The Slow Death of Maxwell Carrick

by Jan Harvey

  ‘No, in the Ministry?’

  At first, he looked at me askance then, leaning forward, he tapped the ash from his cigar into the ashtray. ‘We’re running a pretty tight ship just now and, I would imagine that will be the case for the foreseeable future.’

  He and I both knew he was stalling; he had the influence to find me something if he so wished. He heaved a big sigh, and shifted in his chair. ‘I think you should give it some time, old man,’ he said. ‘After all it’s taxing work. One would have to be on full form, if you understand my meaning.’

  I sipped my whisky and ended the conversation with Lewis when it was appropriate and not so that he would think I was using him. As I stood up to leave he suddenly recalled our last meeting.

  ‘How did it go with your French lady?’

  I was surprised he remembered.

  ‘Not well, she left me for someone else, quite unceremoniously, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Told you so. Same for my friend, you remember? All ended in tears there too, took him for everything and vanished.’

  ‘Perhaps you are right Lewis, we should stick with our English Roses.’ I left him sitting there as an air-raid siren ground into action and with his presumption that I was off to a shelter, I walked though the pitch black streets, the spotlights scanning the sky above me, not caring if I lived or died.

  53

  I held the letter at arm’s length and squinted; I needed new glasses. Norman’s writing was entirely in capitals and his spelling was very poor. He had written out the address for the nursing home and telephone number, and then closed by wishing both Rory and me well for the future. A frisson of wretched guilt forked through me.

  When I got home, I inputted the address into the contacts on my phone and then screwed up the letter. I even placed it inside another bit of rubbish to make sure it remained hidden in the bin, like a true deceiver.

  It was a day or two before I dialled the number because I had to summon up the nerve.

  ‘Lady Cormer House.’ The receptionist’s voice was friendly enough. I took a deep breath and asked if I might be put through to a Mr Carrick.

  ‘You can leave a message for Mr Carrick, she said, but he won’t take calls I’m afraid, he’s quite hard of hearing. Would you like me to do that for you?’

  I felt uncertain. Why did I want to speak to him? My journalistic instincts? Answers to burning questions? Did I need to know anything at all? Enough to talk to a complete stranger, one who may very well resent my visit?

  ‘Hello, are you still there?’

  ‘Yes, yes I am. Would you mind asking Mr Carrick if I could visit him to enquire about his time at Lapston Manor in Oxfordshire? He doesn’t know me, but I’m working on a book about the history of the village, my village, the village where he lived for some time.’ There was silence and I presumed she was writing. ‘Please tell him that I’d be very grateful for his help, but if he is not up for a visit I would understand.’

  ‘Oh he loves visitors, especially of the animal kind, if you have a dog please bring him with you. He asked for a horse to visit for his ninety-fifth birthday, that was a hoot.’

  ‘I have a dog, Inca, I’ll bring her with me,’ I told the receptionist. She was proving to be a real help.

  ‘Great, I’ll pop this message down to him and explain it all. Your name is?’

  ‘Martha, Martha Nelson.’ I gave her my number and a thrill passed through me as I hit the red button on my phone; the old thrill of following a lead and going after a story.

  It was back, the feeling I’d lost.

  54

  I spoke to Douglas from the telephone box at the end of my street that night, as always he was wonderfully warm and kindly towards me.

  ‘They left last week, Carrick. Did George not tell you? Marriage plans. They want to be married in the south as soon as possible.

  ‘Not Paris?’

  ‘No, Cécile has friends who own a chateau in The Loire. They have a church in the grounds which she has set her heart on.’ I fumbled for my next sentence.

  ‘How is George?’

  ‘Fine, fine. He seemed very happy, and of course she is such a lovely thing, I can’t help but feel Henry’s loss is his gain, terrible as that sounds.’

  ‘Did they say when they would be returning to Lapston?’

  ‘No, next is Paris to sort out some financial affairs and then who knows. They are talking about Switzerland for a honeymoon – you know they have friends in Geneva, don’t you?’ There was a moment of silence then with the tone of his voice lowered, he said, ‘So how are you, old man? Any better?’

  ‘Me?’ I coughed a little, cleared my throat. ‘I’m fine. I’ve moved into a house in Oxford for the time being. I will send you my new address.’ There was another pause as if he was thinking how to couch his words to best effect.

  ‘Cécile was telling us about it, about you, Carrick. She seemed very concerned, George too. Is there anything I can do? You do know you are always welcome here, some fine Scottish air in your lungs would do you the world of good.’

  I wasn’t listening, I was wondering what she had told him, what extent of my personal affairs she had sought to share. I saw her gathered with everyone in the grand hall for cocktails, mesmerising them as she told of my problem and how she had nursed me and worried about me. No doubt she told them everything except how she saw to it that I was removed from Lapston, like an unwanted dog, just like Alice’s poor Prince.

  Alice.

  ‘Do you know what is happening about Alice? I was wondering what has happened to her… to her–’

  I felt a pressure in my head, like a hand pressing on the back of my skull; it was always the same when I thought about her.

  ‘She was buried over there, they sent a letter and George and Cécile are going to visit the grave after they marry. I thought–’ He stopped speaking and I wondered what he was holding off from telling me. ‘Cécile said she would write to you and let you know.’

  ‘She would be unaware that I was living at my new address, I suspect. The letter is probably with Peterson at his flat.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Badly burnt they say, in the face, but coping, somehow. I haven’t seen him yet. He has sent word that visitors should stay clear for a while and his mother is there. She was a nurse – best of care and all that.’ There was an ebb and flow of feelings awash inside me. I wanted to travel to this church in the gardens of this friend’s chateau and take George to one side. I wanted to tell him he was making a mighty mistake because I didn’t trust the woman and never would. I also wanted to walk away, go through the pain of being separated from my life at Lapston and start again. I was being torn in two different directions.

  Before the conversation ended, Douglas said: ‘Take care, Carrick. Do look after yourself.’

  I wrote to my father that afternoon and expressed a wish to visit him, I thought some distance could only help, different circuit, new faces etc. As I handed the letter to the post office clerk I regretted it instantly; I was running away from me, my own worst enemy was in fact me.

  ‘Why Mr Carrick, you poor thing, you looked drained.’ Mrs Hall rested a hand on my forehead like a fussing mother hen. I tried to evade her attentions but she was eying me suspiciously. ‘Come and have a drinking chocolate and sit yourself down, I don’t like the colour of you.’

  In those dark days, I only ever felt completely at rest in my armchair, one foot on the stool, the fire lit before me.

  ‘Mr Peterson’s mother called round at midday. I didn’t know who she was, but she’s a nice lady, we had a lovely chat.’ Mrs Hall placed a cup in front of me on a low table and handed me a half dozen letters, then sat back in her own chair. ‘I was out in the garden seeing to the girls and she gave me these, they had gone to the flat of course.’

  I sorted through them. There were bills and the
like, but nothing from Scotland, no contact from either of them. I determined to forget them and put them out of my mind.

  ‘Mr Carrick, my love, are you quite yourself? You look grey around the gills to me.’

  ‘I’m fine, Mrs Hall,’ I replied. ‘I have much on my mind, not least worrying about what to do next. I am afraid that I have met with something of a void, I fear the world is falling apart around us.’

  She put down the knitting that she had pulled out of her basket and then she looked into my eyes. I saw in her such reassurance and support that I felt humbled. ‘Let it go, son.’

  I didn’t look up at her, I couldn’t. My face was set rigid trying to fend back tears.

  ‘Let it go. Her. Him. Everything. You cannot go on like this, my love, you deserve better. No one can live with ghosts, just let them go.’

  I began to sob and she moved across and held me, my head resting on her bosom, my face shrouded in hot tears.

  55

  The letter sat on the palm of his hand, in a tight scrunched up ball.

  ‘What’s this?’

  I stared at it, lost for words.

  ‘It…it’s a letter.’

  ‘Who’s Norman?’ Steve’s face was stern, his jaw set.

  ‘It’s an old chap from Sarsten. He’s been helping me with my research on Lapston.’

  ‘And why does he wish you and this Rory person a happy future together?’

  ‘It’s nothing, he misunderstood, he’s very old.’ I felt sick and my stomach was twisting into a spasm. Steve opened the letter and spread it out on the kitchen counter, its tiny wrinkles like mountains and river valleys. ‘Why have you got it?’

  ‘I was doing the recycling and, as usual, you’d put things in the wrong bins. It was hidden inside another piece of rubbish. Hidden.’

  ‘Steve, it really is nothing. I didn’t want you to be upset; I knew you could read it two ways, I–’

  ‘Two ways?’ His voice was raised now. ‘Martha, I’ve been watching all this very carefully, you know, I’m not stupid.’ I tried to break in, tell him there was nothing to see, nothing to know. ‘I see the daydreaming and the look on your face when you talk about him, I’m not as thick as you think I am.’

  ‘Steve,’ my stomach turned over, churning. ‘Steve, there’s nothing, nothing has happened.’

  ‘Let’s hope so, because I’ll tell you now, for free, any man who messes with my wife will pay a heavy price. I don’t do sharing.’

  He screwed up the paper and, then unbelievably, he threw it at me. I was standing by the back door, I still had a pair of secateurs in my hands because I had been pruning in the garden. The little ball of paper hit me and fell to the floor.

  I was staring down at it as he stalked off, his feet a heavy thumping on the stairs. The bedroom door banged and the house fell into silence.

  Inca crawled out from her basket, moving long and low with only the slightest wag of her black tail. Gently, she picked up the letter and took it back to her bed where she began to shred it.

  I could have taken any amount of shouting, but the letter being thrown at me stung in more ways than I could explain.

  I fell into the old kitchen chair and I wept.

  PART TWO

  56

  I saw him in my dream.

  He was beckoning me to come to him, standing by our bench. Lapston was rising up behind him, but not as she is now because her windows were all there, glinting in the shimmering morning sun, her paintwork fresh and new. I wanted to go but my legs were heavy, they would not move. I felt hot tears on my face, rolling down my cheeks into my ears. I shouted his name, but I couldn’t make a sound because my mouth was so dry; I had no voice.

  I opened my eyes. The blue light of dawn was creeping in at the curtain edges. Next to me Steve was sleeping soundly, the rise and fall of his breath reassuring and normal.

  But it was no longer normal. We were no longer us. An icy chill existed between us, words unspoken, his lack of trust in me misplaced, yet so virulent.

  I slid out of bed and went downstairs to make myself a cup of tea.

  The light streamed through the French doors and dust motes floated in front of my eyes. I checked my phone, it was seven o’clock and, as I brushed my thumb across its surface, I wondered if I should call Rory, although I had no idea if he was back from Spain or not.

  When I finally met Mr. Carrick he was smaller than I had imagined and his room looked vast around him. He was sitting in an upright armchair his hands flat on the armrests and he was staring out of the window at a squirrel that was busy raiding the bird table outside.

  ‘Mr Carrick?’ I stepped into his line of sight, my hand extending in greeting. His eyes were pale grey, unfocussed. ‘Martha Nelson. I arranged to see you earlier this week.’

  ‘Yes,’ he looked uncertain, as if it meant nothing to him.

  ‘Is it all right if I speak to you?’

  ‘Did you bring your dog?’ he asked, as if all at once he’d remembered who I was. ‘They said you would bring your dog.’

  I was relieved he had remembered the arrangement, but I hadn’t been able to bring Inca. Steve was taking her for a walk with a friend of his over to the Black Mountains, a once a year arrangement they had. I felt bad about it when I replied that I had left her behind. The old man’s eyes dropped back to his hands in disappointment. He was fiddling with a piece of linen. It looked like a fragment of an old cushion.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I would have brought her if I could.’

  ‘No matter, I like animals, that’s all. I miss them more than anything else in here.’ The room was soulless, no personal possessions at all, the pictures on the walls were replicated all around the rest of the building.

  ‘May I sit down?’

  ‘Yes, if you like.’ I took a seat on the chair beside his bed. ‘Who are you here to see?’ I sighed, this clearly had not been worth the effort.

  ‘You, Mr Carrick. My name’s Martha. I wanted to ask you about Lapston.’

  He stopped fiddling and looked up at me, his eyes were watery and opaque. ‘I can’t see you very well. I used to paint, but I can’t anymore.’ Then he held up the little strand of cloth. ‘That’s why I fiddle, keeps my fingers occupied.’ He had a look about him of resigned boredom. ‘I like a dog, labradors and spaniels, soft ears, nice to feel.’

  ‘Did you have dogs at Lapston?’ I asked, trying again to bring him back to the subject.

  ‘Oh yes, lots of them, gun dogs, house dogs, collies on the farm too. And horses, my Jester and Alice’s Beau. She loved horses, my Alice.’

  ‘I’ve seen a picture of her, she was very lovely.’

  ‘Oh she was beautiful.’ Whilst he spoke, he shook his head regretfully. ‘Beautiful, a really special lady, she was spirited, yet gentle as a lamb.’

  ‘Were you cousins, or related in some way?’

  He looked lost for a moment, then he shook his head again. ‘No, but we were nearly married, you know. I asked her but she said no, she should have said yes, but she said no and it broke my heart.’

  ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘What’s a nice young lady like you got to be sorry about?’

  I had the most intense and stupid urge to cry right there in his room with only his rhythmic breath and the gentle tick of a clock to break the silence.

  ‘You’re quite a sad one aren’t you, my love?’ A stupid, uncontrolled tear rolled out of my eye then ran down my cheek and I fumbled in my bag for a tissue to wipe it away.

  ‘Have you come looking for answers?’ he asked. It was as if he understood everything despite knowing nothing. ‘I’ve been there, you know, still am in many ways.’ He leaned forward and placed a shaky hand on my arm. ‘It gets better; you learn to live with it, the guilt. I did.’

  ‘What gets better?’ I asked, my journalist’s interest wa
s gone. I was just a woman chatting to a sweet old man.

  ‘When you lose your old life, everything you hold dear, miss those chances… and mistakes you made.’ He tapped his nose. ‘When you realise it’s not enough, not enough.’ He was rambling and I couldn’t follow him. He leaned back and began to fiddle again.

  ‘Why did it all end for the family at Lapston?’ I asked him. By then I was not hopeful of receiving a lucid reply. ‘Why did they all leave?’

  He didn’t say anything, instead he stared out into space. I looked around the room and it was then I noticed a black and white photograph of a horse on his sideboard.

  ‘Is that Jester?’ I asked and it seemed the name brought him back to me.

  ‘Yes, that’s my old boy, I still miss him.’ He turned from looking at the picture and back to me. He had once been handsome, his cheeks were fine, the hair now white was still long at the back and his skin was barely wrinkled, just the odd blemish.

  ‘I loved them all, you know, the only family I ever had. I would have had summer after summer with nameless, unmemorable guardians if they had not made me part of the family and all because George invited me back for one Easter holiday. I would have had no one, no place to call my home.’

  ‘Were you an orphan?’

  ‘No, my dear. I lost my mother but my father was still alive until I was sixty. Turns out the men in our family are long-lived, it was just the women they wore down.’

  He was still resting a hand on my arm quite comfortably, the backs of them age spotted, the fingers were long.

  ‘Where was your father?’

  ‘India with his new woman. I met her once, went out there, she couldn’t stand me and I couldn’t stand her. It’s very hard to know that a parent cares nothing for you, but that’s what I had to come to terms with. But then I had Mrs Hall, she loved me.’ He sighed. ‘She was the housekeeper, a darling, and she took care of me at Lapston, then in Jericho.’

  I realised we were back on Lapston and used it to my advantage.