Page 78 - WTP Vol. V #1

Jane closed the door; the latch fell in place with “Well, come with me. We’ll register the death and an echoless click. The body lay at the centre of a then go to Grendon and Timms; I’ll leave the door vast pool of stillness. unlocked so they can come in and do what they
We stood, side by side, Jane with her arm round my waist. Suddenly, and without warning, she reached over and grasped my hand and firmly placed it on her own waist: I could feel the dim- ples at either side of her spine with my fingers. “Further round,” she said. “Hold me.”
have to, and then you can take me out to lunch at Chelmer’s in Millhouse Lane. Freedom at last.” She murmured the final phrase. Fleetingly, and rather nervously, she kissed me on the cheek and then quickly withdrew her face.
We stood like this for some ten long minutes. I did not ask Jane of what she was thinking.
We walked down the echoic stairway. I followed Jane, looking at her in some awe.
The sun was high in the sky and an aeroplane passed overhead, the drone of its propellers breaking the silence. I noticed the beat fre- quency, the heterodyne of its two engines. An accidental happenstance. But whenever I am in a quiet room and hear that sound I am trans- ported back to that moment. Jane also; she told me years later.
“Wait for me to change my shoes,” she said, open- ing a cupboard in the hall. She selected a pair
of glossy, black, slip-on shoes with neat bows of black bombazine on the vamps and slightly raised heels. “Will these do? Or those tan lace-up half- boots? The suede ones? What do you think?” she asked, sitting on a rush-bottomed hall-chair, look- ing up at me, apparently concerned for my opin- ion. But, without waiting for a reply, she removed the shoes she was wearing and placed them in the cupboard. She adjusted her black stockings. “I’m fond of my patent-leathers,” she said, coming to a decision, slipping on the new shoes. She stretched out her long right leg.
“What are you doing now?” she asked.
“Going home, Jane,” I said, though I’m sure my
voice was undecided. I reached down for my
case, opened it, and took out the book of cause-
of-death certificates. I stood at the side of a
bow-fronted chest of drawers and filled out a
certificate and its counterfoil. Jane watched me.
I felt like someone at a post-office counter. The
traverse of the nib of my pen was the loudest
sound in the room. “Shall we go?” she asked, standing and smoothing
“Where’s home, Leo?”
her skirt with her hands.
“Mrs Grossman’s,” I said. I handed her the cer- tificate.
Outside, on the threshold, Jane closed the door with a slam. The sound echoes in my memory.
As we walked down the steps she put her arm in mine. Her manner was deliberate. At the corner of The Crescent we turned — as though we were one sentient entity — and we looked back and up at the tall sash windows of the first-floor room that held Mr Shanks’ death-bed.
“You have good writing. It’s very clear. I’ve no- ticed that on your prescriptions: when at the chemist’s I always relinquish them with regret. You lodge at Mrs Grossman’s?” She looked up, holding the certificate and looking at my signature.
“For better or worse I do, Jane.” 69
Wheldon’s novel The Viaduct won The Triple First Award in 1982, as judged by Graham Greene and William Trevor. Other novels include The Course of Instruction, At the Quay, and A Vocation.
We left the room, Jane closing the door with a deliberate hand.
She looked up at me, her face secretly expressive.
I looked down at the black bombazine bows on her shoes.