The Office of the Dead

‘How interesting. Now, why don’t I read you a story, just a quick one, and then you can settle down?’

I read her the story of the feeding of the five thousand, which I chose on the grounds that it was short and contained no angels whatsoever. Some children like to sit with you, or on you, while you read to them. Rosie preferred me to sit in the chair by the window. She said it was so she could watch my face.

Later, when the story was over, I tucked her up and kissed the top of her head.

‘Auntie Wendy?’

‘What?’

‘Was Lucifer an angel?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘He’d be a sort of naughty angel. A wicked one who lives in hell.’

‘You’ll have to ask Daddy. He’ll know.’

‘Yes,’ Rosie said. ‘He knows all about God and things like that.’

Mr Treevor had settled into his new home surprisingly quickly. As long as there were no major deviations from the routine he had established he seemed quite content. Janet worried that he might try to repeat his mock-suicide attempt but there were no more incidents like that. (Janet asked him on several occasions why he’d done it. Twice he said it was a joke to amuse Rosie. Once he couldn’t remember doing it at all. And the last time he said it was to see how much people loved him.)

If anything Rosie rather liked him. Perhaps it was because he was the nearest available man in the absence of a father. Sometimes he would go and say good night to her and an hour or so later Janet would find them both asleep, Rosie in bed and Mr Treevor in the armchair by the window. It was rather touching to see them together, asleep or awake. They didn’t communicate much and they made few demands on each other, but they seemed to enjoy being in the same room.

The next day when the migraine had subsided, I told Janet what Rosie had said.

‘An angel? Daddy must have been dreaming.’

‘Most people settle for gnomes in the garden. I think an angel’s rather classy.’

‘Perhaps it was the milkman. He usually wears a white coat.’

‘But he doesn’t come to the garden door.’

‘Daddy’s getting a bit confused, that’s all,’ Janet said. ‘Dr Flaxman said this might happen.’

Nowadays they would be able to narrow it down and perhaps delay the dementia’s progress with drugs. Mr Treevor could have had a relatively early onset of senile dementia, either Alzheimer’s or Multi-Infarct Dementia. Alzheimer’s can be a pre-senile dementia as well. He wasn’t a drinker so it can’t have been alcoholic dementia. Other dementias can be caused by pressure in the brain, perhaps from a tumour, or by rare diseases like Huntington’s or Pick’s. But Pick’s and Huntington’s usually start when their victims are younger. If it was Huntington’s it would have shown up when Rosie had the tests when she was an adult, even if she was not a carrier. The other main dementias, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and Aids dementia, developed later than 1958.

The worst thing, Janet said, was he knew what was happening. Not very often, but sometimes. He wasn’t a fool by any means. And occasionally he was capable of acting completely rationally. That was why we took the story of the robbery seriously.

It happened while he was alone in the house. David and I were at work. Janet had gone to collect Rosie from school. When they got back they found Mr Treevor in a terrible state, trying to phone the police.

According to him, he had been dozing in his room when he heard somebody moving around downstairs. Thinking it was Janet, he had gone on to the landing and called downstairs, asking when tea would be ready. He heard footsteps, and the garden door slam. He looked out of the window and saw a man walking quickly down the garden and through the gate into the Close.