The Boarding-House Read online

  The Boarding-House

  William Trevor

  1

  ‘I am dying,’ said William Wagner Bird on the night of August 13th, turning his face towards the wall for privacy, sighing at the little bunches of forget-me-not on the wallpaper. He felt his body a burden in the bed, a thing he did not know. His feet seemed far away, and it came to him abruptly that he was aware of his feet in an intellectual way only. It passed through Mr Bird’s mind then that physical communication with his nether half was forever gone.

  ‘I am going out feet first,’ said Mr Bird, a wit to the end. ‘My legs have entered their eternal rest. Nurse Clock, I would have you record all this and pass it on to a daily newspaper. Nurse Clock, have you pen and paper?’

  The nurse, seated some distance away, reading a magazine, read the message on the printed page: Bingo and whist drives below stairs at Balmoral. ‘I am writing out your very word,’ she said.

  ‘Then listen to this,’ said William Wagner Bird, and did not ever finish the sentence.

  ‘Oh, God in heaven,’ murmured Nurse Clock, feeling the presence of death and feeling thus that the invocation was proper. Only at Balmoral do they share a room, she read; and rose with that thought in her mind and covered the face of a man she had known for many a year and had disliked both in sickness and health.

  The gloom gathered in the room as Nurse Clock set about her tasks and saw to it that certain decencies were observed. She did not glance again at the stretched figure on the bed, but worked briskly in her matter-of-fact way, packing away her personal belongings in her nurse’s bag and tidying those of her late patient. The time was nine o’clock. ‘I have been on the go,’ said Nurse Clock aloud.

  So it was that William Wagner Bird, a man of sixty-seven who had never married, died in The Boarding-House on August 13th. Later his passing was recorded in a formal way only, by relevant authorities; for like others in The Boarding-House, Mr Bird had had neither family nor personal ties. His parents had died five years back, in the same month, and had between them left him debts amounting to ninety pounds. He in his earlier lifetime had been in the travel business, a salesman of tickets to faraway places.

  The Boarding-House was an imposing building that suggested the reign of Victoria but which had been in fact erected at a later date. It stood at the corner of Jubilee Road, SW17, a turreted confection in red brick, with untended gardens at the front and rear.

  When little Miss Clerricot had first stood upon the front steps, her gloved hand on the bell-pull, she had wondered as she waited for the sound of footsteps if she were not making a mistake. Nor did the figure that eventually appeared in the doorway reassure her. She entered the dimness of the hall and was left there alone. The silence of the house was like that of a convent, and in a moment she walked through the silence, following the person who had opened the door, into the presence of the proprietor. And immediately the person who had opened the door, a Dickensian ancient, had been severely upbraided for presenting so slovenly an appearance and was in fact, in Miss Clerricot’s presence, dismissed from service. But Miss Clerricot herself had accepted the room she was offered, and came to like The Boarding-House.

  A brown wallpaper covered the wall by the staircase. The pattern it bore was one of large oval leaves that once had been depicted in a more subtle variety of shades: purples and dark greens, reds and russets. It was a late-night habit of Mr Studdy’s to lift one of the three Watts reproductions and display for his personal pleasure the pristine glory of this wallpaper, and to make to himself the point about the effect of light on cheaply reproduced colour. ‘A scandal,’ opined Mr Studdy more than once, nodding sagely.

  Throughout the house there were curtains and hangings and other wallpapers that matched the rich gravy shade of the paper on the stairway. Even the rubber plant in the hall had a tinge of it; and in the various areas of paintwork, the embossed borders that accompanied the paper up the stairs, the banisters and the painted portions of floors, it was ubiquitous. It appeared again, a colour wrought by time and wear, as a background shade in carpets and an overall tone in linoleum. In the three lavatories, one to each floor, it came into its own to such an extent that residents new to The Boarding-House had been known to find it oppressive.

  The brown of The Boarding-House did not, however, universally command. Its effect was lightened by such touches as the three Watts reproductions, by several flights of china geese and by a series of silk embroideries worked in virulent colours that were spread over the backs of arm-chairs, ostensibly to catch the markings from the heads of Mr Studdy and others but really to cheer the rooms up. At Christmas, paper decorations were strung from picture rail to picture rail, imitation holly garnished the lantern-shaped light-fitting in the hall, and clumps of mistletoe were attached by drawing-pin to the centre of door-frames and were referred to often by Mr Studdy, especially in the presence of Miss Clerricot or Rose Cave. Mr Studdy had made an art of innuendo, just as Major Eele had made one of dumb insolence.

  On the night of August 13th, Nurse Clock descended the stairs from the room where William Bird lay dead upon a bed. She carried in her hand her nurse’s bag and beneath her arm, open at the relevant page, the magazine that contained the royal article. She was a woman of uniform proportions, stout about the legs and waist, though small in stature. She remembered as a child her mother claiming that she, Nurse Clock, had beautiful hair, and often, when much younger, she had examined the hair in a looking-glass and had discovered the quality her mother had been taken with: a foaming quality that was a kind of curliness. But nowadays Nurse Clock was more given over to other matters. Nowadays she rarely paused before a looking-glass to establish for herself the beauty of her hair.

  ‘He is safe in the arms of Jesus,’ said Nurse Clock. ‘He has passed feet first to his eternal rest and has told me to record it. He felt himself dying, a process which began below and overcame his body.’

  They turned to look at her, moving their gaze from the television screen, from the legal drama that had hitherto absorbed them. Miss Clerricot’s face had whitened at the words; Rose Cave’s displayed fear.

  ‘Dead?’ said Major Eele, and the others – Mr Scribbin and Venables and then Mr Obd – all said the word, too. ‘Dead?’ they said in unison, for often at night, grouped thus about the television set, they spoke in unison, giving an affirmative to an offer of cocoa or agreeing upon the time.

  ‘Who is dead?’ asked Major Eele. ‘Not Mr Bird?’

  ‘Mr Bird is dead. He died in circumstances that were not a little odd. I do not know what killed him.’

  ‘Your honour, I object,’ cried a voice from the television set, and someone rose, black Mr Obd from Nigeria, to quench the extraneous din.

  ‘Mr Bird has died,’ said Miss Clerricot, stating the fact, not seeking confirmation.

  ‘Mr Bird has died,’ said Rose Cave.

  ‘He felt the hand of death upon him,’ said Mr Scribbin. ‘He told me so when last I saw him. “I will not last the summer,” said Mr Bird; and naturally I am not surprised. I was expecting this,’ said Mr Scribbin.

  ‘Mr Bird has died,’ said the plump Venables, employed in an office block to see that internal communications were kept on the move. ‘Traffic controller’ he called the position, and confused people, who imagined, naturally, traffic on the roads.

  ‘Why is the television off?’ asked Major Eele. ‘Has no one noticed, we are sitting in this room staring at a blank screen?’

  ‘Mr Obd turned off the television,’ said Rose Cave. ‘Did you not hear, Major Eele, what Nurse Clock said?’

  ‘Nurse Clock said that Mr Bird was dead. So did you. Miss Cave. And then Miss Clerricot and then Venables. Scribbin only said that the man had felt the hand of dea
th upon him. But before the repetition got going the African rose up and snapped off the telly. We have seen the writing on the wall: Mr Obd is a member of a tribe: Africa is a blood-bath.’

  ‘You have got the order all wrong,’ said Rose Cave. ‘Miss Clerricot commented first, and then I. Then Mr Scribbin and finally Mr Venables. I think you owe Mr Obd an apology.’ She smiled at Mr Obd, inclining her neat grey head.

  ‘Oh yes, oh yes,’ said Major Eele. ‘Sorry, there.’

  ‘Peacefully?’ said Miss Clerricot, referring to the death, speaking across Major Eele and Rose Cave, addressing Nurse Clock.

  Nurse Clock drew in a breath and blew it out again. She placed beside a chair her nurse’s bag and the magazine, and sat down in the chair. It was the chair that Mr Obd had vacated in order to switch off the television set. He, seeing how things had turned out, eased himself on to a piano stool and hoped that Rose Cave would not notice. Rose Cave would say that colour prejudice was at work.

  In the basement kitchen Gallelty and Mrs Slape sat by the range, sipping at two glasses of beer and talking of their lives.

  ‘I am a wanderer, Mrs Slape,’ said Gallelty. ‘I pass by night through country towns. I pause in the sun by cathedral closes. I will take on any work. I will perform what the good God sends to my hand.’

  Mrs Slape looked pensive, drawing away the glass from her mouth but allowing her mouth to remain ajar. In silence she offered Gallelty a cigarette from a package on her aproned lap.

  ‘Are you fond of religion, then?’ She was thinking of the reference to cathedrals and God, trying to place the younger woman in her mind. Gallelty had been her assistant in The Boarding-House kitchen for only a fortnight. She had come mysteriously and had since worked quietly at the sinks and the range and the old gas stove.

  ‘I will perform what the good God sends to my hand,’ repeated Gallelty. ‘Destiny sent me here, I am sure of that. ’Twas destiny, Mrs Slape, that guided me to the house of Mr Bird.’

  ‘’Twas something else, I thought,’ cried Mrs Slape, laughing loudly, fat shaking on her body like weak jelly. ‘The way you came, Gallelty, I’ll never forget it.’ For Gallelty, two weeks before, on a Friday morning, had pulled the bell of The Boarding-House and had said with urgency: ‘I am taken short, may I use your lavatory?’ And in she had shot, a haversack upon her back, and had opened various doors at breakneck speed. Mrs Slape, alarmed, had called for Mr Bird, who listened to her story and waited in the hallway for Gallelty’s egress. An hour later Mr Bird, on this the last day on his feet, had entered the kitchen and offered her Gallelty as a helper.

  ‘My household is complete,’ Mr Bird had said, and Gallelty had set to at the sink, peeling potatoes.

  In the room upstairs the general conversation continued.

  ‘Who should be informed?’ asked Mr Scribbin, a man who was tall and almost shoulderless. He had shot up at seventeen and had retained his length ever since. ‘Family?’ pursued Scribbin, now fifty-five. ‘Relatives?’

  ‘Mr Bird was alone in the world,’ said Nurse Clock.

  ‘Where is Mr Studdy?’ said Rose Cave. ‘It is a pity he is not here at this time; he would know what next to do.’

  ‘Do we not know what to do?’ cried Nurse Clock tartly, smiling to take the edge off her tone. ‘Why Studdy should be thought to know more I cannot see.’

  ‘I only thought-Mr Studdy is a man of the world.’

  ‘And what is that? Man of the world? I would have called the Major that.’

  ‘You are sitting on a chair that was taken by Mr Obd. I do not call that kind, Nurse Clock.’

  ‘Mr Obd is sitting, too,’ returned the nurse, glancing at the Nigerian on the piano stool. ‘Mr Obd, have I harmed you?’

  ‘He is perched on a piano stool,’ said Rose Cave.

  ‘Mr Obd, are you happy?’

  ‘That is not my duty,’ explained Mr Obd. ‘Let me tell you–’

  ‘He could be working for the revolution,’ said Major Eele, ‘not sitting here turning off our television. There was a time, I may tell you, when houses like this were Europeans only.’

  ‘Major Eele, come to our aid,’ requested Nurse Clock. ‘What is our next move? We know that Mr Bird has died alone. How do we act? Who is responsible?’

  ‘The State,’ suggested Venables, anxious to go on, smiling plumply. Nurse Clock snapped at him, a gesture of her face and teeth, soundless but effective. ‘Major?’ she prompted.

  ‘I get around a bit,’ said Gallelty in the kitchen. ‘Holiday camps and that. I’m always on the go, but now I think that has come to an end. I shall settle down at last, Mrs Slape, here in The Boarding-House, in Two Jubilee Road. “I’ve done all kinds of work,” I said to Mr Bird, and he smiled at me and shook my hand, making the bargain over the wages. I’m sad to see him sick, Mrs Slape; a kindly man.’

  ‘I’ll never forget,’ said Mrs Slape, and she laughed again, the jelly rippling all over her body.

  ‘A box for Mr Bird,’ said Major Eele. ‘That is the very first consideration. The body to be laid out, with sundry applications of preservatives if it is to be placed on show. Is the body to be placed on show? In some town hall? Who was Mr Bird when all is said and done? Some say he was a local figure, known to shopkeepers, beloved by children. Did he in his time give heavily to charities, world famine and kindred things? Now, I suggest, Nurse Clock, that a collection be made, here in our boarding-house, and that we purchase black flags and bedeck the neighbourhood. May I say more? That we of Mr Bird’s own house should black our faces as Mr Obd’s is black and walk behind our master’s coffin thus, to show our last respects. And now, in this hour of death, let us all here fall upon our knees and pray, since we may not have the television. Our Father–’

  ‘Major, please. All that is in most poor taste. You have insulted a soul that is new in heaven, you have insulted Mr Obd, and you have caused our sensibilities to protest at so much ugliness in your speech.’ Rose Cave it was who spoke, anger in her face, standing and looking down.

  ‘My opinion was asked, my dear,’ said Major Eele. ‘I merely gave it. If my views are too extravagant for you, then seek the views of others. Death is in the house, good heavens; you cannot expect conventions observed. People get carried away.’

  ‘I am going to cry,’ said Miss Clerricot, and she uttered the first moan, touching her face with a handkerchief.

  ‘Mr Bird has died,’ said Nurse Clock, entering the kitchen. ‘He died a half-hour ago.’

  ‘Dead?’ said one and then the other.

  ‘I do not know what killed him. No doubt the poor nurse will get the blame for negligence. He felt himself dying; it was a most extraordinary thing.’

  ‘He caught a cold,’ said Mrs Slape, ‘through the soles of his feet. He walked with broken shoes out across the common. He should have known, him a cripple.’

  Gallelty was staring, the twitch in her right eye working busily.

  ‘Hardly a cripple,’ corrected Nurse Clock. ‘He dragged his foot a bit; it’s not at all the same.’

  ‘Oh,’ cried Gallelty, shaking on her chair and sobbing.

  ‘I could not save his life. He lay in my arms at the end and thanked me for my care. He kissed my hands, saying he had been sweetly nursed. Gallelty dear, control that now. Who was Mr Bird to you? You knew him only a fortnight.’

  ‘Gallelty has the right,’ said Mrs Slape, speaking sharply. ‘No charge for tears, Nurse Clock. It’s a private matter for Gallelty; we must look the other way.’

  There was a silence then in the kitchen until the silence filled with the soft murmur of sorrow as Gallelty wept again. The women watched her, each with her thoughts, before looking the other way.

  Later that night Studdy returned. He clicked on the light in the hall and stood there for a moment, listening for the sounds of the other residents. He looked up the dark stairs, narrowing his eyes. Then he extinguished the light and mounted the stairs in darkness. There were rules in The Boarding-House: rules about noise after eleven
o’clock, about the switching on and off of the communal lights, and punctuality in the dining-room. Studdy, a man who prided himself on his ability to keep on the right side of the law, trod softly, taking care to follow the line of the banister with the palm of his hand. He climbed to the top of the house, passing his own room on the second floor. There, in a spacious attic, lay William Wagner Bird, stiffening beneath the sheet.

  Studdy lit a match, noted the sheet spread over the dead man’s face and quickly made the sign of the cross.

  ‘He has passed from us.’ Studdy whispered the words, breathing hard, filling the room with the whiff of beer.

  He lit another match, making certain, assuring himself that his brain had registered correctly. The moon, hidden all night till now, suddenly swept its light into the room. It fell upon the outlines of the figure on the bed, casting the shadow of the living Studdy over it. And when Studdy moved he frightened himself, because it seemed for a moment that the body beneath the sheet had shifted just a little.

  Disliking the room and the eerie moonlight, Studdy left it. He descended the stairs and sat for a while on his bed, thinking about the death that had taken place above him. Eventually he rose and walked to his dressing-table, nodding as he made this brief journey. In a drawer he found a pad of lined writing-paper and half a packet of envelopes. In pencil he wrote as follows:

  Dear Madam,

  This is just to inform you that your friend, William Wagner Bird, died in this house during the night of August 13th. Before he did so he expressed the wish that you should be immediately informed on the occasion of his decease. He died in his sleep, holding in his hand a small bog-oak representation of a donkey. He had spoken previously of this ornament and was particularly anxious that you should have it as a token of ultimate esteem and gratitude.

  Respectfully,

  M. Moran.

  PS.– The donkey may be collected any evening between six and seven at the above address.

  Studdy reached for the telephone directories. In the L to R volume he discovered a name that pleased him: Mrs le Tor. He addressed the envelope, resolved that the cost of carrying it through the post was not his to bear, and propped it up on the table beside his bed.