The Seduction of Mrs Pendlebury

by Margaret Forster

  ‘That’s what you think.’

  ‘Anyway, it’s for the doctor to decide.’

  ‘I’m not going to any doctor.’

  ‘Now you’re just being awkward. You’ve been to a doctor before.’

  ‘And I’m not going again. He didn’t know who I was last time, just a name and number that’s all I was and he couldn’t care less.’

  ‘He’s a good doctor, that Dr Thompson. He’s done a lot for me. I find him very pleasant.’

  ‘Tell me who you don’t find pleasant. You find everyone pleasant, can’t see farther than the end of your nose.’

  ‘No harm in that that I know of,’ said Stanley, with dignity. She was rushing around now, grabbing the cloth from the table and shaking it into the fireplace. ‘Steady on,’ he said, ‘you’ll have us up in flames if you don’t watch out with that cloth.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be a bad thing as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ Stanley said, trying to humour her, but she wouldn’t be humoured. It would be black looks and black words all day now. He sighed, and sighed again.

  ‘What you huffing and puffing for?’ she snapped at him. ‘What have you got to worry about? You lead the life of Riley as far as I can see.’

  He left the kitchen and wandered into the sitting-room where it was cold and dark. He sat in an armchair all morning looking at the wallpaper and listening to Rose hurling chairs and tables about as she pushed the Hoover from one end of the house to another. She never spared herself. When she hoovered, every bit of furniture was pulled away from the walls and she shaved the skirting boards so close that there was a mark all the way round. The whine of the machine gave him a headache but there was no question of lodging a complaint. What made him cross, though, wasn’t the Hoover – he’d sat quite happily through Rose hoovering before – but the way he’d brought all this on his own head. He’d always believed, all his life, in letting things take their course. There were too many hustlers in this world. If a lot more people would be content to let things take their course, everyone would be a lot better off. Now he’d broken his own code he could expect instant retribution. This damned Australian thing would cause nothing but bother. Rose hadn’t even started on the subject. She would alternately pick it up and worry it like a dog, or throw it away all winter long. If only she didn’t have so much energy to waste, that was the trouble. There was so much violence in her, all squashed down, only coming over the edge of the pot every now and again, making ugly spill marks when it did. He wished the telly would start – what a godsend. In fact, he told himself, there might be no harm in just switching it on now in case there was an interesting schools programme.

  When the screen remained blank, Stanley didn’t at first worry. The socket was faulty, he knew that. The wiring in the house was old – a deathtrap Frank had called it when he put in the plugs, much too rotten for him to contemplate anything ambitious. Rose was always on at him to do something about it, but electricians were hard to come by. Stanley confidently expected one to come his way sometime or other, but so far none had. Meanwhile, they observed a few elementary precautions and nothing had gone drastically wrong. He knew how to mend a fuse, which was all he had ever been called upon to do. They had few electric appliances, except for the fires which Stanley blessed as frequently as Rose cursed. Frank had warned them never to have more than two fires on at once because the circuit wouldn’t stand it and, if possible, not more than one bar on the kitchen fire if two bars were on in the sitting-room. He sometimes reminded them of this in his letters and said how it worried him and that he’d be glad to pay to have the whole place rewired – but they wouldn’t dream of it. They never forgot to turn one fire off if the other was on, never. It had become a religion with both of them and they meticulously observed all the rites.

  The socket, however, might not be the trouble this time. Stanley began to worry. The set was old and it wasn’t rented – Frank had bought it for them several years back. It had just arrived from the shop one Christmas Eve, the best Christmas present they’d ever had. But it wasn’t rented and servicing had proved difficult and costly. They’d had a new tube two years ago which had entailed a lot of to-ing and fro-ing with the shop. Stanley was still exhausted at the memory. Surely the tube hadn’t gone again? Rose swore he never had it off, but that wasn’t true and, even if it had been, a tube only two years old ought to have been able to stand up to a bit of pressure.

  The thing to do was check the socket. As Stanley unplugged a lamp to test it with, he noticed the fire was off. He’d had it on, he knew that, just one bar but the warmth had been the one comforting thing of the morning. Slowly, he plugged the lamp back into the socket he’d just taken it from and put it on. No light. With some excitement he shuffled over to the main switch and pressed. No light there either. At the same time he heard Rose cursing and shouting that there was something wrong with the Hoover. She came bursting in while he stood with his hand still on the light switch.

  ‘Get yourself up out of that chair,’ she said, even though he was standing up, ‘there’s work to be done, damned Hoover’s gone west – it’s been threatening to go wrong for months. Go on, get your tools, I’m only half-way through the house and it’s the wedding tomorrow.’

  ‘What’s the wedding got to do with it? It isn’t in our house, it’s nothing to do with us.’

  ‘We’re going, aren’t we? Or so I understood – and if we’re going to be out all day who’ll finish the hoovering? Anyway, never mind the wedding, just get on with it.’

  ‘Hold on a minute.’

  ‘No I will not – what’s your excuse this time with your hold-ons?’

  ‘I may not be able to mend that Hoover.’

  ‘You can at least try.’

  ‘It isn’t a matter of trying. The light’s gone too, and the television and the fire.’

  ‘Oh God, that’s it, we’re sunk. Well, Frank told you, he’s been telling you for years – the house needs rewiring, that’s what.’

  ‘Now wait a minute. It may just be a fuse. I’ll have to look.’

  She held the ladder for him while he climbed up and looked at the fuse box which, like everything else in their house, was inconveniently situated – above the front door. It took him half an hour to go through all the fuses, and that wasn’t counting the ages he spent having a rest at the bottom of the ladder, coughing and spluttering and generally wasting time. She wanted to pick him up and shake him, she was so angry.

  ‘Well?’ she said, rattling the ladder.

  ‘Hey, steady on,’ Stanley said, not yet properly down, ‘you’ll have me breaking a leg next.’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Nothing. I can’t work it out at all. None of the fuses have gone, everything seems fine.’

  ‘You don’t know what to look for more than likely. If Frank was here he’d –’

  ‘He’d say what I say,’ Stanley said, sharply. ‘There’s nothing wrong with the fuses. I can’t understand it.’

  ‘What are we going to do then?’

  ‘I’ll have to think about that.’

  He sat and thought while Rose got out a small hard brush and dustpan and went through the house on her hands and knees scratching away like a badger in its hole. She said there was no time to waste, no point in hanging about, she knew they’d had it. Stanley tried not to be irritated by her almost joyful assumption that there would never be any electricity in the house again, but he resented her attitude and showed it by replying to none of the silly questions she threw at him from time to time. Gradually, he came to the conclusion that he would have to get an electrician. He recalled a notice on the newsagent’s board – which he spent many hours looking at – advertising electrical work done in the evenings. He would go and look at it and ring up.

  ‘Just popping out a jiffy,’ he called to Rose. Her red face appeared over the banisters instantly.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Just popping out to see
about getting an electrician.’

  ‘Leaving me like this? In this state? Without a light or a fire.’

  ‘But it isn’t dark,’ Stanley said.

  ‘I don’t care. I’m not being left like this. I’m coming with you.’

  ‘But I won’t be a minute,’ Stanley said. He didn’t want Rose with him, watching him copy a number off a board. Her opinion of such methods was well known to him. ‘You’d best stay in,’ he said, as soothingly as possible. ‘It’s pouring with rain and you’d just get soaked. No sense in two of us getting wet now is there?’

  But she came with him. He stood miserably in the hall, his raincoat buttoned up to his neck and his cap pulled well down on his forehead, staring at his shoes, while Rose changed her skirt and got ready. She would never so much as step to the end of the street in a skirt that she had been working in. Even if she was staying at home and not intending to go anywhere there were morning clothes and afternoon clothes. When she came down the stairs he would see no difference, but then the two sets had always been indistinguishable to him. On went her poplin mac and over that a Pac-a-mac, and a rain-square over her head and finally she was ready. At that precise moment, when Stanley opened the front door knowing there was no reprieve, the lights went on.

  ‘Well now,’ said Stanley, smiling, as though he had engineered it. ‘What do you think of that?’

  Rose squinted up at the hall light. It flickered. She looked accusingly at Stanley, who was already unbuttoning his raincoat.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she said.

  ‘What do you think I’m doing?’ Stanley said, relief making him rude. ‘I’m not going to sit down for my lunch in my raincoat, now am I?’

  ‘You’re not going to sit down at all,’ said Rose, ‘not if you don’t carry out your intention and get that electrician.’

  ‘There’s no need now,’ said Stanley, firmly, his raincoat off. It crossed Rose’s mind that there was an example of him being nimble enough with his fingers when he liked. How long had it taken him to button those twelve buttons up and how long to unbutton them, that’s what she wanted to know.

  ‘How do you know it won’t happen again?’ she said. ‘That was a warning, that was, and if you pay no attention you might not get another. Next time it’ll be the dead of night and then what will you do?’

  ‘I’ll be asleep,’ Stanley said. ‘I won’t know anything about it.’

  ‘It’ll worry me to death,’ Rose said, ‘not knowing when it’s going to happen again or why.’

  ‘It was your Hoover,’ Stanley said.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘It was your Hoover, you had it running too long when there was a fire on as well.’

  ‘Who had the fire on? You had it on, sitting twiddling your thumbs at eleven o’clock in the morning instead of working to keep yourself warm. There should be no call for fires at eleven in the morning, so there.’

  ‘Anyway it was that Hoover of yours did it.’

  ‘Since when was the Hoover mine? It’s yours too.’

  ‘I never use it.’

  ‘More’s the pity. But you dirty the rooms that it cleans – oh yes, that’s different. I suppose I’m only cleaning up my dirt, am I? Oh yes.’

  ‘There isn’t any dirt. You just wear the carpets and yourself out with that thing.’

  ‘It’s you wears me out, never doing anything that should be done. This damned house is falling about our ears and you don’t do a damned thing.’

  Then she burst into tears. Her Pac-a-mac scrunched and creaked as she sat down on the bottom set of stairs and cried, funny little gasping sobs. She shook her head from side to side and screwed up her nose and beat the air with her fists until an outsider would have been unable to tell whether she was laughing or crying. Stanley was appalled. He promptly sat down beside her and tried to put his arm round her, but she pushed him away, with a strength that amazed him and he toppled to the floor. Getting up his back hurt and he knew he would have to go to the doctor’s the next day. At the sight of him clutching his back Rose’s sobs redoubled and she covered her face completely with her hands.

  ‘Come on now, old girl,’ Stanley said, ‘it’s not that bad. I’ll go and get that electrician chap all the same if it’ll make you happy. Come on, up you get, you sound like a packet of crisps in that coat.’

  He coaxed her up and out of her clothes and as he had hoped her position as housewife soon made her feel called to her duty and she was in the kitchen getting the lunch in no time, doing a lot of nose-blowing but otherwise all right. Nothing more was said about him going out. Daringly, he took a chance and sat down at the table after putting her radio on nice and low and laying a new cloth. He was remembering times when she had often had spells like this – times so long ago that he had been quite shocked at their recurrence. It had all been Women’s Troubles then, which he didn’t know much about and had kept well away from finding out. She’d been given to regular bursts of weeping and bad temper for a week at a time every month, and then there had been a couple of years once when the bouts never seemed to stop, just run in to each other. He’d tried mentioning doctors but of course she wouldn’t hear of it. Said there was nothing the matter with her, it was just Nature. Stanley had been more than satisfied with that answer, as it had fitted in with his own diagnosis. Was it now Nature again but, if so, what aspect and, if not, was she sickening for a cold or flu?

  All speculation was driven from Stanley’s head by lunch and the news. He praised the warmed-up steak and kidney to the skies and Rose’s sniffs grew less frequent. Food was such a comfort. He thanked God they both liked their food and that Rose was a good cook. Just sitting down with everything on the table nice and a steaming dish between them gave him such a good feeling. He knew Rose felt the same. She often sang or hummed as she got up afterwards and was always in a better mood.

  They listened to the news, as they always did, in complete silence. Some of these new announcers didn’t read the news as they had been used to having it read, but they couldn’t rob the event of its sacred quality. It was Rose who picked up the vital information first about the strike. The power workers were going on strike. Negotiations had broken down. As an example of what would happen they had already shut down for an hour this morning. Industry had ground to a stop and domestic users in most regions had had cuts lasting up to two hours.

  ‘Well I’m blowed,’ Stanley said. ‘So it wasn’t our electricity. Well I’m damned. I would have looked funny going for an electrician.’

  ‘No excuse,’ Rose said, but absent-mindedly. ‘We’re all electric,’ she went on, ‘light, fires, the lot.’

  ‘And the television,’ Stanley said.

  ‘That’ll be a blessing,’ Rose said, ‘being warm’s more important than telly. What will we do?’

  ‘It may never happen,’ Stanley said. ‘We’ve had enough for one morning without worrying about that.’

  Rose let him off, but her post-lunch glow gave way to a new and deeper misery.

  Chapter Seven

  THE WEDDING COULD not have taken place in worse weather. It rained torrentially the entire day and no amount of pretence could have disguised that. Rose, drawing the curtains on another grey sodden garden, felt sorry for Elsie. The awfulness of the weather quite removed the tiny splinters of jealousy that had been pricking her ever since the invitation came. It wasn’t even soft summer rain, that the sentimental could call romantic and claim made all the green seem translucent, but hard, driving stuff that almost seemed sleet. It was cold, too, shivering cold for those who had not yet donned their winter woollies, not at all the climate for thin wedding dresses. Rose was glad she had chosen a costume after all.

  Stanley had booked a mini-cab to take them to the church, after a good deal of hesitation. He had expected to have a car sent but as the day drew nearer and they were not informed of any car coming, other arrangements had to be made. He was still convinced a car might have come, but Rose was adamant that it wouldn’t. Th
ey didn’t rate a car, she said. They weren’t good enough. Stanley thought that was nonsense and was all for asking Elsie straight out if they were to be conveyed to the church or not, but Rose wouldn’t allow it. By chance – a most remote chance – it was Rose who answered the telephone when Elsie rang the night before and he could hear how gratified she was to be able to say they had a car booked, thank you very much, and had never expected one being sent for them. That Elsie had been apologetic was a source of great pleasure to Rose. She went on and on about it all night in a way Stanley found distasteful, but he said nothing.

  They were ready by eleven – the wedding was at midday – and the cab was booked for eleven-thirty. Rose, of course, had fretted about whether that was early enough but even she had to admit that, with the church only ten minutes’ drive away, allowing half an hour was ample. If the worst came to the worst, they could even hop on a bus. It was Stanley’s opinion that they could have hopped on one anyway, but he had had more sense than to say so. Now, watching the rain, his restraint was rewarded. They would have been like drowned rats walking two yards.

  ‘Well I must say we look very smart, the pair of us,’ said Stanley, as they waited.

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ sniffed Rose, but smiled.

  ‘I am. All dressed up and somewhere to go. I like that.’

  A flicker of lines appeared across Rose’s forehead but she controlled them and sent them scudding away, contenting herself with, ‘Yes, well, that’s been up to you, hasn’t it. It’s what I’ve been saying, we’ve become stick-in-the-muds. Another few years and we won’t even be going to weddings like as not – that’s if there are any left to go to.’

  ‘I’d always go to a wedding,’ Stanley said, ‘or a party.’

  Rose laughed, quite good-naturedly. ‘When did you last go to a party?’

  ‘Christmas.’

  ‘Christmas? Where for goodness sake?’

  ‘The Club.’

  ‘Oh, that. I thought you meant a proper party.’