Dead Ernest Read online

  “My mother.” He folded his large hands in his lap and looked down at them. “My father died a few weeks ago, and I’m afraid she’s having difficulty in coming to terms with what’s happened.”

  “And you think I can help?” The salad would be getting limp in the warm kitchen. Andrew wished he had had time to put it back in its plastic bag.

  “I really don’t know.” Billy sighed. “I’ve tried the doctor, but he says she’s fine. And the health visitor says it’s not really her problem.”

  And so it’s mine, Andrew thought. My problem. This man and his mother are about to become my responsibility. I could say no, of course (unless she’s a churchgoer), but I shan’t. I never say no. It’s the only thing that makes me feel better about myself and my job, not saying no.

  “So what makes you think your mother isn’t coping?” Andrew put on what he knew was his interested, listening face and tried to concentrate on what his visitor was saying. Nowadays, with so many problems of this own, he was finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate on those of others, and today he found, to his shame, that his thoughts kept drifting back to a particular crossword clue and the problem of dried-out ham and wilting lettuce.

  “Well, she’s not grieving properly. Not showing any feelings. And she’s acting very strangely. I think she needs to talk to someone; someone professional, like yourself.”

  “But what about you?” Andrew dragged his thoughts back from the kitchen. “Wouldn’t you be the best person to talk to her? After all, you know her best, and, of course, you knew your father. You would probably understand far better than I could.”

  “But I don’t. I don’t understand.” Billy got up from his chair and started pacing about the room, circumnavigating the piles of books and waking the cat, which yawned prodigiously and opened a tawny eye (so it was alive). “I don’t understand how she can be like this. Not crying, not sad, not lonely, not worried. Not anything. She’s behaving as though nothing’s happened. Sometimes she even forgets he’s dead, and cooks him a meal. Last week I called in and she was putting out his arthritis tablets for the morning. I told her she ought to hand them in to the chemist; that it wasn’t safe having tablets about the house. But she told me not to be so silly, and of course she must keep Dad’s tablets, and what was it to me anyway. She was quite nasty about it.”

  Looking at the irritable red face of his visitor, Andrew could imagine wanting to be quite nasty to someone like that, and began to feel some sympathy for this man’s mother. “Does she know you’ve come to see me?” he asked.

  “No, of course not. She wouldn’t like it at all. But I thought — well, I thought that perhaps if you were to call in, saying you’d heard that she’d been bereaved. Something like that. Then she might talk to you. She’s never been much of a churchgoer, but she respects the clergy. She might listen to you, anyway.”

  “And why are you so anxious for your mother to — well, to grieve? Perhaps she’s grieving in her own way. It sounds to me as though she’s coping rather well.” Andrew was becoming interested in spite of himself.

  “Oh, she’s coping. For the moment.” Billy paused in midstride. “But can’t you see? If she doesn’t let it all out there’ll be trouble later. Sixty years of marriage — that’s a long time. She can’t just pretend it’s not happened. Everyone knows that when it comes to bereavement, everything’s got to come out sooner or later. Well, so far nothing at all’s come out. She’s bottling it all up, and that’s bound to lead to trouble. Depression, or maybe even a nervous breakdown. And she’ll have to be looked after, and I simply haven’t got the time, what with the business to run. Not,” he added quickly, “that I don’t want to care for her. I — we — we’ll always be there for her, if necessary.”

  I bet you will, thought Andrew, provided this poor woman doesn’t overstep the mark or make uncomfortable demands or — heaven forbid — become an embarrassment. “And you — do you have a family?” he asked.

  “I’ve a wife and daughter. But Sheila and Mother have never really got on, so it’s a bit difficult.”

  “I see.” Andrew reached out a hand and stroked the thin body of the cat, which stretched out purring, its tail making feathery patterns on the dusty desk. “And do you live near?”

  “Oh no. That’s part of the problem. It’s a two hour drive. In fact,” Billy looked at his watch, “it’s time I was going. I’ve got to pop in on Mother, and then hit the motorway before the afternoon rush.” He buttoned his coat. “So, can I leave it with you? You’ll go and see her?” He handed Andrew a piece of paper with a name and address on it. “She’s only a couple of miles away in the village. And perhaps you’ll keep me informed of her progress?” He took a business card from his wallet.

  Andrew looked at his visitor with barely-concealed dislike. “I’ll go and see her,” he agreed, taking the paper. “But I shan’t be needing this.” He handed back the business card. “You must understand that anything that passes between your mother and me will be in the strictest confidence.”

  “But I’ll need to know—”

  “If you need to know anything, I’m sure your mother will tell you herself,” Andrew said smoothly, leading the way to the front door. “If I see her she will be, as it were, my client. Anything she says will be between the two of us. I’m sure you’ll understand.” Round one to me, thought Andrew with satisfaction, as the sleek company car swept away down the road. He would go and visit this old lady — in fact, he was quite curious to see what she was like — and offer what help he could, and he would enjoy keeping her secrets (if indeed she chose to share them with him) from her fat pompous son. In the meanwhile, the lettuce was hardly limp at all, and Janet wouldn’t be back for another hour yet. The morning had not been without its compensations.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Andrew

  “Did Billy send you?” Annie peered through the narrow opening allowed by the safety chain on the front door, but what little she could see of her visitor (a wavy figure wearing something long, together with what looked like a dog collar) was badly out of focus. She was wearing her reading glasses and walking round the house in them always gave her the not unpleasant sensation of swimming under water.

  “Does anyone need to have sent me?”

  Annie thought about this.

  “No. But if someone hasn’t sent you, how do you know about me?”

  “Know about you?”

  “Yes. About me. And Ernest. Someone’s told you about Ernest, haven’t they?”

  “Well, let’s just say I heard about him. And I’m so very sorry.”

  “That’s all right,” said Annie graciously. Then, after a pause, “I’m afraid I can’t see you properly. I’m wearing the wrong glasses.”

  “Well, if you go and find the right glasses, you’ll see that I’m the vicar. Quite harmless.” Andrew gave a little laugh. “And then perhaps I could come in for a minute?”

  By the time Annie had found the right glasses and given her seal of approval to the dog collar (although, as she pointed out, the collar could quite easily be a fake) Andrew had been standing on the doorstep for nearly ten minutes, and was becoming impatient.

  “I’m afraid I shan’t be able to stay long,” he said, as he followed her into her small living-room.

  “Well, it’s not as though I invited you,” Annie replied. “You can go any time you like. I’m not stopping you.”

  “No. Of course you’re not. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all right, then.”

  They stood for a minute regarding each other. Andrew saw a dumpy, grey little woman with an ordinary face and fluffy pink slippers. Annie saw a tall, wispy-looking man of indeterminate age with pale sad eyes and a worn raincoat. Neither of them much liked what they saw.

  “How are you coping?” Andrew asked now, lowering himself into a small armchair (he avoided the larger wing-armchair; something told him that it had belonged to the deceased, and must therefore be treated with due respect).

&nb
sp; “I’m all right,” Annie said. “You’re like everyone else,” she added, disappointed. “You all ask the same things. Am I coping; am I all right. Ernest’s the one who’s not all right. He’s the one who’s dead, isn’t he? He died outside the fish and chip shop. And we’d only just had our lunch. What do you suppose he was doing there?”

  Andrew said he had no idea what Ernest could have been doing outside the fish and chip shop, and there followed an awkward pause. I ought to know what to say, Andrew thought. I’ve done bereavement courses and bereavement counselling. I know about bereavement. But somehow he felt out of his depth with this odd little woman. He was beginning to see what her son meant.

  “Billy did send you, didn’t he?” Annie said, as though reading his thoughts.

  “Well, yes. He asked me to come. He’s worried about you.”

  Annie gave a little snort.

  “Billy’s not worried about me. All Billy ever worries about is Billy. He wants me to say things and feel things the way he thinks I ought to, and I’m not going to do any feeling just to please Billy.”

  “And what is it that you feel?” Andrew asked. “You must be feeling something.”

  For the hundredth time Annie asked herself the same question, and for the hundredth time she came up with the same unsatisfactory answer.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I feel — nothing. Billy says I’m in denial, but I’m not. I may forget sometimes — you do at my age — but I’m not denying anything. I know Ernest’s dead. I get him out every day and look at him, and he’s dead all right. But I feel nothing at all.”

  “You get Ernest out?”

  “Yes. His ashes. They’re in a pot in the larder. I thought they’d be in a Grecian sort of urn, but they’re just in a pot; a plain brown pot. More like a sweet jar, really. Would you like to see them?”

  Andrew had no particular desire to see the remains of Ernest, but felt that it would be churlish to say no. “Yes. Of course I would. If — well, that is if you don’t mind.”

  “You’re the only one I’ve shown him to,” Annie said, when she returned a few moments later with the container of ashes. “And I’m only showing you because you’re the vicar, and you’ll understand. Billy wanted to see them but I said no. They’re private. They belong to me. I can do what I like with them.”

  “And what are you going to do with them?” Andrew asked, as Annie removed the lid of the pot.

  “I’ve not decided yet.” Together they contemplated the coarse grey ash. “He looks very peaceful, doesn’t he?” Annie suddenly giggled. “I suppose I shouldn’t have said that, should I? But it seems so funny having Ernest in a little pot like this. He was thirteen stone, you know. Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose it must be.”

  “I took him to Tesco’s the other day. He used to hate Tesco’s. He always preferred Sainsbury’s. Said it had much more class, and that they do the best sausages. But Tesco’s is so much nearer, and I can take the bus.”

  “You took this — you took Ernest on the bus? Wasn’t it — he — rather heavy?”

  “He was a bit heavy, but I didn’t have to carry him far. I had him in my shopping bag, of course, so no one else could see him. I did tell the lady next to me, but I think she was a bit upset. Nothing to be scared of, though, is there? Just a pot of ashes. She didn’t want to see him. She said better not to take the lid off in the bus. She said anything could happen.”

  “Yes.” Andrew wondered what direction this curious conversation was going to take next. “Have you — have you taken him anywhere else?”

  “No. But I move him about a bit. I put him under the bed last night, just to see what it felt like, but I decided he was better in the larder. Billy wouldn’t think of looking there.”

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t. I wonder — I mean, would you like to have the ashes interred? In the churchyard? You could visit them there, like a grave. Have a little headstone with his name on. It would be somewhere to put flowers. Somewhere to go.”

  “Ernest wasn’t a churchgoer. He didn’t like flowers much, come to that. He always said they gave him hay fever, though I can’t say I ever noticed. I think it was just his excuse for never buying me any. No. I think I’ll keep him here for the moment. Until I decide.”

  “You do what you feel is best. There’s no hurry,” Andrew said.

  “Yes. Ernest isn’t going anywhere, is he?”

  Andrew wondered if this was another of Annie’s rather inappropriate little jokes, but her expression was serious, almost wistful. She looks lost, he thought suddenly. She’s floundering around with her pot of ashes and her memories, whatever they may be, and no one understands. How can they, when she doesn’t even know how she feels herself? It was with some surprise that he realised that he really would like to do something for her; that he would like not only to understand, but also to help. Funny, eccentric little Annie Bentley had touched him in a way he hadn’t expected.

  “May I call on you again?” he asked gently. “I’d like to see you again, if you don’t mind.”

  Annie thought for a moment, cradling the container of ashes in her arms.

  “Yes. You can come again. If you want to,” she said. “I think I’d like you to come again.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Ophelia

  “It’s time you visited your grandmother.” Billy’s voice on the telephone was unexpected and not particularly welcome.

  Ophelia sighed. Your grandmother. People only seemed to belong to her when there was some sort of problem. If her parents had had a row, it would be “your mother” or “your father”; and now, it would appear, her grandmother was, in some mysterious way, about to become hers too.

  “Why? I mean, why now? I should think at the moment I’m the last person Gran needs.”

  “You’re family. She needs her family at this difficult time. We’re all she’s got. I’m very busy at the moment, and I’ve been to see her several times in the past few weeks. You could go down for a weekend. It’s not a lot to ask.”

  “A weekend?” Ophelia was appalled. In the whole of her life, she had never spent a night under the roof of her grandparents’ gloomy terraced house. Family visits had usually consisted of lunch (almost invariably steak-and-kidney pie and cabbage, followed by one of Annie’s huge tasteless blancmanges), and departure as soon afterwards as was possible within the bounds of politeness. “You want me to stay with Gran for a whole weekend? Gran never has visitors overnight. She probably hasn’t even got anywhere for anyone else to sleep.”

  “Of course she has. She’s got two spare bedrooms. I’m sure one of them can be made comfortable for just a couple of nights. Come on, Ophelia. Surely you owe her just two nights.”

  “Owe her?”

  “Yes. Owe her. What with missing the funeral, and—”

  “But I was away! I didn’t even know Grandad had died! News like that doesn’t exactly make the headlines in Tunisia.”

  “Really, Ophelia—”

  “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. And I’m sorry I wasn’t around when — when you and Mum might have needed me. But now — well, what can I do now? You say Gran seems fine.”

  “But that’s just the point. She’s not really facing up to what’s happened, and I think perhaps she needs to talk. She won’t say anything to me, and the priest I asked to go and see her was a bit — secretive. An odd fellow. Wish I hadn’t bothered him, now. Anyway, I thought she might talk to you. To another woman.”

  So now, thought Ophelia, I’m a woman. For years, her father had insisted on treating her like a foolish child, but now, when it suited him, her adulthood was finally acknowledged, and she was considered sufficiently grown up to take over some sort of responsibility for her grandmother.

  “Okay. I’ll go. But only for two days. I don’t think Gran will want me for any longer than that, and to be honest, I don’t see what good I can do. We’ve never been exactly close.”

  But after she had put the phone down, Ophe
lia had to concede that perhaps just this once her father had a point. She hadn’t seen Annie since her bereavement, and maybe she did owe her something. Annie had always been kind to her, if not overtly affectionate, and while Ophelia had few illusions about the state of her grandparents’ marriage, the loss of a partner after so many years must leave a gap. The loss of someone like Ernest, she could see, would leave a considerable gap.

  Although she didn’t know her grandmother well, Ophelia had, in a strange way, always felt a kind of affinity with her. Even as a small child, she had recognised that Annie was up against the same kinds of pressures as herself. She could see that Annie wasn’t at all what Ernest wanted in a wife. She could be scatty and disorganised, given to bouts of dreaminess and mild eccentricity, all of which, it was quite obvious, offended Ernest’s tidy mind.

  And if Annie was a disappointment to Ernest, Ophelia was most certainly a disappointment to her parents. For a start, there was her name. Who could live up to a name like Ophelia? She was quite perceptive enough to know that in choosing it (her father, not the most romantic of men, nevertheless had a strong and inexplicable affection for Hamlet), her parents had dreamed of a quite different daughter from the one she was destined to become. From their hints and criticisms over the years, Ophelia had gathered that she was intended to blossom into a young woman who was not only beautiful, willowy, feminine, but also clever, accomplished and successful. To this end, a great deal of trouble, not to mention money, had been lavished upon her appearance and education. Photographs of the infant Ophelia showed a plump baby, pink and frilled and beribboned, her hair (what there was of it) teased up into an enormous bow. Later photographs showed a solemn child (“Sulky,” said Billy. “You never would smile for the camera.”) uncomfortably over-dressed and over-brushed, posed and awkward, polished shoes and staring white socks standing to attention beneath layers of petticoats and frills.

  In addition to a series of expensive boarding-schools, there had been ballet lessons and piano lessons; swimming lessons and tennis coaching; and on one terrifying and never-to-be repeated occasion, orienteering (Billy believed that this last would bring out Ophelia’s latent leadership qualities; sadly, it transpired that she had none).