Death of a Salesperson (14 page)

‘It's my big criteria,' she said, ‘to tell a good hotel from a second-rater. That's none of your cheap stuff—' and she waved her pudgy hand at the pot—‘because there's no question of skimping here.'

When they'd paid their bill, Herbie humped their luggage to the car—just the one small case, because Herbie hated lugging heavy cases, and considered it shortened your life span—and they set off again.

‘People are silly, giving up good English breakfasts,' said Annie as they drove out of the hotel drive. ‘They set you up for the day.'

She slipped into her mouth a piece of chocolate nougat and chewed contentedly.

‘That meal last night,' she said, ‘the pork Wellington, would have been one of the last good meals your dad ever ate. Apart from the ones I cooked him, of course. The
very
last meal he ate out. He liked eating out, your dad. I never knew a better judge of whether he'd had value for money.'

‘Wasn't any point in him eating out, not after his Attack,' said Herbie. ‘Not with the sort of stuff he was allowed to eat.'

‘No. Imagine going into an Italian restaurant and saying
“I want a nice piece of boiled fish, and some boiled potatoes to go with it.” They'd have split their sides laughing.'

‘I don't think Dad had the
heart
to eat out again,' said Herbie.

‘That's it. It was funny, really. Do you remember that mini-cruise we took to Norway—ooh, back in '70 or '71 it must have been—and how Dad hated all that boiled fish and boiled potatoes we had? It was boiled potatoes with every meal, wasn't it? Just the most uninteresting way of having potatoes,
I
always say. Your dad was really disgusted, considering the price we'd paid. And then when he comes out of hospital, to have to have boiled fish and boiled potatoes and all that horrible invalid food. It was almost as if the doctor who drew up the diet sheet knew about Dad's likes and dislikes, and was trying to get his own back . . . Because your dad was not an easy patient . . . Short-tempered . . .'

‘Well, you was very good to him, Ma. You cooked it all for him, didn't you?'

‘I did, though it turned my stomach sometimes, quite apart from the extra work. I mean, the only thing we could've eaten that was on his diet was the shepherd's pie, and he wasn't to have that more than once a week. So there was his little messes to do, on top of the things for ourselves . . . It was pitiful watching him eating it . . .'

‘And watching
him
watching
us
, eh, Ma?'

Annie Monkton gurgled a little laugh.

‘Well, he
was
a picture, I'll give you that. But I still think it was diabolical, that diet sheet. It can't have been necessary. I'm no doctor, but I do know a grown man's got to eat enough to keep body and soul together. To see him sitting there with his pea soup, and the rusk he was suppose to have with it, while we were tucking in to the steak pizzaiola with the sauté potatoes and the baked aubergines—well, I said at the time it wasn't right.'

‘I think it was the sweets that got him most, Ma. That
Peach Melba you used to make, with the thick whipped cream and the black cherry jam on top. He used to look at that, gaze you might say, like he was transfixed, like he begrudged us every mouthful . . . We haven't had your Peach Melba lately, have we, Ma?'

‘Here, don't go so fast,' said Annie, as they sped along the shores of Lake Windermere. ‘We don't want to get to Keswick too early for lunch.'

They both had fresh salmon for lunch, with French fries, peas and beans. ‘You pay for Scottish salmon,' said Herbie, ‘but it does have that touch of class.' The thought of how much they'd paid for the salmon made them shake their heads reluctantly over the cheese and walnut gâteau. Afterwards they both had a little nap in the car park of the Keswick hotel where they'd eaten, and then Herbie got out his map and they decided where to stay for the night, nibbling at a little bag of savoury sticks. It was a question of whether to go over to Buttermere and then on to the coast and stay at Whitehaven, or whether to take a leisurely trip around Ullswater and overnight at Penrith.

‘I'd go for Penrith,' said Annie. ‘The Borderer at Penrith. I've got a fancy to try their venison again. I know it's extravagant, but we
are
on holiday.'

Annie had woken from her nap with her mind greatly refreshed.

‘Do you know,' she said as they started, ‘I don't think they put as much fruit in fruit and nut chocolate as they used to. Or as much nut, come to that.'

‘That's the way the cookie crumbles,' said Herbie, not altogether appositely.

They drove along the north shores of Ullswater, passing as they did so, though without seeing them, several hosts of golden daffodils.

‘This is a good road now,' said Herbie, increasing the speed. ‘A sight better than when we first came up, eh, Ma? Then you really had to dawdle round, because of the potholes.'

But his mother's mind was on other things.

‘I didn't
really
enjoy your father's gazing at us eating, like he used to after his Attack,' she said, switching from the fruit and nut to the peppermint fondant. ‘I'm not cruel, you know that, Herbie. In fact, though it was a bit of a laugh at first, after a time I found it really put me off my food. Being watched like that. I just wasn't enjoying it any more. I remember sitting there eating a slice of one of my homemade pork pies—with all that lovely jelly, just as I like it—and your dad was toying with his omelette and looking at my plate greedily (because, not to speak ill of the dead, he could be greedy, your dad), and I thought: I can't enjoy this like I should be doing, not with him looking on like he wanted to grab every forkful from me. It was as much as I could do to finish it.'

‘Perhaps he should have ate separately, Ma.'

‘That would have been like putting him into an insulation ward. No, no, we was a family, and we ate as a family . . . I must say I was glad when they said he could start relaxing the diet.'

Herbie shifted into lower gear up a hill, and dipped into his bag of salt and vinegar flavoured crisps.

‘I think they meant gradually, Ma.'

‘Well, of course! That was how we went, wasn't it? The whole of the first week we hardly changed his old diet at all. I just gave him a bit of stewed apple or a tiny bit of jam roly-poly for afters. I said to him, I said: “Keep well
under
for the first few days, then you can go
over
on Sunday, have a bit of a blow-out.”'

Herbie was quiet for a bit, then he said:

‘Well, he enjoyed it, I will say that.'

‘Oh, he did. He'd been looking forward to it all week. You could feel the juices running. We talked it all over, you know. There was the lobster pâté, which was his favourite as starters, with the little fingers of buttered toast. Then there was the pork steaks with the mushroom cream sauce that he loved, and the scalloped potatoes and the glazed
carrots and the cauliflower in cheese sauce. Then there was the Madeira chocolate cake with the sherry cream topping—the one I got the recipe for out of
Woman's Own.
We'd planned it all. It was a lovely meal.'

‘A meal fit for a king,' admitted Herbie.

‘And I didn't make any trouble over cooking it, though none of it was convenience foods. I had to do it all with my own hands, but it was a pleasure to me to do it. I loved cooking it for him.

‘And he loved eating it,' said Herbie. ‘Even the chocolate cake.'

‘Well, it was the best I'd ever made. I thought so myself when I ate up the rest the next day. It was perfection. Maybe it was
so
good that in a way he . . . couldn't stand it.'

‘It wasn't a bad way to go,' said Herbie.

‘It was a very
good
way to go. I hope I go like that when my time comes. And it was quick too. We'd hardly got him upstairs into the bed before he was gone. A darned sight better than lingering, that's what
I
say.'

‘It's what I'd call a good death.'

‘So would I. And I'd have been almost happy about it, if it hadn't been for that bleeding doctor,' said Annie, getting almost agitated, and taking out of her handbag a tiny handkerchief, which she dabbed at her eyes.

‘Dr Causeley?' said Herbert, surprised. ‘He never said anything out of turn in the bedroom.'

‘No. It was when he came downstairs. I never told you this, son, because I thought it would make you wild. I'd gone downstairs, being upset, to have a bit of a weep by the fire in the dining-room. And he came downstairs and he came in, and he was just starting to say something when—well, you see, the plates with the sweets was still on the table, with his bit of chocolate cake still unfinished, which had gone to my heart when I came in, and he saw that, and he saw the other plates which was piled on the sideboard, and he looked at them—in
spect
ed I'd call it, in a thoroughly
nasty way that he'd no call to adopt—and he said had he been eating this? and I said yes, and explained we'd been sort of saving up on the calories, so he could have one good blow-out. And he said, “What exactly did he have?” and so I told him. And do you know what he said?'

‘No, Ma. What did he say?'

‘He said: “That meal killed him as surely as if you'd laced it with strychnine.”'

Herbie didn't go wild, but he thought for a bit.

‘That wasn't very nice of him.'

‘It was diabolical. You could have knocked me down with a feather! Me just widowed not five minutes since.'

‘It was a liberty. These professional people take too much on themselves.'

‘They do. Your dad always said that. It was a wicked, cruel thing to say. And you notice he never had any doubt about signing the death certificate . . . That's why I changed my doctor . . . I never could fancy going back to Dr Causeley after that . . . I know I haven't got anything to reproach myself with . . .'

They went quiet for a bit, and Annie Monkton found a sucky sweet in her bag and comforted herself with that. Quite soon they were drawing up in the courtyard of the Borderer. Herbie got out, and made sure they'd got rooms. Luckily the tourist season was only just beginning. He came back smiling.

‘Couldn't be better. Two nice singles. I took a peek at the dinner menu, Ma. You'll be able to have the venison. I've worked up an appetite, so I think I'm going to fancy the mixed grill.'

As he took the case from the boot and they started towards the main door, Annie's good humour returned. She nudged Herbie with her fat arm.

‘It's nice being on our own, though, isn't it, son?'

‘I
don't know I'm sure,' said Bessie Hargreaves, shaking her head. It was a white head, but the gentle curls suggested that she was a woman who would never willingly let herself go. ‘I've never heard of such a thing.'

‘Oh, it's a very well-established scheme,' said young Mr Bateson from the Probation Office brightly. He meant to reassure her, but he only filled her with the realization that she was very out of touch with contemporary life. ‘It's part of the process of rehabilitation. They're only minor offenders, and they're put to work of local usefulness instead of sending them to jail. You see, what they learn in jail can often turn them into criminals for life, whereas with this scheme they're doing something constructive—it's almost like learning a trade.'

‘I suppose that's true,' admitted Mrs Hargreaves.

‘This lad I was thinking of sending along to help you with the redecoration: he's just a young football hooligan—'

‘I wouldn't want anyone violent,' Bessie Hargreaves said quickly.

‘Oh, he's nothing worse than destructive. With all this youth unemployment around, it's sometimes the only way they can express themselves. It's their way of getting through to society—you can almost see it as
con
structive, in a sense. And he's quite a handy lad. The house could do with a bit of maintenance and a lick of paint,' he added, looking around in his casually insulting way, ‘as I'm sure you'd agree.'

‘I've done what I could,' said Bessie Hargreaves defensively. Then she admitted: ‘It has been let go a bit.'

‘It could be made very nice.'

‘We'd only been married five years when my husband
died, you see. It's been a struggle to keep it on, even though it's only a terrace house. I could never afford to have the work done . . .'

‘We'd share the cost of the materials,' said the young man, ‘and of course the labour would be free. It would work out very well for you. Now, what do you say?'

Bessie Hargreaves sat looking at her hands, shaking her head almost imperceptibly. Finally she said: ‘I suppose it'd be what you might call a good deed.'

‘It would. It would indeed.'

She took a deep breath.

‘All right. You can send him along.'

Bessie Hargreaves quite enjoyed going round to the Do It Yourself centre that was ten minutes away, and choosing paint and a bit of wallpaper for her own bedroom. She kept telling herself it was as long as she could remember since anything had been done to the house. But all the time there was, niggling at the back of her mind, this worry about the young man who was coming. What would he be like? And she told herself that it was the situation that worried her. Something new, something . . . almost, it seemed, threatening. Already she found that in her mind she was calling him ‘the thug'. She would be glad when it was over.

She was sweeping the kitchen floor on Wednesday morning when he arrived, not more than ten minutes after the appointed time. He was a strong, thickset young man of about twenty, uncouth yet perhaps not ill-intentioned. He walked in his heavy shoes over her newly-swept floor, but then said ‘Sorry' and took them off in the hall. She swept up the little scraps of mud, then went into the hall, almost shyly.