by Mary Wesley
She knew her lover Tim would say, ‘Leave well alone, don’t interfere. It’s not as though she was a friend. We are new here, we don’t know the situation,’ and so on and on. She popped a fresh loaf into her Provençal bread pot and consigned the residue of last week’s loaf to the litter bin. Then she switched on the kettle and brewed herself a mug of instant coffee, which she drank standing. As she drank, she thought of the Piper woman in the top-floor flat. Divorced, one had gathered, but visited rather often by her ex. Presumably he had access to the child? Access night or day, if one went by the shouts and thumps one could not help hearing even two floors down. There had been no disturbances lately, though, and a perceptible absence of noise from the child. Nor had she seen the Piper woman passing through the hall. She couldn’t be away, not if the Indians from the corner-shop had been up to see her. Funny, that. Lovely colour that sari—sallow? I am not sallow! Frowning, she scrutinized her face in the glass. It’s the autumn light, must be. Why not be neighbourly? Take her some of Tim’s aunt’s apples. Hard to know whether they were cookers or eaters. She’d brought far too many; sitting there, they’d turn to cider before one found out. Janet picked out half a dozen fruits which looked all right and put them in a plastic bag. In the hall she gathered up the pile of letters, mounted the stairs and knocked on the door of the top flat.
When Julia opened the door, Janet said, ‘I am Janet. I live with Tim Fellowes on the ground floor. I wondered whether you would like some of the apples Tim’s old aunt brought us from the country? She didn’t say whether they are cookers or eaters, but they smell quite nice.’ So saying, and gaining impetus from good intentions and curiosity, she pressed forward so that Julia willy-nilly stepped back and, peering over her shoulder, Janet could see into the room.
‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Oh! How squeaky clean! Oh, gosh, am I interrupting something?’ she said as she sighted a bottle of vodka on an otherwise bare table, flanked by a bottle of aspirin. ‘You are going to have a party or oh, God, I am inept, you were going to—Oh,’ she whispered, covering her mouth with her hand. ‘Suicide.’
Julia said, ‘You’ve brought my letters,’ and took them from Janet. ‘Thanks.’
Janet said, ‘May I sit down?’ She was feeling, as she would tell Tim, a bit weak.
Julia gestured towards a chair. Janet sat. Julia subsided cross-legged on the floor, letting the letters fall in a heap beside her.
Minutes passed; an age, Janet later told Tim.
‘Aren’t you going to read them?’ she presently ventured.
Julia said, ‘What’s the point? They will all say the same thing.’
‘Same thing? I don’t get—’
‘They will say how terribly sorry they are to hear that Giles and Christy are dead.’
I must have looked like a stranded fish, Janet would tell Tim. My jaw dropped.
‘And they are not, of course, terribly sorry. Sorry, but not “terribly” and in most cases, apropos Giles, not sorry at all but positively pleased, as I am.’
Janet said, ‘Oh my God!’
Julia said, ‘Is he yours? Are you sure? How do you know?’ So viciously that Janet pressed back in her chair, affronted.
Julia said, ‘Like a drink? Vodka and tonic? That’s all I’ve got. I’ll get a lemon,’ and sprang to her feet in an alarmingly agile manner. Janet, watching her go into the kitchen, thought: I could hop it, but Julia was back carrying glasses, tonic and a lemon before she could make up her mind to go. Julia said, ‘Say when,’ and sloshed vodka liberally into the glasses.
Watching her add lemon and tonic, Janet said, ‘But I thought you were—’ and stopped herself.
Julia smiled slightly. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, I was not,’ and she took a gulp of vodka. ‘The aspirin,’ she said, ‘is a dodge I learned long ago. Take a couple before drinks and it helps with the hangover. Drink up,’ she said. ‘As you are here, you can keep me company.’
Janet took a large swallow of her drink and, choking at its strength, said, ‘Do you think I am sallow?’
Julia said, ‘Sallow? Why?’
‘Something Tim—’
Julia said, ‘It suits you. You’re pretty.’
Janet said, ‘Thanks,’ and swallowed some more vodka and tonic. ‘Not an awful lot of tonic,’ she said. Then she said, ‘So you weren’t—er—going to—er—well, no, obviously, but why alone?’
‘You don’t think I look like a lonely drinker?’
‘Lonely, yes. Well, you must be lonely if your Giles is, you did say Giles? Your husband?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is dead and Christy, too. Oh my God, that’s why it’s been so quiet lately. Oh! What a dumb chum I am!’
Julia refilled Janet’s glass and topped up her own, adding a slight amount of tonic.
Janet said, ‘You were going to celebrate, not—’
Julia said, ‘That’s right; celebrate the one and blot out the other. Or is that too complex for you?’
Janet said, ‘You are making me drunk; it’s all too complex for me.’
Julia said, ‘Lucky you.’ Later, she said, ‘Come along, time to go. I’ll help you downstairs.’
‘And she did,’ Janet told Tim. ‘She gave me two aspirin and tucked me into bed. Oh, Tim, I’ve never seen anyone so terrifyingly unhappy in my life. It’s appalling.’
And Tim said, ‘Darling, you are pissed, it can’t be as bad as that,’ and held her in his arms for a few minutes. Then, hesitantly, he said, ‘Are we going to have any supper? I’m starving.’
At this Janet jerked upright, only to lie down again with a groan. ‘I’m still on a merry-go-round. I’m sorry, Tim, but I’m better lying flat.’
Tim said, ‘Oh,’ and then, because he really was very hungry, he volunteered to go and buy fish and chips or a take-away.
Gratefully Janet closed her eyes, saying, ‘I might be able to sleep but leave the light on, please.’ Tim left the flat, shrugging his shoulders.
Returning presently with two lots of fish and chips he found Peter and Angie Eddison, tenants of the flat immediately below Julia Piper’s, unpacking luggage from their car. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Back from your hols? Had a good time?’
Peter Eddison said, ‘Super. We drove right across Eastern Europe; fascinating.’
Tim said, ‘What was the food like?’ He picked some chips from his package and put them in his mouth. ‘I’m on my way home with our supper,’ he said. ‘Janet’s not—like a chip?’ He offered the package. ‘Janet’s not feeling very grand.’
Peter Eddison said, ‘Oh, thanks,’ and, pushing the greaseproof paper open, extracted a lump of cod. ‘It’s great to be home,’ he said. ‘We got sick of dumplings and sauerkraut and God-knows-who’s in the sausages.’
Her arms full of bulging packages, Angie Eddison came up the steps. ‘How mouth-watering,’ she said. She opened her mouth and her husband popped in some chips from Tim’s parcel. ‘Sure you can spare them?’ she asked, munching. ‘Oh! Could I just taste the fish?’
Tim obligingly opened out the packet and Peter chose her a piece of cod which, since her hands were full, he fed her. ‘Has anything happened while we’ve been on our travels?’ Angie Eddison asked. ‘Prague was simply—’
‘I’ll say it has!’ Tim interrupted her. ‘There’s been a drama. The girl on the top floor, the one with the ex-husband and the noisy little boy, oh, I’d better not shout, she’s up there.’ He opened his package wider to expose the golden chips and battered cod. ‘Come closer,’ he said. ‘Help yourselves.’
Angie put her burdens on the ground and reached for a chip. ‘What happened? What sort of drama? Did you send for the police? We’ve had to before now,’ she said.
Lowering his voice, Tim said, ‘The ex-husband had a smash, wrote himself off and the child.’
Huddling round the fish and chips, fingers ready to help themselves to more, the Eddisons said, ‘No!’ and ‘Oh my God!’ and ‘But he’d lost his licence!’ and ‘Where did it happen?’ and ‘How is sh
e, does anybody know?’ as they reached for the comforting chips.
Tim said, ‘It was in the papers. She’s been up there for days; the paper-shop people went up. She let them in, we saw them. Then, this afternoon, Janet finally nerved herself, went up with the girl’s letters. She’d not collected them so Janet thought—Well, she went up to see if she could help. Well, I suppose she wanted to find out what was going on; it’s been so quiet.’
‘It’s never quiet,’ said the Eddisons.
‘It is now,’ said Tim. ‘Janet found her sitting with a bottle of vodka and bottles of pills and naturally thought suicide, but apparently not.’
‘We are eating all your chips,’ said Angie.
‘Go ahead,’ said Tim, ‘before they get cold.’
‘What did she tell Janet?’ asked Angie. ‘If it wasn’t suicide? If she didn’t mean—’
‘Bugger all. Oh, she told her about the ex-husband and the child being dead, she told her that; Janet is terribly upset.’
‘But the Piper woman—what about her?’
‘She seems to have questioned Janet’s belief in God.’
‘Is Janet religious?’
‘No, of course not. Well, apparently, when Janet said, “Oh my God”, the Piper girl flew off the handle.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know, but she did; and then she made Janet drunk—she’s paralytic, she’s in bed. That’s why I was buying fish and chips.’
‘Which we’ve eaten,’ said Peter.
‘What d’you suppose we ought to do?’ asked Angie.
‘I think we should mind our own business and get the car unpacked,’ said her husband. ‘I have to work tomorrow and my experience of the Piper woman is that she keeps herself to herself. The one time I tried to interfere between her and that husband, I got my head bitten off.’
‘So leave well alone,’ said Angie. ‘Thanks for telling us, Tim.’
Tim watched them go back to their car to collect the rest of their luggage, then let himself into the flat. Janet was asleep on her back, snoring; he finished what was left of the fish and chips, undressed disconsolately and got into bed beside her.
In the flat above them Peter and Angie Eddison finished their unpacking and went to bed. Comfortably settled, Angie said, ‘Oh dear, do you suppose I should have gone up and seen the Piper woman?’
‘Tomorrow will do, surely,’ said Peter. ‘It isn’t as though we’ve ever been friends.’
Angie said, ‘That’s true; she’s always been stand-offish. What heaven to be back in our own bed. I think it’s the best part of a holiday.’
Some time in the night Julia Piper walked quietly down the stairs and let herself out into the street.
EIGHT
MAURICE BENSON STROLLED OUT of the village keeping his eyes open, taking things in. He had left his car in the pub yard after a beer and sandwich at the bar, chatting with the landlord and a loquacious local. As he walked his binoculars swung across his chest, working a felty patch on the sweater worn under his Barbour jacket. Digesting his lunch and information gained, he paused from time to time to quiz the fields and hedges. This was not good bird country but as an inveterate twitcher he knew that the most improbable birds turned up in unlikely locations. There had, for instance, been a kingfisher in the pond near the railway station. But today birds were not his priority; his interest lay in Mrs May, mother of recently widowed Julia Piper.
‘Two cottages a bit on from the cemetery. The one with the privet hedge is Madge Brownlow’s, Mrs May’s friend, and soon after that, with a camellia hedge, that’s Julia’s mum. Cost a packet when she planted it. Her son-in-law, the one that was killed, put her up to it. That was before he married. They said he got a discount on the shrubs, he was that sort.’ The landlord’s laughter had contained a snort.
A pair of magpies were at play in the cemetery, chattering and swooping among the headstones; Maurice paused to watch. Who was it had said they looked like croupiers?
A woman tending a recent grave straightened her back and, brushing detritus from her hands, shouted, ‘Shoo, you horrors, shoo!’
Maurice called out, ‘Two for joy!’
She was in her fifties, square with a fussy beige blouse under a sensible beige cardigan, corduroy trousers of beige also, a good fit when bought, tightish now, and green Wellington boots. Her hair, rather mannishly cut, toned with her clothes. Staring at Maurice across the cemetery wall, she said, ‘Fat lot of joy,’ and briskly brushed her hands against each other.
Maurice said, ‘Are you Mrs May?’
She said, ‘I am Madge Brownlow. Who are you?’
‘A friend, an acquaintance really of—well—what a tragedy.’ He let his eyes rest on the grave (gravelly earth, awful stuff to work in for the gravediggers) under heaps of wreaths and bouquets of chrysanthemums tied with white ribbon, the words on the cards blurred by condensation under their Cellophane wrappings.
Madge Brownlow said, ‘Thought you might be Press. Clodagh’s had them up to here. Go away!’ she shouted at the magpies, who had fluttered closer. ‘Shoo!’ She clapped her hands. ‘Birds of ill omen.’
‘They are like croupiers in a casino.’ Maurice watched Madge Brownlow. ‘Evening dress in the afternoon,’ he laboured. ‘Dinner jackets, tuxedos.’
‘I have never been in a casino.’ She left his joke still-born and bent to collect a trowel and fork which she put in a basket half full of dead flora. ‘Didn’t see you at the funeral,’ she said. ‘Were you a London friend?’
‘Scissors.’ Maurice pointed at the ground. ‘They might rust.’
Madge said, ‘Thanks,’ and retrieved the scissors. Maurice held the cemetery gate open. ‘I’m doing this for Clodagh.’ Madge made sure the gate was latched. ‘She is still too upset, too utterly—’
Glancing sidelong, Maurice fell into step beside her.
‘I tried to see Julia in London,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ said Madge, ‘Julia.’
‘She was out.’ Maurice persisted. ‘They said she is out all the time,’ he lied.
Madge said, ‘I wouldn’t know. They were divorced, on the point of absolution. Oh, wrong word. I mean, the divorce was almost absolute. Of course they should never have married.’
Maurice thought of the girl running, long legs, scissoring towards the sheep. ‘Wasn’t there a child?’ he murmured, collating information gleaned at the pub.
‘Of course there was a child—Christy. It’s so terrible for Clodagh, devastating, dreadful. How will she ever—? This is my cottage. Why don’t you come in? Like a cup of tea?’
Maurice said, ‘Thank you very much,’ and followed her in. Hollyhocks and roses, clematis and honeysuckle, traces of these in late autumn, converted workman’s cottage, pricey, very Homes and Gardens, mind the beams. He ducked his head.
Madge said, ‘Mind the beams. Go in there, I’ll put the kettle on. Won’t be a minute,’ and, waving him into a sitting-room, turned right into a kitchen, leaving the door open.
‘I did try and telephone.’ Maurice raised his voice. ‘But no luck from the number in the book.’
‘It’s ex-directory,’ Madge shouted. ‘Julia pretended Giles rang up at all hours and why not? He was Christy’s daddy, wasn’t he? Had been her husband. I’ve got the number somewhere, we got it from the police. I’ll give it to you.’
‘That would be kind.’ Maurice examined the room. Chintzy covers, fussy curtains, plethora of china ornaments, women’s magazines, a bag of knitting, large television, open fire, nutbags hanging outside the window, tits feeding, greenfinches fluttering near by and a tree creeper on the oak across the lawn, nice.
A set of photos on the mantelpiece. Let’s have a dekko. Madge Brownlow with a younger woman. Clodagh May? The same with a young man, and again but with a child in her arms, the child in the man’s arms, child alone. Child looks exactly like the man, ergo must be its father. There was a clatter in the kitchen. Maurice called, ‘Can I help?’
‘Oh, could you? I�
��ve put too much on the tray. Cracked a cup, butter-fingers. I thought a whisky in our tea would be in order, I need cheering up.’
Maurice said, ‘Let me carry it. You carry the whisky,’ (nice kitchen, Raeburn, Welsh dresser, blue plates, pine cupboards, Homes and Gardens again but awful tile floor) and led the way back into the sitting-room where, solicitous, he said, ‘You must be chilled. Shall I put a log on your fire?’
Madge said, ‘Oh, do, thank you,’ and began pouring tea. ‘I brought a large cup,’ she said. ‘Men like large cups, Clodagh always had a large cup for Giles. Help yourself to whisky, it was a present from Giles. He was so thoughtful—’
Maurice said, ‘Later, perhaps. Just tea would be lovely, milk, no sugar.’ Watching her pour (Edwardian silver teapot, common, but even so can fetch a lot these days), he took the cup from her and sat back in his chair.
Madge dolloped whisky into her cup, drank, sighed, said, ‘That’s good, that’s better,’ and stared into the fire.
Maurice said, ‘Interesting photographs,’ nodding up at the mantelpiece. ‘Your family?’
‘Oh! Oh yes. I think of them as my family. I have no blood relations except some sort of cousin in Canada. Clodagh has always—and Giles, of course, and little Christy. Oh, I can hardly bear—Oh! That’s Clodagh, and that’s Clodagh with Giles, and Clodagh and Christy, and little Christy alone. Such a darling—Clodagh’s younger than me but we’ve been so close so long and then Giles—That’s a very good one of Giles, the one with his head thrown back, and his hair all—Taken before Julia broke his nose, of course.’
‘Broke his nose?’
‘Of course! Didn’t you know?’
‘Um, I’d forgotten. Um—er—how?’
‘With a frying-pan. The plastic surgeon had the devil of a job; the cartilage was pulped.’ Madge stopped speaking and closed her eyes.
‘The little boy is like his father, isn’t he?’ Maurice gave a gentle lead, watching his hostess drink her tea, refill her cup, add whisky. ‘Little Christy was very like his father.’ Maurice raised his voice slightly. ‘Took after him, wouldn’t you say?’ He stood up to re-examine the photographs. What was it they’d said in the pub? Bit of a lad, very matey with his mother-in-law, dodgy with money, liked the girls. Temper? Oh yes, bit dodgy there too, but flash, and charm the birds off the trees. ‘Very pretty little boy. Not like his mother. Funny,’ he ventured.