All Shall Be Well

by Deborah Crombie

  Kincaid finished his beer and stood up. “Thank you, Major. I’m sorry.” Letting himself out the back way, he climbed the steps to Jasmine’s flat and stood a moment at the top, looking down into the garden. The Major’s roses were only visible as dark shapes in the light from the flat’s windows. Roses as tribute to Jasmine, and perhaps to his long-dead wife and daughter as well. Kincaid felt sure that the Major had carried their deaths inside himself for most of a lifetime, a tightly wrapped nugget of sorrow. Perhaps his contact with Jasmine had begun a much-needed release.

  Lights came on in the house behind the garden. Through the windows the illuminated rooms were as sharp and clear as stage sets, and Kincaid wondered what secret despair their inhabitants hid under their everyday personas. Someone drew the curtains, the glimpse into those unknown lives vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. Kincaid shivered and went in.

  I’ve spent my life waiting for things that never happened, and now I find I can’t wait for the one thing that will finally, inevitably come.

  I’m afraid. Felicity says the tumor’s growth could break my ribs, and then even the morphine may not protect me from the pain. As it is, swallowing solid food becomes more difficult every day, and I can’t bear the idea of a feeding tube, or of being utterly helpless, bathed and cleaned like a baby.

  Life has an odd way of coming full circle. It’s rather ironic that Felicity is the one person who’s been unfailingly honest with me. Although Meg’s adopted my disease like a stepchild, fascinated with its every aspect, she still tries to shield me from what’s to come. Can I count on her to help me?

  Don’t need Meg’s help, that’s just weakness. It won’t keep me from being alone, but at least I’ll be prepared, meet death face-to-face rather than have it take me unawares.

  Poor Meg. What will she do without looking after me, or without me to look after her?

  Should I say good-bye to Theo? No. That’s weakness on my part again. Better for him to remember me as I was. And I find I don’t want to know if the business is going well—I’d know in an instant from his face if it’s not, and this last reprieve is all I can give him. From now on he’ll have to manage the best he can.

  It’s odd how my world has shrunk to the walls of the flat and the view from the garden steps, and what importance those who come through my door have assumed. Their visits are the clock of my days: Felicity’s morning briskness, Meg’s lunchtime breathless disarray, the Major’s comforting teatime silence, and Duncan—Duncan is dessert, I suppose. No matter how I’ve been, if he stops by in the evening I find the strength to talk, to listen, to laugh. He can’t know what a difference he’s made in my life, yet if I tell him I’m afraid it will spoil the ease between us.

  Sidhi watches me as I write, puts a paw up occasionally to touch the moving pen. One of those ridiculous human occupations, I’m sure he thinks, as incomprehensible and fascinating as the turning pages of a book. I think how much I’ll miss him before I can stop myself. How absurd. I shan’t miss anything at all.

  He closed the last journal slowly and returned it to the shoe-box. A glass of wine stood half-drunk on the coffee table—he’d become so absorbed in reading that he’d forgotten it.

  The final journal entry was dated the week before Jasmine’s death and occupied the last page in the book.

  Kincaid stood and stretched, finishing his wine and carrying his crepe wrappers into the kitchen. After leaving Jasmine’s flat he’d changed into jeans and sweater and walked up Rosslyn Hill to the crepe stand. The young man in the open booth poured batter and wielded his spatula with the dexterity of an artist, his arms bare against the evening chill. “Ham? Cheese? Mushrooms? Bell peppers? Fancy anything else, then?” he’d asked, the questions not interrupting his concentration or the smoothness of his movements. Kincaid had watched, his back turned deliberately to the Häagen-Dazs shop, determined not to think of Jasmine and rum-raisin ice cream.

  Now he washed out his glass and stood irresolutely in his kitchen, tired from the day’s driving, too restless and unsettled to contemplate sleep. After a long moment he picked up his keys from the counter and went downstairs to Jasmine’s flat.

  He’d left a lamp on earlier for the cat, chiding himself for being a fool. Weren’t cats supposed to see in the dark? And he doubted very much whether Sid found comfort in the familiar light.

  Everything looked just as he had left it, looked just as it had looked a week ago when he and Gemma had searched the flat from top to bottom. Nevertheless, he started again, lifting the mattress on the hospital bed, feeling under the armchair cushion, running his hands behind the rows of the books on the shelves. He moved to the secretary, examining each nook and slot as carefully as he had the first time.

  People’s lives accumulated the oddest detritus, he thought, staring at the items littering the top drawer. Stubs of old theater tickets, aged and yellowed business cards, receipts for things bought and forgotten long ago, all mixed with a jumble of pens, pencil stubs and scraps of paper.

  What would he leave behind in his flat if he were to walk in front of a bus tomorrow? What would some anonymous searcher make of his dusty collection of paperback science fiction, or the sixties’ and seventies’ records he couldn’t bear to give away even though he no longer owned a turntable?

  What would they make of the wedding photos stuck in the back of his bureau drawer? Of Vic, with her Alice-in-Wonderland hair and pale, innocent face—Vic, who had sabotaged much of his trust and naive faith in human nature? He should thank her, he supposed—neither quality would have proved advantageous to a rising career copper.

  The school reports and drawings, term papers and rugby trophies his mother had boxed away in her Cheshire attic with other childish souvenirs. What had Jasmine done with the mementos of her childhood? He’d found no snapshots or letters, nothing from the years in India or Dorset except the journals.

  He moved into the bedroom. Jasmine’s silky caftans brushed against his fingers as he felt along the back of the wardrobe. To one side hung business suits and dresses, their shoulders covered with a film of dust, as were the stylish pumps neatly arranged in the wardrobe’s floor.

  Finding nothing there, he sat down on the small stool before the dressing table and stared at his reflection in the mirror. The light from the lamp on the table’s right side cast shadows that rendered unfamiliar the planes and angles of his face and left his eyes dark. He blinked and pushed the hair off his brow with his fingers, then pulled open the middle drawer. Women’s cosmetics never ceased to amaze him. Even women like Jasmine, who in all other respects were relatively orderly, seemed unable to do more than confine the mess to a specific area. And they never seemed to throw the used bits and pieces away. Jasmine’s drawer proved no exception. Half-empty pots of eye shadow and rouge, lipsticks used down to the metal inner casing, brushes and sponges, all covered with a fine dusting of face powder. He sniffed. From somewhere came the scent he associated with Jasmine. Exotically floral with a hint of musk, it almost reminded him of incense.

  He was lifting the slips and nightgowns in a bottom drawer when his hand struck something hard. His pulse quickened, then sank as he lifted the object out and realized it was not a journal but a framed photograph. He turned it over curiously.

  She was instantly recognizable. When he’d passed Briantspuddle the day before and imagined a twenty-year-old Jasmine walking out her cottage door, he’d seen her exactly like this—the long, dark hair, the smooth, olive skin and delicate oval of her face. Her expression was relaxed, serious except for the hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth and in the dark eyes that gazed directly into his.

  Carefully, he set the photo on the dresser-top, Jasmine’s face next to his mirrored reflection. Gemma had searched this room carefully—she must have seen the photo. He wondered briefly why she hadn’t shown it to him.

  He finished with the dresser and the chest of drawers, looked under the bed and in the drawer of the nightstand, but found nothing else.
>
  Returning to the sitting room, he found Sid curled up on the hospital bed’s bright cotton spread. He’d seen the cat so often in the same spot, tucked into a tight, black ball against Jasmine’s hip or thigh.

  Kincaid sat on the edge of the bed and pushed the button to raise its head, then leaned back against the pillows. His chest ached suddenly, fiercely. He squeezed his eyes shut and buried his fingers in Sid’s thick coat.

  CHAPTER

  19

  Meg took the baggage claim ticket from the attendant and tucked it away inside her handbag. Eighteen months of her life were contained in one battered leather suitcase and a dufflebag, now locked securely away in the railway station baggage claim. It had surprised her how large and bare the bedsit looked, stripped of her meager belongings.

  On her way to the station she had taken great satisfaction in posting a letter to the planning office giving her notice, but telling her landlady she was leaving hadn’t quite lived up to her expectations. In fact, an expression Meg might almost have described as regret flashed across Mrs. Wilson’s fleshy face before she said, “I’ll not be sorry to see the back of that Roger, I can tell you. You mind my words, girl, you’ll be better off without him.”

  Meg had come to the same conclusion herself some time ago, but doing something about it was a more difficult matter. She’d lain awake all night in the narrow bed, thinking, planning, daring to imagine a future in which she controlled her own destiny.

  By morning she’d reached a decision, if only she had the courage to see it through. She knew she couldn’t confront Roger alone, but face him she must. So she compromised, burning her other bridges first, making sure there could be no going back.

  From the station she took the bus to Shepherd’s Bush roundabout and walked the last few blocks to The Blue Angel. Roger’s mate Jimmy worked in a nearby garage and Roger could often be found in the pub at Saturday lunchtime. She was counting on his pride in front of his mates keeping him from following her when she’d finished what she had to say.

  Still, she hesitated outside the door of the pub, her stomach in knots, her breath coming fast. Two men barrelled out the door, nearly knocking her down. Meg stepped back, then ran her fingers through her hair and pulled open the door.

  The air was thick with smoke, the noise level raucously high. Holding on to her position in the scrum near the door, she stood on tiptoe as she searched the crowded tables. She spotted Jimmy first, then Matt with his fluffy blond hair and drooping mustache, then Roger, with his back to her. The crowd didn’t part like the Red Sea as she pushed her way across the room—she almost laughed as the biblical analogy flew through her mind, wondering at the strange sense of exhilaration she felt. Matt saw her before she reached the table, said in his sneering way, “Hey, Rog, here’s your bird come looking for you,” but for once that didn’t bother her. Jimmy smiled at her—he wasn’t a bad sort, really—and Roger turned to face her, expressionless.

  “Roger. Can I have a word?” Her voice was steadier than she expected.

  “What’s stopping you?”

  She looked at Jimmy and Matt. “I meant alone.”

  Roger rolled his eyes in exasperation. There were no free tables, and every available bench and stool was jammed with bodies. He looked at his friends and jerked his head toward the bar. “Get us another one, will you, lads?”

  They went, Jimmy with better grace than Matt, and Meg wedged herself past a heavy woman at the next table and sat on the bench they’d vacated.

  Roger started before she could draw a breath, pushing his pint aside to lean across the table and hiss at her. “What do you mean, coming here and making a fool of me in front of my mates, you silly bi—”

  “Roger, I’m leaving. I—”

  “—should bloody well hope so. And don’t—”

  “Roger. I mean it’s finished. You and me. I’ve given notice at work. I’ve left the bedsit. I’ve written to Superintendent Kincaid, letting him know how to reach me. I’m telling you good-bye.”

  For the first time she could remember she’d left him speechless—not sulking in deliberate silence, but mouth open, bereft of words.

  He closed his mouth, opened it again and said, “What do you mean, you’re leaving? You can’t.”

  Meg could feel her body starting to tremble, but she hung on to the feeling of power that had flooded through her. “I can.”

  “What about the money,” he said, leaning forward again and lowering his voice. “We agreed—”

  Meg didn’t bother to lower hers. “I never agreed to anything. And you’ll not see a penny of it. You wanted her dead. Did you make sure, Roger? I don’t know what you’ve done, but I’m finished covering up for you.”

  His eyes widened in astonishment. “You’d grass on me, wouldn’t you? You bitch. You—” He stopped, took a breath and closed his eyes, and when he opened them again he was back in control. “Think about it, Meg. Think about how much you’ll miss me.” He raised his hand and ran a finger down her cheek.

  She jerked her head back, turning her face away from him.

  “So that’s how it is,” he said, the venom fully evident again. “Run home to Mummy and Daddy, then. You’ve got no place else to go. Work in your dad’s garage, let every filthy old bastard that comes in pinch your bum; change your sister’s brats’ dirty nappies—you’re welcome to it. And you can tell your precious Superintendent Kincaid whatever you bloody well like, because they’ll not pin anything on me.” There was nothing pleasant about Roger’s smile. “You fancy the Superintendent, don’t you, Meg? I’ve seen the way you look at him. Well, he’s way out of your league, darling, and you’re a bigger fool than I thought.”

  Meg felt the hot rush of color stain her face, but she refused to let him bait her. Standing, she squeezed her way clear of the table and stood close enough to Roger for his arm to brush her thighs when he moved. She looked down into his face, noted the way his eyelashes fanned against his cheek when he blinked, and she sensed the fear beneath his bravado. “So are you,” she said, and turned away She didn’t look back.

  “Ta, Charlie,” Meg said to the driver as the bus groaned to a halt beneath the Abinger Hammer clock. It was the daily Dorking to Guildford run, and the driver one of her father’s regular customers. She waved as the doors swished shut behind her, then watched the bus until it disappeared around the bend in the road.

  The shop was across the road, unmistakable, just the way she remembered it. She brushed her hands down the front of her coat, discovering a stain where she must have spilled the pop she’d drunk on the train from London to Dorking. The stop at her parents’ had been brief—she’d put her bags in her old room, refused her mother’s offer of tea, and refused to answer any questions. “Not now, Mum. There’s somebody I have to see.”

  The thought of the astonished expression on her mum’s face made her smile. No one in her family ever expected little Margaret to be uncooperative, or to have plans of her own.

  She crossed the street slowly, pausing again outside the shop. Lights shone through the French panes of the windows, but there was no movement inside. Her heart thumped against her chest and her fingers trembled as she touched the door handle. A bell tinkled briefly somewhere in the back of the shop as she stepped inside. Her heart sank as she looked around at the jumble of rubbish that passed for a display. Old farm implements, china, a rocking horse, moldy books, nothing arranged with a semblance of balance or order, and over everything lay an aura of neglect.

  But as she moved carefully through the cluttered aisle, looking, touching, possibilities began to emerge. She had knelt to dip her hand into a basket of antique buttons when a door opened and she heard Theo’s voice. “Can I help—Margaret?”

  She stood, a silver-gilt button still clasped in her fingers. “Hullo, Theo. Why don’t you call me Meg. Jasmine did, you know.”

  “What are you doing … I mean, it’s nice to see you. I just didn’t expect—”

  “I’ve come to make you a
proposition.” Although her voice felt shaky, it seemed to sound all right, so she took a breath and plowed on. “Is there someplace we can talk?”

  Theo seemed to collect himself. “Of course. We can go upstairs.

  “I’m afraid it’s not much,” he said as he led the way. “I suppose I’ve got used to living out of boxes over the years. The bare necessities.”

  Meg surveyed the armchair and camp bed, the packing crates and hotplate. “I know,” she said, thinking of her bedsit, “but you’ve made it cozy enough.”

  “Here, have a seat,” he directed her to the armchair, “and I’ll make us some tea.”

  She watched him fill an electric kettle in the little alcove that served as a kitchen, her tongue suddenly too frozen to make small talk. Dear god, what ever had possessed her to invent such a harebrained scheme? He’d laugh at her, at the very least, at worst reject her with well-deserved scorn—and then where would she be? No worse off than she’d been before, she told herself firmly, and still with the means to start a new life for herself.

  Theo brought the tea on a lacquered tray, with china cups and matching cream and sugar. “Sometimes I do pinch nice things for myself,” he said, seeing her expression. “Coalport. I’ve always had a fondness for this pattern, and it’s common enough not to be terribly valuable.”

  The china seemed to focus the light in the bare room, and its cobalt-and-rust, intertwining leaf-and-dragon pattern made Meg think of Jasmine. “Jasmine never lost her taste for the exotic, either.”