One Across, Two Down

by Ruth Rendell

  His nerves were in a bad way. His hands didn’t shake and he no longer had those attacks of sick fainting but something even more upsetting had happened to him. The twitch in his eye had become permanent.

  The twitching had come on again when Vera had questioned him about the girl’s visits. Then it had been in the muscles of his right eye. His eyelid jumped up and down especially when he was tired. Stanley went into the public library and looked up his symptoms in the medical dictionary he had first consulted when he had had designs on Maud. The dictionary said the twitching was commonly known as “live flesh” and was brought about by tiredness and worry but usually stopped after a short time. If it didn’t it might be more serious, an early sign, in fact, of some disease of the central nervous system.

  What, anyway, was a short time? Hours, days, weeks? There was no sign of this twitch abating and he’d had it for a fortnight now. The only time it stopped was when he was doing a crossword. The trouble with that as therapy was that he could now do the puzzle in ten minutes. Perhaps a better idea would be to begin at the other end, as it were, and make up crosswords himself.

  Two or three years before he had tried doing this but there was no peace with Maud always there in the evenings and he had given it up. Now it was different. Sitting in the shop, whiling away time between customers, he sketched out crossword frames on the pad Pilbeam and he used for their bills. Sometimes Pilbeam was out on the knock, sometimes tapping away in the little workshop at the back. His eye was obedient and still while he invented clues and slotted in the words, for the task was a challenge to his mental powers. It preoccupied him, often to the exclusion of all else, and he found himself devoting whole hours together to the problem of finding a word to fit blank, R, O, G, blank, blank, S, blank, blank, before finally coming up with prognosis.

  It was becoming something of an obsession, but Stanley knew it would go, just as the twitching would go, when the money came. Then he’d attend to the shop with real vigour, knowing that Pilbeam wouldn’t appear from the back every few minutes to make nasty cracks about people who couldn’t honour their obligations. Meanwhile, his crosswords were harmless enough and they kept his mind off the money and his eye from twitching.

  Nearly a month had passed after opening the joint account when a letter came for Vera from the bank. Stanley had already gone to work, muttering under his breath E, blank, G, H, blank, and quite unable as he had been for three days now to find a word to fit this five letter puzzle. He passed the postman but he was too involved with this apparently insoluble cypher even to suppose he might at last be bringing news from Finbow and Craig.

  The envelope was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Manning and Vera hesitated before opening it on her own but at last she did and a shiver of disbelief ran through her.

  Dear Mr. and Mrs. Manning,

  I am sorry to have to inform you that your joint current account is overdrawn to the sum of £35. I feel sure that you will wish to rectify this matter as soon as possible and am confident of receiving a remittance to cover the outstanding amount within the next few days.

  Yours sincerely,

  ARTHUR FRAZER (Manager).

  But it couldn’t be! She had only drawn cheques for the refrigerator and the washer and to pay the fuel bills. The account stood at five hundred pounds when opened and there ought to be at least three hundred and seventy there now. She had told Stanley to buy himself a suit, but he hadn’t Could it be a mistake? Oh, it must be. Did banks make mistakes? Everyone did sometimes, so banks must too.

  Again Vera was aware of her ignorance of so many of those matters the average person takes in his stride. Perhaps she had written one of those cheques wrongly, put in an extra nought. But wouldn’t the gas or the electricity people be honest about it? Or would they just hang on to what they’d got like Stanley had once when a greengrocer had handed him change for a fiver and not the single pound note he’d given him?

  Worse than that, could the bank prosecute her? Somewhere she remembered hearing that it was an offence, actually against the law, to write cheques that couldn’t be honoured. If only there was someone she could turn to, someone she could ask.

  Maud would have known. Vera looked desperately at the photograph of her mother on the wall. Maud had been a good business-woman, a marvellous manager, as sharp as any accountant, but Maud was dead. There was only Doris at the shop or Mrs. Blackmore or Mrs. Macdonald. Vera didn’t want any of those women knowing her business. It was bad enough their discussing her married life among themselves and Stanley’s deceit.

  She didn’t know anyone else, unless … Well, why not? James had said he was her friend. “Don’t let’s lose touch now, Vera,” he’d said. Of course, that was before she’d told him her husband was alive and living with her, and they had lost touch. Not a word had passed between them since she came back from Bray.

  But if she didn’t ask James, what was she going to do? Lose three hundred and seventy pounds? More than that, because she was overdrawn by another thirty-five.

  Almost distraught, Vera telephoned the dry-cleaner’s and told Doris she wouldn’t be in. She didn’t feel well, she said truthfully. There was no point in hesitating any longer, pacing up and down and re-reading that letter. Vera got out her address book and then she dialled the long string of numbers that would put her directly through to Brayminster.

  The bank wasn’t open yet and James was free. He seemed very pleased to hear Vera’s voice, not sad or disillusioned as he had been at their last encounter.

  “You’re not putting me out at all, Vee. Of course, I’ll give you any advice I can.”

  Rather haltingly and with many apologies for troubling him, Vera explained.

  “I see. What does your husband say?”

  It had never occurred to Vera to get in touch with Stanley.

  “I haven’t told him yet.”

  There was a short silence at the other end of the line. Then James said, “It’s a joint account, you say?”

  “Yes, but Stanley doesn’t need money. He’s in business, he’s doing well.”

  Why did James suddenly sound so sympathetic, so gentle?

  “I really think you should speak to your husband, Vee. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ve met Mr. Frazer once or twice and I’ll give him a ring now and say you’re a friend of mine and that you’ll be in to see him at eleven. Will that be all right? You’ll have time to get in touch with your husband first.”

  “You’re awfully kind, James.”

  “I’d do anything for you, Vee. You know that. Would you like me to lend you thirty-five pounds just to tide you over?”

  “I couldn’t think of it,” Vera said vehemently. “No, please, I didn’t want to speak to you for that.”

  “You’re welcome if you need it. Now, Vee, don’t worry. The bank has honoured these cheques so there’s no question of their being returned to drawer or anything of that sort. Mr. Frazer will be quite understanding. Just ask him to give you a statement and show you the cheques that have passed through your account. D’you understand?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Good. Nobody is going to lecture you or threaten you in any way. I suppose as a bank mamager I shouldn’t say this, but thousands upon thousands of people are overdrawn every month and they don’t even turn a hair. I only wish they would. Get in touch with me tomorrow, will you?”

  “I wouldn’t think of it,” said Vera.

  James said calmly, “Then I’ll phone you. Yes, I will. It’s been lovely talking to you, Vee. Give me that pleasure again tomorrow.”

  Vera felt a good deal better and very pleased that she had plucked up the courage to talk to James. But she wouldn’t be able to see Stanley before she went into the bank. He had told her he’d be out in the van till noon.

  She made up her face carefully in the way Mrs. Goodwin had taught her and put on the blue and white spotted dress. By five to eleven she was in a waiting room at the bank and after a few minutes Mr. Frazer himself put his hea
d round the door and invited her into his office. His manner was quite pleasant and cordial.

  “I had a call from your friend, Mr. Horton,” he said. “But you mustn’t ever be afraid to come and see me, Mrs. Manning.”

  Vera blushed hotly. What a fool they must both think her!

  “Perhaps you’d like to see your statement,” said Mr. Frazer.

  While it was being fetched he chatted easily about the weather and about Brayminster where he had once spent a holiday. Vera could only answer him in monosyllables. She felt anything but at ease. The bank had a serious air about it and she suddenly wondered if she was on the threshold of something immensely serious in a personal sense to herself.

  The statement was brought in by a girl clerk. Mr. Frazer sent her away and then he passed the statement with its batch of cheques enclosed over to Vera. He lit a cigarette but Vera shook her head when he offered one to her.

  It was the first time she had ever seen a bank statement and she didn’t understand it. Bewildered, she picked up the top cheque, expecting to find it as incomprehensible as the statement, and then she saw her own handwriting. It was the one she had sent to the Gas Board. I suppose they pay it into their bank, she thought, and the money’s marked to their credit there and then it somehow gets to my bank and they subtract the money from what I’ve got. Straightforward, really.

  Back to the statement. The Gas Board had their money all right but only because the bank had paid, not because she had the money. She hadn’t had any money before she’d written that cheque. She blushed again.

  Here was her cheque for the refrigerator and the washer and another one to the electricity people. Vera turned up the last but one. She drew in her breath sharply. Verity Vehicles, she read, two hundred and fifty pounds, £250.0.0, Stanley G. Manning. There was one more. To cash, £150. Stanley G. Manning.

  “My husband,” she stammered. “I’d forgotten … He did say … Oh, dear, I’m so sorry….”

  “Well, we like to think we don’t make many mistakes, Mrs. Manning.”

  “I’m the one who made the mistake,” Vera said and the words suddenly meant far more than just an apology for extravagance. “I’ll try to pay it back—well, next week. I don’t know how but I’ll try.”

  “My dear Mrs. Manning, we’re not bloodsuckers. You mustn’t be so upset. As long as you’ve managed to straighten matters out by the end of the month …”

  “You’re very kind,” said Vera. Everyone was very kind, very understanding, bending over backwards to help her because —because they pitied her so. And, of course, they knew what had happened. James had guessed from the start. Mr. Frazer had seen through her clumsy little covering up tactics. They all knew she was married to a man she couldn’t trust an inch.

  As soon as he saw Vera’s face, Stanley realised he was in trouble again. This time he wasn’t going to put up with being ignored, more or less sent to Coventry. He flung his coat over the back of a chair, scowled at Maud’s picture on the wall—she might as well be still alive for all the good her death had done him—and said:

  “I suppose those bloody interfering women have been giving you a few more details about my so-called girl friend.”

  “I haven’t seen Mrs. Blackmore or Mrs. Macdonald today.”

  “What is it, then?”

  Vera poured herself a cup of tea and sipped it in silence. Silence, thought Stanley. “Permission is possibly quiet.” Anagram on “licence” … God, he’d have to control himself, not keep seeing every word as part of a crossword puzzle. For the first time in their married life Vera had helped herself to a cup of tea without pouring one for him.

  “What’s up with you?” he said, his nerves on edge.

  Vera turned round. She looked old and ugly, deep shadows ringing her eyes, deep lines scored from nose to mouth. “I may as well have it out,” she said. “I’ve been to the bank this morning. I had a letter from the manager.”

  “Oh, that.”

  “Yes, that. Is that all you can say?”

  “Look Vee, you said I could have some of the money. You said, buy yourself anything you want.”

  “I said a suit or any little thing you wanted. I didn’t say draw out four hundred pounds. Stan, I don’t mind you having the money. But couldn’t you have told me? You wanted it for the business, didn’t you? Couldn’t you have just said? Did you have to make me look a fool in front of the bank manager and nearly worry myself to death?”

  “You said you wouldn’t write any more cheques. How was I to know you’d start paying bills?” Why was she staring at him like that? Her eyes were fixed on him so that he had to look away.

  “What’s wrong with your eye?” she said coldly.

  “Nothing. The muscles keep jumping, that’s all. It’s my nerves.”

  Silence again. Then Vera said, “We can’t go on like this, can we? God knows, I didn’t want Mother to die, but when she was dead, I thought—I thought things would be better. I thought we’d have a proper marriage like other people. It hasn’t worked that way, has it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re on about,” said Stanley, edging his way into the dining room. He sat down on the sofa and began doodling on a sheet of paper. Vera followed him. “Look, I’m sorry about the money, but there’s no need to make a song and dance about it. I can easily get it back out of the business.”

  “Can you, Stan? We haven’t seen much out of the business yet, have we? Come to that, I don’t even know there is a business. You haven’t taken me to the shop or introduced me to Mr. Pilbeam or …”

  “Do me a favour,” said Stanley huffily. His eye was opening and shutting like an umbrella. “Can’t you take my word for it?”

  Vera laughed. “Take your word? Stan, you can’t be serious. I can’t take your word for anything. You just say the first thing that comes into your head. Truth or lies, it’s all the same to you. I don’t think you know the difference any more. And Stan, I can’t bear it. I can’t bear to be left in the dark and humiliated and deceived just because doing that to me is easier for you than telling the truth. I’d—I’d rather be dead or not with you.”

  Stanley hadn’t paid much attention to all this. Vera’s remark about his eye had affected him more than all her analysis of his shortcomings. Drawing a crossword puzzle frame and inserting a couple of words, he had heard nothing since then but her last sentence. It leapt at him like a red warning light.

  Alarmed, he said, “What d’you mean, not with me?”

  “When people reach the stage we’ve reached, they separate, don’t they?”

  “Now, look, Vee, don’t you talk like that. You’re my wife. And all this—well, it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other. If I keep you in the dark it’s on account of the way you nag me. A man can’t stand nagging.” Can’t stand, either, having no control over his own face. Stanley covered up his eye and felt the lid jerk against his hand. “You’re my wife, like I said, and have been for twenty years. There’s a good time coming, Vee, I promise you. We’ll both be in clover by the end of the year and …”

  She stared at him even harder.

  “Do you love me?”

  What a question! What a thing to ask a man when he was tired and worried and maybe on the verge of Parkinson’s Disease. “Of course I do,” Stanley muttered.

  Her face softened and she took his hand. Stanley dropped his pencil reluctantly and laid his other hand on her shoulder. His eye was aching. For a long time Vera said nothing. She held his hand tightly and then, without letting it go, sat down beside him. Stanley fidgeted nervously.

  “We’ll have to make a fresh start,” Vera said suddenly.

  He sighed with relief. A fresh start. “Beginning with a new jump”? Surreptitiously he felt among the cushions for his pencil. That S could be the S in business, the word going down. “After public transport I’m on a Scottish loch….”

  “Yes, we’ll have to start again,” Vera said. “We’ll both have to make an effort, Stan, but that won’t be so har
d now we’ve got all this money coming to us.”

  Stanley smiled at her, his eye quite normal.

  “We’ll sell this house and buy a new one and we’ll scrap all this old furniture. Mother would have liked to see us in a modern house.” That “us,” Stanley thought, was a mere courtesy. Maud would have liked to see him in a modern concentration camp. “And we’ll have proper holidays together and a car. I’ll promise never to nag you again if you’ll promise to be open with me. But I have to trust you, Stan. You do see that?”

  “I’ll never tell another lie to you, Vee, as long as I live.”

  She stared at him, wishing she could believe what he said, that at last he was being sincere. Stanley returned her gaze glassily. He had thought of his word. E, blank G H blank. Eight, of course, the only English word surely to fit that particular combination. And all day long he’d been wondering if he could alter the H to O—change the word across from phone to Poona—and make 18 down ergot. Triumphantly Stanley wrote in “eight” and beside it, “One over it is too many drinks.”

  18

  The bill came in from the decorators and someone had written across the top of it: “Prompt settlement will be appreciated.” They would have to take their appreciation elsewhere. Stanley didn’t at all appreciate the demand for £175, instead of the fifty Pilbeam had spoken of so confidently. Vera and he, making their fresh start, sat side by side on the sofa, studying the market. Euro-American Tobacco had dropped a couple of points overnight. Stanley’s eye fluttered lightly, then began a rhythmic blinking.

  “You want to put some more money into the business, don’t you, Stan? I only hope it’ll be safe.”