On the Edge [= Dead Gorgeous]

8

Rose snatched up the receiver the moment it rang.

Antonia sounded like a telephone operator, friendly and businesslike at the same time.

‘Darling, are you alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Been at home all morning?’

‘Yes, of course. Did you...?’

‘Try and look surprised when they break the news to you. I’ll call you in a few days.’

The phone clicked and purred.

Rose hung up. She reached for her handbag. Smelling-salts. Couldn’t faint now. Unscrewed the stopper and held it to her nose. This must be a dream. Everything up to now is a dream.

They took her to the mortuary in a police car and showed her Barry’s body. More precisely, they showed her his face. She braced herself for a harrowing sight, yet he was not at all disfigured. Even the moustache was intact and reasonably tidy. He was so different from her expectation, so unmarked, that she had a horrid feeling he would open his eyes when she identified him. She nodded her head and turned away. It was no longer a dream.

They assured her that he must have been electrocuted before the train hit him. Six hundred volts had stopped his heart immediately so he hadn’t known much about it. On what authority they had reached this conclusion they didn’t specify. Anything was justifiable to comfort the bereaved, she supposed. They said nothing about the state of his injuries under the green canvas covering. All that they kept repeating was that he hadn’t suffered. She heard herself say thank you, as if they had arranged it humanely. The sergeant put his hands on her shoulders and steered her outside. She wept in the car as they drove her back to Oldfield Gardens. She was weeping for herself and her fear of what would happen. The sergeant said a cry would do her good.

She stood in her doorway and watched the police car drive away. Before she closed the door she glanced across at the poster of the widow. Someone had drawn a large tear under one of the eyes and scrawled ‘sperlash!’ underneath.

Alone in the house, she started to shiver. She opened the boiler to let it draw, knowing really that cold wasn’t the cause. The anthracite Barry had tipped in after breakfast was still burning.

They had told her there would have to be a postmortem and an inquest. She wouldn’t be required to say much, if anything.

She felt numb. She thought of what she had said to Antonia. ‘I want him to have an accident.’ A death sentence.

I condemned my own husband to death and asked someone else to be the executioner. Was that really what I intended? Wasn’t it just a cry of despair that Antonia misunderstood?

No, I can’t duck the truth. I meant what I said. I wanted him removed and she was willing to do it. We called it an accident and it sounded excusable. We didn’t describe it as a killing. Or murder.

It was an accident. I’ve got to think of it as an accident, or how will I convince everyone else?

She got up and tried to occupy herself by taking the carpet sweeper into the front room and using it until her arms ached. On the table was the vase containing the roses Barry had brought home for her the previous Friday. They had darkened and drooped. After she’d carried them to the boiler she noticed blood on her fingers. She’d gripped the stems so tightly that she hadn’t felt the thorn pierce her skin. And she’d left a trail of red petals across the floor. She reached for the carpet sweeper again.

She needed distraction and nothing she did would supply it. Several times she considered ringing her mother, then couldn’t brace herself to tell the lies that would be necessary. Later, perhaps.

Increasingly she grew fearful of the truth coming out. There was going to be an inquest. The coroner would try to discover what actually had happened in the underground. There would be witnesses.

It troubled Rose that she had practically no knowledge of what had happened on Knightsbridge Station. Antonia had given her no clue. She might have bungled it terribly. There might be witnesses who would swear they had seen a woman push Barry off the platform. They could provide descriptions. Someone could have followed Antonia after Barry fell. At this very minute she might be making a statement to the police.

Rose was in no doubt that if Antonia was caught and accused, she’d name her accomplice.

She opened the larder and reached for the brandy and just at that moment the doorbell rang. The brandy bottle slipped from her grasp and smashed on the floor. She was petrified.

By now it was past eight. All the lights were on. She couldn’t pretend she was out.

It rang again, longer, more insistently.

She sighed heavily, stepped over the mess the broken bottle had made and went with mechanical steps through the passage to see who was at the door.

The light wasn’t helpful. That wretched poster threw everything in front of it into shadow. Momentarily she believed she saw a policeman with drawn truncheon standing on the doorstep. Then she realized it was a bicycle pump he was holding.

Mr Smart, the insurance agent. He’d arranged to come back with the surrender form. He gave a professional smile.

‘Sorry to be calling so late, Mrs Bell. I tried earlier, but you were both out, so I came back. Is your husband at home?’

‘He’s dead.’

The smile vanished. ‘Dead?’

‘This afternoon.’

‘You’re serious? Quite, quite, quite. I can see you are. Oh, my word. How appalling.’

‘Yes.’

‘Dreadful. Might I enquire...?’

‘An accident.’

‘On the road?’

‘In the tube.’

‘The tube? He didn’t...’

‘... take his own life? Apparently not. They told me it was an accident. He fell off the platform.’

‘Poor fellow. Poor you, Mrs Bell. Tripped and fell. Pardon me for asking, but approximately what time did the tragedy occur?’

‘Between five-thirty and six, I suppose. I didn’t ask.’

‘And at which station, Mrs Bell? The reason I enquire is that in certain cases, very occasionally I hasten to say, the company appoints investigators. Most unlikely in this case, I should think.’

‘It was Knightsbridge.’

‘Ah. The District Line?’

‘The Piccadilly.’

‘Yes, of course. Impossibly overcrowded at that time. I say, are you alone? Isn’t there anyone with you?’

‘I’d rather be left to myself, thank you.’

‘You’re quite sure there’s nothing I can do? Rest assured that the company will fulfil its obligations to the letter. To the letter, Mrs Bell. I presume there will have to be an inquest. We are obliged to wait until after that, you understand. Forgive me for saying so, but how providential that your husband didn’t surrender his policy when I called last week. God moves in mysterious ways, doesn’t He? Then if you’re absolutely certain I can’t be of any practical help...’

He backed away as if he couldn’t wait to escape, for all his professions of concern. In seconds he was pedalling his bike so fast up the street that his dynamo lamp put out a beam like a searchlight.

Several more times in the next few days Rose’s nerves were tested by unexpected callers. Each time she expected to be arrested. The vicar called on Friday and recommended talking to God as a remedy for grief. On Saturday morning two men in raincoats looked so like detectives that she actually did send up a prayer. They turned out to be colleagues of Barry’s from the Stationery Office, calling to express their condolences. She made some coffee and they all said that Barry was a fine man struck down in his prime. The same morning one of the neighbours called and asked her to sign a petition to have the hoarding across the street removed. When she saw the sheet of paper in his hand she thought it was a summons.

By degrees she started to believe that her arrest was not, after all, imminent. She busied herself writing to everyone who needed to know about Barry’s passing. He hadn’t made a will, so she asked the bank for legal advice and they offered the services of their legal department. She phoned her parents after Evensong on Sunday. They wanted her to leave everything and come to the Rectory, but she said she preferred to stay busy, and there was plenty to occupy her in Pimlico.

Daddy asked if she had some friend she could rely on to help her through this ordeal. She answered yes and thought of Antonia. She couldn’t have faced it without.

Hector was listening to the Brains Trust. He habitually tuned in on Sunday afternoons at four. He didn’t listen much to the wireless, except for the news, preferring to spend his evenings working upstairs in his office. He found comedy programmes like ITMA, which always had Antonia shrieking with laughter, impossible to follow. But Professor Joad and the others talked good sense at a speed he could understand.

To his surprise, Antonia had joined him in the drawing room beside the set. She’d arrived midway through with tea on a tray, which he was afraid would bring his listening to a premature end, but she sat in silence until he switched off at the end.

She asked, ‘Was it as riveting as usual?’

‘Better than last week. Better questions.’

‘Let’s have a Brains Trust of our own. I’ve got a question for you.’

‘Yes?’

‘What would you do if I was dead?’ He sniffed. ‘Funny question.’

‘On the contrary, my swain, it’s serious. I can hardly wait to hear your answer. Suppose I hopped the twig. Would you be able to manage without me?’

He gave her a pained stare. ‘Why do you ask me such a ghastly thing?’

‘Be honest, Hec. You’d be a free man again. No one to tear strips off you when you came in late. No enormous bills from Harrods and Fortnums at the end of each month. You could live the life of Riley.’

Hector’s logical mind hadn’t got past her first proposition. ‘You are not ill?’

‘God, no.’

‘You wouldn’t kill yourself? That time we talked about the tube, it was a joke?’

She felt the colour rise to her face. ‘The tube? A joke, yes — forget about that. Dismiss it from your mind. I already have.’

‘Then I don’t understand the question.’

‘It’s hypothetical.’

‘Sometimes, Antonia, I find you impossible to understand.’