Chain Reaction

by Gillian White

  ‘Leave that to me,’ says Dougal.

  ‘I already have,’ replies Sir Hugh. ‘This could be a sticky business and I cannot afford to dirty my hands. That’s your job. You’d better not mess this one up though, or it’s curtains as far as you are concerned. So for your own sake, my boy, I should jolly well remember that.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  Flat 1, Albany Buildings, Swallowbridge, Devon

  ‘HURRY UP, MISS BENSON, do. We haven’t got all day.’

  Miss Benson, with a handful of nails gripped between her teeth, the metal setting her nerves on edge, is going as fast as she possibly can. She is not used to manual labour even though she works with animals. She is a trained animal nurse, and a good one, and not given to doing odd handy jobs at the veterinary practice where she works; she leaves that to the trainees.

  Mrs Peacock is pleased with herself this morning, not only because D Day has finally arrived, but also because when she entered her flat she found a sympathetic reply from the Queen waiting on the doormat.

  However, Miss Benson, who has taken a fortnight off for this enterprise, is rightly concerned that if she makes too much noise with her hammering she will attract the attention of the neighbourhood. ‘Don’t worry about that, dear,’ Mrs Peacock assures her, sitting watching her struggles from her comfortable chair, agitating with her stick while with the other eye she keeps watch by the far window. ‘They’ll think it’s the new people moving in. You could set the place ablaze and no one would take any notice they’re that wrapped up in their own affairs. Just keep going, you’re doing very well.’

  Miss Benson knows she is not, and that Mrs Peacock is merely being encouraging. The crisscross planks nailed against the windows could have fitted better, but there it is, there’s no time to be finicky, just as long as they hold firm, which they do, nailed as they are to the wooden sills below and the solidly built pelmets above. Unfortunately the plastic surrounding the double glazing cannot be utilised for this purpose although that would have made a neater job. It is also a good thing that this is a compact little flat with only five windows because Miss Benson’s arms and wrists are weakening fast.

  Once these are done there is only the door to be barricaded when Miss Benson has gone, and Mrs Peacock reckons that if Emily starts off the holes first, she will be able to manage that job herself, balanced on a chair. Once she has abandoned ship Miss Benson’s work will not be over; as acting public relations person she will have her hands full, not only that but it’s her job to make sure Mrs Peacock receives all necessary supplies via the secret floorboard connection they have worked on under the carpet in Miss Benson’s lavatory. For who knows how long Mrs Peacock will have to hold out here until they finally capitulate and allow her to stay in her home, and die there if she wants to… Or what foul means will be employed by the shamed authorities to prise her from her sanctuary unless a supportive public is made fully aware of the situation first.

  In this, surely, the Queen’s letter is going to be a boon.

  It said, Dear Mrs Peacock, The Queen has asked me to pass on to you her sincere sympathies on hearing about your present plight. She has asked the local authorities and your local Member of Parliament to supply her with all relevant information and has requested to be kept informed as to your future circumstances. Yours sincerely, L. M. Stokes, Lady in Waiting.

  ‘That’ll go nicely on the door once you’ve shut it behind you, and you’re going to the stationer’s down the road for photocopies, aren’t you?’ Irene Peacock fretted. ‘Don’t forget, in case they rip the original off.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten. Just you stop worrying now and relax. Everything is in hand. You’ve got a good supply of ciggies and gin, and if you run out I’ll send more down. Your glasses are mended and they’re there on the table. There’s magazines, all your favourites. And there’s enough tinned food in that cupboard of yours to last six months.’

  ‘If only I’d had a decent pantry here, like I had at the bungalow. I can’t understand how they can be allowed to build anything without a pantry and an airing cupboard. So necessary. Almost as important as a bathroom, when you think about it. I never imagined that one day I would be reduced to a mere cupboard.’

  Miss Benson is almost too weak to reply. She steps down off her little stool-ladder at last, trembling with exhaustion, and regards the last of the windows. ‘That’s done, thank goodness,’ she says, pleased with her handiwork. ‘They’ll not break through there without making a hell of a racket.’

  ‘Thank you so much, Miss Benson.’ Mrs Peacock rises creakily to put the kettle on again. ‘I really do appreciate everything you have done.’

  ‘I was glad to help,’ says her friend with feeling. ‘You know I was. It’s a way of relieving my own frustrations. I only wish I could have done something so simple in order to help my own mother.’

  ‘Poor soul,’ commiserates Mrs Peacock. ‘The poor, poor soul.’

  It hadn’t taken long to convince Miss Benson to give her support to the plan, once they’d been out together a few times and Miss Benson realised how terribly unhappy Mrs Peacock was at Greylands. It came as a shock at first, well, of course it did, the very idea of a seventy-five-year-old woman blocking herself in her flat and refusing to come out until they agreed to her simple requirements.

  ‘What if anything should happen to you while you’re in there?’ was Miss Benson’s first alarmed reaction. ‘I would be directly responsible.’

  ‘There you go, just like the rest of them. Do I have to remind you, too, that I am responsible for my own actions. I might be forgetful at times, and I do behave oddly now and again, I know that, I admit it, but I am seventy-five and surely, at my age, there should be some leeway given for little eccentricities.’

  ‘But you could die in there, nailed in, with nobody beside you.’

  ‘Oh, honestly, Miss Benson! Haven’t you learnt that lesson yet? When you are born and when you die and when you are ill and when you give birth, as you might do one day, you are alone of necessity. You are fighting life’s battle alone, and it might be nice to die in friendly arms, but I’m really not too bothered where and how it happens as long as it’s quick and relatively painless. At least I would be in my own home with my own beloved things around me. And, my dear, you must remember that you’ll be constantly in touch.’

  They’d had to act quickly or the ‘beloved things’ to which Mrs Peacock referred would have gone off to charities or been tipped into the nearest Council skip. They hadn’t had long to sort out their plans, from the moment of conception a few days ago, to today’s countdown which started at nine o’clock. ‘Miss Benson and I are spending a day at the zoo,’ Mrs Peacock informed Miss Blennerhasset. ‘We want to leave early to get there in time to see the sealions and the penguins fed.’

  ‘That’s perfectly fine by me. Have a nice day,’ said Miss Blennerhasset with her little smug smile, unhappily too easily affected by such colloquialisms from America. ‘Ask the kitchens if they’ve got any old bread.’

  ‘Oh no, you’re not allowed to feed bread to the animals. Miss Benson says they sell the correct food at the zoo shop. I’d have thought you’d have known that,’ said Mrs Peacock, trying to sound casual while all the time her old heart banged against her chest and she was afraid it might give out before she could accomplish anything.

  Miss Blennerhasset, who was only trying to be helpful, sighed and wondered if she ought to increase the dosage on the medication she was giving to Mrs Peacock. She seemed rather too lively and pleased with herself of late, not her old self at all, with a funny smell to her breath—gin?—and smoking far too much in that disgusting room of hers, swearing that she doesn’t in spite of the stubs the cleaners find squashed down her washbasin sink. But then again, she’d rather have Mrs Peacock like this than the bad-tempered, evil-minded old crone she was when she first arrived, causing trouble and running away all the time. And her daughter, Frankie, feels much relieved about her, too. It’s good to keep th
e relatives happy.

  ‘When should we expect you back?’

  ‘Same time as always,’ sang Mrs Peacock, pushing her urgent way through the door with her stick to where Miss Benson’s car sat waiting in the Greylands drive. Miss Blennerhasset waved to Miss Benson but she didn’t think Miss Benson saw, or she deliberately ignored her—but why on earth would she do that?

  The first thing they did was call at Safeways with a long list of essentials for the sit-in. Miss Benson gladly provided the funds. Then they collected the planks, hammer and nails from the DIY superstore next door. The wood, heavier than she’d expected, and awkward to handle, only just fitted in the back of Miss Benson’s car, so that was rather a worry. From the store they also purchased a small camping stove, a battery radio and an oil lamp in case the authorities decided in their wisdom to cut off the electricity, although that wouldn’t do too much for their image. The two-way radio from Mothercare had been purchased and tested a few days earlier and was already installed and working satisfactorily.

  ‘What is Miss Blennerhasset going to say when she hears what we’ve done?’ asked Miss Benson, giggling away like a naughty child. ‘I wouldn’t like to be around to hear her.’

  ‘Well, I would,’ said Mrs Peacock airily. ‘It’s poor Frankie who’ll be most upset. I mean, it won’t look too good for her, will it, even though she had little choice.’

  ‘She did have a choice,’ Miss Benson reminds her. ‘She could have had you to stay with her. She could have done a lot more to help you, even though she’s a busy woman. You are her mother, you know.’

  ‘But I’d rather not upset anyone,’ Mrs Peacock lamented. ‘All I honestly want is to be allowed to stay in my own home and be carried out of it feet-first, if possible.’

  ‘This is the only way to achieve that,’ Miss Benson agreed. ‘Sad but true, I’m afraid.’

  ‘So let’s get on with it,’ said a determined Mrs Peacock, making herself comfortable while Miss Benson unpacked the supplies. She doesn’t like to think about Frankie. Her daughter has been through the mill lately, with Michael defecting and money being at a premium and having to work so hard, suddenly, becoming the main breadwinner. But Frankie should not have connived with the Council to sell her mother’s flat, not in that underhand way, not without asking. She’d tricked her. Nor should she be so unwilling to support her mother’s wish to remain at home. What Irene is doing might be mortally embarrassing for Frankie, but that’s nothing like the suffering Irene herself has been put through.

  No. The main worry is, have they thought of everything? Miss Benson spent one whole afternoon in the library studying lists of likely pressure groups who might assist Mrs Peacock in her plight, like the Council opposition parties, Age Concern, Amnesty and Liberty and many more who’d be likely to demonstrate an interest once the show got underway. She also made notes of the local media telephone numbers, including the local television. Miss Benson was used to campaigning because of her high-profile position in her various animal causes. She knew the sort of people to look for; she knew the best ways to approach them.

  Nothing they are planning to do goes against the law. There is no compulsory stipulation that Mrs Peacock should be forced into an institution against her will and thereby have to sell her home. She hasn’t been certified as mad. She hasn’t been labelled as suffering from dementia, or any other mental condition apart from the natural process of aging. ‘I did worry a great deal about you when you started wandering about at night. I thought you were sleepwalking. I felt quite frightened, nervous to come across you in the dark with your huge rosebud nightie and your old hot-water bottle,’ confessed Miss Benson when they were on better terms. ‘Now I realise you were merely unable to sleep, and couldn’t be bothered to change your clothes. I thought you were going mad, and when I spoke to Mrs Rendell she said nothing to reassure me.’

  ‘Typical Frankie,’ said Mrs Peacock, rolling her aged eyes.

  Miss Benson laughed with relief. ‘And then there was the Morse Code era. That’s what I called it when you started tapping at night. I didn’t know you were plagued by woodlice and were trying to kill them with your spatula. I though you’d lost your head and I told Mrs Rendell so, too.’

  ‘Just because I was old,’ said Mrs Peacock correctly.

  Nothing states that it is unlawful to cover the inside of one’s windows with planks, or bore a small hole from one lavatory to another directly below; no planning permission is required for that. No, the only unlawful action Mrs Peacock is planning to take is to refuse to obey the police if they tell her to open her door.

  And that is hardly a hanging offence.

  All the same, Frankie is going to be outraged. And Angus and Poppy won’t be too happy either, their own grandmother behaving so badly, letting them down in front of their friends, a heinous offence according to Frankie who has even been asked to keep away from school concerts and sports days because of her hats and her loud voice. When Frankie told her mother that, Irene was flabbergasted. ‘And you listened to that? You deliberately stayed away from school in case you embarrassed your own children?’

  ‘Well, I was quite relieved, actually, not to have to go to some of the rubbish they put on.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t have had that from you. And your father would have been terribly upset to think you were ashamed of him.’

  ‘I was, most of the time,’ said Frankie. ‘I was ashamed to see how you hovered round him, fuss fuss fuss, fetching him plates of food as if he couldn’t get his own, finding his seat for him, spreading out a rug on the grass, buttering his bread for him, and even laying his own napkin on his lap. Ugh, Mother! Why did you do it?’

  ‘I’m not going into that again, Frankie. You do have a knack of making such innocent things sound so unwholesome. It wasn’t like that at all and you know it. Anyway, you never demanded we kept away from your school.’

  ‘I would have done if I could,’ said Frankie. ‘And I think it’s only natural for children to want to stop identifying with their parents at a certain age.’

  ‘You might call it natural, I call it downright peculiar,’ said Irene crossly.

  All this pandering to the whims of spoilt teenagers, which is what Angus and Poppy undoubtedly are. No wonder they’re such little tyrants—funny how Frankie seems to remember William in that role. Well, maybe the publicity from their grandmother’s notoriety might do the little rotters some good, make them consider other people for a change. And if it doesn’t, well, it won’t make much difference—she rarely sees her grandchildren anyway. As for Frankie… it is only of late that Irene considers she has really started to know her daughter. Only since the Greylands episode have they started to deal with each other with any degree of honesty. And although Irene, like a martyr, knows she must do what is now required, she is loath to sacrifice that.

  The efficient Miss Benson, with her strict eye for detail, is ticking the lists. Irene is grateful for her neighbour’s help but if Miss Benson hadn’t been there she would have attempted to do this by herself. What a blessing in disguise that the terrible death of Miss Benson’s mother has affected her daughter in this heroic sort of way, turning her into a champion of the elderly, the despised and the helpless. What a boon that this colourless young woman with the wonderful compassionate nature happened to live upstairs, happened to befriend her old neighbour, visit her in Greylands and was willing to develop the relationship into a genuine friendship. Not that Irene ever bothered that much with friends. She didn’t need them. She had always had William.

  The undemonstrative Miss Benson had even insisted on buying a couple of bunches of flowers, a sweet little touch, but she said it might make all the difference during the long lonely hours to come.

  On a more practical level Mrs Peacock is going to poke her washing and her litter up through the hole in the floorboards. And Miss Benson is going to poke the milk and the daily newspapers back. She doubts they’ll allow the mail to get through, they will probably confiscate that.
The most important thing is for Miss Benson to insist she knew nothing about the scheme, and had nothing whatsoever to do with it. In order to function competently, she can’t have suspicion directed at her.

  ‘I think that’s it then,’ says Mrs Peacock eventually. ‘Shipshape and Bristol fashion. We’ll just finish off the angel cake and then you can leave me here, go upstairs and get started.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ says Miss Benson. ‘It’s all happened so quickly I can hardly believe we’re actually doing this. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather reconsider?’

  ‘And go back to that place for another night? Certainly not! I am utterly determined to do this and hold out to the bitter end if necessary.’ Mrs Peacock tightens her lips with conviction. ‘Don’t forget to pin the Queen’s letter to the door as soon as you come back with the copies. And make sure nobody sees you.’

  ‘We’ve been lucky so far, no interruptions,’ says a childishly excited Miss Benson.

  ‘I didn’t really expect any. Nobody calls here.’

  ‘Well, what can I say?’ asks Miss Benson shyly, finally rising to leave. ‘Good luck, I suppose, and the next time I see you we’ll know, one way or the other.’ Her mouth works against her tears and she pats her eyes, much moved, so sensitive and highly-strung.

  ‘I depend on you to keep me in touch…’

  ‘Don’t worry, I will,’ says Miss Benson, quietly calling in a way you might use when waving a friend off at a station. ‘And I admire you, I really do. I think you’re being very, very brave…’

  ‘Nonsense,’ says Mrs Peacock, lighting a farewell cigarette and feeling gratified by the compliment. ‘Just determined, that’s all. I was always a determined woman, I always prided myself on my ability to pull through. Even William used to say…’

  ‘Jolly good!’ Miss Benson carefully opens the door and peers through to see if she’s safe. ‘I’m going now… take care… don’t worry… keep faith, my dear. We’ll win in the end.’