Death Of A Hollow Man

by Caroline Graham

  Sunny, who had gone in for the most dashing leaps and runs when they were out, had already sensed the situation and now sat quietly at her feet. Deidre picked up her copy of Uncle Vanya, interleaved and crammed with production ideas and sketches for the set. One of the nicest things during her stay with the Barnabys had happened on Wednesday morning, when she had discussed the theater for hours with Cully, at first tentatively, then, as her companion responded with great interest, more and more enthusiastically. They had talked through lunch (extraordinarily inedible) and well into the afternoon, in fact right up to the time Deidre had had to leave for the hospital. She couldn’t understand now why she had ever thought Cully sneering and standoffish.

  Sunny made a hopeful sound, stretching his lips in that strange manner that dogs have; half yawn, half grin. Deidre started guiltily. He had not eaten all day, and had made no complaint till now. There were three cans of meat and a large bag of Winalot in her bag, and she put some food on a plate, then filled his stone dish marked dog with clean water. She left the sound of steady lapping behind as she climbed the stairs.

  In her father’s room she started automatically to make his bed, then stopped, sharply recalled to the complete pointlessness of her task. She looked around, a fall of green blanket in her arms, taking in the bottle of medicine and little bottles of pills on the bamboo table; the Bible open at the First Book of Kings showing an engraving of Elijah being delicately fed by ravens; two pieces of Turkish delight in a saucer.

  Gradually, and with the deepest apprehension, she absorbed the full enormity of what had happened. Her father was not poorly or a little unstable or susceptible to queer turns. He had Alzheimer’s disease and was a danger to himself and others; the balance of his mind disturbed. Deidre had a sudden vision of some old-fashioned scales and an impersonal hand dishing out wholesome grains of sanity with a little brass scoop. They were white and clean like virgin sand. Into the other shallow metal saucer was poured a hot dark flux of irrationality until the saucer overflowed and the chaste pale granules were first swamped, then quite washed away, in the black froth of madness.

  Deidre bowed her head. She swayed and momentarily fought for breath. But she did not sit down. And she did not cry. She stood for five full minutes in a tumult of misery and sorrow, then started to strip the bed and fold up the sheets and blankets. She opened the window and, as the cold air rushed in, realized for the first time how stuffy the room was. Fearful of her father’s health once October had arrived, she had kept the window tightly closed. “That’ll blow the cobwebs away,” he would say when she opened it again in May. Having put the bedding in a neat pile, Deidre picked up the wastebasket and swept all bottles into it together with his carafe and glass. The Bible she snapped shut and replaced on the bookshelf.

  She worked mechanically, under no illusion that her activities could even begin to ease, let alone transform, her situation. But (the social worker had been right in this respect) as she continued to go briskly from one simple task to the next, generating her own momentum, she became aware that the procedure did offer some slight degree of comfort. And—even more important—was getting her though the period she had dreaded most, her first time alone in Mortimer Street.

  She shook the two rugs in the backyard and noticed how threadbare the dark red-and-blue Turkish one was. She rolled it up and pushed it in the trash bin. Then she carried the bedding downstairs and put it by the front door. She would have the sheets washed, the blankets cleaned, and give the lot to the Salvation Army. She cleaned and polished for the next hour, until the room shone and smelled fragrantly of beeswax and Windowlene. She replaced the single mat and put Mr. Tibbs’s tortoiseshell hairbrush and comb and leather cuff-link box away in the chest of drawers. Then she leaned against the windowsill and sighed with something like satisfaction.

  The room looked clean, neat, and would have appeared to a casual visitor quite impersonal. Deidre completed her task by dusting the pictures. Two Corot reproductions, a text (trust in the lord) garlanded with pansies and ears of wheat and framed in burnt pokerwood, and “The Light of the World.” Deidre flicked the dust from the first three while they were in situ, then took down the Holman Hunt and studied it pensively. The figure that had given comfort to her childish hurts and sorrows and had seemed to stand loving guard when she slept now appeared nothing more than a sentimental dreamer, a paper savior impotent and unreal, standing in his flood of insipid yellow light. She fought against the pity that always gripped her at the sight of the crown of thorns; she fought against insidious false comfort.

  Running downstairs again, holding the picture away from her almost at arm’s length, Deidre hurried through the kitchen to the back garden and once more lifted the lid of the trash bin. She dropped “The Light of the World” inside and, replacing the cover, turned away immediately, as if that sad, calm, forgiving gaze might pierce the metal and catch her own. And she had no sooner gone back upstairs than the upbeat energy, the essential driving feeling that she was tackling a job well done, drained away. Now, looking at the poor denuded room with all traces of her father so firmly erased, Deidre was appalled. She was behaving as if he were dead. And as if his memory must always bring pain and never solace. She apologized aloud as if he could hear, and brought out his brush and comb and link box and replaced them on the bamboo table. Then she returned to the backyard and retrieved the painting.

  She stood indecisive and shivering in the cold air, with “The Light of the World” in her hands. She did not want to take it back inside, but felt now that it was out of the question that it should be destroyed. In the end she put it in the shed, placing it carefully on an old enamel-topped table beside the earth-encrusted flowerpots, balls of green twine, and seed trays. She closed the door gently as she left, not wishing to advertise her presence and invoke Mrs. Higgins.

  Deidre had only seen her neighbor once since Monday evening, when she had called in briefly to collect any mail. Mrs. Higgins had been all agog with many a “fancy” and “poor Mr. Tibbs—out of the blue like that.” Deidre had reacted tersely. “Out of the blue” had seemed to her an especially fatuous remark. Terrible things surely came out of the gray, or out of a deep, transforming black. At the realization that there would be no more little envelopes or lugubrious sighs and miserable forecasts when she arrived home from the Latimer, Deidre’s spirits lifted once more.

  She returned to the kitchen, where Sunny, curled up in front of an empty grate, immediately got up and ran to meet her. She crouched down and buried her face in his sparkling cream and ginger ruff. Glancing at the mantelpiece, she realized there were three hours before she needed to leave for the Chekhov auditions. How slowly the clock seemed to be ticking. Of course, there was plenty to do. All those dishes, for a start. Perhaps Sunny might like another walk. And she still hadn’t unpacked her case. It occurred to Deidre suddenly how much time there seemed to be when you were unhappy. Perhaps this leaden comprehension that each minute must last for at least an hour was what people meant by loneliness. Time turning inward and then standing still. Well—she’d just have to get used to it and soldier on. She was turning on the hot-water faucet when the doorbell rang.

  She decided not to go. It was probably one of her father’s so-called friends who had heard the news and, after cutting him dead for the past eighteen months, was now calling to see if there was anything he could do. Or Mrs. Higgins, dewlaps aquiver with curiosity. It wouldn’t be the Barnabys. Although warmly pressing her to stay, Joyce had left it that Deidre would get in touch if she wanted any further help. The bell rang again, and Sunny started to bark. Deidre dried her hands. Whoever it was, was not going away. She opened the front door. David Smy stood on the step clutching a bunch of flowers.

  “Oh!” Deidre stepped back awkwardly. “David … What a … Come in … that is … come in. What a surprise. I mean, what a nice surprise …” She chattered nervously (no one from the company had ever visited her at home before) as she led him to the kitchen. On the thres
hold she remembered the state of the place, backed away, and opened the door of the sitting room.

  “Please … sit down … how nice … how lovely to see you. Um … can I get you anything … some tea?”

  “No thank you, Deidre. Not at the moment.”

  David sat, as slowly and calmly as he did everything, on the Victorian button-backed nursing chair, and removed his corduroy cap. He had on a beautiful dark green soft tweed suit that Deidre had never seen before, and looked very smart. She wondered where on earth he was going. Then he stood up again, and Deidre fluttered to a halt somewhere between the piano and the walnut tallboy.

  David’s flowers were long-stemmed apricot roses, the flowers shaped like immaculate candle flames. The florist had assured him that in spite of being scentless and unnaturally uniform, they were the finest in the shop and had been flown in from the Canaries only yesterday. David, starting as he meant to go on, had bought every bloom in the bucket (seventeen) at a cost of thirty-four pounds. Now, he held them out to Deidre, and she closed the gap between them, reaching out hesitantly.

  “Thank you … that is kind. Actually, I’ve already been to the hospital, but I’ll be going again on Sunday. I’m sure my father will love them. I’ll just get a vase.”

  “I don’t think you quite understand, Deidre.” David stopped her as she turned away. “The flowers are not for your father. They’re for you.”

  “For … for me? But … I’m not ill…”

  David smiled at this. He further narrowed the gap between them and bent upon her a look of such loving kindness that she all but burst into tears. Then he stretched out his green tweedy arm and drew her to him.

  “Ohhh…” breathed Deidre, hope and disbelief shining equally in her eyes. “I didn’t… I didn’t know … I didn’t understand…”

  She did weep then; little sobs of joy. Sunny, much concerned, started to whimper. “It’s all right.” She bent down and patted him. “Everything’s all right.”

  “I didn’t know you had a dog.”

  “It’s a long story. Shall I tell you? Perhaps while we have some tea—’’ She turned toward the door, but David drew her back.

  “In a moment. I’ve been waiting a long time to do this. And we have the rest of our lives to have some tea.” And then he kissed her.

  She nestled once more against his shoulder, and his arm tightened. It was not a white-feathered arm, and it was certainly not twelve feet tall, yet such was the feeling of exhilarating comfort, for a moment it seemed to Deidre that she might have been enclosed in a tightly furled wing.

  Rosa sat in the middle of row D, feeling disappointed. She had been convinced there would be an “atmosphere” at the audition for Vanya. Surely the unseemly departure of the company’s previous leading man would mark the proceedings in some way? Slightly lowered tones perhaps; a nice hesitancy in putting oneself forward for the unexpectedly vacant title role. But no, everything was proceeding as usual. Actors striding on and off the stage, Harold pontificating, Deidre at her table. David Smy was in the back row next to his father with a piebald dog on his knee, and Kitty, who had had quite a bit of fun running away from Rosa with mock squeals of fright, was now leaning against the proscenium arch and sulking. She had come down not to read but to have a nice cozy chat with Nicholas, only to find him deep in conversation with Joycey’s showy daughter.

  Joyce herself, hoping for the part of Marina, the elderly nurse, was waiting in the wings with Donald Everard. Clive, to everyone’s surprise, had cheekily taken to the stage to try for Telyegin. Boris, having just given Astrov’s “idle life” speech, was drinking Kanga’s piddle, and Riley rested on Avery’s bosom darting many a snappy glance over his shoulder at the dog in the back row, suspecting some planned territorial infringement.

  When Clive had finished, Cully Barnaby stepped forward to read for Yelena, and Rosa sat up. No reason why the child shouldn’t make an attempt, of course. There was no denying that she was marginally nearer to the character’s age (twenty-six) than Rosa, or that, as a youngster, she’d had quite a little way with her onstage. Still … Rosa half settled back and waited, uneasy.

  “You’re standing by the window,” called Harold. “You open it and talk, half looking out. From ‘my dear—don’t you understand’ … page two one five.”

  Then Cully moved, not as Rosa had expected, toward the window at the back of the set, still in place from Amadeus, but right down to the footlights, where she pushed against an imaginary casement and leaned out, her lovely face stamped with irritated melancholy. She began to speak in a rich, sharp voice, vivid as an ache and not at all in the musical “Chekhovian” manner the CADS thought proper. Her anger flowed into the auditorium, powerful and bitter. Rosa, chilled to the marrow, felt her heart tumble out of its place and bounce against her ribs.

  But Cully was hardly into the speech when two men appeared at the swing doors under the exit sign and walked, with measured tread, down the aisle. So unflurried and even was their stride (neither fast nor slow), so closely did the younger man emulate the bearing of his companion, that there was something almost comic in their sudden appearance. They might have been making an entrance in a musical comedy. Until you looked at the first one’s face.

  Cully faltered, read one more line, stopped, and said, “Hello, Dad.”

  “Well, really, Tom . . Harold got up. “Of all the times. We’re auditioning here. I hope this is important.”

  “Extremely. Where are you going?” Tim had climbed out of his seat.

  “To open some wine.”

  “Sit down please. What I have to say won’t take long.” Tim sat down. “Perhaps everyone onstage and in the wings could come to the stalls. Save me screwing my neck around.”

  Nicholas, Deidre, Joyce, and Cully clambered down from the stage. Donald Everard followed and slid into the seat next to his twin. The young detective in the raincoat sat on the steps leading from the stage, and Barnaby walked to the pass door at the end of row A, turned, and surveyed them all. Joyce, sitting next to her daughter, shivered as the cold, impersonal beam of her husband’s attention swept around the stalls. She felt suddenly alienated, and watched his profile tighten and become almost hawkish, with increasing feelings of distress. By the time he began to speak, she felt she was looking at a complete stranger. There was absolute quiet. Even Harold had fallen silent, though not for long, and Nicholas, innocent though he might be, thought, This is it, and experienced a thrill of alarm so strong it made him feel almost sick.

  Barnaby began by saying, “I felt it only fair to keep you abreast with the current investigations pertaining to the Carmichael case.” What a tease, thought Boris. As if the police ever kept a suspect abreast of anything. Tom’s setting something up. ‘‘And I’d like to talk for a moment if I may about the character of the murdered man. It has always been my belief that an accurate assessment of the victim’s personality is the first step in an inquiry of this kind. Random killing apart, a man or woman is usually done away with because of what they think or believe or say or do. In other words, because of the sort of person they are.”

  ‘‘Well, I hope we’re not going to waste much time going over that,” interrupted Harold. “We all know what sort of person Esslyn was.”

  “Do we? I know what the general opinion was. I went along with it myself—why not? Until now, I’d no reason to go into the matter in any detail. Oh, yes, we all knew what sort of person Esslyn was. Eminently fanciable, vain, strong-willed, solipsistic, a wow with the ladies. But when I tried to get to grips with this character, I found he simply wasn’t there. There were outward signs, of course. Certain narcissistic posturings and Casanovian pursuits, but beyond this … nothing. Now why should this be?”

  “He was shallow,” said Avery. “Some people just are.”

  “Perhaps. But there is always more to any one person than what they choose to reveal. So I asked questions and listened to the answers and examined my own perceptions a bit more closely, and gradually a ver
y different picture began to emerge. First, perhaps, we can look into the question of women. There is no doubt that he was loved, and very truly loved, by one.” His glance fell on Rosa, and her mouth folded tightly into a controlled line. “She accepted him for what he was. Or what she thought he was.”

  “There’s no thought about it!” cried Rosa, her voice raw. “I knew him.”

  “But who else ever cared? When I tried to pin this down, I got varying replies. Esslyn himself naturally fostered the illusion that they all cared. That, like Don Juan, he had no sooner had his way with one blossom than he moved on to pluck the next, leaving a trail of broken hearts. But I could find no actual proof of this. It was all hearsay, very vague. I did, however, come across one or two interesting comments. ‘Nothing ever lasted very long for Esslyn,’ and ‘They used to get fed up and drift off.’ They, you’ll notice—not he. Certainly when he finally did break up his marriage for a pretty girl, she’d left him within the month. And his second wife had no love for him at all.”

  Kitty’s eyes, already quite tarnished with crossness, glowered. Barnaby guessed at a recent visit to Mr. Ounce.

  “And why was it such a piece of cake for her to lead this man, who supposedly had the pick of the bunch, to the altar by simply lying about a pregnancy?”

  There was an audible intake of breath from several people at this revelation, and Rosa made a thick, choking sound. The Everards whickered like excited horses.

  “To move on to his position as an actor. In this company, he was top dog. A big fish in a little pond—”

  “I beg leave to take issue there, Tom. This theater is—”

  “Please.” Harold subsided reluctantly. “A little pond. True, he had leading roles, but he did not have the talent, the perception, or the humility to make anything of them. Neither did he have the ambition to look for pastures new. There are bigger groups in Slough or Uxbridge where he might have stretched himself, but he never showed the slightest inclination to do so. Perhaps because he may not have found another director quite so amenable.”