Ann Cleeves - A Lesson in Dying

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I’ll drive you to the bus stop.’

She led him out to the farmyard. A small boy with a dog was driving cows in to be milked. The sun was a big orange ball low over the Cheviots. She drove him to the main road and left him, stranded in the countryside, in the magic orange light.

Angela Brayshaw had planned her day meticulously. It was the only way she could live. She was frightened by chaos and the unexpected. She would take the bus to Whitley Bay to shop in the morning, bake in the afternoon and later she would take her daughter to the firework display on the recreation ground. She was still in her dressing gown when Paul Wilcox telephoned. The whispered phone call, his desperate entreaty to meet her, disturbed and irritated her. It was upsetting because it was so unexpected. It had been a long time since she had been alone with Paul Wilcox. She had thought the affair was all over. In these matters she was always the passive partner. It never occurred to her to wonder if she loved. To be loved was important. To be the object of adoration was to be in a position of power. Paul Wilcox had never adored her but had seemed to need her, he had been physically attracted to her. Then his conscience had got the better of him. More recently, whenever he saw her he looked timid and ashamed.

‘I’m not sure I can see you today,’ she said. ‘ I’m very busy.’ She was irritated because she might have to rearrange her plans. Besides, she knew he would insist on meeting her.

‘Please,’ he said. ‘Hannah will be out this afternoon. I was going to take the children to the park. I could meet you there, as if by chance…’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. But she was flattered by his attention and desperation. It occurred to her suddenly that he might be of some use. He could lend her money, so she could pay at least some of what she owed to her mother. She was convinced that she only had to buy time, that there would be no need now to join her mother in the old people’s home. She was already deciding which clothes to wear, what make-up to use.

In the afternoon he was at the park before her. There were more people than she had expected: dog walkers, bored teenagers, rowdy children. If Wilcox had been hoping for privacy he would be disappointed. A group of boys was hovering around the bonfire. They were as fascinated as if it were already alight and prodded it, and threw bits of wood onto the top of it. Paul Wilcox was pushing his little girl on the swing. The boy was on the climbing frame absorbed in some game of his own. As she approached she thought derisively how pathetic Wilcox was. What sort of a man was he? He allowed his wife to dominate him, to go out to work, to take all the decisions in the house. Even when he was employed he had been a nurse, which was women’s work. Harold Medburn had been more of a man than him. But perhaps now Paul had come to his senses, she thought. He had decided how much he needed her. Well, she would make him pay for his pleasure.

Paul Wilcox had been looking out for her, but pretended not to notice her until she came quite close to him.

‘Hello,’ he said. His voice was so falsely cheerful that even the child in the swing turned round to see what was wrong.

‘What a surprise,’ she said, leaning against one of the metal supports of the swing, ‘to see you here!’

Her voice was softly seductive but she found it impossible to keep the sneer from it. His reaction surprised her. She had considered him humiliated, crawling back to her to ask for her favours, but he was angry, accusing.

‘You told Harold Medburn about us,’ he said. ‘It was a despicable thing to do.’

‘Why?’ she said. ‘Are you ashamed? You seemed to enjoy making love to me.’

‘Be quiet,’ he said, looking anxiously at his daughter, his anger collapsing with embarrassment.

‘I was lonely,’ he said. ‘Frustrated. You took advantage of that.’

It was her turn to pretend to righteous anger.

‘I don’t remember it that way at all,’ she said. ‘You asked me into your house for a cup of coffee after a Parents’ Association meeting. I accepted. You didn’t tell me that your wife was working away. It wasn’t my fault that I never drank the coffee.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered. ‘You’re right. I’m to blame for the mess.’

She looked at him in disgust. It was astonishing now to believe that she’d had such hopes of the relationship. He had been kind, touchingly eager to please. And he had lived in such a beautiful house. She would have done almost anything to live in a house like that. But he had never really been her type. Almost immediately after they had begun to meet regularly he had started to discuss his wife. It had irritated Angela intensely. He still loved Hannah, he said, more than anyone else in the world. What a bastard he was to carry on like this! She had hoped he would lose the romantic obsession with his wife, but it had come as no surprise when he stopped inviting her back for coffee after the meetings, stopped dropping into her home during the day when Lizzie was at the toddler group. There had been no explanation. Fortunately there had been no emotional scenes. She had taken the rejection philosophically and turned her whole attention to Harold Medburn.

‘You didn’t tell me it was supposed to be a secret,’ she said, trying to provoke him to anger again.

‘I thought it was obvious!’

There was a silence. ‘Let’s not argue,’ she said then. She stood close beside him and touched his arm. The attempt to excite him was habitual, given purpose now by her need for money. ‘We used to be such good friends. Tell me what Harold did to upset you.’

‘He tried to blackmail me,’ Wilcox said. He was too humiliated at first to say that Medburn had succeeded. The little girl screamed to be let out of the swing. He lifted her out and watched her run off to play with the other children. Wilcox continued speaking, becoming more heated and confused as he talked: ‘It seemed incredible. He was a headmaster. I couldn’t believe it. He told me that he was going to tell Hannah about you and me. He thought it was his moral duty. When I said there was nothing to tell, he said he had proof. It might be possible to come to some arrangement, he said. I could support one of his charities. It was ridiculous but I believed in his charity at first. He was a church warden, after all. Then he wanted more money and when I refused he threatened to talk to Hannah. He was going to see her at the Hallowe’en party, he said. He’d have a little chat with her then.’

For a moment she said nothing and the lack of reaction made the rush of words seem ludicrous.

Angela Brayshaw smiled unpleasantly. ‘Perhaps you had better tell the police,’ she said. ‘If he were blackmailing you, you had a reason to kill him.’

‘No!’ he was shocked.

‘I bet you were relieved when he didn’t turn up at the party.’

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘but that doesn’t mean…’ He lapsed unhappily into silence again, then said suddenly: ‘ Could he have had proof? You wouldn’t have given him my letters, the poetry I wrote for you?’

‘Wouldn’t I?’ she said, enjoying his discomfort. ‘You’ll never know now, will you?’ She walked close to him again so their shoulders were almost touching. ‘ I need help,’ she said. ‘I need money myself.’

‘You bitch!’ he shouted, losing all control, almost hysterical in his temper. ‘ You think you can try the same trick as Medburn. Well you’ll never blackmail me. No one will believe you. They all know you’re a whore. You’re an evil little bitch!’

She only laughed at him, a cruel, humourless laugh, her head thrown back, her pointed chin high in the air.

They were so engrossed in the argument that neither of them had seen Jack Robson approaching on his way home from the bus stop. He looked different, suddenly elderly, his hands deep in his macintosh pockets, his head bent in thought. Even when he drew close to them they did not quite recognize him. But Wilcox’s shout made Robson look up quickly, so that they knew who it was, and the three of them stood in embarrassed silence, until Robson nodded his head in greeting and walked on. By then it was almost dark and quite cold. Wilcox shivered, called to the children and hurried away without speaking or looking at Angela again. She watched him until he disappeared into the dusk. His back was stooped over his daughter’s pushchair, so that from her perspective he seemed deformed. She pulled her coat tightly around her and walked past the menacing silhouette of the bonfire on her way home.