A Death Divided

by Clare Francis

  ‘And she used to love her friends,’ Alan sighed wistfully.

  ‘What about Gresham Gardens?’

  ‘I can’t be certain, but I had the feeling they saw nobody.

  They didn’t even tell Martha they were back in London, not that last time.’

  Eyes back on the ground, Alan said in a voice that rose suddenly, ‘No word at all, Joe. That’s what I find so hard to understand. She must have known we’d be sick with worry.

  She must have known we wouldn’t have a moment’s peace.

  That’s what’s so hard, Joe - how she could know and not make contact. You don’t think she’s dead, do you?’ he asked almost as an aside.

  ‘I think you’d have heard.’

  But Alan knew this better than anyone; he dealt with the bureaucracy of death all the time. ‘Abroad then? The other side of the world?’

  Joe thought of all the places Chetwood had been in thrall to over the years. The treks through Nepal, Laos and Vietnam; the spiritual pilgrimages into remote corners of India; the years of conscience in Bosnia and Somalia. ‘It’s possible,’ he said unhelpfully.

  ‘But still with him, Joe? Still with - James?’

  Tm sure, yes.’

  With a resigned nod, Alan led the way into the house. In the hall Joe counted off the well-remembered clutter: the mirror scattered with Post-It notes, the small table with its tangle of dusty phones and answering machines, the bulging coat-stand with the array of country hats draped over its horns, the assortment of stout boots around its feet, the collection of rough-hewn walking sticks in the tall wicker basket. Alan was a countryman without land or space, who on his suburban rounds could only dream of the high moors and the open trails and the pheasant shoots that would fill the happy days of his retirement. Once, about ten years ago, the two of them had gone for a hill walk in the Peaks, and managed twenty miles, a distance that had left Alan scarlet-faced and panting, but utterly thrilled. They had been promising each other to repeat the outing ever since.

  Alan’s pager bleeped and, signalling a momentary hiatus, he reached for a phone.

  Joe looked into the front room, a combined dining room, workroom and storage area, which in his memory was always the music room. Even as he pushed open the door he seemed to hear Jenna’s rich contralto, to see her looking up from the upright piano and grinning at him. She practised here every afternoon after school and some evenings too. Now and again Joe would turn the pages for her, though she had to tell him when. For a while she had a singing teacher in Nottingham, then someone important in Manchester who she went to every Saturday, though it took hours. Finally there was the audition for the Royal Northern. The day ‘the acceptance arrived she rushed at him as he came in through the door. She clasped his face in both hands and kissed him excitedly - the first time she’d ever kissed him on the lips - before dancing away across the room. She was almost mad with happiness. Weeks later, she was still flying high. She talked about going professional after graduation, trying for a place in an opera chorus, even, if all went well, a solo career.

  Her diplomas hung on the wall. Piano, to Grade VI. Voice, to Grade VII: one highly commended, three distinctions.

  Behind the piano was a cast photograph of a school Mikado, Jenna centre stage, and one from her days in the church choir.

  To the left, the usual graduation portrait, posed and over-lit, but which did surprising justice to Jenna’s colouring: the pale violet eyes, so clear and vivid, fringed by dark lashes, the milky skin with its even dusting of freckles - she wouldn’t have minded one or two, she used to complain furiously, but all over her face - and the dark rich hair.

  On the piano a book of Mozart lay open, though no one else in the family played. At the far end of the room Jenna’s old bicycle stood propped against the dining table. As kids the two of them had pedalled miles together, into town, up across the fields. Jenna wasn’t allowed to bicycle alone; -a young patient of Alan’s had been attacked once, and he was haunted by it. From the large basket strapped to the handlebars it looked as though Helena used the bicycle now.

  In the hall, Alan was calling for him.

  From old habit, Joe left his coat hanging over the newel post before following Alan into the kitchen. Helena was standing silhouetted against the window, leaning back against the sink with her arms folded low across her waist. She was so still she might have been waiting there for ever.

  ‘How are you, Helena?’ As he bent to kiss her, she tilted her cheek a little towards him, but if she offered a reciprocal kiss he missed it.

  ‘Coffee?’ she asked.

  She made no effort to talk as she pulled out the mugs and spooned the coffee, and Alan filled the silence with a stream of nervy chatter which rang too jolly and too loud.

  Eventually Joe said, ‘How’s Marc, Helena?’

  She looked up as if emerging from a dream. ‘Oh, he’s fine.’

  ‘What’s he doing nowadays?’

  ‘Oh, this and that.’

  From what Joe remembered. Marc had done little else but this and that since leaving school. There had been a job in a video shop, he seemed to recall, and something with a homeless charity, though that might have been as a volunteer.

  Helena added, ‘He wants to train as a teacher.’

  Alan chipped in, ‘He was talking of doing medicine, but it’s no good, he’s twenty-seven and he hasn’t got the A levels.’

  Helena said in a tone of correction, ‘It’s not the qualifications, it’s the time and the cost.’ She passed Joe his coffee.

  ‘Teacher training takes a year. He might just be able to do it.’

  A look of understanding passed between them - this was what the sale of the damp house by the timber yard was about, this was why Joe was here.

  ‘He can’t go into student accommodation at his age. And he wants to keep his cottage going. We can help out a bit, of course we can,’ Helena added, ‘but you know us, Joe, we were never going to be rich.’ In the moment before she turned away, she gave the vestige of a smile, her eyes flickered with brief light, and for an instant it might have been the old days again.

  Returning to the counter, she drew out a stool and by the time she eased herself onto it the abstraction was back in her face.

  Joe couldn’t help noticing that she wasn’t looking her best. Her hair, a dark pewter-grey, was dull and compacted around the crown, as though pressed down by an invisible hat, and sprang out around her face in an unruly halo of waves and spikes. He hadn’t seen her for a couple of months, but it seemed to him that she was also dressing with less care. Her cardigan, in an indeterminate tone of beige, had a stain on the front and a frayed sleeve.

  Alan was repeating an old refrain. ‘No, my love, if you’d married me for my money, you’d have left me years ago, wouldn’t you?’ His forced laughter filled the room.

  ‘Years ago,’ she recited mechanically.

  In the hall the phone rang a couple of times and was picked up by the answering machine.

  ‘Well!’ Alan rubbed his hands together, as if to summon everyone to the business in hand. ‘Well!’ His nerve failed him, he shot Helena an anxious glance before appealing to Joe.

  ‘What was it you wanted exactly, Joe?’

  ‘Jenna’s national insurance number, if you have it.’

  He feigned a look of surprise. ‘Ah, right.’

  ‘And a photograph, if that’s possible.’

  ‘Of course. I’ll go and find them. Tell me where to look for the insurance number, my love.’ He hovered in front of Helena, poised to do her bidding.

  She put her coffee down and slid off her stool without a word.

  Alan argued, ‘No, no - let me go.’

  She shook her head as she moved towards the door. ‘I know where to look.’

  After she’d gone, Alan muttered, ‘She’s in charge of all that sort of thing.’ He wavered between pursuing her and staying put, shifting from one foot and back to the other in a pantomime of indecision. Pursuit finally prevai
led, and with an apologetic flap of one hand he hurried out of the room.

  Joe rinsed out his mug and stood it in the rack. Nearby, a pinboard hung askew. -Amongst the sheaves of paper and postcards three photographs jostled for space. All were of Marc: Marc slumped in a chair, sporting earrings, garishly bleached hair and a scowl; standing on a path wearing a suit at least one size too small and a flower in the buttonhole, expression unreadable; and in a studio pose, stiff and self-conscious. All appeared to have been taken some years ago.

  The camera had done its best, but there was no escaping the fact that Marc had inherited Alan’s physique. He was chubby, with a round face, broad nose and small eyes, but while Alan’s looks were thoroughly redeemed by his lively benevolent expression, Marc had the sulky look of a someone who feels that life is failing to deliver.

  Alan reappeared, followed by Helena, who was holding an envelope at arm’s length, like something that was dangerously hot. Joe looked inside and saw a piece of paper with a number written on it and a long narrow photograph. The photograph wasn’t one he’d seen before, but he knew instinctively what it was and his heart tightened.

  ‘I thought you’d have had plenty of pictures of Jenna,’

  Helena remarked.

  Glancing up, he couldn’t make out if she’d meant this in a spirit of regret or accusation. ‘Mine were all taken rather a long time ago, Helena.’

  ‘Well, that’s the most recent we have.’

  The photograph showed Jenna on her wedding day. Joe hadn’t been there to see her - none of them had - yet the cream dress, the flowers in her hand, the pose, the rhetorical stone doorway in the background, all pointed to the steps of a registry office. Her expression was difficult to read. She wasn’t smiling, but her face had a tranquility that suggested, if not happiness, then acceptance.

  The picture was long and narrow because the left-hand side had been cut off; the only remnant of Chetwood’s presence was the bend of an elbow, clad in grey, through which Jenna had hooked her right hand. This act of mutilation startled Joe because it had been achieved with savage scissor strokes.

  Watching him, Helena remarked, ‘I couldn’t bear the look on his face.’ Taking Joe’s silence as a rebuke, she added, ‘Too self-satisfied by half.’

  It might have been Joe’s imagination, but it seemed to him that Helena was still dark with suppressed anger when he kissed her goodbye.

  Alan came out with him into the hall. ‘The picture wasn’t that bad,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘You know how it is with photographs. They can make anyone look a bit off-beam.

  He was looking down his nose a bit, that’s all.’

  ‘I never realised there were wedding pictures.’

  ‘Oh yes. They sent it straight away.’

  ‘Just the one?’

  ‘Yes, yes. That’s all you need, isn’t it?’ He scooped up Joe’s jacket and helped him into it. ‘Joe? Before you go …’ He stood in front of the coat-stand, his head framed by the array of sporting hats. ‘The thing is, whatever’s happened to Jenna and it could be anything, couldn’t it? Illness … depression … accident…’ He paused, a little expectantly, a little nervously, as though Joe might want to add some suggestions. ‘Well, whatever it is, there’s one thing I’m sure about, Joe - that she won’t have given up her music. She could never give up her singing. Somehow, she’ll have found a way. I know it.’

  ‘She’ll have joined a choir, you mean?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Joe nodded thoughtfully, though he couldn’t work out where this was leading.

  ‘Well, she’ll be with a local church, won’t she?’ Alan declared. ‘Or a choral society. Or working with children. Yes - a children’s choir.’

  Joe took his time. ‘It’s an idea.’

  Alan peered at him. ‘But you don’t think so?’

  ‘I can’t see how to make use of it, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, we could send her photograph round to churches and schools, couldn’t we?’

  ‘Well… I suppose so.’

  ‘Nothing elaborate. A small flier.’

  Joe was still trying to muster a response when Alan’s pager went off again and, imploring Joe not to rush away, he hurried to the phone.

  Joe wandered outside into a cold white sun. Nothing elaborate. Even supposing it was possible to track down every choral society in the country, even before adding the thousands of churches and schools, and well before counting the phenomenal cost of mass mailing, Joe wasn’t convinced that Jenna would have the opportunity, let alone the wish, to sing in a structured environment, rehearsals every Thursday night, church twice on Sundays, and trouble for anyone who didn’t turn up regularly. You needed a settled life for that, and whatever else Jenna’s life had been with Chetwood, it could never be described as settled. Anyway, he told himself, hadn’t her singing always been about joy?

  He remembered the last time he had seen her, in the two-roomed flat in Gresham Gardens. No joy then, not in the dowdy decor, not in the worn furnishings with the musty smell, not in Jenna’s silence, and not in her eyes, which had the faraway look of a traveller on a long and arduous journey with no end in sight. He saw her sitting on a low stool on the far side of the twilit room, close by the door, as if to steal away at the first opportunity. Joe kept trying to get her talking, but she left the conversation to Chetwood, who was at his sparkling best and in no need of encouragement to talk for the whole world. Then, just as Joe was beginning to despair of speaking to her alone, the doorbell rang and by some miracle it was Chetwood who got up and padded off to answer it. Even before his lanky frame was out of the door, Joe was up and crossing the room. He moved with such speed that Jenna gave a slight gasp and drew -back against the wall. And what did he do next, for heaven’s sake? The stupidity of it still had the power to make him shudder. Perching on the edge of a chair, he reached over and grasped her wrist, tightly as if to intimidate her. What was going on? Why hadn’t she been in touch?

  Where had they been all this time? Not surprisingly, she stared at him open-mouthed, breathless, at this sudden onslaught.

  And then - worse still, if that was possible - he fired the same questions at her all over again, even more harshly, like some brainless bully. Jenna inhaled slowly and gazed solemnly at his hand on her wrist until he withdrew it. Then, fixing her gaze on a point just short of his face, offering a thin smile, she announced that she was fine, thank you very much, they’d been travelling a lot, that was all. He pressed her: but why hadn’t she been in touch? Oh, she said, it was hard to keep in touch when they were so busy. Somehow they never seemed to have the time.

  And then - a different sort of wretchedness at this memory - he lost his nerve, his mind seized solid, and he crouched there, staring at her helplessly, beseechingly, tongue-tied, like some teenager confronted by the woman of his dreams. Finally, he heard himself mumbling the first thing that came into his head. Was she doing any singing? Her eyes made the briefest pass across his face before hovering somewhere by his right shoulder. No, she said. Didn’t she miss it? She had to think about that. Hardly ever, she said at last. Then, in her only unprompted offering of the evening, she said that if she wanted to sing she sometimes found the nearest church and went to evensong. At this, Joe had a ludicrous image of her in the flat shoes, sensible coat and headscarf of a devout churchgoing lady, a sad figure in the sparsely filled pews, singing softly under the discordant bellows of the elderly congregation, and he thought violently: My God, Jenna, has it really come to this?

  The thought recharged his sense of urgency, but, just as he remembered all the things he’d meant to say, Chetwood’s smooth irresistible voice sang out from the stairs.

  Now, all these years later, the unspoken questions still reverberated mercilessly around Joe’s head. Why hadn’t he come straight out and asked her what was wrong? Why hadn’t he made the speech of an old and devoted friend who wanted nothing more than to help in any way he could? Why hadn’t he offered to do anything, go
anywhere, keep any secret under the sun - or simply to shut up and listen if that was what she wanted. Why, for God’s sake, hadn’t he just asked her out to lunch?

  As it was, Chetwood had spoken for both of them. Easily, amenably, seemingly unaware of any problem. They’d been travelling a lot, he said; they were going to travel a whole lot more. They felt bad about not seeing more of their friends; once they’d found a place to live they’d make more of an effort. They might settle in the country. Or abroad. Or half and half. They really hadn’t made up their minds. Once they’d decided, they’d let Joe know, of course they would. Of course…

  Then Chetwood was asking Joe about his life, question after question, no diversions allowed, and grinning his piratical grin. ‘So you’re a City shark-man, Joe. All teeth and bite. A limb-from-limb merchant.’

  Then someone had been in a rush - he supposed it was Chetwood - and they were saying goodbye. At the door Jenna had kissed Joe lightly on the cheek before dropping her eyes and stepping back into the sanctuary of the room.

  Reliving the frustration and the failure four years later, Joe wandered down to the road and back again between beds of bedraggled lavender and withered roses. A battered car distracted him as it drew up in front of the house. The driver was peering Joe’s way, but it wasn’t until he clambered out that Joe recognised Marc.

  Marc’s wave was so spontaneous that Joe felt sure he must have mistaken him for someone else and almost looked over his shoulder. Yet when Marc came striding up the path, a short purposeful figure on sturdy legs, it was to declare without hesitation, ‘Ah, Joe. Glad to have found you.’

  The brisk smile, like the wave, took Joe by surprise. At their last meeting two or more years ago he had been left with the firm impression that, so far as Marc was concerned, Joe was irredeemably damned by his association with Chetwood.

  Marc was dressed in jeans, trainers and a puffy quilted jacket which, with his round face, gave him an unfortunate resemblance to the Michelin man. He had the plump boy’s stance, legs braced, feet out-turned, and the plump boy’s eyes, seemingly too small and close together for his face. His lips were thin and puckered with an air of fussy concern.