Every Day Is Mother's Day

CHAPTER 9

The many marks of violence on Evelyn Axon’s body, some recent, some quite old, were carefully enumerated in the postmortem report. Cardiac arrest had killed her; she had been alive when the left side of her face had struck the wall with some force, but dead when the right side of her skull had struck the hall floor. I wonder how they can tell that, Colin said to himself, as he came out into the fresh air. He looked at his watch; twelve-thirty, nice time to get some lunch.

He had needed to take the morning off work for the inquest. There was a reporter from the local paper present. What would Frank O’Dwyer make of it? They were sure to put HEART ATTACK MOTHER WAS BEATEN, CORONER SAYS, or BEATEN MOTHER DIED OF NATURAL CAUSES. Perhaps he had no gift for headline-writing.

Frank had made no more references to the night of the dinner party. He obviously didn’t remember being hit on the head. If he’d found a lump next day, he’d obviously put that down to natural causes too. Colman had not said anything either, except “bit of a bore.” As if such Charenton junketings were what you got every time you accepted a dinner invitation. But possibly, Colin thought, it was more his memory that was at fault. Already he could see a tendency in himself to confuse the two incidents, to impose on Frank’s drink-sodden features the expression of astonishment he had seen on Evelyn Axon’s face as she died. Or thought he had seen. Perhaps it had not been there, and perhaps the party had not been as bad as he thought. Perhaps I have a tendency to dramatise things, blow them up out of proportion. He could not ask Sylvia for her reminiscences; she had said it would suit her best if the evening were never referred to again. The loss of his driving licence was breeding much inconvenience for the family. Everything has been out of perspective since last September, he thought, and that dinner party was not the worst of it.

A weak sun was struggling out as Colin and Florence came down the steps.

“You gave your evidence very well,” Florence said. “Very lucidly.”

“Florence, I’d like to have a word with the young social worker. Will you just wait for me?”

“Miss Field? I’d like to speak to her myself. I want to know what will happen to Muriel.”

“Muriel? Why?”

“We are neighbours, Colin, after all. Or have been, all those years. I’d like to visit her.”

“She might not know. She’s resigned, after all. I’ll ring them up about it, the Social Services Department. No, you stay there, I won’t be two ticks. I’ll have to dash.”

“All right, Colin,” Florence said, and stood on the steps looking after him uneasily, her stout handbag dangling from her wrist.

He caught up with Isabel in the car park. She heard him behind her, and walked back to meet him.

“It wasn’t too bad, was it?” he said. “It’s all over now.”

He saw a sullen young woman with a pale face and sharp nose, drably dressed in office clothes, with legs disproportionately thin. Last winter’s ghost burned feebly behind her eyes, almost extinguished.

“Like spring, isn’t it?” she said, making an effort at a smile. “No, it wasn’t too bad. I’m out of it now, anyway.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to work in a bank. It will suit me, don’t you think?”

“Well, it’ll be less complex. Less wearing, I should think.”

“No emotional upheavals or moral dilemmas.”

“I’m sure you’ll get on. You’re a clever girl.”

“I may not be, you know. I may be most extraordinarily stupid.”

“Forget it. If you made a mistake—”

“Yes, it’s too late. I know it’s no use crying over spilt milk, but it is a very common and understandable thing to do.”

“She was elderly. You couldn’t prevent her having a heart attack, could you?”

“No.” Her eyes searched his face. “I couldn’t help her and I couldn’t really help Muriel, and there was no one else, was there?”

“Well, you could have helped me.”

“Oh, perhaps. How is your wife?”

“Sylvia?”

“Have you another?”

“No, of course not. I was just surprised at you asking after her. She’s fine, thanks.”

“I’m not her enemy, you know.”

“No…of course not. My sister, she’s blaming herself a bit. For not knowing Mrs. Axon was ill. She told me she’d not seen them for months. I didn’t take any notice. Now she’s worried about Muriel.”

“Muriel’s all right.”

“Do you know what’ll happen to her?”

“She’s no danger to anybody.”

“Can’t they—well…examine her? Find out what’s the matter?”

“Yes,” Isabel muttered. “I expect they’ll examine her. But as for what’s the matter—I don’t know.” She turned away and closed her eyes with a tired frown, trying to obliterate once and for all the memory of Muriel’s face in the dark hall, for five seconds, perfectly lucid and perfectly sane. Perhaps a trick of the light, she had said to herself, light or the lack of it.

“Are you all right? Do you feel dizzy?” Colin touched her elbow timidly, as if she were a stranger in the street.

“Yes. I’m all right.” She moved away from him. “Will you be taking any evening classes this year, Colin?”

“Yes. I’m taking Do-It-Yourself. We want to move, you see, we need more room, and our only chance is to get something going cheap that needs a bit of work. I was thinking, actually, Mrs. Axon’s house will have to go up for sale, won’t it? I mean, Muriel won’t be coming back to live by herself, I shouldn’t think, so they’ll have to put the money in trust for her, or whatever they do.”

Isabel stared at him. “You must be mad.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not really thinking of buying that house?”

“Why not?”

“Didn’t you feel the atmosphere?”

“Atmosphere?” He laughed. “There’s no atmosphere. Give it a good clean-up, slap a bit of white paint around, it’ll be completely different.”

“You’ll never clean it up. The smell—”

“It smelled of mould.”

“It smelled of misery.”

“We’ll get rid of that.”

“Oh, you’re planning to be happy, are you?”

He looked away. “That’s perhaps too much to ask.”

“I cannot understand how people can give up on life as you have. You used to talk as if you were looking for the Holy Grail.”

“It was a phase.”

“You got a quick poke in the back of a parked car and you said it had changed your life.”

“I thought it had.”

“Tried and failed, is that it? A lifetime’s excuse for not trying any more. Ultimately, Colin, they’ll find your body and bury you.” She turned away, pulling up her collar and knotting her scarf against the wind. “Anyway—the house. I wouldn’t call myself over-endowed with imagination, and I wouldn’t buy it.”

He followed her. “Do you know something about the Axons that you aren’t telling me?”

“I don’t know anything.”

“The Axons—you see, if only we had known what their lives were like…”

“Well, there are a lot of things we don’t know, and choose and prefer not to know.” She hesitated. “Goodbye, Colin.” Slouching, his face set, he watched her walk away between the line of parked cars. When she had driven off he turned and went back to Florence; he found her on the steps where he had left her, a glassy tolerance in her eyes, and her handbag on her wrist, like the Queen reviewing a parade.