The Seduction of Mrs Pendlebury

by Margaret Forster

  Stanley wandered into Rawlinson Road about half past six feeling very tired but quite drunk with happiness – also with two whiskies that he hadn’t been able to escape having. He wasn’t a drinking man, not these days, and he always left before the celebration that marked their return got going, but he hadn’t been able to refuse those two drinks from his two best friends. As they rightly said, he was always refusing things these days, always dashing off. Knowing Elsie was with Rose had given him a nice sense of security and so he’d become his old affable self and stayed behind a little while. Nobody could grudge him that. It would be a long time before it happened again.

  He put his key into the door and turned it but had some difficulty getting in. He examined the lock and was surprised to see all the screws were loose round the plate that held it to the door. Furthermore, there were scratches on the metal as though somebody had been trying to chip the whole thing off with something sharp. Fascinated, Stanley could not leave it alone. He stood looking at the damage and inwardly exclaiming. It was a wonder Rose had not called his attention to this before. Luckily, he’d seen it first so he needn’t mention it until he’d made it good.

  The house was quiet, not an unusual state of affairs but strange after the hubbub of the day. He felt a little light-headed coming in from the still bright light outside to the gloom of the hall. Rose and Elsie must be in the garden. He walked through into the back room and looked out of the window but he couldn’t see them. Perhaps they were in the sitting-room and hadn’t heard him going past. He turned round to go back and Rose’s bright eyes looking at him from the corner of the living-room gave him a turn. ‘There you are,’ he said, ‘where’s Elsie got to?’

  ‘I don’t know about any Elsie,’ she said.

  ‘Didn’t she come? She was going to come, she was going to drop in and surprise you.’

  She didn’t reply to that. He peered at her, to see what she was doing, why she was sitting in that corner.

  ‘Did you get your cupboards done?’ he asked. She started laughing then and the last pleasant lightness the whisky and the good time had given him disappeared. He knew at once she’d done something silly and before anything else, before anger or concern or fear, he felt bitter. It had to be today, the one day he’d enjoyed himself, she had to go and do whatever she’d gone and done today.’ That was going to take a lot of forgiving.

  ‘What you doing in that corner?’ he said.

  ‘Sitting.’

  ‘Well sit somewhere sensible.’

  He went into the kitchen and put the kettle on, looking for signs of what had happened. Everything looked in apple-pie order. Maybe it would be better just to ignore her, to quietly read his newspaper, drink his tea, watch some television and go to bed. The idea of such tactics appealed to him strongly.

  He gave Rose a side-long look as he went past her again. ‘I’m taking my tea into the front,’ he said. She just smiled and nodded. He didn’t like the look of her at all. Hardly had he got himself settled in his chair before he heard the doorbell. It was an evening when he didn’t feel like being bothered but with Rose in her present state he didn’t want her going to the door and it was just the time when she would break with her normal habit and go. Taking his newspaper with him to show he was busy, Stanley went to answer the bell. He was taken aback to see Dr Thompson there.

  ‘Evening, Mr Pendlebury,’ the doctor said, and made to step inside. Instinctively Stanley took a step himself, closer to him, so that he had to recoil slightly and step back.

  ‘There must be some mistake,’ Stanley said, ‘you’ve got the wrong house.’

  ‘No,’ Dr Thompson said, ‘I haven’t. I just thought it was a long time since I’d seen your wife and I thought as I was visiting in the street it might be a good time to pop in and see her.’

  ‘She’s out,’ Stanley said. It was the first thing that came into his head. ‘She’s gone out.’

  ‘Oh,’ Dr Thompson was clearly amazed. ‘Has she been out long?’

  ‘No,’ Stanley said, ‘and she won’t be back till late.’

  Well, there’s not much point in me coming in. How is she these days?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Good. I’d heard she wasn’t so well, that’s all.’

  ‘Who did you hear that from?’

  ‘Oh, around, you know. Well, I’d better get on. Give my regards to Mrs Pendlebury.’

  He went on standing in the doorway a minute or two longer. ‘You’re all right yourself, are you?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘Good. Let me know if I can be any help, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I will.’

  To be quite sure, Stanley stood at the door until the doctor had got in the car. Only when he’d moved off, with a slightly embarrassed wave, did he close the door, close and bolt it. Then he threw his newspaper down and went back to Rose, snapping the electric light on and closing the curtains as he went into the room.

  ‘Now then,’ he said, ‘out with it. I don’t want any nonsense, I want the truth. What have you been up to?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘The doctor wasn’t here for nothing was he? And that was the doctor, you heard it was the doctor didn’t you? He’s a busy man, I don’t expect he came here for nothing – he came because somebody told him to come, that’s why, because you must have been up to something and somebody heard you or saw you. What have you been doing? Out with it – I don’t want nods and smiles, I want the truth.’

  ‘I haven’t been doing anything.’

  ‘Who’ve you been talking to? You must have been talking to somebody, saying silly things. Who was it? Was it Alice? Have you been talking to her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I knew it. And what did you say? What rubbish did you tell her that she had to go sending for the doctor? Eh?’

  ‘I told her straight.’

  ‘Straight! What did you tell her straight?’

  ‘About that husband of hers breaking in here and doing all that damage, scratching my table and breaking my windows. I told her I was sending for the police and you can’t stop me.’

  Stanley breathed very deeply. He should have seen this coming.

  ‘It might teach you a lesson,’ he said, ‘if I let you send for the police. Do you know what they’d do with you, you with your cock-and-bull story? They’d lock you up. See how you’d like that – they’d lock you up and you’d never get out, not as you are.’

  ‘I want the police.’

  ‘I’ve a good mind to send for them and let you see. It’s not done you any good me putting up with you all these months, humouring you, it’s just made you think you can get away with anything, that’s all, and it’s time you learnt you can’t, not in this life. That doctor would have tumbled to your little game straight off and then what would you have done? If I hadn’t been smart enough to get rid of him, if I hadn’t seen which way the wind was blowing. I don’t know what I’m going to do with you and that’s a fact.’

  Stanley paused, struck by the truth of what he had just said. He didn’t know what he was going to do with her, not now she’d spilled the beans all over the place. It was dreadful to think what might have happened if that doctor had got in – it made his mouth dry just thinking of it. They’d cart her away straight off, not realizing she was just going through a bad spell, same as everyone did at some time or other. He sat down at the table, suddenly weak at the knees. Everything had changed. There was Elsie to reckon with, sharp as a needle, she’d be on to him in no time wanting to know what was up, smelling a rat. What would he say to her? He wasn’t a good liar, he didn’t like lying, but nothing except lies would do in this situation. And Alice, what about her? She’d sent for the doctor, he couldn’t blame her. Or could he? Rubbing his forehead with the flat of his hand Stanley thought about that one and gradually a new emotion chased all the others out – humiliated, that’s what he’d been. Treated like dirt, made to look small, passed over. He went hot and cold at the thought. He ha
dn’t been consulted about his own wife, she’d gone over his head, treated him like a lodger in his own house, and after he’d warned her. Well, that was something he could do something about. He got to his feet and pulled his cardigan straight.

  ‘I’m going next door,’ he announced. ‘You say there and don’t do anything silly.’ She went on smiling, crouching there on that stool in the corner. ‘You sit there and don’t move till I come back. There’s some sorting out I have to do. I won’t be more than five minutes, have you got that?’

  ‘I’ve got it. It was her sent for the doctor.’

  ‘Yes, it was and I want to know why.’

  ‘I don’t want a doctor.’

  ‘I know you don’t. Now don’t you move.’

  ‘I’ve the supper to think of.’

  ‘You can make the supper and that’s all.’

  This seemed to please her. She got up and started towards the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. The smile had gone and she was frowning. ‘I expect you’ve been eating rubbish all day on that trip of yours. It’s time you had a decent meal to settle your stomach.’

  ‘Yes it is.’

  ‘I’ll get on with it then. Are you going in like that?’

  ‘What’s wrong with me? Yes I am. What I have to say won’t take five minutes.’

  ‘I should think so too,’ she said, and seemed even more pleased.

  Stanley rang the Orams’ bell with absolute authority and never took his eye off the glass panel at one side. The minute he saw a shadow appearing he would be ready to rush in whatever they said. It wasn’t his usual behaviour but then this was an emergency. They had some shocks coming to them in this house. Just because he seemed meek and mild they thought he wouldn’t say boo to a goose. Well, they would be surprised. He could be angry just like anyone else and he knew his rights better than most.

  Alice answered the door. She’d been resting, still feeling upset about the day’s events, still trying to work out what Dr Thompson had meant. She felt confused and uncertain and wished Tony would come home. Her first reaction when she saw Stanley was one of relief, but the way in which he brushed past her and said, ‘There are a few things I’d like to say to you,’ alarmed her. He stood in her kitchen, swaying slightly, rocking on his heels, and his expression was sullen. It was frightening to have this violent change of personality in anyone – they might have been total strangers who had never had anything to do with each other the way he glared at her.

  ‘Have a seat,’ she said.

  ‘No. What I have to say won’t take five minutes.’

  ‘Then sit down for five minutes.’

  ‘No. I’d rather not in the circumstances.’

  He refused to smile at her. Trying hard to remind herself they were two mature adults Alice controlled the flutters of fear that rippled through her stomach.

  ‘What circumstances?’

  ‘Did you send for Dr Thompson?’

  ‘I rang him, yes. I’d no alternative.’

  ‘You admit it then. Right. You mind your own business, that’s all I have to say to you. Keep your nose out of our lives, thank you very much. Is that understood?’

  Alice felt the colour rise in her face and when she started to cry she did so out of choice, out of a desire to escape the whole situation.

  ‘It’s no good you crying,’ Stanley said, ‘you did what you did and we don’t want anything more to do with you and now I’ll say good night.’

  He turned to go, but Alice was quicker and running across the room slammed the kitchen door and stood with her back to it.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I won’t let you, I won’t have it, it’s stupid and ridiculous two adults behaving like this. I won’t be treated like some disgusting peeping-tom, some sneaky horrible person. We’ve been friends for more than two years, we’ve helped each other and had good times together and I won’t have it all smashed and trampled on because you choose to do so. And I won’t talk to somebody who hasn’t the manners to sit down in my house when I invite him to. I’m quite prepared to stand here all night unless you sit down so we can discuss this in a civilized way.’

  She was violent and loud and Stanley saw at once she was working herself into a state. For that reason alone, he assured himself, he was obliged to sit down.

  ‘You won’t change my mind,’ he said, ‘not however much you shout. I’ll give you five minutes and then I must go.’ He sat down on the edge of a kitchen chair and continued to stare at her without blinking.

  ‘Why do you think I sent for the doctor?’ she asked him.

  ‘I don’t want to know about whys and wherefores. You sent for him as though it was your business and that’s enough for me.’

  ‘Mr Pendlebury, if I’d looked over the garden wall when your wife attracted my attention and I’d seen her lying on the grass with her leg bleeding you would have expected me to send for the doctor wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t have wanted me to let her bleed to death and mind my own business would you? It’s just because it’s her mind not her leg that you’re upset – I sent for him because she needs immediate medical attention, psychiatric help. She’s sick in her mind and you can’t go on ignoring it.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with her mind. She has her off days –’

  ‘Off days! Mr Pendlebury, your wife was stark raving mad this afternoon.’

  ‘Don’t talk ridiculous.’

  ‘I’m not – you obviously don’t know what she said, she accused my husband of entering her house and breaking furniture and windows, she talked of sending for the police –’

  ‘There’s no question of the police. She gets these ideas, that’s all.’

  ‘She gets them because she’s deluded, because she’s going through some kind of breakdown. I’ve asked you and asked you to take her to a doctor and you won’t. What does she have to do to convince you – kill herself, kill you? Do you want murder before you’ll take her seriously?’

  ‘I can look after her perfectly well.’

  ‘But you can’t, nobody could. She needs skilled attention.’

  ‘We’ll see about that.’

  ‘But you don’t! That’s precisely the point – you never see about anything, you just let it go on and on.’

  ‘That’s my business.’

  ‘And mine – oh yes, and mine, my business.’

  ‘She’s nothing to you.’

  ‘She is – she’s another human being, she’s my friend and neighbour, I’m sick of all this pushing people into slots as though they had nothing to do with each other – why won’t you believe I care for her, why isn’t she my business?’

  ‘You’re no relation, there’s –’

  ‘Why do I have to be a relation? What have her own brothers and sisters ever done for her, how close have they ever been? She doesn’t even know where they all are, she doesn’t know if they’re alive or dead, I’ve meant more to her than any relation. Why do you keep pushing me away? What terrible motives do you think I have? Why should I do as I’ve done except through love?’

  Stanley was more embarrassed than he had ever been in his entire life. This young woman had got carried away, there was no mistake about that – he wished to God he’d brushed past her after he’d said his say and not got trapped like this. She was scarlet in the face, half crying, and talking all this stuff about loving Rose – he didn’t know which way to look. It suddenly dawned on him that it was Rose all over again, all this fuss and carry on, and he wished there was a man about to handle her. In his anxiety just to get away he forgot what he had come about. The important thing now was to calm her down and make his escape.

  ‘I expect you meant well,’ he said, hoping to mollify her. ‘Anyway, what’s done is done. There’s no need to upset yourself.’

  ‘Why are you laughing? I suppose I am funny. I suppose I look silly to you and sound melodramatic but I feel so upset, I don’t know what to do to show you how I feel.’

  ‘I wasn’t laughing,’ Stanley said, though in t
ruth he had been, his lips had started smiling of their own accord and he couldn’t stop them. He was glad when she seemed to believe him and came and sat down too.

  ‘I was frightened,’ she said, ‘she terrified me.’

  ‘I won’t leave her again. I wouldn’t have left her in the first place but it was the Club outing and she seemed quite well.’

  ‘Why didn’t you ask me to come and see her? Or I would have invited her for the day, if you’d told me.’ He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘She’s turned against us, hasn’t she? She really does think Tony comes in and smashes her things.’

  ‘I’ve told her to see sense – it’s only now and again.’

  ‘Mr Pendlebury, they wouldn’t take her away you know – they’d treat her at home, with drugs.’

  ‘No. I’m her only salvation.’

  It was Alice’s turn to stare at him. It seemed impossible that he should believe what he’d just said, but he did, he said it so confidently, smiling, sure he was right. Anything she might say in reply would be inadequate, and then the more she thought about it the more she thought he might, in some kind of crazy, twisted way, have spoken no more than the truth. He’d been married to Rose over fifty years, she reminded herself – didn’t that entitle him to some confidence? She thought of all the sick people filling the wards of mental hospitals, of all the drugs poured into them and the machines used on them – were they worth more than Stanley’s belief that he was her salvation? Her own conviction that Rose needed expert help began to wane. She tried to see it from Stanley’s point of view, shut up in that house with her, day after day. It was hard to know whether he was wicked or wise to keep her to himself.