A Habit of Dying (28 page)

Lydia scrolled on to October looking for a report of the inquest. Friday 6
^th
October would be favourite and sure enough, a few moments scanning the pages brought her to it.
‘Misadventure Verdict. The Oxford coroner on Monday returned a verdict of misadventure following the death of 12-year old Paul Ingleby. The court heard evidence that Paul, a good swimmer, had gone missing at Iffley following an argument with his sister Susan (14). Despite an extensive search his body was not found until 20
^th
September when it was recovered from the Thames near Sutton
Courtenay. In announcing the verdict, the coroner stated that Paul’s sister Susan should not feel any responsibility for her brother’s death as she had done all that she could by promptly raising the alarm when he had disappeared. He was entirely satisfied that the disagreement with her brother over the need to return home played no part in the tragedy. The coroner also warned that it was unsafe to swim in the river where unseen currents could present a danger to the strongest of swimmers.’

What a scar to bear through life, thought Lydia. What a burden to carry, the tears of your parents and your own guilt, no matter how misplaced. She could see the teenage Susan, running screaming to the nearest person, gasping her story then watching and waiting helplessly. Her father and mother, panicked and distraught, torn between comforting their daughter and weeping for their son. Long days with any realistic hope quickly diminished until weeks later a policeman calls and suggests they sit down and they know that the news they have waited for has finally arrived. The grim day is brought back to life and Susan heaves great inconsolable sobs into her pillow, while her parents hold each other and wonder at the meaning of anything. Lydia felt the prick of a tear in her eye as she read again the official record that she held in her hand. All these certificates, be they death or otherwise, these anonymous records, they all held stories of joy and tears, smiles and anguish in other lives.

Had that family, Fred and Ethel, the teenage Susan, had they ever recovered? Or had the trauma gnawed at them like the cancer that took first Ethel three years later and Fred three years after that? Maybe that was all the cancer needed, a trigger to begin its insidious progress. On August 27
^th
1967 Susan had woken in her fourteen year old world, pop-music on the radio, family around her, unknowing of what the days and weeks ahead held for her. Unknowing that by nightfall her brother would be drowned, that before she would be eighteen her mother would be gone and by twenty she would be reporting her father’s death. What of her after that, what would she carry through her life from these losses?

Lydia looked again at the entries on Fred Ingleby’s death certificate. There was Susan, ‘
S.D.Ingleby – Daughter’
, neatly typed
in the box provided for the informant. Lydia paused and looked long and hard again. Perhaps it was the simple juxtaposition of the initials, perhaps it was the time spent feeling for her young life, but whatever it was Lydia saw them properly for the first time. Susan Dorcas Ingleby. SDI. She knew exactly what happened to Susan. She’d grown up to become a teacher, to marry a man like Mr Punch, she’d grown up to have baby who died after a few brief hours. In that box of albums there could only be one SDI, one SDI who featured in both the journal and sandcastles. And knowing who she was, knowing her life, meant she knew who the journal writer was, who it was who wrote of Mr Punch and hiding a body where it would never be found -
‘like a leaf on the forest floor’
.

Quite what she expected to find at Stephen’s house in Grantchester, Lydia was not entirely sure. She had a picture half formed in her mind from the address, The Old Rectory, and she knew something of it from the satellite image Google Earth provided for her, but the feel of the place eluded her. She would discover soon enough but it was not only the physical she couldn’t quite grasp, it was also Stephen. She could not see how or why he was ready to make her even the tiniest space in his life. These questions were born in part from her fragile self-confidence, but also from serious and, to her own satisfaction at least, objective thought on the subject. Admittedly, these thoughts had troubled her more after she’d written to accept his invitation than before, but as Gloria had said in her no-nonsense way, what was there to lose, she would get a nice weekend, some good food and a few drinks. To this list of potential benefits, Gloria had added the possibility of Stephen being good in bed, although she had put it more bluntly than that. Where once Lydia would have done her utmost to conceal any hint of her life outside of the office, those few words that she and Gloria had exchanged about married men had begun a subtle change between them. For years Lydia had seen nothing but the shallowness of the younger woman’s view of life, her brashness, her apparently single-minded pursuit of sex and pleasure. More recently, she been surprised to discover beneath all the dross was someone who had deeper feelings and a previously unseen generosity of spirit.

Taking something of Gloria’s simpler approach but without, she hoped, too much of the selfish aspect, Lydia anticipated the weekend with the pleasure of new discoveries. Discoveries which she would accept for whatever they might turn out to be. She had decided there would be no shocks, no unwelcome surprises, no introspection as to her right to be there, whatever the weekend had in store she would take it all in her stride. If Stephen were to turn out to be married or divorced or even homosexual, she’d discounted each possibility; if the house was a bachelor’s grubby mess or the height of chic, she would still find her space in it; if it was cold with noisy plumbing or over heated with a log fire, she would adjust accordingly.

To underline her openness to any eventuality, she had shopped for what she hoped were the smart-casual clothes to suit any course the weekend might take. After agonising over the choice, she had finally selected a dress in graphite grey, shot through with a hint of sparkle in a silk fabric that slipped through the fingers like water. It was probably the most expensive dress she had ever bought and she earnestly hoped it would be suitable for a cocktail party or the finest of restaurants. To this she’d added sensible black trousers for any occasion and two tailored blouses, crushed raspberry and navy blue. To complete her weekend ensemble she bought flat shoes for a walk round the village and a pair with a little more heel to go with the sparkling dress. After a slight hesitation, this shopping had also included new underwear, justified by need but decided by the moment.

It was late in the morning when the little red Nisan crunched to a halt on the gravel of The Old Rectory drive. Barely had she opened the door to stretch out her legs before Stephen emerged from the side of the house, sun hat in hand, the same easy flowing stride that she’d first noted at Loweswater.

‘Lydia, I am so glad that you’ve made it.’ One arm round her back, a gentle pressure from his hand between her shoulder blades, a touch of cheeks that she might have made into a kiss if her name had been Gloria.

‘Thank you. I’m very glad to be here.’ She stood back half a step
and took in the house before her and was immediately reminded of the photograph of the old Joslin house, Longlands. Rectories were built for big families and this was no exception. Perhaps older than Longlands by a century or so and stone rather than brick, but the same solidity, the same weight, the same statement of importance. The Old Rectory still made that statement with an ease and assurance that the aspiring classes who had built Longlands never quite mastered. Two storeys with a crenellated roof line, an elegant square of a house. Stephen led her not through the front door, but round to the side from which he had emerged. The gravel drive, the neat lawns and pruned shrubs already indicated she would not be entering a bachelor’s mess. He took her in through French windows to a comfortable sitting room, the kind you would want to find in an expensive country hotel, but rarely do.

‘Let me take you up to your room and show you where things are. While you’re doing that I’ll see about some drinks.’

Her room was large and bright, a soft stream of air gently billowing net curtains across the open window. Beyond was a croquet lawn, gravel paths, currant bushes in their cages, a few fruit trees sheltered by the deep orange of an old brick wall. To one side were flourishing vegetable beds, to the other a little-used tennis court. It was, thought Lydia, exactly what she might have expected, exactly what might have intimidated her not long ago.

She turned from the window to see Stephen still standing by the doorway and almost involuntarily her eye moved to the bed beside him. A great heavy double bed, which, like the rest of the furniture in the room, spoke more of arts-and-crafts than high street superstore. He followed her gaze. ‘Don’t worry, it has a good new mattress. I’m told that it’s extremely comfortable.’ The question of who had told him hung briefly in the air, but they both chose to ignore it. ‘I’ll go and get those drinks. When you are ready just come back down the way we came in. Oh, there’s a bathroom opposite, no en-suite here, I’m afraid.’ And with that he was gone to the drinks. Not asked what she might like to drink, noted Lydia, but an assumption made that she would like what he would prepare for her.

As soon as he was gone, she tried the bed. A firm modern mattress met her bounce. She stretched out on the covers and every aspect of it met with her approval, especially the size. The house could so easily have been cold and impersonal, but it was not, it was much more a home than she had expected, despite its apparently solitary inhabitant. She guessed that it might be home to more than just Stephen and that a female hand had left its mark.

‘I thought we might both enjoy a glass of this on a hot summer’s day. We had some at the Lemon Tree.’ Stephen drew the bottle of Prosecco from the ice bucket. Lydia nodded in appreciation. For a few minutes they sat in smiling silence in the shade of the awning, sipping the wine, absorbing the place and the moment.

‘How’s the googling?’

‘Oh, very informative, very educational, very useful if you want to know about Sir Stephen Kellaway, forensic archaeologist, author of papers, man of science, advisor to government and prized committee member.’

‘But?’

‘But, as I think you well know, not much use for anything else.’ Far more easily than she had imagined, Lydia had asked all the unasked questions in one simple statement.

‘I can tell you whatever you wish to know, unless it is too private, in which case it might wait until . . .’ the pause was not made for effect, whatever he had been going to say, he altered to ‘until another time.’

‘Yes, of course.’ He really was the easiest of men to be with. Lydia had not even finished her glass and she felt a light headedness and a dryness of mouth that required another sip.

‘Well, Lydia, the essential facts. I am not married, but I was. Elspeth, my wife, died twelve years ago. I have a daughter Jacqueline who is in her thirties, and we get along very well. She works in London but I see her quite often, and there are no grandchildren. It was Jacqueline who commented on the quality of the mattress. Oh, and I’m a little older than you. Sixty-three. One sister, Felicity, who I mentioned once before. Happy childhood, minor public school
then Cambridge.’ He paused a moment, surprised at how quickly he had summarised his life, then added with a smile, ‘I expect you know the rest.’

She had sought answers and now she had them, sparse as they were. To Lydia he seemed glad to have the awkward business of the day completed, as if he had rehearsed his answer in readiness for the question and was relieved to have the exam over.

‘I’m sorry about your wife,’ Lydia said, looking straight into his eyes, searching for some hint as to his feelings for Elspeth, ‘but glad about your daughter.’

‘It’s not fresh any more, it was another life.’ It was not so much the door slammed on further enquiry, but for once he did not leave it open.

For a while they watched the bubbles rise in their glasses, and let the soft hum of an English summer enfold their thoughts.

‘And you Lydia, tell me about you.’

Tell him about her? There was nothing to tell, she hadn’t given a single thought to the idea that he would have any interest in her. He was the enigma requiring a solution, not she.

‘Me? Nothing to tell really, beyond what you know. I’m very ordinary.’ Then she realised stupidly what he meant. ‘Ah, yes, well, I was also married, but Michael is alive and well as far as I know. We were divorced about ten or eleven years ago. No drama, more a withering on the vine until we just went our separate ways when he found someone else. As you just said, it was another life. And no children.’

‘And you’ve been alone since then.’ It should have been a question but Stephen made a statement of it, more as if he turned it over in his mind and spoke the thought aloud.

Lydia answered anyway. ‘Yes, and for the most part, not unhappy about that.’

Then they spoke of living single lives, spoke in the way that old friends comfortably do, even though they spoke of things old friends would already know. Stephen talked of the gardener from the village, Roger, who came in a couple of days a week in the season and made sure that he had all the produce from the garden that he needed and
took the rest for himself and his family. He told her about Mrs Webb who kept the house clean and tidy and cooked him a meal or two each week and made sure the fridge was cleaned out when it needed to be, just as she had for years since soon after his daughter Jacqueline had been born. She came and stayed with him once a week, sometimes for a few days at a time, which in itself told Lydia all that anyone could want to know about father and daughter.

In return Lydia had little to offer him, a potted history of life since divorce took no more than a few sentences. She had no son to match his daughter, a house that, for all it was often neglected, could never justify hired help, and a garden that hardly deserved the same name as the grounds she now sat in. But as much as she did say, she said without apology. In contrast to that day at Magdalen, she did not feel out of place in these grand and unfamiliar surroundings, no demons of doubt circled to pounce. She offered no false token of resistance as Stephen refilled her glass and then his own to empty the bottle. When he suggested they bring out the lunch that the loyal Mrs Webb had prepared for them, Lydia went with him to the kitchen as if she had done it may times before.