The Ullswater Undertaking

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘Right,’ said Simmy vaguely, and headed up the new staircase.

  ‘I should start something cooking,’ Christopher called after her. ‘Is it okay if Fabian stays?’

  ‘Fine,’ she said, thinking it really wasn’t fine at all.

  ‘I was in hospital for six months,’ Crickers told them, over the pasta that Christopher had produced. He spoke slowly, as if every word had to be tracked down inside his head before it could be uttered. ‘They took me down to Cape Town eventually and bombarded me with every medicine in the book. It was touch-and-go, I can tell you. Since then, I’ve had to have spinal taps every year to see if there’s any sign of it coming back. Well – that stopped a couple of years ago, and they said I was clear. All that from one little bastard of a fly that had probably bitten me months before.’

  ‘We all thought you were beyond help,’ said Christopher. ‘You couldn’t even stand up and you had those lumps on your neck. Not to mention the rash all over you. Like a plague victim, you were.’

  ‘Which is why you thought it was safe to promise me anything I asked,’ the man nodded. ‘I get it.’

  ‘Really?’ Christopher looked uncertain. ‘That’s very forgiving of you.’

  Fabian Crick’s expression hardened. ‘It’s not though,’ he said. ‘You cost me that house, if you want the honest truth. She would have left it to me if you’d done as you promised.’

  ‘What?’ Christopher went pale. ‘That can’t be true. Didn’t you have time to put it right with her?’

  ‘I thought everything was all right between us. I gave you that message because it was important to keep her sweet and I trusted you to deliver it. Then I forgot all about it. I was incredibly sick for a while. Couldn’t think, had seizures like the worst epileptic fits, and as you see, I’ve still got this twitch. Damage to the central nervous system – never going to get better, apparently.’

  ‘It’s not so bad,’ Christopher assured him.

  ‘Bad enough, but better than being dead. Anyway, that’s the short version of the trypanosomiasis story. Great word, don’t you think?’ He said it again slowly. ‘Tree-pano-somiasis. It’s like a little poem, with all those syllables. It took me ages to get it right.’

  ‘I would never have recognised you,’ said Christopher, when they’d finished eating, but remained sitting at the table. ‘You’ve lost so much weight.’

  ‘Not to mention going grey and losing most of who I was. They say personalities change when you have this disease – it’s probably true. It’s a weird feeling, knowing you should really be dead. I’m a medical miracle.’

  Simmy was paying close attention, acknowledging to herself that she felt decidedly uncomfortable in the man’s company. He looked like a survivor from some extreme trauma – which he was, of course. The constant twitching was unsettling, and the story itself seemed to be a preamble to something more current – and more sinister. She could still hear his voice on the phone, the day before. She had taken an instant dislike to him from that brief conversation and was failing utterly to modify her response. Her resolve to keep life peaceful for at least the first year of Robin’s life was already being tested. She could feel the advance of dark forces in the wake of this disagreeable man and was far from pleased with Christopher for so readily admitting him into their home.

  ‘Where do you live?’ she asked, rather too directly. ‘Did you come in a car?’

  ‘I’m in Glenridding for now. They won’t let me drive, on account of the blackouts. I’ve got a mobility scooter. I followed Chris down from the main road and left it out there.’ He waved vaguely towards the lane. ‘It’ll just about get me back. Three miles, mostly uphill.’

  ‘Blackouts,’ Simmy repeated, in a tone that said Why doesn’t that surprise me?

  ‘I told you – I’m a wreck,’ said the man, with a hint of satisfaction.

  ‘Why didn’t you go straight to your aunt after you recovered?’ Simmy asked, trying to stay with the central point. The accusation against Christopher was rankling.

  ‘One thing after another,’ he said vaguely. ‘I wrote to her, sent cards. Kept promising to visit.’

  ‘Did she reply?’

  ‘Oh, yes. She sent me newspaper cuttings about Africa mostly. Said my cousin was writing her life story and would probably make a small fortune out of it. Never told me anything very personal. She did say once that she wanted to remember me as I was as a lad, and that she’d heard I was something of an invalid these days. That was a thing with her – she was phobic about illness and disability. We all thought it must have come from things she saw in the war and afterwards. Soldiers with eyes and limbs missing – that sort of thing.’

  ‘You mean she actually said she didn’t want to see you again?’ asked Simmy incredulously.

  ‘More or less. So I never got a chance to find out who was getting her things when she died. You can’t just ask somebody if they’d remembered you in their will, can you? She mentioned it when I was about twenty-five, and that was it. Said my mother had been badly treated, and she’d make sure I was all right when the time came. I guess I took that as gospel, and never bothered to check it out. Then she died and left the house to someone who’s not even related.’

  ‘Can’t you contest the will?’ asked Simmy, who as a general rule did not approve of people doing that. Some perverse spirit made her want to challenge everything this man said.

  ‘No,’ said Fabian shortly. ‘Nobody would think I had a reasonable claim. I’ve got two uncles and two cousins who could make an argument every bit as good.’

  Simmy charged on with her interrogation, aware that Christopher was trying to say something, but not wanting to let the man off the hook. ‘So you’re saying that a garbled message delivered by a total stranger after you’d apparently died in Africa would have made her love you best, even if it was rather late by then?’ The scepticism was nakedly evident. ‘And then you didn’t die – and sent her a few postcards, and expected a nice big Lakeland house to fall into your lap as a result? Have I got that right?’

  ‘She had to leave it to someone,’ he said sulkily.

  ‘Wait, wait.’ She held up her hand. ‘This isn’t logical. If you thought you were dying, why would it be so important to remind Aunt Hilda that you were thinking of her at the end?’

  Christopher belatedly interposed himself. ‘It’s not illogical at all,’ he said crossly. ‘Crickers actually did love his aunt. She was the primary person he thought of when he was so ill. Of course he would want her to know that. When she never got the message, she thought he didn’t care and changed her mind about leaving him the house. Makes sense to me.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Fabian Crick, with a lopsided smile.

  ‘Oh, yes, I see now,’ said Simmy, subsiding unhappily. ‘Ignore me – it’s not my business anyway.’

  Christopher gave her a kind look and turned the conversation to Fabian’s current situation. ‘So what’re you doing now?’ he asked.

  ‘Not a lot. I came up for the funeral just before Easter and decided to stay for a bit. I’ve had enough of city life for the time being. It’s nice up here, even without any cash. The air seems to be doing me good. I’ve not had a blackout for nearly a month now. And the family are all still here. I’m catching up with some of them.’

  ‘Are you staying with them?’

  ‘No, no. That wouldn’t work. I told you – I’ve got a little place in Glenridding.’ He waved away details of his accommodation as irrelevant. Then he took a deep breath and spoke to Simmy. ‘If you’ve got things to be doing, don’t feel you have to stay and listen to me.’

  ‘There isn’t really anywhere to go, as you might have noticed. We’ve got the builders in, finishing the conversion. We only moved in here at the end of February.’

  ‘Brave. With the little’un and everything.’

  ‘We were lucky. It’s all worked out beautifully.’ She frowned at her own tone. Why, she wondered, did she need to justify herself to this man and make h
im think everything in their lives was perfect?

  ‘Nice place to grow up, anyway,’ Fabian Crick agreed. He turned to Christopher. ‘By the way, it’s not “Crickers” any more. I never did like that. It’s “Fabian” now, okay?’

  ‘Right,’ said Christopher. ‘No problem. If I remember, it was what you told us to call you on the first day of the trip.’

  ‘Very likely. But that chap’s long gone – as I said.’

  ‘But you still want Chris to do something for you?’ Simmy challenged, losing patience. ‘Isn’t that right?’

  ‘Did I say that?’ The man narrowed his eyes and his jaw jutted forward aggressively. ‘When did I say that?’ He looked from one to the other.

  ‘It’s obvious, surely. You must have gone to some trouble to track us down. We’ve only been here a month or two. You called the landline, which is a brand-new number. You were coming here just now, when Christopher coincided with you on the corner. And whatever you might say, you clearly haven’t forgotten the promise he made to you ten years ago.’

  ‘Sim …’ said Christopher warningly. ‘No need to be like that.’

  ‘No, no.’ Fabian held up his hands. ‘She’s perfectly within her rights. Fair’s fair. Cards on the table. First off, I found you by the simple method of asking my friend in Keswick for your number. Turns out you work with her – Josephine, right? Bet that’s a surprise. She and I go back a long way, as it happens. A lifetime, very near. I was a year or two ahead of her at school. Then I left the area, and my parents retired to Morecambe Bay. I used to come back every few months to see Aunt Hilda, and Josie was still living in Grasmere with her mum and dad. Had a bit of a fling, if you must know. Kept in touch with Christmas cards and so forth, ever since.’ His delivery was almost as spasmodic as his muscles, words tumbling out in short groups.

  ‘Josephine?’ Christopher was poleaxed. ‘You’ve got to be joking.’

  Fabian shook his head. ‘Ask her if you don’t believe me. Ever so pleased to see me, she was, when I turned up at Aunt Hilda’s funeral. She was there, of course.’

  ‘Why “of course”?’ asked Christopher. ‘She’s never said anything about you or your family to me.’

  Fabian shrugged. ‘She probably would’ve, sooner or later. She seems a busy lady, keeping you auctioneers under control.’ He opened his mouth to say more, but a sudden twitch seemed to prevent speech.

  Christopher filled the gap, holding up one finger. ‘Wait. Did she know that you and I were in Africa together? Has she always known that you and I had history?’

  ‘Course not. Come to think of it, there must have been quite a few years when I never sent her a card or anything. She was pretty stunned to see me again, I can tell you that. And I was just as gobsmacked to see that picture of you they’ve got up in the reception area. “Senior Auctioneer, Christopher Henderson” it says, large as life.’

  ‘Stunned but pleased, apparently,’ said Simmy drily, referring to Josephine. ‘We’re still not getting to the real point, are we?’

  ‘There’s no hurry, Sim,’ said Christopher, more irritably than ever. ‘What’s your problem?’

  ‘Sorry.’ She got up to make coffee, glancing at the big clock on the wall as she did so. It was well past seven, getting dark outside and wasting the cosy family evening she’d anticipated. Robin was in his pram in the half-finished living room, and she was missing him. Telling herself that was stupid, she produced three mugs of instant coffee and sat down again. Old habits were clinging to life, she realised. No way would she let Christopher hear whatever Fabian’s story might be without her. There was something substantial working its way to the surface, if she wasn’t much mistaken.

  ‘Okay. I’ll try and cut to the chase,’ said the visitor, with a placatory look at Simmy. ‘I don’t always find it easy to order my thoughts. It’s the trypanosomiasis at work, you see. I’m never going to be shot of it completely.’

  ‘Take your time,’ said Christopher.

  ‘The thing is, there’s a few family ructions over my cousin’s book. You know the way a person’s secrets all come out, once they’ve died. Old Hilda had quite a life, one way and another. She was a young girl in the Blitz, in Birmingham, spoilt rotten, clever at her schoolwork. She made a bit of a name for herself in various ways, good with money. Never over-endowed with friends, admittedly, but that never seemed to worry her. She liked to be the best at everything. People found that off-putting, I guess.’

  ‘Did she ever marry?’ asked Simmy.

  ‘If she did, I never knew about it, and it couldn’t have lasted long.’

  ‘Presumably you would know? Husbands don’t just evaporate.’ Again, Simmy felt irritable at the man’s vagueness.

  ‘There’s a lot of uncertainty as to what she was doing in the sixties,’ said Fabian stiffly. ‘She kept well away from the family for a good ten years. When she surfaced again, there was no sign of a husband. Mind you, she was a good-looking woman, even when she must have been in her late fifties, which is when I first had much contact with her. By that time, she was pretty well-heeled – dressed nicely and all that. All her energy went into making money and interfering in family matters. My mother died and she made a fuss of me. She was the oldest in the family and my mum was only a year younger. Then there were two brothers after her.’

  ‘Your uncles,’ nodded Simmy.

  ‘Right.’ He twitched again and seemed to deflate at the same time. ‘You won’t want to know the whole family history,’ he muttered. ‘No need for that.’ A sly look crossed his face. ‘I’ve heard quite a lot about you, one way and another. I know you’ve got a hotline to the police and a little gang of amateur detectives.’ He raised his eyebrows at Christopher. ‘Seems I really did come to the right place.’

  ‘We’re nothing like amateur detectives,’ Simmy protested. ‘Everything that’s happened has been pure accident – mostly connected to my work as a florist. I get dragged into the dramatic points in people’s lives – births, weddings, funerals, when I’d far rather stay out of them.’

  ‘And who’s talking about the police anyway?’ Christopher demanded. ‘What’s all that about?’

  Fabian looked even more shifty at these words. ‘There are stones that are much better left unturned,’ he said cryptically. ‘That’s the thing with the police – they don’t know where to stop. And there’s no way of controlling them, either. As I say, it’s all very delicate. This cousin I told you about – Uncle Richmond’s son. He’s doing this book.’

  ‘Yes, you said,’ Simmy interrupted.

  ‘There’s a few sensitive matters from Auntie’s past that he wants to get straight. A bit of a scandal, and maybe people who’d not like to have the whole thing exposed. Uncle Richmond, for one.’

  ‘Did somebody steal a priceless oil painting, or what?’ Simmy demanded angrily. ‘Is that how Hilda got so rich?’

  Both men stared at her as if she’d gone mad. ‘What?’ spluttered Fabian. ‘Where did that come from?’

  ‘She’s not getting a lot of sleep,’ said Christopher treacherously. Then he heard himself. ‘But you were hinting at something of that sort. Don’t forget I work with antiques.’

  ‘I didn’t forget,’ said Fabian, his eyes still on Simmy. ‘But it’s nothing to do with oil paintings.’ He smiled, as if at a secret thought. ‘Though you may not be a million miles wrong, after all.’

  ‘So there’s nothing going on that would interest the police?’ Simmy challenged. ‘You can assure us of that, can you?’

  Fabian nodded carelessly, and then changed it to a shake of his head, which could have been one of his twitches. ‘Nobody’s committed any crime – at least not in the past fifty years or so. Even if they had, there’d be nothing in it for the cops. They only care about people tweeting rude things at each other and watching motorways on CCTV, as far as I can see.’

  ‘So – why exactly are you here?’ Simmy blurted. ‘Just to make Christopher feel bad about forgetting his promise?’

 
‘Do you feel bad, mate?’ the man asked.

  ‘A bit,’ Christopher admitted. ‘If it’s true that I lost you the house, then I definitely am sorry. But what can I do now? It’s too late to put it right.’

  ‘You could maybe give me a hand with my Uncle Richmond,’ same the startling reply. ‘Because the way things are, he’s giving us all a lot of grief.’

  ‘Good Lord!’ snapped Simmy. ‘This is getting ridiculous.’

  Yet again, Christopher seemed intent on defending the visitor. ‘Can we leave that for another time?’ he asked. ‘Maybe you and I can talk it over together. It’s getting a bit late now.’

  ‘No need,’ said Fabian. ‘Have you got a bit of paper?’

  Christopher produced a sheet torn from a pad kept beside the phone.

  Fabian wrote, in small angular script. ‘Here. This is his name. He’s got a farm, but I don’t remember what it’s called. West of here somewhere. If you could help persuade him to get in touch, that’d be doing us a big favour.’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘My cousins – his sons. He’s cut himself off from all of us.’

  Simmy took the piece of paper and stood over Fabian until he got the message. ‘Well, I’ll be off then,’ he said reluctantly.

  ‘Just one more question,’ said Christopher. ‘Who did she leave the house to, if it wasn’t anyone in the family?’

  ‘Oh – didn’t I say? It was my old pal Josephine.’

  Chapter Four

  After that, there was no getting rid of the man for another hour. Christopher took over from Simmy in the conversation, while she went to make more coffee. The two men had somehow shifted into the living room, and Robin was seriously overdue for his bedtime routine, but Simmy stayed to listen to the rambling family anecdotes that Fabian seemed intent on sharing. He told them about the original family house in Birmingham that was utterly destroyed in 1940 by a German bomb. With it went all the Victorian, Edwardian and art deco possessions. ‘Porcelain, pictures, fancy carpets. Not to mention family photographs, letters, diaries. A houseful of precious stuff.’