by Angela Huth
Peggy made herself toast and tea, and resumed her uncomfortable position on the stool. In the morning sun the Formica roses of the table were even more dislikable than they had been the evening before, when the shandy had thankfully softened their crude edges. And the old smell of smoke was sickening. But George would never give up smoking, never. He’d die of cancer one day, as she used so often to tell him, and serve him right. Peggy did not hurry over her breakfast: she took her time looking about, memorising every detail so that, tomorrow, she would have the pleasure of describing it all to Jen.
The awfulness of the kitchen, Jen, you can’t imagine . . . curtains with a vegetable motif . . .
It was all printed very clearly on her mind.
But despite her uncharitable thoughts, it would not have occurred to Peggy to leave George’s house in anything but a way that would show appreciation for his hospitality. She washed up – not only their breakfast things, but the dishes from last night that were piled in the unattractive sink. She wiped down the Formica surfaces, straightened things here and there, emptied the ashtrays. Then, finding the rubbish bin full, she decided her last act of kindness would be to empty it in the dustbin outside.
I felt I should leave a good impression, if nothing else, Jen. . .
But the back door was locked. This Peggy discovered once she had struggled to undo the giant bolts screwed at top and bottom of the door. There was no key in the lock. Patiently, she began to search for it – all the obvious places, the bread bin, under tins, top of the fridge. But no luck. No key.
Next she tried the small windows over the sink. Awkwardly leaning over the draining board, she struggled with locks that were completely unfamiliar to her. So then she went to the hall. There, the bolts on the stained wood door were drawn back – but it, too, was locked. Another search for the key: this took Peggy through all the nooks and crannies of the stuffy hall, even George’s coat pockets that hung dully from a row of hooks. But again no luck. Peggy sat on the stairs to think.
I was screaming mad, Jen, I can tell you. The bastard had locked me in. Imagine! I was his prisoner.
She sat quite calmly for a while, intrigued by a sort of nefarious peace that seemed to have possessed her. Then, when the hall clock stirred her with its muffled strokes of ten, she went to the table on which the old-fashioned, undusted telephone stood upon an ancient directory. Obviously George’s dislike of the telephone had not changed. She looked up the number of his firm in Lincoln, amazed by the weight of the old-fashioned receiver in her hand. She was put straight through to his office. His secretary, an efficient-sounding voice, said Mr Jarrett was out seeing retailers all day and would be going home from his last appointment. No, there was no way he could be contacted. Unlike everyone else, he had always refused to have a mobile telephone. Here, the secretary allowed herself a slight giggle. Was there a message, in the unlikely event of Mr Jarrett ringing in? No, there certainly wasn’t, said Peggy briskly – though she had a funny feeling her voice sounded curiously dreamy. And no, she would not be leaving her name.
The bastard, Jen. There I was, stuck. I thought, shall I ring the police?
Peggy returned to the kitchen. There, the overflowing plastic bin sat like an accusation on the threadbare linoleum of George’s horrible kitchen floor. Something about it made her look round once more, and this time she saw all the things that could be done by way of improvement. A strange energy and desire to tackle them piped through her. She found an old mop, a balding broom, stiffened cloths, a packet of hardened soap powder, and set to work.
Well, I was dumbfounded. You can imagine. The cheek of it – trapped! Never occurred to me, all these years, poor old Romeo had been wanting me back . . . I just sat there, demented.
Peggy worked hard and efficiently, and it was lunchtime by the time she had everything to her satisfaction. As good as could be in the circumstances, considering the rotten fabric of the place. At least the air smelt more of pine-scented polish than of smoke . . . Pleased with herself, she found an aged piece of cheddar in the fridge, some stale sponge fingers and a withered apple which, had she been less hungry, she would have thrown out. As she sat eating in the caged silence, she thought of all the thousands of meals George must have had here, alone, in all these years. Did he ever cook himself something good? What had he been thinking all those silent weekends and evenings on his own?
Revived by the food, Peggy then went upstairs. She crept, almost guilty, into George’s bedroom. What should have been the marital bedroom, she couldn’t help thinking. The sight was much as she imagined it would be: unmade bed, familiar striped pyjamas and a single battered paperback detective novel on the floor, not a picture on the fog-grey walls. She went at once to the windows: they, too, were secured with the same kind of locks as downstairs. The sour, smoky air indicated they had probably not been opened for years. How could he bear summer nights in such an atmosphere?
It was horrible, his room, Jen. Bleak . . .
The least she could do was tidy it up a bit, have a go at the dust.
By the time she had finished the cleaning of George’s bedroom, and the vile bathroom – curtains of cracked plastic, plugs of old hair in bath and basin – most of the afternoon had gone. Tired, Peggy decided to return to the spare room for a rest. She would have to set off the moment George came home. If he did come home. For a nasty moment she was stricken with the thought that he might have some wicked plan behind her imprisonment. He might intend to leave her to sweat it out for a while: punishment for the past.
She shivered in the dead air of the spare room. Windows locked there, too. Last night she had not liked to call George in to open them. Now – tea-time it must be – the afternoon sun hot outside, it was unbearable. Better go back downstairs: cup of tea, watch television, hope the hours would not drag too much till George . . . Peggy had no energy to tackle the sitting-room, riled though she was by its dismal state. She sat on the sofa with her cup of tea, switched on a children’s programme, must have dozed off.
I was mad by the time he came back, Jen. I screamed at him, I can tell you . . .
She didn’t know when it was, but he was standing over her. He carried a bulging plastic carrier from a supermarket, and he was smiling.
‘You dropped off, then?’
‘Must have.’
‘Didn’t expect I’d find you here.’
Peggy rallied, sleepiness quite gone. ‘You locked me in, you old sod. What did you do that for?’
‘I what?’
‘Made me your prisoner.’
‘Never. You must be daft.’ He gave a small, guilty laugh.
‘Every window and door in the place locked. I checked.’
‘Locked, yes. That I don’t deny. You know what I am about security. But I left the key. Course I left the key.’
‘Where?’
‘Come with me.’
Peggy followed him into the kitchen, suddenly uncertain. George dumped the bag on the table, went to the brush mat by the door. ‘Course I locked the door from the outside – necessary precaution – but I left you this.’ With some triumph he lifted up a corner of the mat and picked up the key that lay on the cement floor. He waggled it in her face. ‘There, Peg o’ my life. What did I tell you? Where, for all those years, did we always put the key at home? Under the kitchen doormat. Thought you wouldn’t have forgotten that.’
Peggy sniffed. Foolishness engulfed her. ‘Well, I did. I looked everywhere.’
‘Silly old you, what? Still—’ He looked round in some awe. ‘I see you’ve been doing a bit more than just looking. Tidied up a bit, haven’t you? It needed a woman’s hand. I’m not much good at that sort of thing, you may remember. Here.’ He put his hand in his jacket pocket and pulled out a couple of packets of seeds. ‘You take these. A bushy new cornflower we’re trying out. You’ve always liked cornflowers.’
Peggy examined the packets with their optimistic illustrations.
‘I haven’t much of a garden,’ she said.
‘Mine’s quite sizeable, considering,’ said George.
There was silence, then Peggy thanked him and said she’d like to take them.
He tried to calm me down with a packet of his blinking free seeds, Jen: imagine. I said I don’t want your seeds, George Jarrett, you can’t buy me that cheaply . . .
‘I’ll be on my way’ she said.
‘Better eat something first.’ George pulled things from the bag. ‘My shopping night, Wednesdays. Afraid you caught me when stocks were low, last night. We could make up for it tonight.’
Any fears Peggy had had earlier about George not taking care of himself now scattered. He had bought a selection of meats and chicken breasts and fruits and vegetables: an expensive rough pâté, French bread, and several bottles of good red wine. His tastes had changed. What was more, oddly, he seemed to have bought enough for two.
‘Tell you what,’ he went on, ‘if you’d like to put something in the oven, I’ll nip up to the greenhouse for half an hour, then I’ll come back and join you in a nice glass of claret.’
. . . and then he had the cheek to ask me to cook the dinner! I said you cook your own blinking dinner. I said you haven’t changed a mite, George: you and your chauvinistic ways that were the breaking of our marriage . . .
An hour later they were enjoying the pâté while the pre-made casserole warmed in the oven. George, against his better judgement, allowed Peggy to persuade him to leave the back door open so that sweet evening air pushed into the smoke and pine of the kitchen, dissipating the obnoxious smells. They drank the first bottle of wine and opened the second. By the time they were into the beautiful ripe Camembert, Peggy found herself weak with nostalgia.
‘We did have some good times, George,’ she allowed herself to say.
‘Some, if you say so,’ agreed George, and steered the conversation back to the possibility of a goldfish pond he had in mind for the bottom of the garden.
By the end of the second bottle of wine it was clear there was no possibility of Peggy driving home that night. Departure would have to be postponed once again. Still, there was no pressing reason to hurry home. So when George urged her to stay another night, she did not bother to resist. Once more he wished her a safe journey next day, and said what a nice surprise it had been, her dropping in, and he would leave the light on outside her room. Once more, despite the discomfort of the bed, Peggy fell asleep very quickly.
It was only next morning, going downstairs with my case again, Jen, I realised Yd forgotten to mention the matter of the key. I must admit fear gripped me. He’d had such a funny look in his eye the night before – nothing to do with the wine. And when I looked under the doormat, and there was no key, I knew it. I knew clearly what he was trying to do. He was trying in his horrible devious way to get me back . . . If you’ve ever had a man after you like that . . .
Quite calmly, Peggy boiled herself an egg for breakfast and made real coffee instead of tea. The kitchen smelt much better now: she sat looking at the lovely show of gladioli in the bed outside, hands round her mug, a comfortable summer warmth within and without. But she would not be caught out so foolishly again. When she had washed up she searched everywhere she could think of for the key to the back door. Unable to find it, she then checked the front door, and every window in the house: as yesterday, all locked. A prisoner again. She contemplated ringing George’s office, but decided there would be no point: he was out on his rounds most days. And besides, she would do her best to escape this time, before he came back. This silly nonsense couldn’t go on. Or could it?
The morning, Peggy thought, must at least be put to some good use. Back in the kitchen, she went through the groceries George had bought the day before and found ingredients for bread, a cake, veal stew, a gooseberry crumble. She set to work. The thought of the surprise George would have when he returned, reminding him of the good cook she had always been . . . A bee was trapped in the room. Peggy found herself sympathising with its pathetic buzzing.
‘We’re both prisoners, bee,’ she said. ‘But it’s not too bad, is it?’
It was terrible, Jen, shut in, not a breath of air, dreading him with his frightening eyes coming back. What would he do tonight? Fill me with drink again? I wondered, should I ring the police? I was trembling all over by now, hardly able to think. The monster. Men who want a woman – they’ll do anything.
Peggy was kneading dough with a firm hand, a slight smile on her lips. No questions as to why George had shut her in a second time came to perplex her. Rather, she found herself remembering some of the pleasures in their marriage. They had taken long walks, sometimes, in the Lake District, staying at farmhouses on the way. They both liked a bet on the horses, an occasional drink at the pub, quiet evenings in front of the television. It was hard to remember, in fact, quite what had gone so wrong. George had always been a terrible old chauvinist, never renowned for his open mind, but Peggy had become used to all that – couldn’t remember the exact nature, come to think of it, of all the irritations and frustrations. Perhaps they had simply been too young, too wrapped up in their own preoccupations, no children to deflect them, to give them a mutual interest. Had they stuck it out. . . by now, they might have reached that state of coasting along in mutual tolerance that a good many people seemed to settle for. They would have had companionship, the comfort of security. Had they stuck it out . . .
I spent that afternoon fen, going back in my mind over all the awful things about George, thinking how well rid of him I was.
She spent the afternoon impatiently waiting for the delicious things to come out of the oven (the smell of baking bread finally overcame the last traces of smoke), an idea forming in her mind. It made her restless, her idea. Too restless to weigh it up very accurately. She laid the table for tea, chivvied about, willing the hours to hurry until the evening.
‘I saw your car. What happened this time?’ George began, soon as he was through the door.
‘It was no joke, today, George. Locked in again.’
Peggy tried to sound angry. She knew she didn’t succeed.
‘Don’t be silly’ He stomped over to the small alarm clock on the dresser. Picked it up. Produced the key.
‘I thought you said under the mat?’
‘Under the mat didn’t work yesterday, did it? Thought I’d try our other place today. Remember: the key’ll be under the mat or under the clock, we always said. Thought you couldn’t be so . . . another day’
‘Well, I was. Stupid, I know’ George, she thought, gave her a funny look. ‘There’s tea in the pot.’
They both sat down at the table. George cut into the bulging loaf. The crust crackled and chipped under his eager knife.
‘I say, jolly nice, this. Haven’t had a bit of bread the like of this since . . .’ He sniffed. ‘Smells as if you’ve been cooking other things, too.’
‘I made supper. Had to fill the hours somehow’
‘Sorry about the misunderstanding, Peg o’ my life.’
‘That’s all right.’
There was a friendly pause. They both spread honey thickly on to the buoyant slices of bread. This is auspicious, Peggy thought. Now is my moment.
Greedy sod, got through my loaf in a flash. I could see he meant business . . .
‘George,’ she said, ‘I could stay a few days if you like. Finish tidying the place up, put some things in the freezer for you. I mean, there’s nothing pressing I have to be home for.’
‘What about your little cat? I expect you’ve still got a cat, haven’t you?’
‘My neighbour Jen sees to her. I could ring Jen, tell her I was delayed for a few days.’
George sniffed again, put down his bread. His hand, his face, were suddenly, visibly, rigid. Peggy was awkward under his new look.
‘Funny,’ she said, ‘I was thinking. You know, if we hadn’t been so bloody silly we’d still be together today. None of that divorce business need have happened. We’d be quite happy, used to each other. We’d h
ave security, company, for our old age. Not that I’m grumbling about things as they are, and you don’t seem too badly off, could be a nice place here—’
‘Vicious neighbourhood,’ interrupted George.
‘Vicious or not, we would probably have been better off together once we’d got over our ups and downs.’
In the silence that followed her little speech – not quite as she had rehearsed it to herself – George spotted the bee. Too exhausted to buzz, it now tumbled back and forth along the window ledge.
‘That poor bee,’ said George, at last. ‘Must find the window key, let it out.’
‘George, did you hear what I said?’
‘I heard what you said, Peggy.’
‘And what do you think?’
‘I think, not on your life, Peg o’ my heart. Not for anything. Too much damage caused, no one changed that much, probably. I’m used to it here, as I am. Happy, like.’
There was a silence. Peggy longed for the bee to resume its buzzing. But it had given up.
‘Very well. It was just a suggestion.’
‘You were always superior to me, see. I didn’t like that.’
‘Nothing’s ever perfect.’
George looked round his newly cleaned kitchen.
‘Thank you for tidying up, though. I’ll try to keep it. . . You finish your tea. I must get down to the watering.’ George stood up, impatient to be off. Peggy had no appetite for the rest of her bread and honey.
‘Keep in touch,’ she said.
‘Why not? Card at Christmas. That sort of thing. Drive carefully.’ He pecked her on the cheek.
‘I will.’
Peggy turned her head so that he should not see her face. Ten minutes later she was on her way, suitcase and bunch of hastily picked farewell marigolds on the seat beside her.
She was eager to be home now, could not wait to tell Jen. She arrived before midnight, so rang at once. Jen was a night bird, would be longing to hear from her. She had probably been worrying about why she had not returned on the promised day.
‘Jen, it’s me, Peggy. Just back. What a time, I can tell you. I’ve been with George. Yes, George, ex-husband George. Trapped! Almost raped! Begged me to stay, wanted me back, locked me in for two days till I managed to escape. I was his prisoner, Jen! Honestly!’