Peter Dickinson - Some Deaths Before Dying

Uncle Albert was fidgeting again.

“I wonder who they are,” Jenny said, thrusting the album under his nose. Obediently he took his spectacles from his breast pocket and put them on.

“Some of Major Stadding’s boys, they’ll be,” he said. “Had me along a couple of times, so I could tell ’em about soldiering and that, in case any of ’em felt like joining up, he said.”

He looked at the picture a moment more, and started to close the album.

“A bad lot. A bad lot all around,” he said.

Before he could make for the bedroom again Jenny took the album from him and turned the pages. The contents seemed to be character studies, and old man sitting at the door of a cottage shelling peas into a bucket, a small woman in an ugly hat which she clearly thought well of, a seven-year-old girl absorbedly fishing…

“Ah, now, that’s Miss Anne,” said Uncle Albert with a complete change of tone. “Everyone’s darling, she was. Wonder what’s come of her.”

“She’s raising horses in Canada, Mrs. Thomas said.”

“Right.”

He was still chuckling over the photograph when the door of the bedroom opened and the nurse came out.

“We’re ready now, if you are,” she said.

“Right, then, let’s get on with it,” said Uncle Albert, tucking the album under his arm and marching off. Jenny might have taken it from him at the bedroom door but decided not to risk unsettling his recovered confidence.

The bed was now cranked up so that Mrs. Matson was in almost a sitting position. She was wearing her spectacles and had a pretty cream scarf round her shoulders. Her hands and arms, fleshless as the leg of a starling, lay inert on the counterpane. The tilted reading stand was in front of her, with a high-seated chair for Uncle Albert beside the pillows so that he could see too, and a stool on the further side of the bed for Jenny.

“Now we’re all set,” said the nurse. “You’ll be all right here, will you, Mr. Fredricks? And if the young lady would go round the other side—you’ll have to reach a bit, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Jenny. “Are these in the right order?“

She picked up the topmost of the pile of five albums that lay ready.

The brown envelope, she observed, was no longer beside them.

“That’s right—” the nurse began, but Uncle Albert broke in.

“As you were—this here’s the one we’re wanting.”

He plonked the album he was carrying onto the stand, sat and started to turn the pages. Jenny and the nurse glanced at each other. Jenny signalled with her hands to let it be, and the nurse nodded, signalled in her turn that she’d be along the passage as before, and left. As Jenny reached her place at the bedside Mrs. Matson’s lips moved.

“Wait.”

“Wait, Uncle Albert.”

He appeared not to hear and leafed confidently on for another few pages.

“Now, that’s what I call a picture!” he announced.

“Anne,” whispered Mrs. Matson, or perhaps, Jenny thought, “Anne?” It was hard to tell with the sound so faint.

“A great favourite Miss Anne was with us all,” said Uncle Albert. “Never mind her being a wilful little imp. How old would she have been for that, then?“

“Seven,” whispered Mrs. Matson. Jenny relayed the figure.

“Seven, eh?” said Uncle Albert. He gazed at the photograph a few seconds more, shook his head and chuckled. Jenny reached to removed the album.

“No. Leave it. Back.”

Jenny leafed back, pausing at each page. Mrs. Matson stopped her at the picture of the cricket match.

“Those boys. Who? Ask him.”

“Oh, we were looking at that one outside. He said they were some of Major Stadding’s boys. Is that right, Uncle Albert? It sounded as if they came from some kind of youth club, or a delinquents’ home, or something like that. Uncle Albert?“

He didn’t immediately respond. His attention seemed to have slipped now that the remembered child was no longer there to hold it.

“Wait,” whispered Mrs. Matson before Jenny could try again. “Third from left. Ask him who?”

“This one?“

“No. Behind. Blond.”

The lower part of the face was hidden by the head of a young man nearer the camera. It was in half profile, showing a peak of pale hair, a straight forehead, sunken eye and high cheekbone. Rather than reach right across the bed Jenny carried the album round to show to Uncle Albert.

“Mrs. Matson says, ’Do you know anything about this young man?’” she said.

He barely glanced at the picture before turning his head away, refusing to look any more.

“Never seen him in my life,” he snapped.

“But, Uncle Albert, you told me just now, out in the—“

“Now then, young woman, how often have I got to tell you not to go poking your nose in where it’s not wanted? None of your business d’you hear me? None. Of. Your. Business.”

Jenny looked at Mrs. Matson for guidance. It was some while before the lips moved.

“Drink, please.”

Jenny laid the album aside, picked up the invalid cup and went round to her place again. As she did so, her earlier reaction returned, not this time as horror or dread, but as the conviction that just as she embarked on the childishly simple task of placing the spout between the patient’s lips and tilting gently, watching the level in the cup so that she could see when the liquid began to flow, the wave would rush up at her, causing her to jerk the cup, and Mrs. Matson would choke, and die hideously in front of her eyes before anything could be done. It didn’t, of course, happen. Her hand remained perfectly steady, but she found herself swallowing compulsively as she laid the cup aside.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Matson whispered, with her faint but potent smile. Jenny’s arm and hand responded as it of their own accord, reaching out and taking hold of the fleshless fingers where they lay inert on the bed just in front of her. This was not something she could have imagined herself deliberately doing, or even bearing to do. The skin felt brittle and empty, like a sloughed snakeskin. She was conscious of the contrasting life and warmth of her own hand. Mrs. Matson smiled again.

“Try and ask him…again…later,” she whispered. “Another album now.”

The weird pressure was already slipping away. By the time Jenny had laid the album she’d brought on the stand and opened it at the first page she felt pretty well normal. Relaxed. Confident that it wasn’t going to happen again, and therefore able to concentrate on the photographs.

The first was of files of men passing a parade stand, some marching, a few on crutches or in wheelchairs. A very senior looking officer, his chest smothered with medal ribbons, was taking the salute. Jenny thought she might have seen his face in an old newsreel. Not Montgomery, but someone like that. A tall, skeletally emaciated but still unmistakable figure was marching beside the line.

“That’s you, isn’t it, Uncle Albert?“

He craned, his anger forgotten.

“Right you are. And there’s the Colonel, leading us past. Duggie Rawlings that is at right marker—drove a taxi in London after the war. Now, when would that have been?“

“’Forty-seven. Mons,” whispered Mrs. Matson, and Jenny relayed the words.

“Course it was,” said Uncle Albert. “Mons Barracks, nineteen forty-seven. The Colonel laid it on for when we set the Association up, so as to show ’em all that we meant it, though there was some of the lads as couldn’t walk farther than you’d throw a tram car, or you’ld’ve thought so, but they all got ’emselves round somehow. I remember Don Kitchens telling me he felt prouder that day than he did when he went up to the Palace for his DSM.”

The next few pictures had been taken on the same occasion, three more of the parade, and then the same men, with what were presumably relatives, sitting or standing around at an open air reception. Beer glasses, wine glasses, teacups; cigarettes and pipes; glimpses of a military band. The photographs hadn’t been taken with an aesthetic purpose, but as a record of an occasion, but the same thoughtful eye was strongly evident, and the same care for composition. Many of the characters seemed as clearly defined as they would have in a good studio portrait. All the men bore the marks of their imprisonment, a gauntness and frailty, partly masked in some cases by the babyish look of flesh recently put back on. As each page turned Uncle Albert would study it for a while, then name the men he remembered. Occasionally Mrs. Matson whispered an interjection and Jenny passed it on.