new babies snug in prams.
‘I don’t know any of these people,’ Susan said.
‘Nor do I, really,’ said her mother, who had been replying to friendly ‘Hullos’ from some of them, and smiling at others whom she recognised from shopping trips in the village. ‘They’re from the new estates,’ she told Leo. ‘People have been selling off their gardens, and up spring bright brick boxes. Crowbury is growing.’
‘It’s a smart place to live if you work in Tellingford or Middletown,’ said Susan.
‘I like seeing them about,’ said Dorothea. ‘The young people.’
But they made her feel old. It was so long since Susan and Mark had been pram-bound, and she rarely saw Mark’s children, so the solace of grannydom she’d heard lauded by contemporaries was not really hers; though she was fond of the children, she didn’t know them properly as individuals. Besides, the fact of their existence emphasised her conviction that life had no more to offer her of her own. Maybe it would be different when Susan married and had a family. But she might move further away even than Yorkshire – Saudi Arabia, for example. Leo, however, seemed firmly rooted in his city bank; it made her warm to him as a potential suitor, and he seemed to be a kind young man.
Susan paused to gaze into the window of Nanron Antiques. ‘Bought anything from here lately, Mummy?’ she asked.
‘Not since you last came home,’ Dorothea said.
Could she ever go into the shop again? It would be too much for Mr Trimm; he’d be horribly embarrassed. Besides, his wife might be there, that neat woman with the helmet of hair, every strand in place. She had thinly plucked eyebrows and wore shiny dark lipstick. Dorothea wondered fleetingly how Mr Trimm enjoyed kissing that sticky-looking mouth. He had kissed rather nicely, as she recalled. She’d enjoyed it all at the time.
What would these young people think, if they knew? She laughed at the idea.
‘What’s the joke?’ Susan asked.
‘Oh, nothing,’ said Dorothea.
‘Does the shop do well?’ asked Leo.
‘Seems to,’ said Dorothea. ‘It’s been here for ages.’
‘I wonder what his turnover is,’ said Leo.
‘Oh Leo, how soulless you are,’ said Susan. ‘He can’t go anywhere, Mummy, without wondering how much capital there is behind a thing, and if it’s running at a profit.’
To Dorothea, this didn’t sound like a character defect at all. Leo would be a safe provider as a husband. But Susan showed no sign of wanting one; she earned a good salary herself, working with a multi-national oil company.
They walked on, and met a running figure dressed in black.
‘It’s George, isn’t it?’ said Susan. ‘Does he even jog on Sunday?’
‘It seems so,’ said Dorothea. ‘Hullo, George,’ she called, as the runner approached.
The black figure slowed and began running on the spot; his breath clouded round him in the clear air.
‘Leo Kent – George Fortescue,’ Dorothea introduced. ‘We didn’t think you did this mad thing on Sundays.’
‘Oh yes, unless I’m playing golf,’ said George. ‘My partner cried off today.’ He went on marking time. ‘Must keep going, Dorothea, if you’ll excuse me,’ he panted.
‘Don’t let us stop you,’ said Dorothea. ‘Come in for tea, though, if you like, on your way back.’
‘Thanks, I will,’ said George, and went pounding on.
‘He’ll undo all the good of his jogging, having tea,’ said Susan.
‘He won’t. He says he can eat like a horse and never put on an ounce, with all that exercise,’ said Dorothea.
‘You should try it,’ said Susan to Leo, hitting him gently in the stomach. Leo was quite well fleshed.
‘I get my workout on the squash court,’ said Leo repressively. ‘Isn’t he getting on a bit for jogging, though? Your friend? He might have a heart attack.’
He shouldn’t have said this – Susan’s father had died of one. But the women took the comment calmly.
‘He does it to fill in time,’ said Dorothea.
She and Susan gave Leo the details of George’s domestic history as they walked home.
‘Maybe she’ll come back?’ said Leo. ‘His wife.’
‘She was bored to tears with him,’ said Dorothea. ‘He’s a dull man, but I’m very sorry for him. He’s lonely and he feels humiliated. He left Angela on her own a lot, with all his meetings and things. I don’t think they could talk properly to one another. I miss Angela.’ They’d sometimes had coffee together, or snack lunches, putting the world to rights. But Dorothea was surprised when Angela left.
They had a cheerful time at tea. There was a packet of crumpets in the freezer, and there were some scones and blackcurrant jam. George ate four crumpets and Leo ate two, and they finished all the scones and a packet of bourbon biscuits.
Susan and Leo left for London directly afterwards, and George, in his tracksuit still, begged a lift the short distance to Orchard House; he was stiffening up. It was a mistake to have had tea before his shower.
Dorothea was alone again by six o’clock.
5
On Monday evening, Ronald Trimm stood expectantly on the manor doorstep, listening to the jangling of the bell.
He’d gone home first and had his meal – curry, it was, made with leftovers from the Sunday roast. Afterwards, he went upstairs and cleaned his teeth thoroughly, to make sure no spicy flavour lingered, then ran a hand over his jaw. It was stubbly; she’d mentioned, jokingly he thought, his five o’clock shadow, last time. He swept his electric razor swiftly, guiltily, over his chin, wondering what to say if Nancy caught him. But she didn’t. She was washing up.
He’d told her he would be going to look at Mrs Wyatt’s bureau, and she’d made no demur beyond saying, ‘I hope she won’t expect you there often, Ronald. There’s plenty to do here, in the evening.’ There were always the repairs; she sometimes persuaded him to do the simpler part like stripping old glue from badly mended ceramics.
‘I know, dear, and I don’t like to leave you, but it’s doing her a favour, you know. She does buy. I watch out for jugs she might care for, and she always buys them.’
‘Yes – well, don’t let her take advantage of your good nature,’ Nancy warned.
He shot out of the house now, in case she noticed he had changed his shirt.
‘I’ll not be long,’ he said.
The manor doorstep was made of stone hollowed by the tread of centuries. Ronald waited patiently.
The lights were on in the house, and the garage doors were closed, so he thought she must be in; the doors of the garage had been open when he brought her home on Friday. Only two days had passed since then! It seemed an age away. He rang again.
After some time, a light came on above his head, the bulb mounted in an old iron lantern. Then the door was opened a fraction, held back on a chain. Dorothea peered through the gap.
‘Who is it?’ she asked.
Ardent and eager, Ronald stepped closer.
‘It’s me . . . it’s I . . . Mrs Wyatt . . . Dorothea—’ He hovered, changing his weight from one foot to the other, searching for the right words. He’d been rehearsing on the way over but forgot his prepared speech now. She’d unfasten the chain in seconds, pull the door wide and enfold him to her. In his mind he’d anticipated the moment many times since Friday. Tonight he’d need no coaxing; his passion would amaze her. He stood there, feeling it mount.
But the door opened no further.
‘I can’t see you now, Mr Trimm. You must go away,’ said Dorothea. She had recognised her caller with a shock of sick dismay.
‘But Mrs Wyatt—Dorothea—we—I—’ Ronald floundered, unbelieving.
‘You must go away,’ said Dorothea again. She hadn’t expected this. She must stop it at once; a curt response and he’d get the message. ‘How dare you call like this, without an invitation? What are you thinking of?’ she said, and closed the door.
Ronald stood there, staring at the ancient, faded oak. The outer light went out. He raised his fists and beat against the door, calling her name again, incredulous. How could she speak to him like that after what had happened?
He should have telephoned first. Perhaps she had someone with her. That must be the explanation. He’d apologise and arrange another time. He rang again.
The door remained shut. He heard music in the background; she’d turned the radio up loud. Her harsh words echoed in his head.
In the end he drove away. As he turned out of the gate, he picked up a lone figure in his headlights, loping towards him – that jogging Mr Fortescue.
Hand of Death Page 4