The Scent of Dried Roses

by Tim Lott

  But her hair, her beautiful hair. Now it was gone, had been gone for years. Jean was quite bald, and even her eyebrows, once dark seagulls, were now only painted skin. She felt the shape of her head with one hand, not to touch the baldness, but because she was dizzy. She thought she would fall if she stood. Jack was beside her, sitting up. He had long since stopped noticing the headscarf. Jean was… Jean, the woman he had loved without pause, or doubt, for nearly forty years. Strange, when he thought about it, since she went bald he had never seen her without the scarf, or without her wig. He had never seen her without hair.

  At first it had been a few strands, nothing much to worry about. When they were married, it was still there, all the bulk and confidence of it. It spread across the pillow shapeless as a pool. Then it began to feel thin, somehow, and shampoo didn’t work, not the Vosene or the yellow stuff – Thorium X paint – the doctor gave her, or the heat treatments, or the vinegar and brown paper her mother, Grace, said never failed. Then slowly, oddly, there were tiny patches, a brittleness. This was 1953. She was already married.

  Two years later, when she was pregnant for a second time, the problem was diagnosed. It was alopecia, the doctors said, and she was given tablets to cure it. She was slightly concerned that they might damage the unborn baby, but one thing she did know was that doctors were clever and good and could be trusted. But the tablets didn’t work. Worse, the baby was born sick and nearly died. So slowly, as if in punishment, she moulted. By the early 1960s she had lost all her hair. No one could ever find out; and not even Jack could see.

  And now these sleeping tablets weren’t working, just like those other pills more than thirty years before. She made an effort to stand up. It was quiet. Sometimes, even this early in the morning, you could hear Indian music from the family next door. The room – white Melamine, brown hessian cylinder lampshade, plain modern dressing table, divan bed – reeled and she nearly fell.

  Jack moved to help her, but she steadied herself. He was still a big handsome man, even at sixty-two. He looked like Robert Mitchum, in a certain light. He had even won a lookalike contest once, at the Torbay Chalet holiday camp in Devon.

  Jean walked into the hall. To her right, on the wall, the only decoration was a small framed print of an apple, a pear, dried flowers. Her feet scratched the damson sisal carpet. They had bought it because it was cheap and would last, but now it was beginning to show signs of wear, the frayed fibres straying tiredly out from their once-perfect close weave. She stepped carefully into the tiny bathroom: green patterned tiles and a Marilyn Monroe printed mirror (a present from one of her three boys). The room was plain – no cover on the toilet, no knitted mat.

  Jean performed her ablutions – as she called them – and stepped out after a couple of minutes. Jack, now in a blue towelling bathrobe, took her place inside. When he emerged fifteen minutes later, showered and shaved, Jean was dressed and preparing her wig expertly. It was made of real hair. She had once trained as a hairdresser, but had given it up and gone to work as a seamstress, at Berkertex, near the Palace Cinema in Southall.

  Her clothes were immaculate, neat and pressed, in good, sensible taste. She wore slacks and a blouse. On her finger was her engagement ring, bought up in London, in Notting Hill Gate in 1952, for a month’s wages: platinum with a single solitaire, £30. She made up her face in front of the dressing table, from where she could look out on to the small garden that she loved: winter jasmine, cotoneaster, laburnum, eucalyptus, winter rose, camellia, lilac, thyme, forget-me-nots; a small rockery; an arch of honey-suckle; a bird-house. A robin came every year. Her make-up was plain, unfussy: a little foundation, a little mascara, lipstick. The mirror showed a woman who looked ten years younger than her fifty-seven years. Everyone said so.

  Jean went downstairs to prepare Jack’s breakfast, while Jack dressed. When he came down (past the landscapes that Jean had painted herself at evening classes, copied exactly from prints, calendars and magazines), toast, cornflakes and tea were on the table. The table and chairs were Ercol, dark wood with slightly splayed legs in the 1950s style. There was a serving hatch between the kitchen and living room, lopsided, since Jack had made it – he was such a bodger, everyone had laughed. On its ledge, a pair of egg coddlers with tiny birds and nature scenes depicted. In the corner, a small table Jean had made herself, covered with dun-coloured tiles. There was a hanging pot with ivy, a leaded miniature arboretum, framed prints of cathedral towns and hunting scenes. The kitchen had been too small when they first moved into the house, in 1958, but in the 1970s they had had an extension built, like everyone did then, and now it seemed almost spacious. Behind where Jack sat, there was a pine wall clock. Jack read his Daily Express, which he bought despite having voted Labour all his life, drank his tea and ate his toast and marmalade. Jean would eat once he had left.

  After a while, Jack rose to go. He opened the door on to the street. Jean stood behind him, ready to say goodbye. When they had first moved to Southall, it had been a lovely place. The front gardens were neat and tidy, trees lined the streets and the kids played safely outside. There were trolley buses at the end of the road. The houses were then still new and mostly immaculate. They were all much the same, built in the 1930s, with bay windows, pebble-dash, hedges, fake Tudor beams, window seats, half-timbered, pitched roofs, two small bedrooms and a boxroom upstairs, french doors at the back.

  Now, many of the front gardens had been concreted over to make room for second-hand Sierras or Novas. The original windows had almost entirely been replaced by aluminium or thermoplastic-framed double-glazing. Half a dozen or so houses in the street were stone-clad. Satellite dishes had multiplied. Many of the lawns were untended and the hedges raddled. Sometimes you had to step over dog mess on the pavement. Jean used to dream that one day they might be able to move to Greenford, the next strip of suburb in towards London, but that would cost maybe another £10,000 or £15,000 and she knew that they couldn’t afford it. Still, money wasn’t everything. Being happy was what mattered, wasn’t it? Jean often finished her sentences with question marks.

  They kissed, briefly, on the lips. Goodbye, Jackie, said Jean. Goodbye, Jeannie, said Jack. That was the closest they ever got to pet names. Except sometimes, because Jack’s ears, for as long as she could remember, had been covered in thick white hair which he had to keep trimming back, she sometimes called him ‘Furry Ears’. She watched him go down the path, get in his car and drive away, without looking back. His red Volkswagen Jetta was on its last legs. He drove in his usual haphazard fashion, only braking at the last moment, pulling out without indicating. She closed the door. It was quiet inside.

  Jean had a job to do. For years, she had worked as a dinner lady at Beaconsfield Road School in Southall, helping to look after the children. They were mostly second- or third-generation Indians, Bangladeshis, Punjabis and Pakistanis. This was the only real job she had had since meeting Jack, apart from a brief spell on the production line at the big EMI factory in Hayes back in the 1970s. She wasn’t even sure what she’d been making then, but she’d had to sign the Official Secrets Act, because it was something to do with bombs.

  After Jack left, she went out shopping, just for a few bits and pieces for his dinner. She also drove a Jetta, slightly older, blue. She went to the Top Shops, so-called because you had to turn a corner and then go 300 yards up to the top of a hill. Once there had been a chemist’s, a big Co-op, a butcher, two or three bakers, sweet shops, the Forbuoys newspaper shop and a toy shop. Now the Co-op had closed and half the rest were boarded up. There was an off-licence, of course, that also rented videos and a tobacconist that was also a greengrocer, selling vegetables she didn’t even recognize.

  Jean was careful when she came back from the shops. Only a few days before, she had had an accident which knocked the side of the car in. It was all her fault – so much was her fault. Now she parked, outside Charlie and Flo Rowden’s house, two doors along at No. 35. Charlie was a cockney, with a face like a fresh wad of tobac
co. He had moved here in the 1940s from Shoreditch.

  Flo watched as Jean parked the car, about two or three feet from the kerb. She don’t look well, Charlie. And look at the way she’s parked that car. Charlie didn’t speak, or go to the window.

  Jean made sure that the house would be neat and tidy for when Jack came in. The sun was now out, catching a million motes of dust suspended in the room. Nothing was really clean in the end. She decided she had better ring Betty Buckingham, the secretary at the school.

  Betty, she said, I’m terribly sorry, but I shan’t be able to come in today. Or the rest of the week. Betty was surprised that Jean didn’t give a reason, but she was sure that there must be a good one. Jean had never let them down before. She sounded fine, so perhaps it was Jack who was ill.

  Irene Downhill, Jean’s best friend since adolescence, also worked as a dinner lady there and was surprised when she turned up at Beaconsfield Road to find that Jean wasn’t there. She’d seen her the previous night and Jean hadn’t said anything then about him being ill. She’d seemed absolutely OK, laughing and joking. She had given Irene a big hug at the end of the evening and – this was unusual – a kiss, then driven home. Irene, she had said, you’ve been a good friend to me. Then off she’d gone, in that banger, the ten-year-old Jetta, with the golf clubs and the tartan rug in the back.

  Jean sat down at the living-room table to write. She was good at writing. Unlike Jack, who had a half-legible scrawl at the best of times, Jean’s handwriting was neat, precise, compact. She never found that words came easy, but they came somehow. It was always her who wrote the little poems and messages to the family at Christmases and birthdays.

  To her side, the hardwood shelves that Jack had fitted himself. A GEC Sonata record player, bought in the 1970s. The boys had laughed at Jack for still buying British, but Jack believed in England. Above the record player, there were the family photographs next to the Reader’s Digest Condensed Classics. There was Jeff in his home in New Orleans, handsome, serious, with something of the look of Dustin Hoffman. In his mid-thirties and still no children, divorced and now married again. Timmy, his blond hair now thinning slightly, his face in a slight grimace – he always hated to smile into the camera, said his mouth was too small – still unmarried. And James, the youngest, always larking about, pulling faces for the camera – now he had left home too, to live up in London.

  Jean checked the carriage clock on the mantelpiece. The house was so empty. Next to the photographs there were trophies: golf, tennis, badminton, bridge. They all seemed to be for runners-up. The Lotts were famous for losing gracefully.

  She finished the letter and folded it neatly. After checking that the house was still tidy, she decided to get the job done. She went upstairs.

  It was a nothing day for Jack. He worked part-time for Age Concern. He didn’t think of Jean. She did what she did. After the dinner job, she would probably go and see her sister-in-law, Olive, or chubby little Rene from round the corner who had lost her husband a few years back. Or she would practise golf at the club in Perivale, although she wouldn’t join because she lacked confidence that she knew how to score properly – Jean found arithmetic difficult.

  Jack got home at about five o’clock. The house was nice and tidy as usual, with all the breakfast things cleared away. He shouted for Jean. There was no answer. Deciding that she was probably in the garden, he walked through the kitchen and into the small patch of green at the back. It ran slightly wild, the garden. It was deserted. There was an old shed at the end, full of junk, but there was nothing there either.

  He came back into the house, puzzled. It seemed so still. Suddenly he moved, fast, running up the cramped stairs. He did not know why he was running. Jack rushed into the bedroom. Jean’s wig was on straight and nicely coiffed. Her feet – size four, petite like the rest of her – were maybe six inches from the floor. The blue necklace of rope held her tight. Her eyes were closed. She looked unconcerned. There was a letter on the bed, with Jackie written on it. A stool had been kicked away.

  Jack ran downstairs. He was a practical man. He had to cut her down – although he knew she was dead and that it wouldn’t serve any purpose. There was a line around her neck, the blood pointlessly rushing to protect the delicate skin in the purple of a bruise. There was a line of blood.

  He searched the kitchen drawer, but couldn’t find the scissors. He decided to make do with a bread knife. Upstairs again, he sawed through the tension of the rope. It took only a second. She fell into his arms lightly, as if they were dancing. He laid her on the perfectly made-up bed. Then he went downstairs and called 999.

  The ringing tone no longer suggested a bell, merely a series of impulses. Jack’s voice held steady as the line was picked up.

  Hello. There’s been an accident. My wife is dead, I think.

  I see, sir. The address? Spell it please. 31 Rutland… As in the county? Thank you, sir. We’ll be with you as soon as we can.

  OK. Thank you.

  He hung up, gently, as the line went dead. He decided to go upstairs again, dreaming now. He sat on the bed and held Jean’s hand, rocking gently back and forward, trying to find balance. The bed was firm, to guard against backache. She was cold, of course.

  The letter was addressed to Jackie. The handwriting was neat and tidy, ‘Jackie’ in a different colour ink to the rest of it. There was a doodle at the top and the paper was folded into four. Jack opened it and began to read, tears now dissolving everything slightly. The letter was logical and clear, but it made no sense, no sense.

  Jack decided to go back downstairs. He let go of Jean’s hand, giving it the tiniest squeeze. Goodbye, Jeannie. He walked slowly down the stairs, the note still in his hand.

  He sat in the living-room armchair, which was a gold-brown velveteen. Now there was blue light at the net curtains, flashing on to the walls. A knock at the door. There were two young men, policemen. There were men in white who went upstairs, without a word, without even asking.

  One of the policemen, the older one, spoke.

  Sit down, sir.

  Jack had not returned to the chair and was wandering around without very much purpose.

  I think you could use a drink.

  The policeman poured a full glass of something or other and Jack took a deep swig, almost choking. He sat, listening to the noises upstairs, footsteps and something that sounded like furniture being moved. He felt a little groggy now. He tried to stand, to get to the phone to call his sons, but couldn’t remember their numbers. It was strange, because he’d known them all off by heart, for years.

  Of course, they would be in the ‘Addresses’ book. Jack rose to his feet, went to the hall and picked up the vinyl-bound volume. He thumbed through the pages, but found it hard to keep the book still. In the end, he couldn’t do it. The policeman gently eased the book from his big, collapsing hand. Jack gave him the names and he quickly found the numbers. The policeman began to dial the first one carefully.

  Jack sat down again. His jaw worked, but he wasn’t sure whether or not words were coming out. Certainly the policeman didn’t respond, but then he was busy speaking on the phone now. Yet Jack felt it only proper that he be told what had happened, exactly, and why.

  Chapter Two

  I could have answered my father’s questions, although, of course, he hadn’t put them to me yet, and although they were the wrong questions. As the policeman replaced the receiver at my father’s house, I knew why. I listened to the tone for a few seconds, then put the phone down at my end.

  It was an open and shut case. The motive was there, and the method and the witnesses. There were fingerprints. Suicide took the blame because it is bound to in these circumstances. But to ask why – that is, why suicide? – was a red herring. Actually it was murder, as plain and bright as the moon. It was a knife in the heart, an uppercut in the delicate pit of the belly. It was fatal bruising to the softest parts. Internal bleeding finished the job. So the correct question was, who, or what, was th
e murderer? I had my suspicions. First, it was an inside job, someone with access. Also, it was the job of an expert who was clever and ruthless. And, as with a Mafia hit, the killer had been someone she had trusted completely. There was only one person who fitted that particular profile.

  I realized that I was still staring at the telephone, as if I expected it to ring again to inform me that there had been a mistake. Plainly, this was absurd. I sighed, though not completely spontaneously. I felt instead this was something that was called for. I felt I needed to act in a grown-up fashion, although I was unsure what that involved.

  I supposed that I would have to confess. In mitigation, I would be able to say only that, although I had known what I was doing, it had to be done. There were more important things in life than the survival of mothers, and it was her or me. I had to move first. Anyone would have done the same under the circumstances.

  My father would, I knew, say that I was being too hard on myself, that I was suffering a guilt reaction, as described in the counselling and self-help books. But in fact it was as true to say that I was being easy on myself, because I killed Jean not just once but twice.