Family and Friends

by Emma Page

  ‘Yes, I’m sure that will be all right,’ Neil said. Something very cool and formal in Owen’s tone, not at all his normal friendly voice. ‘Is there anything I can do?’ Neil asked. ‘Just say the word.’

  ‘No, thank you, not at present anyway. By the way,’ he added as if at a casual after-thought, ‘Zena left you a thousand pounds in her will. I thought you’d like to know.’

  Neil put up a hand to his chin. ‘A thousand pounds,’ he said. ‘That was very kind of her.’ After a tiny pause he asked in a careless tone, ‘When was the will made? Just out of interest.’

  ‘Several years ago. I’d have to look at it to give you the exact date.’ Neil gripped the receiver tightly and frowned down at the carpet. ‘I spoke to the solicitor over the phone on Monday,’ Owen went on. ‘Apparently there was some talk of Zena changing her will, she got as far as having a draft made and then she changed her mind, rang him up and told him to tear up the draft.’ His voice indicated the irrational whims of a sick woman. ‘It wasn’t the first time that had happened of course. It will be quite some time before the bequests are paid out. But I don’t suppose you’re in desperate need of a thousand pounds.’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Neil got a light inflection into his voice. ‘Anyway, I’ll give Ruth your message.’

  ‘I’ve been working it out,’ Jane said when he came back into the room. ‘Fifteen pounds ought to give me plenty of margin.’

  Neil threw her an unsmiling look. ‘I’ll give you five,’ he said brusquely. ‘I’m not a millionaire.’ She looked at him in surprise but the expression on his face didn’t invite further discussion.

  ‘Oh–well–thank you,’ she said. ‘Five pounds will be a great help.’

  ‘Any more coffee?’ Neil pushed his cup across to Ruth. ‘That was Owen on the phone. He wants you to call into the hotel to pick up the keys to the house.’

  Ruth poured out the last of the coffee. ‘Actually, I wish now I’d said I’d go in a little later on. Things are a bit hectic at work just at the moment.’ And she’d had time off yesterday for the funeral. ‘Do you suppose I could leave it till Monday or Tuesday? I can’t really see there’s any urgency about clearing up.’

  ‘You did offer,’ Neil said abruptly. ‘And I told Owen you’d go round for the keys.’ He felt in no mood to countenance the shifts and whims of the female temperament.

  ‘I’ll go,’ Jane said brightly. ‘I’ll have plenty of time, it won’t take me long to do my packing.’ She wasn’t going in to the library at all today.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ruth said dubiously.

  ‘Oh, let her go,’ Neil said irritably. ‘All perfectly straightforward, no need to make a song and dance about it.’ Simply a matter of putting things into order, nothing unpleasant or upsetting likely to be encountered. ‘Get your coat on,’ he said to Jane. ‘You can come with me now in the car and pick up the keys.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Then I’ll run you over to The Sycamores. You can find your own way home afterwards by bus.’

  She jumped up. ‘Yes, all right. I’ll just run upstairs for my coat.’

  ‘No need to be over-fussy,’ he said as he dropped her ten minutes later in the drive of The Sycamores. ‘Just leave the place looking presentable.’ He turned the car round, raised a hand in farewell and drove off towards the main road.

  Jane inserted the key in the lock and opened the front door. She gave a little jump of astonishment as she felt something brush against her legs. She looked down and saw a very thin black cat contorting itself into an attitude of supplication.

  ‘Hello.’ She knelt down and stroked the dull-looking fur. ‘Are you hungry?’ The cat uttered a plaintive mew. ‘Come along then, I’ll find you something to eat.’ She carried it inside and closed the door. As she turned to go along the passage to the kitchen the cat suddenly sprang from her arms and ran with great speed and an air of concentrated cunning up the stairs.

  ‘Come back!’ she cried, half-laughing. She ran up after it and saw it disappear through the open door of the front bedroom. ‘Come here!’ she called. ‘Good pussy, come on!’ Without a backward glance at its pursuer the cat insinuated itself under the floor-length folds of the bedspread. ‘Come along then, I’m not going to play hide-and-seek, if you want something to eat you’ve got to come down to the kitchen, I’m not feeding you up here.’ As she spoke she kept lifting the edge of the bedspread, now at the foot, now at the side, thrusting in a sudden hand, trying to take the animal by surprise. But it managed to elude her every time.

  Then she heard a little clink, something falling over beneath the drapes. She lay down almost flat, raised the heavy cloth and peered underneath. The carpet reached only half-way under the length of the bed; an expanse of floorboards stretched between the end of the carpet and the wall. She could just see a glass, a tall tumbler, lying on its side on the polished wood, with a pool of milk beside it. The cat was crouching over the milk, lapping it up swiftly and with whole-hearted attention.

  Jane let the bedspread fall back into place and scrambled to her feet. ‘Oh, all right,’ she said, ‘have it your own way. Come down to the kitchen when you want something more substantial.’ She went out into the passage, leaving the bedroom door open for when the cat chose to accept her invitation. I suppose there’s still food in the fridge, she thought, bound to be. She could chop up some cold meat, the cat would enjoy that.

  The milk must have been very far from fresh, it suddenly struck her, it must have been there since–since Saturday evening at least. The notion presented itself to her with distinct unpleasantness, she wrinkled her nose in distaste, shook her shoulders with a little eerie feeling.

  She came down into the hall, opened the doors, glanced into the rooms. How still and silent the house was. She had a curious feeling as of having stumbled on some terrestrial version of the Marie Celeste; it seemed as if the inhabitants of The Sycamores had been abruptly snatched away, as if no one would ever live there again. An open magazine on a table, a little pile of novels, a packet of cigarettes on a mantelpiece, a saucepan on the draining-board in the kitchen. She had a sudden horrid sensation that she was about to burst into sobs.

  Come now, she told herself sternly, this won’t do, mustn’t let the place get on your nerves. Bustle about, find some cleaning tools, switch a radio on and fill the empty spaces with gay music. She squared her shoulders and set about her work.

  There seemed to be a very great deal of time and not all that much to do with it. On the fourth day of her retirement Sarah had not yet grown accustomed to the vast desert of leisure. Barely ten o’clock and the breakfast things already washed up, the beds made, the rooms spick and span. Arnold was taking a day off work; she had asked him if he would like to go with her into town.

  Now she looked round for something to occupy her until it was time to leave for the bus. Ah yes, there was that cupboard under the stairs; for years she had been saying to herself that one of these days, when she had time, she’d look through it. Well, now she had the time, so she might as well make a start.

  One of the first things she came across was an ancient gramophone encased in a heavy wooden box, and beside it a pile of old records. Her mouth curved in amusement as she looked down at the labels. My goodness, she thought, how many years it is since we played those! She was seized by a sudden desire to hear some of them again.

  She didn’t summon Arnold but managed to carry the gramophone into the sitting room where she gave it a good dusting before fitting a needle and setting one of the records in motion. The tune, tinkly, nostalgic, with its dated, regular rhythm, a man’s voice, tinny, scratchy, like a communication from an older, simpler world, brought back so sharply and powerfully the far-off time of her youth that it seemed for a moment that she was seventeen again and none of it had ever happened, her mother was still alive, not yet remarried, the second war was only a shadow of fear in the eyes of knowledgeable men and she herself still charged with optimism, the certainty of joy.

  She raised a
hand and beat time to the music. Her gaze fell on a pottery dish propped up on the mantelpiece, the dish Arnold had given her three days ago on her birthday. Her fifty-eighth birthday. She ceased to beat time, the smile left her face. She was no longer a young strong girl, she was an ageing spinster facing the last stretch of existence.

  She took a step forward and picked up the dish, turned it over, examining it. What a curious present for Arnold to have given her, but then in the whole of her fifty-eight years no one had ever given her any present she had really wanted. When she was a little girl she had gone every summer to the church fête, she had saved her money to spend it on the tombola; every year she had stood and looked at the prizes, knowing for certain that this time she would win one of the mysteriously-shaped parcels. But every year she had drawn a blank.

  And there had been a ruby pendant in the corner of a shop window in a little side street on her way to school; for months she had yearned for it, had dropped her careful pennies into the back of a china pig on her dressing table. A ruby, she had thought with expectant pleasure, rattling the pig week by week, a real glowing ruby to wear round my neck. And when at long last she had brought it home and unwrapped it in the kitchen, she had held it out on her palm, showing it to her father with a depth of pride that made her voice tremble.

  ‘Look, a real ruby! It’s mine!’

  He had given it a smiling glance, had lifted the chain on a careless finger and said with good-natured contempt, ‘It’s just a bit of red glass. I hope you didn’t go wasting good money on that.’

  Behind her she heard Arnold come into the room. She turned and caught his puzzled look at the massive gramophone, the enquiring smile he gave as of someone witnessing the amusing antics of a child. She walked over and removed the record.

  ‘I was just trying it out to see if it still worked,’ she said. ‘The Scouts might like it for their jumble sale, there’s always someone interested in old things.’ She closed the lid of the gramophone. ‘Still plenty of time. We needn’t leave till eleven. I’m clearing out the cupboard under the stairs.’ And she went unhurriedly past him, back to her dusty chore.

  Jane left the best bedroom to the last, having developed a mild aversion for the room, in spite of her efforts to divert her thoughts into more bracing channels. She had completely forgotten the cat and it was only when she forced herself to strip the bed that she remembered the poor stray, probably by this time escaped from the house through one of the windows she had flung open to admit fresh air.

  I never fed it, she thought with compassion, I hope it finds something to eat at a friendly house. The notion recalled to her the fact that there was a glass under the bed, at the far side. She walked round, knelt down and reached under for the tumbler, giving a little start as her fingers encountered the soft touch of fur. She lowered herself flat on the floor and peered into the dimness. The cat was lying stretched out, fast asleep, with the empty tumbler beside it. She edged the tumbler out and then drew the cat towards her.

  It didn’t wake or even stir. She stood up and cradled the cat in her arms. It was warm and she could feel its heart beating faintly but reassuringly under her fingers. Poor thing, it was probably half dead from the lack of food, perhaps it had fainted–could a cat faint? She could see no reason why not. She shook it gently, murmuring, ‘Wake up, come on, wake up and I’ll take you down and give you something to eat.’

  But it continued to lie unmoving in her arms. At last she laid it down on the stool by the dressing table, glancing at it from time to time as she whisked about the room tidying and dusting.

  When she had finished she returned to the stool and stroked the animal, speaking softly to it, urging it to wakefulness but without success. She thrust her fingers under its body and rather fancied the heartbeat had slackened, she drew back one of its eyelids and met a blind stare. She drew a little sighing breath of sorrow, the poor thing was probably going to die.

  I’ll take it home, she decided, I’m not going away till the morning, by then it will either be dead or showing signs of recovery–in which case no doubt Ruth could be prevailed on to look after it till she got back from her holiday.

  She gathered up the cleaning things and took them down to the kitchen. On a hook near the pantry she found an old straw shopping-bag, possibly some relic of Emily’s, overlooked in her abrupt departure; that would do nicely for the cat.

  She went back upstairs and closed the windows. In the front bedroom the stray still lay extended on the stool, breathing by now so very faintly that at first she thought it really must have died. She laid it carefully in the bag and clasped the twin handles close together for safety.

  Now–the bus home, or rather two buses home, one into the centre of the town and another which would drop her near her own door. She stepped out into the sharp sweet air of the garden and locked the door behind her.

  The best part of a pound just to sole and heel a pair of shoes! Emily was appalled at the way prices had gone up. As she made her way up the High Street her eyes suddenly observed her own shopping-bag, the brown and yellow straw one, moving along a few yards ahead, firmly clutched in the fingers of a young lady–who turned her head to glance in at a shop window and revealed herself as Jane Underwood. Emily quickened her pace and caught up with Jane who was now lingering in front of the window display.

  ‘Well now, Miss Jane,’ Emily said, causing her quarry to leap back a few startled inches. ‘And what may you be doing with my straw bag?’

  ‘Oh, it’s you! You took me by surprise. It is your bag, then? I thought perhaps it might be. I’ve just been up to The Sycamores—’ She was about to explain that she’d been clearing things up but thought better of it; she’d heard from her father how Emily had been summarily dismissed and it seemed tactless to mention the subject of domestic chores in the Yorke establishment at this moment. So she told her instead about the cat, opening the bag sufficiently to allow Mrs Bond to peep inside.

  ‘Why, that’s my little stray!’ Emily said fondly. ‘Many’s the time I’ve given it a saucer of milk and a few scraps up at The Sycamores.’ She put in a hand and stroked the animal. ‘Did you come looking for old Emily then?’ She glanced up at Jane and gave a deep sigh. ‘Ever so sorry about your aunt, dear. Poor Mrs Yorke!’ She shook her head, sighed again.

  ‘I saw you at the funeral,’ Jane said. She thought it best to steer the conversation away from the topic of her aunt’s death. Emily Bond was quite capable of bursting into noisy tears in the middle of the High Street. She put a hand on Emily’s arm.

  ‘I think perhaps we’d better move aside, we’re creating a block on the pavement.’ She drew her into the wide doorway of a supermarket and resumed her account of the cat’s behaviour while Emily listened with keen attention. ‘I’m going away on holiday in the morning,’ Jane said, ‘but I’m hoping my stepmother won’t mind looking after the cat while I’m gone–if it’s still alive in the morning, that is.’

  ‘Oh, you can’t go bothering your stepmother,’ Emily said at once. ‘Let me have it; after all, it is really my cat if it’s anyone’s.’

  ‘Oh, would you take it?’ Jane was delighted.

  ‘Of course I will, I’ll soon have it fit and well again.’ Emily snatched a handkerchief from her pocket and exploded into a series of sneezes. ‘Oh, do excuse me, I’ve gone and got a cold, I shall have to take something for it tonight.’

  ‘I’ve just thought,’ Jane said, ‘perhaps I ought to take the cat to a vet.’

  ‘No, you should not,’ Emily said stoutly. ‘Charge you I don’t know how much. And probably want to put the poor creature to sleep. You leave it to me, my dear, I’ll look after it better than any vet.’

  It occurred to Jane that Mrs Bond no longer had a job and that a cat must be fed and cat-food cost money. Should she offer her a pound note? She had some of her holiday money in her handbag. Would the old woman be offended? She turned her head away, considering, and her gaze fell on a tall pyramid of tinned cat-food perilously ere
cted just inside the door of the supermarket.

  ‘I tell you what!’ she cried. ‘You hold the cat and I’ll just pop into this shop and get a few tins of food for it. You won’t have any at home and I do feel responsible for it.’

  ‘Oh well, that’s very good of you,’ Emily said. ‘What about your bus, though?’

  Jane glanced at her watch. ‘I’ve plenty of time. I won’t be long.’ She handed the straw bag to Emily and went quickly into the shop.

  Might as well take a turn or two up the street while she’s inside, Emily thought, a little weary of being knocked into by resolute shoppers bound for the supermarket door.

  Just past the bus-stop, approaching her, she saw two people walking side by side but with an appearance of non-communication, like prisoners in a chain-gang. Sarah Pierson and that brother of hers, what was his name? Arnold, that was it. Often saw him about the streets but not her ladyship, she usually had her little car. Arnold was laden with shopping and had about him something of the air of a mute pack animal; Sarah merely gripped her handbag and a pair of gloves.

  ‘Good morning,’ Emily said firmly, not going to let the chance slip by of a little conversation about dear Mrs Yorke and her lamented end. Not a great deal of love lost between herself and Sarah Pierson, in fact Miss Pierson quite used to look down her nose at her, on her occasional business visits to The Sycamores. But I’m not a charwoman any more, Emily thought, I’m retired, the same as she is, we’re on the same footing now, so to speak.

  ‘Ever so sorry to learn about poor Mrs Yorke,’ she said and plunged into a lively recital of the way she had learned the news and the profound emotions that had immediately assailed her.

  ‘Oh yes,’ and ‘Quite so’, and ‘Indeed!’ Sarah murmured during brief gaps in the tale. She was unfortunately trapped by the necessity to wait on this particular spot for the bus. After a nod and a word Arnold had removed himself a few yards farther away and stood idly gazing in through the vast glass windows of the supermarket.