Andrew Taylor - The Office of the Dead

Then the screaming began.

There’s something about a child’s screams that makes the heart turn over. I dropped the suitcase. Some part of my mind registered the fact that the lock had burst open in the impact of the fall, that my hastily packed belongings, the debris of my life with Henry, were spilling over the floor of the hall. I ran up a flight of shallow stairs and found myself on a long landing.

The door at the end was open. I saw Rosie’s back, framed in the doorway. She wasn’t screaming any more. She was standing completely still. Her arms hung stiffly by her sides as though they were no longer jointed at the elbows.

‘Rosie! Rosie!’

I walked quickly down the landing and seized her by the shoulders. I spun her round and hugged her face into my belly. Her body was hard and unyielding. She felt like a doll, not a child. There was another scream. This one was mine.

The room was furnished as a bedroom. It smelled of Brylcreem and peppermints. There were two mullioned windows. One of them must have been open a crack because I heard the sound of traffic passing and people talking in the street below. At times like that, the mind soaks up memories like a sponge. Often you don’t know what’s there until afterwards, when you give the sponge a squeeze and you see what trickles out.

At the time I was aware only of the man on the floor. He lay on his back between the bed and the doorway. He wore charcoal-grey flannel trousers, brown brogues and an olive-green, knitted waistcoat over a white shirt with a soft collar. A tweed jacket and a striped tie were draped over a chair beside the bed. His left hand was resting on his belly. His right hand was lying palm upwards on the floor, the fingers loosely curled round the dark bone handle of a carving knife. There was blood on the blade, blood on his neck and blood on his shirt and waistcoat. His horn-rimmed glasses had fallen off. Blue eyes stared up at the ceiling. His hair was greyer and scantier than when I’d seen it last, and his face was thinner, but I recognized him right away. It was Janet’s father.

‘Come away, Rosie,’ I muttered, ‘come away. Grandpa’s sleeping. We’ll go downstairs and wait for Mummy.’

As if my words were a signal, Mr Treevor blinked. His eyes focused on the two of us in the doorway.

‘Fooled you,’ he said, and then he began to laugh.

‘I’m so sorry.’ Janet was brushing Rosie’s hair. The bristles caught in a tangle, and Janet began carefully to tease it out. ‘He just arrived.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said.

‘Oh, but it does.’ Her eyes met mine, then returned to the shining hair. ‘The doorbell rang at half past three and there he was. He’d come all the way from Cambridge in a taxi.’

Rosie was sitting on a stool on the hearthrug, her back straight, not leaning against her mother’s knees. In her place I would have been fidgeting, or playing with a toy, or looking at a book. But Rosie seemed hypnotized by the gentle scratching of the brush.

‘It didn’t occur to him to telephone. He just came as he was. No luggage, no overcoat. He even forgot his wallet. I had to use the housekeeping.’ Janet smiled but I knew her too well to be fooled. ‘He was still in his slippers.’

We were in a narrow, panelled sitting room. The three of us were huddled round the hearthrug in front of the fire. Rosie was in her nightclothes. Janet had given me a gin and orange, with rather too much orange for my taste, and I was nursing it between my hands, trying to make it last.

‘He’d forgotten his medicine too. Actually they’re laxatives. He gets terribly concerned about them. That’s why I had to pop out to the chemist’s before it closed. And then the dean’s wife swooped and I couldn’t get away.’ The brush faltered. Janet rested her hands on Rosie’s shoulders. ‘Poor Grandpa will forget his own name next, won’t he, poppet? Now, say good night to Auntie Wendy and we’ll put you into bed.’

When they went upstairs, I wandered over to the drinks tray and freshened my glass with a little gin. All three of us had tiptoed round what Mr Treevor had done upstairs. I wondered what Janet was saying to Rosie about it now. If anything. How do you explain to a child that Grandpa found a bottle of tomato ketchup in the kitchen, took it upstairs to his room and splashed it over him to make it look as if he’d stabbed himself to death? What on earth had he been thinking about? He had ruined his clothes and the bedroom rug. God knew what effect he had had on Rosie. The only consolation was that all the excitement had tired him out. He was resting on his bed before supper.

Glass in hand, I wandered round the room, picking up ornaments and looking at the books and pictures. I had grown sensitive to poverty in others as you do when your own money runs low. I thought I saw hints of it here, a cushion placed to cover a stain on a chair’s upholstery, a fire too small for the grate, curtains that needed relining. David couldn’t earn much.

There was a wedding photograph in a silver frame on the pier table between the windows, just the two of them in front of Jerusalem Chapel, David’s clerical bands snapping in the breeze. I didn’t have any photographs of my wedding, a hole-in-the-corner affair compared with theirs. My mother had thought we should have a white wedding with all the trimmings but Henry persuaded her to let us have the money instead for the honeymoon.

Janet came downstairs.

‘Supper will have to be very simple, I’m afraid. Would cheese on toast be all right? There’s some apple crumble in the larder.’

‘That’s fine.’ I noticed her shiver. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I wanted it to be nice for you on your first evening especially. We haven’t seen each other in such ages.’

‘It’s all right. It’s lovely to be here: Will your father be coming down?’

‘He’s dozed off.’ She went over to the fire and began to add coal. ‘I didn’t like to wake him.’

I sat on the sofa. ‘Janet – does he often do things like that?’

‘The tomato ketchup?’

I said nothing.

‘He’s always had a sense of humour,’ she said, and threw a shovelful of coals on the fire.

‘He kept it well concealed when I came to stay with you.’

Janet glanced at me. Tears made her eyes look larger than ever. ‘Yes. Well. People change.’

‘Come on.’ I patted the seat of the sofa. ‘Come and tell me about it.’

‘But supper –’

‘Damn supper.’

‘I wish I could.’ Suddenly she was almost shouting. ‘You’ve no idea how much I hate cooking. In the morning the sight of a fried egg makes my stomach turn over.’

‘Me too. Anyway, I’m going to help with supper. But come and sit down first.’

She dabbed her eyes with a dainty little handkerchief. She was one of the few people I’ve ever known who don’t make a spectacle of themselves when they cry. Janet managed everything gracefully, even tears. I brought her another drink. She made a half-hearted attempt to push the glass away.

‘I shouldn’t drink this. I’ve already had one tonight.’

‘It’s medicinal.’ I watched her take a sip. ‘Tell me, how long’s he been like this?’