The nights began to exhaust her. They were full of small movements and noises beyond Jane’s bedroom door which, to her shame, she was now too frightened to open. Once or twice she thought she heard the Major calling: ‘Come here, Pigby! Come here, sir! Come here, I say!’ But she did not try to verify her supposition.
On the Tuesday of the Strellbriggs’ last week Mrs Chicopera called to say that their cat Buzz had been found. It was dead and looked as if it had been attacked savagely by a wild creature. One leg had been chewed at and half torn off. Jane commiserated.
‘Oh, how awful. A fox?’ she ventured.
‘Maybe,’ said Mrs Chicopera. They were standing at the little wrought-iron gate of Jane’s front garden. She noticed that Mrs Chicopera was looking past her at her house. Jane turned round and saw the Major staring at them through the front window. He was moving his mouth in an odd way so that the hog’s bristles of his moustache wagged up and down.
‘When are your guests leaving, Mrs Capel?’ asked Mrs Chicopera. Jane was surprised. The Strellbriggs were not a secret, but she had not bothered to tell anyone in particular about them.
‘This Sunday,’ said Jane.
‘Okay,’ said Mrs Chicopera, apparently satisfied, and moved on.
**
It was a relief when Sunday came. Mrs von Hohenheim was due at midday and the Strellbriggs were packed and ready to go by ten o’clock. They waited in the sitting room with her mother, looking subdued. Jane smiled on them benevolently. Now that they were going she felt indulgent towards them. The unspecified, unspoken fear had lifted.
When it was twelve o’clock Mrs von Hohenheim did not arrive. At half past Jane irritably rang her house in Wiltshire, but there was no reply.
‘Your daughter hasn’t shown up,’ said Jane to the Strellbriggs.
‘Oh dear!’ said Daphne mildly.
One o’clock came. Jane had rung the Wiltshire house several times, but with no results. Now deeply angry, she served a makeshift meal to her guests. After lunch Mrs von Hohenheim had still not arrived, so Jane tried ringing the offices of OPEN but, needless to say, it being a Sunday, she got only an answering machine. By three o’clock Jane had decided that the only course of action was to drive the Strellbriggs down to Wiltshire. The problem was that she could not leave her mother on her own for that length of time, and it would be impossible to get someone in to look after her at such short notice. She rang her brother Tony and got the answering machine. She had forgotten that they were away on holiday that week. By four o’clock rage had been superseded by an icy, despairing calm: she had put her mother and the Strellbriggs into the car and was driving down towards Lockington Magna.
The Strellbriggs’ attitude surprised Jane; they seemed indifferent to the anguish that they and their daughter were causing. Jane tried to interrogate them about their daughter’s possible whereabouts and what might have happened to her, but they were quite unhelpful. The Major at one point said that it was ‘a rum go’, and Daphne remarked that it was ‘most odd’, but that was the extent of their reaction. When they arrived towards evening at Lockington Magna, Jane found Mrs von Hohenheim’s bungalow locked and dark. She fetched a torch from the car and shone it through the windows. The house was not only deserted, it was empty: not a single item of furniture could be seen.
Jane wanted to scream loud and long, but she did not because she knew it would upset her mother. She steadied herself, returned to the car, got in and explained the situation to the Strellbriggs. The Major once again said that it was ‘a rum go’ at which Jane felt a strong desire to get the Strellbriggs out of the car with the luggage and leave them there stranded. Restrained by fifty or so years of self-sacrifice, she drove them back to her home. Repeatedly she asked them about their daughter, but the Strellbriggs’ ignorance or reluctance to communicate was phenomenal. The only fact that they were able to vouchsafe was that her husband Mr von Hohenheim had died many years ago.
In exasperation Jane asked if Mrs von Hohenheim really was their daughter.
‘Oh, yes!’ said the Major. ‘Daphne had her out in Africa. Funny little thing she was: looked like a monkey. Do you remember, Daphne, we used to call her “little monkey”?’
‘Little Monkey,’ said Daphne fondly.
‘And good old Pigby stood godfather at the christening in Kampala Cathedral. Gave her a mug made out of rhino horn.’
‘What is her Christian name?’ asked Jane who felt that these reminiscences had got out of hand.
‘Molly. No! Magda,’ said the Major.
‘No, Molly,’ said Daphne.
‘Well, she’d answer to “hi!” or any loud cry, as they say,’ said the Major with an ugly catarrhal chuckle. After that, the Strellbriggs lapsed into silence and would only respond to Jane’s questionings with the briefest of monosyllables. So she gave up.
**
It was a sleepless night, but fortunately one undisturbed by mysterious noises. The following morning, as soon as she could, Jane began to ring the offices of OPEN, demanding to speak to Martha Wentworth-Farrow. Mrs Wentworth-Farrow heard her out and expressed the deepest sympathy.
‘What are you going to do about it?’ demanded Jane.
‘Well, of course, we’ll do all we can. We’ll make enquiries immediately.’
‘Don’t you think that the time for enquiries was before you put Mrs von Hohenheim on your books?’
‘We don’t use references, as you know,’ said Mrs Wentworth-Farrow. ‘We operate on the principle of trust.’
‘A principle which in this instance has served you very ill,’ said Jane who liked the occasional literary turn of phrase. Even in these appalling circumstances she derived some satisfaction from scoring over Mrs Wentworth-Farrow.
‘Please do not take that attitude, Jane. It is very unhelpful.’ This attempt to regain the high ground failed. Jane simply rang off.
In the afternoon Jane rang the police. A pleasant policewoman came round to interview the Strellbriggs who were, as usual, genial but unhelpful. The policewoman recommended that Jane should ‘get on to the Social Services’. Jane did as she was told but was informed that a social worker was not available at the moment, and because this was not an emergency, she was not likely to receive a visit for another couple of days. Then Mrs Wentworth-Farrow rang to say that she had ‘done what she could’, which was to find out that the house in Wiltshire had been rented on a six month’s tenancy by a Mr Villach, that no references had been given as the rent had been paid in advance to the agent, and that no forwarding address had been given. Moreover, there seemed to be no records of anyone of the name of either Villach or von Hohenheim or Strellbrigg existing in this country. Jane asked Mrs Wentworth-Farrow what she was going to do about this mess, to which Mrs Wentworth-Farrow replied that while she was doing all she could, the responsibility of her organisation did not extend beyond the periods during which the exchange of old people took place. Jane once more put the phone down. It immediately rang again, the caller this time being her brother Tony making his regular monthly enquiry after his mother. Taken off guard, Jane told him about her difficulties to which Tony responded by saying that if only she had consulted him before embarking on the venture, he ‘personally’ (a favourite word of his) would have advised against it. He also recommended that she should ‘get on to a solicitor and sue Mrs Wentworth-Farrow’.
Meanwhile the Strellbriggs were in her living room calmly consuming large quantities of tea and Bourbon biscuits. Their equanimity in Jane’s eyes amounted to a kind of madness, or pathological callousness at the very least.
That night the house was once more full of noises until about three in the morning when it suddenly became quiet. In the silence that followed, Jane’s ears, attuned by rage and anxiety to an abnormally high degree of sensitivity, caught the faint creak of a window being opened in the sitting room which was below her bedroom. She went to her own window and looked out.
In the yellow glare of street lamps she saw a large, crouched shape i
n striped pyjamas climb out of her sitting room window. It was bent low so that its hands almost touched the ground. She could not see the face, only the back of its head on which wayward, uncombed grey hairs stuck out in all directions. It shambled across the front lawn, moving crookedly yet with some fluidity; then, instead of passing through the front gate, it scrambled awkwardly onto the low garden wall and wriggled through a gap in the privet hedge. Once behind the privet hedge Jane could no longer see it, but it must have passed along the other side of the wall, still crouched low, until it was out of sight from the house.
Jane felt her heart beating fast. A detached part of her worried that what she had seen would give her a heart attack; and then what would become of mother? What had she seen? It must have been the Major, except that it did not quite look like him, and certainly the creature’s movements were not those of a ninety-year-old man.
The thumping of Jane’s heart made her so breathless that she had to sit down on the bed. At some point after that she fainted. When she came to there was a hint of early morning in the sky. Jane listened for noise, but there was none. She went downstairs and into the sitting room. All windows were closed and bolted on the inside. She told herself that she had had a peculiarly vivid dream, but she lied.
The following day a social worker called Lorna came. She asked a great many questions and wrote down the answers on a notepad attached to a clipboard. Jane thought that she had been interrogated rather aggressively, as if she was to be held responsible for the situation. After this Lorna insisted on interviewing the Strellbriggs alone.
When Lorna came out of that meeting Jane saw confusion and shock on her face.
‘Did you get anything out of them?’ she asked.
Lorna took her notes off the clipboard and placed them in a large straw bag. ‘Mrs Capel,’ she said. ‘I will have to go back and discuss the case with my colleagues. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible.’
‘When?’
‘Our guidelines are to respond to these situations as soon as possible, Mrs Capel.’
‘In the meanwhile what do we do about them? I have two strange, unwanted old people cluttering up my house. I’m perfectly within my rights to turn them out onto the street.’
‘I’m sure you don’t want to do anything like that, Mrs Capel.’
‘But what are you going to do about it?’
‘Now, Mrs Capel. We will be prioritising your dilemma here, but I have to review the situation, discuss the case with my colleagues. I do assure you, I will be getting back to you as soon as possible.’
At that moment Jane hated Lorna, with her complacent professionalism, her fat, bespectacled face, her dreadful taste in jewellery, more than she had hated anyone since her schooldays. More than the Strellbriggs? Certainly. Jane found that she could no more hate them than she could the wind and the rain, or her poor crazed old mother. The white heat of her rage stifled all speech. She saw Lorna to the door in silence. Just before she left Lorna turned to Jane and, pointing to the sitting room where she had just interviewed the Strellbriggs, she said:
‘Mrs Capel, I have just been called a black bitch in there by that man. Now I don’t have to put up with that sort of thing. You won’t understand how much that hurts; but I tell you, I will do the best for you and your case, but I am not coming back into this house ever again.’ And with that, she left.
Jane rang up her solicitor and arranged to see him the following morning.
**
Normally Jane would not have left her mother in the care of the Strellbriggs for more than an hour at most, but she was past caring. She had to go into central London to see Mr Blundell, whose firm had dealt with her family’s affairs for years. Mr Blundell listened to Jane’s story with enormous professional sympathy. Could she sue Mrs Wentworth-Farrow? Possibly, but the expense might be prohibitive. Did she have the right simply to evict the Strellbriggs? Possibly, but then again. . . . He would have to do some research into that.
Jane came away from her meeting unsatisfied, but oddly soothed. She felt that Mr Blundell, however ineffectually, had been wholly on her side. She returned to Westwood rather late and found her guests the Strellbriggs waiting expectantly for lunch. For some minutes she was so preoccupied that she failed to notice that her mother was not with them.
‘Where’s mother?’ she asked eventually.
‘Oh,’ said Daphne. ‘Has she gone?’
‘Of course she’s gone. She was here in the sitting room with you. Did you put her back to bed or something?’
‘Why would we want to do that?’ said Daphne.
Jane looked all over the house. Everything that belonged to her mother was there but not her mother. When Jane returned to the sitting room she asked the Strellbriggs again where her mother was.
‘Haven’t an earthly,’ said the Major from behind his Telegraph.
‘Neither have I,’ said Daphne. ‘Awfully sorry.’
Jane stared at them. It was extraordinary how well and placid they looked. Their flesh had filled out; it was pink and unwrinkled.
‘Look. She was here with you when I left this morning. She can’t have just gone out without you noticing. Dammit, she can barely walk.’
‘Aha!’ said the Major. ‘The great disappearing mother mystery!’
‘It is not funny!’ replied Jane, stamping her foot, the tears starting from her eyes.
She went out into the street and looked up and down. Her mother could not have gone far. She searched the street, knocked on doors and asked neighbours. No-one had seen her, and Jane was getting suspicious looks. Someone asked: ‘Are those friends still with you, then?’
‘They are NOT friends!’ said Jane with a violence which startled even herself. More suspicious looks followed.
After two useless hours, she returned to her home to find that the Strellbriggs, together with all their bags and property, had also gone. She telephoned the Police. The Police responded surprisingly quickly to Jane’s call and sent two men round, a Sergeant and a young Constable. As the Sergeant sat very patiently listening to the whole story, the Constable began a rather desultory search of the house and garden. Suddenly Jane and the Sergeant heard him cry out from the back yard.
They found him leaning against a wall, pale and in a state of shock. He pointed to something lying beside one of the dustbins. It appeared at first sight to be a withered and desiccated chipolata sausage. One end, a tangle of dark brown sinews and gristle, looked as if it had been chewed; at the other end were the chalky remnants of a finger nail. The object was still loosely encircled by Jane’s mother’s engagement ring.
The Sergeant lifted the lid of the dustbin, looked inside, and then replaced the lid very rapidly. Before Jane fainted, the last thing she remembered was the sensation of seeing stars explode in front of her eyes.
THE GARDEN OF STRANGERS
I was ambitious; that is why I wanted to meet him. I cannot honestly say that I felt compassion for the man, though now, fifty years after, I have come to believe that he deserved it.
It was in the summer of 1900, the year of his death, that I sought him out. I knew he was in Paris and, armed with that information alone, I made my way there. For a man so universally shunned he was surprisingly easy to find. It was all quite deliberate and coldly calculated on my part. I would offer to buy him dinner; he would accept out of necessity; I would then write the article for the New York Sun (with which I had some connections), and it was to make my name as a journalist. I even had a title fixed up; it was to be called: ‘I had dinner with Oscar Wilde’. I thought that was neat.
But somehow I never got to write the article, though I did have dinner with him. I’d like to say it was some kind of delicacy that prevented me, but I don’t think so. I funked it, I guess, and it’s only now that I can look at my efficient shorthand notes—made, it seems, by a stranger—and set down my account. Maybe it’s because Death is looking me in the eye, just as, fifty years ago, He was looking at poor Oscar.
Oscar used to say that when good Americans die they go to Paris. I don’t know about that—not just yet—but I do know that way back in 1900, there was quite a set of live Americans there who stuck together and prided themselves upon their cosmopolitan sophistication. They knew all about Oscar, though most of them kept their distance, as in those days he was still looked on as some kind of contagious disease. But someone put me in touch with the writer Vincent O’Sullivan who was American born, and he knew Wilde pretty well. He gave me some searching looks, but I told him I was an admirer who wanted to meet his hero. He just nodded: ‘You can usually find him every morning between eleven and one at the Café des Deux Magots on the Left Bank.’ So I thanked him and the next morning I headed off to that café.
He was not hard to recognise, even though the figure I saw was very unlike the photographs of him in his gorgeous heyday. There was something about the way he sat at the table outside the café that alerted me to a presence before I could even make out his features, that ‘curious Babylonian sort of face’, as someone once described it to me. He was sitting very upright, a glass of greenish liquid—chartreuse or absinthe?—on the table in front of him, and he seemed to be looking intensely at the crowd. As I discovered later this was not the case: his eyes were turned inwards on his own unhappy dreams. His right arm was stretched out horizontally, his large, clumsy hand resting on the gold head of a stout malacca cane. The pose was regal. He was kind of portly and, but for his subtle air of distinction, one might have taken him for a banker, or a financier taking a morning off from the Bourse.
I had expected someone shabby and down at heel, but he wasn’t. He was very tidily dressed, though not exactly smart. Only when you looked close did you see that his cuffs were frayed and there were one or two tiny patches in his frock coat. I approached him and introduced myself as Jonah P. Ellwood, a friend of Vincent O’Sullivan (not strictly true), and a fervent admirer of Oscar Wilde (not strictly true either).
The Complete Symphonies of Adolf Hitler Page 4
