‘I expect she is well used to it,’ smiles Miss Benson. ‘Difficult old people.’
‘Unpleasant, cantankerous old people.’
‘Yes, well, I expect she is used to them.’
‘And I would be grateful, Miss Benson, if you would refrain from mentioning the latest interest in the flat to my mother. There is no point in distressing her further.’
‘Certainly not. Of course I wouldn’t dream of it,’ says Miss Benson, gratefully gripping the iron stair-rail leading up to the first floor because she senses this difficult exchange is over. Mrs Peacock is right, Mrs Rendell is a difficult woman—although perhaps she does have reasons for treating her mother in such an unsympathetic manner. Miss Benson might be a timid soul but she is also stubborn; how often these two personal traits accompany each other. So it’s in a firmer frame of mind, not slightly intimidated now, that Miss Benson, with a banging heart because she cannot bear confrontations, lets herself into her flat at last, absolutely determined to overcome any obstacles in order to give her poor old neighbour a treat she will remember.
TWELVE
‘Joyvern’, 11, The Blagdons, Milton, Devon
‘WELL, VERNON, DO WE accept the Middletons’ offer or do we not?’
Vernon tries to curb his impatience. ‘Joy, we have no alternative.’
‘But it’s ten thousand less than we’re asking.’
‘We are lucky to get an offer at all.’
‘We won’t have enough left over to pay the bills.’
‘We will if we’re careful and if we don’t immediately start wasting money on new carpets and curtains in the flat. Remember, if they accept our offer of forty we’ll be getting a bargain, too.’
‘But will they accept it?’
‘I am sure they will. The old lady’s in a home anyway. They won’t want it left empty.’
‘No, not in that area they won’t. Oh God, that grotty little flat.’
Vernon sighs. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that area, Joy. Anyone would think we were moving into some inner city tenement.’
‘Well, sometimes it feels like that. I mean, I never thought we’d be sharing a flat, like a couple of students, not like a middle-aged married couple. D’you realise, Vernon, that the adverts for cruises and Estée Lauder make-up and private hospital care, all these luxury items are aimed at people like us with their children gone, couples who are supposed to be able to sit back at our age and relax and enjoy their savings. But we don’t have any savings…’
‘Well, I realise that, Joy. I do realise that.’
And ten minutes later. ‘So we’re accepting the Middletons’ offer, are we? Funny really, I could have sworn they didn’t like it and they only came round the once. A strange family, giving nothing away.’
‘Too right we are,’ says he, turning on her with a worried frown. Worry is ageing him prematurely, he is already too fat, he smokes and now he fears he is going bald. The top of his head seems more bare and shiny than usual. When he washed his hair this morning, amongst the green seaweedy shampoo there clung some mysterious weed which refused to go down the plughole. Further investigation showed the weed to be strands of his own hair come unattached in the rubbing motion. Soon he will be one of those men who place odd strands across their heads. His body is warning him this can’t go on.
‘And we’re going to put up with that flat and live in it exactly how it is now, is that it, Vernon? No new lino, no fresh paint, no decent cushion covers and it stinks of smoke… that old woman must have been quite disgusting with her habit.’
‘Yes, Joy, I’m afraid that it is. Anyway, I liked the colours. Calming pastels. They seemed perfectly acceptable to me.’
Damn, damn, damn. Poor Joy does not know if she can endure. If only Vernon was more assertive they could have bid for that lovely old ruin and told everyone they saw it as a challenge, a perfect country cottage for two with a vegetable plot and an ancient well, just right for his retirement. They’d be the envy of their friends, they’d be buying a brand new lifestyle.
Watching for clues, as soon as the SOLD sign goes up the neighbours will come round asking for the latest news. They are bound to. She knows they will. Their questions pain her already; already she has taken to peering out of the front bedroom window to make sure if it’s friend or foe before she opens the door. Gets her story ready.
Already Joy is in danger of being snared in the web of her own lies. ‘This place is too big for the two of us now,’ she is so weary of saying. ‘Three big bedrooms and all that wasted space in the roof. No, it’s only fair we move on and a younger family take the place on. And we’d really prefer somewhere quieter, you know, off the beaten track a bit.’
Wait till everyone hears they are outcasts going to live in the middle of Swallowbridge, that ugly and godforsaken suburb right on a big main road. Nobody must know. She must make sure Vernon keeps his mouth shut, lies if necessary. After all, there’s no need to see any of these people again. They can make new friends, can’t they, although what sort of people might befriend the residents of Albany Buildings it is difficult to imagine. Certainly not the sort of people Vernon and Joy are used to—middle class, middle of the road, middle management, middle minded.
‘Mrs Rendell was a perfectly polite, nice person when she showed us round,’ argues Vernon. ‘And you can’t deny that, Joy. For goodness sake, what are you so afraid of? I’m not worried about moving at all. All I will feel is an enormous relief. Freedom from stress at dear last.’
And he does deserve freedom from stress. Vernon has been so brave, battling on like he has week after week. She is so worried about his health. Perhaps he will lose some weight now. Well, what is Joy so afraid of? Is it fear that makes her heart ache so? Or is it loss of face?
If only she had a family who might come along and bail her out.
If only they could win the lottery.
But two days later, watching from her window with a sinking heart, Joy sees the man from the agents come to stick the SOLD sign over the old FOR SALE, like offending litter in the tidy front garden of the sanctuary which used to be her house. She watches from the shelter of her bedroom like a tight knot, rigid. And what will Suzie and Tom say when they find out where their parents are going?
‘I don’t know, it’s all so terribly complicated,’ she explains evasively when Adele Mason from The Arches, yes, that opinionated creature, comes snooping around that very morning. Typical, the first of the sharks to taste the blood of the Marshes’ mortification. Didn’t she have better things to do than harass an already over-harassed woman? ‘We are having to rent this awful flat while Vernon renovates the cottage, but it’ll be well worth the inconvenience in the end, I’m sure. We’ve always wanted a cottage in the country and this will be a real picture postcard when it’s done! Vernon is so excited about it, like a little boy with a box of Lego for Christmas, you should hear his ideas!’
Oh dear, she has probably said too much when all she intended was to be interestingly vague. But here is Joy, stranded upstream in the shallow tributaries of human existence, floundering but still trying. She will never give up. She just prays that Vernon will go along with her little white lie. Perhaps he will if she begs him.
But instead of sitting back satisfied, Adele slyly presses for details.
Joy is driven to fetch the brochure from the drawer in the kitchen.
‘This is it. What do you think?’
The brochure is more than flattering. You wouldn’t recognise the ruinous building from the carefully rose-coloured picture put out by the agents, and luckily there is no price on the cover so Joy ups it to £90,000.
‘A little gem!’ Adele reads out loud, glancing sideways at Joy, cool and provocative as usual and smelling of olive oil, garlic and crushed sweet herbs from her kitchen. This woman touches too much; an invader of space, she is forever leaning over somebody’s shoulder so they can smell what a good cook she is. ‘With a well and old beams and a twisting staircase and a bread oven
in the fireplace! My word, Joy, it sounds absolutely marvellous, if that is the sort of thing you are into. Although to be honest Ted wouldn’t want to have to start coping with a white elephant like that. The Blagdons houses are so easy to run, so convenient, so in demand. Well look, everyone reckoned you wouldn’t sell but you did, and in this sort of market. It’s amazing really when you think.’
Has she backed herself into a corner?
No doubt, as a result of Vernon’s earlier blabbing Angela and Bob have been spreading the dirt.
They might have been able to cling on at The Blagdons if Joy had kept her job at the boutique, although Vernon says that’s nonsense. When he ventured into the world of small business it seemed as if he’d need a secretary, someone to answer the phone and do the letters and keep the books, and Joy couldn’t wait to stop work and stay at home surrounded by beautiful things all day. A fatal mistake, of course, just another mistake among hundreds. When you are young you can make thousands of silly mistakes and survive, but the older you get the more effect they seem to have.
Terrified by their impending plight she’d tried to get her old job back, but without success. She’d then applied for countless others, but they all wanted somebody young and cheap.
‘Stressful or not, you’ll need a car, Joy, being so far off the beaten track.’ And Adele polishes her sunglasses if you please, then twiddles them round her finger. So fake. Such a poseur. Intent on the titbits of life like Joy picks up crumbs and tissues and matches and coasters, but whereas Joy clears them all up, Adele thrives on the sight of them. ‘No regular public transport any more like here.’
‘Now that Vernon is able to retire early we think we might buy one of those Jeeps, you know. I must say that Frontiera looks very nice,’ says Joy shortly.
‘That’s another thing,’ says Adele and her hair is as hard as her inquisitive eyes. ‘I never did understand why you didn’t sell that thriving business of Vernon’s as an on-going concern, instead of letting it run down like that. Surely you could have made a bomb.’
Joy waves a haughty arm. Her voice is super-rational. ‘Oh, it’s all to do with tax avoidance. I don’t really understand, but we think it is probably sensible to follow our accountant’s advice, wouldn’t you, dear, in our position?’ And she cannot hold herself back from adding this extraordinary remark, ‘There is such a thing as too much money, you know.’
Neat is the code round here, which is why the red-haired Adele with her dangly earrings, her creamy silk blouse under that cashmere cardigan—obviously new—has never truly managed to assimilate no matter how superior she might consider herself to be. And she’s been caught making eyes at other people’s husbands. Today she wears large square-cut earrings of amethyst, much too big for her face. She and her husband Ted imagine they are top of the tree but you don’t get accepted by folk at The Blagdons by wearing sexy sunglasses and calling them shades or revving up your sports car when you’re just off to the shops for an hour. And when all’s said and done, that’s only a Triumph with the roof down. He’s only got a job laying cables and she is a massage therapist whatever that might mean. You don’t need a dog that looks like an ornament with a pretentious name like a Borzoi. At Christmastimes, Adele and Ted overdo the decorations and the hospitality in a most inappropriate manner—their house was a Disneylike fantasy of blue and silver last year—you don’t need gold-plated chalices from the Reader’s Digest to drink from, nor do you need a tree in the garden with lights on when you’ve got one in the hall. There was far too much food, what a waste. The mulled wine was far too spicy. Common, is what Joy calls them and common, therefore, is how they are perceived by everyone else in the cul-de-sac. Of course, with her limited imagination the buck-toothed Adele would not appreciate the subtleties of a cottage in the country. It is impossible to make such an uncultured person envious of Joy’s new lifestyle.
And anyway, why should Joy bother?
But she decides she must go out for the day before somebody else comes poking and prying.
Joy stands and frets at the bus stop lest somebody sees her.
Glass, glitter, glamour and soft music plays. Joy is not in a hurry. Some people eat, some smoke, some buy clothes and some have habits that are far more dangerous, you read about them in the People. At least shopping will be easier once the house sale is complete. Joy can’t help herself browsing through the boutiques and stores in the city’s main precinct even though she knows she is not able to buy, not yet. Soon, she thinks with an aching relief, soon she can get out her magic chequebook again. But at this stage she daren’t even try anything on for fear of that old compulsive need. She might find herself on the pavement with a carrier bag on her arm.
But, oh dear, how dowdy she looks when she catches a glimpse of herself in a mirror. How dowdy and old and cowed by restraint. She backtracks and returns to the mirror, stands there staring at herself, sauntering, posing, even unconsciously pouting. Something new… doesn’t she deserve a present to celebrate their unexpected good fortune, after all she has suffered over the months and years even, worrying about Vernon and Marsh Electronics?
There. She seems to be breathing more easily.
She has been a good wife and mother, hasn’t she?
A brand-new outfit is like being born again, turning into a brand-new self with a whole set of new chances. Approval. A gold star. And nosy neighbours will notice her new self-assurance. A positive image at this most critical, time. If she uses her Access card, Vernon won’t know for over a month and by that time they will probably have the Middletons’ deposit. She will have no need to face that hurt, disappointed look in his eye. He might even smile and understand. But even if they haven’t, the bank will know they have sold ‘Joyvern’ and will be happy to accommodate a temporarily increased overdraft.
Until then, Vernon’s not likely to search through her drawers. Hell, he’s not that sort of man.
I’m not dead yet, thinks Joy.
Once she starts she feels herself shaking like a dipso and it’s almost impossible to stop. She hurries down Gandy Street, nearly tripping over the cobbles in her new and energetic haste. One garment naturally leads to another—she must have a good coat for this winter and those long flowing black ones are clearly the rage. She speeds up, moving frantically in and out of the shops and pecking about like a crazed hen after grain. Jaeger have an attractive selection, and that suede waistcoat, she’ll have a look at that while she’s at it, and she hasn’t any suitable boots, she needs long ones in black, preferably Italian, and how about gloves for when she’s in town? She likes to be flattered and admired by all the grovelling assistants, and told how attractive she looks. She’s taken in by all the sham, she knows it is sham but she falls for it every time, it boosts her fragile underpinnings. However briefly, however dementedly, she is back in control again. She snatches up designer scarves, pieces of glittering jewellery from Liberty, she grabs them before anyone else can have them, she wants to shout MINE, ALL MINE.
She is not a fussy shopper. She does not dilly-dally, or need confirmation that she’s made the right choice. Joy Marsh knows what she likes. She knows what she needs and at this moment, intoxicated still, she needs a few more items of make-up. She is still going when the shops start to close at five-thirty, still savagely defying the world. Crawling determinedly on for she knows that good clothes make a woman visible.
She has to queue to get on a bus, she climbs awkwardly on, top-heavy with her purchases. The man beside her rubs his beard and frowns at her as she struggles with her bags—does he know? Does his wife do this to him, too? It’s like being unfaithful. If he was a gentleman he wouldn’t look so damn sanctimonious, he would get up and give her a hand. But by now she feels sick, bloated, satiated, worn out with the gorging and weak with the worry. Her spirit moves in an infinite waste. What if the house purchase falls through? Lost, now, and frightened by her own reckless behaviour, Joy tastes despair like the bitterest bile in her throat as she huddles there under her bag
gage trying to make herself as small as possible. All that terrible urgency’s over. She shakes with a nervous reaction. She’s landed herself in real trouble now. There’s no fun any more and she might as well throw all her precious buyings straight out of the window for all the pleasure they give her now. What would Vernon say if he knew? She’d better have sex with him tonight, good sex, to make it up.
The Ford is in the drive. Just as she fears, Vernon is home before she is.
So Joy creeps round to the back and sneaks her purchases into the cedar gazebo before she lets herself in the door.
Just to see him there is a reprimand. He is sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his hands. But a man’s face in repose is meant to be serious, isn’t it? When he sees her he looks up and tries to smile.
‘All right?’ she asks, dreading the worse, the latest worst.
Vernon nods. ‘I’m a little tired,’ he says wearily. ‘Just sorting through the essential bills that have to be paid. The electric. The gas. And I think the car clutch sounds as if it’s going… God knows if Norman Mycroft is going to honour these cheques.’ He looks up at her sadly as if this is all her fault. ‘We’ll just have to risk it—we don’t have any choice.’
‘We don’t seem to have any choice over anything at all any more,’ snaps Joy, sick with guilt. He is punishing her for crimes he is unaware of and that’s just not fair. She directs her nervous eyes to the chequebook. ‘And I’m cheesed off with it.’
‘You and me both,’ says Vernon, shaking his head heavily, as if he knows very well that she has just taken the kind of steps which could lead him, at fifty-two years old, into the world of the cold and hungry, the unwashed, the lame, the sick and the terrified homeless. Maybe Joy should attempt to torch the house. At least, if Vernon has kept the insurance payments going, they might receive more than the wretched Middletons are offering to pay.
What is she doing to him?
She sits down gingerly in the chair directly opposite. ‘I’ve brought you some liver from Marks,’ she says. ‘Liver and onion with gravy, and summer pudding and cream to follow.’
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