All Bones and Lies (11 page)

She slipped her own attack in first. ‘You've got a ghost up every sleeve. Where have you been?'

He lost his nerve. ‘I was just looking for a bradawl in the woodshed.'

‘Don't you go stealing my tools, or I'll soon have your name crossed off my Christmas card list.'

He took the tray she was carrying, and though she hardly went up the stairs like a spring lamb, he could tell
she was finding it harder and harder to pretend she was limping. ‘Is your leg better?' he asked, with deep suspicion. Affecting not to hear him, she fought back. ‘I don't know what's the matter with me. I feel limp as a piece of chewed string.' He plunged in as close to the business worrying him as he dared. ‘Listen,' he lied. ‘I don't know what all those papers lying on the table were, but really, you'd be mad to switch companies a second time and have to go through this whole performance again in a few months.' He laid his precious September fortnight on the line. ‘I could take time off work and be around while Mr Herbert's men are doing it.'

‘Oh, wouldn't you be everybody's star attraction!'

‘I could make sure—'

‘No. Why should I suffer a boiling of mess and noise just so your bum's on plush after the will's read?'

‘This has nothing to do with the property's value. It's to do with
insuring
it.'

‘I think that's my business.'

‘You won't be so quick to say that when your insurance company refuses to cough up because you never mentioned any special condition.' Ignoring her look of suspicion, he waggled his finger. ‘Because that's what your being asked to get this electrical safety thing is, you know. A special condition. And you won't be able to pretend to Tor Grand that you didn't know anything about it.'

‘I see you've been snooping through my post again.'

‘I'm sure I don't know what you mean.'

‘Tor Grand?'

Rumbled.

He spread his hands. ‘Well, what the hell am I
supposed
to do? Leave you to make decisions as daft as this? You won't be so happy for me to leave you to it when you're standing in a heap of charred rubble and Tor Grand won't pay you!'

‘You've put in your twopennyworth. Don't think for a moment I'll expect any help from
you
.'

To hide his flush of vexation, he bent his head over the teapot. This daft refusal to be
sensible
. This stubborn
rudeness
. How did the rest of the world steer their way round it without feeling homicidal? When old people acted like this, it wasn't even normal life slid into reverse, but something much uglier. Kids on the wasteground next to Mel turned a deaf ear to everything said to them, but all they seemed to want was not to have to call a halt to whichever anti-social game it was they were enjoying. This was more personal and to do with power. ‘All right,' she might as well have said out loud. ‘So my world's closing in. I can't make sense of that new electronic timer on the water heater. I'm scared to take a car out. And I could no more haul that great heavy old wheelbarrow out of the shed again than cycle to Guadalajara. But there's one thing I still can do. I can still watch you having to gnash your teeth as I do everything my way. And I shall.'

Small wonder granny-bashing was so popular. But even wimps like him could put their fists up in their own weak way. ‘I'd no idea you were so confident you had so many other good friends around, ready to offer help in emergencies. Perhaps you'd ask one of them to take the mower for its annual service. And another to fix that hinge on the shutter that you say has been annoying you.'

‘If doing me one or two tiny favours is such a trial, I'd rather be six feet under.'

‘Sadly, it's not that easy to fold yourself up neatly and disappear,' he said, regretting the words instantly, since it manifestly was. Look at his father. One last kind, wordless pat on Colin's head, one last attempt to show Dil how to tie a proper sheepshank, and he'd slid out the door, never to return – except as a gentle ghost striding through Colin's rich imaginary life, and an occasional dizzying vision of a horizontally revolving skeleton. ‘You realize your father would be turning in his grave if—'

He risked a glance to see if his sharp response had triggered dread memory. But she was busy mumbling. ‘Lord knows, I didn't expect the rainbow trail to stretch all the way to the horizon. But if I'd had the faintest idea what a cindery path I was going to be asked to tread, I would have wished to have been gathered into glory's arms a long, long while ago.'

He nearly retorted, ‘Well, don't for a moment think you'd have been wishing it alone!' Then, fighting the very same surge of self-pity he'd just been despising in her, it struck him that it couldn't only be the two of them. Out there, there must be thousands who shared this feeling. Millions, over the world. After all, just as the last guests at a party never knew when to go, Death never knew when to arrive. Someone, he thought, should have the courage to air this issue properly. On radio, perhaps. Or even telly. A panel discussion, a bit like
The Moral Maze
, but to soften any unpleasantness they could give the programme's name a lighter, maybe even a literary, spin. What was the line from that Hardy poem Mrs Hunter
forced him to learn as a punishment for horsing about when Talbot pushed his head through that window?
‘Till the Spinner of the Years Said “Now!”'
That might work well. It could be launched at a slot around midnight, when all the real complainers had gone to bed. As it became cult viewing, it would be shifted to a popular hour. Fans would begin to call it
Now!
for short. There'd have to be at least four panel members. Some would be regulars, others one-off guests. And, as the chairman might say winsomely each week during the introduction, ‘To be a good deal more blunt than the scissors with which Fate finally snips the thread of life,' they would discuss the stage at which there was really no point any longer. ‘Our panel's first case this evening is Mr Eric Fanshawe. Mr Fanshawe has been in a wheelchair for eight years now – I've got that right, haven't I, Eric? It is eight? But now the doctor's put him on such a high dose of steroids that he can no longer – bleh, bleh, bleh.' At the end of each discussion, there'd be a studio audience vote.
Now!?
Or,
Not Yet!?
Nothing would hang on it, of course. But it would give these burgeoning hospital ethical committees food for thought. And, if you added on a national phone-in, you could begin to take the pulse of the country on these matters, and, what with the steadily rising number of elderly, that sort of thing could be ever more useful . . .

‘Colin!'

‘Sorry?'

‘Was that a knock?'

‘I didn't hear a thing.'

Her look gave him to understand that that proved nothing. ‘Go and take a peek.' Dutifully, he stepped over
Flossie and edged closer to the window. ‘My God!' It was Perdita on the doorstep. She was wearing the smartest of summer suits and clutching flowers, and spangles of sunlight were dancing all over her. ‘Who
is
it?' hissed his mother from her chair. He panicked. ‘Elsie.' ‘That nosy witch? Don't let her see you.' But it was too late. Stepping back in a pool of bright sunshine in order to look up and appraise the guttering, Perdita had spotted his shadow.

‘Hell-ooo!'

‘That doesn't sound like Elsie.'

‘Well, now I come to take a closer look . . .'

‘Oh, really!' In her exasperation she made it to the door well before him, and slammed it in his face. Relieved, he crept back to the window. It didn't take his mother long to get down the stairs, and Perdita was clearly quite happy inspecting the state of the chimneys. He strained to hear, as voices floated upwards. Perdita's vague mention of ‘simply passing by . . .' matched by his mother's less airy-fairy ‘not really at all convenient . . .' Perdita's gushing ‘. . . to thank you for taking the trouble of watching my television programme . . .' as she tried to hand over the flowers. His mother's adroit mention of allergies as, fully in practice refusing umbrella holders, she made absolutely no move to accept them. Perdita's sly sidetrack towards the weather ‘. . . makes one so
dry
. . .' that was greeted with a silence like nerve gas. Oh, how he admired his mother! He'd have been grovelling round the kitchen by now, offering their unwelcome visitor a choice of beverage.

And then, the clincher. Perdita's reference to ‘a little chat', and Norah, the sunlight beating on her scalp,
murmuring, ‘Perhaps another time, when the weather's better . . .' By the time she came back, he was ready to hug her. But she was spitting poison. ‘The cheek of it! Up my path, bold as a crab. The little hussy needn't think there's any point sweeping
my
doorstep with her eyelashes.'

‘Who was it?' he asked, keen, this time, to do a much better job of allaying suspicion.

‘How should
I
know? Some woman with a bucketful of hair trying to dredge up viewers for her telly programme. Really, these people have no sense at all. This house isn't even on cable.' He stared. Had she truly not recognized the face in the photograph? Or was she, as usual, working on the principle that knowledge is power, so best not to share? And what about bloody Perdita? Did she really have him logged down for such a feeble opponent she didn't even give a toss if he was in there, listening, as she started her sales pitch? Or was her greedy head so stuffed with percentages she hadn't even noticed the huge blue council lettering on the side of his van? His head was spinning. Oh, to be back in the haven of his office, with only Clarrie's sporadic howls of technologically related anguish and hourly tranches of embittered messages from Lees and Haksars to disturb and unsettle him. Colin peered out of the window – had she gone? was it safe to leave? – just as his mother appeared at his elbow. ‘So who is the pushy little madam pestering now? That black-hearted fiend next door, I hope. With luck, the over-painted little trollop will get her hair caught in his windchimes and fetch the whole noisy boiling down.'

She craned a little further. ‘Colin, is that your van cluttering up Ruby's entrance?'

‘Parked at the kerb beside her house, do you mean?'

She eyed his vehicle as keenly as Perdita had appraised the guttering. ‘You could fit quite a number of black bags in that.'

‘Black bags?'

Already she was leading the way into her dressing room. Piled on the narrow unused bed were clothes he hadn't seen for years. ‘You're never getting rid of all of these!'

‘I shan't be wanting them.'

From the huge heap he lifted a patterned silk jacket Dilys had begged for time and again. (‘Mum, it's a Tavernier! And you never even wear it!') A stab of rancour made him drop it back. Why should he worry where the jacket went? If Dilys wanted things, then she should be on hand, doing her bit. ‘Some of these things are well worth hanging on to, surely.' He held up a pair of tartan trews he remembered his mother wearing on those very rare occasions she'd agreed to a picnic. ‘You could use these for gardening.'

‘No.' She was adamant. ‘The whole lot's going out.'

‘But you'll have nothing left.' He tugged the closet open. ‘Look! It's practically
empty
.' He swung the hangers to the sides and played her tune. ‘You could at least put back this coat that Father bought you. It's lovely, warm and cheerful—'

‘And not a bit of use to me.'

She said it with such bitterness that he was startled. But then again, why shouldn't someone her age feel deep resentment? After all, what sort of sadist had designed the universe so you could burst out of cot and nursery without
a thought, leave your home town without a qualm, and make the entire world your oyster, only to find that, in a blink, the process had slid in reverse? Harder to miss the long and grim unravelling: world back to town, town down to room, room closing in to bed, and all the time, ahead of you, kept well in mind, only that final wooden lidded cot. ‘Come on,' he urged. ‘You have to keep a few smart clothes. You're not dead yet.' Spotting a shoe he remembered, he held it out. ‘What about these? You always loved them.'

Furious, she twisted it over, scraping his wrist with the stiletto tip.

No chance she'd wear a heel that high again between now and the grave. ‘Oh. I see. Sorry.'

‘It doesn't matter.' But now, of course, he had to accept the bags she thrust at him, and shovel in clothes. From time to time over the black rustling he tried to raise a cheerful memory. ‘Isn't this what you wore for Aunty Ida's wedding?' She was more than a match for him. ‘And wasn't
that
about as lively as a misers' auction! A waste of good crepe de Chine . . .' And that set him thinking. Perhaps he should be offering Mel first root through the bags, in case there was something she could salvage for Tammy. Or for herself, of course. If his mother wanted her closets cleared, that was her business. In fact, it was admirable. After all, most people were stupid enough to waste the first half of their lives gathering all sorts of paraphernalia around them, and the second half wondering where it ought to go after.

She noticed him taking a little more care with the folding and stuffing. ‘And don't forget it's for the Lifeboat
Shop. Don't you go offering it round to all your gannet friends.'

He played the old trick, dropping his head over busy hands. So typical that, in the urge to relieve her own feelings, she'd trample on his. She knew he had no friends. Now more determined than ever to give Mel the chance to root through her cast-offs in search of forgotten gems, he shouldered the bags and set off, a disgruntled Santa, down the stairs. Struggling with the catch on the front door, he swung his load against the cherished umbrella stand, sending great showers of rust flying as its bottom fell off and rolled under the coat rack. Oh, God! More bloody trouble. He could, of course, nip back round to the dustbins and swap his new find for her piece of junk. That would save his face – and hers. But then he thought, Oh, bugger it! And that was what he found exhausting – this constant swivelling between his eagerness to ease the details of his mother's life and the desire to think, ‘Who gives a
fuck
?' For the eight-millionth time he wished to heaven his twin had only had the decency – the sheer rock-bottom
fairness
, after all – to stay a part of this grim pilgrimage. At least he would have had someone with whom he could share his endless frustrations. It would have been such a comfort to have another person who really knew the house – really knew
her
– to whom he could pose the knotty questions of the hour like, ‘Should I try sneaking in the house one evening while she's out at Canasta, and do for that bloody toaster before the bloody thing does for her?' Or, ‘Is she being
unreasonable
about this new cable?' Excuses for not pitching in tripped oh, so easily off the tongues of skivers like Dilys. Hard, perhaps,
even for people who didn't find saying practically anything difficult, to stand firm and say ‘Bollocks!' He should tweak one of his television shows round till it fitted the bill. Call it
Excuses! Excuses!
These family shirkers could trolley in with all their lame pretexts for not being any help. ‘And then my youngest – that's Teddy – well, he's only four, so he takes up a lot of time.' ‘Not only is the job demanding but I have to travel a good deal.' Or, in the case of Dilys, ‘I've got this grudge I've most conveniently managed to whip up into a full-sized rift.' The studio audience, gleaned from the ranks of toiling mugginses like him, would enjoy giving them short shrift. Oh, yes! Wouldn't they soon get told, in no uncertain terms, they weren't the only people in the world who were entitled to a life.