A Stroke of Luck

‘Are you sure she’s dead?’ Josephine’s voice is unsteady as she addresses her sister. Marion has turned pale and stares with horror at the woman who has just emerged from the living room.
‘Of course I’m sure. I’m a bloody doctor, for god’s sake.’ Vivien pulls the door behind her, and the iron latch falls into place with a clunk. She moves to a dining chair and sits back, eyes closed. Her two sisters, always a little in awe of their senior sibling, wait in stunned silence. Vivien’s eyes open and she peers over her wire-rimmed glasses at the other women. ‘Judging by the facial distortion, I’d say she had a massive stroke, and that triggered cardiac arrest. You’d need a post-mortem to be sure.’ She polishes her glasses on the corner of her cardigan. ‘Poor old girl never made it to bed last night, as far as I can tell.’
For what seems like a very long time, the cottage kitchen is silent, save for the ticking of the incongruously ornate ormolu clock on the mantlepiece, and the distant clucking of hens. The morning sun filters through the checked curtains, illuminating the pile of cardboard boxes and roll of bubble wrap the sisters placed inside the door only twenty minutes ago.
A sob escapes Josephine, who tears a piece of kitchen roll from the holder next to the sink, and blows her nose. ‘Poor Aunt Marjorie! Just as she was going to start a new life.’
‘You could argue she’s done exactly that.’ Marion has always lacked the finer sensibilities of her younger sister. ‘It looks like we wasted our time coming over here to help her move.’
The other two, despite being used to Marion’s somewhat cold manner, raise their eyebrows. Vivien breaks the silence first. ‘I suppose we should tell the home that she’s not coming. They’ll be expecting her by lunchtime, I think we said.’ Her brow creases as the reality of the situation hits her. ‘Do either of you know what the protocol is in France, in the event of a sudden death? I assume we should inform someone, you know. Should we call the police? Marion, what the hell are you doing?’
Marion is taking the ormolu clock down from the mantelpiece and has started to wrap a sheet of bubble wrap around it. She doesn’t answer immediately, as she is biting through a length of Sellotape. Once she has secured the wrapping, she replies. ‘Auntie Marjorie always promised me the clock. Once we start reporting her death, they’ll make us wait for probate if it’s anything like in the UK. It could take forever. I reckon we should hold off reporting her death until we’re sure there’s nothing else here we want. After all, she said we could have anything that she didn’t want to take to the home. What?’
That last question was addressed to Josephine, who was supporting herself against the draining board, her face pale and her blue eyes expressing disbelief. ‘Marion! I can’t believe that poor Auntie Marjorie is lying dead…’
‘Sitting, actually,’ mutters Vivien.
‘…Lying dead next door, and all you can think of is what you can take from her cottage, her home. The home she’s lived in for twenty years. The home she built with Uncle Geoffrey, from a ruin. The home we used to spend our summer holidays as children. I was sad enough having to help pack up so she could move to the EPHAD, but, Marion, she’s died.’
Marion continues to wrap the clock in a second layer as she speaks. ‘Of course I’m sad. Look, my sad face.’ She turns the corners of her mouth down to her sister. ‘I’m just saying, maybe we should delay reporting until we’ve, you know, trimmed her belongings. Not long. It should only take about a couple of hours, then we report it.’
Vivien looks up from her phone. ‘I’ve Googled it. Apparently we’re supposed to tell the Mairie within 24 hours, but we should call the gendarmes first.’ She scrolls a little more. ‘Hm. Maybe not the gendarmes. It’s not a suspicious death. I wonder if I would be allowed to get hold of the death certificate, you know, since I’m a GP?’
A loud tap at the door causes them all to jump. Before they could do more than exchange panicky glances, the door opens, and a short, stout woman with cropped iron-grey hair, and wearing a flowery overall, enters the kitchen. ‘Bonjour, mes filles,’ she whispers. ‘I just came to say au revoir to your aunt, but I see through the window she is asleep. I will not wake her.’
Josephine opens her mouth to speak, but is interrupted by Vivien. ‘That’s very nice of you, Celeste,’ she whispers. ‘Sorry, Jo, was that your foot? I didn’t see it there, on the end of your leg. No, Celeste, she’s very tired. What with all the packing and so on.’
To the dismay of all three women, Celeste pulls out a dining chair with exaggerated care and sits. ‘It is a sad day when we get so old. She is lucky to have you three to help. Her son, if I may say, is, what do you say, a waste of space.’
‘There’s not much he can do to help from Canada, Celeste,’ says Vivien.
‘Not that he would do anything even if he was in the next village,’ says Marion. ‘You know they fell out years ago.’
Celeste clasps her hands on the table top and leans forward. ‘You know, I expect, that it is he who must pay for her EPHAD cost, if she has no more money. It is French law.’
Vivien raises her eyebrows and pulls her chair closer to the table. ‘I thought I’d heard something like that, but luckily we got a good price for the house, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Just as well, really, since I can’t imagine he would have been easy to persuade. They really did-do not get on at all well.’
Josephine has taken a cloth from the sink and is rubbing down the worktop with determined concentration. Marion finishes wrapping the clock with a strip of parcel tape and sets the parcel on the table. ‘There, that should keep it safe in the move.’
Casting a sideways glance at the bundle, Celeste continues, ‘French law is very strict. I think it can make children pay for their parents even if they live abroad; though maybe this is different now from the Brexit.’ She looks at the sisters and shakes her head. ‘It is not fair sometimes. You girls have look after Marjorie for years, see her so often, but when she dies, all her money will go to him, her son.’ She sees the disbelief on their faces. ‘It is the law. The children inherit. Always.’
Vivien tries to sound casual. ‘I think she made a will in the UK that didn’t include him. I was led to believe that her English will is supposed to supercede French law.
Celeste shrugs. ‘No, I think the government change this a couple of years ago and the “reserve hereditaire” now must happen.’
A peculiar sound comes from Marion, who starts coughing.
‘Sshh!’ says Vivien. ‘You don’t want to wake Auntie. It’s her last nap in this house.’
The worktop is getting a good going over by Josephine, who appears not to have heard any of this.
Celeste slides her chair back and pulls herself to her feet. ‘I will go now. Please tell your Aunt I came, and that I will visit her at the EPHAD next week.’ She looks round the kitchen at the pile of boxes and rolls of packing materials. ‘You still have much to do, I think.’
The door closes behind her, and they wait until she is safely down the path before they all expel breath in unison.
‘He inherits?’
‘But she told us she made a will that leaves everything to us! That awful man wasn’t to get anything!’
Marion begins to open cupboards, pulling out and inspecting china. ‘All the more reason to sort out the good stuff now, I’d say.’
Josephine has put down the cloth, and leans against the sink, arms folded. ‘I was thinking.’
The others look at her. It is unlike her to initiate an idea. The shadow of the leaves outside moves across her pale face in a delicate pattern. The house is still. ‘What if Auntie Marjorie had moved back to England? Would the law be different if she wasn’t living here any more?’
A muffled chime comes from inside the bundle on the table.
Vivien is the first to speak. ‘I’m not sure what you’re saying. She’s a French resident, so French law applies, I’d say.’
‘Yes, but what if she wasn’t?’ Josephine bites her lip. ‘What if she’d moved back to the UK and died there?’ She turns back to the sink and squirts some bleach into the plughole. ‘I don’t really know what I’m saying either. It’s a stupid idea. Forget it.’
The enormity of the suggestion slowly sinks in to the trio. A heaviness descends on the room.
Marion- it would be Marion- clears her throat and begins. ‘I think you’re right, Jo. I think English law would apply.’ She looks at her sisters for a response, and, seeing none, continues. ‘It only seems fair, after all we’ve done for the old girl. Let’s think this through. How would we get her back there? If we could make out she’d come back with us, changed her mind about the EPHAD, then I’m sure we could argue our case.’
Vivien interrupted. ‘You seem to have forgotten one small detail. Marjorie is next door dead. Not having a nap. Dead.’
‘Yes, so that’s why we need to act quickly. Jo, you were going back tonight anyway. If we put her in your car, you could drive her back and…’ Marion is oblivious to the effect of her words, and a horrified sob escapes Josephine.
‘Hang on, Marion,’ says Vivien, her voice surprisingly calm. ‘Let’s not get carried away. Say we agreed with the idea in principle. How do you propose we get a corpse…’
Another sob from Josephine.
‘… a corpse with rigor mortis by now, by the way, into a Volkswagen Golf, hide it, board a ferry, pass through customs, then, what, I suppose, pretend she has just died once she reaches British territorial waters?’
‘She died sitting down, yes? So surely the rigor mortis would be more a help than a hindrance, don’t you think? You’re the expert, Viv.’
‘Marion, this is insane. She’s probably been dead around twelve hours. That would only give us about another twelve before she starts to putrefy. Although it’s quite chilly, so as long as you don’t put the heater on in the car you might delay the process.’
Marion turns to Josephine. ‘What do you reckon, Jo? If Viv changed her ticket and came with you, then she could, you know, do the death certificate once you got home.’ She takes her phone from her handbag on the table. ‘I can change your ticket now, add two more on. Look. What’s that, Jo?’
‘I said, I’ve got a Yankee Candle car air freshener. Lewis is always complaining it’s too strong.’
Vivien stands up, hands on hips. She is taller than the other two. ‘Now, look here. If we were caught doing this, I’d be struck off, and that’s just the start. It’s a terrible idea, not to mention disgusting. How do you propose we take a dead woman through passport control and on to a ferry?’
Marion ignores her elder sister and continues tapping on her phone. ‘There, easy! You and Aunt Marjorie are on the ferry this evening with Jo. We just have to find her passport, pop her in the back of the car, and off you go! I’ll finish off here and see you back in England once I’m done. I’ll ring the EPHAD, tell them she’s changed her mind and wants to come and live with us.’
‘You really have lost your marbles, Marion. Don’t you think the border police might spot something amiss? And how would we get her up to the cabin?’
Marion is now kneeling at the kitchen dresser, tugging at a bundle of cloth that she unwraps to reveal a set of cutlery. ‘Ah, now, look, hallmarks. These are solid silver. I bet there’s a small fortune in this cottage, never mind the hundreds of thousands she’s got in the bank.’ She sits back on her heels. ‘Jo’s car has tinted rear windows, no? You just say the old girl’s asleep, and please don’t wake her. Then when you’re on the boat you throw a blanket over her and leave her in the car. Once you’re in British territory you’re home and dry.’ She wraps the cutlery back up and places the bundle on the table next to the clock parcel.
Vivien tries to think of a response, but finds nothing. The muffled ticking of the clock, like a spectral heartbeat, can be heard despite the rattling of spoons as Marion discovers a second cloth bundle. ‘Where’s Jo gone? I didn’t see her leave.’
‘She went out a minute ago.’
They both go to look out of the window, down the path. The autumn afternoon sun slants across the yellowed leaves and shrivelled blooms of the rose bushes. They hear the sound of an engine.
‘Oh look, she’s only gone and got the car.’