Pack of Cards

by Penelope Lively

  Several weeks after Mrs Porch's arrival she met Fiona. Fiona had called to ask if Henry would like to come over on Saturday evening and meet this friend of theirs from Cambridge – she thought he'd be interested. She added hastily, ‘And you, of course.’ Jenny, knowing that Mrs Porch would be making the coffee, was able with confidence to ask her in for a cup. Mrs Porch, appearing from the kitchen, said, ‘I'll bring the coffee for you and your friend into the sitting-room, Mrs Taylor’, but Fiona said quickly, ‘Oh heavens, no, if you usually have it in the kitchen don't start being posh for me.’ So they all three sat in the kitchen. Fiona and Mrs Porch got on at once. It turned out that Fiona's eldest child was just starting at the primary school where Mrs Porch's had been, and they talked with animation about the new maths teaching, and different kinds of reading primer, and what the teachers were like. Fiona stayed for ages, and then said good heavens, she'd no idea it was that late, she really must rush. On the doorstep she said to Jenny, ‘What a nice woman – awfully bright. Lucky you, Jenny – I suppose she's what used to be called a treasure, in the bad old days.’

  Jenny repeated this remark to Henry, and after that he sometimes referred to Mrs Porch as the treasure, with an indulgent grin.

  Henry himself did not meet Mrs Porch for some time, and when he did it was not under the most auspicious circumstances. He got flu, badly, and was in bed for over a week. Mrs Porch came in every day, because, as she said, Jenny couldn't cope with him up there needing trays and all that, and the children underfoot. Consequently the illness went off with great smoothness. Jenny was able to make enticing little meals which Mrs Porch laid on a tray covered with a starched cloth and a crisply folded napkin. Henry loved it. He became very affectionate and teasing with Jenny, like he used to be before they were married, when he had seemed to find her failings more endearing than irritating. During the convalescence, before he went back to the office, he met Mrs Porch properly: they had long conversations and once or twice Jenny had the feeling that they had talked about her. There was a faintly odd look in Mrs Porch's eye, and Jenny hadn't been able to help hearing Henry's voice through the door, on one occasion, saying something about being so grateful, made such a difference, my wife finding it hard to cope, rather prone to nerves, bit of a breakdown when she was younger, luckily quite cleared up now … Jenny went quickly past and into the kitchen where she sat quite still for a minute until that awful, reminiscent, shaky feeling went away.

  The months passed. Everything was so much better that it became hard to remember the dark days before Mrs Porch came: life without her was unimaginable. The days when she didn't come still had their dangers and crises, but fewer of them because there was always salvation around the corner, the next day, after the weekend … And if catastrophe threatened when she was there she could always avert it with some deft action, a few reassuring words. Jenny was hardly ever gripped by that sense of bleak hopelessness now, as though the house, the children, Henry, were some kind of trap waiting to be sprung. Mrs Porch, even in absence, propelled her through the days, gave her reserves of strength. Nor was she ever patronising or critical; she seemed to take the line that far too much had been expected of Jenny all along.

  The only snag was that for some reason it was working out much more expensive than Jenny had anticipated. Naturally Henry had given her extra house-keeping money to cover Mrs Porch's wages, but even so there always seemed to be less money than there should be. Twice she took out her purse in shops and found she had less – quite a bit less – than she'd thought. She had to ask Henry to give her more money.

  ‘I'm awfully sorry. It's just I never seem to have enough.’

  ‘Well, never mind – no need to look so guilty, Jen. You don't have to go short – we can afford a bit more nowadays.’

  She said to Mrs Porch that everything seemed to be terribly expensive. ‘Oh, don't I know it! Shocking, that's what it is. Every time you're in the supermarket there's another penny on this and twopence on that. You can't keep track of where it goes, not like you used to.’

  And then one day Jenny found that there was a pound note missing from her purse – at least she felt almost certain there was. She'd been to the corner shop for something and they'd given her change for five pounds: four notes and some silver. Now there were only three, and the loose change. She was puzzled and slightly worried.

  ‘Emma, just come here a moment, darling. Listen, you haven't taken anything from Mummy's purse, have you? No, don't cry, just tell me. You didn't? No, I'm not cross, darling, I just wanted you to tell me …’

  She hunted in the places where Emma often hid things, and found nothing. She began to have doubts: had they perhaps only given her three pounds in the shop by mistake? And yet she had felt so sure. Oh well, never mind …

  A week later, it happened again. This time, she felt a little thud of shock in her stomach. She'd been trying to be more careful about money, budgeting, working out what she had spent, noting prices … She'd been quite sure she had fifteen pounds in her purse, and now there were thirteen. At least she thought she'd been quite sure …

  In the evening, she said to Henry, slipping it in casually while she was washing up the dinner, ‘You didn't by any chance borrow some money from my purse this morning, did you?’

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. It's just I seem to have less than I thought.’

  ‘Well, how much did you have?’

  ‘Fifteen pounds, I think.’

  ‘What do you mean – you think? Either you had fifteen pounds or you didn't.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it mightn't have been. I did count, I feel sure – perhaps I didn't.’

  Henry said, ‘Do you mean you don't always know how much money you've got?’

  She said unhappily, ‘No, I'm afraid not. I do try to.’

  ‘You really must be more careful, Jen.’

  She flushed. He didn't know some of the awful things she'd done with money, in fact. Leaving her purse in shops, or stuck on the top of her basket where anyone could take it, or dropping it in buses. Only the other day she'd left it on the wall outside the garden gate when Emma had fallen on the pavement, but mercifully Mrs Porch had spotted it and brought it in. He was right: she must be more careful.

  The next morning she went out early, even before Mrs Porch came and bought a little notebook from the corner shop. With a glow of determination, she wrote down the exact sum in her purse on the first page. Then, later, she would enter any expenditures on the other side and check notebook against purse at the end of the day. That way, there wouldn't be these silly muddles, and she would be able to keep an eye on how, and where, the housekeeping money was going. She put the notebook away in satisfaction and went to open the door to Mrs Porch.

  At the end of the day there was a pound less in her purse than there should have been. Shakily, she counted and recounted the notes out on to the kitchen table, added and re-added the five items of expenditure. There wasn't any doubt, absolutely no doubt at all. She sat down, still clutching the notebook and purse, overcome by a strange feeling of unreality, as though this were a dream – or a nightmare. Or, said a sinister little voice in her head, was the other unreal – did you count properly this morning, write down exactly what you spent? You make mistakes, don't you – dither, get things wrong …?

  There had been no one in the house all day except herself and Mrs Porch. And the children. She searched again in Emma's hiding-place, under cushions, beds, chairs, carpets. Nothing.

  It just isn't possible. I counted wrong, I must have done.

  Forget it. Ignore it. Pretend it didn't happen. Start the notebook again – something went wrong that time. Give it another try.

  For five days the opposing pages of the notebook tallied exactly. Seventeen pounds forty-nine there should be, and seventeen pounds forty-nine there were; fifteen twelve and fifteen twelve … It was a small private triumph – just a matter of persevering, and there was nothing to worry about after all.

 
On the seventh day two pounds were missing. It was a Friday, one of Mrs Porch's days.

  Jenny lay awake much of the night. She tossed and turned, experiencing in manifold versions the conversation she would not, could not, have with Henry.

  ‘Henry, I'm afraid Mrs Porch has been taking money from my purse. Quite a lot, over quite a long time.’

  ‘What the hell do you mean, Jenny? That's a very serious accusation to make against anyone, you know. Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, quite sure, really sure, Henry. I've counted and counted. I … either it's that or I …’

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘Or I'm imagining it all, I'm going mad …’

  And Henry stared at her in silent assessment, joined, from time to time in that tormented night, by his mother, whose serious but resigned expression said that she had known all along, been prepared for a recurrence, that kind of problem never really … When at last Jenny slept it was to plunge into a frenetic dreamscape where pound notes floated like beech leaves, elusive and uncountable.

  She felt rather ill and shaky the next day. She tried to avoid Mrs Porch, but she seemed to be everywhere, talking loudly and cheerfully. Once or twice she looked at Jenny with an odd sharpness. ‘You feeling all right, dear? You don't look all that good – sure you're not going down with something. There's a tummy bug about.’

  ‘I'm quite all right,’ Jenny said.

  Halfway through the morning the bell rang. Mrs Porch, coming into the playroom, where Jenny was giving the baby a belated breakfast (it had been a wretched morning, everything going wrong, just like the old days …) said, ‘It's the bread man – I'll just pay him, shall I? I can't seem to lay hands on your purse, though, Mrs Taylor – it's not in the usual place.’

  Jenny said in a strangled voice, ‘It's all right, Mrs Porch, I'll do it.’ She got up hastily, spilling the baby's milk as she did so.

  ‘Don't you bother,’ said Mrs Porch. ‘Ah, there it is.’ She reached forward to take the purse from the table beside Jenny, adding, ‘I'll bring a cloth for that milk when I've seen to him. Coming, Mr Binns …’

  ‘No!’ said Jenny shrilly. ‘Please leave it, Mrs Porch. I'll pay him myself.’ The baby was crying now, and the bread man ringing the bell again. She left the room hastily.

  When she came back Mrs Porch was soothing the baby. Jenny, her heart thumping horribly, sat down again and said, ‘I'll take him back – thanks.’

  Mrs Porch was looking at her intently. She said, ‘I don't think you're quite yourself this morning, Mrs Taylor, I don't really.’ Jenny, still holding the purse, put it on the floor beside her, self-consciously, and Mrs Porch went on, ‘I'll put that back in the dresser for you, shall I, before young mischief here gets hold of it.’

  Jenny said, ‘No, it's all right, I'll see to it.’

  There was a silence. When Jenny looked up from the baby's bowl of half-eaten cereal Mrs Porch was still standing there; her expression was hard to analyse – she might have been angry, or concerned. She reminded Jenny of firm-faced sisters in hospital wards. Jenny found herself shaking again, though she was trying to hold herself rigid. Her eyes met Mrs Porch's, and she looked away again at once.

  Mrs Porch said slowly, ‘Is there something wrong with the purse, Mrs Taylor? Something bothering you?’

  ‘No,’ said Jenny wildly. ‘At least I don't want – I couldn't bear … There's some sort of mistake, I'm sure, it's just I felt certain …’

  ‘I see,’ said Mrs Porch. She sounded, for a moment, subdued, sad almost, but when she spoke again it was with her old briskness. ‘If it was anyone else I'd be very angry, Mrs Taylor, but I've got fond of you, I really have, I like working here, we get on, I thought. And I'll tell you what I think, I think you're having a spot of that old trouble of yours, that's what I think. So I'm not going to say anything more about it, nor mention it to your husband, not that I don't feel perhaps I ought to, but it would be a worry to him, poor man. So we'll keep it between us two, Mrs Taylor, and pretend it never happened, and that's all there is to it.’

  There was a pause. Jenny could not look at her. ‘All right, Mrs Taylor?’

  Jenny said, ‘There's really nothing wrong with me. It was all ages ago, that, and ever since I've been …’

  ‘Unless, of course,’ said Mrs Porch, ‘you'd rather I didn't come any more?’

  After a moment Jenny said, ‘No, honestly, I … I'm sorry, I expect there's been a mistake.’

  ‘Then we'll forget about it. Right?’ Mrs Porch gathered up the dirty crockery from the table. As she was leaving the room she turned and said, ‘And I'd put the purse back in the dresser, if I were you, Mrs Taylor, it'll be a nuisance if I can't find it, next time the milkman's wanting his money, when you're not about, won't it?’

  Jenny said, ‘Yes. Yes, all right, Mrs Porch.’ She sat in the empty playroom – Mrs Porch had borne the baby away with her, to wash and change him – staring at the door. She felt exhausted: there was a ringing noise in her ears. I don't know, she thought, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know …

  That evening she said to Henry, ‘I'm afraid I need more housekeeping money again.’

  ‘Good grief, Jen, again! It's only a few weeks since last time.’

  ‘I'm sorry.’

  Henry sighed. ‘All right, then. How much?’

  She said dully, ‘I think about another couple of pounds a week will do. For the moment, anyway.’

  Miss Carlton and the Pop Concert

  IT WAS Miss Carlton's custom to walk in Hyde Park most afternoons from three till four: up the Broad Walk, round the Pond, a short excursion to the hinterland beyond, and then home. She preferred the park in winter; then, the misty shapes of the trees receding into undefined distances gave it a spaciousness and a mystery which it quite lost in summer. Now, in late June, it was at its worst, the dusty growth of trees and bushes only a pale reflection of the real summer going on elsewhere, the poor grass worn quite down to the roots by the tramp of feet. Even the sunlight had a tawdry quality. In the country, Miss Carlton thought, it would not be like this. But her regret was perfunctory: Miss Carlton was a towns-woman at heart, and she knew well that a country field, however delectable, could never provide her with the spectacle, the interest, the endless variety of the park.

  She studied her fellow walkers with avid attention. Each visit provided some new entertainment, some small incident. She delighted in novelty: eccentricities of dress, perplexing snatches of conversation. She moved up and down the wide paths, across the grass, between the neat flower beds, alert and expectant – an inquisitive ghost foraging among the walkers. Few people spare a second glance for trim, elderly ladies.

  Today the park was more than usually crowded. Miss Carlton, crossing the Broad Walk and heading for the Round Pond, had a busy time absorbing the many people who surrounded her. Indeed, it was some while before she became aware of a uniformity not only in their persons, but in their movement. They were all young, all were bizarrely dressed, and all were drifting, in an unhurried but purposeful manner, towards the centre of the park, somewhere east of the pond. Miss Carlton, deeply interested, began to drift with them.

  There were men and girls; somewhat similarly clad in garments that were often long and flowing in a way that pleased Miss Carlton. She liked the style, the colours. Nearly all had long hair; many of the men were bearded and whiskered. There was an overwhelming impression of profusion, of abundance. Some of the girls wore trailing skirts, many were barefooted. There were trousered girls, and men wearing feminine shirts of lace or velvet; everything seemed interchangeable. Miss Carlton was not especially surprised: one frequently saw people thus dressed nowadays. These were the Young, and she secretly enjoyed their variety, and admired their self-absorption. When her friends complained about them and deplored their dress, their manners and their attitudes, she was silent; she was of a gentle disposition and did not relish dispute. Moreover, she suspected that we often attack that which we envy. The old have always criticised the
young; sometimes the criticisms may be just, but the violence with which they are made betrays a deeper resentment. Miss Carlton, having herself come to terms with age, felt none of this. She was an observer, detached and uninvolved.

  This strange crowd became thicker and thicker. Miss Carlton, moving over the grass with them, found herself touched by the hem of a skirt, brushed by a bare arm, forced to change direction for a motionless or slow-moving group. And now she saw that they did, in fact, have an objective. In the distance was a large, raised platform, and before and all around this was a vast crowd, sitting, squatting and lying on the grass. As the drifters reached the edge of this crowd they too would sink down on the grass so that the dense mass expanded gently all the time, amoeba-like, spreading over the park and engulfing trees and bushes. On the platform, figures moved about, and from time to time a loudspeaker crackled, blaring a short burst of music or garbled language.

  Miss Carlton increased her pace a little to draw level with a couple of girls just ahead of her.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘I wonder if you could tell me what is going on?’

  They turned to look at her, still walking. They both wore brightly-patterned trailing clothes, and bands around their hair that gave them a faintly oriental appearance, though their round, pink and white faces were unmistakably Anglo-Saxon. Miss Carlton thought they looked very nice: she had always liked the eastern influence. Many of her own clothes came from Liberty's.

  One of the girls said, ‘It's a pop concert. The Applejacks and a whole lot of other groups.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Miss Carlton. ‘I have no ticket.’ She looked at them in dismay: suddenly she wanted very much to remain with these young people.

  ‘It's free,’ said the girl. They both stared at her for a moment, and then turned away.

  How very pleasant, thought Miss Carlton, like a brass band. Full of anticipation, she approached the crowd. Already people around her were beginning to sit down on the grass and the mass ahead was so dense that it was becoming difficult to move but she felt a strong desire to achieve the very centre of this event and struggled along, murmuring, ‘I'm sorry … please excuse me … thank you so much.’