All Bones and Lies

by Anne Fine

  At the mere mention of desks, he felt another stab of panic. To try to make a little headway on the cake front, he set his sister off on the first topic to come to mind. ‘So how is Perdita? Safely gone?’

  ‘Thank God! And I can’t say how glad I was to see the back of her. She was so sneaky.’

  Sneaky? That pricked his interest. After all, what could be sneakier than insinuating yourself into a strange house inside an envelope? Manfully struggling with what appeared to be, on dissolution, nothing but a mouthful of whipped oil, he was still hoping to break in with news of the curious materialization of Perdita’s photograph on Mother’s hall floor when his sister not only kept on as if his thoughts were perfectly audible, but also as if they were grist to her mill. ‘Do you know, the bloody woman gets everywhere. Last week she even fetched up on Weekend Round-up.’

  ‘I knew that,’ Colin admitted.

  ‘How? Did you see her?’

  Lamely he shook his head.

  ‘Well, she was terrible. Vain enough to get her hair done at Tatiana’s, but all she did was mumble a few inanities over and over.’

  Anything, even risking an argument, was better than taking another mouthful of cake. ‘Really? That doesn’t sound at all like Perdita.’

  Rumbled, his sister felt obliged to backtrack. ‘Well, all right, I suppose she sounded sensible enough. If you’re as obsessed as she is with property values . . .’

  Forcing words out of his mouth still held a good deal more attraction than forcing cake in. ‘I didn’t know she was in property. I always thought she worked on all that arty sponsorship stuff, with you.’

  ‘That was only to keep her busy while they were over-staffed in Insurance Services. Now she’s moved over and carving out empires in Estates.’ His sister’s principle of never denigrating a fellow female professional took another hard knock, Colin noticed, as she finished dismissively, ‘No, Perdita’s really just a glorified estate agent now. And Marjorie says—’

  ‘Marjorie?’

  Again Dilys tapped the side of his plate. ‘Do get a move on, Col. I haven’t got all day.’

  ‘I’m eating as fast as I can,’ he responded pettishly. ‘I do have to chew.’ And along with this echo of the squabbles of childhood came yet another reminder of everything he’d left abandoned on his desk: the report that the youngest Haksar boy had crept over the wall to jam a wedge of carrot deep in Mr Lee’s extractor fan; an account of the father’s response when confronted – ‘Boys will be boys. A mere prank.’ On the top of these lay a litter of irate messages passed on by Shirley at Switchboard that he’d been trying to sift into piles according to gravity: threats, punch-ups, complaints of laxatives fed to the Haksars’ cat. From Colin’s point of view, of course, this childish feud could not become Vendetta! fast enough. That, after all, would move it from its current file in Public Health into some overflowing police in-tray, and he himself could once again lean back against that great dependable stone wall, ‘I’m afraid that it’s out of my hands now. Sorry,’ and get back to his report on the safety of balconies.

  He had stopped listening. Surfacing temporarily from his midden of anxiety, he realized that, apart from registering the steady drip into his sister’s monologue of this new woman’s name – Marjorie, was it? – he’d not been following at all. So he was startled when, once again as if she’d been sitting across the cramped café table monitoring his own inner voice, Dilys finished up roundly, ‘and Marjorie agrees with me that any day now it’ll be a police matter.’

  He tried a bit of fishing. ‘Really? A police matter?’

  ‘Well, yes. You can’t, after all, keep worming yourself into the houses of all your mother’s elderly Canasta Club companions without a few eyebrows being raised. Sooner or later someone is bound to complain. You know how these things work. “Perdita Moran? Now where have I heard that before? Didn’t some old lady phone in last week about a woman of that name practically offering to carry her off to the old folk’s home?” They’ll make a few inquiries, and then, because of the embarrassment, Tor Bank will have to move her back to Insurance. Or on to Home Loans, or Arrears.’ She beamed with satisfaction. ‘No fat commissions there! And I won’t have her back in Corporate Sponsorship. Absolutely not.’ Reminded by this reference to her own little enclave, she dug in her bag. ‘Here. Invitation for Wednesday, in case we’re a little thin on the ground.’

  He tried not to accept it. ‘Actually, Wednesday’s going to be rather diff—’

  But, leaving less of a tip on the table than he would ever have dared, she was already halfway to the door. ‘So we’ll meet at the bank at seven? Then we can walk down to Stemple Street together.’

  And she was gone. Mournfully he pocketed the invitation without even looking at it, and sat wondering if he dare risk the stares of other customers to wrap the remains of his cake in his napkin, so he and Tammy could feed it to Timothy Duckling.

  But, as he might easily have guessed at the start, in the end he just stabbed it to death and then left it.

  Did his family have nothing better to do than pester him at work? It was only next morning when Shirley tapped on the fortified screen designed to protect her from frenzied citizenry, and said accusingly through the little patch of holes drilled in the glass, ‘You’ve been unplugging that little machine of yours again, haven’t you, Mr Riley?’

  His face flared. ‘No.’

  ‘And don’t think I haven’t guessed what you’ve done to your mobile.’

  Rain from his waterproof spattered his Slaughterhouse Inspection Rota as he pawed the ground, waiting.

  At last she favoured him with the bad news. ‘I’m afraid it’s your mother again.’

  He couldn’t help the shudder. ‘Any clues?’

  ‘No. She said it’ll keep till you get there tonight.’

  ‘Tonight? I’m not going tonight.’

  ‘She thinks you are.’

  Oh, God! This was a poser he could never crack. Could she really no longer be bothered to remember which evening he’d mentioned (in which case what difference did it make, today or tomorrow, except that, being a whole day later, tomorrow really ought to be preferable)? Or was it, as he suspected, some subtle variation on the old, old theme, ‘Whatever Norah wants, she gets’? Perhaps tonight suited her better. (He must glance at the television listings and see if he could rumble her.) And though, in the past, she would have felt robust enough to come out fighting (‘No, Colin. I distinctly remember Monday was what you suggested’) maybe more recently she’d decided she was too old for that kind of effort, and, as the first stage of some sort of home-based psychic retirement, had begun to take advantage of his skills at obstructing the council’s cripplingly expensive state-of-the-art voicemail by leaving her more disquieting directives with the long-suffering Shirley.

  Effective, either way. For as soon as the dog warden had finished grousing about the inadequacies of her new van, to Holly House is where he went.

  She met him on the doorstep. ‘Devils are queuing up to spit at me, and I blame you!’

  For one mad moment he reviewed his spells. But then he saw that what she was flapping at him was another of the envelopes from Frampton Commercial.

  ‘Oh, yes?’ he said, manoeuvring past her with a few staples he’d stopped off to pick up on the way. ‘And why is that, then?’

  ‘This new insurance company you forced me to join—’

  ‘I didn’t force you to—’

  ‘Now they want some stupid safety thing. This is entirely your fault. If you would only keep your nose out of my affairs, I could get on like a house on fire.’

  ‘Perhaps a house on fire is why—’

  ‘Don’t you be smart with me! If you hadn’t bullied me into raising those premiums, I’d have been left in peace and quiet.’

  He tried to defend himself. ‘It can’t be anything to do with that. I only posted the paperwork the day before yesterday.’

  ‘Don’t try and wriggle out of it!’ She flapped the let
ter in his face again. ‘This is your fault!’

  ‘What?’ he said, losing patience. ‘Don’t hit me with it. Tell me what it says.’

  ‘It doesn’t say anything. It demands.’

  ‘What?’

  She wasn’t wearing glasses, so her dramatic reading was for effect. ‘It demands “A Certificate of—”’ Oh, how her lip curled! ‘“Approved Electrical Installation”!’

  ‘Really?’

  Her scornful look turned personal. ‘I don’t know why you, of all people, pretend to be surprised. I should have thought this sort of persecution of helpless homeowners was right up your alley.’

  He paid her back by playing Bait the Taxpayer. ‘Oh, no. Safety’s quite different. We have a special officer for that.’

  ‘Well, he’d better not visit this house. I won’t be discouraging him from sticking his wet fingers in my plugs.’ He took advantage of her settling into a state of mere baleful quiescence to wriggle past. She trailed him through to the kitchen and gazed disparagingly at his purchases. ‘I certainly hope you haven’t bought any more butter. I’m up to the gunwales in it. And what on earth is that very nasty-looking affair?’

  He picked up the packaged gourmet meal he’d thrown in for a treat. ‘This is our supper.’

  ‘I don’t feel at all like eating.’

  ‘You’ll like this. We had it once before and you said you thought it was delicious.’

  Her look gave him clearly to understand that she couldn’t have meant it. Again he stamped down resentment. This was the bit he hated most about his dealings with her. Not only did she have the knack of poisoning the minutes he was trying to get through, she also somehow seemed to manage to spread the misery back over jollier occasions when he’d thought he’d done rather well. ‘No problem,’ he snapped. ‘I can easily take it home with me.’ But part of the trouble, of course, was that, although she acted like an ungrateful child, she had an adult’s self-command. ‘Maybe that’s best,’ she retorted. And down, down sank his spirits. He hated being skewered this way over food. It meant either a couple of hours of sitting with his stomach audibly complaining, or sitting forlornly at the table spooning his luxury meal into his mouth while she affected to busy herself round the kitchen, somehow managing to create the impression that clattering pans about was the only way in which she could charitably disguise his greed.

  ‘Let’s see the letter, then.’

  She passed it over. He ran a practised eye down the paragraphs, taking a professional interest in the skilled way Frampton Commercial had managed to make out that each and every one of their costly and inconvenient demands was for their clients’ benefit, not their own. She’d never lend it to him, and he’d never ask; but he’d have loved a copy. At least a dozen of these weaselly worded phrases might usefully be introduced into his own department’s raft of unwelcome communications. He tried to commit one or two of the most general to memory. ‘. . . responding to heightened public concerns about safety . . .’ ‘. . . with our ever-increasing awareness of the responsible policyholder’s commitment to the environment . . .’ And why couldn’t Priding Borough Council, too, ‘proudly restratify security hierarchies to empower renewed client confidence’?

  She was getting impatient now. ‘This is the sort of drivel your lot write. Surely you can work out what it means.’

  At least it couldn’t mean another bout of workmen, he thought with relief. After the unravelling of the mystery of the exploding attic lightbulbs, she’d had the infestations of men in boots, the little heaps of plaster everywhere, the streaks of ill-matched paint spilling down to each wall light. Mess and expense and fuss. Tea breaks. Endless supplies of shortbread fingers and cries of, ‘Can I just use your phone to check something with the suppliers?’ The horror of all her querulous grousing about that was so fresh in his mind that any matter of certification must be a formality.

  ‘You’ll just have to ask that Mr Herbert of yours to come back and sign you one of these Approved Whatsit things.’

  Her mouth looked like a burst slipper. Was she going to cry? ‘It’s only paperwork,’ he assured her hastily. ‘I can’t for the life of me see it costing more than a tenner.’

  She shot him a harsh look. ‘Try not to be sillier than you look! Do you really think I’d be fool enough to drag you round here if things were that simple?’

  Now he felt close to tears himself. ‘How should I know?’ he wanted to bellow at her. ‘How should I have the faintest idea any longer what you can and can’t do? You’ve spent so long aping helplessness whenever it suits you that now I’m quite lost.’ And it was true. He didn’t know – he couldn’t even guess – if she had truly lost her grip to the extent that Frampton Commercial’s smarmy letter (which, credit where it was due, went on to explain in the plainest of words the procedures she should follow) had rattled her enough to phone him at work.

  ‘So what’s the problem?’ he asked, and was appalled to see the rheumy eyes redden and fill. Pretend it’s work, he told himself, trying to stem panic. After all, didn’t he meet this little human tragedy every day – old people overwhelmed? He put his arm round the trembling shoulders, and asked more gently, ‘What is it? Tell me.’

  He knew she was tempted because she didn’t spit out the usual, ‘I wouldn’t walk from here to the door knob to tell you anything.’ Turning her back, she only tugged at a cupboard door and hauled out a baking tray in a deafening clatter. ‘Here. Put your fancy gourmet supper on this. How do you want the oven, Mr Smart-Set? Hot or medium?’

  He tried again. ‘Whatever it is, I might be able to advise you.’

  ‘Oh, yes? A penny for your thoughts, and you’d have to give change.’

  He fingered the wrapping round his special supper. This is my chance, he thought. I could just do it now. ‘Look,’ I could say, as calmly as if she were just one more ratty restaurateur heaving foodstuffs over a back fence. ‘I really don’t have to stay and listen to this rudeness. I’ve tried to be helpful. But since your only response is to insult me, you can sort it out yourself.’

  Then he could go.

  Go. What a ring the word had to it. Go! Be finished for ever with sulks and insults. There was no point in offering advice in any case. She went her own way as a matter of principle, and, in her accounts to the neighbours, his efforts to help or explain things were always somehow transmuted into things like, ‘Colin’s been frightening me to death about the boiler (or the old gas fire, or the new alarm).’ Dilys is right, he told himself. No one should be expected, for love or duty or anything else, to have to put up with having their very sense of self being chipped away minute by minute. The trouble was, of course, that Mother’s self-absorption had been permitted to grow unchecked, till there was no room left for any true awareness of others. Like everyone else, she had her ready filecard of pat phrases: ‘Teachers? They’re only in it for the holidays.’ ‘Vote that lot in and they’ll be as bad as the others.’ But, with her, even the nearest and dearest weren’t exempt. ‘No, Dolly only stops by as often as she does because she likes to get away from that grisly husband of hers.’ ‘Oh, Colin only visits because I’m handy for a free cup of tea on his way home from the office.’

  But still, she seemed to have an instinct for how far she could push her luck. He heard a marshy sniff. Now that wasn’t like her. And, as she was always saying, people born round don’t have the choice of dying square. So . . .

  ‘Hot oven, please,’ he said, pulling the outer wrapping off his star purchase.

  She stabbed a fork through the cellophane cover as if it were Priding Borough Council lurking underneath, not Fifine’s Fancy Beef and Celeriac Maribou with Tomato Truffle stuffing. He pulled a chair out and collapsed on it. ‘And, while it’s heating up, you can explain why the idea of getting Mr Herbert to sign a piece of paper has put you in such a tizzy.’

  The nearest she ever came to remorse was capitulation. ‘Well, that’s just it. Old Goody Two-Shoes Herbert won’t sign.’

  ‘Of cou
rse he will. His men worked here for weeks.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong. He won’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because of the cable entry.’

  ‘The cable entry?’

  ‘Don’t you start on about it! The very words have me in hives. It seems my wiring can’t just come in the front way like everyone else’s. Oh, no, it has to come down the backs. So it runs under the lawn, and nobody’s bothered to look at it since it was put there. Holy Joe Herbert has made it perfectly clear he can’t sign my certificate until I’m upgraded.’

  ‘If this cabling’s so ancient, why on earth didn’t the fellow have the sense to get his men to replace it while they were here?’

  She slapped on her innocent face, then, clearly deciding it wasn’t worth the effort, told the truth. ‘I wouldn’t let them.’

  ‘Why on earth not?’

  ‘Don’t snap at me! If I’d taken every stitch of advice I was offered, I’d be in a madhouse.’

  He said, in as conciliatory a fashion as he could manage, ‘Sick of the mess?’

  ‘Sick? Those men of his tore through this house like a bagful of cats tipped down a mousehole. I’m not going to let the clumsy tykes loose on the garden. I’d be left standing on a blasted heath.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ he reassured her. ‘These days they can track cables underground.’

  ‘I don’t know whose side you’re on.’

  ‘I’m on yours.’

  ‘Well, it certainly doesn’t sound like it. Lord knows, my life has been no crystal stair, but I hardly expected that both of my children would turn against me.’

  ‘Dilys didn’t turn against you,’ Colin rehearsed the ancient litany. ‘She’s simply staying away until she gets an apology.’

  ‘I’d sooner be blown to flinders than say I’m sorry that I spoke the truth.’

  ‘It wasn’t the truth. Dilys didn’t get her job by wearing skirts as short as life. She doesn’t keep it by wearing blouses so thin you can spit through them onto her bosom. And she didn’t get that promotion by acting the sassy slut on that course in Wolverhampton.’