An Empty Death (52 page)
Authors: Laura Wilson
Waking at dawn, stiff and sour after a night spent in fitful sleep on a hard bench in a shelter, with a foul mouth, a queasy stomach and a thudding head, Dacre felt as if his brain had been shrunk to the size of a walnut, and, with every move, was banging against the inside of his skull. He sat, fearing to move, while the other occupants of the shelter packed up their belongings and trudged out into the morning. After a another couple of hours half-drowsing in hideous dreams, the nausea was starting to recede, and, finding himself alone, he took his remaining money from his pocket and began to count it. There was, he thought, enough for a train ticket out of London, and a couple of weeks’ board and lodging somewhere. After that . . .
He’d worry about ‘after that’, he thought, getting slowly and gingerly to his feet, once he’d got settled somewhere. Euston was the nearest station - he’d make for there and see where the trains went. North, he thought. He’d board one, and then he’d consider his next move.
At Euston, he obtained a cup of coffee - pretty filthy, but he kept it down - from the station buffet, together with a bun, which he put in his pocket for later. Queuing at the ticket office, he found, when it came to his turn, that he had no idea of where he wanted to go, and said the first place that came into his head, which was Northampton. ‘Train’s in ten minutes,’ said the clerk. ‘Change at Bletchley.’
He stood amongst noisy groups of soldiers in the corridor, flattening himself against the window as harassed-looking women towed protesting children past him, their luggage banging against his legs. Sweating in the prickly woollen jumper, he felt as if he were in the muzzy horror of a nightmare. As the coffee settled on his stomach, the action of the train made him nauseous again, and he wondered if he would be sick, and whether he could manage to find his way to the lavatory in time, or if he should try to open a window.
A soldier, attempting to turn round in the cramped space, whacked him on the chest with his rifle. ‘Sorry, mate . . . Here, you all right? Had a skinful?’
He nodded, afraid to open his mouth, and pushed towards the WC at the end of the carriage, where he vomited. He managed to wrench open the small window and stood, sucking in the fresh air, until somebody started banging on the door. It occurred to him that this would be as good a place as any to lose Dacre, so, holding his ID card and ration book, he thrust his hand out of the window and let the wind snatch them away. He opened his case and checked for anything else that might reveal his identity. There were two medical textbooks, so, reluctantly, he launched them from the window, too. They hung in the air for a moment, covers wide open like stiff, ungainly birds, and then, craning his neck, Dacre saw them plummet to earth as the train roared on. Now, emerging from the WC into the cramped corridor, he was nobody: just a face in a crowd.
At Bletchley, he was waiting on the sparsely populated platform, staring at the advertisements - Bovril, dried eggs, Bile Beans - when an old man in a worn suit limped up and stood dejectedly beside him, as if standing in line for some unwelcome parade. He had the ammoniac stink of an unwashed body and sweat-rotted socks, one fixed and one moving eye, and one corner of his mouth was uplifted in a snarl, as if pulled by an invisible hook, exposing rotten teeth. ‘Got a fag, mate?’
‘Here.’ Trying not to look at the man, Dacre pulled his cigarette packet - only two left now - out of his pocket, and offered it.
‘Thanks, mate . . . Got a match?’
‘Yes.’ Dacre produced a box and handed it over.
The old man lit up, took a pull on the cigarette, and grinned horribly. ‘’Ere,’ he said, ‘I know you!’
Dacre took a step back. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Don’t you remember me?’ the old man’s voice was wheedling. ‘I remember you.’
‘I’ve never seen you before.’
‘But I know you,’ the man insisted. ‘I do. Wait a minute . . . No, that’s not it . . .’
Gripped by a sudden, bowel-clenching panic, Dacre said, ‘I don’t know you.’
‘Yes . . .’ said the old man. ‘Let me think . . . I know you, all right.’
‘No!’ Dacre was backing away, almost shouting now, and heads were swivelling in their direction. ‘I. Do. Not. Know. You,’ he muttered.
The old man shuffled towards him again, and thrust his face upwards, into Dacre’s. The vile lips opened, and a fetid cloud seemed to engulf him. Vomit rose once more in his throat and he clapped one hand over his mouth.
‘Man is born to trouble,’ said the old man. ‘Born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards.’
Dacre just managed to swallow back the contents of his stomach. He gasped. Was this some sort of message? An angel - a devil - a portent? Feeling a fresh bloom of sweat break out on his skin, he turned on his heel and, feeling that he might faint at any moment, walked away as fast as he could down the platform. The old man pursued him, plucking his sleeve, the voice querulous now, plaintive, ‘I do know you, I do, I know—’
Dacre looked down at the hand with its yellow nails, long and thick, like horns, that clutched at him. ‘Leave me alone!’ he said, jerking his arm away. ‘You’ve got your fag, now go away.’
‘Oh no,’ said the old man, head on one side and grinning atrociously. ‘I can’t leave you, because I know what you are.’
‘What do you mean?’ Dacre was shouting now. ‘Get away from me!’
‘Born to trouble,’ said the old man. ‘Born to trouble . . .’
‘No!’ Dacre shouted. ‘No!’ He was feeling dizzy, he couldn’t hold himself up, his balance had deserted him, he was falling . . . The old man’s face fell away, too, a sheer drop into darkness, and then - quite suddenly - nothing at all.
PART II
Sixty-Six
A
pril, 1945, nine months after Jenny’s death: Stratton stared into the small fire in Mrs Chetwynd’s sitting room without really seeing it. It was ten o’clock, and Monica and Pete had gone to bed, Mrs Chetwynd having declared it more sensible for them to remain in Norfolk overnight and return to London with Stratton the following morning. After a miserable winter of ice, burst pipes, chilblains and incessant doodlebugs, not to mention the time it took for his arm to heal and his and Ballard’s frustration that Dacre appeared to have vanished off the face of the earth, the last bomb - a V2 rocket - had fallen at the end of March, and it was deemed safe for the children to return home. Doris and Lilian had promised to help keep an eye on them, and in any case Monica, at fifteen, and Pete, at twelve, would be able to do a great deal for themselves.
pril, 1945, nine months after Jenny’s death: Stratton stared into the small fire in Mrs Chetwynd’s sitting room without really seeing it. It was ten o’clock, and Monica and Pete had gone to bed, Mrs Chetwynd having declared it more sensible for them to remain in Norfolk overnight and return to London with Stratton the following morning. After a miserable winter of ice, burst pipes, chilblains and incessant doodlebugs, not to mention the time it took for his arm to heal and his and Ballard’s frustration that Dacre appeared to have vanished off the face of the earth, the last bomb - a V2 rocket - had fallen at the end of March, and it was deemed safe for the children to return home. Doris and Lilian had promised to help keep an eye on them, and in any case Monica, at fifteen, and Pete, at twelve, would be able to do a great deal for themselves.
Mrs Chetwynd entered, carrying a tea tray. Her elderly house-keeper having died the previous year and the servants long departed, she was, as she put it, ‘learning to fend for herself’. A raw-boned, angular woman, she had, Stratton thought, grown thinner since they’d first met almost five years earlier, when she’d taken the children to live with her. There were more lines on her long, rather horsey face, and more grey in her hair - things, Stratton thought, that were true of him, also. It occurred to him that, after Monica and Pete departed, she might be lonely, all by herself in her great house. As if reading his thoughts, Mrs Chetwynd said, ‘You know, it would be a relief to sell up and move into one of the cottages, but nobody wants these big places nowadays.’
‘Someone might turn it into a school,’ suggested Stratton.
‘Too much work to do,’ said Mrs Chetwynd, briskly. ‘They’d have to change everything, and the roof is in a terrible state. It’s a white elephant, really.’ Eyes down, concentrating on pouring tea, she added, ‘It’s been lovely having Monica and Peter here, you know. They’ve kept the place alive.’
‘I’m very grateful to you,’ said Stratton, and then, feeling that this sounded automatic, he said, ‘You’ve been so kind to them, especially since . . .’
Mrs Chetwynd put down the teapot and looked directly at him. ‘Since Mrs Stratton died. I am so sorry, Mr Stratton. It was a terrible thing to happen.’
‘Yes, it was,’ said Stratton, abruptly, and turned back to the fire, unable to bear the kindness in her eyes.
‘People never talk about the dead, do they? They don’t want you to talk about them, either.’
Stratton, reflecting on how few conversations he’d had about Jenny, even in the first days and weeks after her death, said, ‘No, they don’t.’
‘It’s not because they’ve forgotten, you know. It’s because they’re embarrassed, and they don’t want to upset you.’
‘I know.’ Stratton sighed. ‘Everyone has been very good.’
‘But it’s not good if you want to talk about them, is it?’ Mrs Chetwynd handed him a cup of tea.
As he stared at the pale liquid, Stratton realised quite how much he did want to talk about Jenny, as well as thinking about her. It wouldn’t make him miss her any less, he knew that, but it would be . . . comforting. Even with Donald, he hadn’t really - he’d kept hoping that his brother-in-law would mention her name, or that there might be an opportunity . . . Not to go over how it had happened, because that was not only pointless, but beyond his ability to discuss without lifting the lid on a great reservoir of fury and self-hatred that seemed to lodge, like a physical thing, inside his chest. But he would like to be able to talk about her, how she looked and was, and things they’d done together, and laughed about. ‘No,’ he said, ‘not if you want to talk about them.’
‘Well,’ said Mrs Chetwynd. ‘I’m listening.’
Stratton blinked. He didn’t know what to say. Then a picture of Jenny in the yard at Mrs Chetwynd’s home farm came into his mind, and he said, ‘She was a London girl. When we first met she’d never been further from home than Southend . . . We used to go and stay at my brother’s farm in Devon sometimes, when the kids were small - that’s where I come from. I grew up on the farm, but Jenny was always scared of anything bigger than a dog. She worried about the children getting too close to the cows, even when they were here. When we first met, she used to laugh at my accent - it was stronger then. But it wasn’t unkind - she never mocked people. That was one of the things I first noticed about her, how kind she was. If anything went wrong, she worried in case it was her fault, and tried to put it right . . . and she was a wonderful mother, right from the start, the way she looked after them . . . all of us . . . I miss her being there. In the same room, or knowing she’s somewhere in the house . . . I used to walk through the door at the end of the day, and even if things weren’t going well at work, it didn’t matter, because there she was and everything was all right, somehow . . .’ Stratton found he couldn’t speak any more, and suddenly an enormous, gulping sob was in his throat and he couldn’t hold it back. He put his head in his hands and, for the first time since Jenny died, wept.
Mrs Chetwynd left the room quietly, and returned a couple of minutes later with two large white handkerchiefs. ‘Here you are.’
‘Thank you. I’m very sorry about that.’ Mortified by his outburst, Stratton blew his nose, hard, and attempted to rally sufficiently to bid her goodnight before he disgraced himself any further.
To his surprise, Mrs Chetwynd sat down opposite once more and said, in a conversational tone as if nothing had happened, ‘Yes, that was how Mrs Stratton struck me, you know. A very good mother. Not that I have children myself, but one can sense these things. My husband was killed in the Great War. I was eighteen when I married. Nineteen-fourteen. We’d known each other since we were twelve, and Edward never seemed to mind that I wasn’t beautiful.’ She chuckled. ‘My parents must have been amazed to get me off their hands so quickly, because I had no money coming to me. Edward was killed in September 1915. The Battle of Loos. His brother, Alfred, was killed about eighteen months later, at Arras. His mother never really recovered - they were her only children.’
Understanding that this confidence was kindly meant, Stratton said, ‘And you were never tempted to marry again?’
Mrs Chetwynd shook her head. ‘Edward was . . . well, he was it, if you see what I mean.’ There was no self-pity in her voice, just the flatness of one stating a fact. ‘But I had the consolation of knowing that Edward had died for his country . . .’ Her face darkened. ‘For some years, at least. When I heard Mr Chamberlain’s broadcast announcing that we were at war again, I thought, Edward died for nothing. They all did.’
‘Yes,’ said Stratton. ‘I thought the same about my eldest brother. He was killed at Passchendaele.’
‘It’s different, though,’ said Mrs Chetwynd. ‘They were soldiers. It’s harder for you. The way Mrs Stratton died . . . The children haven’t talked about it much - or not to me, anyway. It’s difficult for them to understand - well, for anyone. So . . . pointless. I’m sorry,’ she said, hastily, ‘if I’m speaking out of turn, but I think that’s why it’s so hard for them. If it were a bomb, they would understand it better - the apparent randomness, I mean, but this . . .’
‘Yes,’ said Stratton. ‘A bomb would have been easier. I don’t know,’ he added, on an impulse he didn’t quite understand, ‘how I shall ever explain it to Monica and Pete, because it wasn’t really as random as . . . well, as I told them. The woman was looking for Jenny, and . . .’ He stopped and stared for a moment at Mrs Chetwynd, whose eyes made him feel that he could say it, before continuing, ‘it was my fault.’
‘How?’
Stratton launched into an explanation of the events which had led to Jenny’s death, from the beginning - his words tumbling over each other and the things he’d known and hadn’t known coming out as a jumble, so that he had to go back several times and clarify what he meant - to Elsie Ingram’s eventual arrest. ‘The worst thing is that everyone blames themselves for it. Doris says it’s her fault because she should have listened to Donald and asked for Mrs Ingram to go to the asylum, and because she saved her when she tried to gas herself. Jenny didn’t want to bother me, you see. Donald was all for telling me about Mrs Ingram’s attempt to commit suicide, but Jenny and Doris persuaded him not to, because they thought I’d have to report it, so he blames himself for that . . . And I knew Jenny was worried about the woman, but I was so taken up with what was happening at work that when she didn’t say anything about it I was relieved, to be honest. I should have asked her. Made her tell me. And at the Rest Centre, if I’d just paid attention - a few moments earlier, and she’d be here now. She was pregnant. I only found out afterwards. She hadn’t told me. The baby would have been due last month. I wish she’d told me. She was trying to, at the end, but I didn’t listen . . . didn’t understand.’ Stratton shook his head. ‘Before, she must have thought I’d be angry, because we’d always said we’d only have the two . . .’ Stratton stopped, shaking his head again, in despair. ‘I can’t tell Monica and Pete I rescued the woman who killed their mother. I wasn’t to know, but I think it would be hard for them to understand. They might end up hating me.’
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