Six Feet Under

by Dorothy Simpson

  “And manage to drag her all the way to the privy in the garden of number two with that broken leg …”

  “Well, it was a nice idea,” said Thanet. “And it proves my point. Look hard enough and there’s a motive under every bush. What we need are some nice hard facts. Perhaps the men will have turned up something about that pilferer.… Oh, to hell with it. I’m going home to sleep on it and you can do the same.” He grinned. “Only one more day before Saturday, now. Then you’ll be a staid old married man.”

  Lineham blushed.

  “All being well,” he said.

  17

  The streets of Sturrenden were quiet, almost deserted, as Thanet drove home. Darkness was coming swiftly now and light from illuminated shop windows spilled softly on to the empty pavements. Only outside the old Embassy Cinema was there any sign of activity; this had been converted to a bingo hall some years ago and a steady trickle of women was flowing towards its brightly illuminated façade.

  The pace of Thanet’s driving reflected his state of mind. He felt sluggish, as if every last ounce of mental energy had been sucked out of him by the sustained effort of the afternoon. And all for nothing, he thought dully as he left the shops behind and turned into the Ashford Road. So lethargic did he feel, however, that even this dispiriting reflection aroused no more than the faintest flicker of disappointment in him.

  He was not allowed to remain in this state for long. The second he opened the door two small bodies supercharged with energy came flying towards him.

  “Hey,” he said, reeling under the impact and squatting to gather both of them into his arms at once, “what’re you two doing up at this time of night?”

  “It was Peter’s party, Daddy. We told you.” Bridget’s eyes were shining, her face flushed.

  Ben had already wriggled out of Thanet’s grasp and disappeared into the kitchen. Now he came running back with a red balloon bobbing at the end of a piece of string, a paper bag in his hand. “Look what Mrs Darwin gave me, Daddy,” he said, opening the bag and peering inside as if to reassure himself that his treasures had not disappeared, before thrusting it under Thanet’s nose.

  Thanet duly inspected the contents (an apple, an orange and a bar of half-melted chocolate before making impressed noises and handing it back to Ben.

  “They’re terribly over-excited,” said Joan, as Thanet and the children entered the kitchen. She was obviously trying to get supper going before putting the children to bed.

  How was she going to cope with this sort of situation if she started a full-time job, Thanet wondered, as he said, “It’s all right. I’ll get them bathed. And there’s no hurry for supper. I shouldn’t have to go out again this evening.”

  “I’m afraid it’ll be a job getting them calmed down,” she said, stopping what she was doing to come and give him a grateful kiss. “We might well have tears before long, I should think.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll cope,” said Thanet. “Right, you two! Off we go.”

  It was a rare treat for their father to be home in time to bath them and put them to bed and Thanet managed to tone down their almost frenzied state of excitement by the simple expedient of telling them that if they didn’t quieten down he would go downstairs again and they could put themselves to bed bathless and storyless. He couldn’t help feeling pleased with himself when, half an hour later, he was able to say to Joan, “No problems. They’ll be asleep in two minutes, I shouldn’t wonder. Looking as though butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths, of course, as usual.”

  Joan had been busy in the meantime. There was an appetising smell in the kitchen and a welcoming fire in the living room. Thanet sank down in front of it with a sigh and picked up the newspaper. Strangely, he felt much less tired than when he had arrived home. The interlude with the children had refreshed him; for a whole half an hour he had been able to put his work out of his mind entirely.

  Now, however, he found himself unable to concentrate on the lines of newsprint. Snippets of information and conversation relating to the Birch case kept floating into his mind and distracting him.

  “What’s the matter?” Joan said as she came in to lay the table.

  “Nothing. Why?”

  “You were frowning.”

  “Was I?”

  “Positively scowling, in fact.” She was briskly unloading table mats, cutlery and glasses from the tray she was carrying. “Supper’s just about ready now,” she said.

  Abstracted as he was it was not until they were eating dessert (lemon meringue pie, one of his favourites) that Thanet became aware that Joan was secretly excited about something. He had seen that look before. It was in the lightness of her movements, in the lift at the corners of her mouth, the extra sparkle in her eyes when she smiled.

  For the first time in their marriage his immediate reaction to it was a sudden sinking of the spirits. She’s found a job, he thought, and was tempted to pretend he hadn’t noticed. But this would have been quite out of character for him. He would have to pretend that nothing was amiss.

  “Well,” he said, laying down his spoon and looking at her expectantly. “When are you going to tell me?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “Come on, darling,” he said. “No point in pretending with me. I can read you like an open book.”

  “What it’s like,” she said, gathering up the dishes and marching off towards the kitchen, “being married to a policeman!”

  He couldn’t help grinning and his spirits rose a notch. Perhaps he was wrong, perhaps Joan’s news would be perfectly innocuous after all.

  She waited until they had settled down with their coffee and then she said, “You were asking just now …”

  “Mmm?” he said, pretending abstraction.

  “What I had to tell you.”

  “Ah, yes. I thought you said there wasn’t anything.”

  “One of these days, my darling, you’ll get a cup of coffee poured over your head, if you’re not careful! Now, do you want to hear it or not?”

  He shrugged. “If you insist,” he said, then put up his arm in mock self-defence as she raised her cup in the air. “Just as you like, dear,” he said, with exaggerated meekness.

  But she couldn’t waste time playing games any longer. “Well,” she said, wriggling herself into a more comfortable position, “I went along to the probation service this morning.”

  “Oh?”

  His wariness must have shown in his voice, for she glanced at him doubtfully before continuing.

  “I thought, well, I’ve always been interested in probation work and although I didn’t think that there was the slightest chance that they would be interested in me, as I have no qualifications whatsoever, I thought it might just be worth enquiring.… Well, anyway, it seems I was wrong. Apparently there’s more than one way of becoming a probation officer, and the fact that I’ve done regular voluntary work with the mentally handicapped over the last couple of years while Ben’s been at playgroup means that they might be prepared to take me on either as an unpaid volunteer or, what’s even more exciting, as an assistant probation officer, with a view to seeing whether I suit the work. Then, if all went well and they were satisfied with me, they might sponsor me through a proper training. That means they’d actually pay me, while I was doing the training! Isn’t it exciting!”

  “I don’t quite see what working with mentally handicapped children has to do with the probation service,” Thanet said carefully.

  “The fact that it happens in my case to be handicapped children has nothing to do with it, really,” Joan said. “What matters, apparently, is that I’ve worked for the community in what they called a caring capacity.”

  “A caring capacity indeed! You’re picking up the jargon already.”

  “It was their expression, not mine. And what else would you call it?” Joan said rebelliously. “You know perfectly well what I mean and you’re deliberately ignoring the point.”

  “Which is what?”

  “That the
y may be prepared to take me on despite my lack of formal qualifications.”

  “I must say that piece of information does not exactly inspire confidence in the probation service.”

  “Now you’re being ridiculous! I’ve just explained that of course I’d have to do a proper training, but not until they were satisfied that I’m suited to the work.”

  She was right, of course. He was being petty and mean-spirited and his attitude could lead only to disaster. He took a deep, calming breath.

  “Sorry, love. Look, I accept that you need to find something interesting to do. But does it have to be this?”

  “It doesn’t have to be, I suppose, but why not? It’s a fascinating job, and the running-in period would give me a chance to see if it would really suit me, before I start the proper training course. Oh darling, why not? It would be ideal, don’t you see?”

  “Ideal for whom?”

  She stared at him. “Well for me, of course. What do you mean?”

  “Have you thought how it could affect us?”

  “Us? In what way?”

  “You haven’t thought that there could be a certain, well, clash of interests?”

  “No. Why should there be?” She had drawn away from him and was sitting rigidly upright against the arm of the settee. She looked wary, hostile.

  He sighed. “Look, the probation service and the police, they’re often poles apart in their attitudes to criminals.”

  “But they’re both on the same side really, surely? They’re both concerned to maintain peace and order in society?”

  He shook his head. “Maybe. But that doesn’t stop them frequently being in conflict. I don’t suppose you’ve had much to do with probation officers, but I have. And I grant you they do very fine work, many of them. But that’s not the point. The point is, as I say, that their attitudes to criminals are different. Don’t you see that it’s impossible to shed one’s working attitudes in one’s private life? They become an integral part of one, as basic as breathing. I can see all sorts of situations in which this thing could become a barrier between us.”

  “How, for example?”

  He shrugged. “Well, for one thing, I’ve always shared my work with you, haven’t I? Told you everything, without reserve, knowing that I could trust you not to talk about it.”

  “But I still wouldn’t,” she cried. “You know that, surely?”

  “Maybe you wouldn’t talk about it, but your attitude to what I tell you would be bound to be different, don’t you see? It’s inevitable that you’d be looking at the whole question of crime from a different point of view, from the side of the criminal, his guilt, his rehabilitation, whatever.… Darling, don’t you see that? You must, surely.”

  “Not necessarily. Probation officers have to be detached, they can’t afford to identify with their clients or they couldn’t work properly.”

  “And what if it turned out that we were both working on the same case? That I had arrested someone for a crime and you had to do a social enquiry on him? And suppose then that it was your evidence in court that got him off even though I strongly felt that he should have had a sharp sentence to bring him to his senses?”

  “I would think that the chances of that happening would be very slight. And if it did happen, couldn’t one or the other of us request that we should be taken off the case?”

  “And that would create a barrier between us, too. Joan, you must see it. It would limit us, put restrictions on our work. We’d be bound to resent it. And there would be other barriers—just in ordinary life, in casual conversation, we’d have to be guarding our tongues, watching what we say to each other …”

  “I think the truth of the matter,” she said tightly, “is that you don’t want me to work at all.”

  “It’s not that …”

  “Isn’t it?” she cut in. “Are you sure? Oh,” she went on miserably, “I was so excited about it. To think that I could have a really interesting, challenging job despite my hideous lack of qualifications …”

  She was near to tears now and she stood up abruptly, pulling away from his restraining hand. “It’s all right for you,” she said. “You really love your work, don’t you? Well, why shouldn’t I be able to do something I enjoy, too?”

  “Darling,” he said, in what he hoped was an eminently reasonable tone, “I’m not saying you shouldn’t. I’m just saying, does it have to be this?”

  “Well I’m still not convinced that that is all you’re saying. Oh, what’s the point in talking about it any longer. I’m going to have a bath.” And she swung away and walked quickly out of the room before he could stop her.

  Thanet looked gloomily after her. The situation seemed to be deteriorating by the day. And this idea of hers … It was crazy, absolutely crazy. Not that he couldn’t see that she would enjoy the work, probably be very good at it … Oh, to hell with the whole business, he thought. He glanced at his watch. Nine o’clock. He would watch the news.

  He switched on the television then sat back on the settee, tried to relax. At first it was impossible, but when the news ended there was an interesting documentary on behavioural patterns in the criminal and he gradually became absorbed in the programme.

  When it ended he switched off the television, unplugged it and listened to the silence of the house. Joan must have gone to bed long ago. He fixed the spark guard firmly in position in front of the fire, checked that both front and back doors were securely locked and went upstairs.

  In the bedroom the little lamp on his bedside table was still burning and Joan was merely a humped shape, turned on to her side away from the light. Presumably she was asleep, or pretending to be. She did not stir as he entered the room, came and went to the bathroom, undressed and got into bed.

  Thanet switched out the light and composed himself for sleep. But the darkness, the silence (broken only by Joan’s soft, even breathing) and the absence of any form of distraction combined to create the perfect conditions for his mind immediately to start working again in top gear. Unable to prevent it functioning, and unwilling to discipline it to logical thought, he let it go free. Like a dog newly released from the lead it ran about with abandon, briefly following one train of thought then switching abruptly, for no apparent reason, to another.

  At first he brooded over his recent argument with Joan and then he meandered off into disjointed thoughts about the case: fleeting images of the people involved, snatches of conversation, fragments of the reports he had read that afternoon. Lineham appeared briefly from time to time, commenting on the case or expressing anxiety about the wedding. And in and out of it all, a pathetic, elusive and really rather unpleasant little wraith, floated Carrie Birch.

  Despite what he had learned about her, Thanet found to his surprise that he still felt sorry for her. Who knows what she would have been like, if the circumstances of her life had been different? Shaped and moulded by that monstrously self-centred and domineering mother, Carrie had been forced to find her secret satisfactions or perish as a person. Who could really blame her if those satisfactions had taken a form distasteful to those fortunate enough not to have been warped by their upbringing? God forbid that he and Joan should ever cripple Bridget and Ben in that way, he thought.

  In a philosophical mood by now, Thanet reflected on the damage caused by possessiveness. Convinced as he was that it was in ferreting out some secret that Carrie had brought about her own death, he thought now that in all justice the true murderer was Carrie’s mother, Mrs Birch. Although it was a fate that he would not wish upon any one, perhaps in a way it was only poetic justice that she should have ended up alone, unwanted and abandoned—for can love not flourish only and above all where it is freely given?

  Look at Marion Pitman and her father, he thought, warming to his theme. The old man asked nothing and in response was loved without reserve, to the point of self-sacrifice on Marion’s part; whereas so many of the other people in the case seemed to have been crippled in one way or another by possessiven
ess.

  Take the Ingrams, for example. Thanet was willing to bet that if Joy Ingram had not been so fiercely and unremittingly jealous of her husband he would never have been driven to find consolation elsewhere.

  And then there were the Selbys. Susan, panting to get away, seething with bitter resentment against her father; and poor, pathetic Irene Selby, her fine talent gone to waste, driven to the bottle for the comfort which her life with that pompous, posing little monster of a husband could never give her.

  And there was poor old Miss Cox, self-condemned to a life of loneliness, shying away from any kind of personal contact simply because many years ago she had invested all her loving in a boy who died.

  Nearer home there was Lineham’s mother, in danger of losing her son altogether because she had sought to bind him too closely to her.

  How strange it was that these people, the ones who demanded the service, allegiance and obedience of their nearest and dearest as a right, could never see that in the long run it was they themselves who were the losers.

  At this point in the catalogue Thanet stopped. For the last few minutes he had been aware of a feeling of pressure inside his head, a sensation of—what?—restlessness in his limbs. The atmosphere of the room seemed suddenly to have become oppressive and he felt stifled, found that he was sweating slightly.

  Could he be ill? Perhaps he was going to have a heart attack. He had heard that these frequently occurred in the small hours, though he had never understood why. It really was suffocating in here. He had to have some air.

  The absence of pain in his chest decided him that it was quite safe to get up. Taking care not to wake Joan he slid out of bed and crossed to the window. It was slightly ajar, but easing up the catch he opened it wide and leaned out to breathe in great gulps of the chill night air.

  After a moment or two he felt calmer but still uneasy and very wide awake. He decided that he would go down and make himself a pot of tea.

  Downstairs it was chilly. The central heating was always switched off at night and the kitchen had no other form of heat. He unearthed an electric fire from the cupboard under the stairs and plugged it in while the kettle boiled. Soon, with the tea made and a comforting glow emanating from the bars of the fire he was sitting at the kitchen table.