Alice Hartley‘s Happiness

by Gregory, Philippa

  Inspector Bromley did not waste a lot of time on Michael. It took three seconds to explain to him that it was not his parents who were in trouble, and something like ten minutes to reduce him to a weeping fourth-former. A further ten minutes later and Michael had signed a full and complete statement of all the events ever since he had first aided Mrs Hartley in her burglary of the marital home.

  ‘I didn’t realize I was doing anything wrong,’ he said feebly.

  ‘Of course you didn’t, son,’ the CID officer said gently. ‘But there have been a lot of things going on here which are outside the law and we don’t want a young lad like you mixed up in them.’

  Michael had a brief fleeting vision of the days when he was not ‘a young lad like you’, but a master of sexual arts for whom middle-aged women changed their hairdressing appointments, lied to their husbands, and paid thirty pounds a visit. Of the brief time when he had been everything in the world to the witch-goddess Mrs Hartley. Of the young god he had been when Mrs Hartley bundled her husband in blue nylon car wrap so that she could drive him wherever he wanted to go in a custom-built concourse-condition Jaguar.

  Michael sighed.

  He had never thought it would last. But he had not thought it would end so suddenly and in the hands of the law.

  ‘Any idea where she buried the old lady, son?’

  Michael guppled. ‘The old lady? Aunty Sarah?’

  The policeman nodded.

  ‘Aunty Sarah’s not dead!’ he exclaimed. ‘She was perfectly well when I saw her last night. She was more active every day. Why! She baby-sat for us last night, when we went out to help Louise give birth with the dolphins.’ Michael paused. ‘Well, she was a bit pissed,’ he volunteered honestly.

  The policeman consulted his notes. ‘Was that the supper in which the toadstools known as “magic mushrooms” were consumed with the result of food-poisoning and ’allucinations for the vicar?’ he asked.

  ‘No!’ Michael exclaimed. ‘That was earlier! And anyway, the vicar wasn’t hallucinating. He really did see Aunty Sarah. He was just upset because Alice doesn’t like Series Two communion.’

  The police constable who was taking notes in the corner breathed heavily as he puzzled over whether communion had one or two m’s followed by one or two n’s.

  Inspector Bromley paused. ‘His wife has testified that he was ’allucinating all the way home,’ he said. ‘She called in at Doctor Simmonds’s, and he examined the aforesaid vicar and has made a statement to us to the effect that the man was drugged up to the eyeballs. Apparently he spoke in an abrupt and abusive manner to Doctor and Mrs Simmonds, he took his wife home and behaved quite unlike himself for the rest of the evening.’

  Michael’s jaw dropped as he thought of Maurice weeping into the sofa while Alice turned him over with her toe, and then Maurice going home with his energy released to storm and rage.

  ‘Was he violent with his wife?’ he asked, appalled.

  The CID man consulted his notes. ‘She said: “He Was Like A Madman,”’ he read slowly. ‘She said: “It Was Absolutely Terrific.”’

  The policeman in the corner blinked, a puzzled frown on his face.

  ‘Anyway,’ Inspector Bromley said, recovering ground rapidly. ‘That’s the doctor’s testimony – that the vicar was hallucinating. And we have it on record that he thought he saw your Aunty Sarah at the supper table.’

  ‘She was with us for supper,’ Michael said desperately. ‘She gets up for her meals now all the time.’

  The CID man rose a little on his toes and subsided again looking severely at Michael. ‘Now, now,’ he said. ‘We know that Miss Coulter is dead because Doctor Simmonds signed her death certificate.’

  ‘She seemed dead,’ Michael said helpfully. ‘But then she had some of Alice’s herbal tea and she came round.’

  ‘Mrs Hartley cured her?’ the CID man asked. ‘Of death?’

  Michael blushed unstoppably at the thought of Alice trying to poison Aunty Sarah. ‘Not exactly,’ he said weakly. ‘But none of us knew how nice she was then. Alice gave her the herbal tea to, kind of, help her off.’

  ‘Mrs Hartley poisoned her?’ the CID man demanded. ‘Is this before or after the signing of the death certificate?’

  ‘After,’ Michael said helpfully. ‘But only a little bit after. Just after Doctor Simmonds left, actually. Then we thought she was dead and we went out, and then when we came back she got better and better, and now she is quite well.’

  The constable in the corner was so fascinated by this story that he had forgotten to take notes. He met the CID man’s eyes and they exchanged a quick shrug. Michael, it was clear to both of them, was permanently out to lunch. Criminal proceedings would be largely a waste of time. The young man was off his trolley.

  ‘If your Aunty Sarah is quite well,’ the CID man said, speaking slowly and clearly as if he was demonstrating how to make a tank out of a cotton reel and two matchsticks for the under-fives on Play School. ‘If your Aunty Sarah is quite well, making soup for vicars, drinking herbal tea and baby-sitting, then where is she now?’

  Michael fell silent.

  He looked around the room.

  ‘Well, I don’t exactly know,’ he said eventually. ‘You see, I’ve been out all morning, and I’ve only just come in, she could be anywhere really.’

  The CID man nodded. ‘That’ll be all for now,’ he said. ‘We’ll go next door and join your parents and the others.’

  Michael nodded miserably. There was the sound of car wheels on the drive. The room flashed with the blue rotating light of a police car.

  ‘What’s that?’ Michael asked peevishly.

  The Inspector looked out of the window as the car lined up to park with others on the drive. ‘Drug squad’s already here,’ he said. ‘So it could be the vice squad about the brothel charge, or the fraud squad about the fraud charges, or the lads from the Serious Incident Unit about the two kidnaps and the murder,’ he said. ‘No,’ he corrected himself. ‘It’s the local bobby, come about the trespass and criminal damage to the hayfield. He went off to fetch the trespass forms after he brought the husband.’

  ‘Husband?’ Michael said, totally at sea. ‘I didn’t know Aunty Sarah had a husband?’

  ‘Not Aunty Sarah,’ the CID officer explained with elaborate scorn. ‘Mrs Hartley. You remember, Professor Hartley, at your university. Him that’s going to invigilate at your exams at the end of this term. Him that gets to decide whether you pass or fail after three years’ work and no chance of a re-take. The bloke whose wife you nicked, whose house you stripped, whose car you stole.’

  ‘Oh, that husband,’ Michael said.

  ‘Come on,’ the CID man said. ‘Let’s make a family party of it. I want to know what’s going on.’

  Michael blinked at him owlishly. He did not share this chummy curiosity. He had no feelings except a profound need for a good meal and a long rest. He had a sense, forgivable in one who, though very much more experienced than the average twenty-year-old, was nonetheless still quite young, that it was all a bit too much for him and he should not be asked to deal with it.

  ‘Come on,’ the constable said, not unkindly. ‘Face the music. You’ll be getting off lightly. The husband won’t kill you. He’s been quite calm about it all, really.’

  Useless for Michael to remember that it was Charles Hartley’s calm which was responsible for the whole sorry business. He was propelled from the room by the unfeeling Inspector, and then taken over in the hall by his bracing father who swooshed him into the lounge into the middle of a conversation between Alice Hartley and her estranged husband, Charles.

  Alice was quite unlike herself.

  Michael had seen her in half a dozen bright coloured dresses with trailing skirts and fringed shawls. He had never thought she had ordinary clothes at all. But there she was, sitting on one of Professor Hartley’s hessian-covered chesterfield chairs by the cold fireplace, dressed in a pair of jeans and a dark coloured sweatshirt, her face shiny fro
m soap and water, her eyes pink and swollen from crying, her hair drawn back from her face in a greasy ponytail, her colour pale. She looked like a woman who has been arrested in Fine Fare for lifting half a pound of cheese. She looked like a woman who phones in to mid-morning consumer programmes to complain of psychosomatic gynaecological ailments. She looked like a woman who gets migraine, and back pains, and premenstrual tension. She looked like a woman who gets allergies, and nervous eczema. She looked like a woman who has lost.

  ‘Oh, Alice,’ Michael said, and his young voice was full of pity.

  Charles and Alice looked around. Charles frowned and then recognized him. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said redundantly.

  Michael nodded, as if grateful for the confirmation. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  Alice said nothing at all.

  ‘I see you’ve met my mother and father,’ Michael said politely. ‘I told you they would pop down to see us.’

  She nodded, her dark eyes dulled. ‘Michael, where is Aunty Sarah?’ she demanded. ‘Do you know? They all think we killed her, Michael! Where is she? When I went into her bedroom, it looked like she climbed out of the window. Why would she do that? Where can she be?’

  Michael shrugged helplessly. ‘I told them that you changed your mind about poisoning her when she had such a strong Life Force and survived after your first attempt,’ he said helpfully.

  Alice’s eyes darkened with despair. ‘Thanks very much,’ she said bitterly.

  Michael paused, then he glanced at Charles Hartley and cleared his throat. ‘Alice,’ he said tentatively. ‘I don’t want to seem stupid, but am I right in thinking that it is all over between us?’

  There was a silence. The room had always seemed so airy and spacious; but now it was filled with many people. Professor Hartley, Michael’s mother, Michael’s father, Doctor Simmonds, a couple of uniformed policemen, Jon-Jo sitting as quietly as he could in the corner and trying to be invisible, the CID man, the drug squad man with one of the sniffer dogs, Michael – and Alice, who sat so still and so silent by the empty hearth.

  ‘It’s all over for me at any rate,’ she said dully. ‘Whether it’s prison at home or prison at prison, it’s all over for me.’

  It was very quiet for a moment. Then from far away down the lane came the moaning wail of another police car and in a few moments it had turned up the drive.

  ‘Fraud squad,’ said Inspector Bromley. ‘Brought their own warrant.’

  As the front door opened and a man yelled as the other sniffer dog bit him, there was another wail from down the lane, abruptly cut off as the police car shut off the siren and turned down Aunty Sarah’s narrow drive.

  ‘Serious crimes squad,’ the CID man said. ‘About the murder and the kidnap, with their warrant. Forensic lads will be along in a moment. They’ll have the lawn up in no time. First thing they will look at is those newly dug flower-beds. Best you make a full confession, Mrs Hartley. That’s my advice. We think you hid the old lady’s body and pretended you had cured her; or else she recovered after the doctor’s visit and then you murdered her and buried her on the premises. I’d come clean if I was you, Mrs Hartley.’

  A bright-faced old man in khaki shorts biked up the drive and leaned his bicycle against the ornamental stone flowerpots at the front of the house. He straightened the toggle around his khaki shirt and whistled a bright little glee as he skipped blithely up the steps.

  The drug squad dog growled nastily at him as he put his head around the door.

  ‘Looking for the householder,’ he said cheerily.

  ‘Why is that then, Sir?’ Inspector Bromley said cautiously.

  ‘District Commissioner for Brighton Scouts, Hutchen’s the name, the lads call me Rabbit – get it? Hutchen … Hutch … Rabbit Hutch … Rabbit!’

  ‘Yes, Mr Rabbit,’ the Inspector said wearily. ‘Why did you want the householder here?’

  Hutchen looked around the room, missing his friend Doctor Simmonds in the crowd. ‘There’s been a complaint about abuse of Boy Scouts on these premises,’ he said confidentially. ‘Employing them in a bawdy house under the direction of chorus girls. Could be very nasty. It’s the sort of thing I like to be very careful about.’

  ‘Vice squad,’ Inspector Bromley said promptly. ‘Not my direct responsibility right now. You’ll have to wait your turn, Sir, and these gentlemen will take you next door for a full statement.’

  ‘Right you are!’ Hutchen said briskly, throwing a salute at the vice squad men.

  ‘Now then,’ Inspector Bromley said gently to Alice. ‘Seems that the longer we stay here the more charges come in. Hadn’t you better make a clear simple statement so that we can all go home and get our dinners? Except for you, that is,’ he said fairly.

  Alice looked around fearfully at all the closed faces.

  Michael’s parents, his ghastly mother, so near her own age, with her silly amiable smile and her badly cut red silk suit, staring at Alice full of repressed Oedipal desire and open envy. His father, red-faced and champing, but none the less deeply excited at being in on a kill to rival any fox-hunt in Kent. The drug squad with their mean faces and remarkably dilated pupils, lounging in the doorway, the vice squad with their hands moving rhythmically in their pockets, lost in a world of their own.

  As she looked around she heard the back door open and heard the vicar’s nervous voice say from the hall: ‘I thought there might be a place for a totally neutral voice here, saying … “now just wait a moment, I believe we can look at this in a positive way”.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Alice said in misery.

  In the hall the dog growled sulkily at the vicar’s sandals and jeans and Greenpeace t-shirt. ‘Hello!’ Maurice said irrepressibly, as he came into the room. He looked around and saw the tableau around Alice, like outraged peasants heaping faggots around the bare vulnerable feet of a long-ago witch.

  ‘Quite a party,’ he said cheerily. ‘But I wonder if there’s a place here for someone who – while not an expert by any means – has maybe thought about these issues a little? Maybe someone like me who can say, “Now come on let’s all sit down together and think this thing through”? Someone who can bring a bit of common sense, and a drop of training, and a little idea of how things ought to be and say: “Come on, gang, let’s work with the flow rather than against it!”’

  The CID man shot a look at the drug squad man. ‘Is he high now?’ he asked under his breath. ‘He sounds like it.’

  The drug squad dog whined. The drug squad man tapped the vicar gently on the shoulder. ‘Would you just come in here, Sir?’ he said politely. ‘I’d like to check a few things with you.’

  Maurice beamed, delighted. In all the years since his ordination no one had ever voluntarily asked him to spend some time with them.

  ‘Oh, of course!’ he said. ‘Of course! All the time in the world. You just tell me what’s on your mind and I’ll see if I can help you with it.’

  They went into the library together and Alice caught a glimpse of the two wives behind him: the vicar’s wife, and the doctor’s wife, who had been so quick to spot wrongdoing and so foolish not to grasp the opportunity to do a little wrong themselves.

  Alice sighed. She hadn’t liked them personally but that would never have stood in their way. All they would have had to do was ask, pay an astronomical enrolment fee, and they too could have done whatever they liked with whoever was available.

  It all seemed such an utter waste! Such a miserable ending to what had been such a wonderful idea! Such a death of life! Of libido! Of freedom! Probably a death of Jungian archaic myths too for all Alice knew!

  ‘Shit,’ she said under her breath.

  Professor Hartley looked down at her and frowned. It was his ‘I know better than you’ frown. Alice had seen it before. Oh! For years and years and years.

  ‘Keep your voice down, dear,’ he said levelly. ‘I should have thought that even you would see that you are in enough trouble as it is.’

  ‘Professor Hartley.’ Ins
pector Bromley stepped forward. A lump over his heart was making strange gargling noises. Alice assumed it was a pacemaker of some sort and looked at his face to see signs of heart strain. She was rather surprised when his pacemaker said brightly: ‘Roger!’ and then fell silent.

  ‘Professor Hartley,’ the officer said. ‘Will you be accompanying your wife to the county police headquarters? We will have to charge her formally.’

  ‘Of course, officer!’ Charles said blithely. You would have thought he was enjoying this. And, gentle reader, you would have been spot on. ‘Certainly! I take it there could be no objection to me driving down in my own car? There is no dispute that the accused stole my car shortly after looting my house?’

  The CID man cocked an eyebrow at Alice.

  Dumbly, she shook her head.

  No, there was no denying it. The world had fallen about her ears, and she was going to carry the can. The only worry left to her, like the last surviving twitch in a landed, dying fish, was where was Aunty Sarah? And whoever would care for her when Alice was serving life imprisonment, and Michael and his red-faced father had forgotten all about her again? Alice could see her own future clearly. The long consecutive prison sentences, the greyness of day after day in Holloway – or worse, somewhere bright and cheerful where they would make her take OU degrees and mad peers of the realm would mount campaigns for her early release.

  But that was not the worst prospect. When she was banished from the normal world Sarah would be alone again. Alone and with nothing to do except to stay in bed and torment Daisy, the daily help.

  ‘I shan’t invite my wife to drive with me,’ Charles said smoothly. ‘Under the circumstances,’ he smiled with veiled triumph at the policeman, ‘under the circumstances I can’t think it would be entirely appropriate. Anyway, I take it she will have to go with you in the police car?’