William Trevor - Death in Summer

‘The baby’s back safe, Mrs. Iveson.’

The damp has spread, through to his shoulders and his back. There’s a mark on the rug at his feet where water has dripped from the ends of his trousers, or from the jacket cuffs, he doesn’t know which. She was in a state when she lost track of that Eric, same’s she was when she went round to that uncle’s house. The face went with the name, she said in the Soft Rock that Saturday morning, the pale eyes, no wasted flesh. Another time in the Soft Rock she put the same thing to the red-haired proprietor, not that she ever liked him. ‘You hear that name?’ she said. ‘Thaddeus?’ And winding Pettie up, the red-haired man said Thaddeus was the name of the inventor of the bikini.

‘Why’d she do it?’ Thaddeus Davenant is standing by the windows and he speaks with his back turned, still looking out at the rain. His voice isn’t raised like hers is, but low and ordinary, as if he’s not fussed, but Albert can tell he is. ‘Why’d she do it?’ he asks. vLike I say, sir — ‘

‘Why’d she take Georgina?’

‘On account she was her own worst enemy, Mr. Davenant. I never knew anyone more her own worst enemy.’

The baby whimpers in her sleep, a single whimper and then a sigh. She whimpered when he picked her up from the floor; she whimpered a bit on the way downstairs, maybe not liking the dark although he had the torch going. When she wasn’t much older than that, the mongol girl cried every time she woke up and it was dark. Merle walked in her sleep, Leeroy used to shout out.

‘Why’d she take Georgina?’ He turns round from the window to ask that again. ‘Why?’

‘On account it was no good, coming back here for the ring, sir.’

He didn’t tell Mrs. Biddle about the ring. He didn’t say about the baby. A lie is a lie if it has intention was the way Miss Rapp put it. No way just saying nothing is a lie. No way it: could be.

‘Why was it no good?’ vLike you wouldn’t have nothing to do with her, sir. She took a shine to you, Mr. Davenant -’ vYes, we know.’

‘Then again, Pettie thought she’d get the minding job.’

‘She wasn’t suitable.’ vShe thought you was offering it to her on the phone, sir. The time she called up she thought it was going to be all right from what you said, sir. Then again, the ten pounds wasn’t right.’

‘What ten pounds?’

‘Ten eighty the cost of the fares is.’

Again nothing is said. He watches the man Pettie had a passion for turn his back again, the rain streaming on the glass of the windows. The old lady gets up and crosses to where the baby’s still asleep, and then sits down in a different armchair, as still and straight as before. vIf the train fare I gave her wasn’t enough she should have said so.’ vLike I say, the baby’s back, Mrs. Iveson -’ vWhy have you come here?’ Thaddeus Davenant is standing by him now, his voice still quiet. ‘What do you want with us?’

‘I come to tell you about Pettie, sir. So’s you wouldn’t think too badly of her, sir.’ vToo badly?’ she says. ‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘Pettie was improving herself, Mrs. Iveson. All the time at the Morning Star, all the time she was at the Dowlers’. She could have come down the platforms, she could have got clearing-up in the parks a few months back. She went in for the baby-minding because it was a better type of work.’ Pettie was a law unto herself, he explains. ‘I’d worry about Pettie, Mrs. Iveson. I’d worry in the Soft Rock, times she didn’t turn up.’ He explains about Wharfdale, and Pettie taking lifts in a lorry. ‘Pettie come out here the first time and she was on about it in the café, the picture there was on the floor, the dog coming in through them windows. I said to leave it.’

‘Your friend stole a sleeping baby and left it where it could have been eaten by rats.’

‘I got there quickly as I could, Mrs. Iveson. Soon’s ever Pettie told me. Mrs. Biddle’d make the tea, she’d trip over with that teapot, but I had to take the chance. I didn’t do another thing soon’s Pettie told me. I said it to Captain Evans, but he reckoned Mrs. Biddle’d be all right. I had to wait there for the police, the problem was.’ vShe put flowers on my daughter’s grave. Why’d she do that? Why’d she come looking for a ring that didn’t exist? We don’t understand what all this is about. We don’t understand why she took against us when all we ever did was not to give her enough money for a train fare.’ vPettie seen the photograph when she come out here, Mrs. Iveson. She seen Mr. Davenant grieving, she said that in the Soft Rock. Pettie took a shine to Mr. Davenant, Mrs. Iveson — ‘

‘Oh, for God’s sake, stop saying that!’ She is furious now, her voice raised, two specks of red in her cheeks.

‘It’s upsetting for us.’ Thaddeus Davenant is still quiet, the same as all the time he has been, hardly a change from when he was talking about the planes. ‘We’re grateful to you, but all this is too much for us.’ vAll Pettie was doing, sir, was putting it to you the baby could be taken. Like Mrs. Iveson was sitting out in the sun and the next thing she drops off. Pettie had it worked out, like Mrs. Iveson would pack her bags soon’s the baby went missing. You get that, sir?’

‘Yes.’

‘Pettie had it in mind she’d say she came back after her ring and seen a woman with the baby. She had it in mind that she manages to get the baby off the woman in the toilets.’

‘I see.’

‘Only the kids was playing on the towpath. Soon’s the kids seen Pettie it has to be there wasn’t no woman on account Pettie has the baby. Soon’s -’

‘Yes, we understand.’ vI come out to explain, sir, Pettie didn’t mean no harm. Time of the ring was like when she went to look out for the man at the tennis championships. Miss Rapp said Pettie never meant no harm.’ vOh, do spare us Miss Rapp!’ She’s furious again. She calls what he’s saying a rigmarole. They don’t want to hear about Miss Rapp, she says, or Mrs. Biddle or Captain Evans or some man selling vinyl. It was absurd that the girl should have imagined she could be employed here. ‘We’re not concerned with these people. What we’re concerned about is that this girl is unstable and should be put where she can’t cause distress like this again.’

‘Pettie’s dead, Mrs. Iveson.’

A watery sunlight has begun to brighten the room, dappling the polished oak of the floor, a single beam falling across the bookcases. Outside, a blackbird tentatively begins its warble. Thaddeus has not witnessed his mother-in-law’s anger before. Replacing at last the hall’s rewound blind, Maidment has not either.

Mrs. Iveson herself, startled by what has just been said, senses an inner reprimand, even though her anger is still potent. The boy looks at her foolishly, his dark hair wet, his ill-fitting uniform seeming as ridiculous as the woman he spoke of said, his face gone empty, registering nothing.

No more than fifteen or so, Thaddeus remembers thinking, that girl in her grubby yellow jacket before she took it off on the afternoon of the interview. Her skirt rose up when she sat on the sofa, and she didn’t pull it down. ‘You’ve had a journey for nothing,’ he said the second time she came, and she said no, not for nothing. In the nursery, when she stood so close to him, he knew and didn’t want to know, darkening a truth that came from outside his life, hurrying on, away from it.

‘Dead?’ he says, in confusion, unable to suppress the thought that death surely does not beget death, as it seems to have this summer.

‘They bulldozed down the Morning Star, sir. I saw her in the brick and stuff lifted away. I saw Pettie in the sky.’

Rubble swung across the sky in its great metal bucket is brought to Zenobia, and Maidment sits down at the kitchen table, upset. Nausea spreads in his stomach, where drama at a remove brings usually a ripple of pleasure.