Alice looked blank, and so intense was Rose’s mortification at seeming odd that she had to volunteer further news. ‘I haven’t got any scales, see,’ she said, ‘and the weight has to be right.’
‘I’ve got some,’ Alice said, ‘come in a minute and we’ll weigh it.’
Horrified, Rose saw her, in one quick movement, fling open her gate, get a key out of her bag and open the door. She disappeared inside, leaving it open for Rose to follow. There was no decent alternative in the circumstances than to accept the invitation of someone to whom one was currently obliged.
Once inside the front door, Rose proceeded with extreme caution along the hall. It was as well she did so, for the floor was littered with Amy’s toys and stacked all along one wall with wood, planks and planks of it. She stood, hesitant, at the first door, trying to work out from Alice’s voice where she should go. The house was a mirror image of her own but she didn’t seem to be able to get her bearings. Indeed, she felt slightly frightened and was relieved when Amy toddled up and held out her hand. Together, they went to the very end of the hall and into what was Rose’s living-room in her own house.
‘Here we are,’ Alice was saying, holding up some scales. ‘Now where’s the pudding? You sit there and I’ll put them on the table.’
Rose didn’t dare look to right or left. She was trying hard to be poised in this unexpected situation but it was a struggle. She wished she had her best coat on, and pulled the one she was wearing closer over her knees.
‘Well then,’ said Alice, ‘is that all right?’
Rose peered at the scales and said, untruthfully, ‘I don’t have my glasses.’ The minute she’d said it she wished she hadn’t. Liars were always found out. The girl would wonder how she could have been going to read the scales at the post office. Explanations began to flood into her mind, but Alice had already read out, ‘One pound twelve ounces.’
‘Oh,’ Rose said, ‘half an ounce less than last year. That would be that extra few nuts.’
‘Nuts? In a pudding?’
They chatted about puddings and nuts for a few minutes and the next thing Rose knew there was a steaming cup of tea at her elbow and sugar and milk and biscuits being offered. ‘Oh,’ she kept saying, unable to conceal how startled she was, ‘Oh,’ over and over again, but she was consoled to see that the noise Amy made masked her inarticulate squeaks. Slowly, she began looking about her, slyly at first and then with more boldness.
‘Do you like it?’ Alice asked her.
Immediately, Rose’s eyes dropped to her cup. She had been caught in the act. ‘Very nice,’ she murmured.
‘My sister arranged it,’ Alice said. ‘I’m no good at decorating, I never know what to do, but she’s so clever. All I could think of was white paint until she came and made it look lovely. She said it looked like a hospital and she was quite right. Of course Tony – my husband – doesn’t really like Laura – my sister – and he thought . . .’
An hour passed with no apparent effort. Rose by this time had her coat open and was settled more comfortably into her chair. She was deep in the problems of Alice’s family and enjoying it all without absorbing any of it. She’d said very little herself but had managed every now and again to make what she hoped had been an intelligent comment. She had also used the opportunity to thank Alice for all the presents. The thanks came to her lips with difficulty. She was worried that she had sounded ungracious, even resentful, but it was hard to say thank you without sounding servile. She was out of practice, that was what it was. It was so long since she had said thank you to anyone, other than Stanley or Elsie, who hardly counted.
Rose finished her second cup of tea and began wondering how to manage the mechanics of saying goodbye. She couldn’t sit here for ever, though Alice looked settled for the duration. The pudding was weighed, hospitality generously given – she musn’t outstay her welcome. Should she just get up and say, ‘Must be off now,’ or what? Amy settled it for her by suddenly putting her thumb in her mouth and cuddling up against her mother, who announced that meant she was tired.
‘I’d better go,’ Rose said. ‘Thanks for the tea and the use of your scales, very handy I must say. And I’ll return that jug.’
‘Don’t worry about it – any time,’ Alice said.
‘It’s all ready, washed and waiting,’ Rose said.
‘Pop in one morning then and have a cup of coffee.’
‘Yes,’ said Rose, carefully, as though she knew the habit well, ‘yes, I will. That would be very nice.’
They saw her to the door and waved her off on her short journey. Smiling, Rose walked through her own gate and looked for her key. She’d left in such a hurry and in such a state that she wasn’t surprised to discover she’d gone without it. Now she’d have to stand there for an hour while Stanley thought about answering the door – but the minute her finger touched the bell, there he was, peering out. It suddenly occurred to her how easy it would be just to push him in the chest and send him flying. A puff of wind would blow him away.
‘Where’ve you been?’ he asked her, ‘I’ve been worried sick.’
‘Serve you right,’ Rose said, marching past him. ‘It’ll be a new experience for you anyway. I’ve spent hours worrying about where you were. Now out of my way. I have to get this pudding done up with four ounces of wadding and no more.’
He trailed behind her like a bewildered dog, not knowing whether to wag its tail or not. She was so pleased with herself yet he could not believe she had actually crossed the High Street. Whatever her secret she would withhold it from him, only to let it out little by little, and then, when it was out, she would enlarge upon it a piece at a time for weeks on end. He must just have patience and be thankful she had come to no harm.
Next door, Alice too was reflecting that she must have patience. Mrs Pendlebury would not open out in the space of an hour drinking tea. It would still be a slow campaign. What exactly she was campaigning against Alice was not sure. She moved about the house thinking of Mrs Pendlebury for a long time, endowing her with all sorts of qualities she probably didn’t have. There was about her face, Alice fancied, a violence that suggested a continual fight, but then faces could lie. Tony’s face lied. Only the day before Alice had found herself admiring the cunning of nature. Her husband had an expression so mild and bland, the curves of his nose and cheeks were so soft and sweet, the large eyes steadfast and untroubled – what a lie. Night after night as he tossed beside her, unable to sleep or in the grip of some nightmare, Alice marvelled at the deception not only of his face but his whole demeanour. Nobody except her guessed at the twists and turns of his mind, nobody glimpsed his perpetual rage with himself and the way the world treated him. Most people even despised him as feeble, a yes-man, without character. His occasional flashes of temper were almost always mistaken for forced attempts at involving himself. He was altogether too detached and impersonal for them to be taken as real and symptoms of deeper anger.
Perhaps she ought to be devoting herself to converting Tony and not Mrs Pendlebury. Alice smiled as she made the bed at the hopelessness of such a task. For she and Tony ever to have married was enough of a triumph in itself, a minor miracle too intricate to fathom. He had sold his soul to another human being – there had been no cheating – and had never quite got over the shock. She had joined him on his erratic fight against the current struggle and it was all she could do not to become contaminated herself. He would go on through life outwardly conforming and inwardly howling with despair and misery at the waste of it all. He had no idea what he even wanted to do about his confusion should he be able to do it. He said he was happy, but if his state was happiness Alice preferred to be unhappy.
The routine of household tasks was soothing. Alice knew herself to be lucky that she did not find them, as her sister Laura did, irritating in their constant repetition. She did often stop to wonder whether they constituted happiness, this daily round of cleaning and putting to rights, and thought that, though happiness wa
s too grand a name, they at least added up to contentment. It was when they were finished that the pricklings of uncertainty began, when the evening came and Amy slept and everything was tidy and Tony not yet home. The evenings held no promise, that was the trouble. It was nice to see Tony, nice to eat with him, nice to talk to him, but ultimately it left her with a sense of disappointment – not in Tony, but in herself. She felt traitorous that there should be even an element of dissatisfaction in their relationship, but what else could she call it? Sometimes she tried to talk to him about it, but he resented talk, even with her. It was all unnecessary. He would say they had been over whatever it was hundreds of times and would squirm and twist himself out of giving his opinion. But she would persist until he listened to her properly. After an hour or so of discussing whether it meant she should or should not have a career he would say he hoped she was satisfied that they’d wasted the best part of the evening. Usually, she then cried.
There was more point in talking to Laura, whom she either rang up or visited when she was at her lowest. Since this was not very often – Alice was an independent person – Laura didn’t resent the time it took up, and it did tend, when it happened, to be very time consuming. Laura was so sensible and yet so interested. She never looked the other way when she was being told intimate things, never interrupted you, always listened properly and sympathetically and thought before she answered. She had told Alice many times that it was foolish of her not to do something about her life. She pointed out how bored she was going to become if already at twenty she felt restless. When Alice tried to explain that it was nothing to do with having or not having a job, Laura quite brusquely disagreed. It had everything to do with it. Alice was apparently what Women’s Lib was all about – she had been so conditioned to accept her role that she felt guilty that she didn’t like it. She wasn’t discovering herself or extending her personality or even really living. All the solutions were neatly laid out for her by Laura – Alice knew them off by heart. She was grateful to her sister – at least she always felt better after talking to her – but was brought no nearer knowing what it was that really troubled her.
The first sun for five weeks came through the kitchen window as Alice put away the scales and washed the tea cups. How dirty the windows were with all the rain. She stood contemplating the job before her with a certain relief. She was not hiding behind the cleaning of windows, but it was true that she was glad they needed doing. The kitchen was now such a beautiful room that dirty windows were a positive insult. It would be a pleasure to dean them, a pleasure. Was it pleasure she needed more of, she wondered?
Stanley had, ultimately, heard the whole story and duly marvelled at the mysterious way things had of turning out. Who would have thought such good would have come out of what had started off so badly? He was pleased – more than pleased. The fact that Rose told the story as being against him in some subtle way did not trouble him at all. He was always wholeheartedly glad at her happiness.
And she was happy. He wished those who thought she had no fun in her could have seen her that morning. She sang, she smiled, she laughed until dimples he’d forgotten about appeared in the corners of her mouth. There was a swagger to her step as she went about her household duties and her body, bending and twisting as she scrubbed and polished, had never looked so supple. Sitting quietly drinking the extra tea that Rose didn’t even realize he’d got her to make, Stanley wondered that so much could come out of so little. That girl next door was proving a blessing. He stirred four large spoonfuls of sugar into his fifth cup of tea and tried to decide whether Alice Oram knew what she was doing. Was all this friendliness a casual thing or planned and plotted? Knowing Rose as well as he did, he knew that eventually, in a black mood, she would herself begin to question Alice’s motives, so he must be ready to parry her unfair thrusts. No, there could be no design in this neighbourliness. The Orams couldn’t want anything he and Rose had, of that he was certain. What possible advantage could there be in being kind to Rose? None. Relieved at what he saw as a conclusion reached after deep study, Stanley supped his tea and gave himself up to the pleasures of the sweet, hot liquid.
Rose’s gaiety continued well into the afternoon when she did a little gardening. Stanley stood patiently with string and scissors while she tied up fallen shrubs. He stared vacantly at her hands tying knots. She was slow, much slower than she had ever been with her quick, nimble fingers. ‘Taking you a long time,’ he commented. ‘I could do it as quick myself and that’s saying something for an old slowcoach like me.’
‘Yes,’ she said, pausing, ‘it isn’t my fingers it’s my eyes. I can’t seem to see the string.’
‘Need specs,’ Stanley said. ‘I’ve said so for a long time. Why don’t we go and get your eyes tested?’
‘That would be just as well,’ Rose said. ‘I’ve nothing against spectacles. They do nothing but good that I know of.’
Carefully, Stanley sought for the right words to clinch it. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I took the liberty some time ago of inquiring about eye-testing and Maynards in the High Street can do it at half a day’s notice. I thought that very reasonable. Costs nothing for pensioners. The only snag –’ he paused, but best to confess it was a snag ‘– the only snag is you need a line from your doctor.’
‘That’s no snag,’ Rose said, ‘you could ring up now.’
‘I could,’ Stanley said.
‘Go on then. Get them to leave a line out for me and then ring Maynards. I’ll go tomorrow.’
Which she did. Dressed in clean clothes from the skin outwards, Rose presented herself at the optician’s at three o’clock the next afternoon, clutching the line from her doctor. She wouldn’t let Stanley come in with her. She wasn’t a child who needed to be led by the hand. He could take himself off somewhere and pick her up later, after it was all over. He kept asking her if she was sure, which annoyed her to death, and made her give way to the first flash of irritation that she’d shown for thirty-six hours.
She sat waiting feeling brave and adventurous. She was quite calm, not a flutter of nerves anywhere, and she was well acquainted with all the places she would have got them if there were going to be any. It was all so simple and easy once you made your mind up to it. When the girl came to ask her to come through to the consulting room she walked with a firm, almost haughty air into it, and sat down in the right chair with no difficulty at all. The optician was very pleasant. He chatted away as he fitted the apparatus, exclaiming at her getting to sixty-nine without needing spectacles. She enjoyed giving him instances of how good her sight had always been until the last two years and he appeared impressed by her examples. ‘That’s truly magnificent,’ he kept saying until she felt important and wise. It was a pleasure to answer when he turned the lenses this way and that and said, ‘Is it better like this – or this – or this?’ Her voice rang with authority as she pronounced her verdict. Each time she decided he would say, ‘Good, very good,’ so she knew she was making the right choice.
After a great deal of fitting, he came up with two lenses that made even the little letters on the board in front of her jump right up. ‘Ooh,’ she shouted, ‘I can read everything now, that’s marvellous.’
‘Good, very good,’ the optician murmured. Rose was so enthusiastic herself that she failed to notice he was not. He got out a peculiar instrument and spent a long time looking into her eyes – so long that her head began to ache. The game seemed to have stopped and a faint feeling of anxiety began to affect her.
‘Good,’ he said at last, to her relief. Well now, we’ll get a prescription made up as soon as possible. It usually takes about ten days, then you’ll be able to read the time on Big Ben from the top of Hampstead Heath again.’
She laughed with him.
‘Just one thing I should tell you,’ he said smiling, ‘nothing to worry about but I don’t think your vision has become cloudy just with advancing years. Spectacles will help a lot for reading and television and so forth but you’ll still
find your general sight might be blurred a bit.’
‘Oh, I don’t mind about that,’ Rose said grandly. ‘I don’t complain about trifles. As long as I can see my way about and can read, that’s all that matters.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it isn’t exactly a trifle though. The point is, you’ve got cataracts on both eyes. It’s very common at your age – they’re very easily treated these days.’
‘Treated?’ Rose said, her voice a little high.
‘Mm. We can remove them easily in hospital under an anaesthetic.’
‘Hospital?’ There was no doubting the fear.
‘A very simple operation – you can be in and out in a few days and your sight better than ever. But you may never need to have it done – it’s impossible to tell. Yours are quite small yet. They could take another ten years or more to come up – or they may stay just as they are. But it’s as well to know and have them looked at occasionally. Now, if you’d like to step into the next room my assistant will give you a selection of frames to choose from. It’s been a pleasure attending to you. Good day.’
Rose stared at the frames spread out in front of her. The girl was talking but it was all a mumble to her. She didn’t want to try any of the frames on, but after she’d stabbed a finger at the most ordinary pair she could see the girl insisted they must be fitted. Humiliated, Rose stood in front of the mirror having the frame measured. They needn’t bother with all this fidgeting and fussing. Oh, she’d collect them, or Stanley would, and pay for them on the nail. She wasn’t dishonest. But then she’d put them at the back of a drawer and forget about them.
That stupid Stanley was nowhere to be seen. She glared up and down the busy street but there was no sign of him. He’d be skulking in some television shop most likely, gawping at the colour set she’d no intention of letting him have. And what was she supposed to do? Stand here all day like a dumb duck till he remembered her?
The Seduction of Mrs Pendlebury Page 11
