Gwendoline Butler - A Double Coffin

She too, knew why he had been summoned. Coffin was convinced of that, knew it was about death but was not letting it get her down. ‘Miss Neptune or Mrs?’ he asked politely.

‘Miss, miss, I am not married. Asked for once or twice but never took on. It doesn’t suit everyone, you know. Not to be expected, is it? I mean, nature is prodigal and various in its arrangements.’

‘I can see you and I have much the same notion of nature,’ said Coffin.

‘It’s common sense, isn’t it? Now come into the dining room the two of you and have a cup of something while Uncle is getting ready, we don’t hurry him, sir, not at his age … Jack, he’s turned up another great pile of letters, you’ll never get that life of him written at this rate.’

‘Is that what you are doing?’ Coffin was interested. ‘Writing his life?’

‘Ghostwriting,’ said Bradshaw without much expression in his voice. ‘It’ll come out in his name. Who but himself could write his life?’

A rhetorical question, needing no answer.

‘It’s not my only job; I have others.’

The room into which Coffin had been led was a step into the past. He felt he had been moved back in time by a hundred years. It was a small room made smaller by massive furniture in a style favoured by the merchant classes of Victorian England. In the middle of the wall facing the door was a large square looking glass of gilded wood, the sides fretted with little shelves for china pots and photographs. Coffin thought it must have been the devil to dust. Another wall was covered by a monument in dark wood with another mirror set in a nest of shelves and drawers. From his memory he dredged up the word chiffonier. An oval table of mahogany ranged around with chairs, the seats covered in red plush, filled the centre of the room. Underfoot was a dark Turkish carpet.

Janet Neptune saw Coffin looking around him as she came in with cups of coffee. ‘He bought the furniture for his mother when he started to earn well, it was her taste. Made her feel a lady, he said. I think he likes it himself because he’s never got rid of it.’

‘What about his wives? How did they take it?’

‘Oh well, I don’t suppose they liked it, but the furniture lasted and they didn’t.’

She was handing round the coffee, which was strong and good.

Janet Neptune said: ‘I can hear noises, he’s ready to receive company, I know that cough he gives.’

Several generations of MPs had known that cough too in the House of Commons before an important speech.

‘Right.’ Coffin stood up.

She bent her head towards him and said in a confidential way: ‘Just one thing, I expect you will be calling on him again, but don’t let him give you anything to eat or drink.’

After a moment of stunned silence. Coffin said: ‘He won’t poison me, will he?’

She put her head on one side. ‘Not poison, no, we don’t let him get his hands on anything really dangerous. He’s on a few medications but we keep those out of his way. No, but sometimes he thinks it’s funny to load a drink with a laxative or some such. Once he gave Jack here a gin loaded with hydrogen peroxide, didn’t he. Jack?’

‘If you say so.’

‘Didn’t half fizz; ’course it tasted terrible.’

‘No worse than some drinks I’ve had,’ said Bradshaw.

‘It’s a very Edwardian-house-party sort of joke.’ Janet put her face near Coffin’s. ‘You can imagine … not his world, of course, but some of the ladies he went with later …’ She shrugged. ‘Upper class … Lady this and the Honourable that … they found him attractive, he was an attractive man, and he picked up a few of their ways.’

‘Yes, I’ve heard that.’

‘We’d better go in.’ Bradshaw stood up.

‘Yes,’ Janet nodded. ‘Finish your cup, sir, and we’ll go on in. He’ll be getting impatient. If you haven’t got many years left you want to get on with things.’

She led the way out of the dining room, shutting the door carefully behind her. Across the hall, the door to another room stood half open.

Even half a glance showed Coffin that this room was a museum piece, crowded as it was with heavy, dark, ornate furniture. One wall was covered with a great bookcase in which the leatherbound books looked unread and unloved. The past was strong in this place.

Inside the room, the old man sat in a large armchair. His head, with its cockade of white hair, was supported by cushions so that he was upright and commanding. He wore a soft cashmere jacket with a tartan shawl draped over his legs. He looked old, elegant and in control. No loss of substance there, you felt at once. He might tire quickly, he probably did, but while he was functioning he would be acute.

Coffin was surprised how well he remembered the face. Likewise the strong head of hair seemingly so untouched by time that Coffin wondered cynically if it was a wig. But surely not, the old man’s watchword had always been honesty and integrity, although exactly what that meant in political circles might be doubted.

And after all, many people had wigs. His own wife had several, which she said were essential to her professional life.

He fixed Coffin with a commanding blue eye. ‘Good of you to come, sir. With all your responsibilities it cannot have been easy. I appreciate your courtesy.’ It was a rich deep voice, but age had introduced streaks of lighter tones.

‘You know who I am?’

‘I keep up to date, sir.’

So you do. Coffin thought, noticing a small television set on a table by the chair. Shelves underneath the table were stacked with more modern books, and magazines. The present did get a look in then.

Janet fussed forward, adjusting his shawl. ‘Of course you do, Uncle.’

He ignored her. ‘Helped by my good friend, Bradshaw.’

‘You pay me, sir,’ said Bradshaw, somewhat sourly.

‘Not enough.’

‘Probably not enough, but I am bearing it.’

The old man chuckled. ‘Other things make it bearable, eh? You enjoy working with me, and we will both make money out of my autobiography.’

‘So you hope.’

This sparring is in fun, they like each other. Coffin thought. But even this might be wrong, you had to remember that one at least of them was a politician, used to wearing a false smile, dissembling. Lying, in short.

‘Nice collection of books you have there, sir. Dickens and a complete Thackeray.’ Not many other houses in Spinnergate had a library like it, he guessed.

‘My mother ordered me to buy them. Said it was what I should have, but I never opened them. I was a Shaw and a Gissing man, myself. She didn’t read them either, not what she liked; Ethel M. Dell and Ruby M. Ayres, they were her goddesses. I don’t think anyone has ever opened those books there. But they look good, don’t they? Nice covers.’

‘Very nice.’

‘You’re just making conversation, lad,’ said the old man with a sudden shift of character from nostalgic son to old headmaster talking to a former pupil.

What a politician he must have been, thought Coffin, able to change his stance as it suited him. ‘I have been wondering what you wanted from me.’

‘And when I was going to get down to it?’ He looked at Janet, who drew chairs forward for Coffin and Bradshaw, then retired quietly from the room. ‘And you can shut the door, Janet,’ he called out. ‘She listens at the door, you know,’ he said to Coffin in no soft voice. ‘I know you are still there, Janet, I can tell.’

Bradshaw clicked his teeth. ‘You’re hard on Janet; you wouldn’t find it easy to get anyone else to do what she does.’

‘She doesn’t like me, you know.’

‘Do you want me to leave as well?’ asked John Bradshaw with a show of irritation.