A Day in the Death of Dorothea Cassidy

Chapter Eleven

At the Walkers’ house in the country the Cassidys were treated as invalids. Mrs Walker even wanted to make them soup for lunch. Soup was comforting, she said. But her husband, a retired major with a limp and a surprisingly boyish face, would not hear of it.

‘In this heat?’ he said. ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

So she made one of her special salads, with strawberries for dessert, then took the meal into the garden for them on a tray. There the Cassidys sat on white wooden chairs in the dappled shadow of a willow tree, stunned and bewildered, unable to move. In the background was the house, square and white with a dovecote and stables and beyond that a wood where pheasants were reared. Major Walker was something big in the County Landowners’ Association and in feudal Northumberland he was treated as a squire.

When the meal was over the Walkers tactfully left the Cassidys alone and returned to the house. They watched the father and son through open french windows.

‘Poor things,’ Dolly Walker said. ‘Poor dear things.’ She was a magistrate and her husband often told her she was too soft to sit on the bench. Sometimes, after a day in court, she would come home and cry at the stories she had heard.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s been a terrible shock.’ But he was disturbed to find that he was not as shocked as he should have been and that there was an uneasy sensation of relief. Now things could get back to normal again. Dorothea had been tremendous, of course. She had brought a breath of life to the whole church. What did his wife call it? A spirit of renewal? But there had been something unsettling about Dorothea. All that waving of her hands in the air during the singing of the hymns had unnerved him. He would never say anything to Dolly who had become quite a new woman since Dorothea Cassidy had arrived, but he felt that there was something pagan in such exhibitionism. Perhaps she had spent too long in Africa.

Then there was the tension between Dorothea and Walter Tanner. The Major had never got to the bottom of Walter’s problems. Walter was not the sort to confide and it had seemed wrong to pry. He was not a sensitive man and had never been aware of Walter’s simmering resentment about the sharing of church wardens’ responsibilities, but the grocer’s hounded, haunted look in Dorothea’s presence touched Major Walker deeply. He would have liked to offer Walter help, but after a relationship of distant politeness he was not sure how to go about it.

‘I’d almost say Patrick was taking it worse than his father,’ Dolly Walker said tentatively. She was usually good about people but too diffident to trust her own judgement. She was afraid of her husband’s sarcasm. ‘He’s not mentioned Dorothea since he arrived. I hope he doesn’t feel responsible. People do, you know, quite irrationally at times like these.’

She was taking psychology A-level at evening classes and felt almost an expert.

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Major Walker said again. But as he looked out at the boy he could see what she meant. Edward Cassidy was limp and exhausted and wept openly, but Patrick sat gripping the arms of his chair and staring ahead of him with a rigid intensity.

There was something about the boy which irritated Major Walker. He thought the display of emotion must be a show. Dorothea was only the stepmother. They had not known each other very long. If she had been his natural mother the grief would be understandable. The Walkers had never had children and the Major had a sentimental view of the parental relationship. He thought Patrick should have more self-control. Two years of National Service would make a man of him, he thought, but he said nothing. Dolly would accuse him of being heartless.

The Walkers had gone back to the house ostensibly to fetch more wine and now they filed back over the grass towards the Cassidys, the Major in front carrying the wine in a bucket of ice. Like Beech, he thought. At Blandings. He was a great Wodehouse fan and the memory of the books came as a welcome relief.

The remains of their meal were still on the table. Edward Cassidy had hardly eaten anything, though he had drunk several glasses of wine very quickly and now when he spoke his words were a little slurred and incoherent. Patrick had seemed ravenous, pushing forkfuls of food into his mouth in silence, then wiping his plate with a piece of bread. Dolly fussed and gathered the dirty plates on to a tray. The Major stood to open the wine and was about to draw the cork from the bottle when Patrick Cassidy got suddenly to his feet, rocking the unsteady garden furniture, making the glasses rattle dangerously.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I can’t stand this. I’ll have to go.’ He blinked and his eyelashes showed very fair against his pink skin. He turned stiffly and walked across the lawn.

The vicar looked up from his empty glass. ‘Patrick?’ he said in confusion and surprise. ‘ What is this about?’

But by then the boy had gone and gave no sign that he had heard.

Poor dear, Dolly thought. He’s going to cry and he’s too proud to let us see. The Major, who had seen many young soldiers before him on disciplinary charges, thought he detected something else. Shame perhaps. Or guilt.

They watched until Patrick disappeared to the back of the house where the cars were parked, then they heard the sound of the engine as he drove too quickly towards the road and the squeal of brakes as he stopped at the end of the drive to let a tractor pass in the lane.

Dear God, the Major thought. If he’s not careful he’ll kill himself. Reckless young fool. Automatically he completed the process of opening the bottle and poured wine into Edward Cassidy’s glass.

Edward Cassidy seemed not to notice and stared after his son with horror. He was suddenly taken up with the arrangements for his own return to Otterbridge.

‘Oh dear,’ he said wretchedly. ‘Patrick’s taken the car. Now how will I get home?’

He fidgeted and worried like a confused old person at a day centre who believes he has been deserted.

‘Of course we’ll take you back,’ Dolly said. ‘Or if you prefer you can spend the night here.’ She found his selfish preoccupation with what was to become of him a little embarrassing. It was unlike him. Usually he had impeccable manners.

No, no, he said. There were so many things to do. He knew he was being a nuisance but he would really rather be at home. Patrick after all would go back to the vicarage. They should be together. Perhaps if it wasn’t too much trouble they could go now. He stood up, his glass still in his hand, and waited for them to arrange it.

‘Of course,’ Dolly said and by now there were tears in her eyes. He was usually so confident, so able to put on a good show. ‘We’ll come with you and wait at the vicarage until Patrick gets home.’

Then he turned on them and shouted, his voice querulous and pitiful.

‘No!’ he cried. ‘You don’t understand. I have to be on my own.’

When he saw how offended and hurt they were there was a brief show of the old charm. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘ You must forgive me. I’m really not myself today.’

He drank the remainder of the wine and allowed Dolly to take his arm and lead him back towards the house.

They had a big BMW and sat him in the back of it, treating him still like an invalid. If it had not been so hot Dolly would have tucked a rug around his knees. The Major drove slowly, avoiding the pot-holes in the lane, and in Otterbridge they were held up by two men on stilts who paraded down the centre of Front Street. All the same when they arrived at the vicarage the church clock showed only two o’clock. Later, when the police asked questions about the time, Dolly was tempted to lie, but the Major told her that liars were always caught out and anyway it was impossible to believe that Patrick or Edward could have murdered that half-wit from Armstrong House. What motive could there be? The police asked too if Patrick was already back at the vicarage by the time they returned with the priest. Again, reluctantly, they told the truth. No, they said, there was no sign of Patrick’s car when they saw Edward into the vicarage and sat him in the study, surrounded by his photographs of Dorothea.

Imogen Buchan finished her shift at the hospital at two o’clock. She changed quickly out of her uniform in the cloakroom then hurried away, past the smudged posters of Dorothea Cassidy, to the staff car park to collect her Metro. There were other nurses on her ward who had finished shift at the same time and they lingered in the cloakroom, sharing gossip, planning some social event to which Imogen had not been invited. They took little notice when Imogen hurried away. One of them put a finger under her nose to express snootiness, then they all giggled and returned to their conversation. They acknowledged that Imogen was a brilliant nurse but she had never fitted in. If they had been closer friends they would have known that Patrick Cassidy was Imogen’s boyfriend. Someone might have recognised the connection with the murdered woman on the poster and told the police. But Imogen had always kept her private life to herself.

When she had decided on nursing as a career her parents were, at the same time, disappointed and relieved. They would definitely have preferred her to go to university, but though they would never admit it to Imogen they realised she was unlikely to get high enough A-level grades for a good university place. Her parents were both English teachers at the High School and had inside knowledge. Imogen’s teachers said that she worked very hard but she didn’t have Miranda’s intellectual edge. Miranda was her sister, two years older, and already at Oxford.

So Mr and Mrs Buchan greeted Imogen’s tentative suggestion that she should go in for nurse-training with enthusiasm. She obviously had a vocation, they said. Of course they would respect her decision. And that was the line they took with friends. They thought Imogen was so brave not to opt automatically for university, they told the stream of dinner-party guests who came to the house that summer. They knew she had a lot to give. Imogen, who hated the gatherings where the talk was of novels she had never read and of the philistine horrors of the National Curriculum, would blush awkwardly and turn away.

Now Imogen was twenty-two and qualified, quite competent to take charge of a ward. More competent, her colleagues often agreed, than some sisters they could mention. She found in nursing something at which she could excel. At last she had her own field of interest and her parents could stop comparing her unfavourably with Miranda. Imogen had such a sense of responsibility! they said. Such dedication!

Despite this, Imogen was vaguely conscious that during her training there had been an element of competition with her sister, all the more humiliating because Miranda was unaware of it and spent her time at university in a sleepless round of parties and political activity. Imogen had been so determined to succeed that before she was qualified her social life had been non-existent. Her time off was spent at home, writing up her patient studies, preparing the next essay. With the other students she was shy, embarrassed. In those three years she had never had a real boyfriend, and their casual talk of affairs and separations made her feel inadequate. They put her quietness down to snobbishness; she sensed their hostility and grew even more reserved.

Yet on the ward, especially with the elderly or the very ill, she blossomed. The patients seemed unintimidated by her, more comfortable when she was there. The other students came to resent her skill. When they had all qualified there was less pressure to do well and she had more confidence. She would have welcomed then the opportunity to go out with them, but they had stopped asking.

She had met Patrick through her parents at one of their dreadful dinner parties the autumn after she qualified. He was just about to start at the university. Ann Buchan had joined a support group set up by Dorothea to provide funds for the orphanage where she had worked in Africa and an improbable friendship had developed. In Imogen’s view the women had nothing in common. Her mother had a middle-class tolerance to every point of view, except conventional Christianity, which she dismissed quite categorically as superstition. Yet she seemed to admire Dorothea immensely and the Cassidys became regulars at the house. On this occasion Patrick had been invited too, probably, Imogen suspected, to provide company for her, as if she were a child and unable to follow the adult conversation. Miranda had disappeared early back to Oxford, claiming that Northumberland bored her.

It was mid-September and it had been raining steadily all day, so when the Cassidys arrived they would have to run up the path under dripping trees. When the doorbell rang Mrs Buchan was still upstairs, not quite ready for them.

‘Open the door, darling,’ she shouted down to Imogen. ‘And get everyone a drink.’

But a drink of what? Imogen wondered with horror. If they wanted wine it would be impossible. She had never once opened a bottle without leaving shreds of cork floating on the top. And she never knew exactly how much to give.

Yet when she opened the door Patrick stood there alone, as obviously unhappy about the dinner party as she was. Could they borrow an umbrella, he asked grudgingly. Edward and Dorothea were still in the car and had forgotten theirs. Outside it was dark and he stood under the porch light, his hair plastered against his forehead, very tall. She wanted to reach out and touch his wet jacket and kiss his wet hair. Her stomach dipped and her head spun. It was the first time she had felt such a physical attraction. So this is what it’s all about? she thought, astonished. All that gossiping and giggling in corners. I never realised. She found two umbrellas and walked with him down the path to the car.

‘There’s no need to come out,’ he said, but she thought he was glad she was there. They took an umbrella each and walked in single file up the path, kept apart by the spokes. Then they gave one to Edward and Dorothea and shared the other. The Cassidys ran off laughing towards the house, splashing in the puddles on the muddy path. Patrick and Imogen followed slowly and he put his arm around her waist to hold her in out of the rain.

‘Isn’t he a bit young for you, darling?’ her mother had said when she started going out with him. ‘He’s only eighteen. Only a boy. We were rather hoping you would find a nice doctor.’

That was only half a joke. Doctors were graduates with a high status and a good income. But she accepted Patrick as second best, as she had accepted nursing. He would be a graduate too one day and there was something charmingly old-fashioned about being the son of a clergyman. Mrs Buchan told her friends that age was irrelevant these days and Patrick was so mature for an eighteen-year-old.

‘Perhaps,’ she would say, hopefully, ‘he will introduce Imogen to some culture.’

And occasionally she would question her daughter after an evening out with Patrick: ‘Where did he take you, darling? Did you see that new thing at the Playhouse?’

‘No,’ Imogen would say vaguely. ‘We were out with friends, for a meal, you know…’

But that was a lie. She would have considered time in the theatre or a restaurant as wasted. Patrick had a friend with a room in one of the halls of residence and usually they went there to make love. At other times they walked, for miles, along small country roads or they sat by the river and talked. In the beginning they never squandered their time together by sharing it with other young people.

A different mother might have been concerned about her daughter. Imogen became so wrapped up in her infatuation for Patrick that she gave up all her other interests. She lost touch with the few friends she had kept from school. When she was not at work she thought of nothing else. If there was a day when he could not see her she brooded, imagining some secret betrayal. Nothing mattered so much as their relationship. She found it difficult to sleep. She stopped eating regularly and grew thin, paler than ever. The weight loss suited her and gave her a luminous, insubstantial quality, but she always seemed tired.

If her mother noticed the change in Imogen it did not worry her. She was in love. What could be more natural? Ann Buchan was busy with the preparation for exams, her voluntary work, with entertaining. Imogen worked shifts and spent every hour she could with Patrick. Mother and daughter hardly ever met. It was Miranda, home for a long weekend to sleep off the effects of a particularly hectic term, who said:

‘Bloody hell, Imo, what have you been doing? You look positively anorexic.’

Still Ann Buchan was not concerned. Eating disorders happened to silly sixteen-year-olds, not mature nurses. Work on the cancer ward was particularly stressful and Imogen was tired, that was all. She met Imogen one night in the kitchen as her daughter was heating up a bowl of soup in the micro-wave, and made what she thought was a helpful suggestion:

‘We hardly ever see you now, darling. Have you ever thought of moving in with Patrick? Getting a flat, perhaps, in town. It would be less tiring for you both and we might see more of you on your days off.’

Ann Buchan was proud of herself. She thought it broadminded to have suggested that arrangement, but to her surprise Imogen did not reply. She stared at her mother in silent resentment and went to her room leaving the soup uneaten.

That conversation with her mother came back to Imogen as she drove along the winding road which led to Otterbridge. It was half past two. She switched on the radio, but the local news was all about the murder of Dorothea Cassidy and she switched it off again, quickly, trying to pretend that the tragedy had never happened.