Sunday provided many opportunities. Breakfast was no sooner over than Emily Mortmain demanded to know when the transport would be leaving for church.
"I'm afraid there is no transport for church," said Miss Protheroe, with a tired— almost desperate— kind of brightness. "Those who can get to church, and want to go, of course… go. The rest of us make do with the television service. And of course, the vicar comes and gives us our own special little service once a month."
"Incredible! Quite incredible!" Emily Mortmain surveyed the other residents, who were deep in the
People
, the
News of the World
, and the
Sunday Telegraph
. "It's news to me that the Lord intended his day to be consecrated to the reading of newspapers!"
"It's news to me he ever said anything on the subject of the
News of the World
," said Captain Freely cheekily. But he felt on dubious moral ground. It was difficult to imagine a God who would approve of the
News of the World
.
Mrs. Mortmain had a taxi summoned, and was driven in solitary state to and from the nearest Anglican church. If any of the other residents had attended the service they might have noticed that she ignored on principle all the changes that had occurred in the Church of England forms of worship over the past two decades or so. Change was, to Emily Mortmain, synonymous with degeneracy. When the vicar shook her hand at the church door, she informed him that next time he came to Evening Glades, she wished to see him. "Alone," she intoned. "In private."
The vicar didn't see how he could refuse. Though thinking it over afterwards he didn't see why he should have accepted either. But Emily caught him on the hop, and he said that since she was a new resident at Evening Glades, and a new parishioner, he would come along especially to see her later in the week. Emily nodded to him curtly, and let the taxi driver wheel her away.
Mrs. Mortmain made a great thing of this approaching interview with the vicar. She said nothing about it directly to the other residents, but she communicated quite effectually through Miss Protheroe.
"The vicar will be calling to see me on Thursday," she announced on Monday at lunchtime. "Make sure that he is brought
straight
to my room."
And again on Thursday at breakfast time.
"When the vicar calls we must be
absolutely
private."
The rest of the residents, as they were meant to, wondered.
"She has the sort of obsession about secrecy that afflicts some prime ministers," said Captain Freely acutely.
The vicar, when he came, found the whole interview profoundly depressing. He was a well-meaning man, verging on the ineffectual. His depression took the form of wondering why so many deplorable people were attracted by the Christian religion. He listened to her demands that he insist on the banning of television on Sundays at Evening Glades, that the home should cease subscribing to any Sunday newspapers, that regular churchgoing by the able-bodied be a condition of acceptance, and so on and so on, and his heart sank.
Yes, he was on the governing board, he said, but no, he didn't have that sort of power. And in fact he had no wish to start dictating to a group of old people how they should spend their spare time. Did we really want the Christian religion to seem so negative and coercive? he wondered aloud.
All this was not unexpected to Emily Mortmain. She knew that Church of England vicars these days lacked fire in their bellies, had no relish for a fight. To her, religion was essentially belligerent: a fight against moral laxity, atheism, other sects, and anyone who happened to disagree with her on any matter whatsoever. Emily Mortmain would have fitted in perfectly in Northern Ireland.
But Emily was not in the least disappointed in the vicar's response, for she had not hoped for anything better. The whole business merely provided her with the opportunity for one more skirmish on this particular front, before she switched tack and tried out something completely new. It was a
casus belli
, and when it fizzled out she would find another, equally good. Certainly she had no intention of telling the truth about the interview.
At lunch the next day, when everyone was discussing the previous evening's episode of
EastEnders
and the amorous activities of Dirty Den the publican, Mrs. Mortmain announced, "At least we shall soon have an end to Sunday television. That's an abomination that will be swept away."
"I beg your pardon?" said Miss Willcocks.
"
And
Sunday newspapers. I've spoken to the vicar, and he will be pressing the governors very hard indeed on the issue. It's high time we had a more godly atmosphere in this place. And this is only a beginning."
She ended with an expression of triumph in her voice. The table gazed at her stonily, and then returned to their meals in silence. Silence was one of their weapons these days, though it seemed unfortunately to give Emily Mortmain the impression that she had won.
Only when she went up for her afternoon lie-down at 2:30 did they break out in protest.
"Well, really! What
does
she think she's doing this time? A ban on Sunday television! We might be living in the Victorian age!"
"I believe that even the Queen watches television on Sundays," said Miss Willcocks. She had in fact no information whatsoever on this point, but she was inclined to bring the Queen in to support her position, rather as Emily Mortmain brought in the Almighty.
"And a ban on Sunday newspapers!" said Mr. Pottinger. "It's only on Sundays that the papers are
any good
!"
"Let's be a bit calm about this," said Captain Freely. "Is she just trying to work us up?"
They thought for a moment.
"We do
know
most of the governing body a little," said Mrs. Johnstone. "They come here and talk to us, and they all seem quite kind. They don't appear to be religious fanatics."
"Quite," said Captain Freely.
"On the other hand," said Miss Willcocks, "Evening Glades was founded to be run on Church of England principles."
"Contradiction in terms," said Captain Freely robustly. "No, the fact is the woman's just trying to make trouble."
"I do think it's hard," exclaimed Mrs. Johnstone. "One comes to a home like this, at the end of one's life, for
peace
! 'Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas,' as somebody said. Or is that death? Anyway, you know what I mean. A quiet, orderly existence, without too much responsibility, and without
rows
. This woman seems to thrive on rows, unpleasantness, and bad feeling. I do think it's
hard
! And it will go on like this as long as she's here."
"There is one advantage in being old," said Miss Willcocks pensively, into the silence that followed.
"What's that?" asked Mr. Pottinger.
"One has very little to lose… If only one could hit on a plan…"
* * *
Emily Mortmain died in her room, some time on Sunday afternoon. After lunch she had sat with her back studiously to the television, while the rest watched a film they had all been looking forward to, which gripped their attention. At 2:30 precisely, before the film had ended, Mrs. Mortmain had rung to be taken upstairs, as was her habit. At 4:45 Miss Protheroe had taken up her tea and toast and had discovered her dead.
The doctor, from the beginning, was very unhappy indeed. Though it appeared that the body was face down into the pillow, there were clear signs, or so the doctor thought, that it had been turned over after death. Deliberate suffocation is a difficult death to prove, and he thought the best thing would be to have a word with Miss Protheroe, to discover if, for instance, there could have been an intruder.
"Quite impossible," she said. "The domestic staff were off, and the kitchen door was locked. I was working in my office off the hall, with a perfect view of the front door. No one came in or went out."
"I see." The doctor shifted from foot to foot. "I wonder what the old people were doing."
Miss Protheroe shot him a quelling look.
"I will find out, tactfully, if you really think it worthwhile. I will tell you what I learn if you would be so kind as to return tomorrow."
When he did come back she was in triumphal mood.
"It was totally satisfactory. They were all—
all
— watching the film until 3:15. Then four of the ladies played whist, Captain Freely and Mr. Jones played chess, and the other six played
Trivial Pursuit
— a new game with us, but very popular. They were all in the lounge, or in the conservatory just through the door, and they were there all the time, until some time after I discovered the body. No one left even for a moment."
The doctor began his shifting-from-foot-to-foot routine again.
"That would be most unusual, not to leave even for a few minutes. Old people's bladders—"
"No one left even for that." Miss Protheroe got quite commanding. "In any case, how long would this… what you suggest… take?"
"Quite some time," admitted the doctor. "There was comparatively little obstruction… up to ten minutes."
"You see? And how much strength would be required?"
"Oh yes, certainly it would require strength."
"You see? These are
old
people, doctor. Even Captain Freely, though active, is no longer strong. It's quite impossible."
The doctor's voice took on a wild note.
"Perhaps two of them," he suggested. "Or all of them in relays."
Miss Protheroe rose in wrath.
"Doctor, that is as disgraceful as it is absurd. A joke in extremely bad taste. To suggest that all of my residents, respectable old people, should gang up to kill a newcomer—"
The doctor was young, and saw he had gone too far.
"Yes, yes, of course. I was merely theorizing, getting too fantastical. Point taken, point taken."
And he signed the certificate.
Miss Protheroe sensed the excitement in the residents after the death of Emily Mortmain, but there was nothing unusual in that. After any death in Evening Glades there was always excitement, even a sort of exultation: I have survived, she has gone under. Always there was an attempt to disguise it too. Now Captain Freely, if he realized she was in the room, would mutter, "Terrible thing, terrible thing," and the rest would cluck their agreement. Miss Protheroe was not deceived. They were pleased and excited, and if these emotions were more intense than usual, this was not surprising, in view of Emily Mortmain's character. Even her relatives, after the funeral, had seemed cock-a-hoop.
Amongst themselves they did not talk about the death a great deal, and to outsiders, of course, it was a matter of no importance. Only Miss Willcocks mentioned it, in her weekly letter to her niece (letters which generally remained unread, or even unopened). Miss Willcocks's treatment of the matter, it must be said, was not entirely honest:
Here we have been greatly upset by the death of Mrs. Mortmain, a new resident. Death is always upsetting, and particularly so in this case, as we had not had time to get to know her. It quite spoiled our Sunday, which up to then had been extremely enjoyable, with a quite thrilling game of
Trivial Pursuit,
and before that a most entertaining film on television. Did you see it? It was
Murder on the Orient Express—
so amusing, and with such a clever solution
…
JOSEPH HANSEN
Widower's Walk
JOSEPH HANSEN'S
Dave Brandstetter was the first openly gay protagonist in a serious mystery series. Hansen has said that he felt gay characters were treated poorly by mystery writers and he wanted to offer a balance. The Brandstetters are among the most stylish and yet quietly realistic of all modern detective novels. Not only does Hansen give us an open look at a gay man, he gives us an equally open look at our culture in general. He is widely known as a writer's writer. "Widower's Walk," published in
The Night Awakens
, features his other series character, Bohannon, in a polished tale of mystery and murder in a small town.
Widower's Walk
Joseph Hansen
T
he new kid has overslept and, being not much more than a teenager, could sleep till noon. Bohannon drags on Levis and boots, flaps into a shirt, steps over the windowsill onto the long porch of the ranch house, and heads for the stable building, clean, low lines against the gray background of the drowsing mountains. Horses move restlessly, rumble, and blow air through their big sinuses behind the closed doors of their box stalls. "Buck?" he says. "Seashell? Geranium?" And names the rest as he passes. His own horses and horses he boards for folk in the little town of Madrone, at the foot of this canyon, beside the ocean.
He raps knuckles on the tackroom door, white-washed planks. "Kelly? Time to get up." No reaction. He knocks again. Silence. He lifts the black metal tongue that serves as latch, swings the door inward, pokes his head inside. "Kelly? Wake up." But the steel cot looks empty. He steps inside. It's empty, all right. But slept in hard, sheets tangled, blankets half on the floor. He glances around in the weak morning light from the single window. Two of George Stubbs's horse drawings on the walls. (Shouldn't there be three?) No boots under the cot. He opens the drawers of the unpainted chest. Nothing. No clothes in the closet. He shuts his eyes and swears. Another one gone.