“You really can’t be that awful,” said Cathleen.
“Just for you my dear.”
“Well, we’ll let Henry decide then.”
“Let Henry decide what, exactly?”
“Well, decide.”
“Why in heaven would he be the one to decide?” asked Evelyn. “And do you not have anything more intelligent to talk to me about besides a man? There are worlds of things to discuss, and yet we spend our time talking about him, Henry. We could even be friends, not enemies. But alright, dear. I shall call him right in. He will be right here, my Cathy, in front of us both in a moment. And then we will see what the little beast does.”
“I’LL DO IT,” said Meredith, “I think he would have wanted me to. He, well, dropped some not-so-subtle hints really on more than a number of occasions. Yes, I could say that he wanted me to do it. I mean, if it ever came to this, which it has. I mean, now that he’s gone. There are things to think of, aren’t there? All this can’t just go to waste. There are so many, papers, you know. So many things.”
“Think of all that effort,” said Henry.
“Yes, the effort,” said Martino. “Very good point, Henry. Meredith. Glad to see you’re both keeping your heads together in all this. I mean, a man was just killed, on the beach, and Meredith, you’re thinking of his papers? You want to write a biography of a biographer? Is that it? Do you think you’re funny or something?”
“No, Martino,” said Meredith. “It’s just that, well, he gave me a number of hints that if anything were to stop him from completing his work, he would want me, to help.”
“She’s just making a kind gesture, Martino,” said Henry. “Relax a little.”
“Ah, yes,” said Martino, putting his hands in his pockets, and acting very adult all of a sudden. “The beau geste. I wonder where that will lead you? Fame and fortune at the cost of a murder, maybe? Detached house, butlers and servants when this whole mess is over?”
Meredith looked up from the open suitcase of letters sitting on Mr Austen’s neatly made bed. One of her legs was tucked under the other. “Not so likely, Martino,” she said. “Fame and fortune? You think that’s what Mr Austen is about? Well I don’t think so. And Martino, you have no right to be so flippant after a murder. It’s ghastly.”
“Mother said she saw some of his books in a shop once,” said Henry, “In London.”
“Mother said she saw some of his books in a shop once,” mimicked Martino. “In London.”
“Well, I have to respect the man’s wishes,” said Meredith. “And I think that ends the discussion right there.”
“What exactly were these wishes, then?” asked Martino. “Have anything in writing?”
“Martino!” said Henry.
Meredith untucked her leg, put both feet on the floor, firmly, stood up and started putting the papers she had spread around the bed back into Mr Austen’s suitcase, as if she were afraid someone would steal them. “He asked me, once, when his eyes got tired, if I could take his dictation.”
“And…?” asked Martino.
“Well, I did,” said Meredith.
“And that’s it?” asked Martino.
“Really, what else do you want?” Henry asked his shoes.
“What else? Where to start? Dictation? Did he think he was bloody Milton? He asked you to do dictation and now you think you own all his, papers and things? Sorry, but I don’t quite follow.”
“You’re just sore because you want the postcards,” said Henry.
“And leave Milton out of this,” said Meredith.
Martino looked up at Henry, stared at him hard and stormed out of the room. Meredith shut the neatly packed suitcase. “Henry,” she said, and patted the back of his hand. Henry whimpered. Meredith picked up the suitcase and said, “I’m sorry, Henry. I shouldn’t be treating Mr Austen’s things this way. Martino does have a point. But you know, Mr Austen had so many good ideas, it would be such a shame to let them alone. And then, two nights ago, Monday, how long and how short ago that was! Mr Austen mentioned something else to me, that he had found a manuscript, one that everyone thought had been burned, an old one, and that he was preparing it for publication. He said he had it with him, here. I couldn’t find it. But you know, it should be here, somewhere. And it should see the light, don’t you think Henry? It should see the light.” At that Meredith left the room with the suitcase tucked under her left arm, just as Mr Austen had done with The Last of the Mohicans in the lending library back when he was alive.
HENRY NEVER CAME. Cathleen eventually grew bored and went to find him on her own. No one would give her any information and eventually, after weeks of asking, her money and patience and affection started to wane and everyone who thought about her assumed she had already gone back home. Henry was being held prisoner, naked, confined in bed, with the door locked. Evelyn kept the room cold and his body well fed. Evelyn would make Henry practice, repeatedly until he got it right, right meaning slower. And he had to do it over and over again because he was becoming so exhausted, while at the same time in a hurry to complete his performance. Therefore it would often take many tries to get it right.
A list of things Henry would do during the moments Evelyn was out of the room could include:
Try to keep his eyes open long enough to decide whether it was night or day.
Turn the sheets inside out. They were white on both sides. He wanted to see if Evelyn would notice. She would, every time.
Try on Evelyn’s clothes that she would leave behind. She never caught him at this.
Bathe in the facilities in the NW corner, under the straw-stuffed window.
Unstuff the straw from the lower left-hand corner of the shuttered window and look out at the meadow fading into the wave of oak on the Stratton, and then try to see beyond that group of trees by squinting but he was unable to see much more.
Take a knife that had once fallen from a breakfast tray and continue carving a story he had started into the underside of the bed frame that, so far, ran: “At the edge of the greatest forest in Eng.”
Try to peek into different places of his body Evelyn had recently explored. This was done mainly by lifting both of his ankles behind his neck and rolling as far as possible onto his back.
Try to hide in different places in the room so that when Evelyn came in she would think he had been captured (except for the fact that the door was locked — no matter how hard Henry tried, which was not that hard, really, to open it, he was frustrated, even when employing the story knife). Henry was only able to successfully do this twice, since he usually had to wait in his place for so long that he became cramped or bored or tired and he would leave before her arrival. On the two times he had stayed she found him straight away.
Pray to his God that He would allow Captain Cooke to die, perhaps by contracting the plague, which would then force the rest of the house into quarantine, and for which Evelyn, despite her deepest wishes, would probably have to be separated from Henry, for she could not go missing for that amount of time within her own household (that is for three weeks, minimum, with no deaths) without rousing suspicion. Henry figured that if he survived those three weeks, which he doubted, although his previous confinement in the red and green rooms did boost his chances, he and Cathleen would marry.
Compose Sinfonia and I Was Glad in his head, eventually writing them down upon his escape, in scarcely altered form.
Fold Evelyn’s clothes, neatly, on a chair.
Wrap himself as tightly as possible in the sheets on the floor, hoping to squeeze out his last breath. He came close but never quite made it.
Relive the triumph of the Christmas choir pageant.
Hold his urine for as long as possible since he would have to wait for his waste to be removed, which it was immediately and with much scolding as soon as Evelyn arrived. This would often entail quite elaborate means to keep his mind off his bladder, such as, for example, counting things, like wrinkles on his right index finger, which, from base to
nail contained 6 up to the second knuckle, 24 up to the third, 12 up to the cuticle. Another example of deterrence could be imagining the life of Evelyn and whomever she slept with before Henry in this room (he did not know whom, but suspected), what they did together, how often, how loud and how many times. Evelyn had made no secret that she had had others, in order to cure him of what she called his jealousy, something no 17th-century man could afford, for they were past all that now, being modern, educated, and free. Henry eventually agreed. However, it did not work and he was jealous.
MR AUSTEN’S SISTER LUCY came for the funeral, and then arranged to meet Meredith before heading back to London.
Lucy’s arrival was announced by the rattle of the sporty AC that brought her. Meredith opened the car door for her. Lucy’s body was wrapped in two layers of foulard and on top of that was a fur coat, but faux, for Lucy was a vegetarian, the fact of which had earned her much mocking until it was found that the reason was her health. Lucy was allergic to a number of animal products, including their flesh, skin and milk. Thus Lucy stepped out of the car. Meredith clasped her hands behind her back.
“I am a bit early, I hope you do not mind,” said Lucy, extending a hand.
“Not at all. You must be Miss Austen-Baker,” said Meredith, kissing a cheek.
They turned toward Meredith’s one-bedroom home she had taken on. “This place, it is lovely. Is that your living room?” asked Lucy, pointing to a window to the right of the main door, a lightly curtained window unsuccessfully hiding a hideous free-standing lamp.
“Beg your pardon?” said Meredith, bringing her fingers up to her exposed throat, a gesture she had never done before.
“Your living room. Paul always sent the most wonderful letters. He was quite the man with words, you know. It was his trade. And he did not spare any on us. Words. He told us all about his dear Meredith’s living room. The orange-cinnamon tea. The spiral rug and the green footstool.”
“Well, I’m afraid you’ll be a bit disappointed. That was at St Marcouf where I first met your brother. I’ve had to move here since then. The tea does remain an option, however,” she Meredith, smiling. Then she opened the door behind her and walked backwards into her own house.
“Lovely,” said Lucy, “then we might sit down and I can tell you all about who killed Paul.”
MARTINO WAS IN THE KITCHEN drying a serving tray before loading it with biscuits and cheese. He had acquired the cheese especially for Lucy’s visit. Meredith and Lucy were in the living room looking at each other.
Martino spent one afternoon a week at Meredith’s doing odd jobs around the house. He would trim the grass, water the flower beds, and, with ever-increasing frequency, do general cleaning, which was very light. Martino started cleaning without any special instruction from Meredith. In fact, at first Martino did the cleaning in secret.
It started soon after he had begun helping Meredith out at home. Despite their differences, Martino started spending a lot of time at Meredith’s after the death of Mr Austen. This was helped by Meredith and Martino finding themselves lunching together quite frequently at the Purcells’, since they had all been thrown together by the tragedy. Martino’s cleaning followed the first time he had dared to look in Mr Austen’s suitcase, the location of which he had found his first day at Meredith’s, now hidden under a new bed. The Victorian postcards were right on top, the ones everyone had seen but him. It was after seeing the postcards that Martino started to clean. Not to clean himself after seeing the dirty cards, and not a cleansing of the sadness of Mr Austen’s death, something Martino hardly thought about at all, but rather the postcards released a feeling in him that he could only continue by cleaning, a feeling of warmth and excitement. Like drinking two cups of coffee in a row on the beach, the act of cleaning allowed him to keep this feeling strong. Each motion of his hand holding the dust cloth, a cloth he started bringing himself so that he did not run the risk of Meredith noticing he was using hers, seemed to capture a bit of the feeling of the postcard. For he had a favorite, one that outshone the others. It was the woman on the horse.
Meredith walked in on Martino polishing the mirror frame in her bedroom. Martino liked to clean the things as near to the suitcase as possible. By this time, maybe the sixth time Martino had clandestinely cleaned, he no longer really needed to look at the postcard at all; he could capture the feeling of the card in the act of cleaning itself. Meredith was usually outside, puttering about in the tiny front lawn. Martino found that he had ample time for his activities. She thought he was just preparing lunch. Meredith was out for a long time. She seemed to want to do as good a job as possible weeding the flower beds, a task she usually started before Martino’s arrival and finished after he left. But this time Meredith had come into her bedroom, looking for a straw hat to protect her from the sun.
“Martino, what are you doing out of the kitchen?” she said, expecting the worst.
Martino sighed. The feeling was gone. “Cleaning,” he said in anger. Meredith laughed.
“I think you have misunderstood my instructions,” she said. “I don’t think I wanted you to have much to do in here,” she said, “in my bedroom.” Martino looked at the mirror frame. “Hand me your cloth, please,” she said. Martino automatically handed it over. Meredith inspected it, and found it was not a piece of her undergarments. The dust rag was an old male-t-shirt. Nothing of hers. She gave it back, relieved.
“I’ll go now,” Martino said, and slid past Meredith. He walked straight out of her house and down the block, two houses to his own, not to return until the next week, which he did after Meredith had mentioned her needing his snack-tray expertise. She had asked this in front of Martino and his mother at the grocer’s, so that Martino was sure to say yes, which he did. When he nervously arrived he found a whole array of cleaning products on the dining-room table, a larger assortment than Martino knew what to do with. Upon inspection he found he preferred the cloths Meredith had provided to his own. Hers were old handkerchiefs, with embroidered initials that he could not make out, and they were thick and decent. Martino found that they did not absorb the cleaning liquids too quickly, nor did they let them completely run off. He soon found himself coming more often, especially when Meredith had guests, other women from town. She asked him to prepare finger food, which he gladly did, for preparing food meant washing up, and washing up meant finding that feeling.
LUCY, just getting comfortable on Meredith’s couch, stopped fiddling with her necklace.
“You said he had a daughter?” asked Meredith.
“Two. Although one died at the age of two months. But this one, the second, lived to be about 13.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Horrible, yes. A good word, ‘horrible’. After her death, The Times ran a leader demanding an inquest into the circumstances. Some say it was all a miracle, but most a crime. See, one unusually cold autumn evening, Sarah had been taken ill. Her main symptom was vomiting blood. She remained bedridden until her death.”
“But I don’t see…”
“Paul asserted at the inquest that Sarah had refused all food and drink immediately after her confinement. They were excommunicated from the Church of England, did you know? The whole family became more and more devout as time wore on. Sarah only allowed her parents to apply some water to her lips every fortnight. Said it was ‘the tears of Christ’ she was tasting. Rubbish. It was all Paul’s doing. That’s what I say. Sarah was eventually examined by a Dr Fowler, who found her looking very ‘spirited’ and she had been dressed by her parents as a bride of Christ, surrounded by flowers. The Times quoted the doctor as saying something like, ‘she appeared to me as a young girl abandoned at the altar and frozen just before shame set in.’ Again, rubbish. What need has a doctor for romanticism? He brought a couple of nurses with him (they were later found to be second cousins and not trained for the job in the least) whom he left with the family. No one was allowed to visit, not even me. These nurses were there to make sure the do
ctor’s orders were followed to the letter, and the doctor’s orders were to make sure that no food passed between Sarah’s lips. What a fuck-up. Well, she died. Her faith grew stronger and then she died. Paul was a mix of despair and faith. One rather amazing aspect of the whole thing is that it supposedly lasted two years, from her first confinement to her death. Two years of taking no food, only a little water from time to time. Although one can only assume Paul and his wife were not as strict as all that. You can see why The Times said that if she had been born in France or Spain her act would have been declared a miracle. I think it was a miracle Paul was not lynched on the spot. The neighbours caused a riot. Can you imagine, not letting your own flesh and blood eat for two years? What does that even mean? And do you know what he said to me when I asked him? He said: Je sais bien, mais quand même… The bastard spoke French to me! Although I am not sure he knew much more than that. ‘I know well, but all the same…’ What an idiot! Well, Dr Fowler and the nurses were reprimanded, and if you can call a £50 fine anything more than a reprimand then please let me know. But formal charges were brought against Paul, who, coward as he was, upped and moved north, reinvented himself as a travelling scholar, leaving Martha, his wife, alone to deal with the charges, charges that were not to be pressed without the head of house being present, and what a head he was!”
Lucy was interrupted by Martino’s entering the room with a tray of cucumber sandwiches.
“My God!” said Lucy, “Is that a young man, wearing an apron?”
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