Some Deaths Before Dying

by Peter Dickinson

  “Just leave it here till you’re ready, then?” said the woman, laying the tray down beside the door. Jenny thanked her and she left.

  “Your old gentleman looks in very fine shape for his age,” said the nurse.

  “Yes, thank heavens. Of course his memory comes and goes a bit, but today’s one of his good days.”

  “Wonderful how they can pull themselves together for an occasion. Now, we’ve got out some of her albums for her to show him so I’ll come and settle her down for a rest while you’re eating your dinner, and after that your old gentleman will want to go to the toilet, so you can take him out for that while I tidy her up and make her comfortable again. All right?”

  It worked out smoothly enough. When Uncle Albert came to fetch her she took the tray to the table and sat him down to eat, which he did with steady gusto. The food was much what Jenny would have chosen, cold chicken, salad, and what seemed to be homemade rolls, cheese and fresh fruit. Meanwhile the nurse dealt with Mrs. Matson and then made tea for Uncle Albert and coffee for Jenny. The brown envelope, Jenny noticed, was back in its place by the albums. The pistol was nowhere to be seen. The box in which they’d brought it was still on the bedside table, with the duster folder beside it. When they’d eaten Jenny took Uncle Albert out to the loo, as arranged.

  Emerging, he at once tried to head back to the bedroom.

  “Not yet, Uncle Albert,” she said. “We’ve got to wait while the nurse makes her comfortable—you know, cleans her up and so on. She can’t look after herself like the rest of us.”

  “Ah. Right you are. Got it.”

  He turned and began to study the spines of the albums on the shelves beside him, but almost at once swung round on her.

  “What are we waiting for, then?” he said. “We haven’t got all day.”

  “No, Uncle Albert. I told you. We’ve got to wait. It won’t be long.”

  “Ah, yes, right,” he said, but it was obvious that he had for the moment lost the grasp of events he’d so strikingly displayed while talking to Mrs. Matson. To distract him she pulled out an album and leafed through, but it seemed to be devoted entirely to studies of moving water. She tried another from a different shelf. It opened at a cricket match.

  Not Forde Place, or anything like it. Some kind of urban playground, with ’fifties high-rise blocks on the further side. The game was not what had interested Mrs. Matson. Only a couple of outfielders were visible to the right of the picture, the centre was a receding curve of spectators in deck chairs or lying on the grass, and in the left foreground, the nearest part of that line, a group of half a dozen young men stood together. They were so perfectly in period, somewhere in the mid-’fifties, that Jenny grinned with pleasure at the inch-soled shoes, the loose-draped, huge-lapelled suits, the exiguous neckties, the fags drooping from pouting mouths, the sideburns, the forelocks greased and curled into a hummocky wave. They seemed unaware of the camera, probably, if they’d noticed it, thinking it was focused on something beyond them, yet they were clearly the subject of the picture. As with the other photographs Jenny had seen, these young men were emphatically what they were.

  Uncle Albert was fidgeting again.

  “I wonder who they are,” Jenny said, thrusting the album under his nose. Obediently he took his spectacles from his breast pocket and put them on.

  “Some of Major Stadding’s boys, they’ll be,” he said. “Had me along a couple of times, so I could tell ’em about soldiering and that, in case any of ’em felt like joining up, he said.”

  He looked at the picture a moment more, and started to close the album.

  “A bad lot. A bad lot all around,” he said.

  Before he could make for the bedroom again Jenny took the album from him and turned the pages. The contents seemed to be character studies, and old man sitting at the door of a cottage shelling peas into a bucket, a small woman in an ugly hat which she clearly thought well of, a seven-year-old girl absorbedly fishing…

  “Ah, now, that’s Miss Anne,” said Uncle Albert with a complete change of tone. “Everyone’s darling, she was. Wonder what’s come of her.”

  “She’s raising horses in Canada, Mrs. Thomas said.”

  “Right.”

  He was still chuckling over the photograph when the door of the bedroom opened and the nurse came out.

  “We’re ready now, if you are,” she said.

  “Right, then, let’s get on with it,” said Uncle Albert, tucking the album under his arm and marching off. Jenny might have taken it from him at the bedroom door but decided not to risk unsettling his recovered confidence.

  The bed was now cranked up so that Mrs. Matson was in almost a sitting position. She was wearing her spectacles and had a pretty cream scarf round her shoulders. Her hands and arms, fleshless as the leg of a starling, lay inert on the counterpane. The tilted reading stand was in front of her, with a high-seated chair for Uncle Albert beside the pillows so that he could see too, and a stool on the further side of the bed for Jenny.

  “Now we’re all set,” said the nurse. “You’ll be all right here, will you, Mr. Fredricks? And if the young lady would go round the other side—you’ll have to reach a bit, I’m afraid.”

  “I’ll be fine,” said Jenny. “Are these in the right order?“

  She picked up the topmost of the pile of five albums that lay ready.

  The brown envelope, she observed, was no longer beside them.

  “That’s right—” the nurse began, but Uncle Albert broke in.

  “As you were—this here’s the one we’re wanting.”

  He plonked the album he was carrying onto the stand, sat and started to turn the pages. Jenny and the nurse glanced at each other. Jenny signalled with her hands to let it be, and the nurse nodded, signalled in her turn that she’d be along the passage as before, and left. As Jenny reached her place at the bedside Mrs. Matson’s lips moved.

  “Wait.”

  “Wait, Uncle Albert.”

  He appeared not to hear and leafed confidently on for another few pages.

  “Now, that’s what I call a picture!” he announced.

  “Anne,” whispered Mrs. Matson, or perhaps, Jenny thought, “Anne?” It was hard to tell with the sound so faint.

  “A great favourite Miss Anne was with us all,” said Uncle Albert. “Never mind her being a wilful little imp. How old would she have been for that, then?“

  “Seven,” whispered Mrs. Matson. Jenny relayed the figure.

  “Seven, eh?” said Uncle Albert. He gazed at the photograph a few seconds more, shook his head and chuckled. Jenny reached to removed the album.

  “No. Leave it. Back.”

  Jenny leafed back, pausing at each page. Mrs. Matson stopped her at the picture of the cricket match.

  “Those boys. Who? Ask him.”

  “Oh, we were looking at that one outside. He said they were some of Major Stadding’s boys. Is that right, Uncle Albert? It sounded as if they came from some kind of youth club, or a delinquents’ home, or something like that. Uncle Albert?“

  He didn’t immediately respond. His attention seemed to have slipped now that the remembered child was no longer there to hold it.

  “Wait,” whispered Mrs. Matson before Jenny could try again. “Third from left. Ask him who?”

  “This one?“

  “No. Behind. Blond.”

  The lower part of the face was hidden by the head of a young man nearer the camera. It was in half profile, showing a peak of pale hair, a straight forehead, sunken eye and high cheekbone. Rather than reach right across the bed Jenny carried the album round to show to Uncle Albert.

  “Mrs. Matson says, ’Do you know anything about this young man?’” she said.

  He barely glanced at the picture before turning his head away, refusing to look any more.

  “Never seen him in my life,” he snapped.

  “But, Uncle Albert, you told me just now, out in the—“

  “Now then, young woman, how often hav
e I got to tell you not to go poking your nose in where it’s not wanted? None of your business d’you hear me? None. Of. Your. Business.”

  Jenny looked at Mrs. Matson for guidance. It was some while before the lips moved.

  “Drink, please.”

  Jenny laid the album aside, picked up the invalid cup and went round to her place again. As she did so, her earlier reaction returned, not this time as horror or dread, but as the conviction that just as she embarked on the childishly simple task of placing the spout between the patient’s lips and tilting gently, watching the level in the cup so that she could see when the liquid began to flow, the wave would rush up at her, causing her to jerk the cup, and Mrs. Matson would choke, and die hideously in front of her eyes before anything could be done. It didn’t, of course, happen. Her hand remained perfectly steady, but she found herself swallowing compulsively as she laid the cup aside.

  “Thank you,” Mrs. Matson whispered, with her faint but potent smile. Jenny’s arm and hand responded as it of their own accord, reaching out and taking hold of the fleshless fingers where they lay inert on the bed just in front of her. This was not something she could have imagined herself deliberately doing, or even bearing to do. The skin felt brittle and empty, like a sloughed snakeskin. She was conscious of the contrasting life and warmth of her own hand. Mrs. Matson smiled again.

  “Try and ask him…again…later,” she whispered. “Another album now.”

  The weird pressure was already slipping away. By the time Jenny had laid the album she’d brought on the stand and opened it at the first page she felt pretty well normal. Relaxed. Confident that it wasn’t going to happen again, and therefore able to concentrate on the photographs.

  The first was of files of men passing a parade stand, some marching, a few on crutches or in wheelchairs. A very senior looking officer, his chest smothered with medal ribbons, was taking the salute. Jenny thought she might have seen his face in an old newsreel. Not Montgomery, but someone like that. A tall, skeletally emaciated but still unmistakable figure was marching beside the line.

  “That’s you, isn’t it, Uncle Albert?“

  He craned, his anger forgotten.

  “Right you are. And there’s the Colonel, leading us past. Duggie Rawlings that is at right marker—drove a taxi in London after the war. Now, when would that have been?“

  “’Forty-seven. Mons,” whispered Mrs. Matson, and Jenny relayed the words.

  “Course it was,” said Uncle Albert. “Mons Barracks, nineteen forty-seven. The Colonel laid it on for when we set the Association up, so as to show ’em all that we meant it, though there was some of the lads as couldn’t walk farther than you’d throw a tram car, or you’ld’ve thought so, but they all got ’emselves round somehow. I remember Don Kitchens telling me he felt prouder that day than he did when he went up to the Palace for his DSM.”

  The next few pictures had been taken on the same occasion, three more of the parade, and then the same men, with what were presumably relatives, sitting or standing around at an open air reception. Beer glasses, wine glasses, teacups; cigarettes and pipes; glimpses of a military band. The photographs hadn’t been taken with an aesthetic purpose, but as a record of an occasion, but the same thoughtful eye was strongly evident, and the same care for composition. Many of the characters seemed as clearly defined as they would have in a good studio portrait. All the men bore the marks of their imprisonment, a gauntness and frailty, partly masked in some cases by the babyish look of flesh recently put back on. As each page turned Uncle Albert would study it for a while, then name the men he remembered. Occasionally Mrs. Matson whispered an interjection and Jenny passed it on.

  “Jack Barnard. Billy Chart, and that’s his missus—what was her name? I’ll get it…”

  “Florence?”

  “Ah, right. Florrie Chart. Stan Upping—he’d been Mess Waiter. Mr. Graham—went for a curate, didn’t he, after demob, and then the police picked him up—choirboys and scouts—and he did himself in. Might’ve been a bishop by now…”

  He seemed to speak entirely without blame. Jenny wouldn’t have expected him to mention such a thing at all, or else to do so with anger and disgust. There was a striking contrast a few pages later.

  “Dickie Fearing; Dickie Brown, Terry Voss—showed up with a couple of thousand fags—black market, of course—rare as gold dust, they were.”

  “Wait. Back, please. Those two.”

  Jenny had turned the page, so leafed back. Below the group containing the two Dickies and the man with the black market cigarettes was a picture of two men standing in conversation beside an old muzzle-loading gun on a plinth. Both were in civilian clothes, but bearing and style suggested they were officers. The nearer one had his back to the camera, and the other faced it almost directly. Jenny would have thought him much more recognisable than some that Uncle Albert had so amazingly picked out—darkly good-looking, despite the aftereffects of emaciation, with naturally rounded features, a short but dense moustache, eyebrows and hair of the same apparent texture. Uncle Albert, however, had merely glanced at him and shaken his head, so Jenny had passed on. He looked again with his mouth clamped shut.

  “Major Stadding,” whispered Mrs. Matson, no louder than she had so far, but before Jenny could pass the name on Uncle Albert spoke.

  “Least said, soonest mended. Let the lads down—let us down badly, and the Colonel most of all. That’s enough about him. Get on with it, miss. We haven’t got all day.”

  “Wait,” said Mrs. Matson. “What happened to him? After? Dead?”

  Warned by her earlier rebuff Jenny phrased the question carefully.

  “She says do you know what happened to Major Stadding in the end? She wants to know if he’s still alive.”

  “Went abroad, last I heard,” muttered Uncle Albert. For an old soldier he was a remarkably bad liar.

  “Tell him, come closer. Try to hear me.”

  “Uncle Albert, she wants to try to talk to you direct. See if you can get close enough. Shall I come round and give you a hand?”

  “Stay where you are, miss—I can do for myself,” he said, sounding a bit relieved, Jenny thought, by the apparent change of subject. He rose, placed his right hand beside the pillows for support, and craned forward. Jenny could hear the effort as Mrs. Matson struggled for extra volume.

  “Please tell me. You brought the pistol. You said. Water under the bridge. Can’t matter now. Please. Sergeant Fred.”

  He pushed himself up from the bed, straightened, turned and strutted off down the room with short, angry steps that suggested he would have liked to march clear away over the horizon. Reaching the table where they had eaten he halted with his back to the bed and rapped the surface several times with his knuckles. He then rounded the table, rapping it twice more as he passed, and came marching back to the bed, where he halted, staring ahead of him, as if being reprimanded by a superior officer on parade.

  “Can’t tell you anything about that, ma’am,” he said. “Don’t remember. Fact is, my memory’s all to pot—and what do you think you’re looking at me like that for, young woman?”

  Jenny had indeed stared for a moment in astonishment. She was, of course, used to his lapses of memory, but knew too that they mustn’t be treated as normal for him now but as isolated, temporary, wholly uncharacteristic.

  There was more than anger in his voice, there was deep shame and misery. Before she could speak she heard the faintest of sighs from the bed.

  “Tell him. Not important.”

  “Mrs. Matson says not to worry, Uncle Albert. It doesn’t matter. She just wondered.”

  He swallowed a couple of times and sat down.

  “Let’s get on with it, then,” he said.

  They finished the album and started another one—the same faces at different occasions large and small. There were several pictures of Major Stadding, passed over in silence. Then, to his obvious distress, Uncle Albert’s memory started to waver. Mrs. Matson too was tiring, need
ing to sip more often at her barley water and closing her eyes from time to time, but apparently neither wished to disappoint the other by calling a halt.

  “Let’s have a rest,” said Jenny, realising it was up to her. “I’ll fetch the nurse, shall I? And Uncle Albert can watch the TV for a bit, or something.”

  “Please,” whispered Mrs. Matson.

  “Time we were off,” said Uncle Albert, rising. “It’s a long way for the girl to drive, and I’ve done what I came for. Right, Penny?”

  “If you like, Uncle Albert. Is that all right with you, Mrs. Matson? You must be pretty well done for.”

  “Yes. Say goodbye. Thank you. Sergeant Fred.”

  “She says, ‘Goodbye, Sergeant Fred, and thank you for coming. It’s been wonderful to see you again.’ ”

  Uncle Albert drew himself up to his parade stance.

  “Thank you yourself, ma’am. It’s been a privilege to know you, ma’am. A privilege to serve with the Colonel, and a privilege to know his lady wife.”

  He ducked his head, turned and marched for the door, which he held for Jenny, as if impatient to make his exit with soldierly smartness.

  She started for the door, remembered her shoulder bag, slung on a chairback, hesitated only an instant and walked on.

  “I’ll just get the nurse, Uncle Albert. Do you want to use the toilet before we go? Hell, I’ve left my bag in the room. I won’t be a sec. Oh, could you show him where the toilet is while I get my bag? The nurse will show you, Uncle Albert.”

  Without waiting she slipped back into the room, closing the door behind her. Mrs. Matson had her eyes shut, but opened them as Jenny approached.

  “Spectacles off,” she whispered. “Please. Itch.”

  Jenny lifted them clear and laid them on the table.

  “The nurse is just coming,” she said quietly. “I’m afraid Uncle Albert wasn’t telling the truth. He really did tell me that those young men had something to do with Major Stadding, and a while ago, when we were trying to find your telephone number, he said that the Mr. Stadding who runs the Association couldn’t be Major Stadding, because he was dead. He said he’d seen it happen. He said, ‘Ask Terry Voss,’ so I think he must have been there too.”