Caroline Graham - A Ghost in the Machine

“We’ll be meeting tomorrow, as you know. But I just wanted to offer my sympathy. Mallory – my dear fellow.” Dennis Brinkley held out his hand, the back of which was lightly stroked with reddish-gold hairs. “Your aunt really was a quite exceptional person.”

“Shall I take those for you?” Kate offered to relieve Dennis of his half-full plate. She had tasted the walnut swirls and sausage twists as Benny was arranging them in the kitchen.

“No, indeed.” Dennis gripped his plate. “I shall eat up every bit.”

You’ll be the only one who does then, thought Kate. We’ll be finding twists and swirls in the garden urns and undergrowth for years to come. Archeologists, centuries hence, would be chipping away at the extraordinary shapes, bewildered as to what use they could ever have been put. Kate, long familiar with Benny’s culinary skills, had brought down several boxes of party bits from Marks & Spencer, taking care to explain they were for emergencies only. Before leaving for the church she had discreetly placed them on an out-of-the-way table in the shrubbery. Long before her return all had vanished.

Mallory was thanking Dennis for his help at the time of Carey’s death. For taking charge of what he called “all the technical stuff.” He was also thinking how fit and full of vitality Dennis appeared. There were nine years between them and Mallory couldn’t help thinking a stranger could well guess wrongly which way the difference lay.

Mallory had been eleven when Dennis Brinkley had first come to his aunt’s house to check over some details on her foreign investments. Newly attached to a brokerage house and financial consultancy, Dennis was extremely intelligent and articulate when it came to discussing figures, but otherwise paralysingly shy. The firm was then known as Fallon and Pearson, though the latter had long since died. By the time George Fallon retired Dennis had been with the firm thirty years, for the last twenty as a full partner. Inevitably he had opened up and become more confident over such a long period but there were still few people to whom he was really close. Mallory was one. Benny Frayle, another.

“Is a morning appointment all right for you, Kate? I expect there’ll be a lot of…um…straightening-up to do.” Dennis sounded uncertain, not quite sure what “straightening” involved. He himself was extremely neat and tidy, both about his person and his affairs. His daily cleaner – that same Mrs. Crudge – and excellent secretary were hardly run off their feet.

Kate assured him that the morning would be fine.

A sudden burst of raucous jollity, quickly shushed, caused all three to turn their heads.

“Ah,” said Mallory. “I see Drew and Gilda have been kind enough to come and pay their respects.”

“Not at my invitation, I assure you.” The absence of any trace of warmth in Dennis’s voice said it all. Andrew Latham was the other partner at what had now become Brinkley and Latham. He had never had any dealings with Mallory’s aunt. Indeed, as she rarely went into the office, they had probably not even met.

“No doubt he has his reasons.” Mallory’s tone was dry in its turn.

“Oh, yes. He’ll have those all right.”

Kate murmured an excuse and turned again towards the assembled company, hoping to be of some use rather than simply absorb yet more consoling sound bites.

She saw David and Helen Morrison standing by themselves and looking rather isolated. They were representing Pippins Direct, the firm that had rented the orchard from Carey for the past twenty years, maintained it and sold the apples and their juice. Kate knew that Mallory was keen for this arrangement to continue. But as she started to make her way towards them another couple beat her to it, introduced themselves and all four started talking.

One of the Oasis T-shirts was sitting under a monkey puzzle tree drinking apple wine and had plainly been doing so for some time. Kate sighed and looked about for the other, who seemed to have disappeared. But she could see Benny’s wig with its fat, golden curls like brass sausages, bobbing about. Benny herself, hot and flustered, was collecting plates and glasses, and stacking them on a nearby tray.

“Mother!” Polly sprang up as Kate approached, abandoning Brigadier Ruff-Bunney, the elderly, wheelchair-bound relative from Aberdeen. The poor man, vividly describing his cataract operation under local anaesthetic, was left in mid-scrape.

“It was so nice talking to you.” Polly gave him a brilliant smile, took Kate’s arm and pulled her away. “Hope I die before I get old.”

“Bet The Who aren’t singing that today. Have you seen that girl who’s supposed to be helping?”

“You mean the one getting legless under the monkey tree?”

“No. I mean the other one.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Someone should give poor Benny a hand.”

Benny Frayle had been “poor Benny” for as long as Polly could remember. As a little girl she had run the words together, thinking this one long sound was Benny’s true name. One day Kate overheard her, explained, then asked Polly not to do it again as it might be thought hurtful.

Now Polly watched her mother relieving Great-aunt Carey’s companion of a heavy tray. Noticed how she managed to do it casually without fuss; without the slightest implication that Benny had taken on more than she could handle. She was good at that. Polly could never imagine her mother deliberately setting out to make someone feel small. To find their weakest point and jab and jab. Her father either, come to that. Sometimes Polly, excellently versed in both these activities, wondered where she got it from.

“I’ll come and help.” She called out the offer on impulse to Kate, just now passing within hearing distance. Then was immediately resentful at making a decision so much to her own disadvantage. Still, at least she’d be out of the crumblies’ bony reach. Quite honestly, for one or two it hardly seemed worth the trip back from the graveyard.

“Fine,” Kate shouted back, trying not to sound surprised. “See you in a minute, then.”

She made her way towards the house via the vegetable garden and across the croquet lawn. The kitchen opened off a rather grand, iron-ribbed Edwardian conservatory. A few people, all strangers to Kate, lolled, lightly comatose, on steamer chairs and a huge, rattan sofa. She smiled in a friendly and sympathetic manner as she climbed over their feet.

The kitchen was empty apart from Croydon, Aunt Carey’s cat, asleep in his basket on which Benny had tied a black silk bow. Kate remembered the day Carey brought the animal home. Mallory’s aunt had been making a visit to a friend that necessitated changing trains at Croydon where she found it in a wicker basket, jammed behind a stack of wooden crates. Both cat and carrier were absolutely filthy. Carey had described later how the half-starved creature had sat upright and with great dignity in piles of mess, looking hopefully about him and mewing.

After raging at the station staff for ten minutes without repeating herself Carey took a cab to the town centre, bought a basket, food, a dish and some towels, cancelled the rest of her journey and took the cat home. Cleaned, it proved to be extremely beautiful, with a cream and amber freckled coat, a reddish orange ruff and huge golden eyes. It proved as grateful as a cat could be – which admittedly isn’t saying a lot – purring extensively and sitting on her lap whenever she wanted to work at her tapestry or read the papers.

Kate bent down and stroked Croydon. She said, “Don’t be sad,” but the cat just yawned. It was hard to know whether it was sad or not. Cats’ faces don’t change much.

Kate pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, squirted some washing-up liquid into the sink and turned the taps full on. The glasses were rather beautiful and she didn’t want to risk them in the machine. When the sink was half full she placed them gently into the sparkling suds and carefully washed them up. There was no sign of Polly. Kate had never really thought there would be. So, why offer? And what was Polly doing instead?