Fly in the Ointment

by Anne Fine

  Each time, I asked myself why. After all, no one is mad enough to go out searching for a daughter-in-law with a vile attitude and a foul temper. But I had built a fantasy on one small fact: she’d not been smoking. Perhaps, though it made her so irritable she’d pick a fight with a stranger, she’d managed to give up the habit for the sake of the baby. Maybe Malachy had too. And if he could give up one addictive thing, why not another? Bad habits reinforce one another. Maybe the shock of finding out they would be parents had forced the two of them to clean up their druggie act. It wasn’t likely. But it was possible. Anything was possible.

  And then it would be up to me to mend our fences. I knew exactly what was lost when a rift settles in a family. The last thing on earth I wanted to do to my son was treat him the way I’d been treated. I couldn’t bear to think that he might simmer with resentments even a fraction as strong as those I’d ended up holding against my mother and father. I would go mad even to think it. He knew why he’d been asked to leave the house. He’d sat there sulking as Mrs Kuperschmidt had done the business of explaining exactly why it was impossible for him to stay. He hadn’t argued. He had understood. But it had been my decision to let him slide entirely out of touch. So now it was my job to find out more. If Malachy was off drugs then, even if his new child’s mother wasn’t the partner I would choose for him – and she most definitely was not – then I would bite the bullet.

  But there were other voices in my head – sensible voices that had no truck with fantasy, and took a different tack. They crowded in, reminding me how grim life with Malachy had been, assuring me that young men like him don’t throw off addiction that easily. After the efforts I’d had to make to spirit myself safely away, it would be madness to risk being spotted. My son might see me driving past and follow to find out where I lived.

  I wasn’t the only person who could do the job, though. If whole hosts of suspicious wives could get their husbands followed, then surely I could find someone to track my son down, take a look, and report back.

  No sooner had I had the thought than caution intervened. I’d taken so much trouble to cover my traces. Now I’d be inviting some unknown professional to bridge the precious gap between my old life and my new. Did I really want to put myself at the mercy of somebody else’s skills and discretion? I didn’t mind the tax office knowing where I’d gone. The gas and phone companies sent bills, and that too was fine by me. That was computers. But take the risk of asking a living person to track down my son to see if he and Trouble were still firm friends? That was a different story.

  On my brain gurned. Disguise, then. How about a floppy hat? Or headscarf?

  Both dismissed at once. I’d spent too many hours at SwiftClean not to have realized how mistaken any woman is to think that what she wears can make that sort of difference. You may hear ‘You look ten years younger,’ – even ‘It makes you look a very different kind of person.’ But ‘I’d not have recognized you in a million years’? Oh, no. You don’t hear that.

  A wig, then. I could disguise myself by buying a wig! I thumbed through the Yellow Pages and was quite shocked to see how many wig-makers could make a living in just one city. It sent my thinking up a strange old path. Before she died, had my own mother’s hair come out in handfuls? Could she have so despaired of the pink patches spreading hotchpotch on her skull that even she had gathered up the courage to walk through the doors of one of these places that so discreetly advertised their skills? I suddenly remembered her only headscarf, a swirly orange and yellow affair she’d rarely worn but I had loved, and rippled round my head through all my childhood ‘ballet shows’ and ‘fairy dances’. Had she worn that as she inched shyly through the door to get advice? I couldn’t bear to think I might go somewhere she had been in such sad straits. I chose a place my mother would have found far too intimidating, on one of those hidden little back streets where pricey and sophisticated dress shops with bells on the door deter all but the most confident shoppers. My mother would have made excuses and fled if she’d been greeted with the same urbanity with which the ‘salon’ owner greeted me. Her calm soft-spoken patter drew out the chosen lie: ‘One or two friends suggested I’d face the treatments with more confidence if I know, even if my hair falls out, I’ll have the option . . .’

  She sat me at a mirror inside an elegant little cubicle hung on three sides with grey drapes. In all the things she tugged down on my head I looked exactly like myself, but better.

  ‘You see, I was thinking of a change.’

  ‘If it’s to cover temporary hair loss –’

  I tried to look the ‘fun’ sort. ‘But it seems such a waste to choose something that looks so like my own. I thought it would be good to have something different. If I do have to wear it, it will make a change. And if I don’t, then I can use it after.’

  ‘After?’

  ‘To wear to parties,’ I explained.

  ‘Parties?’

  ‘You know,’ I faltered. ‘Fancy dress. Charades and stuff. That sort of thing.’

  She was appalled. Thinking I must still be in shock from hearing my diagnosis, she murmured to her assistant to bring back the cup of coffee I’d hesitated over for just a moment before refusing. While we were waiting, she worriedly fixed her eyes on my reflection and tried to persuade me into yet another soft brown affair that mirrored my own hair but made me look younger.

  I pulled it off. ‘I’d like to be a redhead.’

  ‘It’s always best, we find, to—’

  But I had swivelled round to point at a wig on the display shelf behind us. ‘That one there.’

  ‘I really do think you should consider—’

  ‘Yes. That one. Definitely that one.’

  She wasn’t happy, frowning in a most unprofessional way as she adjusted it on my head. Her whole demeanour made it obvious she thought my walking round in it would be the worst possible advertisement for her shop. I got the feeling she only let me have it because she feared I might be able to bring some action against her if she refused for no good reason that anyone (except those with judgement) could see. Certainly no one can ever have made it quite so unspokenly clear to a stranger how much they hope that their imminent medical treatment will not result in hair loss.

  But she did take my measurements and fill in the form. Two weeks, she warned, but maybe the order haunted her so badly she pushed it to the top of the list because the package arrived only a few days later. The small brown box was so discreet that finding the wig inside it took me by surprise. I pulled it on and looked at myself all ways in the mirror.

  Appalling. Almost a fright wig. Forget about fancy-dress parties. This was fit only for Hallowe’en. I cursed myself for wasting half a month’s salary on some bubbling red monstrosity I’d never dare to wear. And then, in some despair and irritation, I fetched the scissors.

  Once it was shorter it did at least look less like a joke. I tipped my head this way and that, making the curls bounce and practising casually chatting to my new self in the mirror. I cut off a little bit more. Now it looked even better, and I could almost imagine passing through crowds of distracted shoppers without everyone staring. What if I just—?

  The doorbell rang.

  Pulling the wig off, I ran a comb through my own flattened hair and hurried to the door.

  Two police officers stood waiting, one man, one woman. ‘Mrs Henderson?’

  From the way that the woman was wringing her cap in her hands, I knew already and tried to slam the door shut. ‘No!’

  This way of trying to see off bad news can’t be unusual. The other officer was already using his foot to jam the door open. ‘Mrs Henderson, please let us in.’

  ‘No! Go away! Go!’

  But why I said it with such vehemence I’ll never know, because already I had given up the fight. An arm was laid around my shoulder and I was ushered back into my own living room. ‘Mrs Henderson. Come and sit down. Please.’

  They hovered till I was safely on the sofa, then sat down, b
oth uncomfortably leaning as if poised to catch me. It never occurred to me that they had come about Stuart. Why should it? My vanished husband had picked his way far, far too carefully through life to suffer accidents.

  ‘It’s Malachy?’

  Yes, it was Malachy. And yes, my son was dead. Not from an overdose, it seemed, but from a scuffle because of a stupid drug debt. One kick too many had sent him sliding down the bank into the canal. And for some reason that would be left to the coroner to rule on, he wasn’t in a good enough state to scramble out. My hand was being patted. I watched the dust motes in a shaft of light and waited for the gentle burblings of two well-meaning people to draw to an end. ‘These thugs don’t bat an eyelid. Owe them too much and they turn into animals. They don’t care if you leave a young mother and a twelve-week-old son.’

  I turned to stare. A boy, then.

  Three months old.

  The woman officer was still rabbiting on. I couldn’t stop her. ‘There’ll be a full criminal investigation, of course. But, in the circumstances . . .’ From the shrug it was clear that even someone defending themselves against a lesser charge than murder could probably put up quite a passable defence. Rather reluctantly, she finished up, ‘It seems your son was very drunk.’

  Instantly her companion changed tack. ‘You really shouldn’t sit here by yourself. Can we phone someone for you?’

  Of course, there was no one. And that’s what set me thinking. ‘How did you know where to find me?’

  His face took on a look of deep unease. The woman, meanwhile, picked her words with obvious care. ‘Of course, our only official responsibility is to the next of kin.’

  What was she saying? Surely if anyone was Malachy’s next of kin, then it was—

  Ah!

  Can shock be real and still shot through with cunning? ‘Malachy’s wife?’

  ‘Yes. Janie Gay.’

  A name for her at last, then. Janie Gay. And they were married! And all I could feel was utter contempt for that part of myself that recognized my son was dead yet still took the chance to murmur with utter mildness, ‘Yes, of course,’ to make them think I’d known that all along.

  ‘But Mrs Kuperschmidt was in the station picking up somebody’s file when –’ She stopped. I knew she must be glazing over something horrible she thought I didn’t need to know. ‘Anyhow, the desk officer was on the phone about arrangements. She overheard him saying Malachy’s name and told him she’d dealt with your family over a number of years and wasn’t sure—’

  Another stutter to a halt.

  ‘In short, she wasn’t sure quite how you’d come to hear the news and didn’t want you to stumble on it in tomorrow’s papers. We did ask Janie Gay for your address, but I’m afraid—’ There was another long, long pause. ‘Well, she wasn’t in a fit state to help with your details. But Mrs Kuperschmidt did say that since you and Malachy had never formally put a stop to the counselling, we would be justified in—’

  Ah! So their worries were about procedures. Kind Mrs Kuperschmidt had pushed them into twisting rules. My head was bleached of sense. How could I even be making space for thoughts like these when there was Malachy – no, when there wasn’t Malachy – when—

  The officer was still explaining. ‘And there are channels we can use to find a person’s address when it’s – important.’

  I didn’t have to play her hesitation through again to know that she’d pulled back from saying ‘when it’s a death’. And once again I was distracted by the sheer astonishment of finding I could lose my son and still have room in my brain to wonder at the graciousness and tact of someone else’s daughter.

  And then I forced myself up, up, and up some more, till I was standing. I took their hands. I thanked them and assured them both that I’d be fine. I promised I would phone if I could think of anything that anyone could do. I took the leaflet that they offered me called Help at Hand and laid it carefully aside, for all the world as if I were going to keep it, not simply rip it into pieces and stuff it in the bin. I showed them to the door and gave a little wave as they walked down my path, still thanking them sincerely for bringing me the news of Malachy lying on a marble slab – kicked, beaten, drowned, and lost to me for ever.

  10

  THE OTHER KIND words came from Mrs Kuperschmidt. Just as I stepped into the bath on one of those first black, everlasting evenings that followed the dreadful visit, another police car drew up outside and before I could put on my dressing gown and hurry down, something had dropped through the letter box.

  It was a note: ‘I was so very sorry to hear . . .’

  I wondered why she hadn’t posted it, then realized the officers’ unofficial favour had not extended to passing on my address. She said she could offer no comfort except to say that in her experience grief had a life of its own. It was born – kicking strong and greedy, and draining everyone around of every ounce of energy. Then, as time passed, it grew more settled: one could live with it. And in the end, just like a person, it would age and die, to leave only memories. She wrote her phone number at the top, and then again in the last paragraph. She said she hoped to see me on Tuesday morning at the crematorium, but she was finding it difficult to sort out an adequate replacement for some important duty that had been booked for weeks.

  I studied her letter like runes, knowing she’d guessed why I had slid away from my old neighbourhood, blessing her for her tact, and for the clue she was giving me to the time and place of my son’s funeral.

  His funeral . . . The very word came as a shock. All those long nights I’d pictured Malachy’s battered frame gathering enough speed down the slope to roll across the gritty path, into the filthy canal. I’d heard his outraged howls and watched his desperate thrashings as he tried over and over to find a handhold on the steep brick side. I’d watched in agony as his befuddled brain finally stopped making the effort. I saw him dragged out in a tangle of weeds, slimy with mud. Burying my head beneath the covers, I tried to blot out my imaginings: the catcalls of his tormentors; the sheer indifference of exhausted paramedics to a young body well past help or feeling; even the scream of post-mortem tools at their grim business. All of these horrifying visions seared my brain over and over. And yet it wasn’t till Mrs Kuperschmidt’s note arrived that it came home to me that, all this time, phones had been ringing, men and women in sober suits had been making appointments and offering catalogues and price options – perhaps even a loan repayment schedule. All was discussed and agreed.

  My son was going to have a funeral.

  I rang the crematorium. Yes, Tuesday, they confirmed. At nine o’clock. I put the phone down, blushing. Nine in the morning? Surely that had to be the least favoured time – even the cheapest? I thought of telling my father. He was the only family I had left. Twice I snatched up my bag and hurried to the car. The first time I didn’t even get as far as switching on the engine. The next, I made it all the way to the end of our old street, then turned and drove straight back because I’d suddenly realized that he’d be expecting me. He would be sitting waiting, just as he’d waited so patiently through my mother’s last desperate illness. He’d know about Malachy’s death. He might not read the papers every day, but one of his neighbours was bound to have spotted that little square of print, giving the name and the age of the body pulled out of the water. I’d cut around it carefully and slid it in a drawer. My father would have done the same. Oh, he’d be waiting, busily honing condolences to use as a battering ram. ‘So, Lois. You have been unlucky with your family.’ I could already see him standing accusingly, shaking his head in the way that would send his real message: ‘Look at you, Lois! You’ve killed your mother, driven off your husband, quarrelled with me, and been such a poor parent your son never even reached twenty!’

  He didn’t need me to tell him the time and place of any funeral. I knew him only too well. He would have phoned round every church and crematorium in the book till he hit lucky. And he’d be there at the back. He’d introduce himself to no one. I
’d probably be the only person there who knew who he was, but he wouldn’t nod my way. He’d simply stand there in his best suit, staring ahead and making himself impregnable by putting himself in the right. ‘No one can say I didn’t go to my own grandson’s funeral.’

  I wouldn’t be able to bear it. I could imagine myself hurrying away at the mere sight of him. And what sort of mother did that make me? One worried more about avoiding a sneer from her father than burying her son. Across my misery ran a wash of shame, tinged with self-pity. For surely anyone else would have found herself free to mourn without the interference of ever-rising resentment against some member of the family not seen for years.

  Which brought another problem straight to mind. What about Stuart? I had assumed he’d vanished from Malachy’s life as swiftly and cleanly as he’d gone from mine. But who was to say the two of them hadn’t been in touch again over the last couple of years? Wherever it was that Stuart was living now, he might have come back, even for a single day. Perhaps, like me, he’d spotted Malachy hanging around in some doorway or waiting for a bus. He could have stopped to speak. And if the months of distance had worked some magic, the two of them might have even strolled off together to share an amiable pint. A thousand possibilities ran through my mind and, hating my own father as I did for his stern, calculated cruelty in not telling me about my mother’s death, I couldn’t bear to think that someone else might one day claim I’d treated them in the same monstrous fashion. I’d live in terror, knowing that one day my bell might ring and Stuart would be on the doorstep. ‘For God’s sake, Lois! Malachy was my son too! How could you not have tried to let me know?’