When Sylvia came home from her meeting she let herself into Florence’s house and went upstairs. She stuck her head around the door and saw the pillow lying on Mrs. Sidney’s chest. Her impulse was to close the door again and pretend she had not seen it, and let Colin discover for himself what had happened, since it was his mother who was apparently dead, and his sister who had apparently made her that way; she had a nice sense of delicacy, and she did not believe that an outsider, even an in-law, should interfere in such a close family matter.
But leaving her scruples aside—because she did not trust Colin to have any common sense—she crossed the room and removed the pillow to a less remarkable position. She put the back of her hand against Mrs. Sidney’s cheek. There was not much doubt about what had happened, but it was hard to tell just by looking; the features were not distorted, there had been no struggle. She opened the wardrobe and squashed the pillow onto the top shelf, above the pile of folded Witney blankets. The wardrobe door creaked; the smell of camphor crept out into the room. She had an impulse to open the window; but it was raining hard, and it might not be respectful. The original position of the pillow would be a private satisfaction to her. She would know, and Florence would know that she did. So when Flo got pious in future, she could catch her eye. The balance of terror within the family would be altered; and in her favour. She was not surprised to find out what Florence was capable of; but if I had been in her position, she thought, I would not have signalled my intentions so clearly. She touched Mother’s cheek again, wondering how long she had been dead. Florence must have slipped out and done it in her teabreak. She went downstairs to ring Dr. Rudge to come and give them a death certificate. The rain was turning to sleet.
You had to hand it to Florence, she said later to Colin (and he agreed); that clutch at the throat, the doubled fist striking the door frame, the way the blood drained from her highly coloured features. Perhaps it was natural, though, at the sight of Dr. Rudge; his sardonic expression as he looked down at the bedside cabinet, and with a forefinger separated the empty pill bottles from the rest. Sylvia hadn’t noticed that. It argued a degree of premeditation, she thought. She caught Colin’s eye, turning down the corners of her mouth in a meaningful way.
“But I didn’t give them to her!” Florence was good at the innocence outraged; the pop-eyes, the pewter complexion. “She must have taken them herself.”
“I see,” said Dr. Rudge nastily, “and all you did, eh, was to leave them close at hand and with the top off? We’re not accusing you of choking her, Miss Sidney, we’re not saying that you forced them down her throat one by one. We know she was fond of the yellow ones, don’t we?”
“But I didn’t! I’m careful with her medicines!”
“Come, come,” said the doctor, smiling. “If I wanted to take the matter further, your neighbours would no doubt remember the scene you made in the street.”
“What about Lizzie Blank?” Florence wailed. “Why wasn’t she attending to her? She was left in charge!”
“That’s a digression, Miss Sidney, if I may say so.”
“Shall I phone the undertaker?” Sylvia said. “Oh, come on, Flo, we all know you did it.”
“However,” Dr. Rudge said, “I do call myself a compassionate man, and this is not the first time that a distressed relative in my practice has—as we call it—eased an elderly person out of a life of suffering—but in your case, Miss Sidney, I’m bound to say, it is very strange of you to try and pin the blame on the daily help.”
“Strange?” Colin said. “It’s monstrous. I’m not trying to take a moral stance, Florence, but honestly, you should have told us what you were up to.”
“We always hope,” Dr. Rudge said testily, “that we don’t have to discuss the matter quite so openly.”
“Prosecute me!” Florence said. “Call the police! Put me in the dock!”
“Don’t be melodramatic,” Sylvia said. “You’re embarrassing us all. Think, Colin, I’ll be able to cut down on Lizzie’s hours now. I can go out in the evening again. I can take a more active part in the canal scheme.”
“There won’t be an inquest?” Colin asked.
“Not necessary,” the doctor said.
“But of course there must be an inquest,” Florence said. “I want my name cleared.” She looked around at her brother, at her sister-in-law, at the doctor. Their faces were closed, smug, blank with careful discretion. “What will the neighbours say?” she asked. “They’ll say I did it. They’ll all be talking about me, right up Arlington Road.”
“Better Arlington Road than the News of the World,” Colin said. He left them and went downstairs. Murder now, he thought.
After the New Year, the cold weather set in. Every morning when the new term started Colin had to go out with a shovel at a quarter to eight and clear the drive of snow. Vehicles were abandoned by the side of the road, pipes froze up and burst, and sleet blew in whirlwinds and eddies across the motorway. The black branches of the trees on the Avenue bent under the weight of the winter; and then came a thaw, the gutters running with icy flood water.
Towards the end of February, Suzanne’s baby—a girl—was born in hospital. She did not hear from Jim Ryan. When her mother and father visited her that evening she turned her face away from them and looked steadfastly at the wall. The baby, Gemma, slept by her bed in a plastic bubble. She entertained fantasies of walking up the Ryans’ front path; of dropping in at the bank and laying the baby on Jim’s desk amid the statements and paper clips.
“When people say they want a child,” Colin explained, “when people say that, as Jim did to you, they may be speaking figuratively. They may be saying they want a second chance.”
“She didn’t think he was speaking figuratively,” Sylvia said. “She saw herself walking up the aisle. That was no figure.”
“I didn’t think girls dreamed of their weddings any more,” Colin said sadly. “I thought the world had changed.”
“Oh no.” Sylvia looked down at the child, the drift of dark hair, the formless undersea face. Her expression softened. “I love babies,” she said. “I always did.”
“I don’t love them,” Suzanne said. “I don’t have any feelings.” Her mother patted her wrist. Suzanne twitched her arm away. “Why shouldn’t people have second chances?” she demanded.
“I don’t know,” Colin said, “they just don’t, these days. In the seventies, people had second chances. Ten years ago. Now it’s all battening down the hatches, that sort of thing.”
“You could put the baby up for adoption,” Sylvia said. “That is, we could adopt it. I’d be willing.”
“Is there no stopping you?” Colin said. He eyed her sideways. She was planning to stay around then.
“You have your life to make,” Sylvia told her daughter. “You’ve made a mistake, but you don’t have to go on paying for it.”
“Of course she does,” Colin said. “Go on paying is what people do. Ask Jim.”
Sylvia regarded him, unblinking. “I know why you are so bitter,” she said. “I don’t know the details, but I know the gist of it. I really think it’s time you grew up.” She turned to Suzanne. “Don’t listen to your father. I’d be more than willing. You could finish your course.” She was coaxing, trying to cajole the baby out of her daughter. “It’s the least we can do.”
Suzanne turned her face away again. “I’ll never give her to you,” she said. “God knows what you’d do to her. I shan’t be coming home.”
“I see.” Sylvia walked over to the window, her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her jacket. She looked down into the hospital car park, sucking her lip. “Leave us your address then. Edwina’s, or wherever.”
“Get it from Lizzie Blank,” Suzanne said.
When Colin arrived home, there was a parcel waiting for him. It was wrapped up in brown paper and inscribed “TO GRANDAD, FROM ALISTAIR AND OSTIN.”
“Goodness,” Colin said, “a pressie.” He picked it up, applied his ear to it, and
rattled it.
“You are childish,” Sylvia said. He sat down with it on the sofa and began to pick at the string. “We’ve had the bill from the undertaker,” she said.
“I saw it. It’s too much.”
“It’s not the sort of thing you can haggle over.”
“I don’t see why not. They wouldn’t dig her up, would they?”
“Give it to Florence,” Sylvia suggested. “We wouldn’t be faced with it if it weren’t for her.”
“If I tell her that she’ll have an apoplexy.”
“Let her.”
“Then we’ll have to pay for her funeral.”
“Well, don’t tell her then. Don’t mention it. Just leave it discreetly on the telephone table.”
“Like a visiting card.”
“She’ll know what it is. Do you want the scissors?”
“Yes, please.”
“Why don’t you go and get them then?”
“I can’t find them.”
“You haven’t looked.”
“No point. I can never find the scissors. It’s one of the eternal verities. Something to cling to amid the vicissitudes of daily life.”
“It wears me out,” Sylvia said, “when you are so unrelentingly fatuous.”
With a conspicuous grunt of effort she got to her feet, and went into the kitchen. She was pleased with “fatuous” or did she mean facetious? That was possible. She rummaged in a drawer, thinking about Suzanne; thinking about Colin and his ten-year-old love affair, thinking about the undertaker’s bill. It had been distasteful, having Colin make jokes about gun carriages and lying in state. She knew he was doing it to cover his shock; his shock at finding out what people were capable of. Looking sideways at Florence, snivelling in her pew, she had thought: how can she? It was touching how Francis, who had no particular belief in an afterlife, had subdued his natural militancy and tried to come up with comforting and appropriate texts. She had felt a sharp impulse to lay the matter at his feet, but stifled it. She was sure he would approve of mercy killing; but Mother didn’t want to die. She was quite happy with her round of royal duties. She did not see how Florence could be so heartless, just for the sake of her career at the DHSS, but then she knew what her own first thought had been; no more trailing up and down the stairs, up and down the stairs. It took weight off—six calories a minute—but it wearied her.
But what would Francis say? He would like to agonise over it, if they had Hermione’s mother become incontinent in their spare room. He would like to wrestle with his conscience. That was the proper way. She had not wrestled with hers. She was not sure if she had a conscience. It was the kind of thing Colin talked about. Who knew if, over the years, Francis’s talk of it might become as tedious as Colin’s? That was men: scant regard for practicalities. Probably she was not good enough for Francis; he would find her wanting. She had dusted her hands off—mentally—and gone downstairs to ring the Elliot Bros., Funeral Directors, 24-Hour Service, Chapel of Rest. All she had thought of was what, since she was so large, Suzanne could possibly wear to the funeral. She took the scissors out of the drawer; I haven’t much imagination, she thought. Thank God.
“There you go,” she said, coming back into the living room and handing the scissors to her husband. He had succeeded in getting his parcel half-undone. Now he opened the cardboard box inside the wrapping paper.
“Good Lord,” he said. “It’s a phrenologist’s head. I’ve always wanted one of these.”
He took it out and put it on the coffee table. He knelt before it and traced its lines with his forefinger: Faculty of Conjugality, Faculty of Self-esteem. “I wonder where they got it. Stole it, probably. Still, it’s not the sort of thing you nick from Woolworth’s, they must have gone to trouble.”
“It’s no laughing matter.”
“Oh, there are worse crimes in the family.”
“I don’t like it, it’s sinister.”
“Faculty of Progenitiveness,” Colin said. “Come here, Sylvia, let me feel your head.” He fitted his fingers around her forehead and squeezed.
“Get off,” she bellowed angrily. “My God, Colin, you’re easily diverted. Your own daughter lying in a hospital bed, threatening to leave home, your son’s a delinquent, and all you can do is mess about with toys.”
“It’s not a toy. Suzanne’s just given birth, so where else would she be? And I understand she’s left home already.” He turned the head about. “Faculty of Combativeness.”
“It’s rubbish anyway,” Sylvia said. “It’s discredited.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Colin felt his skull above his left ear. “Opportunities for self-knowledge are so limited. It doesn’t do to be dogmatic. I wonder what I’d find if I read Florence’s bumps?”
“I think I’d rather not know. I’d rather not know more than I do.”
“‘Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.’”
“Another quotation,” Sylvia said. “It’s like Christmas every day, living with you. Out come the mottoes and the silly jokes, and the coloured plastic distractions, all the penny whistles and cheap novelties. And when the day’s over, what happens? All the trash is left under the table, for me to clear up.”
He didn’t answer. Surprised by the fluency of her outburst, he sat on the sofa, his eyes indignantly wide, staring at the phrenological head. Sylvia went into the kitchen. He heard the fridge door open and shut, and the clink of glasses. She whipped back into the room, ignoring him, and began to rummage around in the drinks cupboard.
“Oh, are we drinking again?” he asked.
“I am. I need one, after that episode with Suzanne. Have you ever known anybody so ungrateful? What more does she think I can offer her?”
“Pour me one.” He sounded forlorn.
“I’m having vodka.”
“That’ll do. Don’t put anything silly in it.”
Her voice floated through from the kitchen: “What do you call silly?” The telephone rang. Sylvia nipped back, dumped the glasses, picked it up; she thought it was Suzanne, changing her mind about things. He saw her back stiffen. “Yes,” she said carefully. “Yes, it is. Yes, he is.” She lowered the receiver, muffling it against her left breast. “It’s Mrs. Ryan. She wants to know if she can speak to you. If it’s convenient.”
Colin leaned forward and took up his head. The pottery bones were cool and firm beneath his palms. “She being sarcastic?” he asked.
“Just hold on,” Sylvia said into the receiver. To him, “What?”
“When she said ‘If it’s convenient?’ I mean, does convenience enter into it?”
“Hold on, Mrs. Ryan.” Sylvia put her hand over the mouthpiece. “Are you going to speak to her or not?”
“I mean, it’s a pretty hollow concept, convenience,” he said. “After ten years. She’s known where I was, this past decade.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’ve been here, haven’t I, at Buckingham Avenue? Where’s she been? God only knows.”
“You could have found out,” Sylvia said. “I daresay it wouldn’t have been beyond you. You could have made enquiries.”
“Oh, I could.” He upended the head and peered inside it. “But they might have led somewhere. Then I’d have had to take action. Then where would I be?”
“Mrs. Ryan,” Sylvia said, “I don’t think he wants to talk to you.” There was a pause. “She says she must know from you.” She held the receiver towards him. “I’ll go out of the room if you like.”
He shook his head.
“He shakes his head,” Sylvia said.
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Colin banged the head down on the table. “There’s nothing to say. There’s nothing left. It was a delusion.”
Sylvia bowed her head over the receiver, and like a confidential secretary repeated the message. She listened. “I’ll tell him.” She put the phone down gently, and watched it for a moment, as if she thought it might ring again. “She says to tell you, that’s exactly as she
supposed.”
He knew, by the careful repetition of the phrase, that the words were Isabel’s, exact; he knew, too, that they’d be the last she’d speak to him, directly or indirectly, the last ever. “Drink your drink,” Sylvia said. “I don’t mind if you have a cigarette. I know you’ve got some in your jacket pocket.”
“I’m overwhelmed,” he said.
He straightened up from the awkward posture he had assumed, crouching over the low table, and sat down at one end of the long sofa. Sylvia sat down at the other. She crossed her legs carefully, as if she expected to sit for some time. Both looked straight before them, like people in an airport lounge who fear that the journey ahead will be time enough for them to become acquainted.
Presently Sylvia shivered. “The central heating’s gone off again,” she said.
“There’s something wrong with the time clock. I expect Alistair’s been moving the tappets.”
“He must be doing it by remote control then, he hasn’t been in for days.”
“No, I’ve not seen him either.”
Their voices were carefully neutral and flat; polite people, feeling their way into conversation, thrown together in cramped accommodation by mere chance and the necessity of having to travel at all.
“Sometimes I think I’d like to run away,” Sylvia said. “If kids can do it, why not parents? I can’t cope with this place.”
“Everything seems to be falling apart, doesn’t it?”
“Did you know the washer’s packed up altogether? The only thing to do is to go and leave it all behind. It’s like, what do you call it? The House of Usher.”
“It’s like the house of Atreus,” Colin said. “Now there’s a coincidence for you. You eat this pie, and it just happens to contain your children.”
Sylvia turned on him. “You’re doing it again.”
“You started it, with the House of Usher, I’m only putting a word in.”
Sylvia jumped to her feet. Her face contorted with anger. She ran out of the room. Alarmed, he sped after her. He caught up with her at the foot of the stairs and threw his arms around her waist, swinging her round. The small effort put him out of breath; he would be no good these days on the squash court. Sylvia struggled; he lifted her almost off her feet and dumped her down on the third stair. “Don’t move,” he said. “Let’s have this out. If we don’t straighten it out now then we never will.” He took her left wrist in a secure grip and sat down beside her. It was a tight fit. Sylvia had been expanding lately. They were red in the face; emotion and the moment’s struggle had knocked the breath out of them both.