Pack of Cards

by Penelope Lively

  The house was called Cader Idris, in fond tribute to that part of Wales in which the sisters had spent the war years, in retreat from such dangers and aggravations as seemed bound to interfere with normal life in Hove, where they were living in 1939. It was a wise decision; in Dolgelly it had been possible – except for nuisances like rationing, black-out and lack of petrol – more or less to ignore what was going on elsewhere. They had had a good war; Nora taught herself petit point and Joyce grew irises with notable success. A photograph of the iris border in May 1943, a blaze of I. xiphium and I. laevigata, had been printed in Country Life – a heady moment. It hung now, framed, over the bureau in the drawing-room. They had done a little warwork with the local WVS, because one really should show willing. And had acquired a taste for King Charles spaniels, the latest in a long line of which lay now in a patch of sunlight on the Turkish rug, flopping his tail around in expectation.

  ‘Let Ben have a bikky,’ said Nora. ‘And then put him outside.’

  French windows opened from the breakfast-room on to the terrace and large walled garden. The garden was remarkable. Although right in the centre of Pershore it was half an acre or so in size; an aerial view would have shown it, like the grounds of Buckingham Palace, as a startling green oasis amid roofs and roads, an unsuspected haven. The walls were so high and thick that although on one side traffic passed within a few yards of the herbaceous border, the lilac walk and the rose garden, one was barely conscious of its presence; the occasional rattle or bump, blast of a horn, jangle of an ambulance, served only to emphasise the island seclusion of number seven. And yet only a few minutes away were the conveniences of the High Street: Boots, W.H. Smith, Sainsbury's. Not, of course, that Joyce and Nora did the household shopping themselves – that was done by the housekeeper. They employed a housekeeper and a lady gardener, both resident in the west portion of the house beyond the kitchens, which was converted into a self-contained unit. Mr Knight had been a textile manufacturer; the firm had boomed in the fifties with the development of artificial fibres. His daughters’ capital, cushioned and bolstered almost literally by Dralon, Courtelle, Terylene, Polyester and so forth, had kept up nicely with inflation. They were still quite comfortable, thank goodness. Which makes all the difference, as Joyce said, between being able to lead one's own life as one wants and having to get involved with things one wouldn't care for.

  The housekeeper and lady gardener were a couple called Beryl and Sylvia. They had turned out to be an excellent arrangement, being close friends so that, as Joyce was fond of telling people, there was none of that friction so common between two women working together. It was a harmonious household.

  Joyce and Nora made certain sorties to the High Street themselves: to the library, Debenhams, and The Cake Shop. They both had a sweet tooth. Tea was the pinnacle of the day. The lingering decisions between cream-topped cherry tarts, macaroons, chocolate fancies, eclairs, meringues and slices of coffee gateau enriched each afternoon. They took it in turns to go out for the cakes. Otherwise they remained for much of the time in St Joseph's Place. Occasionally they attended local functions, but did not take an active part in the life of the town. The complaints of their acquaintances and contemporaries about change and desecration left them unmoved; they did not themselves much notice such things. When they found their route to the park made disagreeable by the building of a housing estate, they simply took Ben round a different way, avoiding the mud and rubble. The new multi-storey car park had been in the process of erection nine months before it caught their eye from the spare room window, blocking the view of the Abbey, which was a pity. Joyce ran up some net curtains, a pretty flounced nylon from Debenhams.

  Beryl and Sylvia were efficient, cheerful, and kept themselves to themselves. They did their work and sat over the television of an evening; its muted quacking could be heard from behind their sitting-room door. Nora and Joyce also had a television set, on which they watched nature programmes, serialisations of classic novels, ‘Gardeners’ World’ and the weather forecast. Joyce had made a small art of switching on at precisely the right moment to catch the forecaster's opening words without being subjected to the closing paragraphs of the news. Beryl and Sylvia, on the other hand, watched things like ‘Panorama’ and ‘Man Alive’, and sometimes, tiresomely, tried to initiate conversations about politicians and strikes and some bother in the Middle East. Joyce had to be a bit firm about that sort of intrusion, but on the whole they were nice types, and Beryl was an excellent cook. Beryl was the dominant partner, a small dark woman, her wiry black hair suggesting Welsh blood. She sang in the Abbey choir. They had been at St Joseph's Place for three years now.

  In view of which, and the generally good relationship, the Misses Knight had felt inclined to go along with Beryl's request, made as she cleared the breakfast things one morning. Even so, they exchanged wary glances.

  ‘How old?’ asked Joyce.

  The niece was eleven, apparently. Joyce and Nora nodded with relief: a younger child, of course, would have been out of the question. A quiet little thing, Beryl asserted. You'll hardly know she's there, through in our part, she won't touch anything in the garden, Sylvia'll see to that. And it'll give my sister and her husband the chance of a break on their own, ten days in the Italian Lakes, I mean, it's no fun for a child, that sort of trip, they took Tracy to Spain last year and she was bored stiff, had tummy upsets and all that. So I said Sylvia and I'd have her, this once. Well, thank you very much then, Miss Knight, as I say she'll be no bother at all, we'll see she stays put our side of the house.

  And indeed when the time came Nora and Joyce were not even aware of the child's arrival for the first three days of her presence at Cader Idris. She came to Joyce's attention, eventually, as a shadowy extension of Beryl on the stairs, gathering up the trailing end of some dirty sheets that her aunt was carrying, so that Beryl, for a moment, looked like a bride with ghostly attendant. Joyce jumped and exclaimed. Beryl said, ‘Say how do you do to Miss Knight, Tracy. She's been giving me a hand with the laundry. Right, I'll have those pillowcases now.’

  She was a very thin child. Knobs stuck out all over her, accentuated by the clinging material of her jersey and trousers: hip-bones, the swoop of collar-bones, spiky shoulders, furrowing of ribs, small discs of nipples. A bit pasty, too. The kind of child, Joyce thought, that needed fresh country air and cod liver oil. Memories stirred, of evacuees in Wales during the war. But this was no East End waif: Tracy's father, one had been told, was quite high up in a frozen food firm. They had a four-bedroomed house and two cars. Joyce said kindly, ‘Hello, Tracy. I hope you're enjoying your holiday.’

  The girl was watching her with small, sharp, observant eyes, the narrowed look of a reflective cat, a little disconcerting. She tugged her aunt's arm and whispered something. Beryl laughed. ‘Tracy was wondering if she could come and see the china dogs in the drawing-room. She noticed them from the terrace through the window and thought they were really pretty.’

  In front of the china cabinet Joyce said instructively, ‘They are a kind of china called Staffordshire. They used to belong to my mother.’

  ‘Are they valuable?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘My mum's got a glass vase she got in Venice that cost fifteen pounds.’ Tracy was standing on one leg now, scratching the back of her knee with the other, an irritating contortion. ‘Excuse my saying so, Miss Knight, but you've got a smudge on your cheek.’ She watched with detached interest as Joyce, ruffled, scrubbed at her face with a handkerchief. ‘What's your dog called?’

  ‘Ben.’

  ‘Come here, Bennie – good dog, come on then, Bennie.’ She began to play on the hearth-rug with him. Joyce went to her desk to sort out some bills. After a few minutes she said, ‘Ben, not Bennie.’

  ‘He likes being called Bennie, don't you, Bennie?’

  ‘I expect your aunt will be wondering where you are,’ said Joyce firmly.

  During the next few days Tracy drifted more a
nd more frequently into the main part of the house. Joyce and Nora would become aware suddenly of her presence, swinging on the handle of a door, squatted on the stairs, staring. Or her voice would make them jump. ‘Excuse me, Miss Knight, can I ask you something? Why's that clock say the wrong time?’ And, thus insinuated into the room with them, she would chatter on. My mum this, my dad that, the teacher in our school says this, when I'm at home I do that. Excuse me, Miss Knight, did you know your cardy has a button missing? Bennie likes me, doesn't he? Bennie likes me coming to see him. Did you see Eric and Ernie on telly last night, wasn't it funny when they dressed up like Arabs, I love Eric and Ernie, I really love them. Do you like Eric and Ernie? Excuse me, Miss Knight, shall I open that bottle for you, my mum always puts the lid under hot water, then they shift.

  ‘You don't need to say excuse me all the time, Tracy.’

  And the child, silent for a while, would stare with that look of assessment so that after a bit Nora or Joyce would start to feel uncomfortable; she had a knack of putting one at a disadvantage. There was a wizened maturity about her, a precocious worldliness; a most unchildlike child, the Misses Knight agreed, who had never had much to do with children in any case. Oh, they were fond of children, of course, smiled indulgently in the presence of the offspring of friends or neighbours. The local Cubs were allowed to clean the ground-floor windows of Cader Idris in Bob-a-Job week, cheerful robust little boys who said thank you nicely for their money, looking politely upwards at you. Tracy looked upwards too – she was rather small for her age – but gave this disconcerting impression of somehow looking also downwards. And her conversation flew off at alarming tangents, you never knew where it might lead next. One day there was an embarrassing account of some feminine complaint of her mother's full of oblique references – her you-know-where, her down-below.

  ‘Yes,’ said Joyce briskly. ‘Now I wonder if Sylvia would like you to help her with sweeping up the leaves outside.’

  ‘Shall I take Bennie in the garden?’

  The dog lay on his side, deeply asleep, occasionally twitching. His penis jutted pinkly from the long soft fur of his belly. Tracy said with interest. ‘He's got his thing out, for making puppies with.’

  Nora and Joyce had always felt that that was where a bitch was nicer. Of course, there were other problems with a bitch, but not this visible indecency. Ben was a bother; he did it a lot. ‘I think Ben would be better in the garden for a bit, dear,’ they would say to each other. Ben, shut out, would sit resentfully on the terrace, his member shrinking against the cold stone.

  ‘Do you see, Miss Knight? Why's he doing that?’

  Joyce got up jerkily, slopping the tea-cup in her hand, and opened the french window. I am going to have to have a word with Beryl, she thought, the child is supposed to stay through in their part. She watched Tracy and Ben run across the lawn together towards Sylvia, who was methodically raking leaves into golden pyramids. Beyond the lilac walk, a bonfire smoked. From the street came the sound of a loudspeaker or something, a tiresome blaring voice. And on the skyline, just above the crimson flare of the garden sumach, was the arm of some enormous crane with a pulley and a man in a glass box; how long had that been there? Joyce could not remember noticing it before. There was a sense of things pressing in, of intrusion; she closed the window again and poured another cup of tea.

  It was early evening when Beryl came through to the drawing-room. She was wearing going-out clothes and spoke with some embarrassment. The thing was, she and Sylvia had promised themselves a film with a friend in Birmingham tonight, and they'd reckoned with taking Tracy along, but when it came to the point Tracy didn't want to come – there was something she fancied specially on the telly, and no getting her to budge. So would it be all right if … I mean, she'll put herself to bed, and she'll be happy as larry till then with her supper on a tray and the TV to watch, it's just for her to know she's not on her own in the house.

  Joyce and Nora exchanged looks. It was the moment, of course, for a firm but tactful word about the Tracy situation in general. But just as Joyce (like Beryl, the dominant partner and customary spokeswoman) was starting to say, ‘Well, yes, Beryl, of course just for this once we …’ the doorbell rang, Ben flew off with a fusillade of shrill barks, and Beryl was saying, ‘I'll get it, and thanks very much, Miss Knight, I'll tell her to be sure and not bother you.’

  They heard Beryl and Sylvia leave in the Mini soon after seven. Their own supper, cold except for the soup to warm up in the kitchen, had been set out on the sideboard. Joyce, attending to the soup, heard the television on in the adjoining room – quickfire conversation punctuated with outbursts of laughter that swelled and receded like waves pounding a beach. She considered checking that the child was all right, rejected the idea (with a twinge of guilt) and carried the soup back to the dining-room.

  They were in the drawing-room, Joyce playing patience and Nora knitting, when all the lights went out. One moment all was tranquil normality; the next they sat in isolation and confusion. ‘There must be a fuse gone,’ said Joyce. They began to tell one another to be careful, to go slowly, to try to think where the torch was. Neither of them remembered Tracy. When a couple of minutes later, they heard the door open, Nora screamed.

  Tracy said, ‘Bang in the middle of “The Good Life”. Wouldn't you just know it! Pity you haven't got an open fire, Miss Knight, at my friend's they've got this real fire and when the lights went out we all sat round and did part singing, lovely it was.’ She seemed to be skipping round the room; her voice came now from here, now from there – Ariel-like, it chattered at them from invisibility. ‘Oh, do be careful, dear,’ cried Nora. ‘The little table with the Sevres dish …’ There was a bump and a clatter, but it was Joyce, trying to find her way to the door and stumbling against the sofa. She stood still, the familiar rendered treacherous, stranded in the middle of her own drawing-room. Tracy, her voice dodging now over to the window said, ‘Whoops! Can't you see where you are, Miss Knight? Here, shall I hang on to you?’ and Joyce felt a moth-like brushing against her sleeve, and then a cold little hand on hers. She twitched. ‘Can't you feel where you are? I can – look, the door's over there, mind the desk, isn't it fun!’ ‘The fuses,’ Nora began ‘Aren't they in the kitchen drawer, Joyce? Oh dear, I never know how you fit them in, they …’ But Tracy broke in scornfully, ‘It's not a fuse, it's a power-cut, they said on the news, West Midlands and parts of the South-East, because of the strike, up to three hours, we'll have to go to bed with candles, Where do you keep the candles, Miss Knight?’ ‘Strike?’ said Joyce, ‘Power-cut? But it's disgraceful, they haven't got any right to …’ ‘Because of their money, what they earn, they want something per cent and the government says they can't. Ooh, here's Bennie – I nearly stepped on you, didn't I, Bennie?’ ‘Three hours, but how are we expected to …’, and now Joyce barked her shin, excruciatingly, against the fender. ‘Oh,’ cried Nora. ‘Are you all right, dear?’ and to and fro, in the darkness, went their exclamations of annoyance and distress. The house and its contents crouched around them, turned nasty, waiting to trip or obstruct.

  The phone rang, in the hall. Joyce, marooned still somewhere west of the sofa, said, ‘Oh, bother it, now of all times’, but already Tracy's voice, receding beyond the door, was crying, ‘I'll get it, don't worry, Miss Knight, I know where it is.’

  ‘Hello?’ they heard her say, and then, ‘Oh, Auntie Beryl – guess what, we're having a power cut, bang in the middle of “The Good Life”. What? Ooh, goodness, did it really? Yes. Yes, I'll tell them, auntie. No, quite all right. Yes. Not to worry, auntie – will do. ‘Bye for now.’ And back she came, flitting confidently across the room, her voice important with information and bad news. A breakdown. The gasket. Garages just don't want to know. Stop over the night with Mandy in Solihull and an early bus tomorrow. Terribly sorry. Put meself to bed and not be a nuisance. Candles in the landing cupboard. Ever so sorry.

  Nora, too, now was on her feet. ‘No, I can manage, dear.
Really, isn't it the limit! First the lights and now this. Surely they … Oh, well, we must just make the best of it. I'll find the candles’ – and to Tracy, firmly – ‘No, Tracy, thank you very much, there are some rather fragile things in the landing cupboard and I know whereabouts the candles will be.’ She began to grope her way through the door and across the hall: a bump, an exclamation, a yelp. ‘Oh, Ben, get out of the way …’ ‘Do be careful, Nora.’ ‘I'm all right now, I've found the banister.’ Clump and shuffle up the stairs; creak of boards; another exclamation, distant now; bangs and clatters. ‘Here we are! I've got them, Joyce.’ Steps on the stairs again, less cautious now, and … An awful, slithering crash. Silence. ‘Oh, Miss Knight, I think she's fallen down the stairs.’

  It seemed hours. The fumble for matches, grope for scattered candles, why doesn't she say anything? Tracy vanished and then suddenly reappeared with a blessed, reassuring beam of light – the torch, however did she find it? Never mind. And thank heavens Nora is trying now to heave herself up, groaning something about her back, saying she feels a bit queasy, don't worry, dear, be fine in a minute.

  And collapses again.

  It was Tracy, in the end, who dialled 999. ‘Excuse me, Miss Knight, you're putting your finger in the wrong hole. I can see, shall I …’ And appeared from the kitchen, breathless and important with cups of tea. ‘My mum's got this friend who's a nurse and she says it's the best thing, when you've had a shock, it steadies people up. I put two sugars in, is that O.K.?’ And let the ambulancemen in and skipped from one leg to the other in the now candle-lit hall, a-twitter with interest and involvement.