The Sense of an Ending

All this was before our marriage went wrong, of course. But it wouldn’t have lasted any longer if Margaret had been more mysterious, I can assure you — and her — of that.

* * *

And something of her rubbed off on me over the years. For instance, if I hadn’t known her, I might have become involved in a patient exchange of letters with the solicitor. But I didn’t want to wait quietly for another envelope with a window. Instead, I rang up Mrs Eleanor Marriott and asked about the other document I’d been left.

‘The will describes it as a diary.’

‘A diary? Is it Mrs Ford’s?’

‘No. Let me check the name.’ A pause. ‘Adrian Finn.’

Adrian! How had Mrs Ford ended up with his diary? Which was not a question for the solicitor. ‘He was a friend,’ was all I said. Then, ‘Presumably it was attached to the letter you sent.’

‘I can’t be sure of that.’

‘Have you actually seen it?’

‘No, I haven’t.’ Her manner was properly cautious, rather than unhelpful.

‘Did Veronica Ford give any reason for withholding it?’

‘She said she wasn’t ready to part with it yet.’

Right. ‘But it is mine?’

‘It was certainly left to you in the will.’

Hmm. I wondered if there was some legal nicety separating those two propositions. ‘Do you know how she… came by it?’

‘She was living not far from her mother in the last years, as I understand it. She said she took various items into her safekeeping. In case the house was burgled. Jewellery, money, documents.’

‘Is that legal?’

‘Well, it’s not illegal. It may well be prudent.’

We didn’t seem to be getting very far. ‘Let me get this straight. She ought to have handed over this document, this diary, to you. You’ve asked for it, and she’s refusing to give it up.’

‘For the present, yes, that is the case.’

‘Can you give me her address?’

‘I would have to have her authority to do so.’

‘Then would you kindly seek that authority?’

Have you noticed how, when you talk to someone like a solicitor, after a while you stop sounding like yourself and end up sounding like them?

The less time there remains in your life, the less you want to waste it. That’s logical, isn’t it? Though how you use the saved-up hours… well, that’s another thing you probably wouldn’t have predicted in youth. For instance, I spend a lot of time clearing things up — and I’m not even a messy person. But it’s one of the modest satisfactions of age. I aim for tidiness; I recycle; I clean and decorate my flat to keep up its value. I’ve made my will; and my dealings with my daughter, son-in-law, grandchildren and ex-wife are, if less than perfect, at least settled. Or so I’ve persuaded myself. I’ve achieved a state of peaceableness, even peacefulness. Because I get on with things. I don’t like mess, and I don’t like leaving a mess. I’ve opted for cremation, if you want to know.

So I phoned Mrs Marriott again, and asked for the contact details of Mrs Ford’s other child, John, known as Jack. I called Margaret and asked for a lunch date. And I made an appointment with my own solicitor. No, that’s putting it far too grandly. I’m sure Brother Jack would have someone he refers to as ‘my solicitor’. In my case it’s the local chap who drew up my will; he has a small office above a florist’s and seems perfectly efficient. I also like him because he made no attempt to use my Christian name or suggest I use his. So I think of him only as T. J. Gunnell, and don’t even speculate on what his initials might stand for. Do you know something I dread? Being an old person in hospital and having nurses I’ve never met calling me Anthony or, worse, Tony. Let me just pop this in your arm, Tony. Have some more of this gruel, Tony. Have you done a motion, Tony? Of course, by the time this happens, over-familiarity from the nursing staff may be way down my list of anxieties; but even so.

I did a slightly odd thing when I first met Margaret. I wrote Veronica out of my life story. I pretended that Annie had been my first proper girlfriend. I know most men exaggerate the amount of girls and sex they’ve had; I did the opposite. I drew a line and started afresh. Margaret was a little puzzled that I’d been so slow off the mark — not in losing my virginity, but in having a serious relationship; but also, I thought at the time, a little charmed. She said something about shyness being attractive in a man.

The odder part was that it was easy to give this version of my history because that’s what I’d been telling myself anyway. I viewed my time with Veronica as a failure — her contempt, my humiliation — and expunged it from the record. I had kept no letters, and only a single photograph, which I hadn’t looked at in ages.