But would he do it?
“I’d sooner have our own, real friends,” he’d remarked when she first put the idea to him. “Let’s ask Charley and Rose instead….”
Charley and Rose! Phoebe had nearly burst a blood-vessel trying to make him see reason! Where did he think friendship with Charley and Rose was ever going to get him? Charley wasn’t even as high up in the firm as Peter himself! And as to Rose, with her loud, North-country laugh …! Why, the whole point of giving a dinner-party—of inviting someone like A.J.—was to make an impression. Witty talk … wonderful food … the right wines….
“Look, love, I’m not much good at that sort of thing,” he’d protested—just as if it mattered whether he was good at it. She was good at it, marvellously good, good enough for both of them! Single-handed, she could have sustained the evening, made it a success, ensured that he would get the job! What was the use of his having such a marvellous wife, with such a talent for furthering a man’s career, if he never gave her a chance to use this talent? She was wasted on him, wasted …!
“I don’t believe you even want the job!” she’d screamed one evening, driven to desperation by the news that Gerald Mannering and his wife Mary had, the previous night, given just such a dinner-party for A.J. as she herself had dreamed. This had been the last, the final straw in a whole series of such devastating discoveries: such as that Gerald had joined the Diners’ Association … had been invited to speak at the Young Conservatives’ Annual Gathering … had been voted on to the Golf Club Committee…. One blow after another, and now this …!
“You don’t want the job!” she’d yelled. “You don’t care about me and the children! … Bringing them up in a slum …! Disgracing them at school …! Making a laughing-stock of me among the other wives …!”
She was exaggerating, she knew; but someone must give him a jolt, for his own good.
“I’m sorry you feel like that, dear,” was all he’d said; and next thing she knew, he was sitting on the floor playing with plasticine! Plasticine, if you please—modelling a plasticine farm for Jenny and Tim, just as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Ricketty, splay-legged cows … top-heavy sheep…. Honestly!
“God, how I envy Mary!” she’d lashed out when she saw what he was doing. “At least she’s got a man for a husband, not a baby! At least Gerald works for his living, instead of playing nursery games …!”
Later, she’d apologised.
“It’s only because I love you!” she sobbed, as they lay in bed that night; and then he, too, had said he was sorry. Lying there in the darkness, he’d admitted his failings, had promised to try and master them—and then, the next day—yes, the very next day!—he’d calmly turned down an invitation to the Lady Mayoress’ Reception!
And as to the dinner-party for A.J., he had simply continued, quietly, obstinately, and unobtrusively, to do absolutely nothing.
And now it was too late! Seething though she was with frustration and disappointment, Phoebe nevertheless recognised that tonight, the last night before the fateful interview, was not the time for rows and recriminations. If Peter was to appear at his best for his ordeal tomorrow, then she must, tonight, be all sweetness and sympathy. He must go before the Board in a relaxed, cheerful frame of mind, confident and smiling. Yes, above all smiling; for when he smiled the lines of diffidence and hesitancy disappeared, and he looked as if he really might have the makings of a tycoon.
“Remember, I love you!” she whispered as they lay in bed that night. “My love will go with you tomorrow, it will be there with you all through the interview! You’ll feel it, darling, just as if I was actually there! That’s how love is….”
“Love” … “Darling” … “Love” … The words, murmured over and over again, close into his ear, were of hypnotic power. In spite of his ordeal on the morrow, Peter felt the tension slipping out of him, and in a few minutes he was asleep.
“Thank God I’ve had a decent night’s sleep, anyway!” he said the next morning, as he bent to kiss Phoebe goodbye; and with great self-restraint, she forbore to correct him. Because, of course, it was not God whom he should be thanking, but herself. Was it not she who had soothed him to sleep with her well-chosen endearments? But, of course, this was no time to start a theological argument; already, she could tell, he was all nerves. Through her blouse, she could feel the trembling of his hands as he embraced her. He did care about getting this job, cared very much indeed. More, perhaps, than she’d quite realised.
*
After he was gone, Phoebe was aware of a terrible restlessness, of both body and mind. The interview wasn’t till three o’clock in the afternoon, and of course it would be later still before she could know how it had gone. An interview as important as this one would surely take at least half an hour—all those solemn old men round the Board Room table, scrutinising Peter, probing for weaknesses, trying to catch him out with unexpected questions. And then, of course, there was Gerald to be interviewed as well; and after that, maybe one or both of them would be called back, if it was a close thing. Oh, it would be four o’clock, at the very earliest, before he could put her out of her misery. “I’ll telephone the moment I know,” he’d promised, and with this she must rest content.
Rest? Impossible! She felt the energy in her like a great, feverish boil about to burst, and yet there was nothing—absolutely nothing—that she could usefully do. Ring Peter at the office, to give him yet more good wishes, advice and encouragement? Futile—it would only fuss him. Ring A.J. himself, then, and explain to him how marvellous her husband was—how well-suited to the job? Ridiculous!—Indeed, disastrous!—for if one thing was known to annoy A.J. more than another, it was unsolicited advice from a woman. How about ringing Gerald, then, and trying to put him off his stroke somehow? Inventing some disturbing bit of gossip to upset him? But Gerald wasn’t the man to lose his nerve over spiteful chitter-chatter—if he had been, he’d never have been in the running for a job like this.
Well, ring his wife, Mary, then and try to upset her, and thus upset him by proxy? Tempting—but too dangerous. Mary would see through any invented bit of gossip like a flash, and would recognise instantly the malice behind it—women were like that!
But to do nothing—absolutely nothing—for (she glanced at the clock) for six whole hours! Seven, more likely! It was intolerable! Energy on this scale was a disease, it burned you up, it consumed you! Even the housework would make hardly a dent in it, so little, actually, was there to do, and so well was it organised. For the first time, Phoebe found herself half-regretting her own insistence on installing labour-saving devices for every imaginable task. It would have been quite a relief, at a time like this, to have had to get down on hands and knees to scrub and polish. Or if it had been holidays, even, with the children at home, clamouring for attention, filling the empty hours with noise, and toys, and mess….
Mess … there must be something that needed cleaning … or tidying … or something? Glancing round the room in search of some small task, her eye fell on the plasticine farm, laid out, now, all over Peter’s desk, where his reports and sales-figures should have been! He must have been helping the kids with their stupid game actually last night!
Typical! To find time for such nonsense when his whole future was hanging in the balance …! Angrily—and with a sort of relief at having something definite to be angry about—she strode across the room and began to clear away the whole thing, scrunching-up ruthlessly the lop-sided cows and sagging trees, pressing them impatiently into a single greenish-brownish-blueish lump.
And it was the feel of this lump, inert and yet pliant under her impatient fingers, that gave her the idea.
Crazy, really. It wasn’t as if she was a superstitious person—rather the reverse, in fact. She was the one who always laughed at the sort of people who bothered to read their horoscopes, who avoided walking under ladders, and remembered to tell their dreams on Fridays, or whatever. “Don’t be so childish!” she’d have said to any friend
who proposed doing what she herself was now about to do.
Well, all right, so it was childish. So what? With all this energy boiling over inside her, she had to do something. It wasn’t as if she believed in it—of course she didn’t—but all the same, it would do no harm to try….
But wait! With any luck, it would do harm! That was the whole idea, wasn’t it? To do harm to Gerald—to her husband’s rival—harm which could not ever, by any possibility, be traced to her! If it worked—it wouldn’t, of course—but if it worked, then she, Phoebe, would at last have become what she had always longed to be—one of those wives to whom their husbands owe everything!
“Behind every successful man there is the love of a good woman”, she had once read—and it had hit her between the eyes. “The love of a good woman”—that’s what she’d been offering Peter all these years—and this time, he wouldn’t get the chance to ruin it! This time, her burgeoning altruism would be beyond the range of his doubts, his lack of drive, his craven reluctance to do battle in his own best interests …!
All the while these thoughts were going through her mind, her fingers were working, working, on the lumpish, multi-coloured ball in her hands. Pushing, pounding, moulding; forcing shape out of its doughy inertia, while her brain seethed with a strange expectancy….
It was years since she had last handled plasticine—not since her early childhood—and she had forgotten the intoxicating sense of power it gave you. How her white fingers flashed and swooped, bending the stuff to her will, forcing it to do her bidding!
Shoulders—chest—Gerald’s slim-built body was proving surprisingly easy to portray, and so were his neat, well-proportioned limbs. Why, the figure was even beginning to take on the elegant, band-box look so characteristic of the real-life Gerald!
And so uncharacteristic of her own husband, in spite of all her wifely efforts! At the thought of this contrast—of her own husband slopping about contentedly in any old garments that came to hand, while Mary’s was always such a credit to her—at this thought, Phoebe’s fingers flashed with new venom, putting the finishing touches to her masterpiece.
The face, she’d imagined, would be the hardest part—but in fact it seemed almost to mould itself under her hands. The long, sharp, foxy nose … the close-set eyes … the thin, calculating lips—gosh, the likeness was fantastic! She felt inspired. Fancy having had a talent like this within her all this time, waiting to be released by hatred!
By midday, the figure was finished, as perfect as she could make it. Lifting it gently, with both hands, she set it on the mantelpiece, and stood looking at it for a minute or two, gloating over its deadly perfection.
“This’ll teach you, Mr Gerald Can’t-Put-a-Foot-Wrong Mannering!” she whispered, right into the plasticine face; and she thought how lucky it was that she was alone, with no one to hear her. Lucky, too, that no visitors were expected—particularly none who actually knew the real-life Gerald. A likeness as perfect as this would take some explaining!
Nothing to do now but wait: wait until three o’clock. Or should it be half past?—if only she knew for certain whether Gerald or Peter was to be interviewed first!
Never mind. She’d start at three o’clock in any case, and if it chanced that Gerald was still waiting for his interview when the first pricking of unease began—well, so much the better! She pictured him sitting, already nervous and on edge, on the big leather settee outside the Board Room. Smart, and smug, and rehearsing his clever answers while he waited. Trying to feel cool, and relaxed, and sitting comfortably.
Then, she would begin.
Out of her workbox, she selected her longest, sharpest darning-needle, and put it ready.
And now, her preparations completed, she settled down to wait.
*
From time to time, as the slow minutes drifted past her, she reminded herself that of course it was all nonsense really, just a silly game. But in her heart she already knew that it wasn’t. Not now. Not any more.
And in the end, the clock striking three took her almost by surprise, so deep was she in reverie. Getting up from her chair was quite an effort, and her heart was beating strangely, as if with fear, as she made her way to the mantelpiece. She felt that she was moving slowly, in a sort of daze, but actually she must have been quite quick, for the last chime of the clock was only just dying away when she picked up the darning-needle, and began.
At first, she spoke only in a low mutter, for she felt oddly shy, and quite unaccustomed to this sort of thing. But gradually, as her lips got used to the phrases she had planned, so her voice grew stronger. It rose to a low, clear monotone, and as the power of it increased, so did her grip on the shuddering needle as it stabbed, and stabbed, and stabbed.
“May your voice falter when you try to speak!” she intoned, thrusting the needle deep into the plasticine mouth. “May your throat go dry, and your tongue fumble for words! When they ask you questions, may you stammer and become incoherent! May your head swim (here she stabbed, and stabbed again, at the narrow forehead) and may your mind fall into confusion! May your ideas, which you thought out so carefully, become jumbled and unclear: may your heart race, and your ears fail to take in the questions you are being asked (stab, stab, deep into the plasticine breast, and into the delicately-modelled ears)! May you gape, and mumble, and lose the thread of the argument; may you forget the facts and figures which you once knew so well! May you feel panic rising in you, may your hands sweat and your stomach churn!—(Jab, jab! Jab, jab!)! May your nerves snap … your control break … and may you find yourself shouting and storming … hurling insults at A.J. himself! May you … May you …!”—Phoebe’s imagination was at last beginning to falter—but then, suddenly, she remembered Gerald’s wife, Mary. Mary, who had given that successful dinner-party which Phoebe herself had so longed to give! Yes, let Mary get her come-uppance, too …!
“May you tell them that your wife has destroyed you!” she crooned softly to the battered figure on the mantelpiece; and her voice was like the voice of a woman in love. “May you tell them that your marriage is over, and yourself a broken man, ruined by the greed and selfishness of your wife! May you confess to them that divorce, disgrace, and breakdown are all that can await you; and then, finally, may you lose all self-control and burst into tears, sobbing and sniffling right there in the Board Room (jab, jab at what was left of the sharp nose and the carefully-moulded cheeks)—crying like a baby, in front of A.J. and all the …”
*
“Mummy! What’s happening?”
“Mummy, who was that talking? We thought there was a visitor, or something …!”
Jenny and Tim, still in their outdoor clothes and clutching their satchels, stood in the doorway, wide-eyed. Hell, why hadn’t she remembered that they finished school early on Fridays? How much had they heard?
Mercifully, children are credulous, and easily distractible.
“I was talking to Daddy,” Phoebe improvised boldly. “You remember, don’t you, that he promised he’d phone and let us know the result of that important interview he’s been having today? Well, he’s just rung up, and …”
She was saved from having to finish the sentence by a little shriek from Jenny.
“Mummy! Mummy! What a super little statue of Daddy you’ve made! Look, Tim, look! Isn’t it exactly like Daddy?”
Mystified, Phoebe glanced back at the battered figure on the mantelpiece. It had certainly lost some of its likeness to Gerald Mannering during the rough treatment it had received; the neat, tailored look was quite gone. The face, too, had suffered changes: the long, sharp nose had been pummelled into bluntness; the thin lips, pushed this way and that by the savage needle, had become wide and generous; the brow had broadened under the buffetting, and the shrewd, close-set eyes were now wide apart and guileless.
“Exactly like Daddy!” Tim agreed, admiringly; and just then the telephone really did begin to ring.
EPHEMERIDA
THE SCHOOLS PROGRAMMES are the one
s you like best once you are over ninety years old. Maybe the kids like them too—Euphemia wouldn’t know, she never came across any kids now, not since her arthritis had got so bad. She could hear them sometimes, down there in the sunshine, the shrieks and the catcalls as they came out of school, but she hadn’t spoken to any of them, not in years.
It was the stairs, that was the trouble. All those steep, dark flights down to the front door, it was years since she had been able to manage them. At the beginning, when her knees had first begun playing her up. Euphemia had found it impossible to believe that she would never get down those stairs again; never again see the sunshine, or feel it warm on her face. But by now, after all these years, it seemed the most natural thing in the world. It was a North room, you see, this bed-sitter of hers, and the sun never got round to it, not even in summer time. Funny, how you get used to things.
Leaning painfully forward from the bed—on which, nowadays, she half-sat, half-sprawled for most of the day—Euphemia fumbled at the knobs of the television; and in a moment the set was a-quiver with cold blue lines, blotting out all consciousness of the May sunshine that she would never see again. The lines darted, flickered, and settled into the comfortable, familiar pattern of kindly, distorted faces, smiling, grimacing, and mouthing incomprehensible syllables. Euphemia wished she could make out better what they were saying. Not that it mattered all that much, because what they were telling her was always wonderful, and, in a way, always the same.
Facts! All the lovely glittering facts of which she had been starved in childhood (leaving school at thirteen, and never a book in the house all through the years of her growing)—now they rattled about her head like rain, now that she was old, and could hardly take them in. Cavemen and Japanese art; volcanoes and Georgian poetry. Education fit for a royal prince now flowed through her brain like water, eighty years too late. And now a smiling man, opening and shutting his mouth like a kindly goldfish, was pulling petals systematically from a rose. Euphemia watched, entranced … and suddenly, the rose had changed to a yellow disk with tadpoles in it … or something … and still the kindly voice went on … and on … and … on. Yammer, yammer, yammer, ya-ah-ah—wonderful!
By Horror Haunted Page 12
