The Shortest Journey (5 page)

‘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.

‘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 in 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.