Family and Friends

by Emma Page

  He didn’t switch on the bedroom lamp but made do with the shaft of light coming in from the landing. But Ruth stirred and yawned in the half-darkness. ‘Neil?’ she said sleepily. ‘What time is it? You never phoned.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said lightly. ‘I intended to but with one thing and another I forgot. Did it matter? You weren’t worried, were you?’

  She burrowed down again under the covers. ‘No, I wasn’t worried,’ she said drowsily. ‘I hope you had a good time.’

  He eased himself into bed and slipped an arm round her shoulders. ‘I thought about you,’ he said. ‘I kept wishing you were there.’

  A long time later, just as she was drifting off again into sleep, Ruth was suddenly roused by the feeling that there was something she ought to have remembered. ‘Oh–what was it?’ she murmured, screwing up her eyes in the darkness. Then it came back to her. ‘Zena most particularly wanted you to call in and see her this evening. I meant to tell you if you rang.’

  ‘I can’t go now,’ Neil mumbled, already almost asleep. ‘It must be well after midnight, I’ll go round first thing in the morning. She must be all right or she’d have phoned you.’ His voice tailed off, he drifted away on a feather-soft cloud into bright and peaceful regions where birds sang sweetly, the sun shone in a brilliant sky and no one ever posted or received such things as bills.

  CHAPTER 13

  Jane surfaced next morning from a deep trough of sleep to hear the insistent sound of the telephone ringing downstairs. She threw back the covers, pulled on her dressing gown and went downstairs; she yawned as she picked up the receiver.

  ‘Why, Uncle Owen!’ she said a moment later, recognizing his voice. ‘I thought you were away for the weekend.’

  ‘I am,’ he said. ‘I’m ringing from the hotel. Is your father there? Or Ruth? I’m worried about Zena. I’ve been trying to phone her but I can’t get through, I get the engaged signal every time.’

  ‘That just means she’s talking to someone,’ Jane said easily.

  ‘But it was ten to nine the first time I tried to get through. That’s nearly an hour ago. She wouldn’t be talking all that length of time. Go and get your father, Jane, he must go round there and see if anything’s wrong.’

  ‘Yes, all right, hang on while I get him.’ She ran upstairs and banged on the bedroom door, flung it open and switched on the light. ‘Father, wake up!’ She crossed over to the bed and seized him by the shoulder. He shook himself free from her grasp and sat up, blinking at the light. ‘It’s Uncle Owen, on the phone.’ She gave him the message rapidly. At his side Ruth stirred and came awake.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘Is something wrong?’

  Neil jumped out of bed and seized a garment from the back of a chair. ‘I’ll get over there right away,’ he said to Jane. ‘You go down and tell Owen. Get him to ring off and then you try to phone Zena.’ He struggled into his shirt as Jane ran off again downstairs.

  ‘What is it?’ Ruth asked in an urgent tone.

  ‘It’s Zena, Owen’s been trying to get through to her but all he gets is the engaged signal, he thinks something’s wrong. I should have gone round there last night.’ He snatched at his trousers. ‘You get up and put something on, anything, run down and start the car.’

  She sprang up, seized her dressing gown, thrust her feet into a pair of leather brogues and vanished through the doorway.

  ‘I can’t get any reply,’ Jane called out to Neil as he came running down the stairs a few minutes later. ‘Just the engaged signal. Shall I come with you?’

  ‘No, you stay here. Owen might ring again. Tell him I’ve gone. I’ll phone you from The Sycamores.’ He ran out to where Ruth already had the car ticking over.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘You’d better get back inside and get dressed.’

  ‘No, I’ll come with you.’ She moved over into the passenger seat, glanced down at her dressing gown. ‘It doesn’t matter, I’ll come as I am.’ She drew the cord more tightly round her waist, put up a hand and smoothed her hair.

  Neil swung the car out into the road. ‘I’ll never forgive myself if anything’s happened to her,’ he said in a low intense voice. Ruth threw him a glance, opened her mouth as if she would speak, then she sighed, raised her shoulders and let them drop again, turned her head and looked out in silence at the almost-deserted Sunday-morning road.

  Neither of them spoke during the remainder of the drive; in the light scattering of traffic Neil was able to send the car along at a good deal more than the permitted speed. As the wheels crunched at last over the gravel beneath the great trees, Ruth leaned forward in her seat and scrutinized the front of the house. The curtains were still drawn across the windows of Zena’s bedroom.

  Neil brought the car to a halt and ran with silent haste towards the front door. He turned the handle but the door wouldn’t yield; he pressed the bell and heard it ringing some little distance away. They stood together on the top step, heads at an angle, listening. He pressed the bell again, more loudly. Nothing stirred.

  ‘Run round to the back door,’ he said to Ruth. Again he put his finger on the bell. She pulled her dressing gown round her as she ran, hindered by the sweeping skirt. Outside the back door two bottles of milk stood on the step. She turned the handle without success, tried to raise the lower half of an adjacent window, but the catch was snicked inside. She hurried back to the front of the house; Neil was stooping to pick up a handful of gravel.

  ‘Zena!’ he called in a clear level tone as the gravel rattled against the pane. ‘It’s me, Neil. Are you there, Zena?’ He picked up another handful and repeated his action, calling out more loudly and urgently.

  ‘It’s no good, we’ll have to break in,’ he said after another few seconds. His face looked pale and drawn. He glanced at the front door, solid, unyielding. ‘I think a window would be better.’ He snatched up a large stone from the edge of a flower-bed.

  Ruth followed him round to the window of Owen’s study, watched as he smashed the glass, put in his hand and released the catch. He swung himself into the room, turned and helped her in over the sill.

  ‘Zena!’ he called out again as they went up the stairs. ‘Zena! It’s me, Neil!’ The faint sound of music came to their ears. He threw open the bedroom door, stood for an instant on the threshold, then ran towards the bed. The radio played a sweetly mournful tune; a girl’s voice sang of the pains of love. Zena lay back against the pillows in a relaxed attitude of deep and peaceful sleep; one arm was stretched out on the coverlet, her lips were curved in a faint smile.

  Neil bent down and touched her forehead; with his other hand he felt for the pulse in her wrist. ‘She’s dead,’ he said over his shoulder in a flat matter-of-fact voice. He pulled back the bedclothes and laid a hand over her heart. ‘She’s been dead a long time, she’s cold.’ He stood up and gave a deep sigh. On the radio the music ceased and a man’s voice began to speak, cheerful and intimate. Neil glanced at the radio with a frown and switched it off. ‘I’d better phone Gethin,’ he said. ‘Not that there’s anything he can do.’

  Ruth drew back the curtains and turned off the light as he went through into the dressing room. ‘No wonder we couldn’t get through,’ he called. ‘The receiver wasn’t put back properly on the rest.’ She heard him dialling the number, talking to Gethin. She looked at the bed, at Zena with that gentle smile; she dropped into a chair and put her face in her hands. She was suddenly seized by an uncontrollable fit of shaking.

  ‘Gethin’s coming over as soon as he’s dressed.’ Neil came back into the bedroom. ‘He’s not well, he thinks he’s sickening for flu. I told him he could send his partner but he insists on coming himself.’ In the dressing room the phone rang suddenly and he went back to answer it; it was Owen, able at last to make contact.

  Ruth stood up and went over to the window; in the other room she could hear the sound of Neil’s voice. She had stopped shuddering, she was beginning to feel steadier now. She looked up at the sky which
was showing a small patch of blue; a pale winter sunlight straggled through the thin grey clouds. She heard Neil ring off, his footsteps coming towards her.

  ‘Owen’s leaving at once,’ he said. ‘It won’t take him long.’

  ‘How did he take it?’ she asked without turning round.

  There was a tiny pause. ‘He seemed to think it was our fault,’ Neil said in a level tone. ‘That we should have come over last night. I didn’t enter into any arguments, people say things at a time like this—’

  ‘If there’s any question of allotting blame,’ Ruth said, still watching the slow dispersal of the clouds, ‘he might start by asking himself why he wasn’t here himself to look after his wife.’

  ‘No, no sherry, thank you, I’d better not,’ Dr Gethin said. ‘I’ve dosed myself with something pretty potent, I’m afraid I’m in for an attack of flu.’ If there was one thing he wanted at this moment above all others, it was to be lying down in a well-warmed bed with his eyes closed and his housekeeper standing guard between himself and the battering demands of the world outside. ‘But I would be glad of some coffee. Very hot and strong, please, no milk or sugar.’ He settled himself back into his chair in the comfortable sitting room of Neil’s house, he stole a glance at his watch. Almost one o’clock. Another five or ten minutes and he could set off for home.

  ‘I’ll get Jane to make some coffee, it won’t take long.’ Gethin looks ready to drop, Ruth thought as she went off to the kitchen. It struck her suddenly that he wouldn’t be at Zena’s funeral, he would very probably be tucked up in bed, battling against fever. All those years he had attended Zena, watching over the measles and chicken-pox of childhood, the more serious illnesses of her adult life, and now, when it came to the last attention of all, he wouldn’t be there; the notion seemed inexpressibly sad as if Zena would somehow be aware in that final moment of the absence of a long-familiar face.

  ‘If only I’d gone round last night,’ Neil said yet again.

  ‘You mustn’t start blaming yourself,’ Gethin said. ‘Doesn’t do any good.’ But he saw the look Owen flicked at Neil. He felt a great weariness well up inside him. If Owen was going to harbour resentment against Neil and Ruth–he’d observed the same reaction in relatives after many another death. And it was often those who felt themselves to be guilty of neglect who cherished the strongest grudge against others close at hand as if striving to deflect the voice of conscience towards more acceptable targets.

  Gethin had a pretty shrewd suspicion that Owen wasn’t at all anxious for it to come out exactly where and how he had passed the previous forty-eight hours; in spite of the feverish muzziness in his brain he could recall quite distinctly a moment at the presidential ball when Owen and that pretty young woman had stumbled against his table, he remembered clearly what they had been saying to each other, and the way Owen had been looking at his partner.

  But that was something that could be left to Owen to mull over in the restless hours of coming dawns. I can’t honestly blame him, Gethin thought, looking back dispassionately at the long muddle of Zena’s life, many another man would have done the same.

  He had no intention of making things worse for an old friend, a fellow clubman, the son of his youthful comrade-in-arms, a highly-respected citizen of Milbourne. Zena might very well have guessed at something, might have staged her dramatic scene once too often. He hadn’t missed the significance of the unopened box of ampoules in the bathroom cabinet at The Sycamores; he’d already gone over with Owen the matter of how many ampoules had been left in the old box. He could see no need whatever for these questions to be aired in public. Zena had expected Neil to walk in and summon help and she had relied on him in vain; it was no one’s fault but her own. There was no need for an inquest; she had been seriously ill and he had been in attendance on her within the last few days. And now she was dead and nothing in the world could bring her back to life.

  Ruth came back into the room. ‘Jane will bring the coffee in a minute.’ She glanced round at the silent group. ‘Have you–’ She hesitated. ‘The funeral–is it—?’

  Neil shifted in his chair. ‘No, we haven’t settled it.’ He looked at Gethin, then at Owen. ‘Today’s Sunday. I suppose Tuesday or Wednesday–’ He looked back at Gethin. ‘I take it there’s no need for an inquest?’

  It seemed to Owen that the air in the room came suddenly and cracklingly alive. He couldn’t see how the others could be unaware of it, it was like a fierce current of electricity flashing from every surface.

  The powerful, pulsing headache of influenza began to throb inside Gethin’s skull, he felt an ache in every limb. ‘An inquest,’ he said with distaste, remembering the pursed lips and self-righteous air of the local coroner. Fifty per cent of all human activity is either totally unnecessary or actively dangerous, he thought with savage sourness. ‘I see no reason for an inquest.’ He gave Owen a level glance. ‘If you could call at my house later on today, you can pick up the certificate from the housekeeper, I’ll sign it as soon as I get back, I’ll leave it with her.’ He let out a deep sigh. ‘You won’t see me, I’ll be in bed.’ He closed his eyes briefly. What was the death certificate after all but the last stamp on a lifetime of meaningless folly, the passport to final oblivion? It came to him abruptly and with total certainty that he would never practise again, that when he rose up from his bout of influenza he would at last see sense and retire.

  I hope to God I haven’t left it too late, he thought with a deep uneasiness twisting the muscles of his stomach; he had a moment’s appalling vision of another doctor in another room picking up a pen to record a date and reason for death, entering with careful neatness the name Gethin.

  ‘Thank you,’ Owen said. He moved his shoulders under the smooth cloth of his jacket. ‘I’ll look in before tea.’ The air in the room had dropped into its customary state of peaceful warmth; he felt a kind of languor seep through his bones. The door opened and Jane came in with a tray of coffee. ‘I think perhaps Wednesday would be best.’ Owen looked enquiringly at Neil and Ruth.

  Not that he intended it to be a large and showy funeral; he was going to limit it to members of the family, otherwise, with a man in his position, there was no reason why the occasion shouldn’t spread out to include half the town. He expected some opposition from Neil, who would very probably be all for a vast turn-out, but he certainly wasn’t going to enter into an argument about it now, in front of Gethin; time enough to tell Neil of his plans in the morning.

  Jane poured out the coffee. ‘Black for you, I think, Dr Gethin?’ She smiled at him. ‘And no sugar.’

  ‘Thank you, my dear.’ He took the cup and began to drink the coffee at once, scaldingly hot as it was. In four or five minutes at the most he could be out through the front door and sliding into the seat of his car.

  ‘And black coffee for you, Uncle Owen.’ Jane carried the cup across, touched his hand gently as she set the saucer down beside him. He looked up at her with a grateful glance. A sympathetic, understanding child.

  As he raised the cup to his lips it suddenly occurred to him that Zena would have disapproved loudly and protestingly at the arrangements for her own funeral.

  CHAPTER 14

  The atmosphere at the breakfast table on Thursday morning was so silent that each of the three people might have been alone in the room, absorbed in compelling thought. From time to time Ruth got to her feet to remove plates or bring more milk but her actions had an abstracted quality as if she were moving about in her sleep. Neil held a newspaper in front of him but he didn’t appear to be turning the pages; he refused everything except a piece of toast and drank several cups of strong coffee.

  Jane was glad of the quiet which allowed her to run over in her mind the intricate details of exactly which garments she was going to pack for her trip with her aunt. She assumed that the other two were still sunk into natural despondency after the funeral yesterday, although her own spirits had reverted to their usual buoyancy almost as soon as she had stepped
into the car outside the cemetery gates.

  Should she or should she not pack a raincoat? And then there was the question of money. Aunt Dorothy was paying all the main expenses of the holiday but there would be presents to buy, postcards, sweets, occasional refreshments. She had saved up what she could from her not very large salary, she had some travellers’ cheques upstairs in her bag and a little money in sterling. Would it be enough? She bit her lip, considering. Her father had offered to supply any deficiency a few weeks back but she had cheerfully refused, feeling grown-up and independent, confident of being able to manage, not realizing the deep inroads Christmas would make on her savings.

  ‘I was just wondering,’ she said at last, peering round the newspaper at Neil, ‘if I’m going to be a bit short of cash. On the holiday,’ she added, seeing his puzzled look. ‘I thought perhaps it might be better if I borrowed a little from you–’ Borrowed was a good word, with its sturdy implication of repayment. ‘I wouldn’t want to have to ask Aunt Dorothy, she’s being very kind about taking me—’

  ‘No need to ask Dorothy.’ Neil smiled expansively. ‘And I don’t think we need discuss borrowing. I did offer to give you something before. How much do you need? Ten pounds? Twenty?’ The phone rang sharply and he stood up. ‘Think about it, let me know, I can call into the bank this morning.’ He went briskly out of the room.

  ‘Neil?’ said Owen’s voice at the other end of the line. ‘I’ve just remembered–Ruth very kindly said she’d go round to The Sycamores today.’ To restore order, clear things up, tidy away distressing reminders. Owen had installed himself at a Milbourne hotel after lunch on Sunday; it seemed to him utterly impossible that he could ever again walk through the front door of The Sycamores, let alone live there. ‘I forgot to give her the keys. Would you ask her if she’d mind calling in here on her way to the office?’