Grave Matters (2 page)

‘I suppose you’re right.’ Patrick still scrutinised the hill. Later tonight the monuments would be picked out in brilliant floodlights, while thousands of people watched the spectacle of
Son et Lumiere.
He walked away from the little group of officials and climbed the steps once more. Apart from himself, there were only a few policemen making sure that all the tourists had, in fact, gone. There was no trace of any long-haired youth in jeans. He must have left with the last stragglers, and there would be no way of finding him. He could have been Italian, British, French – any nationality, even Greek, though few young Greeks wore their hair so long. He might even have been quite unaware of his responsibility for the accident.

A patch of white caught Patrick’s eye in a cleft between the rocks. He picked it up and saw that it was a page from Benn’s
Blue Guide to Athens and Environs,
jaggedly torn from its binding. Patrick looked at it for a moment; then he folded it carefully and put it in his wallet. After that he went back down the steps.

‘I must telephone the British Embassy,’ he said.

‘But certainly,
kirie.’
The Greek officials were thankful that the poor dead
kiria
at least was not alone. Though not her son, the English
kirios
was clearly her friend, and a man of authority who would take charge of things on her behalf.

After making his telephone call, Patrick followed Miss Amelia in a taxi to the mortuary. There, he witnessed the listing of what was in her woven woollen bag – a few drachmas in her purse, some boiled sweets, a grey woollen cardigan, and the small leather-bound
Alcestis
he had seen before.

‘And I suppose you went to the funeral?’ Patrick’s sister asked him. They were in his set at St. Mark’s, where Jane had come to lunch before a dental appointment in Oxford. They had eaten cold beef and salad, and now Jane was sitting on the window seat in his room while she drank her coffee. Below, in the Fellows’ garden, two middle-aged dons were engaged in their fierce daily croquet duel. ‘Was anyone else there?’

‘A chap from the Embassy and the proprietor of the hotel where she was staying. And the undertaker’s men hovered around.’

‘How bleak,’ said Jane.

‘It was, a bit. When the Embassy realised who she was – E.C. Brinton’s daughter, I mean, as much as the esteemed former headmistress of Slade House, they gave her the full works – service in St. Paul’s, with Bach and Elgar on the organ, though of course no hymns, since there was no congregation. It was all done very correctly.’

‘Hadn’t she any relations?’

‘She had a niece. The hotel man knew about her, because Miss Amelia stayed there every year and had told him. He said she used always to come with another old lady, a Miss Forrest, but she has a bad heart now and wouldn’t come this year.’

‘I suppose it would have cost a lot for the niece to fly out.’

‘No one could get hold of her. She was out of England herself – on holiday too, probably. So the Embassy carried on. In that climate you can’t delay. It seems they often have to cope with this sort of thing, when Britons die alone in foreign spots. I can think of many worse places to leave one’s bones in than Athens.’

‘Is there a British cemetery? There must be.’

‘There’s a Protestant section in the main cemetery. It’s divided from the main part by low walls, and there’s a gate from it to the road – the chaplain disappeared through there after the service, instead of processing back through the rest of the cemetery. It took about ten minutes to walk from the gates to the grave.’

‘How awful!’

‘It wasn’t, really. It’s an incredible place, the cemetery. Immense, with huge, ornate monuments in the Greek part, some with photographs of the dead person in little shrines. There are lots of priests around – you know, the
papas
in their tall black hats with their beards and their hair in buns. And widows. So many widows, all in black, some quite young. A Greek widow wears black for the rest of her life,’ Patrick said. ‘And they weep. They show their grief in other countries. It’s only in Britain that this stiff upper lip stuff goes on. Nearly every other nation displays emotion.’

Jane looked at her brother for a moment.

‘You’re a great one for displaying it yourself, of course,’ she said, with irony.

‘One conforms, in one’s fashion,’ Patrick said.

‘I suppose you’ve written all this to Miss Amelia’s niece? About the funeral, I mean?’

‘Er—well, yes. Even if she doesn’t care a hoot, I thought she should know it was all properly done,’ Patrick said.

‘You’re a funny old thing, aren’t you?’ Jane said. She looked round his elegantly furnished room. Three oars were suspended high upon one wall, above a pair of impressionistic paintings by an artist in whose future Patrick had faith.

‘Why?’

‘So tough, you’d like us all to think, but inside you’re a veritable marshmallow.’

‘You mean because I went to Miss Amelia’s funeral and then wrote to her niece? You’d have done the same.’

‘Yes, but I’m a female. We do these things.’

Patrick felt obliged to defend himself from this charge of sentimentalism.

‘The niece had a right to know the details. And I was able to tell her that her aunt had died instantly – she can’t have known a thing.’

‘There wasn’t any trouble over that?’

‘No. It would have been quite impossible to trace that feckless youth, just as you can’t catch the demon driver who cuts in and causes two other cars to have an accident while he disappears, scot-free.’

‘Have you heard from the niece?’

‘Valerie Brinton? Yes—just a rather formal note of thanks. She would have heard from the Embassy too, of course.’

‘Valerie Brinton,’ Jane mused. ‘She didn’t go to Slade House. I think her parents lived abroad, I remember her being talked about. And I do remember Miss Forrest. She was there in my time - little and ancient, it seemed even then. She taught art. It must be the same one. She retired while I was there. Old Amelia had a country cottage somewhere.’

‘Near Winchester,’ said Patrick. ‘Valerie Brinton wrote from there. A village called Meldsmead.’

‘I suppose Miss Amelia left her the cottage. How nice for her.’

‘I suppose she did.’

‘Well, it’s time I left for my appointment with the torturer,’ said Jane. ‘I’ll just wash first.’

She went through the door that led into his large, comfortable bedroom, off which opened a landing with a tiny kitchenette installed where once there had been a cupboard. At the far end of his bedroom a door disclosed his private bathroom. No wonder Patrick couldn’t be bothered to marry, she thought, as she often did when she visited him here. Everything was laid on for him; he had a scout to minister to his daily wants; good food provided to the accompaniment of first-class conversation and even, on gala occasions, eaten off gold plate that had been bequeathed to the college by a long-dead former member; and spacious accommodation in part of the original college building. At least he hadn’t embarked on croquet yet, though. She looked out of his bedroom window and saw the two combatants below, still warring. They were a chemist and a sociologist who sincerely hated one another and fought each other over matters of college politics whenever they got the chance, as well as joining battle of any other kind that offered. Jane feared that Patrick might get like this as he grew older, and she was sighing over this problem when she rejoined him.

‘What a sad sound,’ he said. ‘Do you dread the drill?’

‘No,’ Jane answered. ‘I’m sighing over you. Even if there exists upon this earth a woman who would put up with your ways, how could she compete with all this?’ She waved her hand around, gesturing at the high ceiling of his large room, the cornice decorated with elaborate plaster-work. ‘You’re much too comfortable as you are.’

‘You’re right, my dear. I am, and I don’t plan to change a thing,’ Patrick said. He kissed her. ‘Can you find your way down? I’m expecting a pupil any minute. Mind he doesn’t barge into you, he won’t see you coming through his tangled mane.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Jane. ‘How can you bear it?’

‘He’s got terrible acne, poor boy. Perhaps it’s better not to have to look at all those pimples.’

‘They might go if he washed the matted locks,’ Jane pointed out.

‘He’ll clean himself up soon and face the world, when he feels a bit braver,’ Patrick said. ‘He’s a nice lad. Very bright, but rather insecure.’

‘Aren’t we all?’ Jane said. Even you, in your way, she thought. ‘Thanks for lunch. Come and see us soon.’

She went away, and it was only as she entered the dentist’s waiting room ten minutes later that she realised because it was still the vacation, Patrick’s pupil must be coming to consult him about some problem, not for a tutorial.

Among the Fellows of St. Mark’s was a venerable don who lived in honourable retirement in a tiny cottage owned by the college. Once a year he visited an equally ancient Canon who lived in rather similar circumstances in Winchester, except that he had a wife who, though bent with rheumatism, was still able to cook and administer the household. The two old men had been friends from youth. Dr. Wilmot’s sight was very poor now, and no one thought it safe for him to make his annual pilgrimage by public transport any longer, so Patrick drove him down to Winchester on the Saturday after Jane’s visit.

It was a lovely morning in late September when they left Oxford, with the sun gilding the leaves that still clung to the trees. The harvest had been early, and the farmers were well ahead with their ploughing; there were still some fields of bleached or burnt stubble standing, but in most of them the rich, dark earth had been turned up in neat furrows. For a while they talked about a new building in a corner of the college grounds. Dr. Wilmot deplored the modern architecture of its design, but Patrick felt one could not ape the old. This discussion kept them going happily for half an hour until the old man suddenly fell asleep; Patrick drove on, enjoying the scenery in silence. Some way south of Newbury he noticed, on a straight stretch of road, a signpost pointing to the left which read
Meldsmead 2 miles.
Meldsmead was the village where Miss Amelia Brinton had lived, and from which her niece had written to him.

Dr. Wilmot woke suddenly and carried on at once with the conversation they had been having from the point where they had left it. Patrick, who had been mentally back in Greece reviewing Miss Amelia’s fatal fall, had some trouble in returning his thoughts to plate glass windows.

He delivered his passenger and remained for a glass of sherry with Canon Fosdyke and his wife; then, despite pressing invitations to share their cottage pie, he left. He would call at a pub somewhere on the way back and have a sandwich.

It was such a lovely day that he felt reluctant to stop, and drove past several likely places. Then he realised that he was near the turning to Meldsmead. It was only ten past one; there must be a pub in the village. He felt curious to see where Miss Amelia had spent her retirement; somehow he would have expected her to choose a spot handy for the British Museum or the London Library, not a remote Hampshire village. He slowed down to watch for the sign, and soon came to it. After he had turned off the main road he found himself in a narrow lane with high hedges on each side; it was twisty, and he went slowly, for there was not much space to pass if he met another car. He passed a farmhouse and a few cottages before he reached the village, and at a bend in the road a red mini came hurtling much too fast towards him. The side of the Rover brushed against the hedge as he pulled in to give it room to dash past. He had time to see that it was driven by a woman with auburn hair, but no more; then it was gone, scattering dust behind it as he saw in his mirror. He drove on, even more slowly than before, but met no one else, and was soon in Meldsmead. The main road, such as it was, straggled through the village, with two turnings off to the right, each saying
No Through Road.
Another, to the left, led on to further villages, according to a signpost. There were more houses further on, but The Meldsmead Arms was at the junction of the main road and the first of the dead-ends, so Patrick stopped there. He would have a beer and a snack, and look round the village afterwards.

There were several cars parked outside the pub, and the public bar was very busy. He went into the saloon bar, where his entrance caused very little interest. Three youngish middle-aged couples, the men in polo-necked sweaters and the wives in smart trouser suits, sat at a table talking hard and barely glanced at him. They were discussing some trip by boat they planned for the next day, and Patrick, eavesdropping as he drank his beer, gathered that one of the couples owned some sort of yacht or cabin cruiser.

The publican was a large man with an almost totally bald head and a small, neatly trimmed moustache. Patrick mentally labelled him an ex-serviceman; he discovered later, in fact, that Fred Brown was a retired regimental sergeant-major. The girl helping him behind the bar was obviously his daughter. Despite an unruly mop of dark brown curls she looked exactly like him.

The sailing group were talking about tides. Patrick drank his beer and listened to them. The boat seemed to be moored somewhere in the Solent. Besides them, there was a trio of men at the window all talking together. Patrick was too far away to hear what interested them, but soon one of them came to the bar to order another round for all three, and while he waited asked Patrick if he were just passing through.

‘We don’t get many casual callers,’ he explained. ‘Eh, Fred?’

Fred, behind the counter, agreed, with some regret, Patrick thought.

‘We do well when there’s racing at Newbury, though,’ he allowed. ‘People think it’s worth turning off the main road then.’

‘Yours the Rover TC?’ Patrick’s new acquaintance enquired.

‘Yes.’ Patrick knew very well that it was the only strange car drawn up outside the pub.

‘Hra. Nice car. Wish I could run to one. I have to use a pick-up for the market-garden. My wife has a mini. We use that on smart occasions.’