Back in bed, Rose thought how nice it would be to die, quietly, without any fuss. Perhaps if she lay still enough death would claim her, but when, after another hour, her brain still seethed with rage at the power workers, she gave up all thoughts of a peaceful death. She wasn’t the dying sort. She was too busy. Death would need a sledge-hammer to knock her out. Stanley, still snoring across the way, was a more likely candidate for a quiet end. The fact that he was still sleeping so very soundly drove her mad. Here she was, ill, in need of care and attention, and all he did was sleep. But he was better asleep. She’d rather lie here neglected without a bite to eat or a drop to drink for days if necessary than have Stanley acting as nurse. She knew what would happen. This combination of rheumatism and flu had attacked her before. It would take her a week to get over it, a week of messy, unappetising meals on trays, of Stanley moping about getting everything in a state including himself, moaning on at her about getting the doctor she refused to have. She didn’t want him to wake up.
It all happened as Rose had known it would. She lay in bed most of the first week of November while Stanley tried to cope. The only thing she hadn’t foreseen was that there would be even the faintest ray of sunshine, but there was. The rain still poured down, but the black gloom of it was lifted by the kindness of Alice Oram.
How she got to know, Rose was not certain, but suspected that Stanley, though under strict instructions to do no such thing, had gone and told the girl of his wife’s illness. Probably he had laid it on with a trowel. He must have, for the bunch of grapes he landed in with the second day was enormous. She was angry and embarrassed, but the accompanying card slightly allayed her worry. It was prettily decorated with hand-drawn pictures of flowers and said ‘To help Mrs Pen get better with love from Amy who misses her very much’. Nonsense, of course. Just a way of speaking. Amy didn’t miss her – she wasn’t old enough to miss people – certainly not people so removed from her – but it was a nice thought.
More nice thoughts followed. Some flowers were delivered on the third day – anemones, only a few, but so attractively arranged in a blue jug that reminded her of Elsie’s. She would have to return that, which might lead to complications, but she felt too awful to foresee them. Then, on the fourth day, Stanley appeared with some magazines which he announced he’d told the young lady she wouldn’t be interested in. This so annoyed Rose that in spite of a horrible headache she sat up in bed and deliberately made an effort to read them. They were lovely magazines – Country Life and The Field and The Geographical Magazine. She thoroughly enjoyed them and made a point of telling Stanley so at repeated intervals. On the fifth day she assured herself enough was enough. Nobody could keep this sort of thing up indefinitely – in fact, she hoped they didn’t. She was already overwhelmed. But promptly at eleven o’clock in the morning the doorbell rang and she heard Stanley, after the usual inexplicably long interval, answer it. She lay waiting, a feeling of excitement warming her as none of the hot water bottles tucked round her had managed to do.
He trudged in – why did he have to shuffle about like that? – a little later carrying a small packet.
‘I don’t know what this is,’ he said, ‘but it rattles. Shall I open it for you?’
‘No,’ Rose snapped, ‘you’re too clumsy. You’d harm what’s inside more than likely. Give it here. I can manage to untie a parcel I should hope.’
She had, though, quite a, struggle doing just that. The red ribbon was so cunningly tied and the gold paper securely Sellotaped. She felt tired when at last she had all the wrappings off. Inside was a box, an ordinary white cardboard box. She opened it, wishing Stanley would go away, but he stood and stared foolishly at what was inside.
‘Funny sort of present,’ he said at last. ‘What’s she given you shells for? Seems silly.’
‘It isn’t silly at all,’ Rose said, ‘they’re beautiful – look at that one. Have you ever seen anything like it?’
‘Plenty,’ Stanley said, ‘the beaches are covered with them.’
‘But we aren’t on a beach, that’s the point,’ Rose said.
‘Seems funny to me.’
‘Oh, you’ve got no imagination, go away.’
Rose lay and looked at the shells for a long time. Nobody had ever honoured her by assuming she had any imagination. Without putting it into words, she was proud to have been given such a present. How had that girl known, on such a slim acquaintanceship, that she wouldn’t throw shells in the dustbin and think them silly? It was extraordinary. She huddled down under the blankets and thought about it. It was almost, she felt, as though she was being courted, such was the care and love – yes, it was not out of place, that was what she felt it was – the love with which these gifts had been chosen. Even the grapes hadn’t been just grapes shoved in a paper bag or enveloped in scruffy tissue paper. Each one had looked clean and firm and the cluster hadn’t been broken. They had been handpicked, none of your I’ll-have-a-pound-of-those-how-much. It was strange to be the recipient of all this thought. She hoped Alice Oram hadn’t felt she had to pay back all those trifles she had given Amy – that would be absurd. Stanley had suggested as much but withdrawn the suggestion when he saw how much it upset her. It couldn’t be true. She consoled herself with the thought that the girl couldn’t have gone on giving her things, not to that extent, if she had been prompted merely by a sense of justice.
When she was up and feeling stronger, if not actually well, Rose carefully put away all her gifts with the little cards that had come with them. She ate the grapes, of course, but pressed the flowers before they died. She had drawers full of those kind of mementoes going back years and years. There were very few things there that Stanley had given her, but then he did not bother with presents. That was the operative word – bother. Stanley was opposed to all bother and could not understand that present-giving could ever be a pleasure.
Frank had been better, but not much. Most of her mementoes were things like Dolores’ wedding invitation and the ribbon from her bouquet that she had given her. And the little blue jug. Elsie had insisted and so had Dolores and Alan. She must have it. Dolores swore she would only throw it out anyway – she liked china jugs, not pot ones. They had compromised on Rose keeping it for her, until such time as she would claim it.
Rose was left with the other jug, that the flowers had come in. When everything else was put away, she washed the jug with great care and dried it and put it high up in her kitchen cupboard where Stanley couldn’t knock it over. She didn’t know what would happen. She was too weak to think straight. Would it be claimed? Or would she take it back? It would have to be decided, she told herself, together with a lot of other things.
Chapter Eight
THE MINUTE ROSE felt her old self, which took another couple of weeks, she started on the Christmas pudding. Every year she sent Frank a pudding, the real traditional sort that he loved. By rights, she should have made it in October but Dolores’ wedding had mucked all her plans up. Most of the summer seemed to have been dominated by Dolores’ wedding, what with the buying of the present and the choosing of the outfit and – well – in general. So it was now nearly the last week in November and no pudding. It would have to be done at once and parcelled up and, if necessary, sent at vast expense by air. Stanley would have to see that this was done, for she would immediately move on to Christmas presents proper.
The day she made the pudding she got up bright and early and put the oven on to warm the kitchen. She thanked God the strike had proved a three day affair after all, or she’d have been sunk. She’d told Stanley they ought to look ahead to next winter and another spate of industrial action, as they called it on the wireless – they ought to buy a couple of paraffin heaters and get a gas ring fixed up again where they still had the old gas pipe – but of course he saw no reason to look to the next day, never mind next year. She had a good mind to buy something herself and hide it in the garage. In fact, she just might do that. She smirked to herself at the thought of Stanley
’s face.
Singing a hymn, she took the fruit from the sieve and examined it carefully. Each raisin and sultana and currant had to be fat and juicy and ready. They said ‘ready washed’ on packets these days but when you took it out it was as dry as if it had come across the Sahara. All the other ingredients were in the bowl on the table and the aluminium tin was standing alongside with the right length of string coiled on top to tie it with. It annoyed her that she was sweating as she began the careful mixing. There was no effort needed to mix, goodness me. She must be getting old if making a pudding brought her out in a sweat. Yet at the same time as she felt this irritation with her body, she was also pleased. It showed she still cared. Lately, she had begun to wonder if she hadn’t been affected by everybody else’s don’t-care attitude. There had been a listlessness in everything she did which she hated.
Stanley came trailing in just as she was at the crucial transferring of the mixture to the tin stage.
‘What are you doing then?’ he asked, standing so near the cooker she knew he was going to knock the pan of boiling water over.
‘Get out,’ she screamed at him.
‘Temper,’ he muttered.
‘It is not temper. How can I make this pudding if I have interruptions all the time? I can’t concentrate with people chattering away.’
‘You’ve been making it for fifty years,’ Stanley said. ‘Wouldn’t think you needed much concentration. It’s only a pudding.’
‘It may be only a pudding but I only want to make it properly, something only you wouldn’t understand.’
‘No breakfast then.’
‘There’ll be breakfast in due course.’ Her fingers slipped on the string and she cursed.
‘I have trouble with my bowels if I don’t eat the minute I get up.’
‘Oh, you and your bowels.’
‘All very well for you to say that, you don’t have that trouble or –’
‘How do you know? How do you know what trouble I do or don’t have? Just because I don’t broadcast it. There’s food on the table to start with but of course you didn’t look.’
‘I need tea.’
‘You’ll get tea.’
Stanley sat down and looked at the bowl in front of him. He hated cereal. Slowly, he put two large spoonfuls of sugar on the All-Bran and drowned it in milk. It made him feel sick but he had to have bulk. He munched the tacky mess thoughtfully.
‘Talking of Christmas,’ he said, when he’d finished, more to remind Rose tea was needed than anything else.
‘Nobody was,’ she called back, but in better humour. He could hear the pudding boiling away. Everything must be under control.
‘Well, with you making the pudding. Talking of Christmas, or anyway thinking of it –’
‘I wasn’t. Christmas is nothing to me.’
‘You can’t ignore it.’
‘Why shouldn’t I? I’ll ignore it if I want. Once the pudding and the children’s presents are off I’ll ignore it. It’s a lot of commercialized nonsense these days.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. You have to celebrate a bit.’
‘What? What would I be celebrating? What’s there to celebrate about two old folk sitting over one of those tasteless chickens?’
‘That’s it – that’s the point. Are we going to Elsie’s?’
‘No.’
‘Why not? She’ll be mentioning it soon.’
‘Let her mention it. I’m not going, not this year.’
‘What’s different about this year? We’ve always gone.’
‘This year I’m not.’
‘Then I can’t.’
‘Oh, you’re off again. You’re the silliest man I ever met. What are we – Siamese twins? You’ve no independence. You go to your wretched club on your own – why can’t you go to your own sister’s? Eh?’
‘It would look odd.’
‘Fiddlesticks.’
‘You’re getting cantankerous in your old age,’ he said. They glared at each other for a minute and then suddenly Rose burst out laughing. He didn’t mention Christmas or Elsie’s again.
But the following day they had a terrible argument about it – or, at least, Christmas and Elsie’s lay underneath what they actually argued about. It started with what Stanley had the temerity to refer to as ‘that bloody pudding’. Rose woke him just as he was going off into a much needed extra sleep at eight o’clock to tell him to get up and get off to the post office and weigh the pudding and bring it back and tell her the weight so she could calculate how much wrapping to put on. They had this palaver every year. There were no weighing scales in the house – Rose used spoons for all her measuring, or else guessed – and every year there was the worry that the pudding plus protective coat would weigh over two pounds and therefore cost at least fifteen bob more to send to Australia. Well, he took that quite well, he considered, but when she wanted him to go, in the first instance, without any breakfast so as to be there when the post office opened, he rebelled.
‘Fifteen minutes won’t make any difference,’ he said. ‘I’ll just have my breakfast.’
‘You will not. If you delay there’ll be a big queue and you’ll be hours. You’ll have your breakfast when you come back and not before. Then while you’re having it I can be doing the parcel up for you to take back.’
‘No,’ Stanley said.
Rose compressed her lips. ‘Right,’ she said, breathing hard. ‘Right. Now we know where we stand.’
‘I’ll go the minute I’ve had my breakfast.’
‘Don’t bother.’
He sat down and began the hateful business of eating his All-Bran. He could hear Rose clattering about in the hall. Presently, she came back with her coat on, her face as red as a turkey-cock’s. She went into the kitchen and came back with the pudding. As she passed him again she paused and said with great emphasis, ‘Just don’t ever ask me to do anything for you again that’s all. I’ll remember this.’
‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘I’ve nearly finished. All this fuss.’
‘Don’t speak to me like that, I’m not your chattel.’
‘Now sit down Rose. You’re getting excited over nothing. You always do at Christmas.’
‘I do not! Oh, how dare you!’
She was gone with a rush, literally trotting down the hall to the front door. He half got up from his chair, milk dribbling out of the corner of his not-quite-closed mouth. She would only upset herself. But then he sat down again. It had begun to occur to him lately that there might be a case here for being firm. There had been too much talk about independence, or the lack of it. By giving in to her like a spoiled child he was making a rod for his own back. He intended, for example, to go to Elsie’s for Christmas, come what may. He would be firm. When she came back – she’d probably get to the end of the road and wait a bit and come back – he’d be as nice as pie. He’d say nothing. Without trying to score, he’d quietly take the parcel from her and off he’d go, meek as a lamb. That was the best idea. He wouldn’t rub his victory in, no need for that, but it would be remembered. Having to make his own tea and toast and an egg was the penalty he would have to pay, but it was cheap at the price, so he set about it with a will, hoping she wouldn’t be too quick about coming back or there’d be another row about the few crumbs he’d left which would be condemned as a mess.
Outside, Rose had got no farther than the gate where she stood, irresolute, her eyes misted over with tears. The post office could only be reached by crossing a main road and she knew she was not up to it. In a quiet street like their own it did not much matter if she misjudged the distance from kerb to street, but the High Street was a different matter. But she would not go back in there and be treated like a baby, so off she set, thoughts of following a crowd across a zebra crossing filling her head. She heard rather than saw someone coming towards her, and ducked her head instinctively. She had no desire to talk to anyone at this moment of crisis.
‘Hello, Mrs Pendlebury. Are you feeling better?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ she said, abstracted, her eyes fixed on the road ahead, her feet already moving.
‘Oh, good. It’s nice to see you out and about, isn’t it, Amy?’
‘Out,’ Amy said, and at once wriggled from her pushchair and snatched at the parcel in Rose’s hand.
‘Careful,’ Rose said, crossly, and then, realizing how cross she had sounded, ‘that’s precious.’
‘Ta?’ Amy said, hopefully.
‘No, Amy, it isn’t for you,’ her mother said.
‘It’s to go to my son, in Australia,’ Rose blurted out, and blushed. It sounded to her ears like boasting, and she hated giving away information especially in the form of a boast.
‘How exciting. Is it for Christmas?’
‘It’s a pudding,’ Rose said, by now rigid with embarrassment but unable to stop giving away such intimate details. ‘Sounds silly I know, but he always loved my puddings.’
‘Doesn’t sound silly to me,’ Alice said, ‘it sounds lovely. Does it always get there in one piece?’
‘Well if it doesn’t nobody’s told me,’ Rose said. ‘Of course, I wrap it carefully. This isn’t it wrapped properly, it’s just so I can weigh it at the post office.’
The Seduction of Mrs Pendlebury Page 10
