29. THE SCENT OF DEATH

A Chapter by Peter Rogerson

A sudden and unpleasant shock for Wallace

Most mornings began in exactly the same way, with Helen getting up first and bustling in the kitchen, preparing breakfast for two. But not this particular day., and Wallace was puzzled. He liked things to follow a familiar pattern, and today wasn’t.

Then the letter said it all.

He knew the handwriting, it was the tidy and very feminine script that he’d known all his life and it told him everything he needed to know. Mother had written it and left it for him to find, on the bed next to where she lay.

My darling boy, it read, and she still called him a boy even though he was approaching the end of his teens and considered himself to be a man, I’ve decided to end it all. It’s my choice and nobody has influenced me. As you are fully aware I am pregnant with a horrible man’s child growing inside me, and at my age I’ll become an unmarried mother who, to all intents and purposes, will be looked on as a dreadful w***e by just about everyone, and you know that I’m not like that at all. But you also know how cruel people can be. It is, after all, why Edina gave you up to me all those years ago.

But it’s not totally fear of rejection but the pain I have suffered of late. I never knew that having a baby could involve so much discomfort! The pains have driven me to distraction and I would have sought the help of Dr. Niven but for my own fear of the look in his eyes when he sees my condition. Because he, too, will see a w***e when he looks at me.

But I see that’s what I’ve become, courtesy of a man who is as despicable as he wants the world to think I am. I’m sorry, Wallace, I truly am, but you are in the fortunate position of having two mothers, not by any choice of your own but because that’s the way things turned out, and I know that the woman who carried you in her womb for nine months and who offered you to me for your own good will be there for you if you ever need support or guidance. Say goodbye to Maureen and my sister Amy for me and know that I wish her well. It won’t be long before you’re a father yourself and will feel the great weight of responsibility that joy brings with it.

That is all. Remember that I love you, always have, for you have been an exceptional son. I am going in a few moments to join my late and very much loved husband where I will finally find the understanding, I hope, that I need. I’m sorry that I’ll miss your wedding, but I would only have cast a black shadow on it. It’s better this way.

And that was it. That and the still white form of the woman lying on her bed, posed as if there had been a party of angels and she was the last preparing to go.

Except for the faint aroma in the room, of course, the tiniest scent of death.

Wallace couldn’t believe it. The woman who had been as much of a mother as any woman could without actually giving birth to him was motionless on her bed and clearly very dead.

“Oh, you silly woman,” he mumbled, and wept.

He’d never been the sort of boy to cry if he hurt himself or was made distraught by any of the few misfortunes life had thrown at him, but he wept now. His mind, like a streak of lightning, raced through moments of the woman she had been, the things she had done, the words she had spoken, in happy times and sad ones. The comfort she had been to others when dark shadows had touched their lives.

And here she was, white as the winter world outside, and dead.

Eventually, in a state of numbness he went to their neighbour’s house and asked to use the phone (though a telephone was on his mother’s list of things to have installed as soon as, well, as soon as it could be afforded). He didn’t explain anything because his face and the dried tears on his cheeks told a story that nobody wanted to hear, and he dialled the emergency number.

He rang for an ambulance.

“Are you sure she’s dead?” asked the operator’s voice.

He was and he wasn’t. He’d touched her and she was cold like ice, but the faint smile on her face was seraphic and almost alive. But the empty bottle of prescription tablets that she was still holding in one frozen hand had been enough to convince him.

“She’s dead,” was his response.

“The police will be informed,” said the voice, “it’s the law, I’m afraid.”

“Okay.”

He hung the phone on its cradle and made to go back home.

“Is there anything we can do?” asked the neighbour, Mrs Wilson, a kindly lady with too many children of her own not to be harassed for most of the time even though her husband did more than most men to ease her load. She certainly wouldn’t have time to be anything but sympathetic, thought Wallace.

“Can I make another call?” he asked before he reached the door, “I’ll pay, of course,” he added, digging in his pockets for some change.

“Don’t be silly,” smiled Mrs Wilson, “go on, ring who you like.”

So he telephoned Maureen at the baths where she worked, though she wouldn’t be there for much longer, not with the baby due in March.

“Mum’s dead,” he said, his voice breaking, “I found her when she wouldn’t come down for breakfast. She must have done it last night...”

“Done what?” asked an alarmed Maureen, because Helen had been an aunt she had always been fond of.

“Taken too many pills,” replied Wallace, and he sobbed again, “I’ll see you later, shall I?”

“But Wallace…?”

“I know,” he said, he who, for the moment, didn’t know anything, “I’ll be at home,” he added.

Helen was taken away soon after he made that phone call, and he was left in the house on his own. A policeman came, a sergeant with three savage stripes and a ruddy face. He nodded a few times, took a few notes, nodded again when he mentioned the empty bottle, then said “you didn’t help her did you, sonny?”

“Help her?” he almost shouted, “I’d have moved Heaven and Earth to stop her if I’d known!”

“It’s all right, sonny, just a question I have to ask, you know the way things are, being methodical, getting everything down in its right order so that the bosses back at the station don’t have to come back to see you when you don’t want them anywhere near you and ask even more questions on a day when all you want is answers.”

And he was gone leaving Wallace along again. But not for long. Maureen and Amy came up to the house in a taxi, two women who never took taxis anywhere because of the cost.

“You poor dear,” cried the two together.

And Wallace wept again.