Some Deaths Before Dying (26 page)

“It’s because we are the way we are,” said Uncle Albert. “Mind you, that’s just the half of it. We’d got about ten miles to
go, and we’d got to get Terry there somehow, though ten miles was about as much as any of us could do, never mind helping
a man along who couldn’t hardly walk a couple of steps on his own, and the Japs watching out for anyone slowing the line down,
ready to haul him out and hammer him and leave him in the ditch. But most of the way they let us drag old Terry along, turn
and turn about, one on each side with his arms round our shoulders. I thought maybe they’d eased off a bit because they’d
been impressed with Terry’s guts, but it wasn’t that at all. They were just playing with us.

“All of a sudden, when we reckoned we’d just about done it, they pushed their way in among us and grabbed Terry and started
to hammer him again. Of course we yelled at them and broke rank to try and stop them, but they’d got their guns on us before
we’d hardly moved, and we could see they meant it. So we fell back, all except the Colonel. He just walked up to Terry regardless
and bent down to pick him up.

“And then one of the Japs brought his butt crashing down on the back of his head and knocked him flat and half of them kept
their guns on us while the others kicked and hammered the Colonel where he lay.

“Then they shoved us back into line and marched us on, broken men, broken men. Half of us wouldn’t have lasted the time we
had, nothing like, without the Colonel, and we knew it. And that night, lying in our sheds, I could hear men sobbing in the
dark.

“Only somewhere in the middle of the night the Colonel came crawling into the camp with Terry on his back. He’d tied his arms
round his neck with his belt so he could drag him along. The Japs just flung them into the shed with the rest of us. And they
had them both working on the road next day, but this time they let us cover for them a bit. More than a bit. I met a Jap one
time—after the war this was—and I told him about this, and he said it was because they’d been impressed by an officer doing
that for one of his men. I don’t know, myself. I could never figure the bastards out.”

He sat back and drank his tea again.

“Thank you,” said Nell. “Terry told me some of that, but of course it wasn’t from his own memory. It’s never the same as when
someone has actually seen it happen. Now we must test the scones. I know the jam to be excellent.”

The reminiscence seemed to have exhausted Uncle Albert’s conversational energies, but he sat and munched and listened benignly
while Nell talked about her own memories of her uncle. Gradually, as she did so, though her diction remained as precise as
ever, the underlying oddity of some of her vowels became more noticeable, but at the same time less odd, once the connection
had been made to the childhood of which she spoke.

She had been born in Whitechapel, just as the war was ending, into a family belonging to the Elect of God, one of those rigid,
highly exclusive millenarian sects, the thought of which gave Jenny the shudders—far worse than the blanketing Anglicanism
that her own grandparents had practised, and against which her mother had reacted with total impatience of anything to do
with religion.

Nell’s family had been very poor. The sect’s principles forbade them the use of money that they hadn’t earned by their own
labour, so they wouldn’t accept any kind of welfare payment or charitable help. If they had been permitted, they would have
let their children die rather than use the National Health system. Their women were not allowed to work for wages. All this
was justified by close reading of the Authorised Version.

They did, however, acknowledge a duty to look after their own. Nell’s father was a cobbler, but he died when she was five,
leaving her mother with her and two younger brothers and no income at all. The sect, in their own phrase, “took pity on her,”
that is to say she became a virtual domestic slave in the house of her in-laws, who, when there wasn’t work to keep her busy
all day, loaned her to other members of the sect in the same capacity. Nell now thought that at least one of the men took
advantage of this situation, but her mother had been too cowed to complain.

The mother had converted into the Elect, which was sometimes permitted when no suitable brides were available from within
it. Nell believed she had married to escape from her own family, which was a branch of one of the criminal clans which then
governed the underworld of the East End. Her father had been a professional hard man and frightener, notorious for his violence,
and her only protector in her childhood and youth had been her older brother, Terry. When she was fifteen he was sent to prison
for the first time, and offered a way out she took it, marrying illegally, and without the consent of her parents.

They made no effort to get her back. She was one fewer mouth to feed, and was never going to be handsome enough to earn worthwhile
money on the streets. On her admittance to the sect she was “made new,” and nothing in her past was of any interest to them,
so when Terry sought her out on leaving prison he was not welcomed. He was an ingratiating character, however, and managed
to persuade the elders that his main interest was in their beliefs. Luckily for him they didn’t accept male converts, but
had a category of “Tolerables,” who, if they remained faithful, would not be fully saved when the Lord destroyed sinful humanity,
causing them to die of thirst by removing the sea (Revelation 21:1) but would be allowed to toil in a sort of underheaven,
or celestial basement, doing such tasks as emptying the latrines, a necessary consequence of the full resurrection of the
body.

(“They’d thought it all out, you see,” said Nell. “That’s the great weakness of systematic religion, the conviction that one
can know everything.”)

Surprisingly there were almost a dozen of these hangers-on, some of them regular attenders at services and meetings, where
they stood behind a rail just inside the door, some more occasional. Moreover their earnings were “purified by faith” and
they were thus allowed—indeed expected—to contribute to the finances of the sect. So Terry could help his sister, buying clothes
for her and the children, and bringing them permitted treats, such as raisin buns, though not the ones with sugar icing, which
were forbidden by a text in Leviticus.

Terry took a particular interest in Nell, declaring from the first that she was a bright kid, and doing all he could to help
and encourage her. The sect were forced by law to send their children to state schools, but removed them as soon as they were
able to, in those days at fourteen. By that point Nell had won her first scholarship, to a local grammar school, but that
made no difference to the sect’s plans for her, which were to bring her home, keep her there, and at sixteen to marry her
to one of the men to bear his children and drudge for him.

Terry, having told only Nell what he was doing, arrived one morning with a parcel of gifts. As soon as the door was opened
to take it in he forced his way through, while two of his friends appeared to hold the door and prevent anyone in the house
going to find help. It was all over in a few minutes. Terry collected his sister and the family’s few belongings and drove
off in the van in which they’d come to the basement flat he had rented for her. He went with her to collect the boys from
their school. Nell found her own way to the new home.

A fortnight later Terry was in prison, awaiting trial for robbery with violence. He had left funds with a local solicitor
to pay the rent and provide a weekly allowance for the next four years, the sentence he expected and received.

“He never had that kind of money,” said Nell, “and he didn’t go in for that kind of crime. From things he said later I believe
that he took a rap for a man called Dan Brent, whose brother was a major vice racketeer. I doubt the police really believed
that Terry was guilty, but he had confessed and they knew they’d get a conviction. I think the money was what Dan’s brother
paid him for the confession. He didn’t do it for my mother or my brothers. He did it for me, so that I could go on with my
schooling.”

“Were you happy in the flat?” said Jenny.

“Not particularly. I was happy to continue at school, but I missed Terry. My mother cooked and cleaned, to some extent, but
she couldn’t cope with the responsibility of dealing with money and being on her own. I had to see to all that. And my brothers
were too conditioned to the Elect. They had not had too bad a time there. Boys were much more considerately treated than girls.
After a couple of years my mother received an offer of marriage from one of the Elect, a widower who needed somebody to keep
house, so she moved back and took my brothers with her. I refused to go, and the Elect didn’t insist. I think they knew they
couldn’t keep me, and I would be trouble in the meanwhile. My teachers found somebody to take me in, and Terry’s money paid
for my upkeep. When he came out of prison there was enough left for him to rent another flat, and I moved in and kept house
for him until I went to university. I converted to the Church of England in my first year, and he was the only member of my
family who came to the service.”

Uncle Albert had listened benignly if uncomprehendingly (Jenny guessed) to Nell’s story. The mention of the church service
caught his interest. He chuckled.

“So you’re a bishop now,” he said. “I wonder what odds the bookies would have given me on that—Terry’s little Nell becoming
a bishop. When’s the service, then? I’ll come and see you do your stuff.”

Nell looked at her watch.

“Evensong’s at half past six,” she said. “I shall need to go in twenty minutes. Of course you can come if you want to. What
do you think, Jenny?”

Jenny had enjoyed the outing, but by now she was beginning to ache for home, alone for the evening with Jeff. And a church
service …

“Suppose I were to run Bert back to Hastings after the service,” said Nell. “I shall need to cancel an appointment, but it
isn’t urgent. Then you could go straight home after the service, and you would be no later than you had intended. Or you could
leave now, and I will find someone reliable to look after Bert until I have ‘done my stuff.’”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ll be glad to. Bert, Jenny must get home to her family, so you will stay with me for a little and then I’ll take you to
the church, and when the service is over I’ll drive you home and we can talk some more. First I want a quick word with Jenny,
so if you will sit where you are and finish your tea, we’ll go into my study. It’s just across the passage if you need us.
Is that all right?”

“You go ahead and do what you want, Nell,” said Uncle Albert.

With his usual formality he rose and held the door for them. Nell led the way into a room which, though far more of a mess
than the sitting room, was in its very mess more coherent, a room with a purpose, a workplace, with stacks of papers, piles
and shelves of books, and a PC on the desk. She turned to Jenny.

“This will take only a moment,” she said. “I have thought about your letter, and having seen you both I would like to think
about it a little more before making up my mind how much I feel I can help you. I’ll write to you in the next few days. I
hope this isn’t a disappointment after the trouble you’ve taken bringing Bert to see me.”

“Oh, no. It’s been absolutely worth it. Uncle Albert’s having a wonderful time. Perhaps I can bring him over again one day.
And I’m terribly grateful you’re taking him home. I never seem to get enough time with Jeff, and it’ll be worse now I’m working
again.”

“You must bring him next time. I will arrange for a cat-free environment. Now, if you will just tell me how to find the place
where Bert is living—I know Hastings reasonably well.”

“
W
hat do you mean, unnerving? That’s what you said about Mrs. Matson.”

“Did I? No, I said she was disturbing, or something. They’re completely different. Nell was very friendly and polite and wonderful
with Uncle Albert, and she’s obviously very bright, brainy, brainy as you are, but … I didn’t feel easy with her, somehow
… I think she’s probably a bit like me … too like. People don’t feel easy with me either … Has it ever struck you how different
we are, you and me? I’ve been thinking about this. You are you from the inside outwards. You grew that way. Like a tree or
something. I’m me from the outside in, like a bit of luggage. There are these bits inside. I’ve packed them as neatly as I
can, and they sort of belong together—I mean they’re all mine and they fit me, but they wouldn’t be a bit of luggage without
the suitcase round them. I’ve got my name on the suitcase. You can tell me apart from all the other suitcases waiting to be
collected …”

“Stop there! This one’s mine. I’m taking it home.”

They were at the sink preparing mixed vegetables for one of his fry-ups. He put his knife down, bent, and heaved her not very
gracefully into his arms.

“You should’ve got yourself a trolley,” she said.

“Couldn’t get it up the stairs.”

“No. Not now. I’m hungry. It confuses me if I keep thinking about food. Anyway, making love to a suitcase is kinky.”

“I rather like being hungry.”

“Well, you can take yours up and eat in bed. I’m having mine now.”

“Typical suitcase,” he said, putting her down. “Then Nell’s one too? Easy to spot on the carousel, by the sound of it.”

“Yes, but … I don’t know … I wonder … suppose what’s in there isn’t just a jumble of stuff. Suppose it’s just one thing, and
it’s alive. And watching you.”

“You’re telling me you aren’t alive inside? Just underwear and stuff?”

“No, of course not. Forget about suitcases. I wish I hadn’t started it. She must have had a really extraordinary childhood.
It wasn’t any worse than mine, but it was a lot weirder.”

The letter came on the Wednesday, Enclosed with it was a sealed envelope with Mrs. Matson’s name on it.

Dear Jenny,

First, I must thank you again for bringing Bert to tea with me. It was wonderful to meet him, and see him looking so well
cared for, and loved and respected. He seemed to enjoy the service, and to remember afterwards who I was. That is to say that
without being reminded he told me that I had done very well for myself, and Terry would have been proud of me. I am hoping
to arrange for one of my congregation to pick him up sometimes on Sundays and bring him over for tea and evensong. I hope
that you and your husband will see fit to join us occasionally.