Robbie's Wife

by Russell Hill

  This time, I found Ali and told him that Robbie was down in the alley and he was dead.

  “Sorry to hear that,” Ali said, “he was a sort of mate of yours, wasn’t he?”

  We carried Robbie up to his room, laid him out on the bed and I told Maxine that Robbie had died.

  “That’s a blessing,” she said. “I’ll tell Mrs. Precious.”

  I knew what would happen next. Agnes would call Alfie and Alfie would call the coroner. A black van would show up, careful to park in the back by the dustbins where no one could see it. Ali or Joshua and I would carry the body back to the basement door where it would be strapped to a wheeled gurney, stowed in the van and the van driver would have tea while Alfie, who had arrived by then, would fill out the paperwork. Relatives would be notified and Joshua and I would clear out the resident’s room, box the clothes and few personal things and change the linen. With that, the dead one ceased to exist.

  So it was with Robbie. I stood in the doorway and looked at his emaciated body and I tried to remember what he looked like at Sheepheaven Farm, but he had faded so that there were only snatches of remembered incidents: the night at the bottom of the stairs when he had shouted, “I have fallen and will not rise again,” his shrill whistle that sent Jack scrambling over the backs of the sheep. Hopefully, Maggie would come to Precious Little to make the final disposition of the body and collect Robbie’s few things. There was, of course, the chance that it would all be done by telephone and the post, but there were always things to sign. Whatever happened, it would happen quickly. Robbie was gone and now I would find out where Maggie was, that much was certain.

  46.

  I could see them on the street, waiting while a car passed, crossing toward the building. It was Maggie and Terry. Terry was nearly a foot taller than I remembered, a handsome boy, and he favored his father, shaggy black hair, slender, and he walked hesitantly, as if unsure of what he would find inside the building. They came to the concrete steps and disappeared beneath me. Maggie was in the same building and I was frozen.

  Leaning on the hood of a car just down the block was the traveler. He would, of course, not know that the two people who had crossed in front of him were Robbie’s wife and son. Or, perhaps he did know them. One of his women had been to Sheepheaven Farm, had put a curse on Robbie, and it was possible that he recognized Maggie. And if that were the case, then I would hear from him again, and he would once again make his demand that I pay him or he would tell her what he suspected. The only thing to do would be to watch him carefully, and wait until Maggie and Terry left. If he followed them, then he knew who they were. If he ignored them, then chances were he didn’t recognize them. Maggie would be making arrangements for Robbie’s body. It would, no doubt, go back to Mappowder where his parents were buried. And that would be where I would go.

  I wanted desperately to go downstairs, find Maggie and Terry, wrap my arms around her, put my hands in the small of her back, pull her tight against my body and go off with the two of them, find another kitchen where we could sit and have tea and wake in the morning with her body cupped against mine, and I wanted the dark traveler to disappear. Give up, I urged him. Go away. I’m a lost cause. You can’t do anything to me. I mouthed the words toward him, trying to send them into his brain, make him walk off. I would empty my Los Angeles account, give him what I had, and I was sorry I hadn’t already done it. But he was the kind who wouldn’t stop there, I realized. I would have to lose him, slip away from Precious Little, find Maggie. I could feel her in the rooms beneath me, and I knew that I would know where she was before the day was out.

  I waited in the empty room, and the traveler didn’t move, lit a cigarette once, took out a newspaper from his coat pocket and read from it, and then, when I saw Maggie and Terry coming out from below me, I watched him carefully, waiting for any sign that he knew her. But he didn’t move, and they walked past him and I wanted to run down the stairs and follow the two figures that had turned the corner.

  I went down to Alfie’s office where he said, “Jack! You missed her! Your Mrs. Barlow was here with her lad.”

  “She’ll be back again, won’t she?”

  “I’m afraid not. She made arrangements for her husband’s body and she’s off.”

  “And Robbie?”

  “He gets incinerated and his ashes goes up to a village past Dorchester. There’s a funeral home come to collect him from the coroner’s cold box this afternoon.”

  “Did she tell you where she’s staying?”

  “Afraid not, Jack. I suspect she’s on her way to wherever it is they’ll be leaving him.”

  “Do they scatter ashes in this country or do they bury them in a churchyard?”

  “They does all sorts of things, Jack. I’ve known some what keeps them on the mantelpiece in a vase. There’s lots that goes to sea. Take the ferry to France and drop dad’s ashes over the stern halfway across. There’s one that put granny into cement and molded a Virgin Mary for the front garden if you can believe that. Mrs. Barlow don’t seem that kind though. I suspect he’ll be buried proper.”

  I stood there, waiting for Alfie to finish, then I said, “Alfie, it’s time I moved on. Back to the States. I’ve been thinking about it, and I guess Friday’s my last day, if that works out for you.”

  “You’ve been here longer than I thought you would, Jack.”

  “You’re right about that.”

  “You’ve earned your keep, Jack, I’ll say that for you.”

  I’ve more than earned it, you cheap bastard, I thought. And now I knew where Maggie was. She’d be in Map-powder, waiting for Robbie’s ashes, and that’s where I’d find her. One more day at Precious Little and I would be gone. The traveler would have to whistle for his money. Knowing Alfie, there was no chance a stranger would pry out of him where Robbie’s ashes where headed.

  “You’ve been fair, Alfie.”

  “Well then, tomorrow it is, is it, Jack? There won’t be no send-off, though, your lot comes and goes, don’t it?”

  I nodded.

  “Oh yes,” he added, holding out an envelope. “Mrs. Barlow left this for you. I told her I had an American working for me who said he knew her. She said she knew you and left this note. I told her you were good to her husband and if she wanted I could hunt you down but she said no, just give this to you.”

  I took the envelope and said, “Thanks, Alfie. See you tomorrow, then? Last pay day?”

  “Tomorrow’s the day the duke shits, Jack.” He chuckled at his own joke. “Although I ain’t no duke, that’s for sure.”

  I went down to the basement. There was a table in the kitchen where we had tea in midmorning but I was the only one there, and I opened the envelope. There was a single sheet of paper and in a neat hand she had written:

  If you are the Jack Stone who stayed at Sheepheaven Farm, you need to know that I have closed the window and it is locked. I have crossed the room and found another door and, while I am grateful for what you have done here, I no longer want to stand in the rain, and the pain has subsided enough so that I can continue with my life. I can imagine that if I were to see you my resolve would crumble. I do not know why you did not see me. They said you were here. I cannot understand what drew you to care for Robbie. All of my energy goes into Terry, now. He grows to look more and more like his father. It has been a hard time for him. He, too, was damaged beyond repair. I do not miss the dance anymore. I have lost my blue jumper and did not buy another.

  Maggie

  I looked again at the envelope with Jack Stone neatly written on it. I read the note again. If she were to see me, her resolve would crumble. It was more that I could have hoped for. I would meet the traveler that night — I didn’t want him to try to contact Maggie. I’d give him some money. And on Friday I would collect my wages from Alfie, rent a car and disappear from Bournemouth. The pay wasn’t much, but a hundred and forty pounds would pay for the car for a week. Maggie would go to Mappowder to bury Robbie in the churchyard with h
is parents. She had not left an address but she must have known that I would go to Mappowder and I would find her there and I would be with her again. I felt a rush of adrenaline, could already see myself driving through green fields with Maggie waiting at the other end of the journey. I would collect my things from my room, come back to Precious Little and for a fiver George would let me bunk down in an empty room. I would take the bus to Salisbury tomorrow after I collected my pay, hire the car and be gone.

  I read the note again. She had crossed the room and found another door? Another life? Someone else? Had she excised Sheepheaven Farm and Robbie and all that it meant to her? I could not be sure what she meant, but the phrase ‘If I were to see you, my resolve would crumble’ was the key. I would go where she was and she would see me. Nothing else mattered.

  47.

  I went to the Kings Head on Thursday evening. I had three hundred pounds in twenty pound notes in my pocket. I would give the money to the traveler, and I would buy some time with it. With three hundred pounds in hand, he wouldn’t be anxious to kill the goose with the golden egg. I would be gone by the time he came to collect the rest of it and having some cash in hand would help to keep his silence. He would harbor the thought that he would find me again and blackmail me, only we would be long gone from Mappowder and it was highly unlikely that he could follow us beyond there. If I hadn’t been able to find Maggie, certainly he wouldn’t.

  I sat at a table in the corner as the pub filled, and it became noisy with shouts from the darts players rising over the hubbub, smoke filled the air and I waited, but there was no sign of him. I stayed, nursing my beer, eventually had another, and still he didn’t show. As the crowd began to thin out near closing time I went outside and stood at the door, looking across the promenade toward the sea. Strings of lights along the quay gave the harbor a festive look and I felt buoyant. He had either given up on me or something had happened to keep him from the appointment.

  I watched for the traveler on my way back to my room, careful not to take my usual route, but there was no sign of him. The fact that the traveler hadn’t shown up made me nervous. Why hadn’t he pressed his blackmail threat? There was the chance that something had happened to him. There was also the chance that he would be waiting for me in the morning outside the rooming house. Or outside Precious Care. I would have to be careful.

  I packed my clothes in my duffel bag. I was careful to take anything that might be a clue to who I was to the rubbish bin in the back alley so that when I was finished, the room was as spare as the night I had moved in. I took my duffel and my frozen laptop and made my way back to Precious Little.

  When I left my room he was nowhere to be seen. I caught my breath each time a walker approached, but I arrived at Precious Little without seeing him. I found George in the basement kitchen with the kettle on.

  “George, I’m leaving here after tomorrow.”

  I laid a fiver on the table.

  “What do you say I put my kit in an empty room upstairs and spend the night? Between you and me?”

  He picked up the bill.

  “You be my guest. Mr. Stone Sir.”

  “And Georgette?”

  “I’ll be telling her to pay you no mind. Cuppa tea, Mr. Stone Sir?”

  I had tea with George, took my bag upstairs and found an empty room. It seemed strange. I had put the sheets on that bed myself and I remembered Mrs. Grace, who had died that week, lying in the same bed, her frail body no more than a fold in the blankets, the smell of death in the room, medicine and disinfectant and urine and the letting go of the body, all lingering for hours, the windows open while Joshua and I stripped the bed, washed the floor and boxed up what little was left of Mrs. Grace’s life. Now I lay in her bed wondering where the traveler was and why he hadn’t shown up, imagining meeting Maggie, my mind racing back and forth between the yawning chasm and soft green fields.

  I couldn’t sleep, dressed and went back to the basement where I rummaged through the refrigerator, finding some leftover meat pie, and when I had heated it through, George showed up.

  “Smelled something nice,” he said. “You be telling Mrs. Precious that it was you what ate that, will you? She’s got a count on everything in that fridge, she has.”

  “Not to worry, George. She can take it out of my wage packet tomorrow.”

  He sat down and I dished some up for him. I asked him what he spent his nights doing at Precious Little.

  “A bit of this and a bit of that. I keeps the heat going, but not too much. Mr. Precious, he says too much heat ain’t good for the loonies and old folks. Makes them drowsy and puts them off their feed. I does the floors in the common room, empties the rubbish, keep a watch out. It’s just me and Georgette here, you know. And the oldies. And the loonies. Mostly oldies.”

  “What do you do during the day?”

  “Sleeps. Watches telly.”

  “You have a girlfriend?

  “Not so’s you’d notice. It’s hard to go places with granfer’s bike and take a bird.”

  It became apparent that George’s most constant companion was the ancient bicycle.

  It grew late, George went off to do a bit of this and a bit of that and I went back to Mrs. Grace’s bed. I remembered her as a quiet resident who never complained, a frail woman who carried herself with dignity.

  I was awake early, long before first light. I could hear stirrings up and down the corridor. Old people often have difficulty sleeping and some of them wake in the dark disoriented, especially the ones Agnes referred to as “second children.” These were the Alzheimer patients who forgot where they were, or lived in a world of remembered times and when they awoke in the dark they cried out for mothers or fathers or sisters or brothers long since dead.

  I could hear Georgette soothing someone and then George’s voice. Apparently a bit of this and that included helping Georgette with pre-dawn overload.

  I dressed and went out into the cold morning. I walked along the quay, the shops shuttered, a single coach lumbering along, only the driver and a solitary passenger. I walked all the way to the end, as I had often done with Robbie in his wheelchair, and I stood looking at the sky beginning to lighten over the hills at the edge of the harbor. And then the cloud cover began to break a bit and suddenly there was an opening and the sun was blazing in it, like a furnace door that had been opened, and I watched while it changed from orange to hot yellow and my eyes ached and then the door began to close and I was conscious of the lapping of the waves along the beach, a slow slapping, and I was reminded of the gentle applause that Joshua received for his dinnertime songs. Seagulls cried out, fighting over the leftovers from someone’s late night takeaway, then scattered as a car drove through them, its tires hissing on the wet pavement. It was light now and if the traveler was watching Precious Little this morning, I didn’t want him to see me, so I walked back on streets parallel to the prom, cutting through the alley to enter Precious Little by the basement door near the dustbins.

  Agnes wasn’t there yet, although Ali and Joshua were having a morning biscuit and tea. I went up to Mrs. Grace’s room, collected my things and brought them back to the kitchen.

  “What’s up, Jacko?” Joshua asked. “Lost your lodgings?”

  “No, today’s my last day. I’m going back to the States.”

  A smile lit up Joshua’s face.

  “You be a happier mon when you don’t have to work for the Duke and Duchess of Precious Little, dat for sure. Today de day de duke shits and you going to take dat little crap de size of a grape and fly home. You be a happy mon when you spread your wings, but we going to miss you, Jacko.”

  “I’ll miss you, too.”

  Ali sipped his tea and nodded.

  I made a cup of tea and when Agnes came down the stairs I told her I had helped myself to some meat pie. I didn’t want George to get blamed for the missing portion.

  “Mr. Precious tells me you’re leaving us, Mr. Stone. I’ll call that a going-away gift.”

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nbsp; Over her shoulder I could see Ali and Joshua bowing in mock supplication, looking up toward the ceiling and mouthing the words, ‘Thank you missus, thank you,’ and I realized that I was smiling broadly. I was smiling at their antics and smiling because I would see Maggie soon and there was no more Robbie, only a dim memory of a man I had met once who was a sheep farmer in Dorset who had suffered a terrible accident.

  But the image of Maggie leaning against the doorway in the hall, cradling her mug of tea and saying ‘there’s a handsome, gentle man and he’s only going to stay one night and what would happen if I went into his room in the middle of the night and fucked him’ was as bright and clear as the two men who sat opposite sipping tea.

  I went upstairs to arrange the common room for breakfast. Agnes was already making toast and rock-hard slices were being stacked on plates. Ali was making tea in chipped china pots. Each time I do something this morning, I thought, it will be the last time I do it. Joshua and I dressed those who could not dress themselves and I helped Mrs. Churchill who sipped her tea through a straw, tried to guide some of the porridge into Simple Simon’s mouth, the usual breakfast chores and as always it was a bit of controlled chaos. When it had settled down Joshua and I were off to change linen. I carefully looked out the window of the front of the building, but there was no sign of the traveler, nor was he at the back behind the dustbins. Another six hours, I thought, and I will have disappeared from Bournemouth.

  At midmorning, while Joshua and I were still stripping beds, Ali came to tell me that Alfie wanted to see me. I was puzzled, since Alfie never came into Precious Little in the mornings. When I entered his office there was Alfie behind his desk and another man, middle-aged, balding, sitting in the chair opposite Alfie. He studied me carefully as I came in.