In the Family

by Christina James

  “I don’t suppose you are going to let me question Irene.” He took her silence to indicate that his assumption was correct. “Is the ward orderly still there? I’m assuming that she is of sound mind, and reasonably coherent. Please tell me that she has not completed her shift and gone off home!”

  “She has indeed completed her shift, but I have persuaded her to stay to talk to you. I had a feeling that that would be what you wanted to do.”

  “Thank you,” said Tim, grabbing his coat. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Tim arrived at the home barely thirty minutes later. He was shown straight to Mrs. Meredith’s office. Margaret Meredith had moved her chair from behind her desk and had placed it next to the visitor’s chair. She was seated on it, in close proximity to the occupant of the latter, and talking gently to a very small, very thin woman, who had a pasty complexion and mousy hair. The woman looked as if she had been crying. She was balancing a cup of tea precariously on her knee. As Tim entered the room, the tea-cup slid a few inches across her slippery pale blue nylon overall. She halted its glide and restored it to the centre of her lap. Tim noticed that her fingernails, which were bitten to the quick, had been varnished pillarbox red and that her hands were half-covered by the cuffs of the bulky long-sleeved grey sweater which she wore underneath the sleeveless overall.

  “Inspector, this is Natalia Kopinsky. She overheard part of Dorothy Atkins’ conversation with Irene Morris earlier today. She is one of our ward orderlies.”

  “Good afternoon,” said Tim, extending his hand. Natalia did not take it. She gave Mrs. Meredith one fearful look and then rooted her gaze on the floor. He realised that she was much older than he had at first thought – nearer to forty than the twenty-five that he had originally supposed.

  “May I sit down?”

  “Of course. Bring that chair over for yourself,” said Mrs. Meredith, indicating a dilapidated metal and canvas folding seat propped against one wall. “Would you like some tea?”

  “Yes, please.” He opened out the chair and moved it a few feet closer to Mrs. Meredith and the woman before sitting on it, but at the same time took care to preserve some distance between himself and them. He had divined straight away that this interview was going to require some care, if he were to get anything out of the woman at all.

  He took the cup that Margaret Meredith passed to him.

  “How long have you worked here, Natalia?” he asked gently.

  “Six year,” she said. Her voice was deep – almost guttural.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Yes,” she said flatly, fixing her gaze on Mrs. Meredith.

  “I understand you were working in the day-room this afternoon. Do you often work in there?”

  “Not often, but there was a mess. Irene Morris she spill lemon barley water everywhere and the floor very sticky. That was earlier, before she sit with Tirzah. I had already mopped up, but supervisor say I should polish.”

  “So you had come back to polish after Irene started talking to Tirzah?”

  “She not talk to Tirzah. Tirzah talk to her. Irene not talk much. I think she understand, though. I think she understand more than Tirzah realise.”

  “Can you remember what Tirzah was saying?”

  “Yes, though it was hard to understand. But Irene seemed to understand perfect, the way she was looking at Tirzah. She was very upset. It was horrible. Tirzah say that her mother have to die because of what she knew. She said it several times. She said that everyone who knew secrets had to die if they couldn’t be trustworthy. I think she was frightening Irene.”

  “Did she say anything else?”

  “Yes. She said that when a young girl had her whole life in front of her, she deserved to be protected. That we owe it to young people to protect them. That she would do it again.”

  “And then what?”

  “Irene was very afraid. She kept gasping, as if she couldn’t get her breath. I went to get a nurse.”

  “The ward orderlies are instructed not to get directly involved in the care of the residents, unless it is an emergency,” said Mrs. Meredith. “Natalia did exactly the right thing by going to get help.”

  “Then what?”

  “Natalia didn’t go back with the nurse. Her supervisor wanted her to do something else. But the nurse reported that when she went to check on Irene Morris, she was sleeping peacefully in her wheelchair, and that Tirzah was seated at a table nearby, doing the crossword in today’s paper. The nurse asked her if anything had happened to distress Irene, and Tirzah said that she had seemed agitated earlier, but that she (Tirzah) had just assumed that she was tired. One of the things that has always made Tirzah so difficult to deal with is that she sticks to the truth. You might not agree with her interpretation of the facts, but she always presents them accurately. Used to present them, I should say.”

  “I realise that she may not have anything useful to tell me, but may I speak to the nurse?”

  “She’s gone off-shift now. She’s an agency nurse because we’re rather short-staffed at the moment, so it was not possible for me to detain her beyond her contractual hours. She will be here again tomorrow, though.”

  “And Irene Morris?”

  “I will show you Irene Morris, Inspector, but I would rather you did not try to question her. She is likely to become extremely agitated, even hysterical, and it is unlikely that she will tell you anything of value. She really is not capable of engaging in a dialogue – you will see what I mean. I’d be grateful if we could leave that until tomorrow, too. Do you need anything more from Natalia?” Natalia looked up as she heard her name. Tim wondered whether she had been following the rest of their conversation, or had just drifted off into a world of her own.

  “Just one thing more,” said Tim, addressing the orderly again. “You say that Tirzah said that her mother had to die. Are you sure that she said ‘mother’ and not ‘mother-in-law’?”

  “Yes. She say ‘mother’. Just ‘mother’.”

  “Thank you, Natalia. You have been extremely helpful.”

  She gave him a wan smile, and looked at Mrs. Meredith again.

  “You can go home, now, Natalia. Thank you very much for staying to help.”

  When she had gone, Tim said “Why was she so upset? Did she like Tirzah?”

  “Possibly. Tirzah tended to make friends of the ward orderlies – I think so that she could get them to fetch and carry for her, though officially it wasn’t allowed. But I think that Natalia’s really just upset by the fact of her death. Death is upsetting, isn’t it, even when its cause is natural?”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  She drifted in and out of consciousness; it did not feel like sleep. Someone was hovering over her; she sensed that it was not someone who wished her well, but she was too tired to care. She knew that she was in extremis and that perhaps this was the time for which she had been waiting for almost forty years.

  Suddenly, she was back in that dark passageway again. She had not wanted to help Doris with her aged mother – although she had been shocked by her own mother’s death, she was relieved that she had never had to care for her – and she had ignored Ronald’s requests to oblige. Ronald never influenced her unless he wanted her to do something that she had herself already decided to do. But Colin was different. He was different because he owned the shop and the house, and, she knew, quite a lot of money, too. And doing what he wanted had come to be important for another reason entirely.

  She had been surprised to see him on that Saturday, pedalling laboriously up the street on his grocer’s bicycle, still wearing his shopman’s coat – especially when Ronald and Doris had both said that he was ill – and even more surprised when he had dismounted at her gate. In the family it was well known that he ventured out only on Christmas Day and Good Friday, unless he was collecting some item that could not be delivered to the shop –
such as cigarettes or bananas – or if the part-time schoolboy that he employed did not turn up to make deliveries. Besides, any reason that he might have had for wanting to see her alone had been suppressed many years before.

  He had pushed open the wooden gate and clumsily steered the unwieldy bicycle through it. The pannier thing kept on dropping down and he had to hoist it up again. She had moved away from the net curtains in the front room window, and gone to open the back door for him. When he had not appeared, she had walked round the side of the house, and found him still fiddling with the bicycle, attempting to prop it up against the coal-shed.

  “Uncle Colin!” she said. “This is a nice surprise. What brings you here?”

  “Don’t bother with trying to be pleasant, Tirzah. It doesn’t suit you. And I’m not your Uncle. As you well know.”

  “No,” she had agreed. She was uncertain what to do next, even embarrassed at his proximity after all this time. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “I expect it would do me good. Since I’ve come all this way.” The shop was barely a mile from Chestnut Avenue, but a mile was a long way for Colin to cycle.

  He had unfastened the cycle clips which held the bottoms of his dark green corduroy trousers in the tight bunched cuffs that exposed the ends of his woollen long johns, and now he stumped into the house behind her. As usual, he was wearing heavy boots with hobnails – farmers’ boots, really. She knew that they drove Doris mad because of the black scuffmarks they made on her red-tiled floors. There was not much fear of that sort of anger from Tirzah.

  Colin had sat in one of the two fireside chairs in the dining-room, still wearing his grey trilby hat, while Tirzah had made tea in the kitchen. She had used the little brown teapot reserved for when she had a single visitor; nowadays, that usually only meant Doris. In the past there had also been Eliza. She had poured tea into one of her willow-pattern cups, using the strainer for once because she didn’t want Colin to choke on tea-leaves. She had offered him a custard cream, which he had taken and mumbled with his almost toothless gums. They had sat in silence for some moments, the only sounds those of Colin slurping his tea and biscuits.

  “I’ve come about Mother,” he had suddenly said.

  “Oh yes?” Dorothy had said brightly.

  He had scrutinised her with his brown spaniel-dog eyes.

  “Don’t be thinking that I trust you, Dorothy: but I think we both know that you and I speak the same language. It’s brass that interests us. And we share confidences too. Don’t think I’ve forgotten.”

  She had opened her mouth to protest, but could think of nothing to say that at once conveyed her sense of outrage and still enabled her to maintain his ‘loyalty’, flawed though it was.

  “Don’t bother to squeak about it. It’s a fact. I know you.”

  She had lowered her head and concentrated on her tea. She had never credited Colin with any powers of perception – no powers of anything very distinguished, actually, and certainly no morals, but she felt a sneaking admiration for the way that he had managed to prise their share of their father’s inheritance from his two older brothers and Doris. He was not unaware of this.

  “As I say, I don’t trust you: but I can make it worth your while to work with me; and I can certainly put a spoke in your wheel if you don’t. As you well know.”

  “What’s the problem?” Dorothy had asked in a harsh voice which nevertheless wavered with fear. She was already weary of playing hostess to his curmudgeonliness. She deserved better from him, and he knew that she did. Yet she was terrified of what he might do, if pushed.

  “Mother’s not well and I don’t trust Doris to look after her properly. Mother’s been saying some strange things lately, about perhaps they were being hard on Doris when they decided not to leave her anything – her share being used up by taking in her bastard children – and all the rest of it. I don’t know what started all of it. Mother and I have always been very close, and we agree about most things. But Mother’s eighty-two now, and she gets confused. It’s my guess that Doris has been working on her. Doris, and probably that spineless husband of yours, as well. I could never abide him, even when he was a little lad.”

  He had looked at Dorothy levelly. She had not known whether to agree with him. She had tried to look mildly insulted.

  “Don’t give me that prim housewife kind of a look. We both know that you agree with me.” He had almost snarled the words. “I’ve had a lot to put up with in my time, I can tell you.”

  Dorothy had nodded, impatient for him to continue.

  “I know Ronald’s asked you to help with looking after Mother, and I know you’ve said no. I can’t say as I blame you: there was nothing in it for you, was there? But I’m asking now. I’m asking you to come and help Doris with Mother, but more than that, to keep an eye on both Doris and Ronald. I don’t want them getting rid of Mother before her time, though I don’t think she can have long left with us now; and I certainly don’t want them pushing her into doing something stupid about her will. I’ll make it worth your while, don’t worry about that.”

  “How do you mean, worth my while?”

  Colin had looked crafty. “That would be telling, wouldn’t it? Let’s just say that I’ve got a bit put by and a sizeable piece of it will be yours straight away if you help. And I’ll make sure that the shop goes to your bairns and not to Dick or Bob.”

  “That doesn’t seem like a very sound promise. How do I know how much I’ll get, or whether you will really change your will for the children?”

  “You’ll have to trust me. But I won’t break my word. I think you know that. Besides,” he had fixed her with the watery eyes again, “if you don’t help, I’ll tell everyone the truth about Hedley. And I’ll tell Ronald about that fancy man of yours. Unless you want him to find out? But I warn you that if you two separate, there’ll be nowt for you or the kids from the Atkins family afterwards. That I do promise you.”

  Dorothy had felt as if he had suddenly gripped her by the neck and squeezed. How could he possibly have found out about Frank Needham? True, his mother was Colin’s next-door neighbour; but Frank didn’t even live in Spalding now. Colin was right about something else, too: eventually, she had intended to use Frank to escape from her marriage; but what really alarmed her was that Colin was implying that he would broadcast the truth about Hedley. Surely he would not really do that? She knew that she could not take the risk by calling his bluff. The Atkins family was strange: look at Doris. She had never made any pretence of having been married, unlike Dorothy’s own mother. What Colin was saying was making her rethink, rapidly.

  “If I come to help, the children will have to come, too,” she said. “It will mean more or less closing down this house for a while.”

  “Hardly children now, are they? But that’s all right. Doris will be pleased, if anything; and I quite like little Bryony. She cheers me up. I’m not so sure of that lad of yours, though. He’s respectful enough; but he strikes me as being a bit of a big girl’s blouse.”

  They had only been living at Westlode Street for a few days when Doris had died.

  Tirzah was back in the gloomy passageway again. It smelt overpoweringly of fermenting apples, with an undertow of Flash. Doris washed the floor in there every two or three weeks – a backbreaking job, moving all the boxes and putting them back again. She was scrupulous about hygiene because of the food safety inspector. She washed the floor in the shop every day, and wiped out the cupboard with glass doors in which Colin kept loaves of sliced bread and other baked goods from the Sunblest man. The food safety inspector would close Colin down if he found evidence of mice in the passageway. Doris worried about all the boxes of packets of biscuits and big containers of toffees stacked up there.

  She kept her bicycle at the top end of the passage. There was a narrow door there which opened straight onto the street, for which she carried a key. Colin had a key as
well, but he rarely used that door: deliveries to the shop that were to be stored were usually carried through it into the hallway, and then stowed in the passage from there.

  Tirzah was entering the dark hallway from the dining-room, carrying a chamber-pot which she had just removed from the old lady’s room in the scullery. It was a Victorian chamber pot made of china and decorated with red and blue birds, and it had a curious kind of hinged lid which offered some protection from the reek of its contents. She had just lit a cigarette to ward off the smell. She was taking the chamber pot to empty into the lavatory that Colin had recently had installed at the garden end of the passageway, to save him from having to make his way through the house to the outside privy when he was working. He was still loath to invest in proper toilet paper: there was a store of the squares of tissue in which oranges had been wrapped in both places. A further supply of these hung from a piece of string at the side of the old lady’s bed. A commode had been installed so that she would not hurt herself by trying to get to the toilet in the night, and she had taken to using it during the day as well. The elaborate pot fitted snugly into the aperture beneath the seat.

  Tirzah had heard a scuffle and then a thud, then more scuffling. It was an autumn afternoon and she had turned on the electric light on the landing, but there was no light on the stairs and none that she could see coming from the passage. The door of the passage stood ajar and she elbowed it open, cursing as a large wedge of grey ash dropped from her cigarette to the floor. It was so dark in the passage that she could not see anything at first, though she sensed that someone was in there. As her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, she was able to pick out some of the details revealed by the weak ambient light. The first thing that she noticed was Doris’s bicycle. It made a dark shape against the far door, its handlebars and the basket that was attached to them outlined by the dull light that managed to penetrate the stained-glass fanlight over the door. She could make out some of the stacked boxes as well. She thought she heard someone catch their breath, and stepped into the passageway to grope for the light switch; she knew that it was set in the wall to her left, at about shoulder height.