Pretty Lady

by Marian Babson

  ‘I’ll slip into something comfortable,’ she had said, ‘while you fix yourself a drink. I’ll be right back.’

  He was surprised when she was. Still holding the decanter, he turned to her. ‘Would you like a drink – ?’ He stopped abruptly, with a foolish beam. ‘Or would it be bad for -?’

  ‘Not this early,’ she said quickly. He seemed dubious and faintly disappointed. ‘But perhaps,’ she recovered smoothly, ‘we ought to start as we mean to go on. If you could have Ethel bring me a glass of milk -?’ She might as well humour him. This performance, after all, was strictly a one-night stand.

  ‘I’ll get it myself,’ he said eagerly.

  The calm, practised smile didn’t fade from her face, even when he left the room. She walked over to the window, looking out and down, still smiling blithely.

  It was too early, of course. In the blackness of the night, the liquid black of the river glittered in the light from the street lamps.

  When would he come? Would he come at all? She pushed that thought out of her mind. She had planned too carefully, waited too long, to fail now. He had to come. Tonight.

  She looked down the empty street, willing him to come, as though the sheer force of her concentration would summon him to her.

  But it was undoubtedly too early, despite the darkness. She had no idea where he lived, what his home circumstances were, how easy it would be for him to leave his home, who watched over him, and how well they watched. All unknowns, all imponderables.

  She must be mad! She felt the sudden overwhelming panic again. What was she doing, placing her trust in a – a daftie? Letting the burden of her plan fall on shoulders unfit to carry it?

  Perhaps she should call it off. Change her mind. Send Denny away, if he showed up. Try a reasoned, reasonable approach to Keith about a divorce –

  ‘Here you are, then.’ He stood proudly in the doorway, bearing a tall glass of milk on a silver tray. ‘Good – and good for you, as they say. Eh, lass?’ He moved towards her.

  No. She abandoned the brief, abortive plan. He would never let her go. Especially now, when he believed she was bearing his child.

  There could never be a divorce. She had slammed that door herself when she had let him believe the lie.

  There was nothing to do but go ahead with her original plan. Had she ever intended anything else? A divorce wouldn’t give her enough money. This fluttering panic was simply a form of stage-fright – she had some tricky scenes ahead of her. It was a case of first-night nerves, that was all.

  ‘Thank you, darling.’ She took the glass of milk and raised it to him before drinking. His face glowed with delight.

  ‘That’s the spirit, lass.’ He reached for his own drink and joined her. ‘To us.’ His arm circled her waist, his hand patted her stomach gently. ‘All of us.’

  She kept smiling.

  ‘Anyone who marries for money earns it,’ her mother had always said smugly, secure in the delusion that she was happy in her slum because ‘love’ was – or had been – there. Despising her for the platitude and the delusion, the constant cheap sentimentality, Merelda made her own choice ... earned her money. It was the continuing to earn it, through the long years stretching out ahead, she shrank from ... would not face.

  ‘Aah, lass –’ he looked out at the glittering river view – ‘we’ve come a far piece from our beginnings, both of us. We’ve got a wonderful life to offer our children. They’ll never have to go through the struggles we’ve had. It’s all here, waiting for them.’

  She moved away, smoothly and unhurriedly. Back in command of herself. Act III, Scene I. The panic was over, just as suddenly, she was sure that Denny would come.

  ‘I think I ought to rest a bit.’ She sank gracefully into an armchair, curling her feet up.

  ‘Good idea, good idea. Shall I get you a blanket? Anything you’d like?’

  Only the entrance of Denny ... with the gun. Smiling, she shook her head.

  ‘The television? The hi-fi? Yes, we’ll put some records on.’ He looked up from the record rack, radiant with a new thought. ‘We’ll have to get some more records – nursery rhymes, stories and such-like. For the baby.’

  ‘There’s plenty of time yet.’ She smiled, indulging him. His time was nearly gone.

  Denny was on the way.

  SHEILA

  She was later than she had intended to be. First, she had gone past the doctor’s surgery, but it was dark and closed. That meant she’d have to try in the morning, after all.

  Then the library – and the last person in the world she felt like encountering again today. Aunt Vera. Voluble and vociferous, and not to be denied. Not to be shaken off, either.

  Vera was beside her now, insistent on coming back home with her to see how Mum was feeling after her visit to the doctor. It was no use telling her Mum had gone to bed early and wouldn’t like to be disturbed.

  ‘I won’t disturb her. I’ll just peek in, and if she’s not awake, I’ll come right out again.’

  Translated, Sheila knew, that meant Vera would hover in the doorway, shuffling her feet and clearing her throat until Mum woke. Once her rest had been disturbed, Mum often didn’t get back to sleep again that night. You’d think Aunt Vera would realize that, being a nurse. But Sheila had often noticed that people in medicine had one code for their patients and quite another for their families.

  “Honestly, Aunt Vera –’ she had to try – ‘it would be better to let Mum sleep tonight-'

  ‘Didn’t I just say I would?’ There were times – becoming more frequent recently – when every conversational road with Vera led to an argument

  ‘If she’s taken her pill, I suppose she won’t wake up, anyway.’ It was surrender – and Vera knew it. She pounced triumphantly.

  ‘Of course she won’t. And I’ll sleep better for satisfying myself that she’s all right. She gave us all a nasty turn today. Collapsing like that. She ought to –’

  Disconnecting her attention (she’d heard it all before – or else something so nearly like it that she could make responses in the right places without even noticing that she was doing so), Sheila turned the corner abruptly. As though, by veering sharply enough, she could cause Vera to break away and go spinning out of her orbit.

  Hopeless, of course. Her footsteps quickened, but that was hopeless, too. Vera kept pace effortlessly. Sheila forced herself to slow down, she was almost running. That was silly. As silly as this ridiculous feeling sweeping over her that something was wrong somewhere.

  They turned a final corner. Sheila made one last desperate attempt to throw off Vera. ‘Would you like to stop and -'

  ‘The door’s open!’ Vera said. ‘You went out and left the front door open!’

  ‘No!’ Sheila denied she had left the front door open, tried to deny that it was open at all. But the sharp sliver of light cut into the night like a sword blade. The door was open. Something was wrong.

  They were both running now, not wasting any more words. In a last-minute spurt, Sheila outdistanced Vera and gained the hallway ahead of her. A biscuit crunched underneath her feet as she entered.

  ‘How you could have been so careless –’ Vera would always have enough breath left to scold. ‘Thieves could have come in and carried away the whole house –’ She looked around, obviously dissatisfied that the house was still there, that nothing was even missing from the hallway.

  Still dissatisfied, she peered hopefully into the parlour.

  If I didn’t leave the front door open – and I didn’t – the thought formed reluctantly in Sheila’s mind – then who did?

  There could be only one answer. Denny.

  Vera whirled suspiciously, plucking the thought out of the air. ‘Where’s Denny?’ she demanded.

  ‘In his room.’ Sheila hoped it was the truth. ‘I suppose,’ she added weakly.

  ‘We’ll see about that.’ Vera started up the stairs. Sheila had to follow, praying that Denny would be there.

  He wasn’t, of course
. How else could the door have been open?

  ‘I knew it!’ Vera said. ‘It’s come to this!’ Her tone put Denny out lurking in some bushes, intent upon ravishment and rape.

  ‘Nothing of the sort!’ Sheila flared to his defence, but keeping her voice low, mindful of Mum’s closed door. Mum needed all the rest she could get. With luck, this might be sorted out without disturbing her.

  ‘Where is he, then? I always warned Polly this would happen some day. Letting him have his head as much as she did, letting him roam anywhere in the city –’ She started for the closed bedroom door with the light of righteous battle in her eyes.

  ‘Aunt Vera.’ Sheila stepped in front of her. ‘Please, Aunt Vera, let Mum sleep. Denny won’t have gone far – not at this hour. He’s afraid of the dark. We can find him ourselves.’

  She watched. Vera hesitated, torn between the desire for an immediate confrontation with her sister-in-law and the thought of the additional satisfaction she would find in bursting into the bedroom with the errant Denny in tow. Aunt Vera didn’t realize it yet, but she wasn’t going to get into Mum’s bedroom tonight, except over Sheila’s dead body.

  ‘He can’t have gone far,’ Sheila said again, enticingly. ‘Look, there’s his empty cup of cocoa. And he’d been in bed. It’s been slept in. Perhaps he just thought he heard a bird chirping that had fallen out of its nest, or a puppy crying, and went out to look.’ There had been a time when they’d had trouble with him over things like that. It might be starting up again.

  ‘That's nonsense,’ Vera sniffed. ‘Polly ought to know immediately –’

  ‘But it wouldn’t be nonsense to Denny. It’s just the sort of thing he worries about when he wakes up at night. Come on.’ Sheila moved towards the stairs. ‘We’ll go out and check the yard, and up and down the street.’

  Vera began to move, then stopped, her snapping eyes fixed on the bedside table. ‘He’s getting destructive, too,’ she said portentously. ‘Look at that table. He’s scrawled all over it. I tell you, he’s taken some kind of fit, and Polly –’

  ‘You know she. ought to sleep.’

  ‘Ah, but is she sleeping? She might be lying awake in there. In which case, it won’t do her any harm to get up and help us find him.’

  The first part of it was true. Mum might be lying awake in there, shrinking from the sound of Vera’s voice. Hiding, trusting to Sheila to get rid of Vera for the night.

  ‘Look,’ Sheila said desperately, ‘I’ll just peek inside the door and see if she is asleep. If she isn’t, all right. But, if she is, then we’ll let her rest and try to find Denny ourselves first. All right?’

  ‘All right,’ Vera said grudgingly, still brooding over the chalked-up bedside table. ‘And that will get ground into the carpet.’ She swooped on fragments of tawny-gold chalk, sweeping them into her hand and depositing them on the table. ‘I know you and Polly don’t like to think that you can’t manage him by yourselves, but the time is coming when you’re going to have to face facts and be sensible.’ She began rubbing at the chalk scrawls. ‘There’s no excuse for this sort of behaviour, it’s some sort of regression. Once, you had all this destructiveness trained out of him.’

  Heart sinking (might it be true? Denny used to be so good about property), Sheila opened Mum’s door noiselessly and stood just outside, listening.

  She’d been prepared to lie, to protect Polly from Aunt Vera (she’d had enough of her for one day), but it wasn’t necessary. Mum’s deep, heavy breathing was proof that she was honestly in a sound slumber, the slumber she needed so badly. That was good. Vera should not disturb her tonight

  ‘She’s sound asleep.’ Sheila closed the door firmly behind her, prepared to protect Mum’s precious slumber by force, if necessary. God send that it might not be necessary – Aunt Vera would never forgive rough hands laid upon her. Nor let anyone forget them, either. ‘Let’s go downstairs and see if Denny’s outside. He’ll be somewhere nearby.’ She spoke with a confidence she did not entirely feel.

  ‘He’d better be.’ Vera reluctantly descended the stairs with her. The front door was still invitingly ajar; but Denny, if he was out there, hadn’t accepted the invitation. They were going to have to hunt for him. And he might be anywhere – a fact she was not prepared to admit to Vera.

  ‘You go that way,’ Sheila said, as they paused outside the gate, ‘and I’ll cross the street and circle the block the other way. He’ll be around here somewhere.’

  Vera sniffed disbelievingly. ‘If I find him, I’ll give him a piece of my mind. Running off like this, causing us all this worry and grief. He used to know better, but he’s ...’ Her voice faded away as she moved off.

  Sheila crossed the street, straining her eyes against the darkness. Denny, Denny, where are you? Don’t let it be true any of what Aunt Vera’s thinking. Oh, God! – please don’t let it be true!

  She turned the corner, the street was empty. So deserted there might never have been anyone on it. Even the houses seemed empty and withdrawn, few showing any lights, and those few illumined only by the eerie blue glow of a television screen.

  She was shivering now, not just with the cold. Suppose they didn’t find him, where could they begin to look?

  Of course –she tried for calm common sense –he’d come home on his own –eventually. There was no real reason for this terrifying sense of urgency. It was just that

  Vera was kicking up such a fuss. Right now, Vera was planning to burst in on Mum, startle her out of the first good night’s sleep she’d had in weeks, and create a scene. And that – Sheila’s mouth tightened – just couldn’t be allowed to happen.

  She had turned another corner and, ahead of her, saw the dark outline of a man. A big man, tall enough to be Denny, and with something familiar about him.

  She started to run. On tiptoe, so as not to frighten him. Poor Denny, in the darkness every unexpected sound was a new menace to him. It was a wonder that he had brought himself to go out at all.

  Keeping her eyes on him, she slowed, then stopped. Something was wrong. She’d let hope deceive her. She stood there and watched him crossing the street.

  He walked slowly, but confidently, his arms swinging slightly at his side, his steps controlled and precise. A man who walked like that was a man who knew where he was going and why. A man who walked like that was all of a piece.

  It wasn’t Denny’s walk.

  She turned the final corner. That street was empty, too. As she neared her own street, she could see Vera approaching it from the opposite direction. Vera saw her, too, but didn’t pause to wait for her, just kept hurrying along. Was Vera going to try to get to Mum before she could reach the house herself?

  Sheila broke into a run again, not caring how much noise she made this time, but Vera was standing in the doorway.

  'No sign of him,’ she said. ‘I told you so!’

  ‘He wouldn’t have gone far,’ Sheila said stubbornly. ‘Perhaps he’s come back while we’ve been gone.’

  ‘I don’t believe that’ Vera said, ‘and neither do you. It’s time to wake Polly and let her know what’s going on. If we don’t, and something happens, she’ll never forgive us.’

  Because that was true, too, Sheila looked up the stairs, aching to see Denny smiling sleepily like a naughty child at the top. Longing for it all to turn out to be just a tempest I in a teapot – which it could never be with Aunt Vera intent on mixing it.

  ‘Can’t we at least look?’ Sheila insisted. Disregarding Vera’s shrug of scepticism, she walked over to glance into the parlour and then, snapping on the light, the kitchen, before returning to join Vera in the hallway. Vera hadn’t moved.

  ‘He might be upstairs,’ Sheila said, ‘back in his own room. He wouldn’t know we’d been looking for him.’

  Too eagerly, Vera started up the stairs. Sheila was right behind her, ready to cut her off if she turned in the wrong direction. At the top of the stairs, Sheila moved up, blocking her off from Mum’s room. Reluctantly, Vera turned in
to Denny’s room. It was still empty.

  ‘You see?’ Vera crowed. ‘There’s nothing for it, but to let Polly know –’

  ‘We haven’t looked in my room,’ Sheila said frantically. ‘Or on the roof. He might have gone up on the roof.’

  ‘It was the front door that was open,’ Vera reminded her.

  ‘He might have gone outside and seen something on the roof, or thought he did. We ought to look.’ Almost convincing herself, Sheila herded Vera ahead of her, up the second flight of stairs.

  He wasn’t in Sheila’s room and Vera balked at going farther. ‘You know perfectly well there’s nobody up on that roof. I’m not going up there.’

  What Sheila knew perfectly well was that, if she left Vera alone, Vera would sneak down into Mum’s room as soon as her back was turned.

  ‘We can’t be sure,’ she said. ‘Come with me just as far as the roof door,’ she added craftily. ‘You can wait there while I go out on the roof. I – I’d like you there – just in case ...’

  ‘Oh, well.’ Vera rose to the bait Sheila felt like a traitor to Denny for offering. ‘In for a penny, in for a pound, I suppose.’

  The swathe of light from the open door slashed across the roof and Sheila could see no one was there. Nevertheless, she went out, moving cautiously to the edge to look down into the deserted street. No sign of Denny anywhere.

  ‘I told you so’ was in the air when she went back to the doorway, but Vera didn’t voice it this time. She had her triumph and that was enough to be getting on with. The next battle was to be with Polly – and that was the one that must be averted.

  As slowly as she dared, Sheila descended the stairs, while Vera fumed behind her. She paused irresolutely at the landing, wondering how to keep Vera away from Polly.

  ‘Let’s go down to the kitchen and have a cup of tea,’ she offered, without any real hope.

  ‘This is no time for tea,’ Vera snapped.

  Half agreeing with her, Sheila hesitated. Down below, the door bell pealed.