The Seduction of Mrs Pendlebury

by Margaret Forster

  ‘Put it off,’ she commanded.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Don’t you “eh” me – put it off. If you’re clever enough to find it you’re clever enough to turn it off for a minute. Now, where did you get it from may I ask?’

  ‘It was in the bedroom,’ Stanley said.

  ‘What?’ Rose was incredulous. ‘In the bedroom – which bedroom? Oh my God!’

  ‘Their bedroom, the young people’s.’

  ‘How dare you go in their bedroom – oh – what will we say – you’ll go and put it back this instant.’

  ‘But I want to watch it,’ Stanley said.

  ‘I don’t care what you want – back it goes.’

  ‘You’re being silly,’ Stanley said.

  ‘Better silly than sly. What would they think knowing you’d been snooping about the house prying into their affairs – and the nerve of it, pushing open doors, peering into rooms – oh – it makes me quite ill. I don’t know how you could behave like that, I never thought it of you.’

  ‘It was common sense,’ Stanley said. ‘We were told to help ourselves to anything we wanted and make ourselves at home.’

  But he took it back. Rose went with him just to make sure he didn’t perpetrate any more outrages, and also to see the bedroom. She wouldn’t let Stanley put the light on but she could see well enough how pretty it was with some kind of flowered paper and a patchwork quilt on the bed.

  ‘Well if I can’t have telly because of your silliness,’ Stanley said when they were back downstairs, ‘I should hope I’m to be allowed tea. Using their gas isn’t going to be a crime is it?’

  Getting the gas lit was a problem all the same. It was a long time since they’d had a gas cooker and none of the controls seemed the same. Rose was so worried about Stanley either blowing them all up or else damaging the cooker that she would hardly give him a chance. Eventually they got it lit and the kettle boiled and the tea made.

  ‘Pretty cups,’ Rose admired. ‘It’s ages since I’ve seen any nice china. I wouldn’t mind treating myself to a set of this.’

  ‘You’ve got enough,’ Stanley said, still smarting at her foolish attitude over the telly. At this very minute ‘Sportsnight with Coleman’ would be beginning, to which he was very partial.

  ‘Good gingerbread,’ Rose said, her mouth full. ‘I’m glad somebody still makes cakes. Of course, Alice isn’t typical of the younger generation.’

  ‘Alice? Getting cosy, aren’t we? I didn’t know it was Alice and Rose.’

  ‘Don’t be rude,’ Rose said, ‘just because you’re in a bad temper.’

  ‘It’s hardly surprising I’m in a bad temper,’ Stanley said, ‘with “Sportsnight with Coleman” just starting.’

  ‘A change is as good as a rest,’ Rose said, maliciously. ‘I’ll just wash these things and then I’m going to choose a book from those shelves and settle down for a good read.’

  She washed the cups and plates with exquisite care, filling the basin with lukewarm water only and rinsing off the suds afterwards, not that there were many. She didn’t want to be extravagant with other people’s belongings. It was strange how she enjoyed using them though – even the sink and taps were different from hers and made the task an adventure. She’d always meant to have stainless steel, it was definitely superior. Enamel chipped and stained however careful you were. And a tap that mixed the water – that was clever and time-saving. Her eyes moved backwards and forwards all the time round the different fittings and possessions, taking them all in, finding even the most insignificant items of interest.

  ‘Have a good stare,’ Stanley said, watching her. Rose ignored him. She dried her hands on her own handkerchief and debated whether to put the milk jug in the fridge – the room was warm. There was still a lot of milk in the jug and it might go off, but if she put it in the fridge it might look as if she was being nosy, so she covered it and put it on the window sill and put everything else on the tray exactly as it had been. They’d eaten all the cake and biscuits, which might seem greedy. She wished she’d stopped Stanley having that third piece of cake and that fourth biscuit.

  Stanley never kept a grudge up for long, at least you could say that about him. She saw, as she made a performance out of choosing a book, that his bad temper had spent itself and a great affection for him moved her to say, ‘There’s an evening paper there, shouldn’t think it would do any harm to look at it.’ He picked it up, pleased. Stanley dearly loved newspapers but they’d stopped getting them delivered some years ago in the interests of economy – an economy they both knew was unnecessary and in this particular case hardly worth the trouble but nevertheless they had gone ahead and done it. The fact that Stanley went to the corner shop every day and continued to buy the newspaper he’d formerly had delivered was neither here nor there. Rose saw how silly it was but reflected that it gave Stanley a much-needed purpose in life and also some exercise so she did not put a stop to it. These colder evenings, though, he often didn’t make the effort to go out and get the Standard, so finding it was a treat.

  He settled down quite happily after that. She took her book to the kitchen table where there was a strong light overhead – a lovely orange open shade it had – and began reading it, or trying to. She’d picked Mary Queen of Scots because she’d always been interested in history and because it looked such a lovely book, so heavy and glossy, not like some of the flimsy things she saw up at the library. The first sentence was beautiful. Rose read it twice – ‘The Winter of 1543 was marked by tempestuous weather throughout the British Isles: in the north, on the borders of Scotland and England, there were heavy snow-falls in December and frost so savage that by January the ships were frozen into the harbour at Newcastle.’ Rose stopped and thought about it. She could see all that snow – just like the winter Frank was born when a double-decker bus got stuck in a drift outside the house where they had rooms. And as for frosts, she knew what the writer meant. She’d never seen ships frozen in a harbour but she’d seen plenty of sheep frozen solid in the country when she was a child. It made her shiver and yet excited her – the warmth of the orange light and the wooden table and the burnt cork colour of the floor and the swirling brown patterns on the blind and Amy upstairs asleep in that sweet-smelling room and Stanley quietly rocking away and gingerbread inside her and the ships frozen into the harbour in 1543: Rose felt happy and tearful.

  The second sentence wasn’t so good, but Rose pressed on relentlessly, sometimes going back two or three times to overcome what she knew was her own stupidity. It wasn’t the words – she was good at words, and she knew how to use a dictionary if they were too much for her. No, it was more than that – she couldn’t seem to hold whole sentences in her head if they didn’t paint a picture. Now that first sentence was unforgettable – she would remember every word years after because she saw the ships and frost. You couldn’t expect a writer to be an artist all the time – she knew she was at fault and it saddened her. She wanted to know about Mary but she didn’t seem able to cope. She would have to admit it was too hard. Sighing, she contented herself with looking at pictures and dipping into the text every now and again, wishing all the time that someone would write good books for old folk like her with no education and failing powers of memory and concentration. Frank would have understood all this straight away and she supposed Tony Oram did, or was the book Alice’s?

  She kept the book open in front of her but didn’t look at it any more – she just liked it lying there, full of promise. It was getting on for ten o’clock. They’d be back soon. She hoped they’d had a good time. She herself had never gone out when Frank was little, never, but then she hadn’t wanted to, no desire at all. She’d been quite happy to stay in at night. Thinking back, she realized they would have had nowhere to go anyway and no money to spend. Sometimes Stanley went out to the pub – he liked a drink in those days and the company of the pub – but he never had anything to spend. He went mostly to play darts and have one half-pint shandy. When he came back
on Fridays he’d bring her a penny chocolate whirl. That was her treat for the week.

  She turned round to say to Stanley, ‘Do you remember –’ and stopped. His mouth was open and his eyes closed, but he still held the paper in his hands close to his eyes. Why bother him with such sentimental nonsense? Did it matter about that penny chocolate? She was furious with herself and turned back to the beginning of her book with determination. She’d master that second sentence, and the third and the fourth if it killed her. She wasn’t going to slip into senility without a fight. She’d stop herself going soft in the head through sheer effort. Maybe she hadn’t enrolled at classes like Elsie, maybe she had stopped Stanley taking them to Australia, maybe she was too timid and shy, but by God she wasn’t going to become a bundle of wishy-washy stories about the olden times.

  When Alice and Tony came back she was still bent double over the book and hardly looked up.

  ‘Hello,’ said Alice, ‘has everything been all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rose, vaguely. She was at page ten and didn’t want to be interrupted just as she was getting the hang of it. She stared at Alice as though she had no idea who she was.

  ‘Oh, good. Well, we had a lovely evening out thanks to you.’

  ‘Any time,’ Stanley said, grandly. Alice was grateful for his enthusiasm and said with great emphasis, ‘Thank you, Mr Pendlebury.’

  ‘Well,’ said Rose, banging the book shut, ‘we’ll be off. Come on Stanley, coats on, they don’t want us hanging about now the job’s done.’

  ‘Oh don’t go – Tony’s just going to make some cocoa, aren’t you, Tony? Stay and have some. You sit there, Mrs Pendlebury – look, use this cushion. That chair looks pretty but it’s hell to sit in. I should have told you. What were you reading? Oh, that. That’s Tony’s – he likes big books, stays up half the night reading them because he can’t sleep.’

  ‘At his age?’ Rose said, but softly. Tony Oram was still an unknown quantity. Best tread carefully.

  ‘I know, it’s ridiculous. Sometimes it’s four in the morning before he sleeps.’

  ‘He should see a doctor,’ said Stanley.

  ‘Doctors are no good,’ Rose said.

  ‘We haven’t got one yet,’ Alice said, ‘not since we moved. Who should we sign on with? Who’s your doctor? Is he good?’

  ‘No,’ said Rose, ‘he isn’t.’

  ‘I find him very nice,’ Stanley said.

  ‘Well, you should know,’ Rose said. ‘You’re the expert. Never away, he isn’t. It’s shocking – abusing the Health Service he is.’

  Tony, measuring four mugs of milk into a pan, smiled at that. His back was to them as he fiddled about with the cooker and got the cocoa and sugar from the cupboard. Alice was working hard at chatting the Pendleburys up and succeeding pretty well. Stanley, of course, was easy enough – any old remark satisfied him – but Rose was more of a problem. He saw what Alice meant about her being on the defensive. Prickly as his beard before he shaved. He stroked his chin and felt pleased with his simile. The horror of a visit to the National Theatre must have shocked him into lyricism. Alice loved it though – the event, the people, the poetry of Shakespeare, all the things he hated, but he took her rarely enough so he musn’t complain. Tonight he didn’t feel disposed to complain about anything. He felt warm and mildly drunk and wished he could take Alice to bed straight away, without the necessity of drinking this revolting cocoa and getting rid of the Pendleburys. Since Amy was born their evenings out had been rare and ruined by Alice’s urge to charm whoever was babysitting. Why she bothered was clear to him but he wished she didn’t feel that way. If only she would use an agency and they could go out whenever they wanted and say thank you and goodbye the minute they came in.

  ‘It’s very kind of you,’ Alice was saying for the fiftieth time in a tone that set his teeth on edge.

  ‘Cocoa up,’ he said, and came to sit beside them on the table. Beyond the barest pleasantries he had no intention of talking to them and thereby extending the conversation.

  ‘Was it a good play?’ Rose asked, stiff now that the young man had joined them.

  ‘Not my choice,’ said Tony, ‘but very enjoyable.’ He smirked into his cocoa to hide his derision.

  ‘Tony hates Shakespeare,’ Alice said. ‘He won’t make the effort to listen properly and so he gets bored.’

  ‘You have to make an effort,’ Rose said.

  Tony successfully resisted the temptation to ask why.

  ‘My wife likes a good play,’ Stanley said. ‘It’s all she’ll watch on television.’

  ‘Most of it’s rubbish,’ Rose said.

  ‘There was a good one tonight, I noticed,’ Alice said, ‘by Rosemary Ann Sisson. I thought Mrs Pendlebury might be watching it.’ She paused. Rose and Stanley waited, smiling slightly. ‘Oh, how awful – I forgot to bring the telly down.’

  There were five minutes of apologies and protestations of it not mattering before all the squawking settled down. Tony could hardly bear it and had to get up and look for a biscuit to calm his agitation. At least it had the effect of breaking the party up. Another five minutes of profuse thanks and hold this coat Tony open the door Tony shine a light Tony help Mr Pendlebury with that gate Tony it’s sticking and they were gone. Immediately, Alice’s vivacity disappeared. She collapsed onto the bottom stair and leant back.

  ‘I’m exhausted,’ she murmured.

  ‘Hardly surprising. That performance lasted all of forty-five minutes and was better than any I saw on stage tonight. You must be stark raving mad.’

  ‘Are we going to bed or –’

  ‘Certainly we’re going to bed. I wanted to go the minute we got in, didn’t I? Marvellous way to round off a lovely evening.’

  ‘I had to talk to them, I couldn’t just boot them out, could I?’

  ‘They would have gone in two minutes if you’d let them.’

  ‘And been hurt that we were just using them.’

  ‘You just imagine all this sensitivity.’

  ‘I don’t. Mrs P. would have been dreadfully hurt, it would just have been exploiting her.’

  ‘Rubbish. She was probably dying to get to bed or have a decent cup of tea to take away the taste of that disgusting cocoa you forced on them.’

  ‘I didn’t force it – they were thrilled.’

  ‘Then why did they leave half of it?’

  ‘They were thrilled at the idea.’

  ‘You’re crazy.’

  ‘Let’s not argue.’

  ‘Let’s not. But let’s not have the Pendleburys to babysit. You can go on doing your bit every Wednesday morning when I’m at work and that’s that. I don’t want to get involved with them. Right?’

  But it wasn’t that easy. Alice knew she had already irrevocably committed herself to having the Pendleburys babysit again. Before Mrs P. said, the following Wednesday, ‘I don’t suppose you’ll be wanting us to come in another evening and give you a break,’ she knew she would have to say yes, she did want them, she was dying to have them, she couldn’t do without them, Amy loved them, they were the only people she could trust . . . All she could try to do would be to limit talking to them afterwards for ten minutes. Or twenty, at the most. The thing to do would be to have them in earlier than she needed while Tony was at the office and talk to them then, give them a glass of sherry and sit down and take an interest before she left. Then Tony needn’t have them inflicted on him.

  She felt so drained as she cleared up the cups and put them in the sink. She looked around to see if there were any more dishes and her eye fell on the tray she’d left. They hadn’t had any tea, only the cake and biscuits. But then she saw the tray had been relaid almost exactly as she had left it with the cups and saucers and teapot and plates washed, dried and put back. That was thoughtful, even Tony would have to admit that was thoughtful. She imagined Mrs P. doing it with such care and precision. It was the little things that mattered. Sometimes she thought Tony was right and she was quite mad wooing Mrs
P. the way she was doing, but when she came across little things like that she felt reassured. The world must be a better place to live in because she gave the Pendleburys gingerbread she’d made specially and they washed the dishes it had been eaten from. She wouldn’t have it that it wasn’t. More cheerful, she went up to bed.

  Chapter Ten

  AMY’S BIRTHDAY WAS January ist which, at the time, had given Alice tremendous pleasure. The obvious symbolic nature of being presented with a new baby on the first day of the year had delighted her. Explaining this to Mrs P. before Christmas she met with instant agreement. Mrs P. also liked birthdays to be on occasions. She told Alice in a rush how excited she had been that Frank was born on February 29th, making him even more special than he already was, and her great wish had been that Ellen should be born on Midsummer’s Day but she had missed it by four hours. Who, asked Alice, was Ellen?

  ‘My daughter,’ Rose said. She didn’t suppose the words had passed her lips more than a dozen times, ever, and certainly not for many, many years. Alice didn’t know about Ellen. She wasn’t looking sympathetic. Glancing at her, Rose was suddenly struck by the thought that she could tell about Ellen without any fear at all. Or could she? She had never tried. ‘Yes,’ she went on, dreamily but her eyes sharp, ready to pick up any hostility, ‘yes, I had a daughter. She died when she was eighteen months old.’ She waited to feel the cold, slimy wetness come over her skin, but nothing happened. ‘It was an accident.’ She put up her hand to her hat and felt it. ‘They put natural causes on the certificate but nobody was ever sure. She was perfectly healthy. Then she just died.’ There was no picture of Ellen’s face in that pink bonnet. Rose blinked. Nothing she couldn’t look at. Alice was sitting quite still. Should she mention what the coroner had said about the pillow in the pram? The nice, soft, comfortable pillow in its scrupulously clean broderie anglaise case. A tightness came in her throat and she knew the pillow would always be a stumbling block. She was grateful that Alice hadn’t pressed her, only listened, attentive and serious. What she’d always hated – the reason she’d stopped talking about Ellen – was people saying they were sorry, saying it till you wanted to scream you didn’t care if they were sorry and how dare they inflict their sorrow on you when you were already bowed down with it. The sorrow had to be entirely hers. You wanted people to help you go on not pull you back all the time into your sea of misery.