‘You look like a wet week,’ she snapped.
He just looked at her. She was more annoyed than ever when she saw he really was for some reason shaken.
‘Oh come on,’ she said, ‘what is it now – what moans have you got today?’
‘I just met Tony next door,’ Stanley said.
‘What of it? I expect you’ve stood gassing for hours.’
‘No, we haven’t, he wanted to get inside.’
‘Huh, he hasn’t time for anyone that young man, can hardly pass the time of day.’
Stanley sat down, putting the tobacco he’d just bought onto the table. Slowly, an idea was building up in his head.
‘How did you find Alice this morning?’ he asked, looking hard at Rose, his voice surprisingly firm.
‘That’s my business,’ she said.
‘I don’t think you went in at all,’ Stanley accused her. ‘I don’t think you put a foot in the house. I think you didn’t get an answer and jumped to conclusions and took the huff. That’s what I think.’
‘What if I did – it’s none of your business.’
‘You led me to believe you’d been in there.’
‘I did nothing of the kind.’
‘I think you did and I think you should be ashamed of yourself. We have our faults but we’ve never lied to each other.’
Rose’s heartbeat quickened. Stanley couldn’t say boo to a goose but he’d made her sweat. It was no good glaring at him – his eyes were quite fixed and steady and she was losing. He had the advantage and he knew it. He was showing off, bullying her. She started to cry. He did nothing and said, ‘I don’t know what you’re crying for. You’ve nothing to cry about. When you’ve heard what I’ve just heard then you can cry.’
‘Oh, get on with it.’
‘Alice had her baby last night. It’s dead, and she’s very ill. There.’
The tears dried up at once. Rose felt waves and waves of heat passing through her, strong as an electric current. Her head sang and she literally staggered. Stanley was satisfied. He helped her to a chair and went to put the kettle on. Had he been cruel? Yes. Well, there was a use for cruelty sometimes. Cruelty cauterized. There was that meanness festering in Rose and it wanted burning out, the iron put straight on it for a minute. That’s what he had done. For years he’d stood by and let Rose go her own peculiar way, but not any more. This was the way to deal with her.
He made the tea good and strong and took it to her.
‘Yes,’ he said, sitting down, ‘came on very sudden, in the night. He said they hardly had time to get her to hospital. It was all over very quick.’
‘A boy?’ Rose asked, whispering.
‘Yes.’ She nodded her head, gratified. ‘Only two and a half pounds.’
‘Stillborn?’
‘No. He lived three hours in an incubator. They did everything they could.’
‘Alice?’ She felt unable to look at Stanley and was glad he was generous with his information, that she didn’t have to plead.
‘She’ll be all right. She lost a lot of blood, had to have a transfusion. Of course, she’s upset.’
Rose nodded, her hands clasped in her lap.
‘He went with her, Tony did, took Amy and went with her. I told him, I said you should have given us a ring and we’d have come in and stayed with the little thing.’
‘Oh, I wish he had!’ Rose said. ‘Oh, I’d have given anything to help.’
‘Well, he said there wasn’t time to think, it was all a panic. Anyway, I’ve told him, he’s to bring Amy straight round to us any time he likes, and if there’s anything we can do he only has to ask. That’s what I said.’
‘I’m glad you thought to say that.’
‘We owe that young couple a lot. It’s our chance to be good neighbours.’
‘It is.’
Rose’s misery ate into her all day. Stanley continued to be stern and his sternness acted as a brake on her emotion. She didn’t dare cry. She wasn’t even sure that she wanted to cry. Remorse was so much stronger in her than grief. The phrase ‘I denied her twice’ kept going through her head. If Alice had died, how would she have lived with it? The thought took her breath away. Thank God Alice was all right and amends could be made. Uneasily, she wandered about the house, her forehead permanently creased in lines, picking things up and giving them a perfunctory dust and putting them down. Whatever could she do? Stanley had offered their help, but should she go and knock on the door and offer it again? She shrank from contact with Tony. You didn’t want outsiders when you were upset. But should she go? Should she impose the ordeal on herself as a penance? He wouldn’t want her, he might close the door on her face. It was that possibility that convinced her she must do it.
An hour later, she stood on the doorstep of No. 8 dressed in her best clothes with a bunch of white roses in her hand for Alice. She had tied them up with ribbon and put a card saying ‘Hoping these can say what words cannot’. She wasn’t at all sure it was appropriate but wanted to say something. She rang the bell and waited stoically, not flinching, glad to wait, to be kept waiting. She would ring once more and then leave the flowers on the step. The whole street could see her but that was part of the bargain with herself. Her humiliation must be public. At her second ring, she heard footsteps and trembled. The door opened and Tony Oram stood there. She couldn’t look at him.
‘Come in,’ he said, tired, not opening the door wider.
‘No, no I won’t, thank you,’ she said, very quietly. ‘I don’t want to intrude. I just came to say how sorry I am and if there’s anything I can do . . .’
He cut her short, ‘That’s very kind.’
Awkwardly, they stood there. She pushed the flowers at him, saying nothing. He took them reluctantly.
‘I’ll take them to Alice this afternoon,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’
‘How is she?’
‘Oh, pretty low.’
‘Yes. Well, I won’t keep you. Give Alice my best wishes and tell her to get well soon.’
He said he would and closed the door. Rose walked the few yards back to her house, remembering after Ellen’s death. She’d hated all the people who said they were sorry, each and every one of them. She hadn’t given a thought to how they felt, to their sorrow. It had been suspect, affected, a millionth part of hers. Her suffering now opened her eyes. She felt so helpless, so unable to communicate her sympathy, to do the right thing. She hadn’t even been able to look at Tony Oram, such was her agony of doubt, but how she’d longed to cry with him and share his burden and how much more she would long to do it with Alice.
She went back into her house and told Stanley that Frank had rung up and that their tickets were in the post.
Chapter Sixteen
LYING IN BED looking at Mrs Pendlebury’s flowers and reading the message Alice thought how they meant nothing at all to her. ‘Hoping these can say what words cannot’? Well, no, they couldn’t. They said nothing at all to her. She felt a hardening in her attitude towards Mrs P. which she knew was unfair but which was real all the same. The surgeon had been most emphatic that the premature birth of her son had been a technical fault, as it were, hinging on the state of the placenta, and had nothing whatsoever to do with any emotional factors. Alice accepted this, but rebelliously went on connecting her scene with Tony with what had happened, and the scene had been about the Pens. Tony thought so too. He was adamant that this was her big chance to make a clean break with Mrs P., or at least put their relationship on a different footing. She could hide behind her weak condition to stop all the traditions of a year – stop the babysitting (Charlotte’s au pair, not to mention the Stewarts’, was available), stop the coffee mornings, stop the taking out of Amy. Stop it, and don’t start again. Be friendly and firm. Chat over the wall, chat in the street, wave and smile, occasionally have her in: but no more responsibility.
Alice agreed. It had all gone sour. What she had hoped for when she first set out to convert Mrs P. to human fellowship had ba
ckfired and she had become a martyr. She lay in bed the second day she was home waiting for Mrs P. to come in and practised what she would say. Nothing much, really. She would simply say the doctor had told her to be very careful for a couple of weeks and not have visitors and generally be as quiet as possible. Mrs P. would take the hint. It was worrying that she might have noticed they had been out to celebrate her homecoming under Charlotte’s auspices, but that couldn’t be helped. She must be resolute.
Her resolution vanished the minute Mrs P. put her head round the bedroom door. Her knock was so timid, her eyes so anxious, her whole demeanour so genuinely shy, and when she smiled and asked how Alice was it was like Amy smiling for forgiveness after a tantrum and a smack and tears.
‘I’m fine,’ Alice said, ‘just a bit weak. Come in, sit down, thank you for the lovely flowers.’
Mrs P. came in and perched on the very edge of a chair. Then she said something that completely threw Alice’s prepared words to the winds, that made the very thought of what she had been about to do repugnant.
‘I have missed you,’ she said. She shook her head and repeated, ‘I’ve really missed you, Alice. I can’t tell you how I’ve missed you and your friendly face.’
Alice was appalled. It was a departure so new and shattering for Rose Pendlebury to confess to affection and dependence in one breath that she could not take it in.
‘It hasn’t been the same without you. Charlotte down the road invited me for coffee on a Wednesday but it wasn’t the same. I appreciated the gesture, but it wasn’t the same. We aren’t the same sort. And the garden was that quiet – dreadful it was.’
‘I missed you too,’ Alice found herself saying but Mrs P. wasn’t listening, she hadn’t finished.
‘It made me appreciate the interest you’ve taken – no, I know not all young people are so considerate and it’s no use you saying they are. I want to get this off my chest, it’s been bothering me for a long time. It was the happiest day in my life when you moved in here and if anything had happened to you I don’t know what I should have done. There.’
They both cried, Mrs P. on a tide of high emotion and Alice in self-defence. Then there was a good deal of mopping up to be done, a searching for handkerchiefs and a disposing of them, followed by smiles and laughs at their own expense and big sighs when it was finished.
‘I shouldn’t stay too long,’ Mrs P. said at last, ‘not in your condition.’
‘Oh, I’m just pretending,’ Alice said.
‘Where’s Amy?’
‘Charlotte has her. She’s going to have her every morning just for this week. She’s spoiling me.’
Mrs P. looked a little taken aback. ‘Oh, well, that’s very nice. I was going to say I would have her but if she’s being looked after –’
Instead of saying that yes, she was, Alice found herself making excuses. ‘Well with Sam almost the same age – and the au pair is very good –’
‘It’s only natural,’ Mrs P. said. ‘Children like to be with children. When my Frank was little I used to take him to the park, rain or shine, just to be with other children and when he started school they couldn’t believe he was an only child. He isn’t an only child, is he, the teacher said to me and she wouldn’t believe it when I said yes, as a matter of fact, he is. You should do the same with Amy.’
‘I do,’ said Alice.
‘It’s difficult for only children. Of course Frank wouldn’t have been an only . . . nor would Amy . . .’
‘I hope she won’t be for long.’
‘So do I. That’s what I hoped after my Ellen died but nothing ever happened. Well, there you are, that’s life.’
Alice did not feel like saying that yes it was.
‘How’s Mr Pendlebury?’ she asked instead.
‘Oh, he’s all right, grumbling as usual, slow as a snail. I had to drag him to the passport office.’
‘Passport office?’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs P., vague, spots of pink in both cheeks. ‘We’ve left it a bit late to go through the usual channels so we had to go down. We’re off in three weeks.’
‘No! How exciting – tell me about it. When exactly do you go – by air or sea – how long for – oh I wish I was you.’
Mrs P. tried hard to seem casual but failed miserably. She told with pride of Frank’s gesture, of how he had paid for and organized the whole thing and had their tickets sent and all they had to do was get passports. She told of the telephone conversation and the excitement at the other end and how none of them could wait. She rhymed off the magic list of place names they would visit and recited their itinerary for the journey with relish. Alice responded with animation. Together they pieced together what they knew about Victoria and Adelaide, about kangaroos and aborigines, about surf-riding and sheep and the outback.
‘I’d give absolutely anything to be you,’ Alice said when they’d exhausted their common knowledge. ‘Just imagine – to be going to a whole new continent and not even as tourists but going to see your family, all those faces you’ve never even seen.’
‘Yes, well,’ said Mrs P. She frowned and played with her gloves. ‘It won’t all be plain sailing of course, there’ll be snags, drawbacks. Bound to be.’
‘What do you mean? There won’t be any snags, it’ll all be lovely. They’ve asked you to go, they’ve pushed you into it, they’re all waiting for you.’
She knew she had divined exactly what the matter was. ‘She sounds such a nice person, Frank’s wife, and the children too.’
‘Oh, I expect she’s nice enough. She’s a doctor’s daughter you know, a nurse herself. She’s very clever, writes good letters and lovely clear writing, much better than Frank’s. He thinks the world of her of course – “You couldn’t have found a better wife for me yourself, Mum,” that was when he rang to tell us he was getting married.’
‘There you are then.’
‘But you can’t live in another woman’s house and not have differences, can you? And there won’t be any getting away if anything goes wrong, we’ll be stuck. I don’t like the feeling that I won’t be able to get away.’
‘You won’t want to get away, you’ll see. They’ll spoil you, it will be the most marvellous rest.’
‘Oh I don’t want any rest – I want to muck in and help. I hope she won’t make me rest.’
‘She won’t if you don’t want to.’
‘She doesn’t do her own housework you know – they have help. Veronica works mornings in the hospital, I don’t know how I’ll get on with help, I’m sure.’
‘Like a house on fire,’ Alice said promptly.
‘Of course, I can take care of little Alexander – he’s Amy’s age. I don’t suppose he’ll be fussy.’
‘He’ll adore you, he’ll dote on you.’
‘Two-year-olds can be funny.’
‘Not with their own grannie.’
‘Well, we shall just have to see. It’s three weeks away yet. Anything can happen.’
‘Nothing will happen – you’ll go and you’ll probably love it so much you’ll never come back. After all, you’ve nothing here to keep you, have you? I mean, no family or ties of any kind.’
‘It depends what you call ties,’ said Mrs P., visibly offended. ‘We’ve lived in London fifty years, thick and thin. That’s a tie in my opinion.’
‘Yes, but it’s not flesh and blood, is it?’
‘There’s a lot of nonsense talked about flesh and blood, to my mind. I get sick to death of hearing about flesh and blood and then reading all those scandalous stories in the newspaper. You can’t open a paper these days without reading about old folk getting neglected. Now then.’
Alice hesitated. It was no good pointing out to Mrs P. she wasn’t being logical – it would be like persecuting her.
‘Well, I’m glad you’ll want to come back,’ she said, quickly. ‘We’ll miss you quite enough as it is – a month will seem an eternity.’
‘Oh, you won’t miss me like I missed you.’
‘But I will, it will be dreadful. Amy will be lost without you.’
‘She’ll manage. She’s hardly been near me for weeks and weeks.’
‘But she hasn’t been here –’
‘Memories are short.’
‘No – no they aren’t –’ Alice spoke louder and more forcefully than she had intended. ‘I think the opposite – memories are long, they last for ever, it’s just finding them sometimes takes time. I don’t think I ever forget anything really.’
‘You’re young. It’s different when you’re young. Stanley can’t hardly remember what happened yesterday and he’s got me nearly as bad. Well, I’d best be going. Can I get you any shopping? I don’t expect I can. Charlotte’s doing it in her car, is she?’
‘Yes, she is, but there are some things I forgot to put on my list – but Tony could get them.’
‘If you’d rather he did of course –’
‘No, I’d rather you did, but it might be a bother or make your bag too heavy –’
She made out a list, not entirely faked but full of items that could have waited indefinitely.
‘I shall have to do some shopping myself,’ Mrs P. said, happily waiting. ‘We can’t go to Australia with what we’ve got, Veronica would have a fit.’
‘I don’t suppose she cares two hoots what you wear,’ Alice said, absent-mindedly,
‘Oh won’t she – well I would and I do. She doesn’t want to take a couple of tramps around now, does she? She wants us to be a credit to them, doesn’t she? I should think so. My goodness I wouldn’t like it if my in-laws showed me up. No, there’ll have to be some shopping done from the skin out, no good shirking it, And suitcases to put it in. We haven’t a suitcase between us, not what you could call a suitcase.’
‘I’ll lend you one.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it, thank you all the same. I should hope we can afford decent luggage.’
‘But there doesn’t seem much point just for one trip.’
Mrs P.’s face was fierce. Alice felt tired suddenly. Ashamed, she took refuge in falling back on her pillows and saying feebly that she didn’t feel well. Instantly, Mrs P. was solicitous, blaming herself for talking too much, scolding herself for not noticing the invalid was getting tired. She insisted on making Alice some tea and on straightening the bed and drawing the curtains and finally tiptoeing out with the hoarsest of whispered goodbyes.
The Seduction of Mrs Pendlebury Page 24