A Habit of Dying

by D J Wiseman

  The elation of her new discovery was tempered by the realisation that it might take her further from an answer rather than closer to it. She had a chance of finding Andrew if he were dead but almost none if he were alive but lost. A few minutes earlier she had been on the verge of calling Stephen to share her new insight, but now it seemed less like something to celebrate, more a fresh hurdle, and possibly a final insurmountable one. His ‘someone-who-knew-someone’ might have come up with something helpful, but if that were the case Lydia was sure that he would have mailed or called her, and he had done neither. For a while she sat and let the whole saga play out in her head, letting the generations slip by in snatches of light here and there. A photograph, a newspaper report, a change of address, the births and deaths, the spreading family year by year seeping away from their once solid roots in Essex, all this and more she had come to know. Perhaps now she was seeking the unknowable, the unguessable, and as Dorothy had said, maybe it was better left in the past. Was it some kind of justice she was seeking, and if so then, for whom? For Andrew, for Susan? Perhaps even for Dorothy, the last of Papa’s Joslins.

  ‘I feel so stupid.’

  ‘Again?’ Stephen gently chided her. ‘That’s getting to be a habit. What have you done now?’

  ‘More what I hadn’t done.’

  After seriously considering closing the Joslin book once and for all, Lydia had decided that so long as Stephen’s discreet enquiries were continuing, she might as well take his advice and tackle the most obvious possibility, an error in the index. So she’d made an appointment at the registry office and taken the day off work to sit with the original index, all the way from 1984 through to 1992. She had looked at every entry, taking care to make no mistakes, no omissions in the mind-numbing task. At each entry which could possibly be Andrew Stephen Myers, regardless of the actual name or the way it was spelt, she logged a record on her laptop of all the details and what reason had made her add them to the list. Then she rated it with a score out of ten as to how strongly she felt it might be her man. Each entry she deemed worthy of obtaining a copy of the original was going to cost money, and while she was prepared to spend a little, she was not prepared to spend a lot. When she completed the list, she would look at those with the highest ratings and prioritise those for whom she would obtain certificates. What she would most liked to have done was search through the registers themselves, page by page, but this was not allowed to her.

  The little side room she’d been allocated was stiflingly hot with a window that wouldn’t open and a radiator with a broken thermostat. It was hard to concentrate as she searched line by line through each year. More than once she caught herself drifting off on some tangent while her fingers continued to slide the ruler down the column of names, and she had to return to the start of the page. Only the occasional excitement of an addition to her list, the rating of how likely it might be, relieved the monotony. By mid-afternoon she had twenty-seven names on her list, even thinking to include a Mylar and an Andic Meers. She had given none a higher rating than six. Susan had declared herself a widow on 2nd May 1992 and Lydia was just finishing the 1991 index and was not encouraged by the results so far. Tired, hot and dehydrated, she started on 1992 and even then almost missed it. Andrea S Muers. Wrong sex, wrong name, but as she typed it out, she saw that it would be the one. Two little typos, that was all it had taken. Perhaps the clerk who had made them was as tired and hot as she was. She rated Andrea Muers as a ten, then although tempted to do otherwise, carried on to the end of the index. She did not add further to her list.

  Stephen laughed, not unkindly, but as one sharing a joke. ‘The thing is that you found him, so why stupid?’

  ‘I could have found him earlier, without all that fuss, if I had tried out a few more imaginative search combinations.’

  ‘And now you have found him, what do you have?’

  ‘I got the copy certificate there and then, I have it in my hand now. It was just the index that was wrong, he’s Andrew Stephen Myers on the register. He died in hospital on 4th April 1992 from something to do with his liver and maybe pneumonia and something else called GCS3, whatever that might be. I’m sure you’ll not be surprised to learn that Susan registered his death.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘Maybe, but it looks like the end of the line, we know all the answers we will ever know. I don’t think we can lay this one at her door.’

  ‘I like the ‘we’, thank you. I heard back from that friend who can find things. There was nothing on Andrew Myers after 1983. At least, that was the last national insurance contribution recorded. But I didn’t tell you that.’

  Lydia didn’t quite know how to respond, so she just said ‘Oh.’

  ‘There is one other thing that might be interesting, might help when you think about these things. I spoke to a friend of mine at college, a man who knows about statistics, and asked what the chances were of Susan being so unfortunate. He had no idea, but he did think the whole thing was a great exercise for his students to come up with some ideas on how to calculate it.’

  She was on the verge of telling him about her inspired new reading of the journal, but stopped herself. She had been reluctantly forced to discard the idea as soon as she discovered Andrew had not died until eight years after the last journal entry. It had come as a blow, so soon after formulating what seemed like the perfect theory. But ‘Susan the serial killer’ now seemed just as unlikely. ‘You still think that your option three is the answer, don’t you?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know. But if you send me a copy of that certificate I’ll show it to a doctor friend of mine and do a little digging. Are you still alright about that, Lydia?’

  ‘I think so. I mentioned that Dorothy’s not very keen, didn’t I?’

  13

  ‘Oh, right.’ Her brother Brian was surprised and Lydia thought there might have been a touch of relief in his voice when she told him that she would not be seeing him over the Christmas holiday.

  ‘But if you like I can come over on the Sunday before, I can see you then. I’ll bring the girls’ presents over.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure that’ll be fine. I’ll have to check with Joan, but it’ll be ok. So you’re going away?’

  ‘Yes, a place near Cambridge, just for a night or two.’ Lydia knew she couldn’t get away with saying nothing but wanted to say as little as possible. Anyone on the outside would read far more into her spending time with Stephen at Christmas than they should. But Brian’s curiosity, being that of a man, ran no deeper and additional details were not needed. When she had told Gloria, to pre-empt the inevitable question, Gloria opened her eyes wide and said ‘go get him, girl’, which was far from Lydia’s intentions but further still from what Gloria might once have said. It seemed to Lydia that just as she had found a different side to Gloria, so Gloria in turn had seen something more in Lydia than the staid, go nowhere, do nothing, boring colleague. After all their years of working together they had stopped baiting each other.

  The invitation to Grantchester had been hesitantly made and even more hesitantly accepted. He had suggested a night or two and hinted that Christmas day might be good as he would be on his own after breakfast. Jacqueline would stay Christmas Eve and thought she might then go to see friends in Ely. It struck Lydia that such an arrangement would be at the very least unusual; surely a daughter who spent as much time as she did in her father’s house would be there on Christmas Day. She guessed that if she should decline the invitation then Jacqueline would find a way to return later in the day and resume her place at the table. She’d protested that Stephen should really be visiting her, it was her turn, but even as she was saying the words, she knew it would not work at the house in West Street. At Osney he would be a fish out of water and she would be too nervous, too anxious that he was suitably amused and occupied to take any pleasure in his visit. The confines of the house would throw them too physically close together, with no means of escape should they want one. He would have mad
e the best of it, raised no complaint, been the perfect guest, but Lydia had seen how he lived, how he enjoyed his spaces. After accepting, when she was honest with herself, she knew she would prefer to spend a couple of days in Cambridgeshire than with her brother in Banbury or even her own home in Osney. A single night’s stay hardly qualified her to feel at home in The Old Rectory, but Stephen’s house had welcomed her more than any other home she could remember.

  For two months Lydia had put off writing to Dorothy with her final word on the Joslins. Even with the details of Andrew’s death she had been unwilling to close the book, but whatever remained to be discovered or conjectured, it would not change the family history as far as Dorothy was concerned. Her ideas, her theories would not feature in the document she would prepare, it would be strictly the facts as she had uncovered them through all the births, marriages and deaths, all the war records she could find, and the census entries that she’d accumulated. It would be something that Dorothy could pore over if she wished, something, that if she had a keen eye for coincidence or probability, she could wonder about, just as Lydia had wondered for so long. With the holiday approaching she was determined to finish it and have it neatly bound by way of being a Christmas present. She had already decided that she would put a copy of the 1911 Longlands photograph of ‘Papa’ and his family on the cover. Ten days before Christmas she completed it and was able to write to Dorothy.

  My dear Dorothy

  I hope you will be pleased to see that I have finally produced your family’s history. I have even managed to tidy up a couple of the loose ends. It has given me so much pleasure to discover it all and to be able to re-unite the albums with the family, there is no one else to whom they should now belong. If when you read it through you find anything that you don’t follow then please let me know and I will explain. All the certificates are in a section at the back. I know you said about sending money once it was complete but I hope you will not. Think of it as my hobby, and as hobbies go, it is not an expensive one. And it does take me to places where I might not otherwise go, and to meet people that I would certainly not otherwise meet.

  I know we will stay in touch, but I just want to say that I have also enjoyed meeting you and becoming friends. You have always made me so welcome and encouraged me to carry on. I will come and see you again when the spring is here and we can take a trip out together, perhaps to Highdown if the weather suits us.

  I am off to see Stephen for a couple of days over Christmas, which will be a nice break and I am looking forward to it.

  I hope you have a very Happy Christmas.

  Your friend

  Lydia

  As she signed her letter, Lydia wondered what Dorothy would be doing for Christmas and imagined it would be the same as any other year, and probably much the same as any other day. For a fanciful moment she thought of Dorothy at Grantchester, enjoying the nearest thing she would ever have to a family Christmas. She would find Stephen most likeable and the last vestiges of concern about him sharing her family secrets would disappear, she’d be warm and comfortable and well fed. With that last thought Lydia realised that it was the hand of charity, not friendship, which she mentally offered to Dorothy, seasonal charity because she was sorry for her solitude, sorry for her condition, when it was plain to anyone that Dorothy was not sorry for herself in the slightest. The pleasure she supposed Dorothy would find was actually her own anticipated pleasure.

  Lydia’s next problem was the present she should buy for Stephen. She always found her brother difficult enough, but Stephen was an entirely new challenge. As far as presents were concerned, he was a completely unknown quantity. Clearly he had everything that a man of his age and position could want, not that she really knew anything of his possessions beyond what she had seen around his house, and it occurred to her that none of these had been particularly personal. They were just objects without any obvious sentimental value. She suspected most had been in their places since Elspeth had died, dusted dutifully each week by Mrs Webb and then replaced. They were where they were by default, they had their places and they stayed in them, not by design but through inertia. Despite that, the house had not frozen at the moment of her death, it had remained a living thing. It was the house that Stephen and Elspeth had made their home, where they had raised Jacqueline, and she and her father still gave it life.

  A book was the obvious fallback, as it is so often for those who have everything they want, but Lydia was not even sure of his taste in reading. In fact, beyond her own observations, she had little idea what his taste in anything might be apart from food and wine. Except for the one thing she knew for sure: he liked the Lake District. With this sudden inspiration in mind, Lydia searched the miles of shelves in Oxford’s bookshops for something suitable. She found plenty of volumes on the Lakes, but nothing that took her fancy. One helpful assistant suggested something by Alfred Wainwright would be most suitable and showed her a facsimile edition of one of his famous handbooks. Lydia was tempted but decided that it would be exactly the book that Stephen would already have, and no doubt in the original. Then, as he swung his computer screen round to show Lydia some of the huge choice open to her, a single word caught her eye: ‘Loweswater’. The book in question was Excursion to Loweswater: A Lakeland Visit 1865. Immediately she enquired about it, the title alone suggesting it was exactly what she wanted, personal and thoughtful but without the slightest risk of it being inappropriate or unwanted. He could value the gift for what it was and still leave it unread if he chose too. The helpful assistant found her a copy. Only as it was handed to her did she notice that one of the authors was named Lydia, which gave her an additional sense of satisfaction.

  Christmas Day, like the ones before it, dawned dull, damp and chilly, a stale day, a groundhog day, a day for staying indoors. So deserted were the roads that Lydia wondered if she alone was happy to rise early and head away from the clammy Thames. It had been tempting to leave even earlier but she wasn’t expected until mid-day, and she had no intention of arriving at The Old Rectory before then. She guessed how the movements of the day would have been carefully choreographed, with Jacqueline slipping away mid-morning to ensure that she and Lydia did not overlap. One day they might, but today was not that day, and she had no desire to risk the unexpected.

  Arriving on the stroke of twelve, she was glad to have the murky journey behind her, gladder still of the warm embrace from Stephen. The attractions of the house were not dimmed by the season, it still sat comfortably in its grounds, the bare trees still dense enough that it was still screened from the lane. In the sitting room a log fire blazed up the chimney, inviting Lydia to warm her hands to the flames, even though they were not cold. Around the room were arranged dozens of cards, but a Christmas tree was not evident. Lydia had not been bothered to put out her own few cards, they had stayed in a small pile on her kitchen table and, like Stephen, there was no tree. She’d never had one since sharing a life with Michael, and now couldn’t quite remember why they had ever bothered. Most likely because it was what you did, what the neighbours expected to see. Stephen offered her a sherry, and they stood either side of the fire sipping their glasses, speaking of small things until they settled into silence. Her mind went back to the first time they had shared a drink in the sunshine at the Kirkstile Inn, and how neither of them had found it necessary to fill gaps in conversation.

  The thought of Loweswater brought Lydia to the gift she had for Stephen and she wondered what the right moment might be to give it to him. After a minute or so longer looking into the flames, she saw no reason not to take that little initiative.

  ‘Stephen, I have a small present for you.’ She reached into her bag for the book, which she had paid careful attention to wrapping, even adding a stick-on silver bow and a card.

  ‘And I have one for you, if you’ll wait a moment please.’ He was back from his study in a few seconds.

  They smiled when they saw that they were obviously about to exchange books, his also neatl
y wrapped and ribboned. Their smiles turned to laughs when they found that they had both chosen Excursion to Loweswater.

  ‘I’d half thought of buying it for myself when I found it,’ he said, ‘but I’m glad that I didn’t. Thank you.’

  ‘And thank you too, Stephen, it’s perfect for me.’

  Coming together easily in a gentle embrace, they exchanged their first kiss worthy of the name while the wood crackled in the grate.

  ‘We’ve shifted Christmas by a day. I had my Christmas lunch yesterday, Mrs Webb came in and got it going then Jacqueline and I finished it off. We generally do that, only this year we did it a day early. So today is the twenty-sixth as far as food is concerned, it’s cold leftovers.’

  They helped themselves to what Jacqueline had set out for them in the kitchen before she had disappeared to Ely, then ate in the dining room where a second fire burned. In time, their conversation turned to the Joslins, to Dorothy, and to the binder that Lydia had sent to her.

  ‘You felt it was time.’ Again, Stephen made an observation where another might have asked a question.

  ‘Yes, I did. I’d been putting it off, half thinking that there might be something that you would find, but then I realised whatever there was didn’t alter what I would give to Dorothy. I didn’t tell you before, but I think I found out what GCS means, and once I knew that, I knew I wouldn’t be adding anything to the history for her. Even then I took a while to get it done, then along came Christmas and it seemed a good time.’