The Shortest Journey (12 page)

Michael came back in from the garden to find me
scrabbling through the pages of the telephone directory.

‘Who are you looking for?’

‘Annie Fisher.’

‘You mean that person who used to be with Mrs
Rossiter? Woman who looked like a frog?’

‘A frog?’ I looked up from the directory. ‘Yes, I
think you’re right. Though perhaps we’re influenced by the name –
Fisher, Jeremy Fisher, Beatrix Potter – still, perhaps that’s why
I’ve never really liked her.’

‘But you like frogs, Ma.’

‘As frogs, not as people. Now you’ve interrupted me
and I’ve lost my place. There seem to be an awful lot of Fishers.’
I finally found Annie’s number – I remembered that she was living
in a council flat down in Meadow Gardens – and decided to ring her.
I dialled the number and stood waiting while it rang out. Foss came
in through the cat door and began weaving round my feet in a
determined way that meant he wanted food.

‘In a minute, Foss,’ I said as the phone went on
ringing. When I finally convinced myself that no one was going to
answer, I put down the phone and went to open a tin.

The next morning, after I’d finished my shopping, I
needed to photocopy an article in a learned journal and to get to
the one and only photocopier in Taviscombe I had to go past Meadow
Gardens. On an impulse I turned down the road and began looking for
number 9A, which was where Annie Fisher lived.

It was, I found, the ground floor flat in a house
that had been divided into two. I went up the garden path, noticing
as I did so that the grass needed cutting and the flower beds were
full of weeds. That certainly didn’t seem like Annie. When I got to
the door I realised that the ground floor was empty. There were
curtains certainly but, as I stepped off the path and peered in the
windows, I saw that the rooms were bare of furniture. I opened the
side gate and went through into the back garden. Here, too, the
weeds were beginning to take over. Annie must have been gone for
several weeks. I looked into a garden shed and saw nothing there
but a couple of old bottles that had once held weed killer or
fertiliser and a rusty watering can without a rose. A voice behind
me made me turn round quickly and in some confusion.

‘She’s been gone well over a month now.’

The woman next door was in the garden pegging tea
towels on to her rotary clothes drier. She regarded me with
interest but not surprise.

‘Miss Fisher, that is, if you’re looking for
her.’

She was an elderly woman with tightly permed grey
hair and a cheerful manner. I went over to the low fence that
divided the gardens and said, ‘Yes, I don’t seem to have seen her
around lately and I wondered how she was. But where is she? I’d no
idea she was thinking of moving.’

‘Australia.’

‘Australia!’ I echoed stupidly, as if I’d never heard
of the place.

‘Yes. Like I said, she’s been gone over a month now.
The council haven’t let her flat yet. Well, it needs quite a bit
doing to it, decorating and suchlike.’

‘But—’ I found it difficult to take in the fact that
Annie wasn’t there.

The woman regarded me with some concern.

‘Was she a friend, then? You look like you’ve had a
bit of a shock.’

‘Yes, in a way. I’ve known her for years, since I was
a child. It just seems so odd that she didn’t mention this when I
saw her last.’

The woman picked up the plastic bowl that had held
her washing and said, ‘Do you fancy a cup of coffee? I was just
going to make one. I’m Mrs Taylor, by the way. It’d be nice to have
a bit of company. I miss having Annie around; she often used to
have a cup with me about now.’

‘That would be kind,’ I replied. ‘My name is Sheila
Malory. As I said, I’ve known Annie for ages and it was a bit of a
shock to find she’s suddenly gone away!’

I went round to the front and into Mrs Taylor’s flat.
She ushered me into the small sitting room which was crammed with
furniture and a multiplicity of framed photographs and
ornaments.

‘Please do sit down,’ she said. ‘I’ll just go and put
the kettle on.’

I looked around at some of the photographs. In pride
of place was a large framed studio portrait of a girl in cap and
gown holding a rolled-up diploma. She had the same cheerful
expression as Mrs Taylor and I assumed it was her daughter. Next to
it was one of a man in a fireman’s uniform and next to him a young
man in a striped shirt, holding a football.

Mrs Taylor came back into the room with two cups of
coffee and a plate of bourbon biscuits on a tray.

‘There we are, then.’ she said. ‘Do you take
sugar?’

I declined the sugar and accepted a biscuit. Mrs
Taylor sat down opposite me.

‘Well, now, about Annie.’ she began. ‘You know she
had this brother who lives in Australia? Adelaide, it is. I was
always interested, you see, because my Janet and her husband Roy,
they went out to Perth – that’s Western Australia. They’ve done
very well. Janet’s a teacher and Roy, he works for a chemical firm.
They’ve got a lovely home! I went out to visit them last year, just
after Jack died.’ She indicated the photograph of the fireman.
‘But anything about Australia’s interesting, isn’t it, when you’ve
got someone out there? I always watch the Australian serials on the
telly. Well, it shows you what it’s like there, doesn’t it? Anyway,
this brother of Annie’s – Sam he’s called, but you’d know that –
he’s been out in Adelaide for years. He came over to pay Annie a
visit, and before you could say knife he’d persuaded her to go back
to Australia with him! Well,’ she lowered her voice, ‘from what I
heard, his wife had left him and the daughter, too. So you can
imagine, he saw Annie here all alone and thought she might just as
well be looking after him!’

From her tone I gathered that she hadn’t taken to Sam
Fisher.

‘But how on earth did he persuade her?’ I asked. ‘She
was so very settled over here. She was always in and out to see Mrs
Rossiter – that’s the lady she used to work for. She’s in a nursing
home now. I can’t imagine that Annie would ever have left her.’

‘Oh yes, Mrs Rossiter. Annie was always on about her
– how it was in the old days in that big house with all the other
servants, and how Mrs Rossiter relied on her for everything. But
you see, her brother got Annie interested in this religious thing.
I can never remember which they are; not the Jehovah’s Witnesses,
the others, you know the ones I mean. Apparently they’ve got
missions (I think that’s what they call them) all over the world,
here and in Australia. Well, Sam Fisher’s one of them – one of the
high-ups over there, according to Annie – and when he was here, the
time before last, he got Annie to go to the meetings (they have
them in Taunton) and she went on going after he went back to
Australia. She went regularly, every week. Thursday afternoons she
always used to take the bus into Taunton. Well, if it made her
happy! It takes all sorts, doesn’t it?’

‘So that when Sam Fisher came over this time he
persuaded her that she ought to go back with him...’

‘Said it was her Christian duty.’ The words rang some
sort of bell but I couldn’t think what it was. Mrs Taylor
continued, ‘Just wanted to make a convenience of her, if you ask
me, but she was very taken up with this religious thing
lately.’

‘Did she tell Mrs Rossiter that she was going?’

‘Oh yes, she and that brother of hers took the old
lady out for the afternoon in a car he’d hired and told her
then.’

‘Was she upset, do you know?’

‘Well, Annie didn’t say. She was so taken up with all
she’d got to do before she went – going in such a rush like that.
But he said she might as well go back with him; afraid she might
change her mind, I shouldn’t wonder. Sold all her things, just like
that! I don’t know how she could do it. I could never get rid of
all my bits and pieces.’ She looked around the crowded room. ‘It
was difficult getting it all in when I had to move in here, after
Jack went, but I couldn’t part with my treasures. Annie, though,
she didn’t seem to give a backward glance. She was a changed woman,
you might say! It’s funny – you think you know someone quite well
and then they go and do something you’d never imagine!’

‘It’s strange about Annie and Mrs Rossiter, though,’
I said.

‘Well, there was one funny thing. I didn’t pay much
attention to it at the time, but now you come to mention
it...’

‘What was that?’

‘Well, I was having a cup of tea with her one day,
after she’d told me she was going to Australia, and her brother was
there. He was always around, I never really got the chance to have
a proper talk with her before she went. Anyway, she was saying
something about the old days, when she was with Mrs Rossiter, and
apparently her brother used to work there too...’

‘Yes, he used to be the gardener.’

‘That’s right. Well, she was saying how pleased Mrs
Rossiter had been to see Sam and how interested she was in all this
mission work he was doing in Australia and, instead of sitting
there looking pleased with himself, like he usually did when she
was going on about how marvellous he was, he shut her up. Just like
that. “Mrs Taylor doesn’t want to hear about that,” he said. Well,
he was quite right, I didn’t! But it was a bit odd, though. He gave
her quite a look and changed the subject.’

‘How strange.’

‘To be honest with you, Mrs Malory, I didn’t take to
him, not at all. There was something there that I didn’t like. I
can’t put my finger on it, but you know how it is with some
people…’

‘To be honest, I’ve never really liked him myself,
but Annie seems very fond of him and I do hope she is happy out
there in Australia. It’s a big step to take at her age.’

‘I can’t say I’d fancy living so far way, myself.
It’s a beautiful country and when I went out there our Janet said
to me, “Why don’t you stay on here, Mum?” I know they’d really like
me to make my home with them, but I couldn’t live anywhere but
England, could you?’

‘No, I don’t believe I could. Did Annie leave you an
address in Adelaide?’

‘Yes. Just a minute, I’ll get it for you.’ She got up
and rummaged through some papers in a drawer. ‘Here it is.’

I copied the address in my diary and thanked Mrs
Taylor for the coffee.

‘It was nice having a bit of company. You get lonely
sometimes when your family has gone away. My boy Paul – that’s him
in his football things – he’s in the Navy now. Married a very nice
girl and they’ve got two lovely little boys, but they live down in
Cornwall so I don’t get to see them very much. I can’t manage the
journey on my own now. It’s a dreadful thing to get old, isn’t it?
Still, we should count our blessings and make the most of what
we’ve got. At my time of life every day’s a bonus, that’s what I
always say!’

Mrs Taylor was still in full flow as I waved goodbye
and walked down the path to my car. I felt a pang of sadness for
her, as I did for my Meals on Wheels regulars who, I always felt,
had more need of a sympathetic listener than meat and two veg.

My way back from Meadow Gardens lay through the
hinterland of guest-houses and bed-and-breakfast places that led
down to the sea. The larger, grander ones had names to match – like
Balmoral, Deeside or Glendower and the smaller houses, now at the
height of the season with No Vacancies signs proudly displayed, had
names that were more romantic or fanciful – Lorna Doone Cottage,
Simla, Verona or even Valhalla. I looked, as I always did, for one
small house, relic of a more innocent age, whose gate bore the
legend ‘Gaydaze’. The narrow roads were difficult to negotiate
since cars belonging to the summer visitors were parked on either
side, so I turned off and went along the promenade and round by
West Lodge. As I did so I suddenly remembered why the words
‘Christian duty’ had rung a bell. It was the phrase Ivy had heard
the unknown man using to Mrs Rossiter.

As I unpacked my shopping I told Michael what I had
found out in Meadow Gardens.

‘And Ivy – you must go and see her while you’re home
this time, darling. It would mean so much to her – did say
something about a mission or missionaries.’

‘So you think that the mysterious stranger might be
Sam Fisher?’

‘Well, if he’s been living in Australia for some
time, I suppose he might have an accent. Ivy did say that he
sounded like a foreigner.’

‘And he was trying to get money out of Mrs R.?’

‘He’s just the sort of man who would and especially
now, if he belongs to one of those odd religious sects. They always
seem to be able to get money out of old ladies. And that would
explain why he shut Annie up when she was telling Mrs Taylor about
him talking to Mrs Rossiter about his mission.’

‘I say! Do you think Annie and Sam Fisher have taken
Mrs Rossiter off to Australia with them?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘But think about it, Ma. You said she was pretty
miserable in that bin she was in. She may have felt that anywhere
would be better than that.’

‘It’s not a bin, it’s a perfectly respectable nursing
home. And anyway, she’d never do such a thing.’

‘Why not? She’s used to Annie and she trusts her. And
you said yourself how persuasive these people are.’

‘But Australia!’

‘It’s not the other side of the moon – people do go
there.’

‘Yes, but...’

‘It all fits in. Why she didn’t say anything to
anyone. Well, she’d know they wouldn’t let her go, so she pretended
she was just nipping into Taunton to do some shopping and then
Annie and Sam were waiting for her...’

‘The man and woman Ed Cooper saw!’ I told Michael
about my conversation with Ed.

‘Well, there you are then! I wonder if her passport’s
gone. Is there any way you could find out?’

‘No, really, Michael. It simply isn’t
possible...’