Memento Mori

‘He wants to see them. Wants to see if they’ve gone grey. He is quite disgusting.’

‘Of course they will be grey. The fellow must have lost his faculties. If he ever had any.’

‘I don’t know about faculties,’ said Lettie. ‘Certainly he has no feelings.’

Tempest Sidebottome, blue-haired and well corseted, was saying In a voice which carried away out to the Garden of Remembrance, ‘To some people there’s just nothing that’s sacred.’

‘Madam,’ said Percy, baring his sparse green teeth in a smile, ‘the ashes of Lisa Brooke will always be sacred to me. I desire to see them, kiss them if they are cool enough. Where’s that cleric? — He’ll have the ashes.’

‘Do you see over there — Lisa’s housekeeper?’ Lettie said to Godfrey.

‘Yes, yes, I wonder —’

‘That’s what I’m wondering,’ said Lettie, who was wondering if Mrs Pettigrew wanted a job, and if so would agree to undertake the personal care of Charmian.

‘But I think we would need a younger woman. That one must be getting on,’ said Godfrey, ‘if I remember aright.’

‘Mrs Pettigrew has a constitution like a horse,’ said Dame Lettie, casting a horse-dealer’s glance over Mrs Pettigrew’s upright form. ‘And it is impossible to get younger women.

‘Has she got all her faculties?’

‘Of course. She had poor Lisa right under her thumb.’

‘I hardly think Charmian would want —’

‘Charmian needs to be bullied. What Charmian needs is a firm hand. She will simply go to pieces if you don’t keep at her. Charmian needs a firm hand. It’s the only way.’

‘But what about Mrs Anthony?’ said Godfrey. ‘The woman might not get on with Mrs Anthony. It would be tragic if we lost her.’

‘If you don’t find someone soon to look after Charmian you will certainly lose Mrs Anthony. Charmian is too much of a handful for Mrs Anthony. You will lose Mrs Anthony. Charmian keeps calling her Taylor. She is bound to resent it. Who are you staring at?’

Godfrey was staring at a short bent man walking with the aid of two sticks round a corner of the chapel. ‘Who is that man?’ said Godfrey. ‘He looks familiar.’

Tempest Sidebottome fussed over to the little man who beamed up at her with a fresh face under his wide black hat. He spoke in a shrill boyish tone. ‘Afraid I’m late,’ he said. ‘Is the party over? Are you all Lisa’s sinisters and bothers?’

‘That’s Guy Leet,’ said Godfrey, at once recognizing him, for Guy had always used to call sisters and brothers sinisters and bothers.

‘The little rotter,’ said Godfrey, ‘he used to be after Charmian. It must be thirty-odd years since last I saw him. He can’t be more than seventy-five and just see what he’s come to.’

Tables at a tea-shop near Golders Green had been reserved for Lisa’s post-crematorial party. Godfrey had intended to miss the tea party but the arrival of Guy Leet had changed his mind. He was magnetized by the sight of the clever little man doubled over his sticks, and could not keep his eyes off the arthritic hobbling of Guy making his way among the funeral flowers.

‘Better join them for tea,’ he said to Lettie, ‘hadn’t we?’

‘What for?’ said Lettie, looking round the company. ‘We can have tea at home. Come back with me for tea, we can have it at home.’

‘I think we’d better join them,’ said Godfrey. ‘We might have a word with Mrs Pettigrew about her taking on Charmian.

Lettie saw Godfrey’s gaze following the hunched figure of Guy Leet who, on his sticks, had now reached the door of his taxi. Several of the party helped Guy inside, then joined him. As they drove off, Godfrey said, ‘Little rotter. Supposed to be a critic. Tried to take liberties with all the lady novelists, and then he was a theatre critic and he was after the actresses. You’ll remember him, I dare say.

‘Vaguely,’ said Lettie. ‘He never got much change out of me.’

‘He was never after you,’ said Godfrey.

At the tea-shop Dame Lettie and Godfrey found the mourners being organized into their places by Tempest Sidebottome, big and firm in her corsets, aged seventy-five, with that accumulated energy which strikes despair in the hearts of jaded youth, and which now fairly intimidated even the two comparative youngsters in the group, Lisa’s nephew and his wife who were not long past fifty.

‘Ronald, sit down here and stay put,’ Tempest said to her husband, who put on his glasses and sat down.

Godfrey was casting about for Guy Leet, but in the course of doing so his sight was waylaid by the tables on which were set silver-plate cakestands with thin bread and butter on the bottom tier, cut fruit cake above that, and on the top, a pile of iced cakes wrapped in Cellophane paper. Godfrey began to feel a passionate longing for his tea, and he pushed past Dame Lettie to stand conspicuously near the organizer, Tempest. She did notice him right away and allotted him a seat at a table. ‘Lettie,’ he called then, ‘come over here. We’re sitting here.’

‘Dame Lettie,’ said Tempest over his head, ‘you must come and sit with us, my dear. Over here beside Ronald.’

‘Damned snob,’ thought Godfrey. ‘I suppose she thinks Lettie is somebody.’

Someone leant over to offer him a cigarette which was a filter-tip. However, he said, ‘Thanks, I’ll keep it for after tea.’ Then looking up, he saw the wolf grin on the face of the man who was offering him the packet with a trembling hand. Godfrey plucked out a cigarette and placed it beside his plate. He was angry at being put beside Percy Mannering, not only because Percy had been one of Lisa’s spongers, but also because he must surely be senile with that grin and frightful teeth, and Godfrey felt the poet would not be able to manage his teacup with