Memento Mori

by Muriel Spark

  “Oh, that doesn’t matter,” he said.

  “I did take them,” said Charmian. “I took them with my early tea, and they tried to force me to take more at breakfast. I know I took them with my early tea, and just suppose I had taken a second dose—”

  “It wouldn’t really have mattered,” he said.

  “But surely,” said Mrs. Pettigrew, “it is always dangerous to exceed a stated dose.”

  “Just try to keep a careful check—a set routine for medicines in future,” he said to Mrs. Pettigrew. “Then neither of you will make a mistake.”

  “There was no mistake on my part,” said Mrs. Pettigrew. “There is nothing wrong with my memory.”

  “In that case,” said Charmian, “we must question your intentions in trying to give me a second dose. Taylor knows I took my pills as I always do. I did not leave them on the tray.”

  The doctor said as he took her pulse, “Mrs. Pettigrew, if you would excuse us for a moment…”

  She went out with a deep loud weary sigh, and, in the kitchen, stood and berated Mrs. Anthony for “taking that mad-woman’s part this morning.”

  “She isn’t,” said Mrs. Anthony, “a mad-woman. She’s always been good to me.”

  “No, she isn’t mad,” said Mrs. Pettigrew, “you are right. She’s cunning and sly. She isn’t as feeble as she makes out, let me tell you. I’ve watched her when she didn’t know I was watching. She can move about quite easily when she likes.”

  “Not when she likes,” said Mrs. Anthony, “but when she feels up to it. After all, I’ve been here nine years, haven’t I? Mrs. Colston is a person who needs a lot of understanding, she has her off days and her on days. No one understands her like I do.”

  “It’s preposterous,” said Mrs. Pettigrew, “a woman of my position being accused of attempts to poison. Why, if I was going to do that I should go about it a very different way, I assure you, to giving her overdoses in front of everybody.”

  “I bet you would,” said Mrs. Anthony. “Mind out my way,” she said, for she was sweeping the floor unnecessarily.

  “Mind how you talk to me, Mrs. Anthony.”

  “Look,” said Mrs. Anthony, “my husband goes on at me about this job now he’s at home all day, he doesn’t like me being out. I only do it for that bit of independence and it’s what I’ve always done my married life. But we can do on the pension now I’m seventy and the old man sixty-eight, and any trouble from you, let me tell you I’m leaving here. I managed her myself these nine years and we got on without you interfering and making trouble.”

  “I shall speak to Mr. Colston,” said Mrs. Pettigrew, “and inform him of what you say.”

  “Him,” said Mrs. Anthony. “Go on and speak to him. I don’t reckon much of him. She’s the one that I care for, not him.” Mrs. Anthony followed this with an insolent look.

  “What do you mean by that exactly?” said Mrs. Pettigrew. “What exactly do you mean?”

  “You work it out for yourself,” said Mrs. Anthony. “I’m busy with their luncheon.”

  Mrs. Pettigrew went in search of Godfrey who was, however, out. She went by way of the front door round to the french windows, and through them. She saw that the doctor had left and Charmian was reading a book. She was filled with a furious envy at the thought that, if she herself were to take the vapours, there would not be any expensive doctor to come and give her a kind talk and an injection no doubt, and calm her down so that she could sit and read a book after turning the household upside down.

  Mrs. Pettigrew went upstairs to look round the bedrooms, to see if they were all right and tidy, and in reality to simmer down and look round. She was annoyed with herself for letting go at Mrs. Anthony. She should have kept aloof. But it had always been the same—even when she had been with Lisa Brooke—when she had to deal with lower domestics she became too much one of them. It was kindness of heart, but it was weak. She reflected that she had really started off on the wrong foot with Mrs. Anthony; that, when she had first arrived, she should have kept her distance with the woman and refrained from confidences. And now she had lowered herself to an argument with Mrs. Anthony. These thoughts overwhelmed Mrs. Pettigrew with that sense of having done a foolish thing against one’s interests, which in some people stands for guilt. And in this frame of heart she repented, and decided, as she stood by Charmian’s neatly-made bed, to establish her position more solidly in the household, and from now on to treat Mrs. Anthony with remoteness.

  A smell of burning food rose up the well of the stairs and into Charmian’s bedroom. Mrs. Pettigrew leaned over the banister and sniffed. Then she listened. No sound came from the kitchen, no sound of hurried removal of pots from the gas jets. Mrs. Pettigrew came half-way down the stairs and listened. From the small garden-room where Charmian had been sitting came voices. Mrs. Anthony was in there, recounting her wrongs to Charmian while the food was burning in the oven and the potatoes burning dry and the kettle burning on the stove. Mrs. Pettigrew turned back up the stairs, and up one more flight to her own room. There she got from a drawer a box of keys. She selected four and putting them in the black suède handbag which, perhaps by virtue of her office, she always carried about the house, descended to Charmian’s bedroom. Here, she tried the keys one by one in the lid of Charmian’s bureau. The third fitted. She did not glance within the desk, but locked the lid again. With the same key she tried the drawers. It did not fit them. She placed the key carefully in a separate compartment of her handbag and tried the other keys. None fitted the drawers. She went to the landing, where the smell of burning had become alarming, and listened. Mrs. Anthony had not yet left Charmian, and it was clear to Mrs. Pettigrew that when she did, there would be enough to keep her busy for ten minutes more. She took from her bag a package of chewing gum, and unwrapped it. There were five strips of gum. She put the paper with three of the pieces back in her bag and two pieces of gum in her mouth. She sat on a chair near the open door and chewed for a few seconds. Then she wet the tips of her fingers with her tongue, took the soft gum from her mouth and flattened it. She next wet the surface of the gum with her tongue and applied it to the keyhole of one of the drawers. She withdrew it quickly and put it on Charmian’s bedside table to set. She took two more pieces of gum, and having chewed them as before, moistened the lump and applied it to the keyhole of another drawer. She slung back her bag up to her wrist and holding the two pieces of gum with their keyhole impressions, between the finger and thumb of each hand, walked up the flight of stairs to her bedroom. She placed the hardened gum carefully in a drawer, locked the drawer, and set off downstairs, through the houseful of smoke and smell.

  Mrs. Anthony came rushing out of the garden-room just as Mrs. Pettigrew appeared on the first flight of stairs.

  “Do I,” said Mrs. Pettigrew, “smell burning?”

  By the time she reached the foot of the stairs Mrs. Anthony was already in the kitchen holding the smoking raging saucepan under the tap. A steady blue cloud was pouring through the cracks of the oven door. Mrs. Pettigrew opened the door of the oven, and was driven back by a rush of smoke. Mrs. Anthony dropped her potato saucepan and ran to the oven.

  “Turn off the gas,” she said to Mrs. Pettigrew. “Oh, the pie!”

  Mrs. Pettigrew, spluttering, approached the oven and turned off the gas taps, then she ran coughing from the kitchen and went in to Charmian.

  “Do I smell burning?” said Charmian.

  “The pie and potatoes are burned to cinders.”

  “Oh, I shouldn’t have kept Taylor talking,” said Charmian. “The smell is quite bad, isn’t it? Shall we open the windows?”

  Mrs. Pettigrew opened the french windows and like a ghost, a stream of blue smoke obligingly wafted out into the garden.

  “Godfrey,” said Charmian, “will be so cross. What is the time?”

  “Twenty past,” said Mrs. Pettigrew.

  “Eleven?”

  “No, twelve.”

  “Oh, dear. Do go and see how Mrs. Ant
hony is getting on. Godfrey will be in any moment.”

  Mrs. Pettigrew remained by the french windows. “I expect,” she said, “Mrs. Anthony is losing her sense of smell. She is quite aged for seventy, isn’t she? What I would call an old seventy. You would have thought she could have smelt the burning long before it got to this stage.” A sizzling sound came round the back of the house from the kitchen where Mrs. Anthony was drenching everything with water.

  “I smelt nothing,” said Charmian. “I’m afraid I kept her talking. Poor soul, she is—”

  “There’s Mr. Colston,” said Mrs. Pettigrew, “just come in.” She went out to the hall to meet him.

  “What the hell is burning?” he said. “Have you had a fire?”

  Mrs. Anthony came out of the kitchen and gave him an account of what had happened, together with accusations, complaints, and a fortnight’s notice.

  “I shall go and make an omelette,” said Mrs. Pettigrew, and casting her eyes to heaven for Godfrey to see behind Mrs. Anthony’s back, disappeared into the kitchen to cope with the disorder.

  But Godfrey would eat nothing. He told Charmian, “This is all your fault. The household is upside down just because you argued about your pills this morning.”

  “An overdose may have harmed me, Godfrey. I was not to know the pills were harmless.”

  “There was no question of overdose. I should like to know why the pills were harmless. I mean to say, if the fellow prescribes two and you may just as well take four, what sort of a prescription is that, what good are the pills to you? I’m going to pay the bill and tell him not to come back. We’ll get another doctor.”

  “I shall refuse to see another doctor.”

  “Mrs. Anthony has given notice, do you realise what that means?”

  “I shall persuade her to stay,” said Charmian. “She has been under great strain this morning.”

  He said, “Well, I’m going out again. This place is stinking.” He went to get his coat and returned to say, “Be sure to get Mrs. Anthony to change her mind.” From past experience, he knew that only Charmian could do it. “It’s the least you can do after all the trouble….”

  Mrs. Pettigrew and Mrs. Anthony sat eating their omelette with their coats on, since it was necessary to have all windows open. In the course of the meal Mrs. Pettigrew quarrelled with Mrs. Anthony again, and was annoyed with herself afterwards for it. If only, she thought guiltily, I could keep a distance, that would be playing my cards.

  Mrs. Anthony sat with Charmian all afternoon, while Mrs. Pettigrew, with the sense of performing an act of reparation, took her two pieces of chewing gum, each marked with a clear keyhole impression, to a person she knew at Camberwell Green.

  Chapter Seven

  There was a chill in the air, but Godfrey walked on the sunny side of the street. He had parked his car in a turning off King’s Road outside a bombed building, so that anyone who recognised it would not be able to guess particularly why it was there. Godfrey had, for over three years now, been laboriously telling any of his acquaintance who lived near Chelsea, that his oculist was in Chelsea, his lawyer was in Chelsea, and that he frequently visited a chiropodist in Chelsea. The more alert of his acquaintance had sometimes wondered why he stated these facts emphatically and so often—almost every time they met him. But he was, after all, over eighty and, one supposed, inclined to waffle about the merest coincidences.

  Godfrey himself was of the feeling that one can never be too careful. Having established an oculist, a lawyer and a chiropodist in the neighbourhood to account for his frequent appearances in Chelsea, he still felt it necessary to park his car anonymously, and walk the rest of the way, by routes expressly devious, to Tite Street where, in a basement flat, Olive Mannering, grand-daughter of Percy Mannering, the poet, resided.

  He looked to right and left at the top of the area steps. The coast was clear. He looked to right again, and descended. He pushed the door open and called, “Hello, there.”

  “Mind the steps,” Olive called from the front room on the left. There were three more steps to descend within the doorway. Godfrey walked down carefully, and found his way along the passage into a room of many lights. Olive’s furnishings were boxy and modern, coloured with a predominance of yellow. She herself was fairly drab in comparison. She was twenty-four. Her skin was pale with a touch of green. She had a Spanish look, with slightly protruding, large eyes. Her legs, full at the calves, were bare. She sat on a stool and warmed these legs by a large electric fire while reading the Manchester Guardian.

  “Goodness, it’s you,” she said, as Godfrey entered. “Your voice is exactly like Eric’s. I thought it was Eric.”

  “Is he in London, then?” said Godfrey, looking round the room suspiciously, for there had been an afternoon when he had called on Olive and met his son Eric there. Godfrey, however, had immediately said to Olive,

  “I wonder if you have your grandfather’s address? I wish to get in touch with him.”

  Olive had started to giggle. Eric had said “Ha—hum” very meaningly and, as Olive told him later, disrespectfully.

  “I wish to get in touch with him in connection with,” said Godfrey, glaring at his son, “some poetry.”

  Olive was a fair-minded girl in so far as she handed over to Eric most of the monthly allowances she obtained from Godfrey. She felt this was only Eric’s due, since his father had allowed him nothing for nearly ten years past, Eric being now fifty-six.

  “Is Eric in London?” said Godfrey again.

  “He is,” said Olive.

  “I’d better not stop,” said Godfrey.

  “He won’t be coming here to-day,” she said. “I’ll just go and put my stockings on,” she said. “Would you like some tea?”

  “Yes, all right,” said Godfrey. He folded his coat double and laid it on the divan-bed. On top of it he placed his hat. He looked to see if the curtains were properly drawn across the basement window. He sat down with a thump in one of the yellow chairs which were too low-built for his liking, and picked up the Manchester Guardian. Sometimes, while he waited, he looked at the clock.

  Olive returned, wearing stockings and carrying a tea-tray.

  “Goodness, are you in a hurry?” she said as she saw Godfrey looking at the clock. He was not in a hurry, exactly. He was not yet sure of the cause of his impatience that afternoon.

  Olive placed the tray on a low table and sat on her low stool. She lifted the hem of her skirt to the point where her garter met the top of her stockings, and with legs set together almost primly sideways, she poured out the tea.

  Godfrey did not know what had come over him. He stared at the garter-tips, but somehow did not experience his usual satisfaction at the sight. He looked at the clock.

  Olive, passing him his tea, noticed that his attention was less fixed on her garter-tips than was customary.

  “Anything the matter, Godfrey?” she said.

  “No,” he said, and took his tea. He sipped it, and stared again at the tops of her stockings, evidently trying hard to be mesmerised.

  Olive lit a cigarette and watched him. His eyes did not possess their gleam.

  “What’s the matter?” she said.

  He was wondering himself what was the matter. He sipped his tea.

  “Running a car,” he remarked, “is a great expense.”

  She burst into a single laugh and said, “Oh, go on.”

  “Cost of living,” he muttered.

  She covered up her garter-tops with her skirt and sat hugging her knees, as one whose efforts are wasted. He did not seem to notice.

  “Did you see in the paper,” she said, “about the preacher giving a sermon on his hundredth birthday?”

  “Which paper, where?” he said, reaching out for the Manchester Guardian.

  “It was the Mirror,” she said. “I wonder what I’ve done with it? He said anyone can live to a hundred if they keep God’s laws and remain young in spirit. Goodness.”

  “The government robbers,
” he said, “won’t let you keep young in spirit. Sheer robbery.”

  Olive was not listening, or she would not have chosen that moment to say, “Eric’s in a bad way, you know.”

  “He’s always in a bad way. What’s the matter now?”

  “The usual,” she said.

  “What usual?”

  “Money,” she said.

  “I can’t do more for Eric. I’ve done more than enough for Eric. Eric has ruined me.”

  Then, as in a revelation, he realised what had put him off Olive’s garters that afternoon. It was this money question, this standing arrangement with Olive. It had been going on for three years. Pleasant times, of course…One had possibly gained…but now, Mabel Pettigrew—what a find! Quite pleased with a mere tip, a pound, and a handsome woman, too. All this business of coming over to Chelsea. No wonder one was feeling put out, especially as one could not easily extricate oneself from an arrangement such as that with Olive. Moreover…

  “I’m not so strong these days,” he commented. “My doctor thinks I’m going about too much.”

  “Oh?” said Olive.

  “Yes. Must keep indoors more.”

  “Goodness,” said Olive. “You are wonderful for your age. A man like you could never stay indoors all day.”

  “Well,” he admitted, “there is that to it.” He was moved to look longingly at her legs at the point where, beneath her dress, the tip of her garter would meet the top of her stockings, but she made no move to reveal them.

  “You tell your doctor,” she said, “to go to hell. What did you see the doctor about, anyway?”

  “Just aches and pains, my dear, nothing serious of course.”

  “Many a younger man,” she said, “is riddled with aches and pains. Take Eric, for instance—”

  “Feeling his age, is he?”

  “I’ll say he is. Goodness.”

  Godfrey said, “Only himself to blame. No, I’m wrong, I blame his mother. From the moment that boy was born, she—”

  He leaned back in his chair with his hands crossed above his stomach. Olive closed her eyes and relaxed while his voice proceeded into the late afternoon.