The street was rundown, dusty in the July heat, and there was a smell of dustbins that hadn’t been emptied recently enough. Nothing happened for so long after Jude pressed the bell-push that she was beginning to wonder whether it was working. But then through the frosted glass of the front door she saw a slight figure slowly approaching.
The appearance of Nell Witchett explained the slowness of her approach. She was stick-thin and edged forward on a Zimmer frame. In spite of the heat, she wore two cardigans over a woollen dress and thick stockings. In their velcro-strapped shoes, her feet looked knobbly and painful.
“Come in quickly, love,” she said. “I don’t like to leave the front door open too long. There are some nasty types around here. They’d burst in and steal your purse before you could say Jack Robinson.”
Jude did as she was told and was ushered along a narrow hall whose floor was littered with junk mail. “You go ahead of me, love. If you wait for me, you’ll be here till the Christmas after next.”
Again Jude followed her instructions and found herself in what used to be called a ‘bed-sitting room’ before its dimensions were massaged by estate agents into a ‘studio flat’. The doors off the hall indicated that four such units had been carved out of the small ground floor. Nell Witchett’s was basically a single room with bathroom and kitchen attached. These were separated by sliding doors; there wouldn’t have been room to have ones that opened outwards.
While its owner made her effortful journey back from the hall, Jude had time to take in the room. It was very stuffy. The windows at the front were closed, and didn’t look as though they’d been opened for a long time. Whether that was for fear of draughts or of the ‘nasty types’ around the area, Jude couldn’t know. A bit of each perhaps.
And the room was absolutely crammed with furniture which must have come from a larger house, stuff its owner couldn’t bear to part with. Just moving across the room was potentially hazardous; there were so many sharp edges oftables and dressers to bang against. Nell’s bed was piled high with blankets and eiderdowns; the old lady had probably never slept under a duvet in her life. There was a low sofa that must have been where Ray dossed down when life in the world outside got too tough for him.
And there was a small television on, showing some early-evening quiz programme where contestants vied noisily for cash prizes. It must be on one of the terrestrial channels, of course, because Sally Monks had said that Ray’s mother didn’t have Sky. Had she had Sky, Jude briefly wondered whether Ray might not have returned to Copsedown Hall the weekend before, and so might not have been at the Crown and Anchor on the Sunday, and so…But she curbed such speculations, they were pointless.
Though he was dead, the room was full of Ray. There were photographs on every crammed surface. Faded ones of him as a baby, the outlines becoming more defined as he grew into adulthood. And in every photograph a huge smile. He had clearly loved having his picture taken.
As Nell Witchett inched her way into the room, Jude was struck, not for the first time, by the importance of mobility, and how the approach of death was so often preceded by a gradual but accelerating slowdown. It was nature’s way. So long as a human being can move about, he or she can keep up some kind of fitness regime. But as mobility diminishes, with it goes confidence. Confidence in the most basic actions which one has taken for granted for so long. Being able to walk, being able to lift oneself out of a chair, being able to reach down to put on a shoe.
Then a lack of confidence can lead to falls, and falls are often the precursor of the end.
Thinking along such morbid lines was unusual for Jude. She didn’t fear death, she knew it to be as integral a part of being human as any other experience. And normally her outlook was resolutely positive. But the sight of Nell Witchett, for whom simple locomotion was now such a painful effort, had lowered her spirits. Or maybe that had been caused by the death of Ray, who was so clearly the sole focus of the old woman’s life.
And yet, as she talked to Nell, Jude didn’t encounter the misery she had anticipated. Although her son was not two days dead, Nell Witchett seemed very much in control of her emotions. Almost serene.
Before Ray’s mother finally deposited herself into her chair, she offered Jude tea or coffee, but seemed quite relieved when the invitation wasn’t accepted. There was also relief as she sank on to the piled cushions and leaned against the stiff back of her chair. Jude wondered how much of her time was spent sitting there, how much her life had dwindled to this single piece of furniture.
Nell immediately raised the subject of Ray, but still without becoming emotional.
“I met him for the first time last week,” Jude explained. “At Copsedown Hall. It seemed a nice place,” she added rather vacuously.
“Yes. He’s settled there. Most of the time. It’s good, the first time he’s managed to live independently.”
“How independent was he really?”
The old woman shrugged. “As independent as someone like Ray ever could be. He’s always going to need support.”
“From you?”
“From me or someone else.” Nell was quiet for a moment. “Usually me, to be honest.”
“What about the social worker who looked after Copsedown Hall? Ken, was that his name?”
“What about him?”
“Was he someone Ray could turn to for support?”
Nell Witchett let out a dismissive grunt. “He’s useless. Lazy bugger. Hardly ever goes there. Not one of the good social workers. Mind you, they’re as rare as hen’s teeth.” She spoke with a lifetime’s experience of the breed.
“But everything was very well looked after at Copsedown Hall. Neat and tidy.”
“No thanks to Ken. It’s the residents who keep it like that. Particularly a girl called Kelly-Marie.”
“I met her last Saturday.”
“She’s very organized, in her quiet, dogged way. She keeps the men up to scratch.”
“Is she the only female resident?”
“Yes. She may not have all her marbles, but her head’s screwed on the right way.”
“And was she a particular friend of Ray’s?”
“They get on all right. Nothing more. They talk quite a lot together, I think.” Jude made a mental note to have a further word with Kelly-Marie, as Nell went on, “Ray spends most of his time with the men at Copsedown Hall.”
“Like Viggo…?” Jude suggested.
The old woman’s tight brow wrinkled with disapproval. “Yes, too much time with Viggo. He’s not a good influence.”
“In what way?”
“Viggo’s a fantasist.” Jude was struck that Sally Monks had used the very same word. “He’s always full of wild ideas,” Nell Witchett went on. “Sees himself as various kinds of flashy characters.” Like a biker, thought Jude. “But it’s all in his head. Anyway, I don’t think he’s good for Ray. Stuffs his head with ambitions the poor boy has no hope of fulfilling.”
“Would you say they were friends?”
The old woman snorted. “Not my idea of friendship. Ray’s afraid of Viggo, always trying to placate him, do what he wants. I wouldn’t call it a friendship, where Ray does all the giving, while with Viggo it’s just take, take, take.”
Jude couldn’t understand the way Nell Witchett was behaving. She was showing no grief at her son’s death. And she kept talking about him in the present tense. Jude wondered whether the old woman had actually taken in what had happened. Cautiously, she raised the subject.
“I was desperately sorry to hear about Ray.” Probably not the moment to mention that she and Carole had found his body. Time for that later, perhaps.
“Yes, very sad,” Nell agreed, but with sorrow, rather than anguish.