An Unsuitable Job for a Woman

by P. D. James

  The first policeman to arrive was efficient but young, not yet experienced enough to hide his shock and distaste at the sight of violent death nor his disapproval that Cordelia should be so calm. He didn’t spend long in the inner office. When he came out he meditated upon Bernie’s note as if a careful scrutiny could extract some inner meaning from the bald sentence of death. Then he folded it away.

  “I’ll have to keep this note for the present, Miss. What did he get up to here?”

  “He didn’t get up to anything. This was his office. He was a private detective.”

  “And you worked for this Mr. Pryde? You were his secretary?”

  “I was his partner. It says so in the note. I’m twenty-two. Bernie was the senior partner; he started the business. He used to work for the Metropolitan Police in the CID with Superintendent Dalgliesh.”

  As soon as the words were spoken, she regretted them. They were too propitiatory, too naïve a defence of poor Bernie. And the name Dalgliesh, she saw, meant nothing to him. Why should it? He was just one of the local uniformed branch. He couldn’t be expected to know how often she had listened with politely concealed impatience to Bernie’s nostalgic reminiscences of his time in the CID before he was invalided out, or to his eulogies on the virtues and wisdom of Adam Dalgliesh. “The Super—well, he was just an Inspector then—always taught us … The Super once described a case … If there was one thing the Super couldn’t stand …”

  Sometimes she had wondered whether this paragon had actually existed or whether he had sprung impeccable and omnipotent from Bernie’s brain, a necessary hero and mentor. It was with a shock of surprise that she had later seen a newspaper picture of Chief Superintendent Dalgliesh, a dark, sardonic face which, on her closer scrutiny, disintegrated into an ambiguity of patterned microdots, giving nothing away. Not all the wisdom Bernie so glibly recalled was the received gospel. Much, she suspected, was his own philosophy. She in turn had devised a private litany of disdain: supercilious, superior, sarcastic Super; what wisdom, she wondered, would he have to comfort Bernie now.

  The policeman had made discreet telephone calls. He now prowled around the outer office, hardly bothering to hide his puzzled contempt at the shabby second-hand furniture, the battered filing cabinet with one drawer half-open to reveal teapot and mugs, the worn linoleum. Miss Sparshott, rigid at an ancient typewriter, gazed at him with fascinated distaste. At last he said: “Well, suppose you make yourselves a nice cup of tea while I wait for the police surgeon. There is somewhere to make tea?”

  “There’s a small pantry down the corridor which we share with the other tenants on this floor. But surely you don’t need a surgeon? Bernie’s dead!”

  “He’s not officially dead until a qualified medical practitioner says so.” He paused: “It’s just a precaution.”

  Against what, Cordelia wondered—judgement, damnation, decay? The policeman went back into the inner office. She followed him and asked softly: “Couldn’t you let Miss Sparshott go? She’s from a secretarial agency and we have to pay for her by the hour. She hasn’t done any work since I arrived and I doubt whether she will now.”

  He was, she saw, a little shocked by the apparent callousness of concerning herself with so mercenary a detail while standing within touching-distance of Bernie’s body, but he said willingly enough: “I’ll just have a word with her, then she can go. It isn’t a nice place for a woman.”

  His tone implied that it never had been.

  Afterwards, waiting in the outer office, Cordelia answered the inevitable questions.

  “No, I don’t know whether he was married. I’ve a feeling that he was divorced; he never talked about a wife. He lived at 15 Cremona Road, SE1. He let me have a bed-sitting room there but we didn’t see much of each other.”

  “I know Cremona Road; my aunt used to live there when I was a kid—one of those streets near the Imperial War Museum.”

  The fact that he knew the road seemed to reassure and humanize him. He ruminated happily for a moment.

  “When did you last see Mr. Pryde alive?”

  “Yesterday at about five o’clock when I left work early to do some shopping.”

  “Didn’t he come home last night?”

  “I heard him moving around but I didn’t see him. I have a gas ring in my room and I usually cook there unless I know he’s out. I didn’t hear him this morning which is unusual, but I thought he might be lying in. He does that occasionally when it’s his hospital morning.”

  “Was it his hospital morning today?”

  “No, he had an appointment last Wednesday but I thought that they might have asked him to come back. He must have left the house very late last night or before I woke early this morning. I didn’t hear him.”

  It was impossible to describe the almost obsessional delicacy with which they avoided each other, trying not to intrude, preserving the other’s privacy, listening for the sound of flushing cisterns, tiptoeing to ascertain whether the kitchen or bathroom was empty. They had taken infinite trouble not to be a nuisance to each other. Living in the same small terraced house they had hardly seen each other outside the office. She wondered whether Bernie had decided to kill himself in his office so that the little house would be uncontaminated and undisturbed.

  At last the office was empty and she was alone. The police surgeon had closed his bag and departed; Bernie’s body had been manoeuvred down the narrow staircase, watched by eyes from the half-opened doors of other offices; the last policeman had left. Miss Sparshott had gone for good, violent death being a worse insult than a typewriter which a trained typist ought not to be expected to use or lavatory accommodation which was not at all what she had been accustomed to. Alone in the emptiness and silence Cordelia felt the need of physical action. She began vigorously to clean the inner office, scrubbing the bloodstains from desk and chair, mopping the soaked rug.

  At one o’clock she walked briskly to their usual pub. It occurred to her that there was no longer any reason to patronize the Golden Pheasant but she walked on unable to bring herself to so early a disloyalty. She had never liked the pub or the landlady and had often wished that Bernie would find a nearer house, preferably one with a large bosomy barmaid with a heart of gold. It was, she suspected, a type commoner in fiction than in real life. The familiar lunchtime crowd was clustered around the bar and, as usual, Mavis presided behind it wearing her slightly minatory smile, her air of extreme respectability. Mavis changed her dress three times a day, her hairstyle once every year, her smile never. The two women had never liked each other although Bernie had galumphed between them like an affectionate old dog, finding it convenient to believe that they were great mates and unaware of or ignoring the almost physical crackle of antagonism. Mavis reminded Cordelia of a librarian known to her in childhood who had secreted the new books under the counter in case they should be taken out and soiled. Perhaps Mavis’s barely suppressed chagrin was because she was forced to display her wares so prominently, compelled to measure out her bounty before watchful eyes. Pushing a half-pint of shandy and a Scotch egg across the counter in response to Cordelia’s order, she said: “I hear you’ve had the police round.”

  Watching their avid faces, Cordelia thought, they know about it, of course; they want to hear the details; they may as well hear them. She said: “Bernie cut his wrists twice. The first time he didn’t get to the vein; the second time he did. He put his arm in water to help the bleeding. He had been told that he had cancer and couldn’t face the treatment.”

  That, she saw, was different. The little group around Mavis glanced at each other, then quickly averted their eyes. Glasses were momentarily checked upon their upward way. Cutting one’s wrist was something which other people did but the sinister little crab had his claws of fear into all their minds. Even Mavis looked as if she saw his bright claws lurking among her bottles. She said: “You’ll be looking for a new job, I suppose? After all, you can hardly keep the Agency going on your own. It isn’t a suitable job fo
r a woman.”

  “No different from working behind a bar; you meet all kinds of people.”

  The two women looked at each other and a snatch of unspoken dialogue passed between them clearly heard and understood by both.

  “And don’t think, now he’s dead, that people can go on leaving messages for the Agency here.”

  “I wasn’t going to ask.”

  Mavis began vigorously polishing a glass, her eyes still on Cordelia’s face.

  “I shouldn’t think your mother would approve of you staying on alone.”

  “I only had a mother for the first hour of my life, so I don’t have to worry about that.”

  Cordelia saw at once that the remark had deeply shocked them and wondered again at the capacity of older people to be outraged by simple facts when they seemed capable of accepting any amount of perverse or shocking opinion. But their silence, heavy with censure, at least left her in peace. She carried her shandy and Scotch egg to a seat against the wall and thought without sentimentality about her mother. Gradually out of a childhood of deprivation she had evolved a philosophy of compensation. In her imagination she had enjoyed a lifetime of love in one hour with no disappointments and no regrets. Her father had never talked about her mother’s death and Cordelia had avoided questioning him, fearful of learning that her mother had never held her in her arms, never regained consciousness, never perhaps even known that she had a daughter. This belief in her mother’s love was the one fantasy which she could still not entirely risk losing although its indulgence had become less necessary and less real with each passing year. Now, in imagination, she consulted her mother. It was just as she expected: her mother thought it an entirely suitable job for a woman.

  The little group at the bar had turned back to their drinks. Between their shoulders she could see her own reflection in the mirror above the bar. Today’s face looked no different from yesterday’s face: thick, light brown hair framing features which looked as if a giant had placed a hand on her head and the other under her chin and gently squeezed the face together; large eyes, browny-green under a deep fringe of hair; wide cheekbones; a gentle, childish mouth. A cat’s face, she thought, but calmly decorative among the reflection of coloured bottles and all the bright glitter of Mavis’s bar. Despite its look of deceptive youth it could be a secret, uncommunicative face. Cordelia had early learnt stoicism. All her foster parents, kindly and well-meaning in their different ways, had demanded one thing of her—that she should be happy. She had quickly learned that to show unhappiness was to risk the loss of love. Compared with this early discipline of concealment, all subsequent deceits had been easy.

  The Snout was edging his way towards her. He settled himself down on the bench, his thick rump in its appalling tweed pressed close to hers. She disliked the Snout although he had been Bernie’s only friend. Bernie had explained that the Snout was a police informer and did rather well. And there were other sources of income. Sometimes his friends stole famous pictures or valuable jewellery. Then the Snout, suitably instructed, would hint to the police where the loot could be found. There was a reward for the Snout to be subsequently shared, of course, among the thieves, and a pay-off, too, for the detective, who after all had done most of the work. As Bernie had pointed out, the insurance company got off lightly, the owners got their property back intact, the thieves were in no danger from the police, and the Snout and the detective got their pay-off. It was the system. Cordelia, shocked, had not liked to protest too much. She suspected that Bernie too had done some snouting in his time, although never with such expertise or with such lucrative results.

  The Snout’s eyes were rheumy; his hand around the glass of whisky was shaking.

  “Poor old Bernie, I could see he had it coming to him. He’d been losing weight for the last year and he had that grey look to him, the cancer complexion, my dad used to call it.”

  At least the Snout had noticed; she hadn’t. Bernie had always seemed to her grey and sick-looking. A thick, hot thigh edged closer.

  “Never had any luck, poor sod. They chucked him out of the CID. Did he tell you? That was Superintendent Dalgliesh, Inspector at the time. Christ, he could be a proper bastard; no second chance from him, I can tell you.”

  “Yes, Bernie told me,” Cordelia lied. She added: “He didn’t seem particularly bitter about it.”

  “No use, is there, in being bitter? Take what comes, that’s my motto. I suppose you’ll be looking for another job?”

  He said it wistfully as if her defection would leave the Agency open for his exploitation.

  “Not just yet,” said Cordelia. “I shan’t look for a new job just yet.”

  She had made two resolutions: she would keep on Bernie’s business until there was nothing left with which to pay the rent, and she would never come into the Golden Pheasant again as long as she lived.

  This resolution to keep the business going survived the next four days—survived discovery of the rent book and agreement which revealed that Bernie hadn’t, after all, owned the little house in Cremona Road and that her tenancy of the bed-sitting room was illegal and certainly limited; survived learning from the Bank Manager that Bernie’s credit balance would barely pay for his funeral and from the garage that the Mini was shortly due for an overhaul; survived the clearing-up of the Cremona Road house. Everywhere was the sad detritus of a solitary and mismanaged life.

  The tins of Irish stew and baked beans—had he never eaten anything else?—stacked in a carefully arranged pyramid as if in a grocer’s window; large tins of metal and floor polish, half-used, with their contents dried or congealed; a drawer of old rags used as dusters but stiff with an amalgam of polish and dirt; a laundry basket unemptied; thick woollen combinations felted with machine washing and stained brown about the crotch—how could he have borne to leave those for discovery?

  She went daily to the office, cleaning, tidying, rearranging the filing. There were no calls and no clients and yet she seemed always busy. There was the inquest to attend, depressing in its detached, almost boring formality, in its inevitable verdict. There was a visit to Bernie’s solicitor. He was a dispirited, elderly man with an office inconveniently situated near Mile End Station who took the news of his client’s death with lugubrious resignation as if it were a personal affront, and after a brief search found Bernie’s will and pored over it with puzzled suspicion, as if it were not the document he himself had recently drawn up. He succeeded in giving Cordelia the impression that he realized that she had been Bernie’s mistress—why else should he have left her the business?—but that he was a man of the world and didn’t hold the knowledge against her. He took no part in arranging the funeral except to supply Cordelia with the name of a firm of undertakers; she suspected that they probably gave him a commission. She was relieved after a week of depressing solemnity to find that the funeral director was both cheerful and competent. Once he discovered that Cordelia wasn’t going to break down in tears or indulge in the more histrionic antics of the bereaved, he was happy to discuss the relative price and the merits of burial and cremation with conspiratorial candour.

  “Cremation every time. There’s no private insurance, you tell me? Then get it all over as quickly, easily and cheaply as possible. Take my word, that’s what the deceased would want nine times out of ten. A grave’s an expensive luxury these days—no use to him—no use to you. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes; but what about the process in between? Not nice to think about, is it? So why not get it over as quickly as possible by the most reliable modern methods? Mind you, Miss, I’m advising you against my own best interests.”

  Cordelia said: “It’s very kind of you. Do you think we ought to have a wreath?”

  “Why not, it’ll give it a bit of tone. Leave it to me.”

  So there had been a cremation and one wreath. The wreath had been a vulgarly inappropriate cushion of lilies and carnations, the flowers already dying and smelling of decay. The cremation service had been spoken by the priest with careful
ly controlled speed and with a suggestion of apology in his tone as if to assure his hearers that, although he enjoyed a special dispensation, he didn’t expect them to believe the unbelievable. Bernie had passed to his burning to the sound of synthetic music and only just on time, to judge by the impatient rustlings of the cortège already waiting to enter the chapel.

  Afterwards Cordelia was left standing in the bright sunlight, feeling the heat of the gravel through the soles of her shoes. The air was rich and heavy with the scent of flowers. Swept suddenly with desolation and a defensive anger on Bernie’s behalf, she sought a scapegoat and found it in a certain Superintendent of the Yard. He had kicked Bernie out of the only job he had ever wanted to do; hadn’t troubled to find out what happened to him later; and, most irrational indictment of all, he hadn’t even bothered to come to the funeral. Bernie had needed to be a detective as other men needed to paint, write, drink or fornicate. Surely the CID was large enough to accommodate one man’s enthusiasm and inefficiency? For the first time Cordelia wept for Bernie; hot tears blurred and multiplied the long line of waiting hearses with their bright coronets so that they seemed to stretch in an infinity of gleaming chrome and trembling flowers. Untying the black chiffon scarf from her head, her only concession to mourning, Cordelia set off to walk to the tube station.

  She was thirsty when she got to Oxford Circus and decided to have tea in the restaurant at Dickins and Jones. This was unusual and an extravagance but it had been an unusual and extravagant day. She lingered long enough to get full value for her bill and it was after a quarter past four when she returned to the office.