‘It depends what they want. You have to decide what they want.’
‘Not much, really. First names, food at each other’s houses, swopping children. Not really caring or listening. Not changing, never that.’
‘Well, that’s easy.’
‘It’s tiring, it’s worthless.’
‘Costs nothing.’
‘Oh it does – such energy, always backing out of what they want you to do, making excuses, and they won’t take hints. The woman Charlotte, at the end of the road, you know – that block on the corner – she invited us for drinks.’
‘When?’
‘Tonight but really tomorrow or the next day or any day, she doesn’t care.’
There was silence again while they ate.
‘Sometimes,’ Alice said, ‘I worry they might be right, the Charlottes. I feel mean. What’s the point of anything if human beings can’t be bothered?’
‘But you can, when it’s necessary.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I’d know, so would you.’
Hours and hours of quiet wrapped round their conversation while they thought and felt. Tony could feel the unrest in his wife over such a little thing. Nobody suspected her of turmoil. People wondered if she had a mind of her own, she was so insignificant and the shyness of her smile made them want to help her. Her rebuffs were never recognized as such and everyone thought they did what they liked with her. Except him, and her sister Laura. They respected her inner strength and were even a little afraid of it. He would have forgotten, or buried, what they had said by the morning but Alice would discuss with herself and come to conclusions and judge herself and open up more questions and finally act. Not many people were so conscientious.
Tony Oram was a simpler soul than his wife, though neither as bland nor as insipid as he appeared. His energies, which like hers were prodigious but unreleased, were centred on escaping the trap of work. He hated work, the necessity of earning money, the inability to find anything he liked to do that would earn money. All he could do was concentrate on rising above his daily toil, despising it into non-existence. Part of his technique with himself was deliberately driving into work each day, an act of almost criminal folly. He would not be herded, he would not cram and touch other slaves all going the same way. Driving to work ennobled him. The daily hassle to park only goaded him to greater efforts, the queueing and honking only released an embitterment he enjoyed. Other men asked him constantly why he bothered, how he could stand it, but he only shrugged his shoulders and left them to think what they liked. Getting into his car at either end gave him the advantage whatever happened afterwards.
He was thinking about advantage when he passed the old couple he knew to be his neighbours the following day. Knew, but did not know. They suddenly presented themselves to him as being a case of necessity and the importance of acknowledging this overcame all other considerations. He stopped and said, ‘Hello. Would you like a lift?’
She said, ‘No,’ as he said, ‘Yes.’
‘I live next door to you now,’ he said, feeling silly. ‘I’m going into Whitehall. Any help?’
They got in, eventually, after a good deal of mumbling and muttering during which he saw he should have left well alone. Alice had scored, necessity was elusive. Then when they were settled they did not seem happy and he saw he had been presumptuous. There was nothing he could do, except drive, which he did. Their presence breathing behind him was annoying. He supposed they found his silence puzzling since they must have been bound to misjudge his offer. He yawned and raised his eyebrows and wished he had Alice’s useful but misleading shyness. He heard them shuffling about and knew they would speak. The man, of course. He predicted the man.
‘Did the move in go all right then?’ he asked, finally.
‘Yes, thank you,’ said Tony.
‘Settled in nicely are you?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘Think you’ll like it in Rawlinson Road then?’
‘Stanley!’ Rose hissed. ‘Leave the young man alone. Can’t you see he’s driving?’
Tony took a quick look through his mirror. The old dear looked very hot and bothered.
‘I’m sure we will,’ he said, ‘it’s a nice road. I expect you’ve been there a long time.’
‘You can say we have,’ said Stanley, ‘twenty-six years to be precise. When was the date, Rose? She’s a genius on dates. You ask her any date – knows all the Royal Family’s birthdays and that.’
‘Shut up,’ said Rose, quite audibly.
Tony took another quick look in the mirror. The old lady was now quite white. Her lips were compressed and she was staring out of the window. It crossed his mind she might be sick, but it seemed unwise to ask her. He began to wonder if she was capable of a kind remark.
‘What I like about Rawlinson Road,’ he suddenly said, ‘is the gardens. You can forget you’re in London in those gardens.’
‘My wife here is the gardener,’ Stanley said.
‘Used to be,’ Rose muttered, ‘but it’s all gone to pot now. I haven’t the energy.’
‘Well,’ said Tony, ‘if I can get ours to look half as nice as yours I’ll be quite satisfied.’
‘It shouldn’t be difficult,’ Rose said, rather sternly. ‘Your garden has been well looked after. It’s a mature garden, only needs kept up. You’ll have to watch the builders don’t wreck it. They lit a bonfire on the lawn next door – a bonfire, all the old rubble from the house, it burnt for a week, it’s never been the same since.’
‘There won’t be any builders,’ Tony said. ‘We haven’t the money for alterations. Anyway, I don’t know that I like all this knocking walls down and this architect-designed bit. I suppose I’m old-fashioned.’
There was no need to look in his mirror. They were both purring. His amusement at his own playing of such a game was spoiled by the ease of it all. What a drag talking to people was, feeling your way along in order to say the right things and get the right responses.
‘Where can I put you down?’ he asked.
‘Anywhere will do,’ Stanley said.
‘Here,’ Rose said at the same moment. ‘Here’ happened to be half-way down King’s Cross Road, a stretch where there was neither bus stop nor shop, an unexpected no-man’s-land, but in her insistence to be let off the old lady already had the back door half open. Alarmed, he screeched to a halt and she leapt out. The old man took five minutes to follow.
‘Thank you I’m sure,’ she said, already setting off along the pavement.
‘Thanks for the lift,’ he said. ‘We didn’t introduce ourselves, did we? I’m Pendlebury.’
‘Pleasure,’ Tony said. ‘I’m Tony Oram. Any time.’
Stanley was pleased with the whole encounter, especially that last bit. It was the army had taught him that. Everyone ran down the army but Stanley thought of it as the finishing school of life, any pun being unintentional. Officers always introduced themselves by their surnames, and they always introduced themselves. Your name was something to be firm about. Reflecting how useful this lesson had been, Stanley caught up Rose who was going at a fair old crack in a peculiar direction.
‘Hang on,’ he gasped, coming alongside her, ‘where are you off to?’
‘I couldn’t care less,’ she snapped.
‘Well, I could,’ he said, ‘and it isn’t this way.’ He took her arm end pulled her across the road and back the way they had come. She didn’t resist. All traffic scared her silly and on outings like this he could do what he liked with her. Since she was very cross her eyes were likely to be misted over and she wouldn’t be able to see where she was going in any case. He had it all his own way. He guided her gently into a tube station, holding her arm tightly near the elbow, and on the tube he didn’t let go. Neither of them said a word. They changed tubes and came up at St James’s Park in one long pause.
‘Oh, isn’t it lovely,’ Rose said, the minute they were in the park.
‘Yes,’ said Stan
ley, accepting the compliment, ‘very refreshing. Just what the doctor ordered.’
If the remark jarred, Rose did not allow herself to show it. She wasn’t going to let any irritation spoil this lovely park. She was going to sit on a seat with her eyes feasting on all the greenery and the lake and the ducks and the flowers and not be bothered by anything. People were the trouble – if only there were no people, she would be happy.
In bed that night when as usual she could not sleep – an hour’s sleep was the most she ever seemed to get – Rose, going over the events of the day, was bound to reflect that she had not been entirely honest to imagine a world without people was what she wanted. The early hours of the morning were conducive to total honesty. The park without people would still have been beautiful but she had also enjoyed watching what Stanley liked to call, in that silly way of his, the antics of the human race. She was curious about all those strangers. She liked to listen to their conversations and cast an eye over their clothes and just look at them. There were so many of them, all with places to go to, all with places they’d come from. She longed to follow each and every one through a day in their lives. None of them felt like that about her, but why should they? She was just a boring old lady sitting on a park bench with nothing to do.
In the twin bed next to her Stanley snored. She burst out laughing at the thought of his daily protestation that he hadn’t slept a wink. One day she would learn how to work young Frank’s tape recorder and tape his snoring. Probably by now the machine would be rusted up, if those things rusted, she didn’t know. She’d done nothing stupid like keeping his room untouched. Once she’d realized he wasn’t going to come back, ever, she had torn into that room and scrubbed it from top to bottom and packed all his belongings in tea chests, ready for when he sent for them, only he never did. She was glad in a way, not because it meant a little bit of him was still there – stuff and nonsense – but because the sending of them to Australia would have been beyond her. The only thing she ever sent other than letters was a parcel for Christmas and that took weeks of organizing – but you had to send something for the children at Christmas – and, of course, a pudding. Veronica, the doctor’s daughter, didn’t look as if she knew how to make a proper Christmas pudding.
Sometimes, in the morning, Stanley asked her what she had been thinking of when she couldn’t sleep. Usually he only asked because he had some rambling anecdote to tell her about a thought he’d had during his supposedly sleepless night. She always replied, ‘This and that,’ and he never pressed her for details. There was a part of her that wished he would. It would have been a relief to let spill out some of the horrible muddle that filled her head, to unleash upon his unsuspecting head the long string of incoherent, unconnected thoughts by which she was plagued. No wonder she was so exhausted each morning when every minute of the night had brought a new attack.
That night a new character had his say unendingly. Tony Oram was his name, according to Stanley. She could have done without knowing the name, she could have coped better with his image. She could also have done without Stanley pointing out that he looked like Frank, or rather like Frank used to look before he went off for the six months that turned into forever. It wasn’t an observation she had needed made. The very fact that Stanley had noticed it was proof that the likeness was remarkable, but then she was sensible enough to know Frank was a common enough type. There were thousands of tall, middling fair, thin, blue-eyed, ordinary looking young men in England. Not all of them had sticking-out ears and uneven large teeth, but enough to be not worth noticing. Their voices were quite different. Stanley had said how could she know that, how could she remember Frank’s voice, and she had shrieked with fury at him. How could she forget her only son’s voice even if he had been gone a hundred years? She could hear his voice, feel his hand, see his expressions as surely as read his writing. She could have him right there in the bedroom with her any night she chose. Stanley had looked so alarmed she had to point out she wasn’t suffering delusions – she could just recreate Frank. With her eyes shut, naturally. Any woman would have understood. But Stanley wasn’t a woman for all his old-maidish ways. He was securely male, ungiven to fantasy. She often longed to have a woman friend to confide in, but she had never had one. Friends had never been her line, not even when she was young. Her grandmother used to say they would have to have a friend specially made for Rose. She often thought how surprised she would have been to think she ever became friendly enough with someone to marry them.
Tony Oram had a good opinion of himself, of that she had no doubt. She hadn’t missed his frequent looks in the driving mirror. He also thought himself very clever, with all his talk of being old-fashioned. She hated people who sucked up to you. Flattery never fooled her. She would have liked to tell him not to bother but it seemed rude when she was sitting in his car. It had been a strange sensation, being in a car again. She reckoned it was four years since they had last gone out in theirs. Now it stood rotting in the strong brick garage, built by Frank the week before he left, his last job for her. If Frank hadn’t gone she would have had a proper kitchen. He had all the plans ready. Stanley had later suggested going ahead and getting a builder but she had wanted none of it. Without Frank they would get in a mess. Stanley couldn’t handle builders. He would let them run riot.
Next door, she suddenly heard a child crying. She sat up in bed and listened. The wailing was quite distinct. She had never heard any sound from next door in the night. Anxiously, she waited. First it died down and then it came again, stronger, more insistent. The windows were all open on a hot night like this. She slipped out of bed and went to her window, but the sound seemed fainter there. She retreated to the wall and it grew immediately louder. Pressing her ear to the party wall, she strained to hear the sound better. Amy was not in that room, she was sure, she was higher up. Softly, Rose crept upstairs to the top floor and into Frank’s old room and across to the far wall. There, the child was up against that wall as sure as she was standing next to it. Where were the parents? Below, or next door? Surely they would come. Her brows furrowed with distress, she crouched in her nightdress muttering, ‘There, there,’ pointlessly to herself. It seemed an age before the crying stopped and when it did she could not tell whether it was because someone had lifted the baby or she had just stopped of her own accord. But it had stopped. There was no need to worry any longer.
The first bird sang as she wandered into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. It occurred to her there might be lights on next door that would tell her if the child had someone with her. Quietly, she unbolted the door and went into the yard. There were no lights on at all. Since she was already outside she thought she would take a turn round the garden, so fresh and cool after the house. The grass soaked her slippers and wet the hem of her nightdress. If Stanley was observant what a lot of explaining she would have to do, but of course he would notice nothing. To test him, she deliberately left the back door unbolted. It was one of his jobs to lock up at night and open up every morning which he always did with maddening thoroughness. She must be sure to be there when he did it, to enjoy his consternation. Unfortunately, she fell asleep after her exertions. All the next day she had to put up with Stanley’s odious jokes about some people sleeping well in this house, for it was ten o’clock and he had been up an hour before she stirred. Her only consolation was knowing about the door and knowing he hadn’t mentioned it and knowing how perplexed he would be.
Chapter Four
ROSE PENDLEBURY SPENT a lot of time in her garden any day of the year but that summer, the summer the Orams moved into the road, she almost lived in it. She had her favourite times – first thing in the morning and then again just before dark – but there was no time, apart from the hour after midday when the sun was hot and the shade poor, that she did not like. Her own ingenuity amazed her. There was hardly a job she did not manage to do in the garden from cleaning the shoes to scraping the potatoes. Over the weeks she accumulated a great assortment of basins an
d buckets and household impedimenta which stayed on the flags out at the back, everything propped up against the greenhouse wall after it was washed to bake dry. She even scrubbed the clothes in an old tub using a washboard dug out from under the stairs where she had providentially stored it after Frank insisted on buying that machine she had never wanted.
She was not altogether comfortable washing the clothes like that, knowing it was perverse when with a whiz and whirl they could all be done in a hurry. Defending herself against ridicule that was not likely to come from any quarter, she pleaded that all over the world women washed clothes in the sun and that it must be good. Though she had never travelled herself she had seen them, big gangs of them, on the banks of rivers with the washing spread out all round, white and opaque near the glittering water, somehow dramatic, however humble the setting. So she scrubbed and rubbed in her little dolly tub in the back garden and sometimes sang, pushing bits of hair behind her ears with wet rough fingers.
But she was suspicious. Her eyes would dart this way and that among the trees and bushes looking for interlopers. A change in the direction of light between the leaves could convince her that someone had broken in and was watching and she would rush towards them waving her scrubbing brush, scattering the grass with soap suds. At least she could laugh at herself when, as always, there was no one there. Laugh, and shake her head, and stand awhile looking back at the house.
Spending, as she did, all those hours in the garden she became attuned to all the noises. Within a very short while she knew someone – the mother – was in the garden next door almost as much as she was. When the child was with her the woman’s presence was plain, but even when she was alone Rose’s sensitive antennae picked up her neighbour’s movements. She did not work in the garden, that was for sure. She sat, idle. For a young person it was strange. Rose wondered if she had a bad heart or consumptive tendencies – she looked weak enough. Catching herself speculating, she would sniff and cough, as though interrupting a conversation she disapproved of.
The Seduction of Mrs Pendlebury Page 4
