The Seduction of Mrs Pendlebury

by Margaret Forster

  On the way to the zoo in Laura’s car Alice suddenly remembered the Pendleburys were off to Australia. Immediately her depression lifted. It would provide such a break, such a valuable block of time for them all to find a perspective they never had. And the trip was bound to affect them. They would come back quite changed, better able to cope with what were quite ordinary problems of day-to-day living. There was even the possibility that they might not come back at all, whatever Mrs P. said – and if they couldn’t go back and couldn’t go forward wasn’t that the best thing to hope for? Wouldn’t it be better to part than mark time for ever in a bog of misunderstandings? She would let Amy go in tomorrow. She would make an effort to be forthcoming again herself. She ought to be able to manage any strain for less than three weeks.

  Chapter Seventeen

  AMY WENT TO make pastry with Mrs Pendlebury the next morning, and then the next and the next after that. Each time she was collected by her mother she would announce the time she was going to come the following day, and when Alice demurred Mrs P. would say, wearing her best grand duchess look, ‘Yes, that’s all right, I’ll take her off your hands for a bit,’ and all Alice could do was thank her and remember Australia was only a matter of days off. Occasionally she tried to say that she was sure Mrs P. was very busy getting ready for her trip but Amy was convinced she was helping. Packing was her favourite game. She recited a list of all the things Pen had in her case, stringing them into one long word.

  Alice was grateful that at least Mrs P. seemed cheerful about it all. There were no signs at all that any kind of panic had set in as the time dwindled to a week. She brought in to their re-established Wednesday coffee mornings letters from Frank and letters from Veronica and letters from the two older children and had Alice read them all several times. They were exemplary letters. Alice found the ones from Veronica particularly enlightening and couldn’t help remarking to Mrs P. that her daughter-in-law seemed to know her very well considering they’d never met. All Mrs P. said was, ‘She’s a doctor’s daughter – they know how to go about things. I expect there’s more to her than meets the eye.’ ‘What do you mean?’ Alice asked. She hardly ever asked Mrs P. that, for it was when she was at her most enigmatic that she was also most sensitive, and did not like to be pushed or made to explain.

  ‘Well, she’s clever, isn’t she?’ Mrs P. said. ‘No point in putting my back up. I’m Frank’s Mum, he wants me over there and she knows that, doesn’t she?’

  Alice read both Frank’s and Veronica’s last letters again. It seemed quite obvious to her that it was Veronica who was the more enthusiastic.

  ‘Is there anything I can do while you’re away?’ she said instead of what she wanted to say.

  ‘No thank you. My sister-in-law will be looking after the house.’

  ‘Really? But she lives at Hackney, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, but it won’t be any bother. She’ll see to it.’

  ‘I’d be only too glad, you know.’

  ‘No, that’s all right.’

  But it was not. Remembering Mrs P.’s awkwardness Alice was not surprised that when she had to re-open the subject she did so in a state of considerable agitation.

  ‘We’ve had a bombshell,’ she announced, marching into Alice’s kitchen and hurling her gloves on the table. ‘It’s the absolute limit. I shan’t get over it easily I can tell you that. That’s her finished as far as I’m concerned. Finished.’

  ‘Have some coffee,’ Alice said, turning away to the cooker to hide her smiles.

  ‘She rang up last night,’ Mrs P. said, snatching the proffered mug and swilling it down without seeming to notice it was boiling hot (though normally her sips were so ladylike the liquid must have been freezing by the end), ‘and said she was sorry but it wasn’t convenient to have my key. Wasn’t convenient! And the things I’ve done for her, the trouble I’ve taken – I was speechless.’

  Alice drank her own coffee. She had heard all about Elsie many times.

  ‘Perhaps she’s ill,’ she suggested.

  ‘Ill? Not her, she’s not ill.’

  ‘Well, she must have had a reason. What did she say when you asked why it wasn’t convenient?’

  ‘I didn’t ask, I wouldn’t dream of giving her the satisfaction. Oh no, if that’s the way she wants it she can have it. Nobody gets a second chance with me.’

  They both heard the coffee going down each other’s throats.

  ‘I rang off,’ Mrs P. said. ‘Of course, she rang back but I was ready for her. Stanley answered. You can answer that phone, I said, because it’s your sister, I said, and you can tell her from me I don’t want to know.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘Course he didn’t. Started trying to tell me a lot of old rubbish about them going on holiday and not liking the responsibility while they were away – ridiculous. On holiday for a month, I said – they saw you coming.’

  ‘What a pity,’ Alice said, trying to adopt Mrs P.’s own attitude of extreme vagueness when embarrassed.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ Mrs P. said, loudly. ‘Is there any sugar in this? It’s bitter to my mind.’ Alice leapt to get the sugar. Mrs P. had been having coffee for fifteen months with exactly that amount of sugar. ‘No, it isn’t a pity. I like to know where I stand with people. It’s better to know. But we’re sunk now – the place will go to rack and ruin.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Alice said. ‘I told you ages ago it would give me the greatest pleasure to have your key and see your house and garden are looked after. I was quite hurt you’d asked your sister-in-law instead of us, really.’

  ‘You’ve got enough to do,’ Mrs P. said, ‘and with not being well.’

  ‘But I am well, I feel fine.’

  ‘You don’t look it. No, I know what it’s like, I lost a little one too. I couldn’t ask you to take on my house in your condition.’

  ‘Mrs Pendlebury,’ Alice said, stiff and even sharp, ‘it really wasn’t at all the same. I had what was really a late miscarriage. I never even saw the baby. Your daughter was a person to you and the way she died much more – harrowing. I’m not in the least haunted by my bad luck. I’ve wiped it out of my mind.’

  ‘You can’t,’ Mrs P. said. ‘You can’t ever wipe it out. I couldn’t even say Ellen’s name for ten years, not even to myself.’

  ‘But I didn’t even have a name – don’t you see, I haven’t any associations at all.’

  ‘It’s putting too much on you, in your condition.’

  ‘But my condition is splendid.’

  They argued at a tangent for some minutes more and then Mrs P. suddenly gave in with a completeness that showed she had always intended to. The key was produced that very second, together with a list of what had to be done, neatly printed by Stanley. ‘You don’t want to bother with that,’ Mrs P. said, ‘that’s just Stanley’s office training. All I care about is letting some sunshine in now and again, that’s all, especially in the bedroom. I hate a stuffy bedroom. We once went for a week to Bournemouth and when we came back it was like the Black Hole of Calcutta. Just fling open the windows on a good day – but be careful, some of those frames stick. They’re not safe. I’ve told Stanley to have them seen to but he never does. Don’t let Amy near them or they might catch her little fingers.’

  ‘Tony will cut the grass,’ Alice said.

  ‘He needs to cut his own first,’ Mrs P. said, but laughed. ‘No, he isn’t a gardener. Just you leave it. It won’t grow too much at this time of the year and we should be full of energy when we get back.’

  There was about her, Alice thought, an intensity that was startling. Her eyes, normally rather watery looking and slightly hooded, seemed to have taken on a brightness and above all a concentration they had never had. Instead of darting about uneasily from object to object, never coming to rest for more than a few seconds on the person she was talking to, they had recently become fixed. She looked somehow transported – not necessarily with delight but just not there. She talked quite normall
y but her eyes were somewhere else and the lurking smile playing about her wide, usually grim mouth added to the unnerving effect.

  ‘I haven’t seen him for twenty-four years,’ she said, drinking from an empty cup. ‘You don’t know what that’s like.’

  ‘No,’ said Alice.

  ‘I knew he’d grow up and go away. I wasn’t stupid like Elsie. It was only common sense. I never expected nothing. But when he went away there didn’t seem any point any more. Of course, I never said nothing. I wouldn’t have held him back for anything.’

  ‘It’s hard,’ Alice said, ‘but you had Mr Pendlebury. If I had to choose between Tony and Amy I’d have to choose Tony.’

  ‘What a dreadful thing to say!’ Mrs P. stood up. ‘That’s dreadful, dreadful. You should take that back at once or you’ll regret it – something terrible will happen.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Alice said, ‘it’s a silly thing to bring up anyway. I only meant –’

  ‘I should think so,’ Mrs P. said.

  They kept to trivial matters from then on, Alice working hard at it. There was, she decided, no real communication possible with Mrs P. It was better to talk endlessly of shoes and ships and sealing wax than risk confusion and offence. She ignored the mystic quality about Mrs P. and settled for the larger prosaic part. They talked about clothes for the voyage and packing and getting the house to rights and Alice made several appreciated suggestions. She confined herself to admiring new dresses and shoes and helped to suggest presents. She went with Mrs P. to the optician’s and arranged for another pair of glasses to be made up with tinted lenses. She went with her to the dentist and arranged to have another set of upper teeth made in case the worst should happen and the existing ones break. One by one she unravelled Mrs P.’s deepest darkest fears and helped her deal with them. She was a tower of strength and all the time she was counting the days until Mrs P. would go, longing to be free from the peculiar kind of strain put upon her.

  Stanley felt it too. He had been minding his own business steadily for the last month but even so Rose’s exalted mood could not pass him by. He was quite willing to be pestered about tickets and timetables but she left him alone, seeming to have a confidence in his capacity that she had never had before. She left him, in fact, altogether to his own devices and that annoyed him. She was acting as if only she was going to Australia. Sitting with that soft sick-cow look on her face she was given to little speeches about where Frank was going to take her and what she was looking forward to most and when he chipped in with his expectations she didn’t listen. It was as though she was constantly having a vision. However hard and matter-of-fact the things she was saying, the look on her face told another story. He felt she wanted brought down to earth with a bump.

  ‘Only three days left,’ he said, over their supper. ‘I see you’ve got everything packed. Do you want me to do the cases up and bring them down?’

  ‘Plenty of time,’ she said, looking over his head and stirring her tea with that faraway look. ‘I might put some tea in,’ she said, ‘you never know. I might want a cup of dependable stuff.’

  ‘So might I,’ Stanley said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said I might want a cup of tea in Australia, a cup of our own stuff I mean.’

  She stared at him blankly.

  ‘I’m going too, you know,’ he said.

  ‘Course you are,’ she said, ‘but I don’t suppose we’ll see much of each other.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, Frank mentioned taking me for a few outings on our own.’

  ‘He meant me as well.’

  ‘No he didn’t.’

  ‘Yes he did. Here, I’ve got the letter to prove it.’

  ‘Oh, put it away. Think I don’t know what he said? My own son? You’re forgetting how well we got on, aren’t you? We could do telepathy Frank and I. I haven’t felt that way since except sometimes with Alice next door.’

  Stanley was so cross he said, ‘I’m surprised to hear that. Telepathy, eh? Reading her thoughts? I bet there are a few you haven’t read.’

  ‘Such as what?’

  ‘You must have been getting on her nerves if you’ve been behaving with her anything like you’ve been behaving with me.’

  ‘Sometimes I think you’re a very nasty man, Stanley Pendlebury.’

  The excitement of the actual day approaching banished any bitchiness between them. They were up by seven each morning, both of them, scurrying around doing jobs that should have been done weeks ago. Rose was happier than she had ever been, conjuring up reserves of strength she didn’t even know she had. Last-minute visits to the doctor for Stanley’s medicine were managed without fuss, and a hair appointment the day before taken in its stride. The furniture in all the rooms except the kitchen and their bedroom was covered with old sheets and every ornament put away. Stanley didn’t understand the reasoning behind this but Rose seemed to think it necessary. They had a whole day in the garden giving the lawn the closest shave it had ever had, trimming the grass edges and tying up the bushes. All the garden tools were scrupulously cleaned afterwards and put in polythene bags and then in a sack and brought inside. And still Rose had not spent her energy.

  ‘Well,’ she said, the night before, ‘everything’s done, everything’s shipshape.’

  ‘You must be worn out,’ Stanley said. ‘I don’t know where you get the energy from. I’m beat.’

  ‘Don’t you say that – I don’t want any moans this trip. You just keep your mouth shut if you don’t feel well. No fussing – now remember.’

  ‘I don’t fuss, but if I feel poorly –’

  ‘Just go and lie down if you feel poorly, don’t go broadcasting it and casting a blight on everything.’

  ‘That’s easier said than done.’

  ‘Oh, look on the bright side for heaven’s sake. This is going to be a happy time.’

  ‘You’ve changed your tune.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘It’s not often you’re looking on the bright side.’

  ‘It’s not often I have the chance with you nagging.’

  ‘Me nag? Me nag?’

  ‘And that’s another thing – we don’t want any arguing. Let’s keep our arguing for when we’re on our own. Now, do you want a sandwich to use up that last bit of ham?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Stanley, glad everything was on a level he understood.

  They had a pleasant supper, eating up all the odds and ends. Stanley did rather well – not only did the ham stretch to four sandwiches but there were pieces of Madeira cake and a currant scone. He ate them all, washed down with several cups of tea, to a background of the radio news. Rose listened with him and they both nodded at each other when the announcer said that the power workers were again considering strike action which could lead to blackouts within a few weeks. Stanley remarked they were well out of that and Rose that she was sick of hearing bad news. Both of them agreed that the news in Australia was bound to be more cheerful.

  Going to bed was a sentimental business. Stanley said, ‘Last time I’ll lock up here for a while,’ and Rose, obviously feeling this was a sign he was taking it as seriously as she was, was pleased. She cleaned the cooker meticulously, leaving the door a little ajar. They would only need the electric kettle for the morning, barely time for a quick cuppa before the off at eight o’clock. Stanley said they would have breakfast on the plane but she knew she would be too nervous. Food was unimportant – she didn’t seem to need it at the moment. They went upstairs together for once and lay for a while chatting. The excitement was a physical thing – they swopped stories of butterflies in stomachs and clammy hands until Rose burst out laughing and said they were a couple of kids. In the end she told him to stop talking. They must get some sleep to face tomorrow. They promptly fell asleep and slept very soundly, so soundly that they heard nothing at all, neither the phone nor the doorbell nor the loud treble knock.

  Alice knew the Pendleburys were leaving at eight in the morn
ing. It was a sunny, mild morning so she opened the front door and told Amy to shout when the Pens came out of their door. So sure was she that the shout would come any minute that she didn’t bother keeping an eye on the clock and was surprised when Tony came down to find it was almost eight fifteen. Amy trailed in dragging a toy at the same time.

  ‘Amy, did you wave bye bye to the Pens?’

  ‘Pens didn’t come.’

  ‘Are you sure, Amy? Were you watching all the time?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Amy, definite and bored.

  Just then there was another bang next door.

  ‘They’re still there,’ Tony said, ‘you must have got the wrong time.’

  ‘But I didn’t – I know it was eight. Perhaps their taxi hasn’t come. Oh how awful – you know what they’re like about taxis. Do you think you should –’

  ‘No. They’ll ask if they need me. You surely don’t think even the Pendleburys would risk missing a plane to Australia just because a taxi hadn’t come, Stanley’s not that bad.’

  Alice spent the rest of the morning alternately listening to sounds next door and rushing to the front of the house at the slightest noise of a car. Nothing conclusive happened. When Amy went for her rest at eleven she was no wiser. The soothingly practical Charlotte who came along to borrow something couldn’t see why Alice should be agitated but then she never could. Agitation was an emotion Charlotte had spent a lifetime suppressing and openly despised in others. Alice immediately felt ashamed. There was, of course, nothing for her to worry about whatever had happened. Telling herself this at five-minute intervals after Charlotte had gone in her antiseptic cloud did no good at all. She was frantic with anxiety. Twice she went into the garden and peered over. Not a sign of life – everything still and sterile after the big clear-up.