The Skeleton in the Closet

∨ The Skeleton in the Closet ∧

One

IN the way that illiterate people become very cunning at covering up their disability, Mr. Fellworth Dolphin, known as Fell, approaching forty, was still a virgin and kept it a dark secret.

His long-standing virginity had come about because he had been a shy, lanky, oversensitive boy, the single child of strict and emotionally blackmailing parents. He had been born when his mother was in her early forties. His father, a railway signalman, and his mother, a housewife, had dinned it into him that his duty in life was to get an education and be the sole support of his parents. When he was older, they chose ‘suitable’ girls for him, girls who seemed foreign to the young Fell with their vapid conversation and the way their minds seemed to be set on a white wedding and a neat bungalow, both with a total absence of romance. For Fell was a romantic, living through books.

He had been set to go to university, but his father had fallen ill and it was borne in on him that he must take some sort of job immediately or “they would all starve.” They lived in the market town of Buss in Worcestershire. In Buss, there was a rather grand hotel, the Palace, and it was there that young Fell found employment as a waiter.

His father died from a heart attack several years after Fell had started work. His mother became cross and morose, always complaining. Sometimes when he had finished a late shift in the hotel dining room, he would return home to their scrupulously clean two-up two-down terraced house, and he would see the light in the living room still burning and his feet would feel as heavy as lead for he knew he would have to drink the hot milk he hated and listen to his mother’s complaints. In his spare time, he lived through books: spy books, adventure books, detective stories, thrillers, relishing those other worlds of action and mayhem.

He had acquaintances, but no close friends.

Although he was not often prone to depression, as he approached his thirty-eighth birthday, and once more walked home from the hotel, he felt a terrible darkness of the soul. Life had passed him by. He did not look unpleasing, being tall with a good figure, a pleasant face with wide-spaced grey eyes and a long, sensitive mouth. But his thick hair had turned prematurely grey.

The light was on in the living room. He braced himself for another wearying end to the day, listening to his mother’s droning complaints, cradling that glass of hot milk and wondering if he could tip it somewhere.

He had not been allowed his own key. “Why should you have one?” his mother had complained. “I’m always here.” But he had secretly had one cut, just a little bit of rebellion. He rang the bell. Nothing. The door did not open, nor did his mother’s whiskery face appear at the window.

He took out his key and let himself in. He went into the living room. His mother was lying back in her usual armchair. He knew somehow that she was dead.

He felt numb. He phoned the ambulance and the police. He travelled in the ambulance to the hospital. He was told in hushed whispers that she, like his father, had suffered a heart attack.

He walked home at dawn – he had never been allowed to take driving lessons – trying to fight down a guilty feeling of relief. He was free at last from the chains of duty.

As he plodded homeward, he looked about him at the silent streets of the market town. This town had been his cell. He had never even been to London. The clock on the town hall sent down six silvery chimes. The rising sun sent his elongated shadow stretching out in front of him. He shivered, although the day was already warm. What on earth was going to become of him?

♦

The next day a call from Mr. Jamieson, one of the town’s solicitors, came as a surprise. Mr. Jamieson said a doctor friend at the hospital had told him of Mrs. Dolphin’s death, and asked Fell to call round at his office to go through his mother’s will. Fell could not imagine how his mother, who never seemed to leave the house, had got round to writing a will and visiting a lawyer. Fell had already phoned the hotel to say he would be taking time off until after the funeral. He still felt strangely numb. He put on his only suit and a shirt which his mother had turned at the collar and cuffs when they became frayed, a dark blue tie and highly polished shoes. He could now let his shoes get dirty if he liked, he thought, and then was ashamed at the pettiness of the thought. As he clattered down the stairs to make his way out, he looked at his mother’s usual chair by the window, almost amazed to see it empty.

♦

Mr. Jamieson seemed too young to have had any dealings with Fell’s mother. He appeared to be in his early thirties. He had thick, shiny black hair and a smooth face with pale eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses. After commiserating with Fell on his mother’s sudden death, he got down to business. “Your father,” said Mr. Jamieson, “left everything to your mother on his death and Mrs. Dolphin left everything to you.”

“It won’t be much,” said Fell apologetically, for the lawyer’s offices seemed too grand to deal with such a small inheritance, “although I suppose I will get the house.”

“It is in fact a very comfortable amount of money.”

Fell blinked at him. It was a sunny day. The weekly market in the town square below the windows was in full swing. The sun glittered on the glass front of a large bookcase.

The lawyer smiled. “Did you never look at your parents’ bank books?”

Fell gave a rueful smile. “I haven’t had time to look through any bank books or documents.”

“Well, apart from the house, there is the sum of five hundred thousand pounds, plus some shares. Of course, there will be death duties to pay. The first two hundred and fifty thousand is tax-free, and then there is a straight forty per cent off the remainder.”

“But that’s impossible!” Fell turned red. “Quite impossible. We never even had a television set.”

“Your father saved as much as he could all his life. The savings were kept in a high-interest account.”

“But I couldn’t go to university! I had to go to work. They lived on my earnings!”

“Perhaps they wanted to make sure you had a comfortable future.”

It burst out of Fell. “But they took my youth.”

The lawyer looked uncomfortable. “To business, Mr. Dolphin. I have been made an executor. Would you like me to arrange the funeral?”

“Please,” said Fell, still bewildered and shaken. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“The expenses from the funeral will be paid out of the estate. These things take some time to wind up, but in the meantime you can draw any money in advance.”

“May I draw, say, two thousand pounds now?” Fell did not know how he had the temerity to ask for such a sum.

“Certainly.”

♦

When Fell left the lawyer’s office, he could feel rage boiling up inside him. He was free at last – free to travel, to set up his own business, to start living. But his parents had filleted out his ambition and his guts. He felt like someone who has come out of prison after a long sentence, wondering how to cope with life and reality and the modern world.

He did not even have a bank account. He had handed his pay cheques first to his father, and then, after his father’s death, to his mother, and a small sum had been handed back to him.

He went into the nearest bank, holding the lawyer’s cheque, and opened an account. It was all so easy.

Then he returned home and began to go through his father’s old desk. Tucked away in a drawer at the bottom was a cash box. It was locked. With a strange feeling of intrusion, he searched his mother’s battered old calfskin handbag. On her ring of keys was a little silver one. He inserted it in the lock and found it worked. He opened the box up. It was full of money in neat bundles, each marked ‘one thousand pounds’. With shaking fingers, he counted it out. There was nearly fifty thousand pounds. He was about to put it back in the box, take it round to the bank and put it in his new account when he suddenly began to wonder how his father had come by such a large amount of loose cash. He had obviously not declared it to the income tax.

Fell went to the sideboard and took out a bottle of whisky which had been produced only at Christmas and poured himself a generous measure. He sat sipping it, looking around the living room, at the dark cheap furniture, at the old horsehair – horsehair! – sofa and the brown paint on the doors and skirting and the dull, faded wallpaper. He felt trapped in these familiar surroundings. What did his inheritance matter? He would never have the courage to do anything with it. He roused himself to find the address book which held the numbers of the few surviving relatives and phoned them, telling them he would let them know the day and time of the funeral. Then the undertaker’s rang. Fell agreed on the price of a coffin, and that the body should be buried in the town cemetery in three days’ time at ten in the morning. The undertaker asked if Mrs. Dolphin had been Jewish, Catholic or Protestant. Fell told him, “Church of England,” and the efficient undertaker said he would contact the vicar of St. Peter’s to conduct the service. Fell replaced the receiver. He suddenly wanted his mother back, so that he could ask her why they had skimped and saved all those years. He wanted to ask her what she had thought about during her long days in the house alone. But it was now too late.

He rang the relatives again and informed them of the time of the funeral and the date. Things like that he could do. He had always been dutiful.

♦

The next day, the doorbell rang and he went to answer it. The ancient and unlovely figure of his mother’s sister, Aunt Agnes, stood on the doorstep.

“Come in, Aunt,” said Fell. “Have you come all the way down from Wales?”

“Yes, but I’m staying with my friend, Nancy, in Worcester until after the funeral.” Her eyes ranged round the living room. “There are some nice pieces here. You’ll need someone to look after you. Doris always said” – Doris was the late Mrs. Dolphin – “‘I don’t know who’s going to take care of my boy when I’m gone and give him his hot milk.’ So I’ve decided to sacrifice myself. I’ll move in with you.”

Terror gripped Fell. His aunt looked remarkably like his late mother. Whiskery face, small weak eyes, round figure in a tightly buttoned jacket.

“How kind of you,” he said. “But I am surprised my mother didn’t tell you. I’m engaged. This tragic business, of course, puts off the wedding.”

Aunt Agnes sat down suddenly and goggled at him. “Who is she?”

Desperation lending his fantasy wings, Fell said, “Maggie Partlett.”

There was a waitress at the hotel in which he worked called Maggie Partlett. She was extremely plain with thick glasses, lank hair and a lumpy figure.

“What does she do?”

“She works as a waitress, same hotel as me.”

“Well, I never. And you’ve got the house and all this lovely furniture.”

It seemed as if something had broken loose in Fell. “Maggie doesn’t like the stuff,” he said. “Tell you what, after the funeral, I’ll put it all in a delivery van and send it up to you in Wales.”

Aunt Agnes said, “That’s awfully good of you. All this lovely stuff. I ‘member when they bought it. Oh, my. You are a good boy. And that’s what I’ll tell this Maggie of yours when I meet her at the funeral.”

“She won’t be there. Her mother in Bedford isn’t well, so she’s over there at the moment.”

“Sad. But I’ll come back in a few months and you can introduce me then. I must be on my way.”

“Let me get you a taxi and pay for it.”

“What! All the way to Worcester.”

“I’ve got a bit saved up.”

“I must say, it would be better than waiting in this heat for a bus. It’s going to be a scorcher of a summer. It’s the dandelions, you see.”

“Dandelions?”

“Yes, dandelions. You’ll have seen masses of them all along the roads on the verges. Country people always said when you saw a lot of dandelions, it was going to be a hot summer.”

“Dandelion summer,” said Fell and laughed.

“You must forgive me laughing,” he said quickly. “Grief takes me that way.” And God forgive me, he said silently to himself, because I am not grieving at all.

♦

When his aunt had left, he wondered why he had not told her about the legacy. Most of his other relatives were dead. But there was Cousin Barbara, and Cousin Tom. He should maybe see the lawyer and share it out. No, cried a voice in his head. I earned it with every bit of my youth. It was then he began to cry because he had not loved his mother and he was glad she was dead.

After some time, he dried his eyes and began to look through his home with new eyes. There were two bedrooms upstairs, a living room and sitting room downstairs and a small kitchen. The sitting room was kept for ‘best’, in the old country way: three-piece suite with the plastic covers still over the uncut moquette upholstery, a fringed standard lamp, the shade covered in plastic, a display cabinet with bits of china, a fitted mushroom carpet, and a glass coffee table on white wrought-iron legs. He mentally cleared it all out and stripped the heavy flock wallpaper from the walls, tore up the carpet to find what was underneath. What if, once he had cleared everything out – just what if he turned the living room into a large kitchen, with modern appliances, with long counters, shiny copper pans and bunches of herbs? His eyes filled with tears of guilt again. Something dark was telling him that his days of living would never come. Better leave things as they were. Go home every night to the dark, lonely house and hear the ghost of his mother’s complaining voice.

He had to get out again, into the sunlight, take action, any action. He walked to a driving school and booked in for a course of lessons, he ordered a television set to be delivered that very day, then he went to the hotel and handed in his notice.

He was just leaving the hotel when with a guilty start he saw Maggie arriving for the evening shift.

“Oh, Fell,” she said, blinking at him through her thick glasses, “I am so very sorry about your mother.”

“Thank you, Maggie. I’ve resigned.”

“It won’t be the same place without you,” she said shyly. They were both book readers and talked a lot about their favourite authors.

“Look here, Maggie, I did a silly thing. My aunt was threatening to move in with me and I told a lie on the spur of the moment. I said I was engaged to you.”

If I were pretty, you wouldn’t find it so silly, thought Maggie. Aloud she said, “What will you do when she finds out it isn’t true?”

“I’ll cope with that later,” said Fell, suddenly weary.

“I don’t mind pretending,” said Maggie quickly. “I mean, we could always break it off after the funeral.”

Fell looked down at her as if seeing her for the first time. Her lank hair could do with cutting and shaping, and her clothes were a ragbag of shapelessness, and the thick glasses were ugly, but her mouth was well shaped and her eyes were kind.

“That’s good of you,” he said.

“Do you want me to go to the funeral?”

Fell laughed and Maggie blinked up at him, thinking that she had never heard Fell laugh before. “I told Auntie that you were nursing your sick mother in Bedford.”

“I think you’ll need some support at the funeral,” said Maggie practically. “You’ll need to have some drinks and eats for them at the house.”

“I didn’t think of that.”

“You can tell Auntie she misheard. My mother is home in bed, not Bedford. I think she’d buy that one and then you can leave the catering to me. It can be expensive.”

“As far as expense is concerned, Maggie, I think maybe we’d better meet for lunch tomorrow if you’re free. I’ve got something to tell you I don’t want anyone to know.”

“I’d love that. Where?”

“That French restaurant down by the river – at one o’clock?”

“All right. I’ll pay my share.”

“That’s what I want to talk to you about. I’ll pay. But don’t tell anyone.”

“That’s not hard,” said Maggie ruefully. “No one talks to me except that wretched Italian barman who’s always jeering at me.”

“I’ll see you then.”

Fell headed home, just in time to see the television van arriving. What, he wondered guiltily, would the elderly neighbours on either side make of an aerial being erected on the roof and a television set being carried indoors right after his mother’s death? He felt suddenly ashamed, but he had used up his small stock of courage for the day and somehow could not tell the television men he had changed his mind.

He tipped the men, and when they had left, decided to watch something on television.

A ring at the doorbell.

He jumped guiltily and somehow his thoughts immediately flew to the money in the cash box, now diminished by a wad of notes in his wallet.

He opened the door. The vicar, Mr. Sneddon, stood on the step.

His heart sank. He did not like Mr. Sneddon, for Mr. Sneddon was unoriginal. He had read about Mr. Sneddon in many books, the trendy clap-happy vicar with a burning desire to attract the spotty youth of Buss to the church while disaffecting all his regulars. It is all very irritating when a character who has been written to death turns up on one’s doorstep.

Mr. and Mrs. Dolphin had been regular attenders while the old vicar had been in office, but Mrs. Dolphin had latterly given up going to church, sitting behind the lace curtains in the living room watching the world go by.

“Come in,” said Fell, thinking, no lace curtains ever again.

The vicar came in and sat down. He was wearing a scarlet shell suit and trainers. He had very big feet. People with very big feet should not wear trainers, thought Fell, because those feet dominated the small room.

“My boy,” began the vicar, who was about the same age as Fell, “this is a dark day for you.”

“Indeed,” murmured Fell.

“I gather the undertakers, Taylor and Fenwick, have all the arrangements?”

“Yes, the lawyer is kindly attending to everything.”

“I will gladly officiate. Are there any special hymns you would like?”

“I would like ‘To Be a Pilgrim,” the Twenty-third Psalm, and ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’. ‘

The vicar frowned. “I feel that ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ is a teensy bit militant.”

Fell was about to back down, but suddenly found himself saying calmly, “Those are the hymns Mother would have wanted. And the burial service from the old Book of Common Prayer.”

“But we must move with the times and – ”

“The old Book of Common Prayer. I – I mean Mother – preferred it.”

“Very well,” said the vicar reluctantly.

After the vicar had left, Fell suddenly wanted to get out of the house. He decided to go for a walk. The river Buss bisected the town, flowing between the old castle gardens. Buss Castle had been a second home in medieval times of one of the Earls of Warwick. It was now owned by the National Trust. Its thick walls plunged straight down into the glassy waters of the river, where launches and barges ploughed up and down and willow trees trailed their new leaves in the water.

The castle gardens were almost deserted. Fell sat down on a bench by the river as two swans cruised past. I’m like that, thought Fell. Serene on the top and the little paddles of my brain working furiously underneath. Why all that cash?

His parents had surely been law-abiding – strictly so. His father had always been complaining about layabouts and drug takers. Why not put the money in the bank? Had it been hidden from the tax man? But why? If it had been legally come by…

His busy thoughts turned to Maggie. It would be nice to have a confidante. Maggie was kind and trustworthy. Fell was not nervous in her presence, because he did not see her as a woman. In his many fantasies, women were always tall and beautiful and long-legged. Perhaps he might have asked a woman out in the past, but that would have meant asking his parents for the money to entertain her and then facing endless questions. And the fact was that both his dumpy little parents had possessed very powerful and domineering personalities. His father had given up beating him when he was twelve, but Fell could still remember the terror he had experienced when his mother would utter those dreaded words, “Your father will deal with you when he gets home.” Then the waiting to endure the beating on the bare backside with his father’s leather belt. He had never spoken to anyone about those beatings and had assumed for a long time after they had stopped that they were all part of parenting.

He rose and walked up the main street. So many shops containing so many things he could now buy if he wanted. He stood outside a men’s outfitter’s and then stared at his dim reflection in the shop window. His suit was shabby and the material cheap.

Again he thought of the money. He should really share it with the few relatives he had. But he would put it off until the funeral.

He bought himself fish and chips, went home and switched on the television set and lost himself in the moving coloured pictures until midnight.

♦

He rose early next morning and with a new feeling of adventure went to the local Marks & Spencer and bought a blazer, trousers, striped shirt and silk tie. Then he went to the jeweller’s. He would need to buy a ring for Maggie. At first as he looked at the engagement rings, he thought that anything simple might do. But at last he shook his head and refused them all. Maggie was doing him a great favour. Why not buy her a ring that she could keep, something more original?

He went into an antique shop where he knew they had a case of jewellery. With great care he finally selected a Victorian heavy gold ring, with a large square-cut emerald. The price made his eyelids blink rapidly. He paid cash, but with a dark little worm of doubt again plaguing his brain. Where had the money come from? He banished the thought and retired home and changed into his new clothes. He was beginning to feel like a totally different person.

Maggie was nervously waiting outside the striped awning of the restaurant, which was in an old Georgian mansion beside the river in the castle gardens. Fell would never know what pains Maggie had gone to with her appearance. She was wearing a long biscuit-coloured linen skirt, a tailored jacket and a lemon silk blouse. Fell only saw reassuringly familiar Maggie.

They went into the restaurant. The restaurant, although very grand, did not intimidate Fell. He was armoured in his new clothes. He had left shabby Fell behind.

They were given a table by the French windows which opened onto the terrace.

“You order for me,” whispered Maggie. “I eat anything.”

Fell ordered a simple meal of cucumber soup, followed by poached salmon and salad, and then with great daring also ordered a bottle of champagne. When the waiter had gone off with his order, he produced the jeweller’s box and handed it to Maggie. “It’s for you,” he said. “You may as well look the part.”

Maggie opened the box. The emerald blazed up at her. She caught her breath. She was suddenly intensely aware of everything, of the sunlight sparkling off the cutlery, of the peppery smell of the geraniums in pots on the terrace, of the chuckling sound of the river.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “Is it real?”

“I hope so.”

“I’ll give it back to you.”

“No, don’t do that. I wanted to give you something special, something you could keep.”

Maggie gave a shaky laugh. “It matches my eyes.”

Fell looked at her, puzzled.

“See?” She removed her heavy glasses. Her eyes were very large and green with flecks of gold.

“You have beautiful eyes,” said Fell. “You should wear contact lenses.”

Those eyes filled with tears. “What’s the matter?” asked Fell quickly.

Maggie took out a handkerchief and dried her eyes and put her glasses firmly back on. “I’m just tired, Fell, that’s all. You know what it’s like. The last customers didn’t leave until one in the morning. Now, first I had to tell my mother about our engagement. She doesn’t know it’s a pretend engagement and wants to meet you. I told her you were too grief-stricken, and then afterwards I can tell her it’s all off.”

“I hate making you lie for me.”

“I always lie to my mother anyway. It’s a form of self-protection. My father’s dead. Mother always says I’ll never get a man, so from time to time I invent a boyfriend. They never jilt me, you know, they either die or go abroad. Anyway, enough about me. What do you want to talk to me about?”

Fell had meant to tell her only about the inheritance. But somehow, under her sympathetic eyes, he found himself beginning at the beginning. He told her everything – about his childhood, about his relief at his mother’s death, about his guilt, and about the mysterious money in the cash box. He ended by saying, “I can’t understand why I didn’t tell the relatives about the money I’d been left or offer to give them some. I don’t know their financial circumstances. My parents never talked about them. They never really talked much about anything. I only know I want all the money for myself. Is that greedy?”

“No, it’s your inheritance. You’ll never satisfy them. You’ll simply cause a lot of envy and upset. We’ll talk to them at the funeral and find out if any of them need money. If they don’t, you’ve got nothing to worry about. It’s yours, so keep it.”

“I’m worried about that fifty thousand. I’ve already started to make a hole in it.”

“I can’t believe it’s anything illegal. Was there anything else in the desk to give you a clue?”

“I didn’t look further.”

“I’ll come back with you after lunch. I took the day off. I’ll need to see your kitchen because I’ll need to prepare some food for after the funeral.”

“I know,” said Fell. “I could hire a catering firm.”

“Might give them the idea you do have money. Do you have a microwave?”

“No, but I can buy one.”

“We can buy lots of savouries and things from Marks and I can heat them up. Leave it to me. So what will you do? Travel?”

“I thought about that. But I don’t want to see all that money drain away. Maybe I’ll start some sort of business. Maybe a restaurant.”

“A restaurant’s a bit too much like what you’ve been doing for most of your life.”

Fell smiled lazily at her, enjoying the unaccustomed effect of half a bottle of champagne and the heady relief of having been able to talk about himself at length with another human being. “What would you do, Maggie, if the money was yours?”

“I’m like you. Books are my solace, my friends. I would open a little bookshop with a coffee bar and a few tables at the back. I would have poetry readings, things like that. Oh, I’m being silly.”

“We could do it!” said Fell, suddenly excited.

“We?” said Maggie faintly.

“Maybe you want to keep on at the hotel.”

“God, no. Could we actually do it?”

“Why not?” Fell spread his arms. “There’s so much we can do. Maggie, you’ve listened and listened to me. I know nothing about your life. Tell me.”

“I’m trapped a bit like you were,” said Maggie, “but not because my mother’s possessive – far from it – but out of fear of living, fear of taking risks, lack of money. I’ve two older sisters – they’re married. Mum has various men friends, who sometimes stay the night. She’s got a sharp tongue. She runs me down a bit.”

Perhaps it was the champagne or Maggie’s worried and suddenly depressed face that made Fell say, “Move in with me.”

She stared at him.

“Well, why not? It’s a new century. We’re friends.”

“I’m beginning to feel as if I’ve been run over by a truck,” said Maggie.

“We’ll respect each other’s space,” said Fell. “I’ve promised my aunt Agnes all the furniture from the house. I want new stuff, light and airy.”

“And everything clean,” breathed Maggie.

“Oh, it’s always been clean.”

“My home’s a tip. I keep my own room clean, but Mum has the rest of the place in a mess. I try clearing up after her, but lately I’ve given it up as a bad job.”

“So why don’t you just give up your job at the hotel?”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. I need you, Maggie.”

“Is this a real proposal?” asked Maggie with a light laugh.

Suddenly the old Fell was looking at her, his face wary and tight and set.

“I was only joking, Fell,” said Maggie quickly. “We’re friends, right? No funny business. Just friends.”

Fell looked relieved. “Just friends.”

“I’ll go and powder my nose.”

Maggie went through to the ladies’ room and leaned against the handbasin. “The Maggies of this world,” she told her reflection severely, “must take what they can get.”

But a dry sob like that of a hurt child escaped her lips. She firmly reapplied her make-up and went back to join Fell.

♦

It turned out that Maggie owned a small car, something Fell had not known before. She went home to fetch it, asking Fell to wait for her. It was too soon for him to meet her mother.

When Maggie returned with a suitcase of clothes they went out and bought a microwave and then loaded up the car with savouries from Marks.

As they unloaded the stuff in the kitchen, Fell said ruefully, “I’ll need to buy a new fridge. There’s hardly room in this little thing for all the stuff.”

They had also bought bottles of various drinks and glasses. Maggie bustled about, examining everything. “How many relatives do you have?” she asked.

“Very few,” said Fell. “There’s Aunt Agnes; she’s a widow. Then there’s Cousin Tom and my other cousin, Barbara, and her husband, Fred. That’s all.”

“I hope they’re hungry. We’ve bought rather a lot.”

“We could eat some of it tonight and open a bottle of wine.”

“Right. Which room shall I take?”

“I’ll take my parents’ room and you can have mine. What did your mother say?”

Maggie blushed. “She was out, so I left a note.”

“She’ll be round here any minute.”

“I didn’t tell her where I was going. I said I would phone her.”

“Better get it over with,” said Fell. “The phone’s over there.”

“Is that the famous desk?”

“Yes. Phone first and then we’ll take a proper look through it.”

Maggie phoned her mother. The conversation seemed to be very one-sided, with Maggie saying, “But…well, you see, it all happened suddenly. But…” At last she replaced the receiver. “She’s furious. She says she needs my rent.”

“Will she manage?”

“Of course she will. I’ll need to get some sort of job, Fell. I can’t live off you.”

“Oh, I’ll arrange money for you,” said Fell expansively. “We’ll be starting our business soon. I mean, just help yourself to what you need out of the cash box.”

“Desk?”

“Yes, let’s have a look.”

Fell sorted out bank books and statements. “Nothing odd here,” said Maggie. “Except for one thing.”

“What?”

“Well, since you started work, your pay has been deposited each week. But there are no withdrawals. I mean they would have to draw money for bills, council tax, electricity, gas, things like that. There’s not one withdrawal. And you said they gave you an allowance.”

“That’s odd. You would have thought the tax people would have been after them.”

“Probably saw no reason to. Your tax was deducted from your earnings. What did they live on?”

“There must have been more money, much more than the money in the cash box.”

“Is it exactly fifty thousand?”

Fell opened the cash box. “Just under. It’s in bundles of twenties, see? I just counted the bundles.” He flicked through them.

“Maybe they had rich relatives.”

“I don’t know of any. They scrimped and saved. We never even had holidays.”

“There must be something in your past to explain it. Is there a photo album anywhere?”

“I don’t remember seeing one.”

“There aren’t even any wedding or baby photos anywhere,” said Maggie, looking around the dingy room.

“Let’s look in my mother’s room. I haven’t had the heart to pack anything up.”

They went up the stairs. The bedroom was as dark as the rest of the house. It was dominated by a large double bed. There was a dressing table by the window, with a hard chair in front of it. The fireplace had been blocked up. An Edwardian wardrobe took up most of one wall.

Fell opened the wardrobe. His mother had possessed few clothes. A wave of mothball smell made him wrinkle his nose. On the shelf above the hanging clothes were various hats. “We should get boxes after the funeral and pack all this up,” said Maggie. “Take it all round to Oxfam.”

“There’s something behind the hats,” said Fell, feeling with his fingers. He pulled out an old photo album.

He took it over to the bed. Maggie sat down beside him as he opened it. There was a wedding photograph. To his surprise, his mother looked small and dainty and pretty. His father was stiff in new clothes and sported a large walrus moustache. “Why did they never show me this?” wondered Fell. “Here’s another one of Dad at work. There’s the signal box.”

He had a sudden sharp memory of walking with his mother across the railway tracks to the signal box one hot summer’s day. Willow herb grew along the verges by the railway lines and the air was redolent with the railway smell of soot and creosote.

There was a photo of his father standing on the platform with other railway workers. Then there was a photo of a couple having tea on the lawn outside a large mansion. They were an elderly, aristocratic-looking pair.

“Who are they? And where’s that?” asked Maggie.

“I don’t know,” said Fell, bewildered.

There were various other photographs of trains and railway workers, and then nothing more.

“There isn’t a photograph of you,” exclaimed Maggie. “How very strange.”

“I’ll ask Aunt Agnes tomorrow if she’s got any photos. Let’s leave all this, Maggie. I’ve had enough for one day.”

They spent the rest of the evening sharing a bottle of wine and watching television.

Then Fell looked out clean sheets and made up the bed for himself in his mother’s room and changed the bed in his own room for Maggie.

“I hope you’ll be all right,” he said awkwardly.

“I’ll be fine,” said Maggie.

Fell lay awake for a long time. He tried to remember some affection in his childhood, some hugs and kisses, but could recall none. He prayed for the repose of his mother’s soul and then asked forgiveness because he could not mourn her passing. Maggie also lay awake for a long time, bewildered at the change in her circumstances. Had she been in love with Fell for a long time? He was the only person who had taken pains to be kind to her. Maggie had taken to reading adventure and spy stories so that they could have more to talk about in the hotel dining room. And yet she had never thought of having sex with him. When she was younger, she had experienced two brief flings, one in the back of a car with a businessman, the other with a wine salesman. Both episodes had left her feeling dirty and diminished. Now all she could think of was how much she really wanted Fell to love her and for him to make love to her. Perhaps they would grow together. But she knew in her bones that it would be very easy to frighten him off.