By Death Possessed

by Roger Ormerod

I glanced at Margaret for assistance. She was as tense as Grace, but it was an anticipatory tension, her eyes bright and high patches of colour on her cheeks.

  ‘Remind her of what?’ Margaret asked, her voice empty, strained dry.

  But Grace had recovered. ‘It’s up the stairs and to the right. The room at the end. She likes a bright room.’ She nodded a distant disapproval. Brightness was too revealing.

  She watched us out of the room with suspicion. I followed Margaret up the stairs. Ahead there was a short corridor, lit only by a small window at the far end. Before we reached it there was a cross-corridor, where we turned right. I tapped on the door at the end, eased it open because my grandmother was expecting us, and we went in.

  It was a corner room, adapted over the years as a bed-sitter. Angelina was in a wheelchair, which for some reason shocked me. But what had I expected? She’d not moved from her chair the last time I’d visited, when she’d been a mere seventy-five. She was sitting half-turned away, watching something through the window, and without the aid of spectacles. The chair appeared too big for her; she was bolstered with cushions on both sides and in the small of her back. Perhaps it was this that made her seem so small. She had shrunk into her clothes. Her hands, gnarled and claw-like, were resting on the arms of the chair. Her face, in profile, seemed barely to have changed. A thousand wrinkles had taken up the sag, so that it was easy to see she must have been very beautiful when young. A soft-focus lens, and I could have made her that again. She had the long, straight nose I’d inherited, the small chin, the long neck.

  She had seemed not to be aware of us. ‘There’s that magpie again,’ she said, her head nodding, nodding, as though on a spring. ‘Why is there only one, I wonder. Perhaps the poor thing’s lost its mate.’

  I spoke quietly. It’s me, Gran. Tony.’

  There was nothing wrong with her hearing. Her head snapped round. The chair swung to face us at a touch of her left hand. Her eyes were deeply set now, the blurred grey of age, but she saw me clearly, I could tell—the way they swept me from head to toe, the way she switched her attention to Margaret, critically, hungrily. She saw so few strangers.

  ‘Charlie’s boy? Then it’s about time. That’s not your wife. Why haven’t you been to see me? Come closer, where I can see you. My eyes aren’t what they were.’

  But she’d been able to see the magpie in the garden—what had been the orchard, I realized from a quick glance, but which was now a jungle. Her faculties seemed to be in order, though she had the trick of the very old of jolting from one thought to the other abruptly. They have to express their thoughts as they present themselves, in case they become forgotten and lost.

  I moved forward into a position where she could consider me in detail, nodding and humming to herself.

  ‘Yes, you’re Tony. Not changed a bit. You nearly left it too late, my lad.’ She gave a little splutter of laughter, and dabbed her lips with a lace handkerchief that could well have been as old as herself.

  ‘I could hardly come before, Gran,’ I said gently. ‘Not without a certain amount of disloyalty. Do you remember what you said about my wife?’

  Her eyes danced, her lips quivered. ‘I remember very well. And I’ll bet I hit the mark. Oh yes. Another woman knows. But I see you’ve found a better one. Come along, dear, don’t stand over there. What’s your name? Speak up. Don’t be shy.’

  ‘Margaret. Margaret Dennis.’

  Not married then?’ She meant to me.

  ‘It’s Ms.’

  Now don’t you use that modern slang to me, my girl. If you’re his mistress, stand up and say it. Pride. You girls, these days! No pride. I shouted it out with pride, let me tell you. And why not?’

  ‘She’s not my mistress, Gran. She’s a business associate, an expert on paintings.’

  Gran was enjoying herself, though. There was no stopping her. ‘So now we have experts. In my day we were artists or non-artists. We didn’t speak to non-artists. Are you a non-artist, young lady?’

  When I glanced at her, I was surprised to see that Margaret was smiling. ‘You could put it like that. I study other people’s paintings. We can’t all reach the heights, you know.’

  That seemed to satisfy Angelina, who nodded, and looked down at her lap for a moment. Then she raised her eyes again. ‘Well, sit down, why don’t you. Old people don’t care to look up. Of course, I was always small. You could say I’ve always looked up to my men. Freddie was tall, like you, Tony. Oh, so like you! And Arthur was huge. But I looked up to Freddie in a different way. I suppose you know he was a genius. Oh yes. Now, get a chair for the lady, Tony. Where’ve your manners gone? You never used to let me stand without rushing for a seat. Don’t you remember, that fight in the café ... the café ...’ She faltered to a halt. For one moment she had confused me with Freddie.

  I went to find a chair. They were all rush-seated and uncomfortable. I heard Margaret say behind me: ‘Freddie?’ She said it very casually, as though not to disturb an already insecure intellect. ‘You can’t mean ... Frederick Ashe!’

  Grandmother’s voice was suddenly alive with delight. ‘You know him? You’ve met him?’ She stopped so suddenly that in the silence the scrape of the chair was harsh. ‘But he’s dead, of course. So long ... you weren’t even born.’

  ‘I wasn’t born,’ said Margaret softly, on an indrawn breath.

  I had placed the painting on the surface of a chest of drawers, which was above the level of Grannie’s eyes. She hadn’t noticed it. Now, before I could reach her to intervene, Margaret snatched it up and offered it to Angelina.

  ‘This is his,’ Margaret stated with confidence.

  I put the chair behind her knees and slowly edged it forward. She sat, without a glance at me. I stood at her shoulder. Angelina had not reached up to take the painting, but allowed it to rest on her knees, her hands still gripping the arms of her chair. Her head was bent. There was silence for so long I thought she might have nodded off. At her age, that was possible. Nodding, she was, but it was not from sleep. Nodding, nodding, with tiny whimpers, and I watched the fingers of her left hand tighten on the chair arm until the blood flowed from them.

  There was a gentle rustling sound, and I realized she was whispering to herself.

  ‘The cottage. Oh, it’s the cottage. That first day ... You were sitting there. Under that window. Painting. Of course, painting. When were you not, Freddie? I was wearing my blue gown. Do you remember that? It caught on the briars. There they are, on the right. Oh Freddie, Freddie ... so long ago ... She raised her head and looked at me. No—her face turned to me. She didn’t see me, could not, with those swimming eyes. ‘So long since I saw this. Where did you find it? I gave it to Charlie.’

  ‘My father—’ I began, but Margaret was briskly practical.

  ‘Is it his? You’re talking about Frederick Ashe, aren’t you. Is it his, Angelina?’

  The eyes focused. She dabbed at the corners.

  ‘Of course. Stupid girl. You ought to know that.’

  I reached past and lifted the painting from Angelina’s lap, and caught a glimpse of Margaret’s profile. It was stiff with concentration, her lips pale. I heard her sigh.

  ‘You knew him, did you, Gran?’ I asked in a chatty voice. ‘He gave you this painting, I suppose, and you gave it to my father ...’

  ‘Now, now!’ She was skittish, lively. ‘You know very well how it was. Everybody knew, but they didn’t say anything. Not to my face. Oh, this takes me back. Yesterday ... it could be yesterday.’

  She smiled into the distance. Yesterday was any day in the past, but the painting had been cleaned, and was as fresh as when it had been painted. Yesterday was the day it had been painted, or the day before that.

  ‘Tell us,’ said Margaret in a small voice. But I touched her shoulder. Angelina needed no prompting. The memories—so crystal clear from so far in the past—came pouring out. Her voice had more life, was younger. Her head came up with something like pride, perhaps a personal pride i
n her youth and beauty.

  ‘Father had a large estate. I was seventeen. Yes, all of seventeen. On holiday from Saint ... oh, something. Learning to be a young lady. I walked the estate, and it was so boring. You cannot believe how boring. Daddy had told me a young painter had rented the cottage in the lower meadow, so I went to look, for something to do. And there he was, painting. He was very ugly. The beauty was inside. That little turned-up nose! The big ears! Of course, I was taught to paint at school, but young ladies had to use watercolours—so much more genteel. This painter was working in oils. He wasn’t very tidy, and I felt I had to be the lady of the manor, so I told him it wasn’t too bad, but he must try harder. That was what they said to me at school. “Angelina, you must try harder.” Miss Trench. You know Miss Trench, of course. No? Perhaps she’s retired. I never liked Miss Trench—she never laughed. I didn’t see Miss Trench again. Well, fancy that, I’d never realized. But she would not have approved. Oil painting was not for the young ladies of Saint Edith’s. There, you see, I’ve remembered.’

  Her lips quivered in a smile at the memory of her school. Her eyes closed. Surely she couldn’t nod off to sleep now! But her head lifted, and she went on.

  ‘Frederick said he’d bet I couldn’t do any better, and young ladies at private schools didn’t learn anything useful. He was Frederick then. I called him Freddie in Paris, though. And I said I could if I tried, and he bet me I couldn’t. So I said how much, a shilling? But he didn’t have a shilling, and he said a kiss, so I knew I was going to be kissed anyway, win or lose!’ The voice changed to a crisp reprimand. ‘And don’t smile at that, young lady. It was very daring, and he did let me try, sitting down and doing a tiny corner of his painting for him, and he said it was very good and gave me my kiss, and said if I came the next day he’d lend me an easel and brushes and a canvas, and I could paint my own picture. So I did—and we did, all through that wonderful summer. We painted together.’

  She looked round vaguely for the painting, and seemed confused that it was no longer on her lap.

  ‘That was one of them,’ she said, moving her left hand vaguely.

  ‘You painted it together?’ asked Margaret disbelievingly.

  ‘No, no. Silly child. Didn’t I say! We sat side by side, two canvases, his palette on a table between us, and shared his colours. What he did, I did. I copied his brush strokes as well as I could. Or he copied mine. Later, it didn’t seem to matter which. We found we went together. Naturally. It was destiny, and there were pointers. And that’s how it was, until the end.’

  She put a hand over her face and bent her head. Margaret seemed about to say something, but I squeezed her shoulder, and we waited. At last Angelina went on: ‘He insisted. It wasn’t his war, I told him. Wars don’t belong to artists. But he joined the French army and I never ... never saw him again.’

  ‘But—’ began Margaret.

  I cut in quickly. ‘You must have loved him very much, Gran.’

  ‘Like a child, like a woman. You couldn’t possibly understand. He was my life. I never painted again.’

  ‘So there were two sets ...’

  She didn’t answer directly. ‘Mamma disapproved. Consorting with a vagabond, she called it. My father understood, I think. Yes, Father was a wonderful man. We painted all that summer. Eight paintings.’

  ‘Eight pairs?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. Of course. I’ve said that. But Mamma had her way in the end. She made my father give Frederick notice to quit. And he’d got nowhere else he could go, and hardly any money. To me, it was the end of the world. Where would he go? I asked him. He said Paris. He said he had painter friends in Paris—if he could only get there. Claude Monet and Maurice Bellarmé. So I went to see my father and told him, and he gave me money for Frederick to get to Paris, much more than was needed, because he understood what I was thinking, you see; I could tell that in his sad eyes. But he wanted only my happiness. Two days later I took my wicker-work basket of clothes to the cottage, and we went to Paris.’

  We went to Paris. Such simple words, but in 1910 it would have been an act of great courage to a young woman brought up as Gran had been. She had had to be with her man. It was as simple as that, and Gran expressed it simply.

  ‘We nearly starved,’ she went on, ‘but Freddie got work at a bistro, and I tried to sell the paintings. I sold six. Six out of all that work! For about ten francs each. But Father sent me money from time to time. Mamma never wrote. She didn’t even come to my wedding, and never spoke to me again. And the war came ...’ She drew breath sharply, her lips quivering. She was silent. Her time sequence had become confused.

  ‘The initials,’ I prompted after a moment. ‘The signatures on the canvases.’

  She flashed me an abrupt smile, direct from her beloved Paris. ‘But that was our thing, you see. Tony, you should know all this. Our initials were the same, only backwards, which Freddie said was destiny. So we each signed our canvases the same, an A and an F on top of each other. We always worked side by side. He said I inspired him. He said he couldn’t do it alone. Dear man. But really we did them together. His brush strokes were mine, and mine his. Sometimes, for a laugh, we would try switching them over, halfway through. But that didn’t seem to work. Isn’t that strange? I’ve never understood that.’

  ‘You painted a great number?’ I asked gently, feeling Margaret straining to get in with her questions.

  ‘Oh yes. About eighty finished pairs. More. I destroyed the sketches before I came home.’ Margaret moaned softly.

  ‘That was in 1917?’ I asked.

  ‘Well yes. Freddie died. I told you that. I had to come home. A single young lady in Paris couldn’t have a child, could she?’

  ‘Of course she couldn’t,’ I agreed calmly, although my heart was pounding.

  ‘So I wrote to Father, and he sent me the money to come home, and said he would find me a husband, who I knew would have to be absolutely dreadful, to take on a young woman carrying someone else’s child. And that would be for money and status, but I didn’t care about anything any more, and Father arranged everything. He was in the importing and exporting business, and he sent some of his men to pack the canvases, which was about all I had left, and I came home, to this house, and became Mrs Angelina Hine—Mrs Arthur Hine. Fortunately, he didn’t live long, though long enough to father one son on me—that would be your uncle Henry, Tony. Yes. Henry.’ She sniffed, and shook her head.

  The shaking gradually subsided and her head fell forward. Her breathing changed. She was asleep.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Tony!’ said Margaret. ‘The paintings! We can’t leave, not knowing.’

  Grandmother Angelina murmured something. I said: ‘What was that, Gran?’

  ‘We had a bonfire,’ she told me distinctly, lifting her head.

  ‘The paintings?’ asked Margaret in a weak voice.

  ‘They were in tea chests. Eight tea chests. Father imported tea. His men came and packed them for me. I marked one set of four as Freddie’s, with a cross, so that I would know. But my husband hated Freddie. As he would, I suppose. As he hated Freddie’s son, when he arrived. Your father, Tony. It was like acid to him, knowing the paintings were up there in the loft. All that I had left of Freddie, except the child. But he couldn’t destroy the child. It had to be Freddie’s paintings. In the end he was near insane about it, and said I’d got to burn them. Myself. With my own two hands. That was because he’d been unable to give me a child himself. He said I must be doing something to stop it. Ridiculous. But do you know ... that very night ... I’m sure it was that night, he was so fierce and triumphant with me ... that was when I got pregnant again, the night I burned the paintings.’

  She puckered her lips, pondering fate.

  ‘The canvases!’ Margaret whispered.

  ‘He asked me—demanded—what crates Freddie’s were in. I’d marked four of them. A cross. Did I tell you that? But I couldn’t bear the thought of destroying Freddie’s work. So I told a lie. I said mine
were in the tea chests with a cross. I could bear to lose mine. I remember that night. It was dark in the garden. Down there, in the orchard, that was where we did it. He was up in the loft. I stood on the landing and wept. I heard the chests being smashed open. He was roaring something, fury I suppose. He threw the paintings down at my feet. Grace and I took them down to the orchard. We made a pile. Eighty canvases make a big pile. He came and poured paraffin on it, but he wouldn’t strike the match himself. He said I had to. He watched from up here. This very window. I lit them ...’

  Her eyes were sightless. She stared into the past, her jaw set, the wrinkles in her skin now more deeply etched. Her left hand gestured towards the painting I’d brought.

  ‘That was the one I saved. I kicked it behind a tree, and in the morning, when he’d gone to one of his shops, I went out and wrapped it in newspaper and hid it in the garden shed. I was weeping so much I couldn’t see what I was doing. Then, years later, when your father was sixteen and decided to leave home, I told him to take it with him.’ She sighed, breathed deeply for a moment, then was asleep again.

  Margaret hissed: ‘For God’s sake, she can’t go to sleep now!’

  Angelina murmured and raised her head. ‘And then I had nothing left of Freddie, with Charlie gone. He’d destroyed everything.’

  This didn’t seem to make sense, because she had just told us how she had managed to save Freddie’s paintings. She would have had those. But I didn’t have time to question this.

  Angelina put her head back and rested it against her small pillow, and stared sightlessly at the wall, until I realized she was sleeping with her eyes open. Slowly, as I watched, the lids descended.

  We stood and watched her. I said: ‘We’ve tired her out.’

  ‘She can’t leave it there. Wake her up, why don’t you!’

  ‘Let her sleep.’

  ‘You fool,’ she said, whispering intensely. ‘Can’t you understand? He was no idiot, her husband. He probably double-guessed her, knowing she’d tell a lie about which paintings were in which chests.’