The Slow Death of Maxwell Carrick
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Praise for The Seven Letters by Jan Harvey
‘There are moments throughout this excellent book that will long remain with me, searing and stark images that are indelibly etched in my memory.’
Anne Williams, Being Anne Book Blogger
‘A really compelling and thought-provoking read. I could hardly put it down.’
R.E. Hodges, Author
‘Jan Harvey’s novel takes the form of a deftly signposted double narrative, moving back and forth across two time scales with ease.’
Jan Lee, Oxford Times
‘It kept me awake until the small hours of the morning, something I haven’t done for years. Many congratulations to the author for her considerable literary skills.’
Jane Bwye, Book Blogger, Book and Me.
‘Tell it well and end with a totally surprising mystery, as Jan Harvey did, and you get a fine book which deserves all the success of which a debut novelist dreams.’
Bill Larkworthy, Author
‘Jan Harvey has a way of writing with deep emotion and rich description while still allowing for the story to flow well and with ease.’
Sarah Swan, Sarah’s Vignettes Book Blogger
‘We cannot and will not stop talking about this book because it’s just wonderful. Set in WW2 Paris and modern day Oxfordshire, this is a gripping tale of love and turmoil. A must read for historical fiction lovers.’
Madhatter, Bookshop
‘Quite simply, I couldn’t put this book down.’
Courtney Stuart, Reviewer
The Slow Death of Maxwell Carrick
Jan Harvey
Copyright © 2018 Jan Harvey
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Matador
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ISBN 9781789012262
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
This book is dedicated to the memory
of my best friend.
Nancy, I wish you were here to read it.
My Infelice’s face, her brow, her eye,
The dimple on her cheek; and such sweet skill
Hath from the cunning workman’s pencil flown,
These lips look fresh and lovely as her own.
False colours last after the true be dead.
Of all the roses grafted on her cheeks,
Of all the graces dancing in her eyes,
Of all the music set upon her tongue,
Of all that was past woman’s excellence
In her white bosom; look, a painted board
Circumscribes all.
Thomas Middleton
Contents
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Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Book Group Questions
1
‘Speech!’ my deputy, Bob, shouted and the rest of the team joined him in a rowdy chorus. They had festooned the meeting room in pale blue, my favourite colour. There were balloons, banners and a large cake in the centre of the meeting room table with the words “Happy Retirement” piped on it. I shook my head in disbelief, I hadn’t intended to leave like this, a few drinks down at the Eagle and Child maybe, but that was all I’d really banked on.
Someone handed me champagne in a plastic flute and as I cleared my throat I was fighting back the tears.
‘Thank you, all of you, I wasn’t expecting any of this.’ I was very touched. ‘I really mean it, you have all been marvellous to work with and I am honoured to have known you.’ I held up my glass, as the froth poured over the rim. ‘Here’s to the best team an editor could wish for.’
That was autumn last year, the end of my career in publishing. I was scrap-heaped at sixty and, in all honesty, I didn’t know where to turn or what to do with myself. Steve, my husband, was still teaching and loving it, but I was scratching about the house, alone all day, with only my thoughts for company.
Most women my age have the distraction of grandchildren, but that was never going to happen with Sarah still single, on her way to forty, and no sign of a long-term relationship. I fleetingly toyed with the idea of getting a dog, but the whole thing didn’t really appeal and, besides, we had our geriatric cat to consider. I mulled it over with my friend Becky in a small café just off St.Giles a month later.
‘Martha, there must be something you’d enjoy doing.’ She said this as she over-stirred the cream into her coffee and, e
ven though she was my closest friend, I knew she was frustrated with me. After all, I had my freedom while she was still chained to a desk.
‘I’d like to do yoga, maybe, or perhaps something arty? Learn to watercolour or something? Oh I don’t know, I should really tackle the garden, I suppose.’ I sighed more heavily than I intended to.
‘So it’s the plank, painting or potting then.’ Becky was incredulous. ‘Are you really telling me that, although you’ve known you were going to retire for over a year, you hadn’t thought of something to do with yourself?’ How could she understand? Becky’s job was a bind, something to be endured, whereas I had always been absorbed with my career. I had thoroughly enjoyed it. ‘What about writing? You love Italy, why not think about writing a book on say Florence or Rome, you’ve been to both places so often?’
‘I don’t know, editing magazines is one thing but a book, that’s a huge undertaking and I–’
‘And you have plenty of time to do it,’ she cut in. ‘Martha, can I be really frank with you?’ I nodded. I was pressing my fingers to my lips, struggling to contain my feelings. ‘I can’t believe you because, in all honesty, I’d love the opportunity to do anything I wanted to and if I’m really truthful, I’m deadly jealous of you. I simply cannot believe you don’t feel the same way.’
The café was filling up steadily, it was lunchtime, Becky’s lunch hour. We ordered a cheese and onion toastie each, but I was sitting looking at mine blankly, while Becky devoured hers. I didn’t feel hungry at all. Maybe this was depression. Whatever it was, I was feeling pretty low.
‘Look, why don’t you go through your village magazine tonight, see what’s on in your neighbourhood. I bet there’s something in there to interest you.’ Becky was being kind, I understood that, but was I really reduced to looking for ideas in the local rag? I’d never so much as glanced at the magazine before. Steve always read it and told me the abstract empty names of the recent dead, and I knew none of them.
‘You’ve heard of this chap, Sidney Purge,’ he would say. ‘He used to mow the playing field and the village green on a little blue tractor, lovely man.’
‘Nope,’ I replied shaking my head. When would I have seen Sidney Anyone cutting the grass in the village? I was never here. I used to get up at six every morning and battle with the traffic into Oxford to reach my desk by half eight and I rarely made it home before seven thirty.
When I browsed through the village magazine it was, as I expected it would be, a very amateur lick and stick affair. There was a plant sale coming up on the green, the fête in August was looking for volunteers and the church was going to be reordered, whatever that meant. I flicked through it: deceased people, three men one woman; two marriages and a christening, and a lost cat called Barney.
Eventually a small advert on the inside back cover drew me in. It was very badly typeset, with a blurred image of the old prebend at the top.
Can You Help?
The Village History Group is looking for assistance in compiling and editing a book about local history. We need someone to help us with this exciting project.
If you can spare a few hours a week, please call 993875.
No email address.
Steve was nonchalant.
‘It’s up to you, sweetheart. I think you’d enjoy it.’ He was speaking from behind a towering pile of homework. ‘Anything to stop you moping around.’
‘Moping?’ I repeated after him.
‘Well, yes, you have been… a bit. I think it would be nice for you to get your teeth into something, a project would give you focus.’
‘I can’t see me working with a bunch of local yokels on a book, can you?’
‘Local yokels?’ He snorted. ‘We live in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds surrounded by overpaid stockbrokers and fat cat industrialists. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen either a local or a yokel. Martha, you need to get a grip and do something.’
He was right of course, it was what I needed and I had earned the brusque tone in his voice. It would keep me occupied and I had exactly the right skills, so I picked up the phone, took a deep breath, and tapped the number into it.
Tom Williams was an earnest young man with a goatee beard and dark eyes. ‘How absolutely wonderful of you to agree to help us.’ He was gripping my hand in a firm handshake. ‘Do come in. The committee is in the living room.’
It was a tall Georgian house on the main road with highly polished flagstones running the length of the long hall. We turned into the lounge where the carpet was a sumptuous grey and gold that blended with the old gold of the sofa. It was all very tasteful.
The owner of the house was an imposing woman. Tall and slim, she wore an expensive gold rope chain necklace that hung flatly on her chest. Her name was Camilla Crocket, very Agatha Christie.
‘My dear, it is a delight to meet you. I think we all feel much enthused that our little advert has trawled such a magnificent catch. You really are an answer to our prayers.’
‘Well, I hope I can be of help,’ I told her. I felt rather like a fish out of water, trawled or otherwise.
A short, bald man with pince-nez spectacles was next.
‘I’m Roger Hughes, I have a background in publishing myself,’ he told me with great earnest. I nodded kindly and asked him what he meant. ‘I used to proofread for a friend of mine, John Darke-Taylor. Do you know him?’
I shook my head.
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Oh well, he’s very big in my church, a quite famous anthropologist, very clever indeed. He is an expert in–’
‘And I’m Angela Gattis,’ said an older lady, who stepped pointedly in front of Roger, stopping him in full flow. ‘I chair our little group.’ She had a gentle rise and fall to her accent. ‘Yes, I’m American,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘And before you ask, I’m from Ohio.’ She had the skin and hair of a woman half her age though she was at least eighty. ‘Welcome to our group, Martha, and thank you for answering the plea we sent out. We sure do need your help.’
They poured a cup of tea for me and offered a biscuit. I took one out of politeness because they had obviously bought a selection pack in my honour.
‘So what would you like me to do?’ I asked. ‘What exactly is the project?’
‘If you don’t mind we do need to have a formal session first,’ Camilla said as she leaned across and picked up a large gardening book. On top of it was an A4 sheet of paper; a typed agenda, typewriter-typed.
It was stultifyingly boring, they laboured over every point and I helped myself to another biscuit just to break the monotony. I kept asking myself what on earth I was doing there. Roger, it transpired, was a detail man and liked to dot the I’s and cross the ‘T’s. Camilla liked to write everything down in a tight, laborious script and Angela liked to talk and talk. Tom, was earnestly silent, listening in rapt attention to everything and smiling nervously at me when he caught my eye.
When I thought I couldn’t go on any longer, when another subsection would have sent me screaming for the door, they turned their attention to me.
‘Thank you so much for bearing with us Martha,’ Camilla said with barely concealed excitement. ‘This is where you come in.’
Tom picked up two lever-arch folders and placed them on the coffee table, and I took one and opened it. It contained plastic ring files, each with a sticker and a reference number written neatly on the front. Inside each were sheets of typed articles, pictures, the odd newspaper cutting, and a variety of scribbled notes. As far as I could tell they, individually, covered a different subject.
‘Roger has referenced each file, as you can see,’ said Angela, pointing at the labels. ‘We have divided it into twenty chapters.’ I nodded as Roger leaned forward and explained his referencing system, and I looked interested so as not to appear rude, which seemed to please him enormously.
As soon as I could find the rig
ht moment, I said: ‘And you want to publish a coffee table book, I understand?’
‘Oh yes, that’s the idea,’ said Camilla enthusiastically. ‘It is to be called “Curs, Cowards and Conundrums,” my husband, Gerald, came up with that.’
‘And does it apply?’ I asked.
‘Does what apply?’ she looked at me askance.
‘Who are the curs and cowards?’
‘They’re all in there,’ said Angela, pointing at the file with a boney finger. ‘Sure are some stories for you in that lot, honey. They’re very entertaining.’
‘And all from around here, in the village?’
‘In this area, but there are two or three village stories that will make your hair curl.’ She laughed and they all joined in with her. ‘Honey, you won’t believe what these villagers got up to!’
2
Oxfordshire, autumn 1944
Inevitably, the subject turned to Cécile Roussell as I knew it would. There was an intrigue and excitement in his voice, something quite unfamiliar in George.
‘I’m expecting her at four,’ he told me.
A glance at the mantle clock told me it was almost three.
‘And has she made contact with you since you received her letter?’
‘She confirmed the timing of her visit by telephone yesterday,’ he replied.
‘And she said nothing further?’ I enquired. ‘Nothing more about Henry?’
‘No.’ George shook his head forlornly and I felt a real concern for my dear old friend, he had looked so down of late.
‘And how do you feel, old chap? I mean about her, about all of this.’
‘I shall have to wait and see, Carrick, but I can tell you I am both eager and filled with great trepidation about meeting this woman.’ He offered me a cigarette, which I accepted. As he held up the large onyx lighter, I noted the tremor in his hands.
‘Are you quite well, George?’