Peter Dickinson - Some Deaths Before Dying

“Indeed it is, Mrs. Matson. I believe this is what the economists call the Ideal Transaction. Both parties believe themselves to have done well out of it. O si sic omnia .”

“Well, that’s all right, then. I’m so relieved.”

So they had parted, and rather to her own surprise Rachel had found herself reluctant to return to Mr. O’Fierley’s shop when she had spare time in Nottingham. The episode was over, sealed, and could now be put away. The pistols were Jocelyn’s, unsullied by any sense of debt. She was still thinking about this when Flora knocked.

“It’s all right now, Mrs. Thomas,” Dilys called.

Flora, as usual, was speaking before she was through the door.

“…don’t need to lock me out, Dilys. I always knock, and I don’t mind waiting.”

“Oh, it wasn’t for you, Mrs. Thomas, but Mr. Matson didn’t knock and I didn’t know if he mightn’t come back.”

“Blast him, and I gather he wore Ma out too. You’re sure she’s up to this?”

“Well, we are a teeny bit tired, Mrs. Thomas, but she’s insisting she’s got to talk to you. So I’ll be in my room if you need me.”

“Thank you, Dilys.”

“That woman’s a jewel,” said Flora as soon as the door closed. “You’re sure you’re not too tired?”

“Yes. Dick gone?”

“Forty minutes ago, in a foul temper. He wouldn’t stay for lunch, which was a relief in the circs. We had a proper up and downer about Da’s pistols. He said they belonged to him.”

“No.”

“That’s what I kept telling him. He tried to make out that Da was past it when he changed his will, but I wasn’t having any. He was completely all there, only he had a bit of trouble making himself understood. I was bloody furious with Dick. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t care if he never sets foot in this house again.”

“Tell you about TV?”

“Yes, and I don’t think he was inventing it, though I wouldn’t put it past him. Isn’t it extraordinary? Did you have any idea the Laduries were worth that sort of money, Ma? I mean, I knew they were pretty special, belonging to old Murat and so on, but Da and you used to pop away with them on the terrace as if they’d been toys, of course Da was like that, it never bothered him what things cost or didn’t. But don’t you think we ought to look into this a bit? I mean, if some total stranger has somehow got hold of one of them. Dick says you told him they were in the bank, but I’ve just checked the list and they aren’t. When did you last see them, Ma? I’ve been trying to think. I remember Da showing Jack how to use them—that’d have been when we were engaged—and then I remember after his first stroke thinking it might do him good to play with them, but they weren’t on the table by his desk, where they used to be…Didn’t you tell me you’d put them away?”

“Did I?”

“Or was that after he’d died?”

Rachel didn’t respond, relying on Flora to rattle off in some other direction.

“And another thing—according to Dick the fellow on the box said the pistol he was looking at hadn’t been cleaned right, and Da always made such a fuss about that. I must say it’s all very baffling. I wonder if I couldn’t get hold of a tape of the programme, I’ll ask Biddy Paxton, her brother’s something fruity in the BBC…All right, Ma, you’re worn out and you need a rest. I’ll push off. I just wanted you to know I’m not going to stand any nonsense from Dick, and I won’t do anything without your say-so. There was just something you wanted me for, wasn’t there?”

Rachel managed to smile. Her chief worry had been that Flora might try to appease Dick by conceding some kind of right over the pistols to him, but that obviously wasn’t now in question. She should have known Flora would do the right thing. She almost always did, though because of her manner those who didn’t know her very well tended to take her minor acts of virtue for a lifelong series of flukes. This was what made the coming deception oddly painful.

“Tape,” Rachel whispered, as if that had been what was on her mind. “Good idea. But don’t tell Biddy it’s about pistol. Or anyone. Only Jack. Private. Family.”

“Yes, of course, Ma. I know they were pretty special to you both, weren’t they?”

“Thank you. No, wait…Just this. I want you to know you’re very good to me, darling. Much, much better than I deserve.”

“Nonsense, Ma, you’re just tired. I’ll send Dilys along, and then you must have a good rest after your lunch. It’s truite au beurre noir for supper, and you’ll want to enjoy that.”

3

Rachel’s midday meal was usually little more than a snack, and then Dilys would put some familiar novel onto the machine and she would lie for an hour or two and half listen to it and nap off for a while into dream and wake and half listen again. Henry James was particularly good to doze to, but Jane Austen too insistently soporific.

Today she was too tired to swallow more than a couple of mouthfuls, and then asked Dilys to close the curtains and leave her in silence, so that she could attempt real sleep.

She succeeded, but woke weeping, ravaged with sexual expectation suddenly cut short. The setting was already vague. A boat, rocking on warm waves. Nighttime. The tock of the lanyards against the mast. The man not Jocelyn, not even some particular stranger, just depersonalised man, hands, mouth, weight, member. But herself, her own body, real and solid, not young, no identifiable age, but with senses vivid and focused…

Her pad was sopping, of course. Her sheets might need changing.

Why now? It was the first time since—oh, long before she’d been nailed to this bed.

Within a few seconds the physical sensation, so intense in the dream, was mere memory, memory that thinned and became disgusting and absurd as it encountered the reality of her body. But she continued to weep, not now for the lost dream, but the lost years, the years after Jocelyn had come home.

They had both been virgins on their wedding night, but Jocelyn, unlike many of his apparent type, had not been straitjacketed by his culture and upbringing; she in fact had started off the more squeamish and apprehensive, thanks to her mother’s embarrassed explications. But they had given each other confidence to explore the possibilities, discover what pleased them and then make the most of it.

This hadn’t, in those days, been the kind of thing one talked about to even one’s closest friends, but one evening, about two years married, they’d been dining with the Staddings, and she and Leila had left Jocelyn and Fish to their cigars to sit out on the verandah with the punkah swaying softly overhead, its slow draft heavy with the scent of a nearby lemon tree. Beneath the silk of her dress and petticoat her skin felt like sentient velvet. It was that kind of night, but she was in no hurry to get home. The small hours were often the best.

Now Leila decided that she wanted a chartreuse to bring her evening to full perfection, and demanded that Rachel should keep her company. Rachel had already been drinking with care, knowing her own needs and balances. When she refused Leila tried to insist.

“Honestly, no thanks, I’ve had enough.”

“But you’re pretty well stone cold sober. What’s the matter with you?”

“If you must know, I’m feeling just right for when I get home with Jocelyn. If I drink any more, it’ll take the edge off it.”

“Oh,” said Leila as if this had been something she couldn’t have imagined. And then, after a pause, “Tell me more, Ray. I’m not being nosy. Please. It sounds as if we’ve been missing something.”

It had been Rachel’s turn to be surprised, though she was long used to the contrast between Leila’s exotic looks and her straightforward inner self. But Fish? Rachel knew him far less well, but looks, style and everything else about him made it impossible for her to believe that he had not come to the bridal bed already an experienced lover.