Pack of Cards

by Penelope Lively

  The reviving sight of uniformed men (on one's own side, there to serve, like policemen and commissionaires), or possibly the tea, put heart into Joyce once more. She was able to adjust her tone of voice, step aside from those awful dithery moments when even Tracy had seemed a support, and behave normally. She told Tracy to shut Ben up in the cloakroom, and exhorted the ambulancemen, shouting slightly, as though the power-cut affected hearing as well as vision. ‘O.K., love, take it easy,’ they said, shooting powerful beams of torchlight into the gloom. ‘She's conscious, is she? Don't worry, it doesn't look like a bad one, you sit back and leave it to us now.’ And Joyce, explaining that she was not worried, not unduly, found herself pushed to the fringe of things, screened from Nora by large competent backs, not quite picking up what was said.

  They did not think there was anything broken. Concussion, probably, X-rays. Observation. And now there was Nora being carted off, her hair all anyhow, looking white but stoical, strapped up in a nasty red blanket that somehow suppressed personality: she might have been anyone. ‘Right,’ said the ambulanceman. ‘We'll get off then. That's it, you come along too, that's the best thing’ – as Joyce groped for her hat and coat.

  Again, she forgot Tracy. It was not until she was climbing into the ambulance that she found the child at her side, bright-eyed, tucking herself into an unoccupied corner. ‘Oh,’ Joyce began, ‘I don't really think …’ But they were off now, rounding the corner into the High Street, and the men were laughing at some remark of Tracy's that Joyce did not catch. ‘She's a card, your granddaughter,’ said one of them. Joyce opened her mouth to deny relationship, but Tracy was already off on a saga of explanation. Nora turned her head to one side and closed her eyes.

  Joyce and Nora, all their lives, had enjoyed good health. The occasional tiresomeness had been attended to by their G.P. – as private patients, naturally. Joyce had seldom set foot inside a hospital, except once to have a nasty boil lanced and otherwise only to visit less fortunate friends (and then with some reluctance – there but for the grace of God, and one did not want to be reminded of that). Now, she was disconcerted by the detachment and dexterity of the nurses who whisked Nora away from her down gleaming corridors. Nobody consulted her or asked her what she would like done. She sat disconsolate in a waiting-room; Tracy, beside her, was immersed in some cheap women's magazine, stuffed with advertisements for sanitary towels and deodorant. There were other people also waiting, an elderly man who shuffled and muttered (possibly drunk, Joyce realised with alarm), a black woman with a small child, an adolescent boy with a radio that emitted vulgar music, turned low but still irritating. Joyce would have told him to turn it off were it not that she herself felt so uneasy in this place as to be quite without the protective armoury of personality. She felt a fish out of water, as though she were abroad (she and Nora had never cared much for abroad), as though she were displaced in time. And yet it was here and now, and she was not half a mile from St Joseph's Place. When at last a young doctor appeared, saying, ‘Miss Knight?’, she gathered herself with an effort and began, ‘Ah, now perhaps you will be so good as to take me to my sister, we must discuss various things and …’ But the man was already explaining that the X-rays showed a cracked rib, nothing worse, though there was certainly concussion, and Nora was drowsy now, and quite comfortable in Ward C in the main building and would be best left to herself tonight, visiting hours tomorrow were from … ‘Ward?’ said Joyce. ‘Oh no, we shall want a private room, there's been some mistake, I'm afraid, my sister and I always …’ The private wing, the doctor explained, courteous but positive, was full and no amenity beds available tonight. ‘Oh, but really,’ cried Joyce. ‘That won't do. Surely there must be some way of arranging something, Doctor er …’ ‘Tomkins,’ chirped Tracy. ‘Doctor Kevin Tomkins. Isn't that funny, my dad's called Kevin, too!’ And now Joyce saw the little white-lettered metal strip against the doctor's jacket. ‘Doctor Tomkins,’ she continued, ‘I'm afraid I really can't have my sister in …’ But the young man was beaming at Tracy, saying really, fancy that now, well, well, and what's your name? And the wretched child was off on yet another spiel of my mum this, my auntie that, actually I don't live at, our house is … And the man also came from Derbyshire, it appeared, which accounted for the eerie similarity between his speech and Tracy's accent – a diction which, Joyce now realised, had jarred her ear for many days. She felt in even further alienation, tumbled against her will into a discordant and wayward world. It was as though the television could not be switched off, or the front door to number seven St Joseph's Place would not close.

  ‘Don't worry,’ said the doctor kindly. ‘Your sister will be well taken care of, I promise you. Why don't you get along home now, it's getting late.’ He patted Tracy on the head. ‘You see your auntie gets herself a nice hot drink and a good night's sleep, eh?’ And Tracy, smirking, was saying, ‘Yes, ‘course I will, actually it's Auntie Beryl's my auntie not …’ at the same moment as Joyce snapped, ‘The little girl is not my niece. Thank you very much, doctor, no doubt I shall see you in the morning.’

  They took a taxi home. The power-cut was over; the house blazed with light. Joyce, a little restored as she stepped into the hall, was filled with sudden rage against these unknown people, whose activities had caused the whole thing, but for whom she would be filling Nora's hot water bottle, while Nora put Ben to bed in the downstairs cloakroom. What had they to do with her, what right had they to intrude in her life? She hung up her coat with clumsy, jerky movements, while Tracy and Ben skittered about her in joyful reunion. ‘Oops!’ said Tracy. ‘You've knocked down Miss Knight's hat, Miss Knight – here, I'll get it. Isn't it muddling, you both being called Miss Knight, if I was going to be here a long time I'd have to call you Auntie Joyce, wouldn't I?’ She followed Joyce through into the drawing-room, singing to herself. A cheerful little soul, Beryl had said, quiet, I promise you she won't be any bother, you'll hardly know she's here.

  It was half past eleven. ‘Time to go to bed,’ said Joyce firmly. She felt more in control now, braced by the security of the house, the controlled and ordained atmosphere, nothing unchosen, nothing out of place. ‘Bed, Tracy. I'll just come through with you and see everything's all right.’

  She did not often go into the staff quarters beyond the kitchen; staff, she and Nora had always affirmed, had a right to privacy too. Now, walking into the sitting-room without knocking, she felt awkward. Tracy bounced ahead through the door of the small boxroom that had been turned into a bedroom and then out again, saying, ‘Left my nightie in their room – just have to get it.’ She opened the door of the other bedroom, and Joyce saw, to her surprise, a double bed. She stood staring; on a bedside table was a photograph of Beryl and Sylvia, arm in arm, in bathing costumes. Joyce said, ‘Oh dear, Beryl's had to turn out of her room for you.’

  Tracy was rummaging under the bed. She popped out, a garment in her hand. ‘Oh no, this is where Auntie Beryl and Auntie Sylvia sleep, in the big bed – always – they had it put in special when they came, didn't you know?’ ‘When they … ?’ said Joyce faintly, looking round the room now, untidy, the dressing-table a muddle of pots and bottles, a smell of powder and scent. ‘Didn't you know? Because of being married to each other, like ladies and men are. My mum told me, she said I'm quite old enough to know about that sort of thing and it's nothing to make a fuss about, quite a lot of people are like that, you get men marrying each other too.’ She giggled. ‘Catch me marrying another girl when I'm grown-up, I don't see the point, my mum says she wouldn't fancy it either but it's not her business and it takes all sorts to make a world. I like Auntie Sylvia, she's ever so nice – she made drop scones with me yesterday. I'll just go and clean my teeth.’

  Joyce stood in the doorway, looking at the bed. From the bathroom came brisk sounds of scrubbing and spitting. She felt physically unsteady. It was as though the house had been shaken up around her, like the glass in a kaleidoscope, and reassembled in an unrecognisable pattern. The place had
been violated – by unknown men in some power station, by the association of these women. One had always known the world was not entirely to one's own taste, and had made one's arrangements accordingly. What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over. It was possible, she had thought, to detach oneself, to be selective, to be in the world but not of it; tonight, a spiteful world had disputed this. She was sixty-eight, not as fit as she used to be; if this kind of thing was going to go on, she did not know for how long she could hold out.

  Tracy came out of the bathroom, wearing a flowered nightdress; thin, unchildish, and as powerful as a coiled spring. She said, ‘Nightie-night’, and then coyly, ‘Auntie Joyce.’

  Joyce went through into the main part of the house. In the hall sat Ben, wagging his tail. As he jumped at her in greeting she saw that he was protruding again beneath. Bitches they had usually had spayed. She and Nora had long ago agreed that Ben was not a complete success, but once you own an animal you are committed to it, there is nothing you can do. She shut him in the cloakroom and went upstairs to bed, slowly, the sound of the High Street traffic suddenly loud beyond the landing window.

  The Emasculation of Ted Roper

  JEANIE BANKS, rigid with emotion, her cardigan on inside out, muttering rehearsed words, deaf and blind to the bright morning, made her way down the village street. Past the post office, the one, two, three, four cottages, past the pub, Mrs Halliday's, the garage, the one, two, three new bungalows, the Lathams’, Cardwell's yard. She stopped outside Roper's, simmering, reached out to open the gate, lost her nerve, plunged on down to the lamp-post where the village ended, yanked up her resolution again, turned, aimed back, fumbled furious with the latch on Roper's gate.

  The front garden a disgrace, as always, strewn with empty oil cans, plastic sacks, rusting iron objects, the excretions of Roper's hand-to-mouth odd-jobbing dealing-in-this-and-that existence. Furtive, unreliable, transacting in dirty pound notes, dodging his taxes without a doubt, down the pub every evening. Dirty beggar, cocky as a robin, sixty if he was a day.

  Feeling swelled to a crescendo, and courage with it; she hammered on the door. Then again. And again. No answer. He'd be there all right, he'd be there, nine-thirty in the morning, since when did Roper go out and do a decent day's work? She shoved at the side gate.

  He was round the back, fiddling about with a great pile of timber, good timber at that, planks all sizes and shapes and how did he come by it one would like to know? A whole lot of tyres stacked up in one corner, stuff spilling out of the shed, filth everywhere.

  ‘Hello, Jeanie.’

  She halted, breathless now. Words fail you, they do really. They leave you huffing and puffing, at a disadvantage, seeing suddenly the run in your tights, seeing yourself reflected in the eyes of others – angry, dumpy, middle-aged widow, just Jeanie Banks. In the beady spicy nasty eyes of Ted Roper, stood there in the middle of his junk like a little farmyard cock. A randy strutting bantam cock.

  ‘What can I do for you, Jeanie?’

  She said, ‘It's not what you can do it's what's been done, that's what's the trouble.’

  ‘Trouble?’ He took out tobacco, a grubby roll of cigarette papers. ‘Trouble?’ His dirty fingers, rolling, tapping, his tongue flickering over the paper.

  ‘My Elsa's expecting.’

  ‘Expecting?’ he said. ‘Oh – expecting.’ A thin smile now, a thin complacent smile. Grinning away at it, the old bastard, pleased as punch. As if it were something to be proud of, as if it did him credit even, stood there with his thumbs stuck in his trouser pockets like those boys in western films. Some boy – Ted Roper. Boy my foot, sixty if he's anything.

  ‘That's what I said. Expecting.’

  He put the cigarette in his mouth; thin smoke fumed into the village sunshine. Not trousers, she saw now. Jeans – jeans just like young men wear, slumped down on his thin hips, the zip sliding a bit, a fullness you couldn't miss below, stuck out too the way he stood, legs apart, thumbs in pockets.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I s'pose that'd be in the nature of things. She's getting a big girl now.’

  Grinning away there, wiry and perky and as blatant as you like. She felt her outrage surge.

  ‘It's rape,’ she said. ‘That's what it damn well is. A little creature like that, a little young thing. Bloody rape!’ The colour rushed to her cheeks; she didn't use language like that, not she, never.

  ‘Now, now, Jeanie. Who's to know who gave who the come on.’

  She exploded. She shouted, ‘You take that blasted cat to the vet, Ted Roper, and get it seen to, the rest of us have just about had enough, there's kittens from one end of the village to the other and my Elsa was nothing but a kitten herself.’ She swung round and stormed to the gate. When she looked back he was still standing there, the cigarette laid on his lower lip, his jeans fraying at the crotch, the grin still on his face. ‘Or you'll find it done for you one of these days!’

  All the way back to the cottage her heart thumped. It didn't do you any good, getting yourself into a state like that, it took it out of you, she'd be jumpy all day now. Back home in the kitchen, she made herself a cup of tea. The old cat, the mother, was sprawled in the patch of sun on the mat and Elsa was in the armchair. When Jeanie came in she jumped down and shimmied across the floor: pretty, graceful, kittenish and distinctly lumpy, no doubt about it, that unmistakable pear-shape forming at the end of her. And Jeanie, subsiding into the chair, drinking her tea, eyed her and eyed the old cat, not so old come to that, five or was it six, and as she did so a whole further implication leaped into the mind – why hadn't she thought of it before, how disgusting, if it were people you could have them slapped in prison for that.

  ‘Fact is,’ said her sister Pauline, that afternoon, ‘there's probably hardly a one in the village isn't his. Being the only torn round about, bar him on Lay's farm and he's beyond it if you ask me. So you let Ted Roper have it? Good on you, Jeanie.’

  Jeanie, cooler now, calmer, righteous and ever so slightly heroic, went over it all again, word for word: I said, he said, so I said, and him as cocky as you like.

  ‘He's a cocky little so-and-so,’ said Pauline. ‘Always was. I bet he got the wind up a bit though, Jeanie, with you bawling him out, you're bigger than he is.’ She chuckled. ‘Hey – d'you remember the time they got him in the girls’ playground and Marge ripped the belt off his trousers so he had to hold ‘em up all afternoon? God - laugh … ! Donkey's years ago …’

  ‘Funny, isn't it,’ Pauline went on, ‘there's four of us in the village still as were at school with Ted. You, me, Nellie Baker, Marge. Randy he was, too. Remember?’

  ‘Funny he's never married,’ said Jeanie.

  Pauline snorted. ‘Out for what he can get, that one. Not that he'd get it that often, is my guess.’

  ‘Can't stand the man. Never could. ‘Nother cup? Anyway, what I say is, he ought to be made to have something done about that cat. It's shocking. Shocking.’

  In the basket chair the old cat raucously purred; Elsa, in a patch of sunlight, lay flirting with a length of string.

  ‘Sick of drowning kittens, I am,’ said Jeanie. ‘I'll have to get her seen to after, like I did the old cat. Shame.’

  ‘Shame.’

  The two women contemplated the cats.

  ‘I mean, we wouldn't care for it, if it were you or me.’

  ‘Too right.’

  ‘Not,’ said Pauline, ‘at that time of life. That's a young creature, that is, she's got a right to, well, a right to things.’

  ‘Hysterectomy's the nearest, if it were a person.’

  ‘That's it, Jeanie. And you'd not hear of that if it were a girl. Another matter if it's in middle life.’

  ‘That cat of Roper's,’ said Jeanie, ‘must be going on twelve or thirteen.’

  Later, as she walked to the shop, Roper's pick-up passed her, loaded with slabs of timber, belting too fast down the village street, Roper at the wheel, one arm on the sill, a young lad beside him, one of the s
everal who hung around him. She saw Roper see her, turn to the boy, say something, the two of them roar grinning across the cross-roads. She stood still, seething.

  ‘Cardwell's boy, weren't that?’ said Marge Tranter, stopping also. ‘With Roper.’

  ‘I daresay. What they see in that old devil …’

  ‘Men's talk. Dirty stories, that stuff. Norman says he doesn't half go on in the pub, Roper. He's not a one for that kind of thing, Norman isn't. He says Roper holds out hours on end sometimes, sat there in the corner with his mates. Showing off, you know.’

  ‘Fat lot he's got to show off about,’ said Jeanie. ‘A little runt, he is. Always was. I was saying to Pauline, remember the time you …’

  ‘Pulled his trousers down, wasn't it? Don't remind me of that, Jeanie, I'll die …’

  ‘Not pulled them down, it wasn't. Took his belt. Anyway, Marge, I gave him an earful this morning, I'll tell you that. That cat of his has been at my Elsa. I went straight down there and I said look here, Ted Roper …’

  A quarter of a mile away Ted Roper's pick-up, timber dancing in the back, dodged in and out of the traffic on the A34, overtaking at sixty, cutting in, proving itself. Cardwell's boy and Roper, blank-faced, be-jeaned, the cowboys of the shires, rode the Oxfordshire landscape.

  In the village and beyond, Roper's cat – thin, rangy, one-eyed and fray-eared – went about his business

  And, according to the scheme of things, the ripe apples dropped from the trees, the jeunesse dorée of the area switched their allegiance from the Unicorn to the Hand and Shears taking with them the chattering din of un-muffled exhausts and the reek of high-octane fuel, the road flooded at the railway bridge and Jeanie's Elsa swelled soft and sagging like the bag of a vacuum cleaner.

  ‘Several at least,’ said Jeanie. ‘Half a dozen, if you ask me. Poor little thing, it's diabolical.’