Death of a Dormouse Read online

  The old woman nodded and said, ‘That’s the kind of thing them fancy lawyers would say, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so. If it came to questioning.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it would,’ she said fiercely. ‘And I’d have to take an oath?’

  ‘In court, yes,’ said Trudi, bewildered and by now a trifle uneasy.

  ‘Then you’d better hear what I would have to tell them, Mrs Adamson,’ she said with an air of decision. ‘Then you can make up your mind. What my husband told me wasn’t what he told the police. Don’t misunderstand me, he didn’t lie, he just kept it simple. He told them he’d no idea how long your man’s car had been stopped on the road when he noticed it. And the crash happened shortly after.’

  Trudi’s uneasiness was now a constricting pain beneath her breast bone.

  ‘Truth was,’ Mrs Brightshaw continued, ‘he’d noticed the car arrive twenty, thirty minutes earlier. Then another car came and stopped behind it. He heard doors slamming. Then he saw someone move from the second car to the first. It was a woman. Harold was working with his tractor you understand, not just standing gawking. But a bit later on, he saw the second car move off. And it wasn’t long after that that the accident happened.’

  Trudi made two false starts before she could speak.

  ‘Why didn’t he say anything about this in his statement?’ she managed in the end.

  ‘He was a kind man, my Harold,’ said the older woman softly. ‘He reckoned that if there was nothing in it, the other driver would come forward soon enough. But if it was what it looked like, there was no point in adding to your troubles by letting all and sundry know your husband was parked out in the countryside to meet his fancy woman.’

  She raised her eyes and regarded the younger woman steadily.

  ‘But there’s one thing for sure,’ she said. ‘A man doing that doesn’t leave his car lying halfway across the road.’

  Trudi took a deep breath. She was almost too bewildered to be distressed. She heard herself saying wretchedly, ‘It was definitely a woman, was it?’

  ‘It was,’ said Mrs Brightshaw. ‘He told me he could see her head clearly above the hedge. She must have been a tall lass. Blonde hair he said, I remember that. Bright blonde.’

  A tall lass. Bright blonde hair. Trudi felt the information register. Then she asked, ‘And her car? Did he say anything about that?’

  ‘Yes, he did, as a matter of fact. He said it was a little red thing with a kind of flag on its aerial. He mentioned how small it was, particular, because that seemed likely the reason this blonde lass went to the other, which was bigger. More room for that sort of meeting. He wasn’t making a joke, just giving me his reason for keeping mum. When the police came for his statement, he asked if there was a wife and when they told him yes, that made up his mind. He thought you’d be hurt enough. Like I say, he was a kind man.’

  ‘Yes, yes, he sounds like a kind man,’ Trudi echoed, rising. She now felt surprisingly calm. ‘How will you manage now that you’re by yourself?’ she heard herself asking, calm and concerned as the vicar’s wife on a parochial visit.

  Mrs Brightshaw let the question hang, smelling more patronizing by the second, till she had shown Trudi to the door.

  ‘I’ve been managing ever since Harold took his stroke,’ she said finally. ‘Managing’s easy. It’s wanting to manage that’s the hard bit. But you’ll have found that out yourself, I daresay.’

  The door closed behind Trudi and the bolt rattled home.

  Slowly she returned to the car, moving in time to the childish jingle which had risen unsummoned into her head.

  Three blind mice … see how they run … they all ran after the farmer’s wife … she cut off their tails with a carving knife …

  ‘OK?’ said Janet, compressing a whole catechism into the question.

  ‘Fine,’ said Trudi. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You don’t look fine. You look terrible,’ said Janet. ‘Come on, what do you really feel like?’

  ‘I feel like a widow,’ said Trudi savagely. ‘I feel like a fucking widow!’

  4

  Trudi told Janet nothing of her discovery about Astrid Fischer till they got drunk together on Boxing Day.

  She had made a token protest when Janet invited her to spend Christmas in Oldham.

  ‘It’s your first Christmas together,’ she said. ‘And it’s a family time.’

  ‘Family! What family? Mine’s halfway across the world, and Frank’s good for half an hour of Santa Claus with his grandkids, then it’s King Herod time. He’ll be glad of an ally.’

  This had turned out to be true. And on Boxing Day, Frank had taken further advantage of her presence by going off to play golf with a clear conscience.

  ‘Fair dos,’ said Janet. ‘He put golf at the top of his interests on the bureau form. I don’t mind. Golf’s good for a marriage. Man with his eye on the ball doesn’t have much time to look at anything else.’

  She grinned broadly as she spoke. Their lunch of cold turkey washed down with a bottle of hock was being rounded off with liqueur chocolates and brandy.

  Relaxed but not yet somnolent, Trudi said, ‘I think you did well there, Jan. Mebbe mail order’s the best way!’

  ‘You didn’t think so at first,’ said Janet slyly.

  ‘Didn’t I? I don’t know what I thought. I wasn’t quite right in my mind for a while you know. I mean, it’s hard. You don’t know what you’re like till you’re not like it any more.’

  She giggled and held out her glass for a refresher.

  Janet said, ‘Dormouse philosophy is it now? Not to worry. Another shot of this and I’ll be able to pour you back in the teapot!’

  ‘No, I’m serious,’ said Trudi. ‘And it’s not just the drink. I woke up this morning feeling it might not be so bad to be me after all. I can’t remember the last time I felt like that, Jan.’

  Janet looked at her disbelievingly.

  ‘But you’ve had the life of Reilly!’ she protested. ‘Highflying husband, glamorous cities, no kids to weigh you down. Don’t imagine I didn’t lie in bed many a night and think, that bitch is living my life!’

  ‘I certainly wasn’t living my own,’ said Trudi.

  ‘What’s this? Self-pity? I thought we were past that stage.’

  ‘Oh no. I may get maudlin later but right now I’m stuck at honesty. Let me tell you about my life, Jan, if you’ve a moment to spare. I married Trent and went off to Zürich. Only I didn’t really go to Zürich. I just stayed inside the private little atmosphere that existed for me round Trent and it went to Zürich. We had an apartment, lovely views, a skyful of Alps. I hated those mountains. All that space threatening to suck me away, to steal my private atmosphere. But I’d have climbed them with Trent. When he was with me, anything was possible. When he was away, which in his job was often, I never stirred from the flat. I’d stock up the larder in advance and just not budge. He never knew till one time he was delayed an extra week with engine trouble and came home to find me starving.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Got angry. Told me not to be stupid. Made me go out by myself.’

  ‘Great therapy,’ said Janet angrily. ‘Didn’t you talk to anyone else? Friends? A doctor?’

  ‘A doctor? Not that time. As for friends, how should I make friends? I didn’t want to make friends. We hardly ever entertained, thank God. When we did, it was disastrous. He brought Herr Schiller to dinner once. Trent was still working for the charter company then. I suppose he wanted to make a good impression with a view to getting more work through Schiller-Reise. Everything went wrong! We had burnt salad and raw trout I seem to recall. Trent said it didn’t matter. In fact he seemed to find it rather amusing. I thought I’d ruined his future.’

  ‘But you hadn’t.’

  ‘No,’ said Trudi sadly. ‘I should have known even then that ruining his future wasn’t an option Trent left open to anyone, especially me. Schiller came back several times, but just for drinks! Eve
ntually Trent announced he was taking a job full-time with Schiller-Reise and we were moving to Brussels. I was delighted. Trent was giving up flying and becoming an executive. I thought he’d be home every night. It didn’t work out like that. If anything, he travelled abroad even more. So the old pattern reestablished itself. And Trent found out and got angry and ordered me to go out. And I did and it seemed to be all right. At least there weren’t all those mountain peaks threatening me. Till one day I was sitting in the Gran’ Place feeling rather proud and woman-of-the-worldish when a storm blew up. The sky went dark and swirly, there was a tremendous wind, the air seemed lurid. Everyone ran for cover, everyone except me. I couldn’t move. I knew it was me they were after …’

  ‘They?’

  ‘Them. Whatever’s outside wanting to get inside and destroy us,’ said Trudi calmly. ‘I just sat there paralysed with terror. No one paid much heed till the rain came. But after a while the sight of a woman sitting under a deluge attracted first attention, then concern. When Trent came back from that trip, he found me in hospital.’

  ‘What did he do? Command you to take up your bed and walk?’

  ‘He got me the best medical treatment money could buy,’ said Trudi, smiling. ‘I loved it. Suddenly I was the centre of Trent’s attention. When I was declared cured we moved to Paris. I felt so happy! But Trent’s job took him away as often as ever, so when one day I felt the old terror returning, I almost welcomed it! Wouldn’t it put me back at the centre of Trent’s life? Well, for a time I thought it had. But this time after the treatment was over, Trent started wondering whether it might not be better if we bought a house back in England where I wouldn’t feel so isolated. It might mean our separations would be longer, but at least I’d be among “my own folk”. I don’t know if he meant it as a threat or a genuine kindness. All I know is that it was the last thing I wanted. So I took it as a threat and became a changed woman!’

  ‘How the hell do you change something like that?’ asked Janet.

  ‘Don’t forget, I had medication, I had relaxation exercises, I had self-help psycho-programmes too. I put up a pretty good show of normality.’

  ‘But if you were cured, you were normal!’

  ‘Oh no. Normal people look at relationships critically. All I wanted was to make sure I stayed with Trent. He was my atmosphere. Take him away and there was that awful vacuum waiting to suck me up. So I took great care of myself. When I went out, I was always ready to head for home at the first hint of fear. I refused to even try to make friends. All I wanted was to please Trent when he was home and not to displease him when he was away.’

  ‘But you never hinted at any of this when you wrote,’ said Janet. ‘Your letters were …’

  ‘Dull? Just what you expected from me, I bet. I was leading a dull life, remember.’

  ‘But all those years! What did you do? How did you pass the time?’

  Trudi laughed and drank some more. ‘Come on Jan. Add up the individual bits of your own life – anyone’s life – and you’ll find the majority of it is dull, routine, mechanical stuff. But there were things I did, partly to keep Trent happy that I wasn’t drifting around like a zombie and partly to stop me doing just that. Like you said, we lived in some pretty glamorous places. I did go out to the theatre, cinema, galleries, museums. I even took courses, pretty basic O-level type things at first, but eventually I aimed higher. History, literature, whatever was available wherever we were, by correspondence mainly, though I did occasionally have discussions over the phone. Eventually I got up to degree level; there, that surprises you!’

  ‘My God, you’ve got letters after your name!’

  ‘Oh no. I never actually took the final exams. I set out once, but halfway there I changed my mind. I don’t think it was agoraphobia, just a terror of finding out how thick I really was.’

  ‘Come off it. Thick you’re not.’

  ‘Oh yes I am,’ said Trudi grimly. ‘I managed to lead this odd half life for more than twenty years and kid myself I was happy. And for what?’

  ‘For … well, for happiness!’ urged Janet. ‘Everyone compromises. Don’t exaggerate your own compromise. You’d have gone on with it, wouldn’t you? You’d have lived happily ever after if that dreadful accident hadn’t happened, wouldn’t you? All right, now you think you’re awake. But the thing is, was the other state totally bad?’

  ‘I think so. But the thing really is, how much longer was I going to be allowed to stay what you call happy, anyway?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Trudi hesitated, then thought: come on, don’t be coy, you’ve gone too far to head back for home this time!

  She said baldly, ‘Trent was having an affair. I think he was planning to leave me.’

  ‘Good God, girl! What are you saying? I mean, why are you saying it?’ said Janet in an agitated tone.

  ‘Lots of reasons,’ said Trudi. ‘Lots and lots of reasons.’

  It was rather pleasant, she discovered, to have Janet’s undivided attention and she paused, savouring the feeling as her friend regarded her with an expression of surprise bordering on shock.

  ‘I should’ve guessed,’ she resumed. ‘But I never looked beyond the nose on my face, did I? Quitting his job without telling me and bringing me back to England! It’s obvious he had something better to go to and he wasn’t taking me with him. He was kind enough to think I’d be better off being dumped here than back in Vienna. Or perhaps he planned eventually to go back to Vienna and didn’t want me still to be there. Yes, I bet that’s it. Not kindness. I mean, it was hardly kindness to leave me with a measly four thousand pounds. The rest of the money’s probably been transferred somewhere. I wonder if that bitch has managed to get her hands on it!’

  ‘What bitch?’ asked Janet, her voice still faint from surprise.

  Now Trudi told her about Astrid Fischer. Her friend sank back into her chair.

  ‘So that was what that trip was all about!’ she said. ‘What a nerve, turning up at the funeral like that!’

  ‘I suppose Trent dying was as big a shock for her as it was for me,’ said Trudi. ‘Not as big a shock as I’m going to give her, though.’

  Janet said, ‘You’re going to see her?’

  ‘Why not?’ said Trudi. ‘I’ve got to go back to Vienna. I want to get a certificate of health or something from Trent’s doctor and I’ve got to sort out the furniture in store there. I’ll sell most of it, I think. I need the money. And I think I may just call in on Fraulein Fischer and see what she has to say for herself. At the very least, the bitch can be a witness that Trent was parked safely off the road!’

  If she expected applause from Janet, she didn’t get it. She poured herself another drink and said, ‘What’re you looking so disapproving about?’

  ‘Not disapproving. Just wondering if it’s worth the hassle, girl. Trent’s dead. Either she loved him, in which case she’s had her share of pain too. Or she didn’t. In which case, what’s the point of dragging it all out now? Forget it. You’ll just upset yourself.’

  Trudi burst out, ‘What do you mean, forget it? If it was you, would you forget it? No! It’s just that you reckon I’m not up to it! Well, I’ll show you. You’re not the only one who can make decisions, girl! I might even give that dating agency of yours a go while I’m at it!’

  She tossed her drink back dramatically and began to cough.

  ‘Take it easy,’ laughed Janet. ‘I don’t think you’re ready for the Lewis Agency just yet.’

  ‘Why?’ coughed Trudi. ‘How long did you wait?’

  ‘Not long,’ admitted Janet. ‘But it was different. Alan and I had been drifting apart for years.’

  ‘And Trent and I hadn’t?’ said Trudi bitterly.

  ‘Had you?’

  ‘I don’t know! That’s the dreadful thing, Jan. I really don’t know anything about our relationship. I don’t know what he saw in me, why he wanted to marry me, why he stayed married to me! All these things I ought to know better than anyone.
I don’t! I bet you know more about me than I do myself, Jan! What does that make me? Where’ve I been? What sort of life have I led?’

  For a second it looked as if Janet might be ready to take her question seriously. But then she smiled wryly and swung her legs off the arm of the sofa and on to the floor.

  Standing up, she looked down at Trudi and said, ‘Not one where you got used to drinking, that’s clear. A little lie-down’s the best thing for you. Go on now! I’ll see to the clearing up.’

  Trudi protested but Janet bossed her out of the room. In a last assertion of independence she paused in the doorway and said, ‘But I will go to that agency, you’ll see.’

  ‘All right, we’ll see,’ grinned Janet. ‘Now you sleep on it.’

  So Trudi slept on it. In her sleep for the first time in weeks the dream came: the flight from Trent, the slow footsteps to the door, the handle turning; and the locked door slowly opening to admit her death.

  She awoke, sweating and trembling. Why had the dream come back now? For the first time she also asked herself, Why should I dream of Trent at all in this way? Why would he hurt me in death when he never hurt me in life!

  And then she remembered and thought, oh yes, you did, you bastard. Yes, you did!

  Part Three

  Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,

  An’ weary winter comin’ fast,

  An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,

  Thou thought to dwell,

  ’Till crash! the cruel coulter past

  Out thro’ thy cell.

  BURNS: To a Mouse

  1

  The Sheffield branch of the Lewis Agency was situated at the top of a time-blackened building in a tall Victorian terrace not far from the squat Victorian cathedral.

  There was no lift, and Trudi laboured up the stairs passing other offices en route, a debt collecting agency on the first floor, an insurance broker’s on the second, a typing and secretarial bureau on the third. Two girls were standing outside this door, chattering like house sparrows, but they fell silent at her approach and did not resume their giggling conversation till she went by, face burning with the certainty that they had guessed her destination. Only pride prevented her from retreating there and then. It was pride, or rather a kind of stubborn pique, that had brought her here in the first place. There had been no more mention of the dating agency till Trudi had been packing to leave. Then Janet had casually tossed her a slim brochure and said, ‘You were asking about this, remember?’