Chain Reaction (13 page)

‘I don’t hold with neighbours. Never have.’ All the aggressiveness of the insecure.

‘I understand, but perhaps you would accept this little gift…’

A scrawny hand shot out and took the tea and the biscuits. The old body took time to straighten. ‘I have all I need. My daughter makes sure that my cupboard is well stocked, though it’s going to be difficult without a pantry. I always had a pantry before, and an airing cupboard.’

Miss Benson, flushed after a few more futile attempts at conversation, remembered how words like ‘loony’ and ‘old crone’ had been flung at her mother when she found herself toothless and living alone behind locked doors in the village where she grew up. She’d been driven into a home in the end, by lack of Social Services and a shortage of good neighbours. Nobody knew her any more; the entire population had changed in one generation. Constantly alarmed by reports of high crime levels and police dramas on the TV, the old woman was firmly convinced that someone was out to get her. She refused to open her door. She was starving slowly to death. They took her away in the end. They did not contact Miss Benson because nobody knew her address and there was nothing to be found in the cottage that might reveal her whereabouts. Later it was discovered that old Mrs Benson had deliberately disposed of any clue to her daughter’s existence, so convinced in her mind was she that these imaginary villains would threaten her, too, if they only knew where Emily was. Emily hadn’t known for months. When she finally tracked her mother down she discovered her unable to walk and rendered incontinent and totally senile by the sterile regime at The Cedars. The mother no longer recognised the daughter. But standing there on the landing, facing a silent Mrs Peacock, Miss Benson couldn’t for the life of her think of anything useful to say. She wasn’t going to be invited in, she had done her best so she added lamely, ‘Well, I’m just upstairs if you need anything. Don’t be afraid to call me.’

Mrs Peacock cast a grim look at the cold concrete stairs leading up from the hall and huffed before closing the door, and the echoing sound of the locks and chains shooting home was definite and terrible like fear. Oh yes, Miss Benson recognised Mrs Peacock and the calls for help she had not heard as an undutiful daughter only a few years before.

Today Miss Benson goes upstairs nervously and opens Mrs Peacock’s door with a fair degree of anxiety.

To her relief the room is fresh and sweet-smelling. Mrs Peacock sits in a flowered nightie with her bag clutched in her lap and her head bowed but she fumbles impatiently with the new packet of cigarettes she is offered and lights one happily before she starts to grumble. ‘So this is what it’s come to now, Miss Benson, I’m afraid. Look! Look at this! They say they have no option but to sell my flat to pay the fees for keeping me here, but I’m not an invalid, I was coping until I broke my leg and now that’s mended I just don’t know what makes them think they need to keep me here locked up like a prisoner. I can get along quite well with only one stick.’

‘There must be a social worker who would listen to you and help you…’ starts Miss Benson, appalled to see her neighbour here in this little room, like a child’s, with a single bed along one wall and a fitted wardrobe along the other, hardly room to take a full stride before you bang into one or the other. The floral nightie they have put her in, communal, Miss Benson is sure, reveals the chickeny skin of her throat. She sits on her day clothes that seem to have been thrown down in a careless heap, and the old lady was always so fussy about her clothes. Remembering Matron’s warnings, Miss Benson attempts to be positive. ‘The view from the window is lovely. The garden looks nice.’

‘Matron’s a keen gardener. The social workers are the worst of all,’ snaps Mrs Peacock impatiently. ‘Left-wing do-gooders, just out of college with filthy hair and sandals and silly ideas. And anyway, I’ve never needed the services of a social worker in my life and I don’t intend to start now. They sent me a man with a beard.’ The eyes that lift towards her are opaque and dull—a look she has never seen in Mrs Peacock before. She reminds Miss Benson of her mother. Have they put her on drugs?

Mrs Peacock is sitting in her bedside chair, the visitor has to sit on the bed. ‘At least they let you have a few of your own personal things, I see.’

‘Yes, everything else I own will be sold when they get rid of my flat.’ And then she adds musingly, ‘I thought you’d have come to see me before, Miss Benson. I’ve been stuck here for three months now.’

‘I just didn’t know if I should. I worried about your daughter. I don’t want her to think I am interfering.’

Mrs Peacock stubs out her cigarette into a floral-shaped soap dish. Then she wraps it up in a tissue, riffles through a drawer and hides the last sign of her habit in a carrier bag before dropping it into the wastepaper basket. With fierce blue eyes she glares at her visitor. ‘Whose side are you on anyway, Miss Benson? I thought you were
my
friend, not my daughter’s.’

‘Oh, it’s not a matter of taking sides, it’s a matter of doing the best for you.’

Mrs Peacock snorts and says nothing.

‘Perhaps you should see a solicitor?’

‘And pay him with what—moth balls? And anyway, they have taken out power of attorney over me. I no longer count as a person. You can’t even choose what you watch on TV. They probably won’t even let me vote although I could still play a pretty fair hand of Canasta or Rummy.’

This is awful, for what can Miss Benson do? She feels guilty as if this is her fault which is very silly because this really is no business of hers. She wishes, now, that she had brought Mrs Peacock gin as well as cigarettes. If she visits again she will make up a hamper and fill it with various little treats.

She tries to lighten the conversation by bringing up the subject of Frankie, but she should have remembered that this is one topic very likely to distress Mrs Peacock. In earlier confidences the old woman admitted how her daughter always came second after William. ‘And she’s never forgiven me for that—with reason, I suppose. It is fashionable today to condemn your mother or your father. Sometimes I feel that Frankie would have been happier if she’d been abused, something firm to get a grip on. She was always a sulky child. And demanding. Is that bad, is that wicked, Miss Benson, to love your husband better than your child? And I’ve always come out straight and admitted it.’

Miss Benson, who had been slightly shocked to hear this at the time, had to confess that she just didn’t know, never having been married herself, and of course the
last
thing she wanted to be was judgmental. ‘I’m sure Frankie didn’t even realise,’ she’d suggested comfortingly. ‘As long as a child is happy and loved, she’s unlikely to feel jealousy because her parents adore one another.’

There was a long pause before the answer. ‘You don’t know Frankie,’ said Mrs Peacock grimly. ‘She even blames me for the failure of her own marriage.’

So now she moans on. Mentioning Frankie’s name when Mrs Peacock is so upset was a fatal mistake, opening up a whole new can of worms. The old woman’s eyes keep shutting as if she is already exhausted but it’s not yet eight o’clock. ‘And they never invite me out of here to go to Frankie’s house. You’d think I was incontinent already. They lead such busy lives, you see, Frankie, Angus and Poppy, so full of other people. You should see their notice board in the kitchen, little flags on every day, a different colour for each of them. Frankie is such a capable, organising person. Well, she’s a teacher, isn’t she? But there’s no room for me any more.’

Miss Benson knows all about this from sad and worrying personal experience. ‘It’s easy, sometimes, to pretend to ourselves that everything is all right, especially when we feel powerless to change things. I’m sure Frankie would like you at home, I’m sure she worries about you terribly in here, but it seems that her lifestyle makes this impossible. Especially with no man to support her.’

Mrs Peacock’s wedding picture stands beside her bed. Next to William she looks tiny but oh so blissfully happy. ‘Huh, I should know,’ she says dryly, lighting her second cigarette. She notices how Miss Benson is staring at the picture. ‘I loved him, you know, and I still miss him.’

‘I know,’ says Miss Benson.

‘So let that be a warning. Never get married, Miss Benson. Never depend on somebody else, it’s just too painful when it ends. And I can’t even read any more because I’ve sat on another pair of glasses.’

Back safe to Albany Buildings at last.

She has promised Mrs Peacock that she will visit again next week. She has also promised her a day out at her flat. Miss Benson will pick her up in her car and take her for a little outing, maybe a meal out at a pub before they return to Albany Buildings. These promises were the only things that seemed to cheer Mrs Peacock up. Somehow Miss Benson couldn’t leave her in the same despairing state in which she had found her. She just couldn’t bear it. But perhaps Miss Benson should have cleared all this with Matron first, or her daughter, Frankie Rendell. The last thing she wants is to cause trouble and make poor Mrs Peacock’s situation even worse. I mean, perhaps the old lady is ill and they are keeping it from her. There could be all sorts of reasons why it might be considered inappropriate for her to leave Greylands.

‘I think we have sold the flat,’ says a pleased-looking Frankie when Miss Benson meets her in the hall, on her way out with a bucket of cleaning things. ‘The agents seem to think there’s this couple who are very interested. Fingers crossed,’ she smiles at Miss Benson and then thinks to ask, ‘Oh, how was Mother this evening?’

‘Pretty depressed, I’m afraid.’

Frankie Rendell removes her Marigold gloves and sighs. ‘I hate to visit, she’s always so unhappy. And there’s nothing anyone can do! We have to sell the flat in order to pay the fees and that’s that.’

She might as well grasp the nettle. ‘Oh, Mrs Rendell, I hope I haven’t gone and put my foot in it, but your mother was so low I suggested I might take her out for the day, give her an airing, bring her back here for a cup of tea…’

‘That would be very good of you, Miss Benson,’ but Frankie’s voice is cold, she senses some blame in Miss Benson’s suggestion. She can’t be bothered to take her own mother out herself and yet here is this neighbour…

The over-sensitive Miss Benson sees and hurries to put this right. ‘You see, I have no responsibilities like you have. My social life is very routine, I’m afraid. I spend most weekends either cleaning my flat or walking, if it’s fine, and if you think your mother might benefit from a few hours away from Greylands it really would be no trouble. She seemed so thrilled…’

‘I am quite sure she did. My mother can be a difficult woman, Miss Benson.’

‘Yes, I realise that.’

‘Not many people warm to her.’

‘No, I suppose they don’t.’

‘She is also manipulative and vengeful. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she tries to work one of her dramas again. She’s there all day with nothing to do but to plot and plan.’

‘She is old, Mrs Rendell. And she has broken her glasses.’

That was definitely the wrong attitude to take. ‘Well, if you think you have more rapport with her than her own daughter…’

Miss Benson rushes to her own defence. ‘Oh really, it was just the same with my own mother, Mrs Rendell. We found things difficult as she grew older and I remember thinking that most of the nurses managed to communicate with my mother better than I did. She was senile, by then, and unable to recognise me but I still feel I should have got through. Somehow. It’s this mother and daughter relationship which can be so severely tested when age turns the relationship the wrong way round. I don’t see this as anyone’s fault…’

‘Well, I
am
glad to hear that,’ says Frankie coldly, rattling the Jiffy mop in the plastic bucket. She brings her own mop when she comes to the Buildings to clean the flat because Mrs Peacock only has a squeegee and they are too much hard work. ‘For a moment there I thought I was in for another telling off and I’m getting a bit pissed off with the image of grabbing, greedy, selfish daughter at the moment, I can tell you. At least Matron understands.’

‘I expect she is well used to it,’ smiles Miss Benson. ‘Difficult old people.’

‘Unpleasant, cantankerous old people.’

‘Yes, well, I expect she is used to them.’

‘And I
would
be grateful, Miss Benson, if you would refrain from mentioning the latest interest in the flat to my mother. There is no point in distressing her further.’

‘Certainly not. Of course I wouldn’t dream of it,’ says Miss Benson, gratefully gripping the iron stair-rail leading up to the first floor because she senses this difficult exchange is over. Mrs Peacock is right, Mrs Rendell
is
a difficult woman—although perhaps she does have reasons for treating her mother in such an unsympathetic manner. Miss Benson might be a timid soul but she is also stubborn; how often these two personal traits accompany each other. So it’s in a firmer frame of mind, not slightly intimidated now, that Miss Benson, with a banging heart because she cannot bear confrontations, lets herself into her flat at last, absolutely determined to overcome any obstacles in order to give her poor old neighbour a treat she will remember.

‘W
ELL, VERNON, DO WE
accept the Middletons’ offer or do we not?’

Vernon tries to curb his impatience. ‘Joy, we have no alternative.’

‘But it’s ten thousand less than we’re asking.’

‘We are lucky to get an offer at all.’

‘We won’t have enough left over to pay the bills.’

‘We will if we’re careful and if we don’t immediately start wasting money on new carpets and curtains in the flat. Remember, if they accept our offer of forty we’ll be getting a bargain, too.’

‘But will they accept it?’

‘I am sure they will. The old lady’s in a home anyway. They won’t want it left empty.’

‘No, not in that area they won’t. Oh God, that grotty little flat.’

Vernon sighs. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that area, Joy. Anyone would think we were moving into some inner city tenement.’