The Distant Dead

by Lesley Thomson

  Afterwards, flicking on his lighter, Aleck lit them each a cigarette. He shuffled to sitting, his back against the sofa.

  ‘Tallulah Bankhead wouldn’t sit in her birthday suit in a dead man’s house without a ring on her finger. James Stewart wouldn’t let her.’ Not used to smoking, Maple took kissing puffs of her cigarette. A settee was a far cry from an alley but it was not a bridal chamber.

  ‘What are you talking about now?’ Aleck blew smoke-ribbons at the rose ceiling moulding.

  ‘I think we should not meet like this, not until we’re married.’ Ida said you had to put your foot down or things got out of hand.

  ‘It’s not me you lost your virginity with, dearie.’ Aleck narrowed his eyes. ‘And let’s face it, you never take persuading.’

  ‘What about Sunday? Dad’s expecting you. Mum’s making a cake with eggs.’ Coughing as she inhaled, Maple began gathering her clothes from the carpet where Aleck had strewn them. Her toe snagged a stocking and tears pricked. Real silk, they had cost more than a day’s wages.

  When she’d fallen pregnant, her younger brother Vernon called her a tart. He’d gone with her dad to Bertie Spence’s lodgings in Fulham to find that the hod-carrier had signed up the day before. Keith Greenhill had made Vernon say sorry, treat your older sister with respect, yet Vernon was only saying what her parents felt.

  ‘A bed would have been nice,’ Maple mumbled. Watching Aleck tap his cigarette into an ashtray on an occasional table, she noted that, apart from tie and jacket, he hadn’t so much as dropped his trousers. She’d never seen him in the altogether.

  ‘Have sense, Maple.’ Aleck flipped up his braces. ‘I couldn’t raise the flag in a dead man’s bed.’

  ‘I bet you could.’ Pressing a dampened finger to the silk, Maple made a fruitless attempt to close the nick. ‘Mum’s gone to town with baking.’ She made it up as she went along, then, seeing her coat in a heap, felt annoyed that Aleck had treated it badly; not caring meant his present to her was worth nothing to him.

  Aleck didn’t help her into it as he had in the Palais. Watching him tighten his tie, her fingers rummaged restlessly in her coat pockets as, tottering on one high heel she trod into the other shoe. To fend off the feeling of being dirty and wrong, she persisted. ‘What time on Sunday? Will three do?’

  ‘Let’s not rush it, Maple.’ He smoothed back his hair.

  ‘It’s been three months. By rights you should have asked Dad about marrying me.’ Maple probed at something – not in the pocket, it was caught in the pocket lining.

  ‘I didn’t mean it, silly girl. We men promise anything in the heat of the moment.’

  Maple knew that. The hod-carrier had promised her a diamond ring. Aleck was meant to be quite different. She worried at a tiny tear in the lining and hooked out a bit of paper. Smoothing it, she showed it to the lamplight.

  ‘Who’s Julia?’

  In the street the all-clear sounded.

  ‘What?’ Aleck mashed his cigarette in the ashtray.

  ‘This is a mending ticket, for Julia Northcote, I think it says?’

  ‘My sister.’

  ‘You said you were an only child.’ Maple might be an optimist, but she was no fool. When not blinded by dreams, she could tell when a man was lying.

  ‘My wife.’ Aleck looked angry. ‘Good God, who else would it be?’

  ‘You’re married.’ Cold as ice, Maple rivalled Tallulah Bankhead. ‘You’re a liar. My dad will have your guts. All the time you, you—’ Maple shoved the paper back in her pocket and strode to the door. She turned, incandescent. ‘You think you can palm me off with her cast-offs. We’ll see about that.’

  Maple never reached the herring-bone tiled hall. Aleck caught up with her and whipping off his tie, slipped it over her head. He yanked her close.

  Several Londoners, creeping back to their homes after the raid, heard the scream. One woman told the detective she assumed the lady had seen a mouse; the caretaker at nearby flats said it wasn’t his business what went on behind closed doors.

  Chapter Four

  December 2019

  Stella

  Stella hesitated at the door to the Abbey Gardens teashop. Through the steamed-up window, a group clustered at the servery: a man, and two women. Another woman, tall with a mass of curly black hair, was handing out teas and coffees from behind the counter. She looked faintly familiar, but Stella knew no one in Tewkesbury. The smaller tea tables had been pushed to the wall, leaving the large circular table in the centre of the parquet floor which, as cleaner for the teashop, Stella would be mopping at 6 a.m. tomorrow.

  Not too late to change her mind and leave. But after the scary incident on the lane, Stella was in no hurry to return to the empty flat and spend the evening alone. Choice was taken from her when the door opened and a man greeted her.

  ‘I’m a bit late.’ Stella saw it was three minutes past six.

  ‘Dust is the enemy of time, it clogs the cogs. Come inside, my dear, punctuality is a concept. ’Fraid there’s no booze.’ His bass tone was surprising for such a tall reedy frame. Stella caught the aroma of coffee and could see a fire burning in the grate.

  ‘I didn’t expect alcohol.’ Stella planned to keep a clear head. ‘Are you in charge?’

  ‘Good God no. Mademoiselle Felicitations is running the show. The Amazon lady doling out weak tea and no sympathy over there. Come, come, you’re letting in the cold air.’ Doffing an imaginary cap he scooted Stella inside. ‘Clive Burgess at your service, ma’am.’

  ‘Stella.’ The man smelled of something which, after a moment, Stella identified as Horolene, the cleaning fluid for clocks she knew from a museum she’d cleaned in London.

  ‘And I bet you are.’ Clive Burgess shook her hand and perhaps seeing her quizzical expression said, ‘Stella. Star.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Stella looked around for a means of escape. The tearoom had been transformed. The table, draped with a dark mauve tablecloth shaded by a lamp, put her in mind of a séance. An impression not lessened by the sugar-dusted Victoria sponge perched on one of the teashop’s pottery cake-stands. Stella kept Stanley on a short lead; it would be disastrous if he snatched the cake.

  ‘Tread carefully, it’s her first bash at this Death Café malarkey, she’s a bit windy about it. Upset her and death might come to all of us quicker than we’d like.’ Hands resting on the back of the chair the man laughed wheezily. Looking at him properly, Stella saw he was even older than his jaunty energy suggested, perhaps eighty. Seeing Stanley, he said, ‘I say, are dogs are allowed?’

  ‘I didn’t ask. I’ll leave.’ Stella grasped the legitimate escape route.

  ‘Don’t you dare.’ The man stretched his arms across the door, barring Stella’s exit. ‘We’ll sink in this ship together.’

  ‘I’m sure it will be fine.’ Stella hadn’t anticipated small talk. The notice in the tearoom described the Death Café as an opportunity to explore the meaning of death. Stella had promised to come so would not bail out. She slung her anorak over a chair at the séance table and approached the servery.

  ‘Are dogs allowed?’ Nervous, Stella repeated Clive’s question and forgot to say hello.

  ‘I don’t see why not, as long as he behaves himself.’ Up close Stella realized she did know the woman, who had signed her email Felicity Branscombe. Or not so much know her as had seen her before. She had conducted the choir in the abbey when Stella had been there for evensong. She, too, had to be over seventy. In her early fifties, Stella wondered if she should come back later. Twenty years later.

  ‘I’m Stella,’ she told Felicity.

  ‘We’ll do introductions in a mo. There’s builders’ tea, sachets of a ghastly herbal concoction that promises to send you to sleep and coffee. No milk, it got spilt. Serving beverages is harder than performing an autopsy.’ Felicity banged a bowl of sugar onto the counter. ‘I hope you weren’t expecting wine. As I told Clive, the purpose of this evening is honest discussion, not getting plastered. The Death Caf�
� lot say you have to provide refreshments or, frankly, I’d get on with it.’

  ‘Black coffee please.’ Stella was startled at the reference to an autopsy – presumably Felicity had to keep on a death theme.

  Once everyone was seated, Felicity distributed perfectly cut slices of the cake on paper plates. Opposite Stella and Stanley – held tightly on Stella’s lap – was an overweight woman, the fringe of her iron-grey bob clamped with a slide shaped like an elephant’s tusk. Stella reckoned the woman was late sixties. Her demeanour was grim, a weird contrast to her brightly coloured Elizabethan-style tunic embroidered with deer and rabbits who were being chased by men firing arrows.

  ‘Does he moult?’ The woman was looking at Stanley. ‘I’m allergic.’

  ‘No.’ Stella clutched Stanley tighter which made him struggle to jump down. ‘He’s made of wool.’

  ‘I do hope so,’ the woman said.

  ‘Don’t panic, Joy.’ An elderly woman shut the door to the toilets next to the servery. ‘You’re more likely to get asthma from my angora jumper.’ Sitting down next to Stella, the woman winked at her. Stella took in the auburn-coloured bob and turquoise polo-neck. The woman arranged a silver quilted jacket around her shoulders.

  ‘Evening, Gladys,’ the Tudor woman said.

  Seeing how smartly dressed all three women were, Stella felt embarrassed by her fleece, worn since cleaning the abbey that morning. She’d left time no go home and change.

  Sticking to the rules of a Death Café, Felicity informed them she was their facilitator and asked everyone to ‘go gently into the night with me, it’s my first time in the hot seat’. She listed ground rules, ‘mobile phones off’ and said not to:

  ‘…promote your business particularly if you are an undertaker or sell wreaths. A Death Café is not a bereavement support group, if your loved one is recently deceased and your grief raw, this ain’t for you.’ She rested her gaze on Clive who was on a second slice of Victoria sponge and looked to Stella the picture of chirpiness. For herself, she welcomed the no tears rule. Were she to start crying, Stella feared she’d never stop.

  ‘Tell us why you have come tonight. Offer us a point for discussion. What do you hope to take away?’ Glancing up from what looked like a crib sheet, Felicity’s smile revealed a row of expensive-looking teeth. All Stella could think she must take away was her rucksack which last week she’d left in the abbey after evensong.

  ‘We’ll start with Mrs Gladys Wren.’ Felicity pointed her fountain pen at the woman in the silver jacket. ‘Please tell the group your name and what you do for a living.’

  ‘You’ve given it away.’ Gladys Wren raised eyebrows dyed to match her hair. ‘Landlady, for my sins. Now, what do I say?’

  ‘Why you’re here.’ Tudor tunic rolled her eyes.

  ‘Call me Gladys.’ Gladys toyed with her cake. ‘It was recommended by a friend. Death is never far away, is it? My hubby Derek always said, when it was my turn, they’d have found a vaccine. He said I got younger by the day. God rest him.’

  ‘That’s nonsense,’ the Tudor woman said. ‘How terrible would it be if everyone around this table never died.’

  ‘Lovely contribution, Gladys,’ Felicity said. ‘What will you take with you?’

  ‘A bit of this lovely cake if Mr Burgess hasn’t scoffed the lot.’ Gladys angled her fork at Clive, the elderly man who had greeted Stella. ‘It’s so light and buttery, did you make it, Felicity?’

  ‘Shop-bought.’ Felicity made an irrelevant gesture with her hand.

  ‘I came here…’ Poking about in a plastic crocodile-skin bag, Gladys dug out a well-thumbed Donald Duck notebook and flicked through the pages. ‘For shopping lists, ah, here it is. “To face death in the face.” That sounds silly when you say it out loud.’

  ‘Death is all around, everywhere you look,’ the Tudor woman said.

  ‘Now there’s a song.’ Gladys waggled a finger. ‘“Love is All Around”.

  ‘It was fifteen weeks in 1994 for Wet Wet Wet.’ Stella liked statistics.

  ‘After Derek’s time or he’d have swept me off my feet.’ Humming the tune, Gladys swayed in her seat and, unprompted by her Donald Duck book, ‘Grief never leaves you, no day goes by when Derek isn’t with me. Ten years is ten minutes.’ And to Felicity, ‘Don’t you worry, lovey, I shan’t cry.’

  ‘Do any of you have a subject we can air as a group?’ Felicity tapped her paper.

  ‘While we’re on the subject of death…’ Gladys flicked to the back of the notebook and, flattening the pages, read out in halting tones a sentence written across two pages. Stella was no handwriting expert, yet she didn’t associate the bold scrawl in green ink with Gladys. ‘What. I want to. Know. Is.’ Gladys turned the book diagonal to better read, ‘“Who here wishes someone was dead? I know one who shall remain nameless.”’

  Stella was impressed that Gladys had come prepared. She herself had not.

  ‘I’m sure we all do, but it’s not our purpose tonight. Is there anything apart from cake you hope to take away?’

  Stella felt for Felicity, chairing the group was like herding cats.

  ‘Happiness.’ Gladys heaved her shoulders. ‘Since Derek. Oops, there I go again, he will pop up.’ She hunched into her silver jacket and fell silent.

  ‘Lovely, Gladys.’ Felicity crossed out what looked to Stella like Gladys’s name. She imagined Felicity thinking one down, three to go. Stella hoped time would run out before Felicity got to her.

  ‘Joy, you’re next,’ Felicity said. ‘Name, occupation, why you’re here, et cetera.’

  ‘Joy by name. Joy by nature,’ said the woman called Joy in the hunting tunic.

  ‘You hide that well, lovey.’ Gladys grinned at Joy.

  ‘Welcome, Joy, lovely that you could come with all you have on your busy plate,’ Felicity cut in.

  With a tendency to think literally, Stella noted that Joy hadn’t touched the cake on her plate. Stella had nibbled at hers; the scary incident on the dark lane had killed her appetite. She hugged Stanley closer, not forgetting that, however sleepy he appeared to be, the cake would be the only thing on his mind.

  ‘I expect to take away what I came with. Common sense. We will all die and for some of us the end will be sooner than for others.’ Joy jutted a determined chin. ‘No point in beating about the bush.’

  Stella came out in a sweat. Going clockwise around the table, after Joy was Clive who was consulting a silver fob watch attached to his waistcoat. Then it would be her turn.

  ‘…organist at the abbey, I’m the first woman. My male predecessor died.’ Joy nodded. ‘I’m not a feminist, but it was time. My dear father taught me: leave your mark, don’t let sleeping dogs lie. The marvellous Grove organ on the north side of the Choir is my path to immortality, I shall not be forgotten.’ She traced one of the embroidered rabbits with a stubby finger. ‘I want to discuss the last image we want to see as life ebbs from the corporeal form. Mine is da Vinci’s The Last Supper. His Jesus is my father to a T.’

  Joy seemed to be one of those people like Lucie who, the more confidential what they had to say was, the louder they said it.

  ‘My old man was more of a Tommy Trinder,’ Gladys said. ‘The person I want to see as I die is Derek, he was my saviour.’

  Joy made a short scornful sound that made Stella want to rescue Gladys.

  ‘No one man can be a saviour. We have to save ourselves.’ Joy looked disapproving. Stella felt blind panic: she had no idea what she wanted to see. It haunted her that her father’s last view – he died outside the Co-op – was a grubby pavement in a small seaside town. It had been a huge mistake to come.

  ‘Who would like to speak next?’ A flush was creeping up Felicity’s neck. Stella supposed that her first Death Café wasn’t going to plan and considered stepping in. Jack said Stella had to stop wanting to rescuing people, they must find their own way. She hadn’t rescued Jack.

  Stella was considering holding her nose and getting it over with when th
e door flew open and a blast of wind and rain blew in a tall woman, beanie pulled over her ears, mud-streaked parka coat dripping on the parquet. She flung herself onto a chair between Clive and Gladys and, shrugging out of her parka, bashed at the knees of equally muddy denim overalls as if to clean them. Her face was almost hidden by a khaki snood yet it was easy to tell she was scowling ferociously. All Stella cared about was that now the newcomer would speak before her.

  ‘You’re late. What is your name and why have you come?’ Felicity said, which, to Stella’s mind, sounded really quite rude.

  ‘I only remembered once I got home, I had to cycle back,’ came the muffled reply. ‘Andrea.’

  ‘We’ve only just started.’ Stella came to the rescue.

  ‘I know.’ Andrea did a ‘duh’ expression as if this was a no-brainer.

  ‘Yes, ducky, you settle down. I’d take those wet things off or you’ll get a chill in your kidneys.’ Gladys Wren’s concern nearly had Stella crying after all. Her own mother loved her, but expressions of concern came out as terse strictures. Gladys was explaining to Andrea, ‘…we have to say what we hope to get from here.’

  ‘Get warm and then not get soaked on the way home.’

  ‘We’ve all made sacrifices to be here.’ Felicity beamed at the group. ‘This is Andrea, everyone. Welcome, Andrea.’

  ‘Hardly,’ Andrea said.

  ‘Hi there.’ Stella nodded to her, but Andrea was scowling at Stanley.

  ‘Didn’t know we could bring dogs.’

  ‘Have you got a dog?’ Clive leaned unnecessarily close to Andrea.

  ‘No,’ Andrea said.

  It amazed Stella, brought up to be polite by warring parents, how perfect strangers could think nothing of being rude to each other. Although, aside from Andrea and herself, it seemed that everyone else knew each other. Only to be expected in a small town. Stella knew it was contrary but, horrified at making light conversation with the group, she also felt obscure resentment at being an outsider. No question of pairing with Andrea, she appeared to have taken an instant dislike to Stella.