Our family dinners, in the past, have resulted in one of us not surviving the meal. I knew for a fact that this would be one of those times and who the one to die would be. Have I not successfully orchestrated the two previous deaths.
There have been Witherspoons sitting down to Sunday dinner at this very table in this very house for nearly a century. I imagine they have varied somewhat over the years but in the thirty-nine of which I have been partaking they have seemed rather jolly affairs, a time to come together as a family, share good food, news and laughter.
This latter contribution has been, I am pleased to say, greatly attributed to me. I have always been known to have an extreme sense of humour. Our Father used to say that the moment he lay eyes on me, his sixth and final child, I gave him a wink and a nod. That jerk of head and droop of eyelid have been a lifelong nuisance of an affliction for me but did not detract from his story. Or the fact that he used to claim I "always was a corker." Thus my nickname, Corky. The last time I was asked for my original name I had to stop and think for a moment. Bartholomew would not have been my first choice.
Today we are all here, as usual. The surviving members are here in actuality and there are two empty chairs for our sisters, Violet and Marigold, now deceased. Oh we are not so macabre as to set a place for the dearly departed but it is a Witherspoon tradition that persists until the family member has been dead at least ten years. If I remember correctly we left our Mother's chair in place for nearly fifteen years. Rather touching.
The appetizer is wonderful. Muscatel grapes thoroughly seeded and the cavity filled with sheep feta cheese and topped with a roasted beechnut. Served with wafers of salty meringues.
I balanced one of the rounds on my tongue and then tossed a grape and caught it neatly - well, third try - in my mouth. That brought chuckles and a smiled rebuke from my sister.
Yes, we are all here today, as usual, Hugh at the head of the table where he has presided since our Father died many years ago. He has never left home, having chosen to bring a bride here. That persisted for eight years until finally Mabel laughed and shrugged and left, saying she just could not take it any longer. I do not know to what she referred. It is such a pleasant household.
It was not an acrimonious leaving, not at all, she laughs and waves when she sees one of us on the street, but oh the alimony over the past decade has been a waste of Witherspoon resources. Tsk. Tsk. Such a shame. I had planned to rectify this in the past but Mabel never comes to dinner.
We always eat at two o'clock and now the grandfather clock in the front entrance is sounding the quarter hour. In two minutes the grandmother clock upstairs on the landing will trill her passing of time. As it always has.
The main course is just being brought in. Hugh has access to local lamb and the meat is superb. Today the perfectly cooked chops are wrapped in open pockets of phyllo and tucked with just enough Branston chutney (though Hugh will ask for more) to titillate the taste buds to savour the flavour of the lamb. The potatoes are light and fluffy - I personally mashed them and was distraught at their being Yukon gold, not the usual Idaho white, (a wrong delivery too late noticed, my sister told me) but I have had to take some on my plate and will have to eat them for my plan to work properly. I love the parsnip chips and the spinach layered with omelette is perfect. I wasn't sure, on first bite, about the addition of toasted cashews but after second and third taste it is growing on me.
Violet's chair is on Hugh's left, then me. Across from Violet's chair is Rose, the eldest, and next to her and across from me is Marigold's chair and then Cyril.
It is rather an awkward arrangement and I once mentioned that it might make more sense to put Vi and Goldy down at the end but there was a shocked look from both Rose and Hugh. Cyril, the peacemaker, said quickly, "Oh, Corky will have his little joke," and we all laughed.
Rose, as usual, is serving. She has never left home. Cyril has a wife and two children but they do not attend our family dinners. I live on my own above the old stables in converted quarters that have suited me very well over the years. Goldy used to call it my 'bachelor pad'. Too bad she went all funny and started to make insinuating remarks about the family, about her brothers in particular. There was no truth in it, none whatsoever. It was what came of leaving home and living with a girlfriend and going to all manner of strange movies. I have watched movies all my life and never once been affected badly by them but then I know what to avoid.
The coroner was very sympathetic when Goldy died, oh, six years ago: the Witherspoons are an old established family in this town. But when Violet passed away after a Sunday family dinner two years later there was definite suspicion. Yes, we all felt it. The circumstances seemed identical - death after a meal, poisoning suspected. By that time I had also perfected the technique of applying pressure to certain areas of the body that hindered the natural response to get rid of toxins.
I had practised on a neighbourhood cat and before I got it right the darned thing managed to throw up the treated food just when the owner was phoning the vet. I had no choice but to get rid of the evidence in the only way possible and then bring it back up as soon as I got the chance. It was a most unpleasant experience and made worse by the fawning sympathy of the cat's owner who then told everyone how sensitive I was and how affected I had been by her cat's distress. Makes me gag anew to think of it.
I will not think of it now: I wish to enjoy the meal. The plate of cornmeal muffins that Cyril's wife has sent remain on the table as the dessert is brought in. Rose has placed the dozen on the glass platter our grandmother brought with her from the Old Country. Rose has arranged them in the form of a question mark perhaps to signify doubt as to their place in the meal. No one commented and I decide to take one to spare Cyril's feelings. They do look nice, in any case, sunspots against the mahogany table. Mother had the damask tablecloths put away many years ago, to spare the servants we had then, and it has remained a Witherspoon tradition ever since to serve on a bare table.
The pumpkin and apricot pie is sweeter than I like but that is Rose's doing and she has always had an incredible sugar tooth. One portion has been 'doctored', not hard to do as one of us does not like whipped cream so one slice remains unwhitened with thin strands of candied ginger as compensation.
I really have become very knowledgeable over the years on poisonous materials and toxic food combinations and fatal reactions to in themselves harmless human conditions. Nobody but I knew Goldy was taking birth control pills. It is known that I take a tablet for angina but no one knows that today I have taken two.
Violet, ah, my darling Violet, my favourite sister. I killed her for love. She had started to exhibit the self-same symptoms that led our Mother into a lingering thoughtless demise. Violet knew it as well. "I don't want to die that way, Corky" she had said to me on a summer day when we were both sitting on the double swing out under the elm tree, as we had as children. So I spared her that.
I will never forget the look on her face as she lie so peacefully dying and realized I was the cause of it. And also of Goldy's death. No, I shall never forget it. But it was for the best. She must realize that now. God, I hope so. I hope she has forgiven me.
As I said, the police and the coroner were very, very displeased but what could they do. I am most clever. Accidental death was once again the verdict. And once again the estate benefitted from a very large insurance policy. The insurance investigator was also not pleased.
Convincing the authorities that this third death IS murder is going to be tricky but I have an ace up my sleeve. Too bad Mabel never comes to dinner. I could have made it a double. And those annoying payments each month would have ended for sure. As they will if - when - my plan works.
The grandfather clock bongs out three just as we adjourn to the front verandeh and our usual chairs. I do a cartwheel down the hall which surprises everyone, including me.
"You are feeling frisky, Corky," Rose comments. My swan song, I whisper, but no one hears as we settle on the shady side of the house in the lovely summer afternoon.
We chat and doze and then I begin to feel the effects and I pat my stomach and complain that I have 'overindulged' and want to lie down.
"Want me to walk you home, old bro?" asks Cyril gesturing across the lawn and the long sweeping drive to the carriage house but I tell him, no, I think I would lie down in my old room for awhile. Which I do. It is the same as when I left it fifteen or so years ago.
"Oh dear, I hope it wasn't dinner," Rose worries as she tucks a blanket around me. The investigation into our sisters' deaths had taxed her horribly as every morsel of food was dissected. She took it quite personally. They had found nothing, of course. As they will find nothing now. On their own things can be quite harmless. It is when they come together in splendid combination that they can be deadly. Which may be a metaphor for our family.
Oh, I wax poetic as I lie here. It will be slow but painless. I too have chosen not to experience death as our Mother did. Genetic indispositions can be terrible.
Hugh comes up and looks at me with concern on his lean old patrician face. He suggests calling the doctor but I tell him I just need to rest. And I am such a good actor - I had yearnings for the stage but could not seem to leave home further than the 'wings' of the carriage house, to perform only for my family - that I convince him that I will be fine.
There is some commotion in the late afternoon, outside my window, deep in the garden. Is everyone leaving? Why are the cars all moving out of the garages under my 'bachelor pad'? I know the sound of each and every car for have I not been chauffeur and handyman as my contribution over all these years.
"Oh, he's asleep," I hear Rose say sometime later, "Good, the trucks didn't disturb him. We'll tell him when he is feeling better."
Tell me what? So. Did I hear sirens? And what is Rose saying about a fire? A fire! The thought spreads across what consciousness I have left. But a fire will destroy the letter so carefully left started on my desk. The letter to Mabel. The letter that will protect my family from my death, the plea to Mabel to stop her advances on me. The suggestion that she is causing me undue stress and that it is affecting my health to the state of ...
Let her laugh that off.
What will happen now. Oh, what a monstrous final trick I have played on them all. Surely I will die laughing...
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