The Shortest Journey

by Hazel Holt

  She crossed the room, moved a chair near to Mrs Rossiter and sat down beside her. ‘Well, m’dear, and how are you today? Got company, I see. That’s nice.’ She turned her rather prominent pale blue eyes towards me. ‘Isn’t it good of Mrs Malory to come and see you?’

  I began to feel my customary irritation.

  Annie Fisher started rummaging in her large shopping-bag. ‘There, m’dear, I brought some of those biscuits you like and a refill for your pen, like you asked me to get. And shall I take those nightdresses back and wash them? I don’t think they do them properly here. I mean, they do their best but that very fine cotton does need proper ironing...’

  I got to my feet. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’ll leave you in Annie’s capable hands.’

  ‘It was lovely to see you, Sheila dear. Come again when you can...’

  Because Annie’s chair was pushed right up against Mrs Rossiter’s, I couldn’t get near to give her my usual farewell hug so I simply waved goodbye from the doorway. Before I had shut the door behind me I could hear Annie once again in full flow.

  I walked along the impersonal corridor towards the front door, feeling rather crossly that I had been edged out. But as I stepped out of the hothouse temperature of West Lodge and into the brisk, not to say chilly, breeze blowing in from the sea-front, I pulled myself together and reminded myself that poor Annie had nothing else in her life; it was very mean-minded of me to begrudge her Mrs Rossiter’s time and attention. After all, when the Manor was sold she had gone to live in a small council flat in Taviscombe, and how she employed her still considerable energies I didn’t really know. I knew that Mrs Rossiter would have made sure she had a good pension, but she had no family near – just a brother in Australia whom she used to talk about with pride, since he had ‘got on’. But time must hang heavily on her hands, and what could be more natural than that she should pop in quite often to see her old employer? Not that one could really think of Mrs Rossiter as anything as positive as an employer and I am sure that after Colonel Rossiter died (he had been decidedly imperious and treated all servants as potentially mutinous troops who had to be kept under strict control) Annie had run things more or less her own way. Thelma, at that time, was only too thankful to have a reliable person to look after her mother. Anyway, Annie always made a great fuss of Thelma and, in the old days, had waged fearful feuds with Thelma’s Nanny Philips.

  I walked through the Jubilee Gardens, noting that a lot of the beds were bare now and freshly dug for the winter; just a few contained some sad late chrysanthemums that the early frosts hadn’t bitten off. My mood of irritation was now replaced by one of melancholy.

  It seemed today that everything was drawing to a close, not just the year. Mrs Jankiewicz and Mrs Rossiter were almost the last of Mother’s friends – so many others had died – and when they were gone yet more links with my past would be broken; one day soon there would be no one who still thought of me as a child. Then I would be forced to feel really grown up at last. I felt somehow diminished and sad.

  An elderly man, walking rather unsteadily and being enthusiastically pulled along by a small grey poodle on a lead, greeted me as I approached.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Malory – splendid day, isn’t it? Nice and fresh, blows the cobwebs away. It’s grand to be out!’

  Mr Sewell was a retired accountant, a widower, who had been one of the most active of our Red Cross helpers until he had a stroke six months ago.

  ‘Well!’ I said. ‘You’re looking marvellous! How nice to see you out and about again!’

  ‘Oh yes, nothing wrong with me. I’ll soon be back in harness again – you tell them! Got to get on – Bijou likes her walk, doesn’t like to be kept standing about.’

  Bijou gave a little plunge forward, like an eager horse at the starting gate, and they were away.

  I turned my head to see them go and smiled. My animals would be waiting, eager to hear the sound of my key in the lock, the dogs rushing into the hall barking ecstatically, Foss, my Siamese, picking his way delicately downstairs as if to disassociate himself from the over-exuberance of their welcome. I walked briskly towards the market to buy Foss’s coley and perhaps some potted shrimps as a treat for me. Soon it would be December and Michael would be home for the holidays. My mood lightened at the prospect.

  Chapter Two

  I didn’t see Mrs Rossiter for several months after that. I was away for a bit and then there was Christmas and then I had flu and then she had flu – quite badly – and, before I knew where the winter had gone, it was spring and the primroses were out all round the banks of the orchard. I thought that I really must take some in for her – she always said that they were her favourite flower. These thoughts were going through my mind in Smiths as I stood looking at the primroses and violets, which together with lambs and stylised silver crosses decorated the Easter cards.

  ‘Aren’t they pretty!’ a soft voice said and there was Mrs Rossiter standing behind me. She was wearing a tweed winter coat and, although it wasn’t a very thick one, it seemed to hang heavily from her shoulders. She had lost weight and her thin neck looked painfully fragile inside the deep collar.

  ‘How lovely to see you!’ I exclaimed. ‘And how marvellous that you are out and about again.’

  ‘Well, it’s my first little visit to the shops but I wanted to get a birthday card for Thelma – she’s fifty-one on Wednesday. Can you believe it!’

  ‘Only too well, since I’m four years older! Look, have you got half an hour? Shall we go and have some coffee?’

  Her face lit up. ‘Oh, that would be nice. You can help me choose a card; I’m never really sure what Thelma likes these days! I never seemed to get her presents right, even when she was a little girl – so now I just send her a cheque to get herself a little something.’

  ‘Well, it is rather fun to have some extra money just to splurge with,’ I said, though I knew very well that Thelma was not the splurging kind.

  We pondered long over the choice of a card – Mrs Rossiter leaning towards idyllic country landscapes (To remind her of the country now she’s shut up in London) while I felt that Thelma would like those rather smart ’thirties cards, all glossy in black and white with just a splash of scarlet. Eventually we compromised with a delicious Tissot boating scene and made our way out into the street.

  ‘Now then,’ I said, ‘where shall we go?’

  ‘Oh, do you think we might go to Baxter’s? It’s where we always used to go with your dear mother in the old days, when we used to meet out shopping. I haven’t been there for ages. Thelma likes that new place in Fore Street – she says that the stairs at Baxter’s would be too much for me, but I’m sure I can manage them if you lend me your arm, dear, and we take it slowly.’

  We negotiated the stairs successfully and found a table by the window, just as we always used to do.

  ‘I remember once,’ Mrs Rossiter said, ‘when you were such a little mite, you sat under the table and wouldn’t come out. Your poor mother was quite in despair. But you whispered to me that you were being a bear in a cave so I said that bears always came out of their caves for buns, and I got the waitress to bring you one of those very sugary buns and so you came out. Do you remember?’

  Fortunately I am now of an age when I am no longer embarrassed by such revelations of childhood misdemeanours, only touched that anyone, outside the family, should remember them affectionately after all this time.

  ‘How extraordinary that you should remember that!’ I said. ‘I was a tiresome child, I’m afraid. An only child, too much with adults – that’s what Mrs Dudley used to tell Mother.’

  ‘That woman!’ Mrs Rossiter almost snorted. ‘Bone selfish and always has been. How she managed to have two such nice children as Rosemary and Martin I shall never know – and she still leads them a terrible dance. How anyone who loved her children could be so selfish and demanding! Of course, now Martin’s gone to live in Doncaster it all falls on poor Rosemary. That woman is a saint! She waits on her mother
hand, foot and finger.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, ‘it’s really awful.’ Rosemary is my best friend and I do worry at the way her horrible old mother is wearing her out.

  The waitress came to take our order and I said, ‘Shall we have some of those sugary buns with our coffee?’

  Her eyes lit up like a child offered a treat.

  ‘Oh yes, let’s!’

  We chatted about happy times in the past – mostly very simple things, and I felt how sad it was that someone who had had every material advantage and comfort should cling in her memory to the relatively few moments of warmth and affection that Mother and I had been able to give her.

  I walked back with her through Jubilee Gardens and we both exclaimed at the beauty of the almond and the winter cherry blossom.

  ‘I do thank God every year,’ she said, ‘that I’ve lived to see another spring.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said, ‘like the Housman poem–

  “Fifty years is little room

  To look at cherry trees in bloom.”

  ‘I think that wasting your life is the worst crime, really,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Worse than suicide, even.’

  I was startled. ‘But you,’ I said, ‘you haven’t wasted your life. You ran that great big house, you did a lot for the county– all that voluntary work – you brought up Alan and Thelma...’

  My voice died away. I couldn’t quite bring myself to mention Colonel Rossiter.

  ‘Yes, of course, you’re right, dear, I’ve had a very full life.’ Her voice was brisk. ‘Don’t take any notice of me – it’s the spring, I expect!’

  We got to the door of West Lodge and I hugged her in farewell, but she didn’t go in.

  ‘I think I’ll just go for a little stroll along the sea-front before lunch,’ she said. ‘Take care of yourself and give my love to Michael. How lucky you are to have that dear boy. It would have been lovely to have a grandchild – but, of course, with the business – well, Thelma had to make a choice and I do quite understand. God bless you, my dear.’

  She walked round the corner and crossed over to the promenade and I watched the slight figure slowly moving along towards the harbour, occasionally stopping to look at the gulls wheeling and swooping along the foreshore.

  I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t returned my library books so I turned back into the town. I was standing by the trolley of returned books hoping, as I always did, that the fact that other people had just been reading them might make them, somehow, more desirable, when an arm reached past me to snatch up a Catherine Cookson. I turned, half in protest at being jostled, and saw that the eager reader was Annie Fisher.

  ‘Hello, Annie,’ I said, ‘how’s the world treating you?’

  ‘Oh, Mrs Malory – mustn’t grumble, I suppose. But I’m glad the year’s on the turn – I don’t like the winter and that’s a fact.’

  ‘Yes, well, we’ve got the spring to look forward to now,’ I said. Then, to make conversation, I went on, ‘I’ve just been having coffee with Mrs Rossiter. I met her in Smiths.’

  ‘She’s never been let out, has she? That’s really criminal. Poor lady, she’s been really poorly. That Mrs Wilmot – calls herself a matron – no idea of looking after old people. They need keeping warm and resting. Mrs Rossiter should still be in her bed, not gallivanting all over the town!’

  She appeared to be quite upset and I hastened to reassure her.

  ‘She seemed all right to me,’ I said. ‘A bit thin, of course, but that’s only to be expected after she’s been ill. She was in very good spirits – we went to Baxter’s.’

  ‘You never made her go up all those stairs?’ Annie’s sharp little face glared up at me so fiercely that I felt guilty and uncomfortable. ‘Not with her heart being like it is!’

  ‘We took them very slowly, Annie, and she did enjoy going there again.’

  ‘Well, it’s to be hoped that she went straight back and had a nice lie down.’

  I refrained from telling her about Mrs Rossiter’s walk along the sea-front. I tried to remember if Annie had always been as over-protective of her mistress in the old days but, of course, when Colonel Rossiter had been alive she had been very firmly kept in her place. To change the subject I asked if she had any news of her brother in Australia. She became quite animated.

  ‘Well, fancy you asking me that, Mrs Malory! I had a letter from Sam only this morning. He says he’s coming over next month – isn’t that wonderful? I know Mrs Rossiter will be so pleased to see him again. It’ll be just like the old days.’

  I must have looked puzzled for she said impatiently, ‘Sam used to be gardener up at the Manor before he went away.’

  ‘Yes, of course, I remember now.’

  My memories of Sam Fisher were of a rather disagreeable man, lazy and (when he had the opportunity) dishonest. Colonel Rossiter had eventually dismissed him – not for either of these faults but because once, after spending a rather long lunch-hour in the local pub, Sam Fisher had been ‘insubordinate’. Annie appeared to have forgotten the circumstances of her brother’s departure from the Manor and seemed genuinely pleased at the thought of reuniting, as she saw it, two old friends.

  ‘That will be nice for you,’ I said, with that sort of over-emphatic warmth that we use when we are not quite sincere. ‘And I believe you told me that he’s been doing very well in Australia. It must be a beautiful country. Does he have a family over there?’

  A shadow crossed her face. ‘His wife went off and left him a couple of years ago and took their daughter with her. I’ve never seen my niece, only photos. But he’s well rid of his wife – a flighty piece from what I’ve heard. Sam’s always been respectable, like me. Yes, he’s done very well for himself. Got his own business, a garage – always been good with his hands, well, you remember that. And, then, of course, there’s the Church

  It seemed that Sam Fisher was a born-again something or other. She went on at some length about his standing in the local community and this rather evangelical church. I let the words flow over me as I so often did when Annie was in full flood and made polite murmuring noises that seemed to satisfy her.

  ‘I’ll pop down and see Mrs Rossiter this afternoon,’ she said, ‘and give her the good news. Sam said he’d be hiring a car while he’s here so we can take her for a drive up over the hill. Have a nice cream tea out somewhere.’

  ‘I’m sure she’d like that,’ I said, feeling once more a touch of guilt that it was Annie, who had so little, who was going to give Mrs Rossiter this treat and not I, who had so much. Perhaps the same thoughts were going through Annie’s mind, for she gave a small nod of satisfaction.

  ‘Well, I must be getting on,’ she said. ‘Can’t stand here talking all day.’

  She moved over to the counter with her Catherine Cookson and I went rather morosely to scan once more the biography shelves in case something exciting had materialised in the last five minutes.

  Later, as I was cutting up some heart for the animals, I tried to analyse just why I disliked Annie so much.

  ‘I suppose it’s her manner, really,’ I told Foss, who was weaving round my ankles, uttering low meat-demanding cries. ‘I’m sure she has a heart of gold and she is truly devoted to Mrs Rossiter. It’s just that she always seems to put me in the wrong – as if there’s some lack of consideration in me. I suppose I’m the selfish one – just wanting poor Mrs Rossiter to be there when I feel like going to see her, but not every day, like Annie. I expect Mrs Rossiter has left her something in her will. I don’t suppose Thelma would do anything for her – too fond of money on her own account.’

  I broke off and gave a sudden cry. Foss had stopped weaving and, impatient with my dilatoriness, had jumped on to my shoulder (with his claws out to help him balance) to get a closer view of the food. I lifted him carefully off and rubbed my shoulder ruefully.

  ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’ll get on with the matter in hand.’

  A few days later I picked a large bunch of primroses and a
few violets (I know they never last in water but I couldn’t resist their delicate mauve faces) and took them along to West Lodge for Mrs Rossiter. In the entrance hall I met Mrs Wilmot, the Matron, who greeted me effusively.

  ‘And who’s the lucky person who’s going to have those beautiful flowers? Such a lovely posy, quite like a painting!’

  ‘They’re for Mrs Rossiter, actually.’

  ‘Well now, she has got a visitor – but, of course, you are old friends, aren’t you? It’s Mrs Douglas, her daughter. What a nice surprise for you! She told me that it’s her mother’s birthday this week and she always likes to come down to see her round about then. Isn’t that nice! But, of course, I don’t have to tell you, Mrs Malory, how thoughtful Mrs Douglas is and how good she’s always been to her mother – not like some I could mention. The tales I could tell you! It takes all sorts, I suppose. Still, it is so nice to see a daughter so devoted to her mother. Quite restores one’s faith in human nature, you might say.’

  I gave Mrs Wilmot a brief, false smile and made my way up to Mrs Rossiter’s room. It was Thelma’s voice that called out ‘Come in’ in response to my knock and it was Thelma who took the bunch of primroses from my hand.

  ‘Look, Mummy, at the lovely flowers that Sheila has brought you – isn’t that kind of her?’