Obituary Read online

  Table of Contents

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  OBITUARY

  Contents

  Landmarks

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  Copyright © 1966 by Fletcher Flora. All rights reserved.

  Originally published in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Magazine, March 1966.

  *

  Published by Wildside Press LLC.

  wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com

  OBITUARY

  Mr. Cameron Fleming belonged to another age. In a time of sprawling urban growth, two-car garages and super-markets, he remained what he had always been, and what his father had been before him. He was, in brief, the sole and independent proprietor of a neighborhood grocery.

  As a boy in better days, when his father had kept the store, he had fallen under the spell generated by that special and seductive mixture of scents peculiar to places where foods were gathered in the bulk, in barrels and boxes and jars and wooden tubs, and he had never escaped the spell.

  It is true that the enchanting odor was gone now, or greatly diminished, but it was not gone from the memory of Cameron Fleming. In a mute and simple way, Cameron was a poet, and he had the poet’s capacity for intense recollection.

  As everyone has realized at one time or another, there is nothing so tenacious as a remembered odor, nothing so calculated to bring back by association all the objects and events and emotions connected with it.

  And that’s how it was with Cameron Fleming.

  Every morning, when he unlocked the front door of his store and entered from the street, he could actually smell the magic effluvium of yesterday as surely as if the pickle barrel still stood, the tub of peanut butter still leaked the oily scent of goobers, and the hanging stalk of bananas still trailed a spoor of golden tropical fruit.

  It was relatively late when Cameron married Millicent Hooker. He was, to be exact, thirty-two at the time. The marriage was hardly a success, but neither was it a disaster. It was merely dull.

  Cameron was not greatly upset by the barrenness of his domestic life. He had the store, and the store was enough. For a time, that is. Until, to give a beginning to his decline, the day that Mrs. Hardy came in for a pound of round steak and a dime’s worth of onions.

  Caroline Hardy was about Cameron’s age, about forty, but she was, so to speak, much older and younger at the same time. She had married young and lived hard and buried her husband, who had died at the age of thirty-eight, and she was tired. She did not, however, look tired. Neither did she look forty. She looked maybe thirty-five or thirty, depending upon the time of day and the degree of light and sometimes the character of the night before.

  She was not actually pretty, and probably had never been, but she had magnetism and flair; even the simple gingham dress that she wore into the store was somehow, on her, like a party frock.

  Cameron Fleming, approaching her, felt suddenly wistful, as if he had, after all, missed more in his life than he had known.

  “Good afternoon,” he said. “May I help you?”

  “I’d like a pound of round steak, please,” she said.

  Behind the meat counter, he cut the steak and weighed it and wrapped it. Portent of the future, passing unnoticed, he gave her a pound and a quarter.

  “Will there be anything else?”

  “One large onion, please.”

  “I’m afraid the onions aren’t large today. Two or three smaller ones, perhaps?”

  “Two should be sufficient.” He selected two, the largest he had, and put them on the scales. They weighed out at twelve cents.

  “That will be a dime,” he said, blowing his profit.

  With her purchases in hand, she seemed loathe to leave. She looked slowly around her, and her pink lips formed the smile for which they were always prepared.

  “What a perfectly charming store,” she said.

  “Thank you,” he said. “It’s been in the family for years. My father ran it before me.”

  “So much better, I think, than these great cold barns that pass for markets nowadays.”

  “I’ve never had the pleasure of waiting on you before, have I?”

  “No. This is the first time, but I assure you it won’t be the last.”

  “I hope not. I sincerely do. Are you new in the neighborhood?”

  “I moved into the house at the other end of the block just two days ago.”

  “If you’d care to open a charge account, I’d be glad to accommodate you.”

  “I’ll think about it. It might be convenient. My husband is dead, and I must work for my living. That’s why I moved here. Starting Monday, I have a job as file clerk at the cement plant.”

  “I’m sure an account would work out satisfactorily for both of us.”

  “You’re very kind. Anyhow, I shall certainly come again. My name, incidentally, is Mrs. Hardy. Caroline Hardy.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Hardy. I’m Cameron Fleming.”

  She smiled again and nodded briskly.

  “Well, I must get back. I’m really not quite settled yet. Good-by, Mr. Fleming.”

  That was on Thursday. On Saturday she returned to open an account and buy a week’s supply of groceries.

  Although she arrived at a time when trade was slack, the store being empty of other customers, their second encounter lacked, nevertheless, the delicious intimacy of the first. This was due to the presence of Jimmy Cobb, an explosion of red hair and freckles that Cameron employed as a part-time assistant for fifty cents an hour. His presence this day did not actually hamper Cameron’s actions in any way, for they would have been totally innocent in any event, but he managed, just by being there, to take the fine edge off things.

  In the end, however, Jimmy proved himself useful, for Cameron ordered him home with Mrs. Hardy to carry the two large sacks of groceries that she bought.

  Like all merchants, Cameron delighted in making large sales, but it must be said that his delight on this occasion was qualified by regret. Mrs. Hardy having bought for the week, it followed that it would be that long before he would see her again. The thought depressed him, but soon he was whistling softly as he went about his work.

  It was entirely possible, after all, that Mrs. Hardy had forgotten some necessary staple and would have to return for it during the coming week. In Cameron’s experience, women were always remembering the cakes and caviar and completely forgetting the sugar and salt.

  And so, indeed, it turned out. Wednesday afternoon, about five-thirty, the telephone rang, and Cameron answered with the routine phrase.

  “Fleming’s Grocery.”

  “This is Caroline Hardy, Mr. Fleming.”

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Hardy. What can I do for you?”

  “Is Jimmy Cobb there?”

  “Yes, Jimmy’s here.”

  “Well, I’m in the middle of baking, and I discover that I have no baking powder. I wonder if you could have Jimmy run right up with a can?”

  “Certainly. Right away, Mrs. Hardy.”

  “It’s very accommodating of you.”

  Cameron’s accommodation did not end with his agreement to send the baking powder. Leaving Jimmy to mind the store, a rare occurrence, he gave the delivery his personal attention. Three minutes later, having walked up the block by way of the alley, he was approaching Mrs. Hardy’s back door.

  Mrs. Hardy, in the kitchen, was at once domestic and alluring in stretch pants protected by a bright patch of apron. Millicent, thought Cameron sadly, never wore stretch pants in the kitchen or elsewhere, and if she had the effect would hardly have been comparable.

  “Why…Mr. Fleming!” Mrs. Hardy said. “How kind of you to come yourself. I’ve put you to no end of trouble.”

  “Nothing of the sort,” Cameron said. “Jimmy was bu
sy, and I thought the walk would do me good.”

  “Well, you must stay and rest a moment. May I offer you something? Coffee? A glass of sherry?”

  Strangely exhilarated, shedding restraint with a sense of daring, Cameron accepted sherry. The sherry, poured from a bottle taken from a kitchen cabinet, was of cooking quality, but, being no connoisseur of wines, he did not know the difference.

  Mrs. Hardy had a glass with him as a convivial gesture, and he was astonished, consulting his watch on the return trip down the alley, to discover that he had lingered in the kitchen a full ten minutes. In the store, under the completely innocent observation of Jimmy Cobb, he had a delicious sense of guilt, as if he had just come hot and smoking from an assignation.

  Gradually thereafter, over a period of several months, his relationship with Caroline Hardy took on the aspects of discreet infidelity—a thoroughly chaste affair. As time passed it seemed that Mrs. Hardy found it necessary more and more often to call for emergency deliveries, and by some odd trick of circumstances they invariably came just when Cameron was feeling that a short walk would do him good. The quality of the sherry did not improve, but the consumption of it materially increased.

  Cameron could not remember later just when titles and surnames were abandoned. They simply became to each other, at some point is the lapse of time, Caroline and Cameron. And it became apparent, even to a man as modest as he, that she responded to his unexpressed feelings with an emotion equally intense, although equally mute.

  He could hardly believe his incredible good luck. It seemed impossible that she could actually be attracted to such a dull fellow, and he began to wonder, examining his reflection in the glass door of his refrigerator, if he was such a dull fellow after all.

  Without ever touching each other, they became lovers. At least they did in the mind of Cameron Fleming. He took her tenderly in a dozen repeated dreams, and it was only a small step from there to the bitter wish that he were free to take her in fact. Perhaps he would have been if he had tried, but he was deterred by his natural timidity and the conviction that she would be amenable to seduction only if it were not extramarital.

  Having no grounds for divorce, and no hope of it, he was forced to find his freedom, as he took his love, only in fantasy.

  But divorce is merely one way to lose a wife. There are other ways, and death is one of them. The death of Millicent began to share his dreams with the love of Caroline, the former being in his judgment a prerequisite to the latter. Millicent, of course, showed no signs whatever of dying, but natural dying is merely one kind of death.

  There are other kinds, and murder is one of them. The murder of Millicent began to replace in his dreams the natural death of Millicent, the former being in his judgment the only reasonable alternative to the latter.

  It was Caroline herself who gave urgency to his dream. She had come into the store quite late, just before closing time, and had asked for a can of peas. He had squatted down before the bottom shelf on which the canned peas were stocked and had asked her choice of brands. She had squatted beside him to see for herself what choice there was, and suddenly, side by side on their haunches and touching each other with only their lips, they were kissing.

  After a while, she stood up and sighed and smoothed her skirt over her hips with her hands.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “We shouldn’t have done that.”

  “Why not?” he said, rising beside her.

  “Because it was wrong.”

  “Why was it wrong?”

  “Because you’re married.”

  “I wish I weren’t.”

  “If you want to know the truth,” she said, “so do I.”

  But if it was she who thus gave his dream urgency, it was chance that gave it purpose and direction.

  As if he were simply playing a deadly game to amuse himself, he began to think, of all the ways a woman could be made to die, and the game was made immensely she went first info the bathroom, for this arrangement gave her time, while he himself executed the essential small functions dictated by hygiene, and biology, to brew his coffee and poach his egg and toast his bread.

  While he waited for her, he listened rather sadly to her activities behind the closed door. He heard the water-closet empty and fill. He heard water running into the lavatory. After a flurry of splashing, he heard the brisk, bristly sound of the brushing of teeth. Then she came out, wrapped in a robe, and went directly to the kitchen. It was indicative of their status that they did not speak all this while, and his feeling of vague sadness persisted. If he regretted what he was going to do, or attempt to do, it was not because of what she was, but because of what she had failed to be.

  In the bathroom, after hurrying through what was necessary to prepare himself for the day, he took the bottle of bleach from the linen closet, where he had tucked it away the night before, and poured it all, a full quart, into the small amount of water at the bottom of the toilet bowl. The harsh odor of the bleach pervaded the small room, but he was reasonably certain that it would incite Millicent to no more than a sour resentment toward him for creating it.

  After all, a woman would hardly recognize a danger signal when she was completely unaware of being in danger. He wondered if Millicent was even aware of the deadly reaction set off by chlorine bleach and any acid-producing substance, such as a toilet bowl cleaner, and he doubted it. Like many housewives, she rarely read labels.

  Anyhow, it was done. It was done, so far, so simply. Of course, the crucial part remained. It was necessary now to make certain that Millicent cleaned this morning, but he was already fairly certain that she would. She did her housework on schedule, as he had learned in the years of their marriage, and he knew that this was the morning for the bathroom. It was for this reason, to exploit the schedule, that he had waited the two days after bringing the bleach home.

  In the kitchen, he sat down to his egg and toast and coffee. “What are you going to do this morning?” he said.

  “Housework, as usual,” she said. “What else is there?”

  “This is your morning for the bathroom, isn’t it?”

  “It is. Why?”

  “I noticed that the toilet bowl is a bit stained. It needs cleaning.”

  “Well, don’t let it disturb you. I’ll get to it as soon as you’re out of the way.”

  “Of course, dear. I didn’t mean to complain.”

  At the front door, he received the habitual peck on the cheek that always seemed to convey more animosity than affection. He walked the three blocks to his store, and it was then, for him, the beginning of a long, long day. There were so many things that could go wrong, and all of them plagued his mind as the long day dragged by.

  What if Millicent staged a petty domestic rebellion and refused to clean the bathroom at all? Not likely, and if she did he could always try again. What if she flushed the bowl before adding the cleaner? The answer as before: he could try again. What if the gases were not fatal? A possibility certainly, but the possibility was just as good that they would be. Fatal or not, the incident would surely pass as an accident. Failure in this event would make it impossible, of course, to try the same method again, but there were other methods, and there would be other chances.

  At noon he made himself a bologna sandwich and drank a pint of milk. At four Jimmy Cobb came in and began delivering the neighborhood orders that had accumulated during the day. Caroline Hardy did not come or call, and for once Cameron was glad that she didn’t. When next he saw her, he hoped that it would be with the expanded vision and prospects of a free agent.

  At six, he locked the store and walked home. At six-five, his hopes neatly realized, he found Millicent dead just inside the bathroom door.

  He summoned the family physician at once, who came and pronounced her dead and summoned the police, as required in such cases. The police, in the person of a detective, called the coroner, who delivered, for lack of anything constructive to do, a bitter little lecture on the incredible stupidit
y of the average housewife.

  All the evidence of death by misadventure was present. There was the can of cleaner, lying where it had fallen, a few crystals spilled out from its lip upon the floor. There was the bottle that had contained the bleach. There was the fallen brush on the floor beside the cleaner. There, finally was the bereaved husband, roundly berating himself for having never warned his wife against the deadly danger of bleach and cleaners mixed.

  “Millicent never read labels,” he said dully. “I could never teach her to read labels.”

  Thereafter, he was too busily engaged to permit the intrusion of fears, real or imaginative, or the grim indictment of his conscious. There were relatives to notify. There were arrangements to make with a local undertaker. There were insurance agents to see. There were callers to receive, expressions of condolence to acknowledge.

  Later, there were relatives in the house, and at last, on the following Monday, the funeral itself. It was not until Monday evening that he was really left alone to assess his feelings.

  Somehow, he did not feel as elated as the success of his venture warranted. Not even the vision of Caroline Hardy, now invoked, was enough to lift his spirits. Perhaps it was because he was so tired. Perhaps he would have to survive a period of adjustment—of convalescence, so to speak. Suddenly he was intensely eager for tomorrow to come. Suddenly he longed in anguished loneliness for the sweet-smelling sanctuary of his enchanted store.

  The longing could not be denied. Leaving the house, he walked in darkness to the store and let himself in. A small night light was burning at the rear.

  In the shadows, he found his apron and put it on and stood behind the counter as if he waited for a nocturnal customer. He stood there for a long time, and he was aware that it was not the same, that something was lacking, and then he realized that he could smell nothing.

  The magic odor, recovered daily from the enchanted past, was dissipated, gone, lost forever in the acrid stench of chlorine and acid, and lost and gone with it were the thousand and one associations that had sweetened his days for all his years.