Dreaming of the bones

by Deborah Crombie

  Kit shrugged. “I suppose. They’re all in the bathroom.”

  He’d need things to wear to the funeral, Kincaid realized, but he also needed a few days before he even had to think of it. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t you go and get them, and I’ll throw somethings in the bag for you?”

  “All right,” Kit agreed, and when he’d gone, Kincaid went quickly to the closet. A school blazer, a tie, some dark trousers, a white shirt. They would have to do. He found some black lace-up shoes and those went in first, in the bottom of the bag. Then the other things, neatly folded, and on top of them the jeans and jersey. Next he added socks and underpants from the bureau drawers, then a Cambridge sweatshirt. Sitting back on his heels to survey the room for last-minute necessities, he spied a worn teddy bear on the shelf above Kit’s bed, and that he tucked in last.

  Kit came in with a bundle of night things, and when Kincaid took them to fold he discovered the purple tunic Vic had worn on Sunday among the folds of the dressing gown. It smelled of her perfume and, very faintly, of her skin.

  Their eyes met as they knelt either side of the bag, and after a moment Kincaid folded the tunic and packed it without a word.

  Kit’s room was on the front of the house, and as they zipped his bag they heard the sound of car tires on gravel, then the slam of a car door.

  “Just in time, eh?” said Kincaid, attempting a casual tone.

  “No.” Kit sat back on his heels, almost quivering with distress.

  The boy looked like a frightened rabbit ready to bolt, and Kincaid knew he mustn’t let him lose control now. “Come on, mate,” he said, standing and lifting the bag. “I’m right behind you. We’ll do this together.”

  “No, wait, I forgot Nathan’s books. I can’t go without Nathan’s books.” Kit swept a pile of books from his bedside table and they stuffed them in the already bulging bag, then Kincaid guided him down the stairs with a hand on his shoulder.

  Kincaid had not seen Vic’s parents since the Christmas before she left him, and he doubted whether time or circumstance would have altered their mutual dislike. He and Kit met them at the door, and he, at least, had the advantage of foreknowledge.

  Eugenia Potts’s face, already red and puffy with weeping, went slack with shock at the sight of him. An expression of mild surprise furrowed Bob Potts’s bland face, and Kincaid wondered if, even now, the man felt anything at all.

  “Hullo, Bob. Mrs. Potts.” He had never been able to bring himself to call her Eugenia, and Mum had been unthinkable.

  “You!” she breathed. “What are you doing here?”

  Her tone was accusing, but he answered as mildly as he could. “They rang me, I’m afraid. Look, you’d better come in.”

  “You! What right have you to invite us into our daughter’s house?” Pushing past him as he stepped back, she continued, her voice rising, “You don’t belong here, and I’ll thank you to get-” She saw Kit then, for he’d been using Kincaid’s body as a shield. Changing gears in mid-tirade, she shrieked, “Christopher, oh, my poor darling,” while grabbing him to her and pressing his blond head against the bosom of her tweedy coat.

  Kincaid saw Kit stiffen, then struggle to extricate himself. A touch on his arm reminded him that he had, as usual, forgotten Bob Potts.

  “Duncan, thank you for coming,” Potts said with quiet courtesy. “But there’s no need now for you to stay Is there anything… I mean, should we…”

  Feeling that perhaps he’d misjudged the man, Kincaid said softly, “No, there’s nothing you can do. Not until tomorrow, at least, and I’m sure someone will be ringing you. The police are very anxious to contact Kit’s father, however. Have you any idea-”

  “That man,” hissed Eugenia, for having finished throttling Kit, she’d caught the tail end of their conversation. “I blame him for this. If he hadn’t abandoned her, none of this would have happened. My baby would be alive-”

  Kit’s face lost all color, then he turned and ran from the room.

  Kincaid rounded on Mrs. Potts with a shout of anger. “Enough! Keep your useless speculations to yourself, you silly woman, where they won’t do any more damage.” He left her standing open-mouthed, and ran after Kit.

  He found him in the sitting room, crouched on the floor over the wreckage of the Monopoly game. “I kicked it,” Kit said, looking up at Kincaid. Tears streamed down his face. “I shouldn’t have, but I was so angry. And now I can’t… I can’t put it back…”

  Kneeling beside him, Kincaid said, “I’ll help you,” and began sorting the paper money into its slots. “Kit, don’t pay any attention to what your grandmother said. She’s just upset. You did absolutely the right things this afternoon, and no one could have done better.”

  “Why does she have to be so beastly?” Kit said, hiccuping. “Why did she have to be so beastly to you?”

  Kincaid sighed. He felt suddenly too exhausted to think, much, less talk, but he made an effort. “She doesn’t mean to be cruel, Kit. She just doesn’t think. Some people are like loose cannons-they go off all the time at the nearest target, and it makes them feel better. And I’m afraid the more your grandmother hurts inside, the worse she’s going to be, so try to be patient with her.”

  “You weren’t,” said Kit. “I heard you shouting.”

  “No, I wasn’t, was I?” Kincaid admitted, grinning at him. “So don’t take me as an example.” He’d been half listening to the murmur of voices from the hall, hers rising in protest, her husband’s coaxing, and now he heard the front door close softly. “They’ve gone to the car, I think,” he said, fitting the board into the top of the box and closing the lid. “Come on. I’ll walk you out.”

  When they reached the porch, Potts climbed out of the car and came over to them. “So sorry about all that,” he said. Light from the porch lamp glinted from his spectacles, so that Kincaid couldn’t see his eyes. “A sedative, and bed, I think, is what she needs.”

  And what about Kit? thought Kincaid, but he didn’t speak.

  “Eugenia thinks… that is, we feel that the house should be secured, and that we should keep the key…” Potts said, twisting his hands together. “That is, if you don’t mind…”

  Kincaid fished the key Byrne had given him from his pocket. “I didn’t intend going off with the silver, Bob,” he said dryly as he held the key out.

  “No, no, I didn’t mean… what I meant was…” Potts gestured helplessly at the house. “Would you… could you possibly, before you go… I don’t think I could possibly go back in the house just now, you see.”

  Kincaid did see, finally, and silently chided himself for an insensitive clod. “Of course. You wait here with your granddad, Kit, and I’ll be back in a tick.”

  He checked the house quickly, securing the French doors in the sitting room, then the kitchen door, and turning out most of the lights. Then he grabbed Kit’s bag from the hall and went out, locking the front door behind him.

  They waited for him in the drive, their breath forming clouds of mist in the still, cold air. Kincaid pressed the key into Vic’s father’s hand, said, “All right, then. You’d best be on your way.

  “I’ll see you, mate,” he said to Kit, and thumped him on the shoulder.

  They walked away across the drive. When Kit reached the car he turned round and looked at Kincaid once more, then opened the back door and disappeared into the dark interior.

  Kincaid watched the car pull out into the street, watched its tail lamps flash at the Coton Road junction before it vanished from his sight.

  His inadequacy rose up to engulf him, and he protested aloud, “What else could I have bloody done?”

  There was no answer except the echo of his voice, and it was only then, standing alone before the dark and empty house, that he let himself believe she was gone.

  Ralph was the first to break the stunned silence in Margery Lester’s dining room. “But how… where… an accident?”

  Iris shook her head. “Apparently not. They se
em to think it was heart failure, but that’s all I know.”

  “Iris, are you all right?” asked Darcy, with sharp concern.

  Galvanized into action by Darcy’s words, Adam leapt to his feet and helped Iris into her chair.

  She smiled up at him gratefully before she went on. “The police rang Laura trying to get in touch with me, and she rang Enid. They’re very anxious to notify Ian, of course.”

  “Who’s Ian?” asked Adam.

  “Her husband,” explained Darcy. “We should all be so lucky. Beginning of Michaelmas term, he packed himself off to the south of France with a delectable graduate student. No forwarding address.”

  “Darcy-” began Margery, but she really hadn’t the heart to continue her reprimand, and for once his tone had held no malice. She felt surprised at her own sense of loss, for she had met Victoria McClellan only a few times at Faculty gatherings, but something about the younger woman had reminded Margery of herself at that age. Vic had been raising a son-more or less on her own, Margery had guessed, even before her husband’s disappearance-and she’d had a sense of purpose about her own work that Margery recognized.

  “Sorry, Mother,” said Darcy. “Habit, I’m afraid. This is all rather dreadful.”

  Iris looked near tears. “I know it’s selfish of me even to think it, but it’s a dreadful blow to the department as well. How will we possibly replace her?” She shook her head. “It makes me wonder if the department really is unlucky. First there was poor Henry’s awful business-”

  “Let’s not talk about it tonight, Iris, please,” said Margery as a wave of exhaustion washed over her.

  “I met her-Dr. McClellan, that is,” said Ralph. “Did I tell you that, Margery? I liked her very much. I wonder what will happen now to her biography of Lydia Brooke?” He met his wife’s eyes across the table and read some reproof in them. “Oh, sorry. That was rather inappropriate, I suppose, but it wasn’t meant avariciously. I was just curious.”

  “We ought to be going, Ralph,” said Christine affectionately, “before you put your foot in any further. Why don’t you let us take you home, Iris? You’ve had a shock and there’s no need for you to drive.”

  Iris made a halfhearted protest. “But Enid will need the car tomorrow. It’s her shopping day.”

  “Ride with me, then, and Ralph can drive your car,” Christine said firmly. “There, it’s settled.” She rose, the others followed suit, and they all made their way into the hall with murmured apologies and thanks.

  “You’ll come again, won’t you, Adam?” said Margery as he bid her good-bye, for he seemed a bit lost. “Under better circumstances?”

  Adam smiled at her, and his genuine pleasure warmed her. “Yes, I will, if you’ll have me.”

  Then the door closed behind them, and Margery and Darcy moved to the sitting room in unspoken accord.

  “Pour me a drink, please, Darcy,” said Margery as she sank into the chair nearest the fire. “A generous one.”

  “Don’t you think I should help you into bed?” he asked solicitously. “It’s been a very trying evening.”

  “Don’t cosset me,” she said crossly. “Grace is bad enough without you starting in, too.” She glared at him until he sighed and went to the drinks trolley.

  “You’re impossible,” he said, but he brought her a whisky, and he hadn’t stinted too much.

  Margery relented. “If I need any help getting into bed, you can be sure Grace will provide it. And to tell you the truth, I’m too unsettled by all this to think about sleep.” She looked with concern at her son, who had poured himself a drink and sunk onto the sofa. “The question is, Darcy, will you be all right? It’s you who will have to deal with the repercussions of this… awful business.”

  “I know,” he answered, sounding suddenly weary. “Why is it, Mother darling, that we always leave our good intentions too late?” He met her eyes over the rim of his glass. “I kept meaning to put things right with her, and somehow I never managed. It was the same with Father.”

  “I don’t know,” Margery said slowly. “But one always seems to leave things unsaid. It’s as inevitable as dying.”

  Adam shivered in his heaterless car and wrapped the scarf more tightly round his throat. Why had he not spoken up at Dame Margery’s table and said that he had known Vic? And that he, too, had liked her? He felt a stabbing of guilt, as if he had personally betrayed her by his silence.

  “Don’t be a silly bugger,” he said aloud. “You hardly knew the woman.” But it didn’t help, and tears smarted behind his eyelids. She had been so lovely, sitting on the moth-eaten velvet chair in his parlor, drinking the sherry he’d poured her. In his mind’s eye he saw the smooth swing of her fair hair as she turned her head and laughed at something he’d said.

  There had been a delicacy about her, a waifish quality, that had reminded him somehow of Lydia. But she’d had Lydia’s determination as well, he had sensed that, sensed that she wouldn’t be satisfied with easy answers, and yet he hadn’t been capable of giving her more.

  He’d failed Lydia, too, in the end, as he’d failed everyone who mattered to him.

  Suddenly the thought of going home alone to the vicarage seemed unbearable, and at the Queens’ Road roundabout he kept to the right, along the Backs towards Grantchester. He would go and see Nathan-Nathan had known her, too. They could talk about her, and perhaps that would ease the dreadful emptiness inside him.

  Newnham

  4 July 1963

  Dear Mummy,

  I understand your distress at my news, but it simply can’t be helped. I have too much work over the Long Vac to come home even for a few days. And as much as I would love to see you, it’s probably not a good idea for you to visit me.

  Please, please, don’t worry about me. I’m quite all right, it’s just that the pressures of work are a bit much right now, and I can’t see anything for it but to keep my nose to the grindstone.

  And there’s the writing, too. Having gained some momentum, I feel I must keep it up, degree or no degree, because after all, that’s the object of all this, isn’t it? Everything has been to further my success as a poet, and if I lose sight of that now it’s all for naught.

  Love, Lydia

  Adam pounded on the door of the darkened cottage, more out of reluctance to go home than in hopes that Nathan would answer. But just as he gave one last rap and turned away, he heard footsteps, and the door swung back.

  He knew at first glance that his friend was very drunk, for Nathan held on to the doorknob like a man drowning, and his eyes absorbed the light like bottomless wells.

  “Nathan?”

  Nathan blinked, then opened his mouth and closed it again, as if his brain couldn’t quite make the connection with his tongue. He tried once more. “Adam, it’s you,” he said, enunciating with care. Owlishly, he blinked again. “Of course it’s you. You know it’s you. Silly of me. I s’pose you’d better come in.” Turning away, he walked off down the dim corridor, leaving Adam to shut the door and follow.

  Adam fumbled after him, unsure of his footing in the dark and unfamiliar passage. He reached the door at the far end, and once through it he stopped to let his eyes adjust to the room’s illumination. A faint light came from the decorative tubes installed under the kitchen cabinets, and from a few embers glowing in the hearth. Nathan sat in the chair nearest the fire, and on the table beside him a bottle glinted in the firelight.

  Adam picked his way across the rug and lowered himself into the chair opposite. He had seen Nathan drink like this only a few times since they’d left University, and then only under great stress, and he feared he knew what had prompted it.

  “Nathan, you’ve heard, haven’t you? About Vic McClellan?”

  “In College,” said Nathan, reaching an unsteady hand for the whisky bottle. “Dinner… High Table. Round like wildfire. Had to… ‘pologize to the Provost.” His enunciation was failing.

  “You left in the middle of dinner?” asked Adam, picking the sense o
ut of what he’d said.

  Nodding, Nathan said, “Had to. Didn’t b’lieve it, you see. Went there. House all dark, locked, no one at home.” He raised his right hand and Adam saw a makeshift bandage wrapped round it, stained with dark blotches. “Canna play piano now” The hand fell to his lap again, as if a puppeteer had dropped the strings. “Neighbors came, said it’s true, all true.”

  “Nathan, are you saying you tried to break down her door? And the neighbors came?”

  Nathan smiled at him as if he’d made a brilliant deduction. “That’s it. Must’ve been shouting. Can’t ‘member.”

  “Did someone look at your hand? You should see a doctor.”

  “Doesn’ matter,” Nathan mumbled, then he pulled himself up in his chair a little and seemed to try to focus on Adam’s face. “It doesn’t matter,” he said carefully. “Nothing matters now.”

  Oh, dear Lord, thought Adam, he’d been a fool, a blind fool, not to have seen it. Nathan’s veiled hints about someone in his life, his air of nervous excitement. And the expression on Vic McClellan’s face when he’d mentioned Nathan’s name.

  “I’m so sorry, Nathan. I didn’t know.”

  Nathan sat forwards suddenly in his chair, knocking his glass from the side table. It hit the rug and rolled against the edge of the hearth with a soft clink. “I need to see her,” he said clearly, as if his anguish had burned momentarily through the haze of alcohol. “Do you see? I need to hold her, touch her, so I’ll know it’s true. I held Jean until she wasn’t Jean anymore. That’s how I knew.” He frowned at Adam and reached for his tumbler again, then stared in puzzlement at the vacant spot on the table.

  Adam got up and retrieved the glass, and as he returned it to the table he saw that the bottle was almost empty. How full had it been in the beginning, he wondered, and need he worry about alcohol poisoning?

  “Let me help you to bed, Nathan,” he said gently.

  Nathan poured the last bit of whisky into his glass and swallowed it. “Don’ wanna sleep. Hafta wake up then, see?” He leaned his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes. “Go home, Adam. Nothing to do.” After a moment he repeated, as if to himself, “Nothing to do.”