The Shortest Journey Read online

  ‘Oh, worse. Poor Mrs Rossiter – Thelma’s trying to make her sign a power of attorney.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it might be easier, with Thelma so far away. If anything happened, I mean.’

  ‘If it was anyone else but Thelma I might agree, but I’m sure she’s got her beady little eyes fixed on that money. There’s rather a lot, you know. And I think she’s cooking something up with Gordon and their solicitor. Anyway, Mrs Rossiter seems perfectly healthy to me. At least she didn’t give in to Thelma straight away. She said she’d have to consult Arthur Robertson.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t give much for her chances of holding out if Thelma has made up her mind. Mrs R. is sweet but people have been bossing her around and pushing her aside all her life. Remember those dreadful parties.’

  Rosemary had been forced to go to Thelma’s birthday parties because Mrs Dudley, who was a dreadful old snob, would never have let her daughter refuse an invitation from a child whose mother was rich, whose father had aristocratic connections and who lived in a Manor. We used to hate the stiff formality, which the over-lavish food and expensive entertainer did little to alleviate. Colonel Rossiter would invariably be present, falsely genial, and then there was Thelma herself, with her sharp-eyed evaluation of the proffered birthday present, which always seemed inadequate as she unwrapped it and cast it aside with perfunctory thanks. Worst of all – to me at any rate – was the sight of poor Mrs Rossiter, trying so hard to make things comfortable and pleasant for the young guests (she was genuinely fond of children and left to herself got on well with them) and being snubbed and scornfully disregarded by her daughter and her husband.

  ‘Goodness, yes, weren’t they dire? Do you remember that year when the conjurer didn’t show up and Colonel Rossiter blamed her and went storming out – and Thelma went up to her room in a sulk. Actually, though, it was the nicest party of all, because Mrs Rossiter organised silly games like pass the parcel and musical chairs and we all had a marvellous time until Thelma heard us enjoying ourselves and came downstairs and cast a blight on the whole affair.’

  Rosemary suddenly looked at her watch. ‘Oh Lord, I’ve got to go. I’ve got Mother’s salmon for her supper and I must get it back so that Elsie can cook it for her before she goes. Mother won’t let me do it, thank goodness, she says I dry it up!’

  She wrenched open the car door, quelled the excited dogs and drove away.

  I stood for a moment pondering on the unfairness of life that gave Rosemary a mother like Mrs Dudley and Thelma one like Mrs Rossiter. What a pity we couldn’t choose our parents. But then, I wondered, what about our own children – would they choose us?

  This seemed an unprofitable and even disquieting matter for speculation so I sensibly went home to cook my own less exciting supper.

  Chapter Three

  ‘Is something wrong with Mrs Rossiter,’ Mrs Jankiewicz said. ‘I do not know what it is for she does not tell me, but is something.’

  ‘I suppose it does take a little while to settle in a new place,’ I replied, ‘especially somewhere like West Lodge when you’ve been used to living in a large house with lots of space.’

  ‘Is not that.’ she said positively, ‘she does not worry about such things – she was glad to leave that gloomy house, I think. No, is something that has happen, I am sure. I notice a difference in her. She is so sad all the time and there is something on her mind. She come for a tea last week because it is my names day. Was not a tea like we used to have, do you remember?’

  ‘No small fish?’ I laughed.

  I used to go to tea with Sophie, when we were both at school, and I was always enchanted by the novelty and foreignness of the food. There was Polish ham and the ‘small fish’ – a kind of especially delicious sardine – wonderful cheesecake and delicate, airy cinnamon biscuits covered in icing sugar. And tea, of course, from the silver samovar.

  I get the girl here to fetch me some cheesecake, but is not the same, like I make.’

  ‘Oh that was wonderful. And that lovely one you used to do – sponge with those little dark plums! Do you know, I still use your recipe for bigos – so wonderfully warm and comforting in the winter – Michael loves it!’

  Mrs Jankiewicz smiled and I led her back into the past and let her tell me once again about the picnics they had on her grandmother’s estate in Eastern Poland when she was a girl. But the memory of what she said about Mrs Rossiter stayed with me and nagged away in my mind. I felt I ought to go and see her and find out what the trouble was, but she was such a private person and I didn’t want her to think that I was interfering, or that Mrs Jankiewicz and I had been talking about her behind her back.

  About a week later I was walking through Jubilee Gardens when I saw Mrs Rossiter sitting on one of the benches. This was unusual since, unlike most of the residents of West Lodge, she preferred to go further afield. She was sitting quite still with her hands resting in her lap and her face raised to catch the warmth of the sun, but she didn’t really looked relaxed and peaceful, although it was a beautiful spring afternoon and the flower beds around her were brilliant with wallflowers and forget-me-nots. Watching her from a distance I was struck by the great sadness of her expression, almost a sort of hopelessness.

  I drew level with her and called out a greeting. She turned her head and, just for a moment, didn’t seem to recognise me. I was alarmed and wondered if perhaps Thelma had been right about her mother’s failing capabilities. But then she smiled and said quite normally, ‘Sheila, dear, how nice to see you.’

  I sat down on the seat beside her and commented on the beauty of the day. ‘And aren’t the flowers lovely this year? The colours seem richer than usual. Perhaps it’s because we had such a mild winter. Look at those wallflowers – did you ever see such colours?’

  She turned to look at them. ‘When I was a girl, my mother always used to call them gilly-flowers. Of course, we couldn’t grow them out in Africa. We had all sorts of exotic lilies and things, but it was the English flowers my mother missed – the gilly-flowers, the primroses and the bluebells. When Maud and I were children she used to tell us how they always used to decorate the church at Easter with masses of primroses – they went out the day before into the woods to pick them and tied them up in bunches with wool, so as not to bruise the stems. We loved to hear about England. Poor Maud.’ she sighed. ‘She’s in a bad way now, I’m afraid. Marion, her daughter – you remember her, she married a Dutchman – says it’s only a matter of time. But Thelma doesn’t think I should make the journey up to Scotland to see her. And, if I did go up there, what could I say? We were never very close. We write occasionally, but after we came back to England we drifted apart; we haven’t seen each other for years. All we have in common now, I suppose, is our childhood in Africa.’

  ‘I’d forgotten that you were brought up in South Africa.’

  ‘Yes, just outside Durban. Of course it was very different then.’

  ‘Do you ever feel you’d like to go back and see it all again?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be as I remember it and there are too many memories. I don’t think I would like to see it now.’

  ‘That’s what Mrs Jankiewicz says. She says that the Poland she knew has gone and even now, under the new régime, she wouldn’t want to go back and overlay her memories with something new and alien.’

  ‘Memories are the most important things we have when we grow old,’ Mrs Rossiter said. ‘We must treat them with care so that they will last out our lives.’

  She spoke very positively in a reflective, almost melancholy tone, quite unlike her usual shy, hesitant manner.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ I said, ‘I’ve felt that such a lot lately, since Peter and Mother died. Keeping my memories of them fresh so that they don’t somehow slip away from me as time goes by. Sometimes I get into a panic because I can’t remember what their voices sounded like...’

  ‘It doesn’t matter about the voices, as long as you remember what they said.’

  We sat i
n silence for a while and then I said, ‘It was nice to see Thelma again. It must have been a lovely surprise for you when she turned up last week.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it was a surprise.’

  ‘I thought she was looking marvellous.’ I tried to put a little enthusiasm into my voice.

  ‘Thelma does look very smart.’ she replied. ‘She always cared a great deal about her appearance, even as a little girl.’

  ‘I gather that the business is doing very well.’

  ‘So she tells me. She and Gordon certainly work very hard.’

  From her rather forced replies to my remarks, I gathered that she was still unhappy about Thelma’s proposal of a power of attorney. I wondered if she might mention it to me but she changed the subject to Mrs Jankiewicz’s arthritis and how she was finding it increasingly difficult to get about.

  ‘Poor soul – it must be terrible never to be able to get out of that place.’

  ‘West Lodge?’ I was surprised to hear her refer to it so vehemently.

  ‘Never to get out and feel the air on your face or smell the sea!’

  ‘You’re right, of course. I must try and get her out for a drive while the weather’s still nice. I feel very guilty that I’ve neglected her a bit these last few weeks.’

  ‘No, my dear, you mustn’t feel guilty. You lead such a busy life – all those good works. And then there’s your writing, not to mention Michael.’

  We talked for a little while about Mrs Jankiewicz, but I felt that I didn’t have her full attention and that she had a problem on her mind that she had come out into Jubilee Gardens to think over. I got to my feet.

  ‘Are you going in for tea?’

  ‘No, dear, I think I’ll just sit here for a bit while the sun is still nice.’

  ‘If you’re sure, then.’

  I gave her a brief hug and she clung to me for a moment, then patted my arm. ‘You’re a good girl, Sheila. Thank you for all your kindness.’

  I felt tears pricking my eyes at this undeserved praise and, with an inarticulate murmur, I went on my way.

  I took Mrs Jankiewicz for her drive and it was a great success, for, although she couldn’t see much of the countryside, she did enjoy standing on the high moor and smelling, as she said, spring in the air. Also she was able to give me a blow by blow description of her encounter with Mr Williams’s son and how she had Given Him a Piece of Her Mind – the recounting of which triumph gave her great pleasure and me considerable amusement.

  ‘I have to go to London for several weeks,’ I said, ‘to do some research in the British Library, but I’ll be in to see you when I get back. Could you keep a special eye on Mrs Rossiter while I’m away? I’m not very happy about her.’

  ‘Ever since that Thelma came,’ Mrs Jankiewicz said with her usual perception, ‘she is sad and troubled. Is a hard one that daughter, no love for her mother, only show. And the son, so far away, and never writes – not like my Zofia.’

  She pulled an airmail letter from the huge black handbag in which she carried a large proportion of her more portable possessions.

  ‘Read.’ she said. ‘Adam is coming to study at Cambridge. He is a clever boy, like his grandfather. He will come to see his old grandmother very often.’

  I reflected that Sophie’s life wouldn’t be worth living if he didn’t.

  ‘Perhaps he could come and stay with us for a few days while Michael’s home. They used to play together when they were small children, before Sophie went to Canada.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Mrs Jankiewicz said mournfully, ‘brought up in that country he will be like those gangsters on TV, driving the cars too fast and carrying a gun!’

  ‘Oh I don’t think Canada’s like that,’ I said. ‘And most of those television gangster films are set in London now. Anyway, Sophie and Taddeus will have brought him up properly – you can be sure of that.’

  I poured us both some more tea from the flask and Mrs Jankiewicz said suddenly, ‘She is not taking her sleeping tablets.’

  ‘Sleeping tablets?’ I echoed, thoroughly confused.

  ‘Mrs Rossiter.’

  After the manner of their generation they were always Mrs Rossiter and Mrs Jankiewicz to each other, not Edith and Jadwiga.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Last week I was in her room and she opened a drawer in her desk and I saw a number of them – they are the same like I have, black and green. Were sleeping tablets.’

  ‘Did you say anything?’ I asked.

  ‘Is her business if she does not want to take the drugs they give her. I do not blame her. In these places they try to destroy your will and take away your independence.’

  This was spoken so vehemently – fiercely even – and Mrs Jankiewicz, in spite of her age and infirmities, looked so full of will-power and independence that I couldn’t help laughing. After a moment she gave a reluctant smile.

  ‘No. Not me, perhaps, thanks God. But poor Mrs Rossiter, who has never had a will of her own – soon she is just a vegetable, sitting all day long in her room like the other vegetables there. That is what her daughter want, I am sure.’

  I was pretty sure, too, but thought it better not to say so.

  ‘Do have another cake,’ I said. ‘I know you like these almond ones.’

  That evening I found my mind going back to Mrs Jankiewicz’s words. I supposed that there was no reason why Mrs Rossiter should have taken her sleeping tablets if she felt she didn’t need them, but I was uneasy at the thought of that little cache of tablets in her desk drawer.

  When I got back from London the roses were out in the formal beds outside West Lodge and spring had, in the way that it does, imperceptibly turned into summer. As I went into the hall I was stopped by Mrs Wilmot, whose usual bland manner seemed to have deserted her. Indeed she was positively agitated.

  ‘Oh, Mrs Malory, I’m so glad you’ve come – I’ve been trying to get hold of you for several days now.’

  ‘I’ve been away,’ I explained. ‘Why, whatever’s happened?’

  ‘Have you heard from Mrs Rossiter at all?’

  ‘Mrs Rossiter? No – I’ve just called in today to see her. And Mrs Jankiewicz, too; my usual round, in fact.’

  She dismissed my little pleasantry impatiently.

  ‘She’s not here. She went off on Tuesday and hasn’t come back.’

  ‘Tuesday – but that’s three days ago!’

  ‘You can imagine how worried we are.’

  ‘What happened.’

  An elderly man leaning heavily on his walking frame came shuffling towards us.

  ‘We can’t talk about it here.’ Mrs Wilmot said. ‘Come into my office.’

  Mrs Wilmot’s office was not so much a place of business as a replica of an Edwardian drawing room with white panelled walls, gilt-framed watercolours, glass-fronted cabinets full of china and a general impression of chintz-covered chairs and tiny rosewood tables. The idea, I suppose, was to create an illusion of gracious living for the relatives of prospective residents. She waved me to a seat on one of the sofas and sat down herself in a high-backed winged armchair, giving a despairing sigh.

  ‘Oh dear, if you haven’t heard anything ... You were my last hope.’

  ‘But how did it happen? I mean, how did she go?’

  ‘It was Tuesday, my busiest day. Dr Randall comes that day to see some of his patients and you know how difficult – that is, how fussy he can be! And it’s the laundry day and the day the chiropodist comes too. Well, as you can imagine I was on the go all morning, so I didn’t actually see her leave. I knew she was going to take a taxi into Taunton and do some shopping that day – she does sometimes, you know, it makes a nice little break for her. I mean, she’s really quite active for her age and quite capable of a little trip like that, whatever her daughter may say.’

  She sounded defensive and I imagined that Thelma must have been very forthright indeed about her lack of supervision of Mrs Rossiter, so I said soothingly, ‘Oh, yes, she is. Mrs Rossiter
is perfectly all right on her own, and she does enjoy little outings like that so much.’

  Mrs Wilmot was apparently heartened by this support. ‘It seems she couldn’t get her usual taxi (she rang through herself) but Ivy recognised the man – I think she said his name was Ed Cooper – when she went to see Mrs Rossiter off.’

  ‘Oh, she actually saw her go?’

  ‘Oh, yes. And she had just her handbag and shopping bag, nothing else. She said to Ivy that she’d probably be back for tea and that was the last any of us saw of her.’

  ‘Good heavens! What an extraordinary thing.’

  ‘Of course, when she hadn’t come back for dinner – the residents have their dinner at six o’clock sharp – Ivy came and told me and I rang round all the hospitals. I really was quite dreadfully worried. Then, when the time went on, at about eight o’clock, I telephoned the police.’

  ‘And what did they say?’

  ‘Well, what could they say! They were as baffled as I was. We rang Mrs Douglas – you can imagine how upset she was – but Mrs Rossiter wasn’t with her.’

  ‘Have you tried Annie Fisher? She used to work for Mrs Rossiter and often came to visit her here.’

  ‘Mrs Douglas suggested that and gave me her address – one of those council flats down by the marshes – and I’ve telephoned several times but there’s no reply, so she must be away. So that’s no good.’

  We sat in silence as I tried to gather my thoughts. I simply couldn’t believe that Mrs Rossiter had gone. And without telling anyone. It was totally unlike her; she was so punctilious in her dealings with other people, she would never have simply gone off without letting anyone know where she was. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just sat there and looked about me. Was that rather splendid silhouette of a Regency gentleman with a pronounced Roman nose one of Mrs Wilmot’s ancestors, I wondered? Or was he part of the carefully arranged decor? I suspected the latter. Mrs Wilmot was the sort of person whom it was impossible to imagine as a child or, indeed, with a family of any kind; she seemed to exist only at the particular moment and in the particular place where one was accustomed to see her. I had the feeling that if I saw her away from West Lodge I wouldn’t even recognise her.