A Little Death (4 page)

Well, for a minute they all stared back at her and I thought, they’re going to charge at us, but then Miss Louisa’s governess suddenly appeared at one of the windows, screaming and pounding on the glass with her fists: ‘Help me, somebody help me!’ It was right next to where Ellen was standing and she leaped clear into the air from the shock of it, and then just for a moment we all stood quite still and stared at this horrible face, all pink from crying and blurred against the window like her skin wasn’t made in fast colours, going, ‘For the love of God, somebody please help me!’ Then one of her hands smashed right through the glass and she slid down, crying and howling, until all we could see were her ten fingers holding on to the sill, covered in threads of blood and bits of broken glass.

Mrs. Mattie roared, ‘Into the scullery, all of you,
now!’
like a lion. Then she let go my collar and rushed towards the girls, and shooed them all in there and shut the door. Then she dashed past me and out of the back door and into the yard. I was seeing everything a bit fuzzy, so I sat down with my head between my knees and tried to get my breath back.

Ellen came out of the scullery after a few minutes. ‘You don’t half look peculiar. Are you all right?’

‘I should think I’ll live. What’s happening?’

‘I don’t know. I thought you did. Wait a minute, though…’ and she went over to the broken window and looked out into the yard. ‘Mrs. Mattie and Miss What’shername just went behind the hedge, there’s
something going on… Ada! There’s a man there, one of the grooms, he’s got Master Freddie in his arms, he’s carrying him like a baby. Master Freddie’s got a handkerchief wrapped round his head, there’s blood… It must be an accident, Master Freddie’s had an accident! Oh my Lord, they’re coming back to the house. Quick, Ada, get up! Whatever it is, we’d better make ourselves scarce or we’ll catch it.’ We got back to the scullery in the nick of time.

Mrs. Mattie came in. She looked very serious and said, ‘I’m afraid there’s been an accident and Master Freddie’s been hurt. Now, I don’t want a lot of talk and fuss, because that won’t help poor Master Freddie, will it? I want you to do what you’re told as quick as you can and we’ll soon have things put in order.’ Then she started telling us we had to scrub floors and sweep the yard. We weren’t best pleased about having to do such rough work, which, as I say, we didn’t normally.

Someone said, ‘Where’s Jenny?’ because those were her jobs by rights.

But Mrs. Mattie fairly bit her head off: ‘Never you mind about Jenny. If you want to keep your place, you’ll stop asking questions and get on with your work.’

Well, of course we all wanted to know what was going on—we were only human—but that got us working in a flash. Ellen and I were put to scrubbing down the passage, which didn’t make us very happy, but that was how come we knew a policeman had been called, because him and Mrs. Mattie were outside in the yard and we could hear them talking through the broken window. The two of us were right underneath it on our hands and knees, trying to hear what was going on. ‘Perhaps you could show me where it happened?’ That was the policeman.

Ellen whispered, ‘Whatever does she want with a copper?’

‘I don’t know.’ I put my head up a bit so I could see. ‘Oh, it’s only the bobby from the village.’

‘Well, he won’t do much, he’ll be too frightened of Mr. Lomax.’

That was true enough, because he wasn’t doing anything that I could see, just saying, ‘Oh, it’s a bad business, a terrible business,’ over and over again. They walked out of sight behind the hedge for a moment and we couldn’t hear, but when they came back, Mrs. Mat-tie was saying something about would he like to speak to the doctor and the policeman said, ‘Has he finished examining the body?’

Ellen’s eyes were like saucers. ‘What body?’ Then we heard the back door go and we scrambled back to our places and scrubbed for all we were worth while Mrs. Mattie and the policeman came past. The moment they’d gone, down went our brushes. Ellen’s face was stark white, like chalk. ‘There’s been an accident and Master Freddie’s been killed,’ she said. ‘Oh, Ada, isn’t that the most terrible thing in the whole world?’

Mr. Victor Mishcon, a solicitor, yesterday visited Hollo-way Prison, London, and saw Mrs. Ruth Ellis, who is due to be hanged today for the murder of David Blakely. The Home Secretary on Monday decided not to recommend a reprieve.
I’m not at all surprised. Little tart. Who else has died?
Dr. Kenneth Macleod, who collected many traditional Hebridean airs and songs and composed the well known ‘Road to the Isles’…
Probably bored himself to death. But then Ascot—I wish I were there. It looks
so…
but it’s probably not worth going, nowadays. Princess Margaret in a dreadful hat. And the Queen wrapped in a herbaceous border. Or perhaps they’re fried eggs. Well, they could be.
Sussex, glorious view, handy for Tunbridge Wells… Mains water and electricity, septic tank drainage, heated henhouse. In all about three acres. Auctioneers Harrods Ltd, Kensington 1490. Heart of Kent, 15th-century residence… An all electric house in the luxury class… 3 staff bedrooms… hard court… Only £9000
freehold… Only! Not on your nelly, as Ada would say. What have we got today? One Across:
The field marshal turns back to the commanding officer and it ends.
So
it
ends the word. Need capital letters… FM and CO… field marshal turns back—MF. How many? Six. CO-MF-IT. So, then.
In the matter of tongues it started at Babel, starting
with a C.
Well, that’s confusion, that’s simple enough.
Claims in the manner of two degrees…
have to think about that.

Who’s this coming past the window? Looks rather like Vivienne Wyatt. She was as mad as a hatter. Had an imaginary dog she used to take for walks in the square. She was dreadfully upset when they came and took all the railings away for the war effort. ‘Poor darling Poopsie, he’s bound to run away and get lost in the blackout, and he’s so
dreadfully
afraid of the dark, poor little lamb.’ They took the railings from the square, but for some reason they left the gates, and the man who looks after the square carried on locking them every night and unlocking them in the morning. He said to Edmund, ‘It may be daft to you, but it’s my job and I’m going to carry on doing it until somebody tells me to stop.’

Degrees…
could be university degrees. BA, MA.
Claims. In the manner of. A la…
Alabama… Very clever this morning. I’d show Edmund, except that he’s gone upstairs, which is most irritating of him. We usually do the crossword together, it’s much more fun. He said he didn’t feel well and was going upstairs for a ‘lie-down’. His word, not mine. He’s been spending too much time with Ada again or he wouldn’t be using words like that. ‘Lie-down!’ It’s got Ada written all over it. And it’s monstrous of him because he knows I can’t go after him, it takes too long. But when you’re as fond of someone as I am of Edmund, a little selfishness here and there doesn’t matter. Because we’re inseparable, Edmund and I. We’ll die together. It’s the only way. Oh, I’ve thought about it very often. It’s no good to have one of us hanging about for years after the other one’s gone. For the one that was left, it would be like dragging a carcass around. What’s next?
Darwin sailed in
this hound.
Oh, for heaven’s sake,
The Beagle.
Who sets this thing? The typist?

The loony-doctor at my trial said he’d examined me and found me to be a moral primitive. I was very offended. He made me sound like one of those hideous African wood carvings all the artists pretend to like so much. My lawyer hit the nail on the head—he gave me a piece of advice I’ll never forget: ‘Try to look as if you’ve got a lovely garden.’ I knew exactly what he meant, which was why I asked Louisa to choose my clothes for me. Because even an African wood carver would take one look at my cousin Louisa and say, ‘I’m sure she’s got a lovely garden.’ Meaning, of course, another dowdy Englishwoman with no dress sense. I should have been
French.
But of course everyone— including the twelve assorted butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers on the jury—knows that moral primitives don’t have lovely gardens… like poor Ruth Ellis. It was obvious from the start that she didn’t give two hoots about herbaceous borders.

We’ve lived in this house for over twenty-five years, Edmund and Ada and I. Ada’s seventy-three and we’re not much younger. As long as we can manage for ourselves, it’s better than being left to die in one of those places full of shuffling ghouls staining their drawers. Ada’s devoted. In love with Edmund, of course. But that’s a breed that’ll soon be as dead as the dodo. Everything’s turning upside down nowadays. You used to know where you were with people; now you don’t. Ada’s sound enough. She’s a terrible spy, of course; all servants are. Always listening at doors. She thinks she owns us. I say to her, ‘Heard enough, Ada?’

‘Oh, Miss Georgina, I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.’ Always the same. Like one of those long-playing records with the needle stuck. But I’m sure she’s got
plenty to say for herself. Most of it pure imagination, of course, but her life has hardly been the most thrilling, so let her live through us if she wants. But I wish she wouldn’t make vulgar insinuations about my brother and my cousin Louisa. It was Edmund who introduced Louisa to Davy Kellway in the first place and he’d hardly have done that if he was in love with her himself, would he? So you see it’s all rubbish. In any case, Louisa looks like a Bedlington terrier. Edmund could only love a
beautiful
woman. Besides, if he were in love with her, or with anybody, I would know. But truth isn’t as important to that class as it is to ours.

The first thing I can remember with any clarity is the death of my mother. Everybody tiptoeing about—‘don’t tell the children anything’—I’m sure they wouldn’t even have told us our mother was
dead
if they could have managed without. Our nurse told us she’d gone to be with Jesus. Edmund was nine when she died and I was seven. Which I suppose means that our younger brother, Freddie, must have been about three. The worst thing was the mourning: one day I had rows and rows of pretty dresses in the most gorgeous colours; then they took them all away and they came back black. I wouldn’t exactly say I missed my mother; in fact, if it hadn’t been for the black dresses I think I would have forgotten about her almost immediately.

Our nurse was one of these excessively religious women. I’ve always thought it must have been some sort of nonconformist establishment that she belonged to and Edmund says he remembers her reading a Baptist newspaper. I’ve got a feeling that the church was called something to do with sheep, like the Flock of the Shepherd or the Brethren of the Lamb. I imagine that it was rather like Little Bethel in
The Old Curiosity Shop
, the
part when Kit has to go and fetch his mother away from the church and all the people are rolling around and waving their legs in the air and being saved. Being saved evidently didn’t agree with Nurse because she always came back from her church in a frightful temper. She used to see everything as a sign: the pattern on the wallpaper, the way you walked downstairs, something was always a sign. But all the signs meant the same thing: ‘You’ll come to a bad end.’ Everything meant I’d come to a bad end. The nursery was a miserable place after my mother died, everything black: rocking horse, pictures, dolls, the whole lot wrapped in black material. And it was worse because Edmund went off to school. I remember being absolutely distraught about that, a hundred times more upset than over my mother’s death, because I had no one to talk to if Edmund wasn’t there. I didn’t really know my mother, you see. I thought she was beautiful and I used to love seeing her dressed up in her lovely clothes, but she was like a beautiful butterfly, or a fairy… you wouldn’t expect a fairy to bathe you, would you? I don’t remember her holding me or playing games or anything, just that she would brush her lips against our faces to say good-night. A kiss so soft you could hardly feel it.

I forgot her face very quickly and that made me sad. Of course, there were photographs, but they never made her look very beautiful and I’m sure she was. I suppose I could have looked in the glass to refresh my memory—when she was alive, my father used to call me his pocket edition. But if I looked in the glass now, I’d see an old woman and my mother didn’t live to be an old woman, so what’s the point?

Freddie I do remember very clearly, which is just as well because I’ve never been able to find a single photograph of him. I remember once, when I was very young,
looking through a photograph album with my father. He was telling me stories about the people in the pictures and there was a picture of him and Uncle Jack with their parents, when they were boys. My grandmother was sitting in front of them on a chair with a baby in her lap and Father and Uncle Jack and my grandfather were standing behind her. They all looked very cross except for the baby, who was smiling. I said, ‘Look, the baby’s smiling.’

My father said, ‘The baby’s not smiling, Georgina. It’s dead.’ I looked again, carefully, but you wouldn’t have known it was dead unless someone had told you. It just looked happy.

When they’d cleaned all the blood off Freddie and put fresh clothes on him, I thought perhaps someone might want to take a photograph of the two of us with my father, but there was no camera and no one to use it. Edmund says he can barely remember what Freddie looked like, but that isn’t surprising because he was sent off to school when our mother died and he hardly saw Freddie at all after that. People always asked if Edmund and I were twins because we were so alike, but Freddie didn’t look like us. He was fat, and he had freckles and lots of stiff little orange curls like springs. The more I think about him—and I have thought about him a great deal over the years, a
very
great deal—the more I can see that he didn’t really ‘fit’. We looked like our mother, but Freddie didn’t look like anyone, certainly not my father, who was very handsome as a young man. I don’t think Freddie would have made a handsome man. He would have been petulant looking and that’s horrid. And he had the most strange eyes. They were swimmy and milky, and he never seemed to look directly at anything. I don’t think he could see very well, because he was always bumping into things and tripping over—in
fact that’s how I remember him best, sitting on the floor bawling when he’d just taken a tumble. I asked our nurse about it once and she said, ‘First cast the beam out of thine own eye,’ which was absolute Greek to me. But Freddie was her favourite. I came a very poor second.