‘You’re much better,’ said Helen. ‘What would you like for breakfast?’
Jan was out all morning, and returned at last with a loaded car and a report of mayhem in town. ‘You’d think they were shopping for the whole of the next millennium, and in fact Safeway is going to be open quite a bit over the weekend, so we really shan’t starve. Do you know the butcher actually asked how Mrs Tresikker was when he produced your order? You wouldn’t get that in London, choose how. And how is she?’
‘Toast and coffee for breakfast.’
‘No!’
‘Yes, and grumbled because I gave her the coffee in a mug, not a cup and saucer.’ Helen was putting on her jacket. ‘Is it raining? I’ll come and help you unload the car.’
‘Thanks. I got a few extra things …’ On a note of apology. ‘Seemed like we ought to have a bit of Christmas, and they had these tiny trees marked down at the green-grocer in the market. I couldn’t resist it. Pot and all, you see.’ She was extricating the little tree lovingly from the back seat of the car. ‘For Mrs Tresikker’s room, don’t you think?’
‘I wonder what in the world she’ll say. And I thought you always said Christmas was an old-fashioned bore, Jan.’
‘Well it was, wasn’t it? I’m sorry, Aunt Helen, but you can’t pretend those family lunches at your house were anything but a horrible farce, now can you? A bit of ritual tyranny, with you as the major victim.’
‘Me?’
‘Well, who did all the work? And got grumbled at for your pains if everything wasn’t just exactly the way it had been for the last hundred years or so.’
‘It was all right when Father was alive.’
‘I don’t remember him. I’m sorry. Which makes it a long time ago.’ They were stowing the shopping as they talked. ‘What happened to your life, Aunt Helen?’
‘If you are going to ask me questions like that, I think you had better just call me Helen.’
‘OK. You’re easy to work with, did you know?’
‘Well, so are you, come to that.’
‘I suppose it works both ways. But you didn’t answer my question.’
‘Such a large one. And really you know the answer just as well as I do.’
‘I suppose I do. Your mother ate it up. That’s why I am leaving home.’
‘Ruthless,’ said Helen. ‘But sensible, maybe. What shall we have for lunch?’
Six
‘You’d better take an umbrella,’ said Jan. The afternoon was already darkening by the time Helen was ready to go out and do her share of the shopping. ‘Or the car, even. But the parking’s hideous.’
‘I bet it is. No, I’d rather walk, thanks. It’s very quick if you go down by the lanes, and you get the most interesting views of people’s back gardens.’
The umbrellas were up in Old Leyning High Street and Helen was glad to dive in to Boots for the supplies Dr Braddock had told her to lay in for the long holiday. She added a few necessities of her own and a bottle of eau de Cologne as a Christmas present for Beatrice. She must find something for Jan too, but wrongly chosen toiletries would not do. Waiting in the good-tempered, shuffling queue at the cash desk gave her time to think, and she went next to a little antique shop she had noticed, with a display of offbeat second-hand jewellery. Remembering well the family storm that had raged when Jan went off without permission and had her ears pierced, she bought a pair of flamboyant bunches of grapes made, the friendly assistant assured her, of semi-precious stones. Outside, rain streamed down now and the wind was rising. It caught her at the corner by the swollen, dark brown river and blew her umbrella inside out.
‘Damnation!’ She was struggling to push it back into shape against the threshing of the wind when a car stopped beside her.
‘I’m going your way.’ Dr Braddock leaned across to open the passenger door for her. ‘It’s no weather for argument. Whatever you’ve not done, leave it. You can’t afford pneumonia. Crazy to be out in it.’
‘It wasn’t raining when I came out,’ she said crossly, dumping the sluicing umbrella in the back of the car and settling herself beside him.
‘Well it is now. You absolutely can’t afford to get ill, Miss Westley. I’ll run you back and take a look at Mrs Tresikker while I’m there. How is she?’
‘Much better. Her voice is clearer and she’s moving more easily. One of us can manage her on our own.’
‘Good.’ He swerved to avoid a pair of wobbling bicycles. ‘Idiots! How long can your niece stay?’
‘Until after New Year’s. I’ve been wondering about that, whether I’ll be able to manage by myself. Trouble is, Mrs Tresikker’s not well off, and nor am I.’
‘So it would mean my old enemy, care in the community.’ He came to a sudden stop outside the High House. ‘Cross that bridge when we come to it, don’t you think?’ He was out of the car already and she hurried to open the front door. Upstairs, she was pleased when he held the door for her to follow him into the bedroom.
Beatrice was dozing, but breathing easily now, and she woke when Braddock spoke to her. ‘Better,’ she said. ‘Dammit.’
‘Tough.’ He went to work on her. ‘You’ve got away lightly this time,’ he said presently. ‘More than you deserve. You must watch that temper of yours, Mrs Tresikker. You’re none the worse that I can see – this time – but blow it again like that and you may find yourself reduced to the kind of cabbage state you’re afraid of.’
‘Unfair,’ she said.
‘Who ever said anything was fair? And, talking of fairness, maybe you should think about Miss Westley a bit.’ He closed his bag with a snap. ‘Awkward for her, don’t you think, if you were to die on her hands just after she had got here?’
‘Oh,’ said Beatrice.
‘Just so. Take care of yourself; no more alarms and excursions. I’ll drop in over the weekend.’
‘How about a glass of sherry?’
‘Nothing wrong with that. And wine, within reason.’
‘No, you. Stay for a glass next time. Old-fashioned custom. I’m too sleepy now, but a Christmas toast? You’re on your own as usual?’
‘Naturally.’ He was at the bedroom door by now. ‘I’ll see how it goes. If too many people overeat and panic I’ll be busy. ’Bye, Mrs Tresikker.’ He closed the door. ‘I have stayed for a glass once or twice,’ he told Helen on the stairs. ‘When I thought she was really down. Lonely for her in this great house; pity she has no friends. I’m glad you’re here.’ Jan had appeared from the kitchen and he spoke to them both.
‘Try to make time for that drink,’ said Helen. ‘She meant it.’
‘And so do we,’ said Jan.
‘Thanks. I’ll try to come.’ He opened the front door and a blast of rain and wind blew into the house. ‘Happy Christmas!’ He slammed the door behind him.
In its strange way it was a happy one. Working together, Helen and Jan were getting to know one another and liking what they found, and Beatrice Tresikker, to her own outrage, was getting better every day. The pain from her hip had lessened and she was moving much more easily, threatening soon to be able to get to the bathroom without help.
‘Not yet.’ Dr Braddock had dropped in on Boxing Day morning and stayed for a glass of apple juice and a mince pie. ‘The last thing you need – for everyone’s sake – is another fall. Maybe by the time Miss Dobson goes?’
It was not quite a question, but Jan answered it just the same. ‘I’ll have to go after New Year’s,’ she told him. ‘I’ve got a reading week fixed up, and a lot of organizing to do. Will my aunt be able to manage on her own by then, do you think?’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’ He thought about it. ‘If Mrs Tresikker promises to be immensely sensible.’
‘Not much option have I?’ said Beatrice crossly. ‘Do for God’s sake tell them to go out for walks together, Doctor, and leave me alone. It’s ridiculous, this nipping in and out in shifts. The worst I can do is die, and that’s what I want, after all.’
‘Have you made that
will yet?’
The abrupt question surprised Helen for a minute, then she realized that it was just to ask it that he had come.
‘Well, no …’ Helen had seen her furious, but never embarrassed before.
‘Then you can’t afford to take chances until you have. Think what a mess you would leave Miss Westley in, maybe liable for your debts. Ah, got you there!’ He saw that the shot had gone home. ‘Is it still Finch & Finch, or have you quarrelled with them too?’
‘How do you mean, “too”? Of course not. They’re not worth it.’
‘I tried to get to see them before Christmas,’ Helen told him. ‘But the girl said they were busy until well into the new year.’
‘They won’t be if you tell them it’s a house visit for a will. And that I said the sooner the better. Tell them I’ll meet their man here, act as a witness if they like.’
‘Tell them I’m compos mentis still?’ Beatrice pounced on it.
‘Exactly. I’ve never beaten about the bush with you, Beatrice Tresikker, and I’m not starting now.’ He finished his apple juice. ‘Time I was on my way.’
‘Thank you, Doctor,’ she said, almost meekly.
Taking him downstairs, Helen thanked him too. ‘She never told me she hadn’t made a will. That’s awful.’
‘You’d be surprised how many people don’t. Can’t bring themselves to face the fact of death. Or take it for granted it will go to their next of kin anyway. And what a mess that leaves. Poor woman, you can see her problem. She must have told you about that vanished husband of hers. She truly doesn’t know whether he’s alive or dead. Awkward for her.’
‘To put it mildly. Did you know him?’
‘No, but I’d like to get my hands on him.’
‘Something with boiling oil in it?’
‘Exactly. If he’s alive. I count on you to put the fear of God into Finch & Finch, Miss Westley.’
‘I think your message should do it.’
‘I hope so,’ with one of his rare, wry smiles. ‘I meant it to. Thanks.’ He shrugged into his shabby raincoat and pushed open the door. ‘Still raining!’
Back upstairs, Helen found Jan lecturing Beatrice Tresikker. ‘My father made me make one when I turned eighteen. He even wanted to tell me what to put in it.’
‘I bet he did,’ said Helen. ‘And I bet you didn’t. I wonder if Finch & Finch will be open tomorrow.’
‘Skeleton staff, I’d think,’ said Beatrice. ‘For crises. I hardly think this counts as one, but it has suddenly struck me it would be nice to leave something to Wendy. If there’s anything to leave.’
‘This house must be worth a packet,’ said Jan. ‘And some of the things in it, too. I’ve a friend who’s into old furniture, and he says it’s amazing what things fetch, if you set about it right. Have you ever watched Antiques Roadshow?’
‘Television!’ said Beatrice.
Her tone made them both laugh, but then they looked at each other. ‘There isn’t one,’ said Jan. ‘Do you know, I absolutely hadn’t noticed.’
‘Well, we’ve been quite busy.’ Helen smiled at her. ‘I did think about it for a minute yesterday. We always used to watch the Queen.’
‘Did we not!’ said Jan. ‘One of the small tyrannies of Christmas. But just the same, I think while you are bashing the solicitors, Helen, I am going to be organizing a rental TV for New Year’s. I’m not missing the millennium celebrations because you’re still living in the dark ages, Mrs Tresikker.’
‘If you don’t mind …’ Helen looked anxiously at Beatrice, afraid of another explosion, but the old lady was smiling.
‘Not much use my minding, I can see. All right by me so long as you pay for it, and keep it downstairs out of my way,’ she said. ‘And now I want my lunch and after that I am going to have a sleep, and you two are going to go out for a walk together.’
‘But Dr Braddock never said—’ began Helen.
‘He didn’t exactly say yes, but he didn’t say no either, if you noticed, and this is something I am going to decide. It’s my life, after all, and my death, even if I haven’t made a will. I’ll be thinking about it while you’re out. My mind works better in an empty house. No offence meant, but it’s what I’m used to.’
‘I’ve been longing to do this.’ Jan pushed back the bolt of the door in the high wall at the top of the shaggy garden. ‘Amazing to have no idea of what’s on the other side.’
‘Well, trees,’ said Helen.
‘And a rookery. Yes. Wow, this door’s stuck. Not been used for years, I suppose … Well I’m damned!’ The door had swung open at last to reveal an overgrown graveyard.
‘But where’s the church?’ said Helen. ‘And do you think we can get across?’
‘Of course we can.’ They were both wearing jeans tucked into boots. ‘There was a path once, look.’ She led the way, holding back the odd bramble for her aunt. ‘I wonder when they had the last burial here.’
‘Not this century by the look of things.’
‘It will be last century next week, how odd. Oh look, there’s the church.’ They had emerged from the screen of trees to see the little grey building hunched in a fold of the hill. ‘It looks a million years old. I’d expected a cemetery chapel, all Victorian gothic.’
‘Oh, no,’ Helen told her. ‘This is the site of an old abbey, well and truly destroyed under Henry VIII. My taxi driver told me. He said all the houses up here were built of abbey stone, but this looks as if it was an odd bit left over.’ The path was clearer now as it approached the side of the little building and they were able to move more easily. ‘Look, there’s a new grave.’
‘And it looks like the church is in use.’ They had turned the corner to see cared-for grass stretching down to the narrow lane that ended outside the church.
‘Yes, twice a month.’ Jan was reading the notices in the little porch. ‘But not Christmas or New Year’s.’
‘Pity. I’d almost have liked to come. I suppose the door is locked.’
‘Vandals everywhere. You do seem doomed to live near churches, don’t you, Aunt Helen?’
‘How odd, so I do. But better a church than a factory any day. I wonder if the path goes on.’
‘Yes, look, with a footpath sign and all.’ Jan had crossed the lane. She looked at her watch. ‘Twenty minutes out and twenty minutes back, do you think?’
‘Why not? Beatrice looked set to sleep for an hour at least.’
‘You’re calling her that?’
‘She asked me to. “Better now than later”, she said.’
‘Sensible. But then she is. I like her so much. What a swine he must have been.’
‘The husband? Yes, but poets, you know …’
‘Poets?’
‘Didn’t I tell you? He was writing a great philosophical poem. He used to send her bits of it on postcards when he was off wandering the world in search of inspiration. I suspect they are all up there in the turret room waiting for the moment of triumph.’
‘Or disaster.’
‘More likely, I’m afraid. There was a sonnet sequence too, written for Beatrice, but Leonard Woolf thought nothing of it.’
‘Virginia Woolf’s husband?’
‘That’s the one. We’re in Woolf country here, don’t forget. That’s why they bought the house, to be near them. Oh, look!’ The path had taken them through a little copse and now emerged on to a great sweeping view of open down, bare and grey and a little sinister in the winter light. ‘She told me he used to walk over the downs to see the Woolfs,’ Helen said. ‘He must have started off this way.’
‘A long time ago.’
‘But nothing’s changed.’
‘Well, not up here anyway. What a wonderful place to live. Do you think we can get as far as the view from the top?’
‘Let’s have a go.’
But every time they got to what seemed to be the top of the hill it was to find yet another one rising ahead of them. In the end, Helen looked at her watch. ‘I’m going back,’ s
he said. ‘I’m beginning to worry, and what’s the use of that? You go on, Jan. Bring me back a report.’
‘I think I will. Don’t hurry, will you, Helen, it’s too slippery.’
‘No I won’t.’ She watched Jan for a moment as she turned and strode up the next slope, touched by her thoughtfulness. When had anyone last looked out for her? Self-pity. Disgusting. She turned and headed for what felt surprisingly like home.
‘Glad to see you.’ Beatrice had just wakened up. ‘Loo, please.’
‘That’s a very nice child,’ she said later as Helen helped her to settle back in the bed. ‘You going to adopt her?’
‘She seems to have adopted me,’ Helen said. ‘I hope you don’t mind. And she’s insisting on paying her own way in the most lavish fashion.’ She had wanted a chance to say this.
‘Good girl. Are her parents so very awful?’
‘I’ve always thought so. Frank was much older than me, more like a bullying uncle than a half-brother. It was all right so long as Father was alive, he kept him in line, but afterwards …’ She swallowed tears, remembering her father.
‘Loved him, didn’t you?’ said Beatrice. ‘Lucky.’
‘Yes.’
‘More than I did mine. And vice versa. Been thinking about my will. The one thing one mustn’t leave is trouble. So I had a bright idea. We’re going to ask Ellen and Susan Fanshaw to come in and act as witnesses. They are well and truly plugged in to the Leyning network. Convince them I’m sound in mind if not in body and there’ll be no trouble. Of course, it will give them social ideas and you’ll be fending them off for weeks, but I still think it will be worth it. Besides, you might enjoy them. No accounting for tastes.’
‘I rather doubt it,’ said Helen. ‘But, yes, what a good idea. I wonder how early I should try Finch & Finch in the morning?’
‘Ten o’clock sharp,’ said Beatrice.
Calling sharp at ten the next morning, Helen got a woman’s deep voice. ‘Finch & Finch, Frances Murray, how can I help you?’
Not a receptionist. Helen plunged straight in. ‘I’m calling for Mrs Tresikker, she wants to make a will, Dr Braddock says the sooner the better. She’s quite old.’
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