Jumping the Queue

by Mary Wesley

  Hugh Warner was too deeply asleep to hear Matilda’s screams. Across the British Isles the police were alert for a man answering his description. At airports and channel ports travellers’ passports were examined with care. At 4 a.m. a bored journalist in Cairo filed a message that a man answering Hugh’s description had been seen heading south.

  Only Gus, the betrayed, shifted restless, unable to settle among the geese, utterly at a loss, anxious, disorientated, lonely.

  6

  MATILDA THOUGHT BEST while occupied. Now, kneading dough, her mind came alive.

  She and Folly had come down early, Folly trotting into the garden while Matilda made coffee. It was still very hot. Through the open door she could hear the hum of insects, birds singing. Away up the hill a cow cried for the calf recently taken from her. Far off a shepherd was driving sheep – she could hear the harassed bleating, the barking dogs. Folly now sat in the doorway listening.

  Matilda heated up the coffee and sat at the table while the dough in its basin rose in the warmth by the Rayburn. Upstairs her visitor slept, she supposed, though he could quite easily have gone on his way while she slept. She hoped he had gone, it would be the best thing. She did not wish to be involved. Sipping coffee Matilda thought, I do not wish to get involved. Then, to be truthful: I would like to be involved and as I am why not enjoy it.

  She wore a blue cotton dress, an old friend. Her legs and feet were bare, her hair still damp from washing.

  About now the boat crew, probably a mackerel fisherman’s, should have caught sight of her body, fished her out to bring her ashore, sent for the police and the ambulance. Matilda frowned, trying to recollect whether drowned people sank for a few days then surfaced, or floated for a few days before sinking. Not knowing bothered her. Why had she not found out this simple fact?

  She divided the floury dough into four, smacked the loaves into four, pressed each with the back of a knife and put them in the oven. She would buy another bottle of Beaujolais, more butter, more Brie, another peach.

  ‘I shall take you to the Lost Dogs Home.’ Folly twitched her tail. ‘But I shall have to wait for the tide to be right.’ The dog wagged cheerfully. ‘I do not want to grow fond of you.’ The dog looked away. ‘You should have gone with him. He picked you up. You are his, not mine.’ Matilda listened to the silence of the cottage, certain that the man had gone. Not knowing whether the man was there or not, she felt in limbo, not wanting to readjust to living. She felt anguish choking her, cheated, for her mind had been prepared for death. She felt especially angry at the prospect of cleaning the house all over again, all those spiders.

  Automatically she took the bread from the oven. If he had gone she would do as before, clean the house, weed the garden, pack her picnic, do it all again in a month. This time there would be no barbecue on the beach; the young people would have gone, their holidays over. If he had not gone she would phone the police. No, not that. They would ask questions. She would be involved. She could just imagine the questions. He would have to go off on his own before anyone saw him. She would ask him to go.

  When the telephone pealed she felt fear leap in her throat. She watched the instrument as the bell jangled. Then she picked up the receiver, pinched her nose between finger and thumb and said:

  ‘Ullo?’

  ‘Can I speak to Mrs Poliport, please?’ John’s voice, crisp and terse.

  ‘She’s not here.’ Only John again.

  ‘When will she be back?’

  ‘She didn’t say.’

  ‘Has she gone away?’

  ‘She may have.’

  ‘Who is that?’

  ‘Mrs ‘Oskings.’

  ‘Mrs Hoskings who –’

  ‘I clean for Mrs Pollyput. From time to time I clean. Mrs Pollyput she don’t like cleaning.’

  ‘I daresay not.’

  ‘Not’s the word. Who shall I say called? I’ll write down. You should see the spiders.’

  ‘Piers, just Piers.’

  ‘Like at the seaside?’ Matilda, holding her nose, snorted.

  ‘Yes, like at the seaside. Write it down, please.’

  ‘Just a minute. I’ll get a pencil – sir –’ added Matilda to add credence to her role. ‘Oh, here’s a message from her. Shall I read it to you?’

  ‘Yes, please do.’

  ‘“Dear Mrs Hoskings.” Pretty writing Mrs Pollyput’s got, hasn’t she?’

  ‘What does she say? Read it.’

  ‘Okay. Dear etcetera, you won’t want that twice will you? No. Well it says, “gone away for a change. I’ll let you know when I get back. Help yourself to anything you think might spoil from the garden.”’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Yes, that’s all Mr Pier. D’you think she’d mind if I took the raspberries, the birds will get them else. Shall I –’

  John rang off. Matilda released her nose and sniffed, wriggling it up and down like a rabbit. Piers. How ludicrous John calling himself Piers. Piers rang a distant bell far back in her mind. Piers? No, it meant nothing, recalled nothing, it couldn’t. Why this insistence on Piers? Sir John sounded all right. Claud said it was snobbery, that John was a common name. Claud had bet Anabel ten pounds John would be elevated in the Birthday List, not the New Year’s, it being the more recherché of the two to enter the lists as Sir Piers in June rather than hustle in in the New Year when everyone was too hung over to notice. Not that he will allow anyone to fail to notice. ‘He will never get further than a knighthood in his occupation. Decorous recognition for services rendered. No life peerage for the likes of he.’ Claud’s voice in her mind, always that note of affectionate mockery to keep one at arm’s length, his arm’s length, Claud’s. No good trying to get close to that one. A slippery character, Claud, the more lovable for his inaccessibility. Standing with one hand on the rail of the Rayburn, Matilda thought of her youngest child. No hook there to hold her, however tenuously. Why did his saying ‘occupation’ in that tone of voice, almost as though John –

  ‘What a superlative smell.’ Hugh stood in the doorway looking in.

  ‘You made me jump.’ Matilda pretended to jump. He grinned.

  ‘No wonder nobody recognized you,’ Matilda said. ‘You don’t look like your photo at all in daylight.’

  ‘I have rested. Besides –’

  ‘Besides what?’

  ‘I told you that photograph is one of my brother. He really has a huge nose but now he’s grown a moustache it’s not so noticeable.’

  ‘The Major?’

  ‘Yes. There’s been a mistake, a mix-up.’

  ‘Why hasn’t he said?’

  ‘He’s abroad. He may not know, he might even be loyal.’

  ‘She was his mother too.’

  ‘He inherits.’

  ‘Oh.’ Pause. ‘Like some breakfast?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘I was thinking I should call the police.’

  ‘Shall you?’

  ‘No.’ Matilda, getting coffee, had her back to him. Neither spoke for a while. She put a loaf and butter on the table, marmalade in its pot – Cooper’s.

  ‘If it were not for your interference I should be happily dead by now.’ Rage suddenly choked her, tears blinded, the hand carrying the coffee pot trembled.

  ‘It was you who interfered with me, you silly bitch. “Put your arm round me,” you said, “put it round my waist.” Like a fool I did. I was going to fill my pockets with stones and go into the river like Virginia Woolf.’

  ‘You hadn’t made up your mind.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘You said so – you implied.’ Matilda leaned across the table screaming at him, white with sudden fury. ‘You were shilly-shallying. I had it all planned and you spoilt it. I could kill you.’

  ‘Do. It will save a lot of trouble. Poke that knife into my guts, then you can push off and have your picnic, drown the dog as well –’ He too was shouting, handing her the knife she had pressed on the dough.

  They glar
ed at each other with hatred. The dog whimpered.

  ‘Are we having a row?’ Hugh sat back.

  ‘Yes. I’d forgotten what it’s like. It’s ages since –’ Matilda pushed back her hair. ‘I’d forgotten about Virginia Woolf and the stones. I must remember.’

  ‘They would prevent you swimming very far.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Your plan was probably best for you.’

  ‘Was?’

  Hugh glanced at the dog who wagged, placating, unsure.

  ‘Eat your breakfast. It’s ages since I had a row. Makes me feel sick, my legs are trembling.’

  ‘Soon passes.’ Hugh helped himself to marmalade. ‘Delicious bread.’

  Matilda stood by the stove, breathing hard, watching him eat. The kitchen clock ticked. It would need winding tomorrow.

  ‘If anyone comes to see me go through that door into the scullery. It leads to the woodshed.’

  Hugh looked up, munching.

  ‘If you want to go further cross the garden to the copse. It’s thick, nobody can see you by the stream, nobody goes in there, I don’t allow it.’

  Hugh’s eyes were on her face.

  ‘I don’t allow fishermen or hounds in there. It’s mine, private, people know.’

  ‘Do they pay attention?’

  ‘Oh yes. Gus found a boy there once and terrorized him. I tied him to a bush and left him for hours. He was scared stiff – told all his friends. It worked.’

  ‘Sounds a bit ruthless.’

  ‘There’s a badger set in there. The boy was planning to bring his friends and bait them.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘So you’d be absolutely safe in the copse.’

  Hugh nodded, helping himself to more marmalade.

  ‘Or if you’re upstairs, keep from the windows and go up into the loft.’

  ‘The loft?’

  ‘It might be raining.’

  ‘You think of everything.’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘Why the hell should you?’

  Matilda shrugged. ‘I meant to be dead by now. It doesn’t matter what I do, if it’s any help to you.’

  Hugh looked at Matilda for a long time then said: ‘You and your husband must have made a formidable pair.’

  ‘I betrayed my husband.’

  ‘Gus?’

  ‘Gus? Gus is a Chinese Goose, a gander – I betrayed him too.’ Matilda wept while Hugh laughed.

  7

  HUGH LOOKED AWAY from Matilda, finding her tears embarrassing. Betrayed husbands come two a penny, he thought, but a goose – that’s different. The dog, sitting with her nose towards the heat of the Rayburn, glanced over her shoulder. She had bright little black eyes. She wriggled her haunches, getting closer to the warmth. He wondered where she came from, who had abandoned her.

  ‘Have you got any money?’ Matilda retrieved his attention.

  ‘Not an awful lot. I cashed a cheque – er –’

  ‘After killing your mother?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Matilda sniffed, whether from contempt or to stop the last tear he couldn’t tell. ‘I have quite a lot in London but –’

  ‘You can’t go there, the police –’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘They will have your money.’

  ‘No, it’s hidden in a safe place.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes, I have a cache.’

  ‘I can lend you money. I can cash a cheque, overdraw if need be. I can fetch your money. I’d like to.’

  ‘That would put you to a lot of inconvenience, danger.’

  ‘I’d like it. It would amuse me. It would be fun.’

  ‘Law breaking.’

  ‘No more to me than parking on a yellow line.’

  ‘An adventure?’

  ‘I suppose so. Have you a passport?’

  ‘Yes. I was going to Greece after visiting my mother. I’ve got my passport and a bit of money. I left my bag there though.’

  ‘How much? Count it.’

  Hugh pulled his wallet from his back pocket and started counting. ‘Nearly two hundred.’

  ‘That won’t get you far. How much do you have in London?’

  ‘Two thousand in cash.’

  ‘Well then.’

  ‘To get it I –’

  ‘I’ll get it. I’ve told you. Trust me. I’ll go to London. You stay here and keep hidden. I’ll fix you up with food. Keep out of sight. The rest’s easy.’

  ‘I need clothes.’

  ‘Yes, the whole world knows what you are wearing. There are some of Tom’s, a few things of Mark’s and Claud’s which they left here.’

  ‘Your husband’s?’

  ‘He wouldn’t mind. He didn’t die here, he went to stay with a friend in Paris –’ she paused.

  ‘And the friend was Death?’

  ‘That’s who it turned out to be.’

  ‘He must have been very lonely without you.’

  ‘Perhaps. No, no, I don’t think lonely.’

  ‘Dying on his own.’

  ‘Don’t say that, you have no right.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go too?’

  ‘I never went to Paris with him. I had responsibilities here, things to do.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘The children, our animals.’

  ‘I thought they were grown up.’

  ‘They are. They weren’t even here. It was –’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘What right have you to catechise? What business is it of yours?’

  ‘None. Idle curiosity, I suppose.’

  ‘Well,’ Matilda burst out. ‘I don’t like Paris. I never went there with him. I didn’t want to put our dog and cat in kennels. I just didn’t want to go. If I had I would have looked after him, not let him drop dead in the street, don’t you see? I know I betrayed him, of course I know. They found his pills in his hotel. If I’d been there – damn you, what right have you?’ Matilda felt despairing, angry. ‘I always saw that he carried his pills.’

  ‘You saved my life. That gives me the right. Folly and I have every right. We belong to you.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Hugh buttered another piece of bread, fished in the pot for marmalade. Matilda stood with her back to the stove watching him pour more coffee, drink.

  ‘How do you know I won’t betray you? As a good citizen I should.’

  Hugh grinned. ‘I don’t think you belong to the W.I.’

  ‘That’s not necessarily respectable.’

  ‘Of course it is. You don’t, do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well then.’

  Matilda sighed.

  ‘And these children – where are they?’

  ‘Louise is married. She lives in Paris.’

  ‘Didn’t you want to see her when your husband –’

  ‘Not particularly. Mark is in business – he centres on Hamburg. Anabel is always on the move, I never know where she is. Claud lives in America.’

  ‘Do they come to see you?’

  ‘They telephone sometimes. They don’t really want to speak to me or I to them. What would we say?’

  ‘So they won’t have to talk to you at your funeral?’

  ‘That’s about it.’

  ‘So you thought you’d meet the Mutual Friend?’

  ‘It seemed the sensible thing.’

  ‘Sensible.’ He stressed the word.

  ‘Yes, sensible. Without Tom I’ve no attachment to life. The children don’t want me. I was left with our dog, our cat and Gus. The dog died four months ago, the cat was caught in a gin and died of blood poisoning. Gus could live another twenty years. I’ve found him a good safe home with geese. I’ve thought it all out, left everything tidy. There’s nothing left for me here. I’m off.’

  ‘But why? You can get another cat. You’ve got another dog.’

  ‘That dog’s yours not mine.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘O
h yes, she is. You picked her up. I don’t want her.’

  They both turned their eyes on the dog who sat with her back to them, ears laid back.

  ‘We are embarrassing her.’ Hugh snapped his fingers. The dog jumped gratefully onto his knees.

  Before Hugh could speak Matilda said hurriedly:

  ‘To people like me animals are hooks to hang one on to life. Think of the thousands of people hanging on because of the dog, the cat, the budgie. Think of all those thousands only hanging on for no other reason as they grow old, miserable, useless, bored. I bet your mother –’

  ‘Her cat died in May. It was a smelly old thing.’

  ‘But it didn’t murder her.’

  ‘No, there is that.’

  ‘And she didn’t replace it?’

  ‘I tried to give her a kitten.’

  ‘And she refused?’

  ‘Yes, she did. She was sentimental about –’

  ‘Old Smelly?’

  ‘Yes. How d’you know I called it Old Smelly?’

  ‘She didn’t want to be hooked any longer, not once her company had gone.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘No, you don’t. She didn’t want any more hooks. She didn’t want old age, arthritis, falling down, losing her teeth, her balance, her hair, her memory, her wits. She didn’t want dependence on other people, becoming a bore, growing incontinent –’

  ‘She was very spry for her age, not at all incontinent.’

  ‘So am I for mine, but I’m not waiting for all that: it’s against my principles; creaking joints, fatigue, clicking teeth, brown spots, wrinkled bottom.’

  ‘Bottom?’

  ‘Of course, one wrinkles all over. I’m for the last fling – the ultimate.’

  ‘Ultimate what?’

  ‘Adventure. Fun. Experience.’

  ‘That’s a serious statement if you are talking about death.’

  ‘Of course it is. I don’t suppose your mother had exactly thought it all out. You saved her the trouble with your tea-tray.’

  ‘Her tea-tray, she inherited it from her father.’

  ‘How pedantic you are. I was starting off in good shape and got interrupted.’

  ‘Sorry about that.’ Hugh stroked Folly’s ears.