Fatal Choices

by Anne Morgellyn

  ‘I’ve been looking into assisted suicide,’ I said. ‘It’s big in Switzerland, although it’s meant to be done on a charitable basis, the clinics aren’t supposed to profit from it.’

  ‘That wouldn’t suit us,’ Mr Byrne told me flatly. ‘I put my hat in the ring with the local youth and all that, but I have to run my business at a profit. Why don’t you come back to me? There’s a desk with your name on it if you want a job. We’ve got four bereavement counsellors here now, but none of them are as good as you. Come over. You could come on the show.’

  ‘I live in Geneva now, with my little boy.’

  ‘What’s happened to Dr Androssoff?’

  ‘He’s back at Charity’s now, in his old job. He comes over at weekends. I’ll be spending more time here because of my job. I work for a trafficked women’s project.’

  Mr Byrne chuckled. ‘Louise, Louise. I can do better than that. You brought a lot of money into the business. You started the bereavement counselling service – single handed. I’ve got twenty of them now, that’s how popular it is. Come back and work for me. Give Dr Androssoff a break.’

  Chas had never forgiven Mr Byrne for taking me on as a part-time embalmer. It was Chas who had taught me how to eviscerate and stitch – surgical procedures which were completely unnecessary in the funeral parlour. Old Byrne paid me twice as much as I earned in the NHS, but I preferred being at the hospital. Bereavement counselling was another matter: I had trained for two years to do that, and I was building a career in it before I went to Wellington. The fees for the counselling session were built into the funeral package, which was good because I didn’t like the idea of taking money personally off vulnerable clients. Byrne & Co took a small commission before paying me, but it was always fair, and they paid me generous expenses to travel to the clients’ homes.

  ‘Do you know where I can post an obituary notice about the man whose ashes have just been delivered?’ I asked. ‘I don’t know what to do with them, but he must have had some friends who might want to take them or scatter them somewhere. He was a sessions musician.’

  ‘You’re speaking to the right man here, Louise. I’ll broadcast it on my show. It’ll be great, just like a mystery. The producer will love it. We can set up a Twitter feed and everything. Oh, you’re a grand girl. You always have such brilliant ideas.’

  ‘It wasn’t my idea ...’

  ‘Would you come on the show now and tell the story?’

  ‘You mean go on television?’

  ‘Of course, and why not? You’re a handsome woman.’

  That’s what Drew had called me. Perhaps it was fated.

  ‘Could I pre-record it? Chas can look after Nicky.’

  ‘Wouldn’t he like to see the studio? It would be grand to see the little fella.’

  ‘It will have to be soon. We’re only here for four days.’

  ‘You can come and record it this afternoon and we’ll air it on the live show on New Year’s Eve. Have you got a photograph of the dead fella?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid I haven’t.’

  ‘Not to worry. We’ll work something up.’

  ‘Who on earth watches a show about a funeral business on New Year’s Eve?’ Chas asked. ‘For Christ’s sake, Louise.’

  ‘It gets repeated all over the network at different times. It’s a good idea. I owe it to Drew.’

  ‘You just want to go on television.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. You can bring Nicky and watch me record it. Old Byrne would like to see you.’

  ‘It’s not reciprocated. Let’s see what Nick wants to do.’

  Of course he wanted to see the TV studio. We had steak and chips for lunch and then went over to the undertaker’s yard to make the recording. The fleet of blue collection vans had expanded. The rose beds were gone from the memorial garden. It was very Zen now, all gravel and rocks. There was a little pagoda with a seat for contemplation.

  The studio was state-of-the-art with a lighting camera-man and all the trimmings. There was a deep blue backdrop behind a large Gothic armchair – I supposed this was where Mr Byrne delivered his piece to camera.

  ‘Here’s a bright little black-haired fella,’ he said, rising to greet us. ‘Chip off the old block.’ He shook Chas’s hand and pointed me towards the chair. ‘Try it for size, Louise. There she is, just like a queen. If you go through to Jenny now, she’ll make you up.’

  ‘Not in the embalming room?’ I said, alarmed.

  ‘No, no, no. It’s my dressing room, completely separate from the other side.’

  I could see Chas laughing. Nicky was looking through the camera under the watchful eye of the sound recordist.

  Jenny wore a blue overall, like the embalmers, but I let her powder my face and went back into the studio. The camera-man held a white plastic square in front of me and adjusted one of the lights while the sound-man clipped a tiny microphone to my dress.

  ‘No need to talk loud, it’s very sensitive.’

  Nicky went to sit next to his father. ‘Silence,’ Chas commanded, in a stage whisper. ‘Are you sitting comfortably, Louise?’

  The camera-man held up a finger. ‘Rolling,’ he said, signalling to me.

  I delivered a heavily edited narrative. I said I had been at Montreux when Drew was playing there in June and we had got talking afterwards. I mentioned what he had told me about his life as a sessions musician on the London and festival circuits. I said he had been off the circuit for a while because he had had a brain tumour, but now he had his guitar back – a Fender Stratocaster, he was enjoying playing it again. When he came to see me a few months later, he wasn’t well. He walked with a stick, and shortly after he’d been to see me he broke his neck in a fall. He left no details of friends or family who might want to claim his ashes, just a short note for me. The funeral had already taken place but the ashes were safe at Byrne & Co. I hoped someone who had know him well might like to have them or arrange a memorial for Drew.

  ‘Cut,’ the camera-man said. ‘Are you going to use a picture?’

  ‘No, there isn’t one. I already told Mr Byrne.’

  ‘OK, just try and describe him, and we’ll wind up. You’re doing well, Louise. Rolling.’

  ‘Drew was sixty three years old. He had longish hair, well into his collar – like my husband’s in fact ...’

  ‘That’s an idea,’ Mr Byrne put in. ‘Stand up Dr Androssoff.’

  ‘Cut.’ The camera man glared at me. ‘Are we using that, or not?’

  ‘Not,’ Chas said. ‘Count me out.’

  ‘It would help the public,’ Mr Byrne said.

  ‘Your public, Byrne, not Louise’s. I think she’s given you enough.’

  ‘Chas, please, he’s doing me a favour.’ I looked at the camera-man. ‘Can we do the description again?’

  ‘OK. Rolling.’

  ‘Drew was sixty three. He had longish hair, well into his collar. It was grey when I met him, but I think it might have been sandy when he was young. He was above medium height, stocky build, and he had the stick ...’

  ‘Cut. That’s probably all we need. We can edit it before you introduce it.’ The camera man turned to Mr Byrne. ‘It’s not much to go on.’

  ‘Oh you’d be surprised at who comes forward sometimes. Everyone knows someone.’

  I jumped up. ‘I missed at bit out. He was a regular at Jim Haynes’s parties in Paris. Could we send a copy of the tape to Jim Haynes so he can show it to his guests?’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ said Mr Byrne. ‘We’ll put it on our website channel and YouTube. Are you going to give your mammy a clap, young fella? She did a grand job there.’

  ‘Yes, she did.’ Chas pulled Nicky up. ‘Bravo, Louise.’

  ‘You think on now. The door is always open.’

  ‘Did you thank Mr Byrne for those mint humbugs, Nick?’ Chas said.

  ‘He did indeed. Next time he comes, I’ll show him the fleet. We’ve got a horse-drawn carriage, too. You’ll like that, little fella.’


  ‘Will you be on television then, Mummy?’ Nicky said when we were walking back up Park Road.

  ‘We could go to the zoo now,’ Chas said. ‘See the dragons again.’

  ‘I don’t want to go to the zoo. I want to see Mummy on television.’

  ‘Why? You heard what she said. You saw the recording.’

  ‘We can find it on one of the catch-up players perhaps,’ I said. ‘It’ll be on too late for you to stay up.’

  ‘That’s not fair. I bet Dad and you watch it.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Chas said. ‘I’ll be in my new bed with our reality TV star.’

  34

  The Twitter feed began straight after the broadcast with messages from people who clearly hadn’t known Drew at all, but posted just for the sake of it. Then there were a few genuine-sounding comments about being on the road with him and how he was great to be around, a thoroughbred musician and a good bloke, etc. There was a poignant one from someone tagged Fitbird who wrote: Drew was the best. No one played a Strat like him, except Hendrix. Nite nite and love you always xxxxxxx Rock on. A lot of the tweets ended with rock on, the same sign-off as the card I found in Drew’s leather jacket. Then the website passed me the details of a woman called Mhairi Dunne.

  ‘Chas,’ I called. ‘I’m going out.’

  ‘I thought we were all going out, to the Science Museum.’

  ‘You take Nicky on your own. It’s not really my scene.’

  West Hampstead was awkward to get to from where we lived, though not far as the crow flies. I walked over the Hill to Swiss Cottage and got a bus to West End Lane. The street sloped downwards towards Kilburn and consisted of a rank of terraced houses with small front yards defending them from the pavement and bay windows on the ground and first floors. Although not as bijou as the houses in Chalcot Crescent, they too had mostly been gentrified: only a few stuck out as rental properties, marked by dingy net curtains – or no curtains at all, just sheets, like the house where Mhairi Dunne lived.

  A woman came to the door, wiping her hands. She had a high-blood-pressure face and premature wrinkles.

  ‘Mhairi?’

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘Someone left a web message about Drew Joffey.’

  ‘That was my daughter. I can’t use those things. I’m Mhairi. You’d best come in.’

  I stepped into a narrow gloomy hall littered with newspaper and children’s toys. We went into the front room where a couple of teenage girls sad huddled on the sofa, watching TV.

  ‘Off,’ Mhairi said. ‘Go down the 7-11 and fetch some milk.’

  ‘We were watching Jeremy Kyle.’

  ‘You can get the milk first before you go to the Heart Foundation. Are you working at the Heart Foundation too, Cat?’ she asked the other girl.

  ‘Slave labour, yeah.’

  ‘Did you post the message about Drew Joffey?’ I asked Dymphna.

  ‘Yeah, and? – Cat, it’s that woman from the funeral show.’

  ‘Byrne & Co – Funeral Show.’ That must have been the theme tune.

  ‘Will you get off your backside, Dymphna and let the lady sit down.’ Mhairi picked up a purse from the coffee table and handed her daughter a five pound note. ‘Get one of them pizzas as well if they have them, the ones on special offer.’

  ‘Can’t Mikey go? He’s not doing anything.’

  ‘No, he can’t. He’s doing his college work.’

  ‘Fucking hell.’ Dymphna dragged herself up off the cushions and her friend with her.

  I was about to sit down when a boy about Nicky’s age jumped on before me and stretched out flat on his back. He was followed by a toddler in a nappy. Mhairi picked the young child up and shouted at the recumbent boy.

  ‘You can get to school now. There’s nothing wrong with you. Go on. Sinead’s gone and she’s had the same thing.’

  ‘Aw, mum...’

  ‘Fuck off. I’m sick to death of you.’

  ‘Sit down,’ she said to me.

  ‘I see you’ve got your hands full.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ She put the toddler down on the rug where it picked up an empty crisp packet and started to chew it.

  Mhairi sat on a tatty swivel chair – it looked like it had come from an office. There were no other chairs in the room, just a couple of bean bags and a sleeping bag in the corner.

  ‘How many have you got?’ I asked.

  ‘Five. This one,’ she pointed to the toddler. ‘The two that’s just gone out, Mikey, my eldest, he’s upstairs, and there’s another one in school. Oh, and the baby, Colleen. She’s thirteen months.’

  ‘Not much of a gap between her and this one then.’ I nodded at the toddler.

  ‘I tell you, I’m not having any more.’

  ‘I’ve just got one. He’s at school now.’

  ‘I wish I didn’t have any sometimes. They drive me crazy. What’s this about Drew? Was it the cancer?’

  ‘It was in a way. He was very unsteady. He fell and broke his neck.’

  ‘Jesus. How d’you come to know him?’

  ‘Didn’t you see the broadcast?

  ‘No, that was the girls. They always watch it. They told me you was on and posted the message for me. I haven’t got time to watch television.’

  ‘I saw him at the Montreux jazz festival. We met up a few times after that, just for coffee.’

  ‘That don’t sound like Drew,’ she laughed. ‘Meeting a woman for coffee. Bet he tried it on with you.’

  ‘No, he didn’t. I’m married.’

  ‘That never stopped him before. He was a fanny magnet, Drew was. My auntie Eileen was smitten with him. I told her she’d never keep him – she was years older than him, seventy four. Then she got run over.’

  ‘I didn’t know him that well. He came to see us in November. I wanted him to stay – my husband’s a doctor, but he just went off and then I heard he’d died.’

  ‘Nobody bothered with him much when he got ill, except my auntie Eileen. She put a bed in her front room for him.’ She smiled to herself. ‘I wish those girls would hurry up. I’ve got to give the kids their dinner.’

  ‘Would you like to have his ashes?’

  ‘He promised he’d let Mikey have his guitar. He said Mikey could have his guitar when he couldn’t play it no more. It must be worth a bit.’

  ‘He told me he’d sold it.’

  ‘Yeah? So much for Mikey then, and after all I did for him, letting him kip here. You couldn’t trust him further than you can throw him. I don’t want his ashes, no. I liked him, he was a card, but he wasn’t anything to do with me. He slept on the floor over there.’ She indicated a corner behind the bean bags. ‘I should have made the boys give him their room, with him having cancer and all, but Mikey has to study. He’s at college. Mikey’s my rock.’

  ‘Don’t you get help?’

  She looked at me suspiciously. ‘Are you from the Social, snooping and checking up on us?’

  ‘No. I’ll see myself out.’

  I nearly collided with her daughter and her friend, returning with the 7-11 carrier. They blanked me and pushed past into the hall. I walked as briskly up that street as I could without looking as though I was running away. But I was running away.

  He’s on YouTube backing Tim Buckley. I swear it’s him. Dexter

  He’s all over YouTube. You just have to look out for him. He played with EVERYBODY. Poll

  I was on The Old Grey Whistle Test with him. Marcus

  Nobody called Marcus plays rock and blues. Jo Jo.

  There’s a lot of phonies on here. Wendy

  What are you doing here, Wendy? Dexter

  Same question. Are you lonesome tonight? Pete

  I’m washing my hair. Perve at that perverts. Wendy

  You’ll electrocute yourself, babe. What a waste. Dexter

  Go ahead and do it, stupid bitch. Peanuts

  The Tweeters were wandering off the topic. Someone had started a FaceBook page for Drew, but there was little on it apart fr
om a photo of him playing his Strat, frowning with concentration. He hadn’t, so far, attracted any friends.

  ‘What about his agent?’ Chas said.

  ‘I don’t know who he was with.’

  ‘What about recording companies – you said he’d played with all the greats. Try music producers. Just a couple, though, Louise, because this could get out of hand. You organised his funeral for Christ’s sake. Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘That’s a great idea, about the producers.’

  35

  I launched a three-pronged assault on the offices of ZeeTron – telephone, e-mail and Twitter feed. Naturally, no one would put me through to the man himself, but I persisted.

  Chas and Nicky were in Regent’s Park, playing frisbee. I put on my coat and spotted them as I was heading down the Broadwalk.

  ‘Look, Daddy, it’s Mummy.’

  ‘I’m just going into town for a couple of hours,’ I said.

  ‘We’re all right here, aren’t we, Nick? We’ll go and get a burger and hot chocolate.’

  ‘Yeeuch,’ I said. ‘Put your hat on, Nicky, it’s cold.’

  ‘It isn’t that cold,’ Chas said. ‘It’s not Geneva.’

  ‘Just watch him. Don’t let him out of your sight. There’s some very funny people in the park.’

  Oxford Street was a stew. I elbowed my way through the throng of sale goers and pushed on towards Soho. The ZeeTron offices were in an alley way somewhere off Wardour Street. There were bikes stationed outside, helmeted couriers going in and out. I knew wouldn’t get past the security guard, but I pressed the intercom anyway.

  ‘I’m trying to make an appointment to see Zeb Tree. Can you hear me?’ No one responded. A courier was buzzed in; I tried to use him as cover, but the guard blocked my way. I was about to give up when I saw a limousine pull up in Wardour Street. The black-shirted chauffeur got out and looked around warily. No one was paying any attention to the vehicle, except me. The rear door opened and the man himself stepped onto the pavement.