Death of a Dormouse

‘You’ll cope, I’m sure,’ said Janet.

For the first time, a certain strain in her friend’s voice registered with Trudi.

‘Jan, are you OK? I mean, you’re not still annoyed about lunch time?’

‘Of course not. No, you’re the one entitled to be annoyed. I know I’m too pushy sometimes. No, the thing is, when I got home this afternoon, I found the house had been broken into.’

‘Oh Janet! How awful.’

‘Well, I’m trying not to make too big a thing of it; I mean, the place was a bit untidy, but he wasn’t one of the dirty ones, thank God. Doesn’t seem to have taken anything either, the police reckon he was looking for money. But even so, it shakes you up a bit.’

‘I bet it does. And me rabbiting on about my job. I’m sorry.’

‘No. That’s really good news, that cheers me up a lot. I look forward to hearing about your new exciting commercial life next Wednesday.’

‘Yes. Oh by the way, I wondered, well, would you mind going for a drive next week? Down into Derbyshire? I thought we could have a bar lunch, my treat.’

‘Why, yes, of course,’ said Janet, slightly puzzled. ‘That would be nice.’

‘Lovely. See you next Wednesday then.’

The following Wednesday was a bright but chilly December day. Janet picked her up at midday and by one o’clock they were tucking into a substantial bar lunch in the small village of Grindleford.

‘I hope you’re not planning an afternoon’s hiking,’ said Janet, refilling their glasses from the bottle of hock Trudi had insisted on buying.

‘No,’ she assured her.

‘Good. Now tell me about the House of Usher!’

There wasn’t much to tell.

‘I spent my first day, last Thursday that was, working out that damned typewriter. On Monday, Usher showed up. There were a few letters to translate and type. And that was it. Fortunately I’d taken a good book along.’

‘And Usher? Did he pounce?’

‘No! He bought me a drink at lunch time though.’

‘Aha!’ said Janet gleefully. ‘You want to watch him!’

‘I don’t think he’s interested in me like that,’ said Trudi slowly.

‘What other way is there?’ mocked Janet.

Trudi smiled but didn’t answer. This time she didn’t need her friend to suggest that she was being neurotic.

After lunch, Trudi surprised Jan by taking charge of navigation, using an os map. Janet followed, with puzzlement which might eventually become protest, the uncertain route laid out for her along a skein of narrow roads, many unclassified. The sun was still bright, but low now in the winter sky, sending long shadows from leafless trees.

Suddenly Trudi said, ‘Stop here!’

Janet brought the car to a halt and Trudi was out of it before she could speak. They were on a straight and undulating stretch of narrow road running between thick hedgerows of hawthorn and blackthorn, alongside which marched a spindly line of telegraph poles. About a hundred yards ahead one of the poles looked newer than the rest and there was a long gap in the hedge, repaired with stakes and wire. Beyond the hedge to the left was a ploughed field rising diagonally with the swell of the ground, like the birth of a wave caught with an artist’s brush.

Trudi walked along the road a little way till she came to an old wooden gate, badly in need of repair, set between two pillars of rough-hewn stone which looked as if they could have been raised there by Druids. She pushed back the gate far enough to let her through and set off across the field, following the rising diagonal.

From time to time she stopped and looked back. The first time she could not see Janet’s car at all. The second time she could see the line of its roof and Janet’s face regarding her with what she guessed was bewilderment. And on her third stop, high up the field, she could see the car and also the long line of the road where it continued its arrow-straight run on the far side of the ridge to another distant crest.

A truck coming down there would be able to reach a tremendous speed, she told herself. Downhill, an empty road ahead, foot on the accelerator, and then the exhilaration of the sudden upward swoop apparently into nothingness over the brow of the ridge on which she stood.

And immediately, panic! No longer an empty road but not very far ahead a stationary car leaving only a narrow passage. The foot instinctively hitting the brake pedal, the wheels locking, the tyres starting to skid across the gleaming muddy surface, and suddenly the steering wheel as useless as a broken rudder in a storm-tossed sea.

She looked up to the sky. It was a mistake, the world began to reel, she felt herself in danger of being shaken off into that cold blue emptiness and her atoms, each one printed with her terror and loss, scattered forever through the universe. She closed her eyes and dug her nails deep into her palms till the earth stood still. Then she turned and walked back down to the car. Janet’s face was full of questions, but when Trudi got in and said, ‘Let’s carry on. Over the hill there should be a track to the left,’ she obeyed silently.

The track was there, a farm road signposted Six Mile Farm.

The track’s surface was rutted and pot-holed and Janet had to concentrate to pick out the least damaging line. Trudi was mentally doing the same and finding it even more difficult. The woman she was going to see would be grieving with a nearer and probably deeper grief than her own. Trudi was suddenly astounded at her arrogance in even thinking of intruding on her at this time. The car was entering a farmyard. She wanted to tell Janet to turn straight round and head back for the road, but it was already too late. The tall stone building had an abundance of small narrow windows, as though the builder lacked the art to make them double and had compensated by making them frequent. As they drove through the entrance, Trudi glimpsed a face pressed against one of these and before the car had come to rest on the cobbled forecourt, the farmhouse door was open and a woman emerged.

Saying to Janet, ‘I won’t be long,’ she got out.

The woman remained in the doorway, for which she was grateful. She wanted to explain her business out of Janet’s hearing.

‘Mrs Brightshaw?’ she said.

The woman nodded. She was tall and muscular, with a weather-beaten face, a sharp chin and nose, steely grey hair and deep-set, watchful eyes. She looked about sixty, or perhaps a well-preserved seventy.

Trudi said, ‘I’m sorry to trouble you at this time, Mrs Brightshaw. I was sorry to hear of your husband’s death.’

‘You knew Harold?’ she said in a flat Derbyshire accent.

‘No,’ Trudi said. ‘Not personally. My name’s Adamson. Trudi Adamson. I don’t know if you recall the accident on the road back there in the summer. Mr Brightshaw was a witness. It was my husband who was killed.’

The woman considered this, then, ‘You’d better come in,’ she said, stepping aside, adding as Trudi went by, ‘What about her?’

Presumably she was referring to Janet.

Trudi said, ‘No, no. She’ll be all right.’

Mrs Brightshaw closed the front door and ushered Trudi into a long, high living room.

Sitting down in an old wing chair before a huge fireplace in which flickered a tiny fire, Trudi said, ‘Look, Mrs Brightshaw, if you don’t feel like talking about your husband, please say so and I’ll go.’

The woman answered, ‘I reckon if you can talk about yours, I can talk about my Harold. And if I don’t feel like it, I’ll shut up. What do you want to know?’

Trudi began to explain and found herself rambling.

Impatiently Mrs Brightshaw said, ‘Let’s get it straight. These lawyers are trying to say your man might’ve had a bad turn and stopped his car sudden like, so it was blocking the road?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And if the court believes that, it’ll affect your compensation?’