A Habit of Dying (15 page)

‘Perhaps you don’t have the time to sit about thinking, immersing, like I do.’

‘Maybe we should make the time.’

Before Lydia slipped into a deep and long sleep that night, she dreamily reviewed the unexpected turn that the day had taken, enjoying a small contentment with her new friendship. It seemed to demand nothing of her, was wonderfully free of overtones or undertones, and was as refreshing as the cool drink that she had shared at lunchtime. And there was the promise of tomorrow.

‘I see what you mean about this place being more like a park than a cemetery,’ Stephen said, as they entered through the little side gate in Strawberry Howe. He had readily agreed to her invitation to join her expedition to Lorton Road and by mid-morning they were ready to begin systematic inspection. Stephen had offered to help, thinking that they could halve the time needed, but thought better of it as Lydia tried to explain the criteria that she was using.

‘The thing is, Stephen, yes, I have these dates in mind and this age of person to go by, and a name that might start with B, but, well, sometimes there’s something else.’

‘Something not quite definable, something felt?’

‘It sounds daft, very unscientific to you I’m sure, but yes, something felt.’

‘And I might not have that feeling?’

‘No.’

‘Ok, I understand, but as we walk round and you make a note of someone because of that feeling, someone who falls outside the dates, will you tell me? I would like to know.’

The morning passed as they ambled along every path, cutting
across the grass where there was no path. For reasons that Lydia was not quite sure about, she was always careful to avoid treading directly onto the actual plots. With the handful of other visitors they exchanged only a smile and a nod, apart from one talkative woman clutching a tiny mongrel of a dog close to her chest. She was anxious to tell them how she came every day what with nothing else to do with her days now that she had buried her parents at one end of the cemetery and her husband at the other, and how John kept the place so nice that you wouldn’t think it was a cemetery if it wasn’t for the graves, but it was a pity she couldn’t let her baby onto the ground as it wasn’t allowed but it was probably for the best really, and she didn’t mind that much. As rapidly as she had talked, she turned and walked away. There was a huge sadness in her desperate desire to talk to strangers, to talk to anyone probably, and they were reminded that pleasant though it was in that garden of rest, it was a place of accumulated sadness, year on year adding layer upon layer.

After a couple of hours they settled themselves on the same bench that Lydia had occupied on Saturday. She had written down just three names, Muriel Plunkett, Rhoda Senior and Doris Dickson, to go with Beatrice Grant from her previous visit. If only Beatrice did not have that annoying addition of ‘
and her husband
’. Her presence on the list was incomprehensible to Stephen. When he had asked if this was one of those that she had a special feeling about, Lydia had simply replied ‘No, was just that her name was Beatrice.’ Muriel, Rhoda and Doris were not much to show for their morning.

‘I think that there were some other Dickson memorials too.’
Lydia looked at the page, then at Stephen and then back to the page. Her stomach turned to water and her chin sank to her chest.

‘Something wrong, something about Doris Dickson?’

‘No, not Doris. Something wrong with all of it. You see, I should have been taking a note of every memorial to them all, to Plunketts, Seniors, Dicksons and even Grants. If one of these is my missing ‘B’ then it would be invaluable to have other family details too. And if she isn’t, then those same details could help eliminate her. I’ve done it all wrong, it’s all wasted.’

‘Well no, not wasted, with four names to look for we can speed round again and collect the extra information. You could say that we have narrowed it down and now we can refine the list.’

Lydia looked up at him, looked at his encouraging smile, and wondered if his students had been inspired to great things by him. She was his worst student, she had got this exercise wrong, easily rectified by an hour’s gentle stroll, but there was more.

‘Yes, Stephen we can, thank you,’ she said quietly. Should she tell him the awful truth or quietly slip away tomorrow morning and leave him none the wiser?

‘Something else is a problem?’

‘You could say that.’

‘Will you tell me? I won’t tell anyone else, honestly.’

She saw his wide imploring eyes, his smile, his open hands palms up in supplication. Was he gently mocking her or himself? Either way it broke her depression.

‘Yes, I’ll tell you. You see, I have made the same mistake not just today, but everywhere I’ve been. To do it properly I must retrace my steps not just here but over half of Cumbria.’

‘Ah, I see,’ and then after a moment’s thought he added, ‘Well, you have the rest of the week and from what you have told me there are not that many names. How many places to revisit, not more than six or so? We could do that this afternoon. The cause is not lost, Lydia, just a slight adjustment and you are off and running again. You have come a long way, I think you would regret throwing it all up now.’

‘No, no, I wouldn’t give it up, I will go back. You’re very kind, but I’m sure you would not want to traipse round with me all afternoon,’ she said, but she was thinking, ‘how did he know that for an instant I thought of throwing it all up?’

‘It’s interesting, I’m enjoying myself, I have no commitments and I’m in good company. I’ll manage.’

By the time that they returned to The Water End, Lydia too was enjoying herself. She had relaxed into this amiable man’s company as if she had known him for years. More than once she had found herself smiling for no particular reason. As he drove back from
their last port of call at Brigham, she had reviewed her new information. Once home in Osney she would tabulate it, and then search for details of these eleven women who, by whatever route, had come to rest in Cumbrian soil. Most, she supposed would have been raised here too, but possibly not her ‘B’, if indeed her ‘B’ were amongst them. The fact was that Lydia had no great hopes that she was. The list contained a distinct shortage of plausible ‘B’s.

‘Stephen, do you have anyone who is known by just an initial, a friend or a relative perhaps? You know, like my ‘B’, maybe a Dee for Deirdre?’

He thought about this for a moment. ‘Well, I have a niece who her friends call Fee, any help?’

‘Is that Fee for Fiona?’

‘No, confusingly it’s Fee for Phoebe.’

‘I have a Phoebe,’ Lydia quickly turned the pages in her notebook. ‘Phoebe Marshall. She’s at Bridekirk.’

‘Is that where the ruins of the old church are?’

‘Yes.’

They were on the last stretch, down into the valley, the hotel flickering into view above the hedges, when Lydia thought out loud, ‘Phoebe might just as easily be called B.’

‘She might, yes she might.’

‘All this time I have only thought of names starting with the B sound, never of something ending with it.’

‘Then it proves you were right to include everyone else, and not just the Bs.’

Lydia slid her notebook back into her bag, hugging the warm thought that she had found a real possibility for her B. Phoebe Isabella Marshall, 1902-1983, had been promoted to top spot on the list. She would shorten her stay, that she had already decided, but if the weather held she would relax for another day or so.

A tremor of anticipation rippled briefly through Lydia as she got ready to go to dinner with Stephen. He had suggested that they extend their shared time as far as an evening meal together in Keswick. It had been easy to accept, why not prolong a pleasant day? Single men in hotels have but one thing on their minds
according to Gloria, but Lydia had detected no threat. His company was enjoyable and he was interesting. More than that, he seemed interested in her. As she selected something to wear, Lydia realised that it was the first time in a very long time that such a thought had crossed her mind. Pulling on the nearest sweater did not seem like an option. She saw her shabby clothes for what they were and her enthusiasm for the evening waned. It was one thing to be dressed as a scarecrow for a graveyard tour, quite another to be dressed as such for an evening meal with an interesting man. And make-up. She had none bar the stub of lipstick buried in the debris at the bottom of her bag. She put a tiny smear across her lips, the once familiar smell and texture now strange to her mouth. The usual single pull of a brush through her hair made no difference to the dowdy image reflected in the mirror. Neither did a dozen more strokes, but she was what she was, and in the long run, well, what did it matter? A cloud of depression passed across the sunny prospect of the evening. Maybe it would be better to go home tomorrow.

Back at her desk surrounded by her familiars, Lydia completed the methodical tabulation of all the details she’d gathered from Cumbria. There were the eleven females on her candidates list with as much information as the memorials had given, plus another twenty-six inscriptions for those with the same surnames. These twenty-six records covered fifty-eight people who might in some way be related to the eleven. Or rather to ten of the eleven, as there was but one other Marshall inscription, that of a nine year old boy buried in 2006 at Lorton Road. All these possible connections would wait until Lydia had researched the eleven, then, if a candidate stood out, she would look for links beyond the coincidence of name and burial.

It was impossible not to start with Phoebe Marshall, even though Lydia felt sure that a dead end with her would probably mean disappointment with the whole list. There was a moment when she thought she would save Phoebe, her best prospect, until last, as a child she used to do with the food on her plate. But the temptation was too great. She had begun to think of Phoebe as ‘Fee’, just as Stephen’s niece was thought of by her friends. Try as she might to think otherwise, recording the results of her research, recalling the places, inevitably it all took her back to her time with Stephen. They had parted with smiles, he a little surprised at her sudden decision to leave, she blaming the poor turn in the weather. He had given her his email address but asked for nothing in return and Lydia had not offered anything. Yes, she would tell him the end of the story if
there was one to be told, and yes, she would be sure to contact him if he could ever be of any help. But these things were said because the opposites could not be said. She had set her mind firmly against any idea of maintaining their friendship, it would be too difficult and all too probably end in an unsatisfactory way. She had no need of any complications in her life, least of all a man maybe twenty years her senior, however pleasant his company might have been for a couple of days. No, she had opened herself up to him all too easily, which hardly mattered for so brief an acquaintance, but long term it would leave her too vulnerable. Hadn’t he called her passionate?

The first port of call was obvious enough: check the index of deaths for 1983 with a registration district in Cumbria. Sure enough, there was Phoebe, without the Isabella, recorded in the September quarter of that year, the date of birth shown as 29
^th
May 1902. With the information fresh in her mind, Lydia clicked the link to order a death certificate, confident that at last she had found the key to open her box of mysteries. Now, with this precious detail, finding Phoebe in the birth index should be straightforward. Marshall was a common enough name and Marshalls were breeding as fast as anyone in 1902. She took the precaution of including the first quarter of 1903 in her search of the index. Even though she searched for both Phoebe and Isabella as first names, the result was a satisfyingly short list of three, one in Lincoln, another in Devon and, most satisfying of all, one for Braintree, Essex. No need to check her notes or a map or anything else to recall instantly that Longlands was but a stone’s throw from Braintree. She carefully opened the album and studied the family group intently once again. With fresh knowledge she looked at little Phoebe in a new light. Are you perhaps Phoebe Isabella Marshall, are you Mama and Papa’s daughter or grand daughter? Are your mother and father in the picture with you, is that your brother sat beside you on the grass? Oh! She looked again, Albert M, could that be Albert Marshall to distinguish him from Albert something else? And if the something else did not need saying, then did the rest of the family bear that something else name? After all this time, all the searching, all the brick walls, Lydia felt something close to ecstatic that she
might really have found a way in to her puzzle. Quite unexpectedly, the thought that she should tell Stephen popped into her head. In an instant she rejected it on the extremely sound grounds that in fact there was nothing to tell. Lydia knew that between these happy discoveries and final resolution lay a long and twisting path. But it would have been good to tell someone, and for Lydia there was no-one else who could be told, no-one else who might share even a small part of her pleasure.