Amendment of Life

 

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Contents

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Also by Catherine Aird

Copyright

 

In Memoriam

K.W.E.G.

Chapter One

‘Toss you for it?' said Pete Carter.

‘It's your turn anyway,' objected Kenny Prickett. ‘Not mine. I did it last Monday, remember, while you did the car park?'

Pete started to feel in his trousers' pocket for a coin. ‘I know, but—'

‘But', finished his friend for him, ‘you don't like going in there.'

‘You're dead right, I don't. It beats me why it's so blooming popular,' said Pete. He sniffed. ‘Can't understand it myself.'

‘People like mazes,' declared Kenny confidently. ‘They queue up for ages to get in there. You can see them doing it all the time.'

‘And they queue up to get out, too, mate. Don't forget that. Only you can't see them then—'

‘Don't forget what goes in has to come out,' said Kenny sturdily. ‘Just like what goes up has to come down.'

Pete grimaced. ‘That's only if you can find your way out in the first place. It's not like you're on a straight road with signposts telling you which way to go next when you're in there.' He held up a coin. ‘Come on, Kenny,' he urged. ‘Live dangerously for once. Let's toss for it.'

His workmate, Kenneth Prickett, leaned against the giant industrial dustbin on wheels from which hung his brush and shovel and said, ‘Oh, all right then … only do get on with it.'

The two workmen had just arrived at Aumerle Court to start their week's work and Monday was always their busiest day. It was the only one on which the general public were not admitted to the Court and thus the day on which a great deal of clearing up had to be done. The owners of Aumerle Court – the Pedlinge family – were careful to foster the illusion that their paying visitors were actually welcome guests and therefore liked as much as possible of the routine cleaning and tidying up to be done when that same public were not around to see the work in progress.

Pete Carter steadied a twopenny piece on his horny thumb. ‘Heads you do the maze and I get to do the car park instead. Right?'

‘If we don't get started pretty soon on both,' remarked Kenny pertinently, ‘old Pusher Prosser'll be along wanting to know the reason why and then there'll be trouble. Big trouble. You know what he's like when he's roused, so don't let's hang about.'

Captain Jeremy Prosser was steward and agent to the Aumerle estate, and thus unhappily poised between those who wanted the work done and those who had to do it.

‘You call then,' said Pete, getting ready to spin the coin up in the air.

‘And none of your catching it as it comes down and turning it over in your hand, see?' said Kenny Prickett vigorously.

‘Right. Call now—'

‘Tails.'

‘Here goes—'

Prickett shifted his heavy metal bin out of the way and watched as the twopenny piece spiralled first upwards, spun and then fell back to earth in a diminishing giro. As solemnly as a pair of cricket captains at a Test match, the two men advanced together the better to see how the coin lay on the ground.

‘Tails it is,' said Pete, peering down, patently disappointed.

‘Good,' said Kenny Prickett briskly, immediately starting to push his great bin in the direction of the car park. ‘See you beaver time, then…'

‘That's if I ever get out.' Pete gave a histrionic laugh. ‘You realize you may never see me again, don't you?'

‘Keep turning left,' advised Kenny callously.

‘That's all very well, but once I go in there who knows when I'll ever come out?'

‘Old Pusher Prosser will,' said his mate, taking this literally. ‘He's probably timing you already if you did but know.' Everyone on the staff at Aumerle Court had soon discovered that Captain Prosser worked to the clock and that he expected everyone else to do the same.

Pete muttered exactly what Captain Prosser could do with his precious military precision, but he did it under his breath. The gentleman in question had an unnerving habit of appearing where he was least expected.

And when.

‘You can do the car park next Monday,' promised Kenny, lifting the handles of his bin and beginning to trundle off towards the old stable yard, where visitors to the Court were asked to leave their vehicles, ‘seeing as how it'll be your rightful turn then anyway.'

‘Thanks for nothing,' said his friend, turning in the direction of the solid yew-hedge maze that lay to one side of the ancient Court.

Like other mazes of its period, it had been so positioned that those looking down from the windows at the end of the Long Gallery on the first floor could be entertained by the sight of the heads of those inside the maze struggling to get round it and regain their freedom. The fact that those above the maze – usually the ladies of the family – could themselves see the way out clearly enough when those inside couldn't presumably added to their pleasure.

‘And, Pete,' called out the departing Kenny Prickett over his shoulder, ‘don't forget the Captain's motto for the maze.' He grinned. ‘His Monday morning one.'

Pete ground his teeth. The Captain's mottos were a bane to everyone. They were, in fact, a thinly disguised substitute for the ‘aims and objectives' principles which the good soldier had been taught at his staff college were essential to successful administration.

‘“Leave no avenue unexplored”,' sang out Kenny, carefully putting some distance between himself and his friend as he did so.

Exploring avenues was part of Pete's problem in this job. Even had he been able to memorize the correct route in the maze from the entrance to the exit, it would have done him no good at all. This was because he was required to tidy up all the blind alleys, nooks and crannies, and false – though promising – starts in the maze as well. And while those in the Long Gallery, scanning the maze from above, were able to relish an Olympian view of the struggles of those beneath them and could always see the easy – the only – way out, anyone actually inside the maze enjoyed no such all-encompassing view.

Not, of course, that Pete was supposed to get out of the maze as quickly as possible, unlike the visitors to Aumerle Court. He had not, after all, paid good money to go in there. Nor was there a cream tea awaiting him in the stables, which had been thoughtfully placed beside the gift shop now set up in the old laundry. Pete had to go in the maze and stay in there until the work was done – and for not very good money at all.

And then get out again.

This was Pete's complaint, too, as well as his problem. Even to the initiated, one stretch of yew hedge looked remarkably like the next and the sky was never any help at all. Pete had found that the clouds above moved with surprising speed and in all directions.

He halted as he heard Kenny call out his name. ‘What is it now?'

‘We could toss again next week, if you like.' Kenny Prickett gave a throaty chuckle. ‘Then I might get to do the car park again. I'd have a fifty-fifty chance, wouldn't I?'

*   *   *

‘Pete Carter's late again this week,' announced Daphne Pedlinge, adding crisply, ‘And so are you, Milly.'

‘Now, Miss Daphne, you shouldn't be saying that. You know I'm not. I was in your bedroom on the stroke of eight o'clock this morning, like always.'

‘Push me nearer the window,' commanded Daphne Pedlinge, changing tack. ‘I want to keep an eye on him.'

‘Yes, Miss Daphne.' As a rule, today's carers addressed the elderly and ill more informally – Christian names were
de rigueur
in most care homes and hospitals. But Aumerle Court was neither of these things and, while undeniably elderly, Miss Pedlinge did not greatly care for this new practice.

‘Nearer, Milly, please. I can't see if Pete Carter's gone in already. I don't want to miss him.'

Milly glanced at her watch as she helped to position the wheelchair. ‘He'll scarcely be there yet … there's hardly been time for him to get across to the maze from that bothy of theirs, now has there?'

‘And mind you put the brake on.'

‘I haven't ever forgotten,' responded Milly cheerfully, manoeuvring Daphne Pedlinge's wheelchair into position at the end of the Long Gallery with a dexterity born of much practice, and giving it an affectionate shake, ‘now have I?'

‘Don't humour me, Milly.'

The woman gave a good-natured grin. ‘All right, then, I'll leave you just here all day … where you can't see a thing.'

‘No, you won't.' Miss Pedlinge's expression became positively vulpine. ‘I want to watch him get lost.'

Milly suppressed any reference to what she herself felt, or, indeed, to the more modern meaning of the invitation to ‘get lost'. She had been born and bred in the village of Staple St James and was thus quite accustomed to the vagaries of the Pedlinge family. Indeed, Daphne Pedlinge, a true survivor from an earlier age, had been a feature in the landscape of Milly Smithers's own life as long as she could remember.

To a little girl she had seemed kindly but awesome, and to a growing woman she had only been a friendly but distant figure, busy and much away from Aumerle Court. Then, after her elderly parents and her nephew had died, Miss Daphne had come back to take charge of Aumerle Court. That had been when the much-married woman whom Milly had then become, with all the troubles that came with the wedded state and motherhood, had found Daphne Pedlinge unfailingly approachable and helpful.

The passing years had found the boot on the other foot and it had become Milly's turn to show an equal compassion and concern.

Milly said ‘Now, I ask you, is that kind, Miss Daphne? Poor Pete—'

‘No,' said the old lady frankly, ‘but it livens up a dull morning. And there's nothing else to look forward to today but the doctor coming.'

‘He's nice, is Dr Browne,' said Milly fondly. ‘I like him.'

‘He can't do anything more for me, though,' said Daphne Pedlinge. ‘He keeps on saying so.'

‘There's not that much wrong with you,' said the woman warmly. ‘All you need, Miss Daphne, are some new legs.'

‘True.' Daphne Pedlinge looked down at the rug which covered a pair of arthritic, misshapen knees. ‘But he hasn't got any of those in his little black bag.'

Milly propelled the wheelchair forward again and asked with genuine solicitude, ‘Now, Miss Daphne, can you see all you want from here?'

‘Yes, thank you, Milly.' The old lady twitched her rug. ‘I'm quite all right. Now, you can go and attend to
Eurostopodus diabolicus…'

‘Yes, Miss Daphne.' Milly smiled dutifully at the daily joke. By now she knew that this was Latin for a bird called the Satanic-eared nightjar – and that the reference was a pun. The nightjar to which she had to attend every morning was of quite a different variety. ‘Here's your bell. Just ring for me if you want anything.'