I stare at him. ‘And who plays Ursula?’ I ask. ‘Who gets the costumes sorted and back to the Aphra Behn?’
He turns away and starts to walk back towards the stage area. ‘You are eminently dispensable,’ he calls. ‘Eminently.’
Exit stage left.
*
Well, I really don’t care about being out of the play; the prospect of a week not spent shivering in a farthingale feels like a release, actually. Which leads me to wonder why I got into it in the first place. Another case of hope over experience, I suppose. Dominic has unsettled me, though. I think, as I pedal home, that he did, at least, say dispensable and not disposable but I can’t shake off the sense that there seems to be a threat there, all the same. And, infuriatingly, the altercation with Dominic has blown away that fragile thought that I was trying to hold on to. As I approach home I see lights on, which calms my paranoia about the missing key, though it still occurs to me, as I unlock the door, that a really clever assassin would lull me by switching lights on, wouldn’t he?
Inside, I call out a greeting and get no reply. I go cautiously into the kitchen, where I find macaroni and salad eaten and everything scrupulously washed up and put away. Jon has eaten and gone to meet Annie, presumably. The message light is flashing on the phone. David? I pour myself a glass of wine and press play. At first all I hear is heavy breathing and I am seized with fright. Then a voice emerges, thick with tears. Oh Gina, I’m so sorry. It’s your mum. She passed away, Gina. I’m so sorry. There is some wordless weeping and then, It’s Margaret here, Gina, I should have said. It was a stroke. Very quick, the doctor said. I found her. Just in her chair. Quite peaceful, bless her. You take care of yourself, Gina. Bye now. And that was it.
Why does shock attack the knees? The first thing I feel is that I must sit down. Then I take a gulp of wine. Then I think that I don’t believe it. Oh, I believe that she is dead. I’ve felt that coming for a while now, and so did she, I’m sure. It’s very quick and quite peaceful that I don’t believe. Killed instantly, wasn’t that what the families of soldiers killed in the First World War were always told? Even if they had hung, screaming, on the wire in no-man’s-land for three days? How long was it before Margaret went in and found her? How long did she lie, helpless? Did she want me? She wanted me yesterday, didn’t she? And I said I’d see her in three days’ time. Why didn’t she say come now? Because. Because of who she was. Because of who I am.
I look at the clock on the cooker. It’s nearly eleven. Too late to ring Margaret now. I stand up and go to the phone to play her message again and I freeze as I hear the sound of a key turning in the front door. I don’t know if I scream but I certainly let my glass fall from my hand, so that when Jon opens the kitchen door he finds me standing on a battlefield of red wine and glass.
‘Are you all right?’ he asks and all I can say is, ‘My mother’s dead,’ before the tears come.
He is, of course, wonderful. He sits me down, makes me a cup of tea (better for shock than wine) and clears up the bloody mess on the floor with quiet efficiency.
I don’t weep for long. Weeping isn’t really my thing and these tears came from shock and fright more than from grief. Grief I shall have to think about later. I realise, as my tears subside, that I am hugely relieved that Annie isn’t here.
‘Did you see Annie?’ I ask.
‘Oh yes. Thank you for supper, by the way. Delicious, and just what I needed. I saw her after the show but they were all going out for a drink and I didn’t think I could match the post-performance euphoria after the day I’ve had.’
‘Annie should have come back with you.’ Why doesn’t she look after him better?
‘She needed her wind-down. It was a good audience tonight, apparently.’
‘So you came back for some peace and quiet and found a hysterical woman.’
‘Very mild, as hysterics go.’
‘I’m sorry about your bad day. Do you want to talk about it?’
‘No. People die, you know, when you don’t expect it, and too young. I’m learning to get used to it.’
‘Is that a way of reminding me that my mother had had her time? Well, I know that. The tears aren’t grief, you know. Shock. And guilt a bit. She rang me and asked me to go and see her – well, as close to asking as she ever got – and I said I’d see her on Sunday. And now she’s dead and I wonder if I’d gone right away …’ I stop. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t think you could have stopped her dying, do you?’
‘No.’ I drink my tea while I think about how to phrase my question to him. ‘I’ve always suspected, without any evidence really, that doctors have a sort of freemasonry and help one another out at the end – something painless, an extra shot of morphine and something bland on the death certificate. Does that happen? Have you heard of it?’
‘I’m only a student. If it does happen, I’m not in the freemasonry yet.’
‘No. But I can’t get it out of my mind. I knew my mother was expecting to die soon but now I wonder if she was planning it.’
‘And asking to see you was what?’
‘A test, I suppose. If I’d gone right away, maybe she would have said something to me. As it was, she went ahead without me.’
‘What do you think she would have said?’
‘I have no idea. We never understood one another. But she gave me a letter the last time I saw her, to be opened after her death. Very nineteenth-century novel, though she wasn’t like that at all, in fact. Well, you know. You met her, didn’t you?’
‘Several times. I liked her very much.’
‘Most people did.’
‘Are you worried about opening the letter?’
‘I’m not rushing. I know it’ll be disappointing. I have to prepare myself.’
‘Yes.’
I look at the clock. ‘Could you do something for me, Jon?’
‘Of course.’
‘Could you tell Annie when she comes in? I’d really like to have a bath and go to bed. I’ll ring Ellie in the morning.’
I take myself upstairs. I feel the kind of exhaustion that is actually quite pleasurable when you know you have a good night’s sleep in front of you, but I’m afraid I shan’t sleep, even drugged by a hot bath and some more Wodehouse. I go through the motions, though, soaking in soporific bubbles, and then, when I’m in bed, I put paid to any hope of sleep by opening the bedside drawer and taking out my mother’s letter. Giving myself no time to change my mind, I rip it open and scan it rapidly. It is dated 1st July 2012 and it is short but not quite to the point – at least not to any point that I understand. The writing, I notice, is fainter but no less precise than my mother’s usual hand (she had no truck with stereotypically illegible ‘doctor’s writing’ and her prescription forms were renowned for their clarity).
Her letter reads as follows:
My dear Virginia,
My solicitors, Hart and Lyman, have my will. The arrangements for my burial will come as a surprise to you, I realise. We buried Christopher in the churchyard because I wanted to be able to go and talk to him. Your father wanted to be cremated, but his ashes are there too. I prefer burial. Earth to earth seems right to me. The churchyard plot may mean that a church funeral is obligatory. I don’t mind that if you don’t. It’s a good service and I am sure you will appreciate the words.
We did not intend to keep secrets from you. It was too painful at first, and anyway you were too young. Then time went by and there seemed no point. There was no conspiracy,
With love,
Mummy
It’s the Mummy that gets me first, though that is hardly the most striking thing about this letter. When did I stop calling her Mummy? At fourteen or fifteen, I suppose, when I decided that Mother was more grown-up. It always seemed right to me, appropriate for the adult detachment of our relationship, but did she always think of herself as Mummy?
But this is not really the point. Thinking about this is just a displacement activity to avoid thinking a
bout the other stuff, which is making me dizzy. My mind moves cautiously from the outside in. A church funeral; let’s start with that. I have thought about her funeral from time to time, knowing that I would, eventually, be the person who would have to organise it. I assumed a nice, rational, secular affair for my atheist mother, in the crematorium. I anticipated a big crowd, of course, because she was admired and respected, and even loved, I suppose. She had cured and comforted and saved the lives of generations of her patients. My main concern was how we were going to fit everyone in. But now it’s to be in a church – large or small, I don’t know – and I shall have to choose hymns and bible readings, shan’t I? And negotiate with the vicar and not be difficult or make it obvious that I think it’s all nonsense.
Then there’s the burial. I had assumed cremation. It’s what I choose for myself and I know my choice is based on a rather childish horror of decay, of blowflies and worms, fluids and corruption. Cremation has its horrors too, of course, the coffin sliding away behind that prim little curtain always turns my stomach. I was twelve when my father died and I remember that moment when the coffin started to move. My mother had explained to me what would happen but at that moment I was seized with the irrational fear that he was not actually dead and would be burned alive. My mother must have sensed my agitation because she put a hand on my arm. ‘He really is dead,’ she said. At the time I was angry with her for the matter-of-fact way she said it; now I think it was remarkable that she read my mind.
But now we come to it, the centre of all this. She must have a church funeral because she must be buried in a churchyard, and she must be buried in a particular churchyard because that is where Christopher is. Christopher. It means nothing to me. I never heard the name pass between my parents, not even in a muttered aside. It was too painful; I was too young; there was no point; there was no conspiracy. Off the top of my head, I have three theories about Christopher. One, the least painful, is that he was my mother’s beloved brother, dead tragically young and mourned ever after. I don’t believe this, however, because my mother talked often about her childhood and her sister, Alice. Wouldn’t Christopher’s name have slipped out at least once?
Option two, then, which owes a good deal to a certain kind of romantic novel. Suppose that Christopher was my mother’s lover and my real father? He died, leaving my mother pregnant or alone with a small child, until decent, kindly Harold Sidwell came along to give her respectability and a father for her child. The problem with this is that my mother was thirty-eight when I was born, and a respected professional woman. My birth out of wedlock could hardly be a matter of such shame that it could never be spoken of, could it?
Option three, then – the only viable one, I know, and have known ever since I read the letter. The other options were just further displacement exercises. Christopher was my brother, wasn’t he? And since I don’t remember him I assume he was born and died before I existed, and I came along eventually as a poor substitute. This would be the real reason why my parents never mentioned him, wouldn’t it? Because they couldn’t have done so without revealing the depth of their disappointment in me. There is an even worse version of this option, one that also has its inspiration in fiction – this time the genre of psychological thriller. Suppose he was not born before but after me? Suppose the reason why he couldn’t be mentioned is that I was somehow responsible for his death? Were we twins, and did I – greedy and demanding even then – get the lion’s share of nutrition in utero so that he was born too fragile to live? Or did I kill him? Did I smother him, drop him, drown him? Did I suppress the trauma and did my parents decide that the best thing was to do the same? No conspiracy? How can two people, living with a third, impose a complete embargo on the mention of a fourth member of the family without conspiring to do it? My mother’s sometimes brutal truthfulness has caused me pain and rage over the years, but they were nothing – nothing – to what I feel about this mealy-mouthed apology for a letter.
17
27.07.12: 09.25
A Morning’s Work
‘Paula, you take Mike with you and go back to the Samaritans. I’m going to talk again to Malcolm Burns and I’ll chase up Rashid Malik on possible sources for the guy’s niqab. Sarah, you’re getting onto The Scrubs about Karen’s visits to Doug Brody, and his phone calls. I’ll go and talk to him again tomorrow. You can come with me, Darren. You weren’t expecting the weekend off, were you? When we’ve got a double murder and a serious assault on our hands? Steve, check out Jamilleh Hamidi’s address and check out her neighbours for anyone known to us. Nothing new on Doug Brody’s associates, I suppose? No? Well keep on it. Sarah, go back to the hospital. See if Jamilleh Hamidi has anything more to say. Darren, go along to Acorns and find out if they’ve had any concerns about a man hanging around there. And mind your language. Cut out the paedo references. And everyone, the attack on Jamilleh has brought the media down on us again, as you’ll have seen. I made a statement yesterday and now they’ll have to wait until there are further developments. You don’t talk to anyone. Right? And bring me the developments.’
At 09.25, so instructed, the team dispersed. Sarah Shepherd went straight to the nearest phone and called Wormwood Scrubs prison. She was surprised at how quickly she was put through to a senior officer; calling from CID, she realised, gave her clout she had never had as a family liaison officer.
‘Douglas Brody,’ she said, striving for an authoritative tone. ‘His wife and child were murdered ten days ago. We’re anxious to establish what contact he had with his wife in the days before the murders – visits and phone calls, if possible.’
There was a silence and Sarah waited for the brush-off. The reply, when it came, though, was perfectly courteous.
‘I can get that information for you. We do monitor phone calls and keep a record of numbers called. I shall need to put you through to the wing officer. It is a busy time but I’m sure he can help you.’ There was another pause. ‘I’m just looking to see …’ he said, with the unmistakeable tone of someone who is scanning a screen, ‘… ah, yes. You know, I assume, that he was in the infirmary following an attack on an officer. He is back on the wing now, but we have him on suicide watch. He has taken the deaths very badly.’
‘It’s hardly a thing you could take well, is it?’ Sarah commented, and then regretted it. That was family liaison talk, wasn’t it, not CID? The response on the other end of the phone was brisk.
‘No. I’m putting you through to the wing if that’s all?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
The wing officer sounded harassed but not unhelpful. ‘Yes, DC Shepherd. You’re interested in Doug Brody, I gather?’
‘Yes. How is he?’
‘Quiet. The medics sedated him after he got violent. He’s off the medication now but he’s still quiet. Like a zombie. We’ve got him on a twenty-minute suicide watch.’
‘We’d like to know if his wife visited him in the days before her death. Between 1st and 16th July. And phone calls. How many he made and who he made them to.’
‘Visits are easy. She came regularly every two weeks. Never missed. Sometimes brought the little girl. He’d requested a transfer from Liverpool to be nearer for visiting.’
‘So what would the dates of those visits have been?’
‘I’m just looking now. Yes, Sundays. 1st July and 15th July.’
‘Did she bring the little girl to either of those?’
‘We don’t keep a record of that.’
‘How did he seem after the visits? Can you remember?’
‘Visits always shake people up.’
‘He didn’t seem more upset than usual?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘And phone calls? What about them?’
‘He’s allowed two calls a week.’
‘Can you tell me who he called?’
‘I can but it’ll take a bit of time. I’ll need to call you back later.’
Sarah, with That’ll be fine trembling on her lips, to
ok a deep breath. ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘we’re conducting a double murder inquiry and I’m afraid later won’t do. I’ll wait while you find the information.’
She got no reply and thought, at first, that he had put the phone down on her, but faint noises of activity told her otherwise and she waited, uncertain whether he would leave her hanging there, come back with the information or summon someone senior to bawl her out. She looked at her watch. She would give it ten minutes before giving up. After five, the wing officer was back, grudging but with the data. Doug Brody had called Karen on the Monday and Thursday evenings that were his allotted times. His last call was a fifteen-minute call on Monday 16th July at 20.45.
‘When you say you monitor calls,’ Sarah asked, ‘does that mean you listen in to them?’
‘We monitor the numbers. Calls are allowed only to approved numbers. We have the facility to listen in to calls and we do it if we suspect criminal activity. We had no concerns on that score about Brody.’
‘Right. Well, thank you.’
‘Just one thing, though. Monday 16th, Brody tried to make a call to an unregistered mobile. We automatically block those, for obvious reasons.’
‘Was that before or after his call to his wife?’
‘Before.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, and then added. ‘I’m sorry if I hassled you.’
‘Just doing your job, love,’ he said.
Paula would have had something to say about the love, she knew, but she let it go.
*
By 09.40, David Scott had a warrant application to search the Samaritans’ office ready to go to the magistrate. At 09.45 he phoned the university, asked for the chaplaincy and spoke to Rashid Malik.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Malik said, ‘but I really have very little to tell you. I’m aware of no family where the woman wears niqab and my wife confirms my belief that it is necessary to go to London to buy any kind of hijab. Or order online, of course.’
Weep a While Longer Page 15
