Quartet in Autumn (19 page)

Letty had realized by now that Mrs Pope's words invariably did have to be marked. 'I should like to go and see her,' she said, but uncertainly, for she did not really want to visit Marcia in hospital, only felt that she ought to want to.

'You won't be able to do that,' said Mrs Pope.

'I suppose not, as things are at present. I must think of something to send her, apart from flowers.' But what? she wondered, remembering Marcia as she had last seen her. Toilet water, talcum powder, some really nice soap — these were the things Letty herself would have liked if she had been in hospital, but would Marcia? 'Perhaps a book,' she said doubtfully.

'A book?' Mrs Pope's tone rang out scornfully. 'What would she want with a book if she's not allowed visitors?'

'No, perhaps she wouldn't be able to read,' Letty admitted. And had Marcia ever read anyway, ever been seen with a book? Her visits to the library had been for quite other purposes. She was the kind of person who would say that she didn't have time to read — yet hadn't she once, surprisingly, quoted a tag of poetry, some left-over fragment of her school days that had stuck in her memory? Perhaps a book of poetry, then, a paperback with a pretty cover, nothing modern, of course ... Letty toyed with this idea but in the end she decided on a bottle of lavender water, the kind of thing that could be dabbed on the brow of a patient not allowed visitors.

If she's as bad as I think she is,' Mrs Pope went on, 'she won't notice whether you send her anything or not. And you are a pensioner — don't forget that.'

'All the same, I do feel I'd like to send her something,' Letty said, irritated by Mrs Pope's attitude. 'After all, we did work together all those years.' Two women working together in an office, she thought, even if they didn't become dose friends, would have a special kind of tie linking them
-
all the dull routine, the petty grumbles and the shared irritation of the men.

'I thought it was only two or three years,' said Mrs Pope. Not a long time.'

'Yes, but it was an important stage in our lives,' said Letty, deciding definitely on lavender water.

Lavender. Mr Strong detected the scent of it above the hospital smells. It reminded him of his grandmother, not at all the kind of thing one associated with Miss Ivory, but on the other hand why should he have been surprised that Miss Ivory should smell of lavender? The really surprising thing was that he should have noticed anything at all like that about a patient, but the scent, that powerful evocator of memory, had caught him unaware, and for a brief moment he — consultant surgeon at this eminent London teaching hospital and with a lucrative private practice in Harley Street — was a boy of seven again.

Somebody had been fussing over her, tidying her up because Mr Strong was coming round, and we wanted to look tidy for Mr Strong, didn't we? There was a cool, wet feeling on her forehead. Somebody — Betty or Letty, was it, on the card? — had sent her this nice lavender water, such a lovely fresh smell, like a country garden. Miss Ivory had a garden, hadn't she, and did she have lavender in her garden? Marcia hadn't been able to remember whether she had or not; she only remembered the catmint at the bottom of the garden and how she hadn't been able to find Snowy's grave. All that time she had watched him growing cold until the fleas left his body, and now she couldn't find his grave. It would have been much more to the point if Nigel from next door had helped her to find that rather than fuss about cutting her grass which didn't really need cutting because she preferred it that way; it kept people out. One afternoon, she couldn't exactly remember when, she had caught Norman spying on her, hanging about in the road. She regretted now that she hadn't gone up to him and challenged him, asked him what he thought he was doing, loitering with intent, outside her house. Another time, when she had first gone to work in the office, she had followed him one lunchtime all the way to the British Museum, up the steps and along to that place where they had the mummies, and seen him sitting looking at the mummified animals with a crowd of school children. She had gone away, not knowing what to think ... After that she had taken to making him coffee because it seemed silly for them each to get a tin when the big economy size was so much cheaper ... But after that? She was confused — nothing seemed to have happened after that. She moved her head restlessly from side to side. She thought she could see the chaplain coming towards her, the hospital chaplain, or was it the trendy vicar from the church at the end of the road? They were both young, with that long hair. No, it was neither; it was Mr Strong's houseman; his name was Brian. It was nice the way Mr Strong called all the young doctors by their Christian names — Brian and Geoffrey and Tom and Martin, and Jennifer, the only girl among them
.

The young doctor bent over Marcia. He didn't like the look of her at all — indeed she was the kind of patient one didn't like the look of at the best of times. Luckily Mr Strong was still around and it took only a minute to get him back again. He had been very concerned about Miss Ivory and would want to be around if anything happened.

Mr Strong was still wearing that green tie — was it the same tie or did he just like the colour green? It had a small, close design on it. His rather bushy eyebrows were drawn together over his grey eyes in a frown. He always seemed to be frowning — had she done something wrong? Not eaten enough, perhaps? His eyes seemed to bore into her — the piercing eyes of the surgeon, did people say that? No, it was rather the surgeon's hands that people noticed and commented on, like the hands of a pianist when, at a concert, people tried to sit where they could see the pianist's hands. But in a sense the surgeon was just as much of an artist, that beautiful neat scar ... Marcia remembered what her mother used to say, how she would never let the surgeon's knife touch her body. How ridiculous that seemed when one considered Mr Strong!... Marcia smiled and the frown left his face and he seemed to be smiling back at her.

The chaplain, on his way to visit Miss Ivory, was told that he was too late. 'Miss Ivory's gone, passed on...' The words rang in his head like a television advertisement jingle, but he prayed for the repose of her soul and nerved himself for the meeting with her next of kin and other relatives. But the man he eventually saw didn't seem to be any relation at all, just a 'friend' who was stepping into the breach, as it were. Somebody who had worked in the same office. Rather surprisingly, he held the view that there was nothing to reproach oneself with for not having been able to prevent death when, for the Christian, it was so much to be desired. Everything concerning Miss Ivory was settled with calm efficiency, without recriminations and certainly without tears, and that was a great relief
.

Twenty

C
HAPELS
OF
R
EPOSE
or Rest, is that what they call them?' said Norman. 'The place where the deceased is put,' he added awkwardly, not quite accustomed to thinking of Marcia dead.

'It's rather nice,' Letty murmured, 'to put it like that, the idea of resting.' When her mother had died the body had remained in the house before the funeral. Letty could only remember feeling drained of emotion and worried about practical details, distant relatives suddenly appearing, and the arrangements for their lunch.

'Well, here we are all together today, just like we used to be,' said Edwin, but the others made no comment, for it was not quite like they used to be.

The three of them were having a cup of coffee in Edwin's house before the funeral service at the crematorium, for which he had made all the arrangements. Marcia's death had of course brought them closer together, for they were remembering their past association and perhaps wondering whether one of them would be the next to go, but not too seriously because they were all in good health and they had known about Marcia's operation and what it could lead to. The most important thing was that they were seeing Edwin's house for the first time, never having been invited into it before. Death has done this, Letty thought, looking around her with a woman's critical eye at the old-fashioned embroidered cushion covers and chair backs — Phyllis's work on those long evenings when Edwin was at meetings of the parochial church council? Norman's reflections were more of a practical and financial nature — that Edwin could take a lodger or even two and get quite a nice bit coming in per week for a business gentleman, perhaps sharing the kitchen. Not that he would fancy sharing with Edwin if it came to that, which it obviously wouldn't. The fact that Edwin lived in this house alone meant that he had no need of extra cash, that he wouldn't be dependent on his pension when the time came.

It was a long car ride to the crematorium in the south-east corner of London, and as time went on conversation between the three of them began to flow more easily.

'After all,' Edwin pointed out, 'we're taking Marcia with us, we must think of it like that, and she wouldn't be saying much anyway, so we can talk between ourselves in the ordinary way.'

This invitation to ordinary talk seemed to stun them into silence, then Letty made a remark about the roses, still beautiful in a garden they happened to be passing.

'Little did we think, that time we all had lunch together,' said Edwin.

Poor old girl — she seemed a bit round the bend then, didn't she?' said Norman.

'I suppose that must have been the beginning of the end,' said Letty. 'She hardly ate anything, just a bit of salad.'

'Oh, well, she was never a big eater,' said Norman, as if he was the only one to be let into this secret. 'She often used to say.'

'Living alone sometimes makes people not bother about meals,' said Edwin, almost as if solitude was a state that none of them had experience of.

'I always see to it that I get one good meal a day,' said Letty.

'Mrs Pope lets you use her kitchen, of course,' said Edwin. 'Do you use your own cooking utensils?'

'I have a couple of non-stick saucepans and my own omelette pan,' said Letty, hurrying over the words, for she felt that the conversation was getting rather too ordinary now and she did not want to hear about Norman's frying pan.

'Oh, I just shove everything into the frying pan,' Norman said, as she knew he would. 'Omelettes and all. Not that you can really call it an omelette, the kind of egg thing I make.'

The hearse was gathering speed now, so the car following could step on it a bit, Norman thought. It was quite clever the way they did it, gradually increasing the speed. It would be a skilled form of driving, that, and no doubt the cars were automatic. Ken would know and it might be something to talk to him about next time they met; conversation was not his strong point except where it concerned the motor car.

'Are we nearly there?' Letty asked. 'I don't know this part of London.'

'I brought Phyllis here,' said Edwin, in a matter-of-fact way. It's the nearest crematorium for where I live.'

'Oh, yes, of course.' Letty was momentarily embarrassed but Edwin did not seem to be affected by the memory of his dead wife, only going on to say that they had had a service at the church first which had been very well attended.

Edwin consulted his watch. 'Eleven thirty is our time,' he said, 'and I think they work to a pretty tight schedule. Oh, there's Father G.'s car just in front — he must have nipped past us at the traffic lights.'

'Crossed on the amber, I shouldn't wonder,' said Norman.

'This must be it,' said Letty, relieved that the end of the drive seemed to be in sight. 'Those gates ahead of us?'

'Yes, that's it,' Edwin confirmed.

'What we all come to,' Norman said.

'Poor
Miss Ivory,' Priscilla whispered to Janice. 'I'm glad I was able to come, neighbours, and all that — and to give you moral support' Janice was not sure that she liked the way Priscilla had put it, as if she
needed
moral support, but probably she had just meant for the service at the crematorium which wasn't an everyday thing. For there was no question of Janice needing moral support in any other way. The discovery of Miss Ivory's slumped body in the kitchen and her subsequent death in hospital, although unusual, not to say unfortunate, in no way reflected on the social services and there could be no implication of neglect on Janice's part. Death was the end of all things, the culmination of life, and so it was for Marcia Ivory, a fitting conclusion to her story — something that could be quoted in years to come as an example of the kind of difficulties encountered by the voluntary social worker. It was impossible to help some people, to guide them in the way they should go for their own good, and Miss Ivory had certainly been one of those. Janice's thoughts clothed themselves in the language of a report, for it did appear from what one of the doctors at the hospital had said that Miss Ivory had quite definitely been in a terminal situation, even before her last collapse. The only trouble was that there might possibly have been a lack of liaison, that Miss Ivory might be said to have fallen through the net, that dreaded phrase
...

Letty, noticing Janice and Priscilla in their rather too bright everyday clothes, realized that she need not have worried about not having anything suitable for a funeral — obviously younger people didn't take any notice of that kind of thing nowadays. Her dark-blue dress and jacket was sober, but hardly mourning; the saleswoman where she bought it had called the colour 'French navy', which seemed to add an old-fashioned touch of frivolity. The men were of course wearing black ties, for presumably a black tie was the kind of thing a man always had or could easily obtain.

Requiescat in pace,
and may light perpetual shine upon her, Edwin thought. It had been a good idea to get Father G. to officiate at the brief service. He could ensure that things were done decently and in order, which one rather suspected some of these clergy officiating at crematoria, having to do one funeral after another, didn't always achieve. He was glad to see that that social worker and the neighbour had put in an appearance, it was the least they could do, but undoubtedly it was just as well it had been him and Father G., rather than them or poor old Norman, who had discovered Marcia lying like that.