Murder on Monday

“Oh dear,” said Lois, getting off the stool. “She’s upset, Melvyn, that’s all. I’d better be off after her.” Something made her look back as she walked away from the parlour. Melvyn was watching her, grinning as if he’d just won the lottery. Well, thank God he doesn’t look exactly broken-hearted, Lois thought, and hurried on her way.

? Murder on Monday ?

Twenty-Three

Monday morning in Byron Way was chaos, with the boys rushing in different directions looking for homework books, library books, violins, recorders, football boots, coats, scarves, gloves. Josie had shut herself in the bathroom for some unexplained purpose and wouldn’t come out. Lois’s mother stood at the door, saying that if she, at her age, could get herself ready and out of the house, and walk up that steep hill in time to collect everybody, surely the least they could do was be ready.

“Quite right, Mum,” said Derek. “Get a move on, you boys. Your mother has to go to work, and so do I, and poor Gran is getting cold waiting on the doorstep, and – ” he added without pausing for breath but his voice rising several decibels – “Josie Meade! Come down here at once. I don’t care if you’re still in your pyjamas! Serve you right if I made you go to school in them.”

“Derek, that’s enough,” said Lois, and went quickly upstairs. “Is something wrong, Josie?” she said through the bathroom door.

“Nope,” said a tearful voice.

“Let me in, dear,” said Lois. “Better tell me what’s up.” She sat with Josie on the edge of the bath and put her arm round the narrow shoulders. “Now then…”

“It’s today Melvyn’s movin’,” Josie finally croaked. “Shan’t see him no more.”

“Any more,” said Lois automatically. “The move’s happened very quickly, hasn’t it?”

“Well, his Dad’s found a place to rent, and it’s empty, so he said no point in waiting. Melv doesn’t want to go…”

“Oh dear,” said Lois, hovering between a wish to comfort her only daughter and pleasure that at least one of their problems would now be solved. She finally got Josie dressed and, despite being rather limp, Josie was now at least dry-eyed. Gran had waited, sensing that her granddaughter might need support. Derek told her sharply to get a move on. Lois made a face at him and encouraged Josie out into the porch.

“There’ll be other fish to fry,” she said cheerfully, knowing as she said it that at Josie’s age there is no such thing as tomorrow, let alone next week or month or year.

¦

Derek was overjoyed when Lois told him. “Good riddance,” he said. “Perhaps Josie’ll concentrate on her school work now.” And perhaps she won’t, thought Lois. There will be others, but none of them will be good enough for Derek’s little girl. Still, we should get a bit of respite now Melvyn’s gone. She pulled on her coat and went out to start her car. The doctor’s house today. As she drove along past leafless trees and bare fields, noisy seagulls driven inland by storms flew up in a curving flock. I could do with a bit of sunshine, a warm beach and blue sea, said Lois to herself. She had been watching a travel programme the previous evening and wished they had enough money for a winter holiday. It’d make spring come all the quicker. “Instead of which,” she said aloud to the small dragon talisman swinging over her windscreen. “I am on my way to clean another woman’s house because she’s too lazy to do it herself.” Her thoughts circled on and as she thought about Mary Rix and her empty days, she wondered again what had happened about the baby they should have had, the one they made a nursery for and kept as a shrine. Time to find out, Lois. You never know what might emerge.

“Morning!” she called as she stepped into the big kitchen, wiping her feet carefully on the mat.

“Ah, there you are, Lois,” said Mrs Rix, as though Lois was already half an hour late. Lois checked with the handsome wall clock, and saw that she was dead on time.

“Punctual to a fault, that’s me,” said Lois, hanging up her coat. “You could set your watch by me, Mrs Rix.”

“Yes, well, I’m sure you’re right,” said Mary Rix. “This morning I’d like you to help me make up the beds in the spare room and then give the whole of upstairs an extra good going over. We have friends coming to stay from Sweden and you know how houseproud they are.”

Lois didn’t, but nodded and went to the linen cupboard for sheets and pillowcases. Mary Rix was at her heels and as they passed the firmly shut nursery door, Lois said, “Shall I go round in there with a duster? Freshen it up a bit?”

Mary Rix’s reply was cold. “No thank you,” she said. “No one but myself is allowed in that room.”

“Not even the doctor?” said Lois. “After all, I suppose the baby was his, too?” Oh Lord, that’s gone too far.

Mrs Rix had pulled up short and was glaring at Lois. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said and followed it up with the closest she dared to a reprimand. “I don’t think it has anything to do with you.”

“But Mrs Rix,” said Lois. “I don’t mean any harm,” she continued quietly. For all her reputation, Lois knew when to be gentle. “I’ve worked for you long enough to be trusted, surely? It seems silly if I’m up here with the cleaner and dusters and things not to go in and clean round. I’ll be very careful and you can tell me what’s what.”

There was a long pause, and then Mary Rix’s face crumpled and reddened. “Tell you what’s what?” she said. “I don’t know what is what, Lois, and that’s the truth,” she blurted out. “There’s no baby and never will be. I don’t know why I…” Then she was in real tears and Lois opened the nursery door slowly, taking Mary Rix by the hand.

“Show me,” she said. “It’ll not do any harm.”

It was dark in the room and Lois drew back the curtains, noticing prints of yellow sailing boats on a blue and white sea. A weak wintry sun penetrated the room and Lois led Mary Rix to a chair by the small white wicker cradle. “There,” she said. “I’ll just dust round carefully and you can tell me about it. If you want to, that is.”

Lois felt a pang of deep sympathy for Mary Rix as she lifted up fluffy dogs and plastic ducks, dusted underneath, and then moved on to an unused dolls’ house, the door standing open and all the furniture and tiny inhabitants standing inside, waiting.

“You don’t want to hear my sorry story,” began the doctor’s wife.

“I do,” said Lois simply.

Mary Rix hesitated, and then said, “It’s common enough, but still cruel, for all that. I’d tried so many times for a baby and always lost them in the first few weeks. Then it looked hopeful. I got to five months and could feel her kicking. It was a girl, they told me, when – ” she scrubbed her eyes with a handkerchief and pulled herself together – “when I began to lose blood, and finally miscarried. No baby, nothing to show for those weeks of waiting and hoping. No little person to occupy the nursery we’d finally dared to set up. No little girl for Andrew to spoil and cuddle. Only emptiness inside me and between us in this big old house.” She paused and put her hand over her eyes.

The silence became embarrassing, and Lois said, “Didn’t you try again?”

Mary shook her head, sadly. “I was really too old and Andrew wasn’t keen. He said the disappointment was too hard for me to bear, but I think he meant himself as well. Then we didn’t talk about it again. I shut the door on the nursery and didn’t go in for weeks. After that, I started creeping in here when Andrew was out, just to think about that little one who almost made it. I mean, nowadays they can do wonders with premature babies, can’t they?”

Lois quietly opened the window a notch. “Shall we let in some fresh air,” she said. “It’s a bit stuffy in here. Blow the cobwebs away, an’ that.”

Mary Rix sat for a long time as Lois busied herself about the room. Without realising it, Lois was humming and an ordinary sort of calm spread around the room. It was as if time had started again in that room and everyday life had been allowed in.

Mary Rix sighed deeply and stood up. “Lois,” she said, her voice shaky at first, then stronger. “Next week, I want you to help me turn out this room.”