Coffin Underground

It was a night for memories and he had plenty centred on this district. A mixed bag, as memories tend to be, but all of them worth hanging on to. That was something he had learnt over the years, that painful memories could be very valuable, marking a place in your life where you had gone wrong but need not do so again.

As he got to his front door he looked back. To his surprise he saw the tall Fleming boy, he thought Mrs Brocklebank had told him he was called Peter, standing across the road from No. 22.

Poor lad, he thought. Listening to the party, but not of the party. Hearing the gaiety but not invited to it.

Then he saw a figure flit up from the basement and run across the road to the boy. He recognized the daughter of the house.

He let himself into the house and walked up the stairs, half sorry for the pair, half envious. Lucky young beggars, he thought. You’ve got it all to go through and it’s a pain as well as a pleasure, but you’ll miss it when it’s done.

A bit later he took another look from the window. Yes, they were still out there under the street lamp. Just parting under the tree. The boy was hanging on to the girl’s hand, letting go reluctantly, then slowly walking away.

Romeo and Juliet, no less, he thought.

When the party was over Edward and Irene were alone in the kitchen, and both of them knew that something had to be said, was going to be said, but were reluctant to be the one who began.

‘Sandwich?’ Irene examined an open sandwich which still had its piece of smoked salmon adhering to it.

‘No, thank you.’

‘Just as well probably, it’s drying out.’ She put it aside. ‘There’s something unpleasing about a dried-out bit of smoked salmon, isn’t there? Mrs B. didn’t manage badly though. Good marks for her.’

‘There’s one thing you can’t do, couldn’t do in New York and can’t do here where there’s less excuse, and that’s get good servants.’

‘Mrs B.’s all right.’ Irene was both surprised and defensive. It was not like Edward to be hostile. Or rude to her. Angry sometimes, yes, but not unpleasant.

‘She’s an old soak.’

‘No, I don’t think so.’ Now Irene was really taken aback. ‘Not her.’

‘If the pile of whisky bottles I found neatly hidden away in the basement is anything to go by, she is. I don’t know who else could have left them there.’

‘The Leggetts … ?’ began Irene. ‘We let them the house,’ before she remembered what the Leggetts, vegans and into yoga, were like. No, it couldn’t be them. And anyway they would have left the bottles around. Hiding or even tidying up was not their style. ‘No, I can see it would not be them. But I dispute Mrs B., I don’t think she drinks at all.’

‘Then she’s got a boyfriend who does.’

‘Edward! Why are you being so nasty? What’s the matter with you?’

‘Do you need to ask?’

‘It’s because Christopher came here.’

‘Yes, I could have done without that. He wasn’t asked. Or was he?’

‘I sent an invitation,’ admitted Irene. ‘I wasn’t sure if he’d come.’

‘You were sure.’

‘I knew we’d meet sometime. But we’ve kept our word. I agreed to wait for a divorce until you retired. You agreed.’

‘I don’t have to like it, though, and I don’t have to like him. And I don’t.’

‘I hate you being like this.’ Irene stood her ground, not giving anger back for anger, but she was unhappy. ‘You seem less than yourself. Not worthy of what you are.’

‘You don’t really understand, do you?’

Irene shook her head silently.

‘Ask Othello,’ he said under his breath. ‘He knew all about jealousy.’

Irene turned her head away. She shovelled all the unfinished food into the waste-bin. Who wanted to see cold sausages on sticks and soggy pastry with bits of caviare on it in the morning? And clearing up the mess of the party seemed the right and only thing to do in the circumstances.

Edward stood watching her, but not helping.

‘Where’s Nona?’

‘In bed, I expect.’

‘She’s not. I just looked.’

‘Around somewhere.’ Irene was casual. She did not hang over her daughter.

‘You’re a lousy mother.’

‘That’s not true.’ She was hurt. Not only was it not true, but Edward had never shown signs of thinking it before.

‘You ought to know where a child of fifteen is.’

‘Nona is quite grown up.’

‘All the more reason.’

Irene said nothing, just pushed some more rubbish from the party into the bin.

‘There’s been a murder around here, you know.’

‘I do know. Mrs Brocklebank told me.’

‘I don’t want Nona out on her own after dark.’

‘She’s not likely to be killed.’

‘Don’t even say it.’

Then they both heard the careful, quiet closing of the front door.

Nona came into the room, then stopped in surprise. She had returned home expecting them to be in bed. She would certainly have preferred them to be. She had long had her own ways of entering and leaving No. 22 in private, she remembered them from of old. Which to her meant before New York.

‘Hello.’