Chain Reaction (20 page)

Now Miss Benson is genuinely worried. What if Mrs Peacock does another of her runners? She might harm herself or get knocked over or end up in the canal. She comes hurrying from the kitchen, shrugging off her spotted apron. ‘Wait! I’ll come with you.’

‘Miss Benson! For the last time, I am warning you. Don’t you dare start treating me like some mutinous child! Others might feel it necessary to do that, but I would have expected better from you.’

‘But where are you going?’

‘I am going, Miss Benson, into my flat!’

Emily Benson is wringing her hands. ‘But you can’t, Mrs Peacock. It’s against the rules.’

‘Whose rules, I’d like to know?’

‘And you haven’t got a key.’

With a look of extraordinary cunning Mrs Peacock delves into her plastic holdall and brings out a key, holding it aloft triumphantly. ‘Hah! They never took my key away,’ she snorts. ‘Naturally, nobody asked how many there were. And so, Miss Benson, I am going to let myself into my flat, quite legally, as the sale is not yet completed, and I will sit and watch
Coronation Street
there with my own bits and pieces about me. After that I will accompany you down the road to the Monk’s Retreat for a tasty slice of steak and kidney.’

And with that Mrs Peacock turns her back on her friend, opens the door to Miss Benson’s flat and marches off firmly down the cold concrete staircase. ‘Come and ring when you’re ready,’ she calls back over her shoulder like an echo. ‘I’ll have my hat and coat on waiting.’

At last! At dear last! She is so glad to be home although the flat feels unlived in, and the dust is finally settling in the empty rooms.

She sits back in her chair for a while; her ankles are quite badly swollen after such an active day. To carry out her plan successfully she is going to have to persuade Miss Benson to help her. The art of persuading Miss Benson is to make her feel so overwhelmed with pity that she’ll do anything to come to the rescue—look how she had behaved over those poor little veal calves. There was no stopping her then, you’d never believe you were dealing with such a timid, inoffensive little person. She’d strutted about with banners, she had laid herself selflessly down in front of lorries. Irene had watched her on the local news, marvelling at her tenacity. Yes, Irene is going to have to bring those ready tears to Miss Benson’s soft brown eyes.

But
how?
How to induce such missionary zeal? The dream of one spectacular deed?

Pity, she reminds herself. Pity and anger—a heady cocktail.

Irene must play the victim. Good Lord, it’s not hard, when you think about her predicament.

Irene’s only got half an hour. Best not waste any more time.

A tiny rehearsal of the plan yet to come.

So, with enormous effort, she sets about gathering all her favourite personal belongings around her—the ornaments, the pictures, the photographs, the diaries, the books—everything which makes her separate from any other soul on this earth. She scuffles her way round like some small predatory animal, touching everything, endeavouring to choose. A vase with cats on which William gave her, her two special candle-holders, the embroidered pillow cases with their initials on, her favourite casserole dish, the gravy boat from the dinner service, the felt dressing gown with the hood, the wooden horse Frankie had when she was small, her Confirmation prayerbook, the bits of jewellery… what a mess she is making! What a terrible mess—like a jackdaw’s nest. She doesn’t take the pills they give her at Greylands. She pretends to, then pours them away when they’re not looking. If she took those she’d have no energy at all; certainly she could never do this. She gathers her favourite bits and pieces round her on the floor and sits within the ring of possessions as if they are talismen against the devils without. And then, hardly able to see without her glasses, she starts to compose her letter.

Your Majesty,
she starts in large, spidery writing covering half the first page on the pad. She must try to sound as pathetic as she can. She uses one of the set of pens Angus gave her last Christmas, all colours and thicknesses. She considers a red one most appropriate, red for royalty, red for emergency, red for instant attention.

Perhaps she should put her best dress on.

She has never tried writing to anyone famous before.

Please help me, your humble subject,
she writes with cramped fingers and shaking hands; it’s harder when you’re on the floor with nothing decent to press on.
I am a woman of seventy-five, living alone since my husband died nearly three years ago. I tried very hard to pick up the pieces of my life after the tragedy of William’s death and I know that so many people of my age are suffering just like me. I am not alone. Nor am I very brave. But now I find that not only am I a widow, but homeless, too, as my little flat, my refuge, is being taken away from me to pay my fees in a residential home where they are trying to put me against my will. Please don’t think I am being mean and difficult, my husband fought in the war, but I realise that after a long and useful life I have now become a burden on my fellows. All I ask is that I be allowed to remain in my humble home for the few years I have left, with my things around me, comforting me. I can manage, I know I can.

She has never written such a passionate letter.
What is happening to me now is so very frightening. I am all alone in the world. I knew that I could appeal to you and that you would understand. Yours most respectfully, Irene Peacock. Mrs.

‘Come on in,’ she calls, when she hears Miss Benson’s expectant ring.

Irene remains seated there on the floor, head bowed, circled by her possessions and the image is so bleakly despairing, so intensely painful that poor Miss Benson rushes over.

‘Oh, my dear Mrs Peacock! Oh, my dear. Have you fallen?’

Irene clutches her little bits to her. ‘No, I’m just looking at everything, gathering my old friends around me one last time.’

‘Oh, you mustn’t—’

‘After this I will never see them again.’

‘Don’t say that…’

‘Why not? It’s true. I have to accept it.’

‘You’ve been writing…?’

‘To the Queen.’

‘To the Queen?’

‘I know that she will understand.’

Miss Benson glances quickly down at the letter. ‘No one will understand this, Mrs Peacock. I’m afraid it is barely legible.’

Irene’s voice is no more than a whisper. ‘I can only do my best.’

‘Here, let me help you…’

‘No, no, I don’t want you to involve yourself. I don’t want to impose on you, make things embarrassing for you…’

‘Mrs Peacock,’ and Miss Benson bends and attempts to help her up. ‘Do try and push up, let’s at least get you up on the sofa. And if I want to help you write your letters that is no concern of anyone else’s.’

‘Oh, would you help me? I feel so alone!’

It could be her own mother speaking, God rest her soul. Miss Benson is touched in a very raw place. ‘Of course I will help you. I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t,’ says Miss Benson, revealing that stubborn streak, her pity aroused to the full. ‘Not after seeing you so unhappy. But I have to say I don’t hold out much hope. The Queen will pass this on to the local MP to deal with. I doubt she ever becomes directly involved herself. If she did, she’d never have time to turn round.’

Irene lifts a tired head and gives a courageous smile. This is all going just as she’d hoped. ‘But I’d feel at least I had tried.’

T know, I know,’ says Miss Benson, laying a soothing hand on her arm and nodding her head in approval. ‘And I will do all I can to help you.’

‘Will you give me a copy for me to keep?’

This is merely the start of Irene Peacock’s clawing for independence. It is much too early to reveal the whole plan. Poor Miss Benson has no idea of the lengths that will be required of her. But one thing will soon become manifest out of all this mess…

Irene Peacock might well be dotty, but she’s not dead yet.

P
ICTURE IT. IMAGINE HOW
you would feel if you worked here. This arcade, once so full of promise, opened with pomp and ceremony by the Lord Mayor himself, is empty but for a group of kids obviously truanting from school. They lurk with their cigarettes beside the coffee machine, scattering stubs on the floor with the streaked marble effect.

Vernon keeps his shop door open, believing that by doing this, would-be customers are more likely to perceive it as consumer-friendly and enter. But who but the manically-depressed would be fool enough to cross this threshold? You can see by looking in the window that there’s nothing there you would want to buy. You can see it is mostly tat, and electronic tat at that—all plastics and blacks, novelty telephones and travel hairdryers, surely nothing less tempting. How lucky are those, thinks Vernon, whose leases have already run out and who have hurriedly packed up and gone leaving behind them cavernous retail spaces scattered with packaging and litter. If only he could do the same. But he’s worked it out, as long as the sale of the house goes through they can pay off what is left on the lease, cancel their debts and buy the flat at Albany Buildings.

Just.

It is as tight as that.

And that’s what Vernon’s got to hang onto.

His nearest neighbour, Mrs Toolie, who runs the gift shop four doors along, is readying herself to abandon ship next week. She has moved most of the junk she had left by going to car-boot sales, as she told him, ‘Better get a few pence than nothing at all.’

‘Absolutely,’ Vernon agreed. But who’s going to rifle through light bulbs, leads, plugs, a few cheap Walkmans and Hoover parts in some muddy field in the rain?

After she’s gone that will leave him and the wallpaper shop, the clairvoyant, Madam Dulcie, who is hardly ever here anyway, and the card shop whose wares have gone damp and floppy from being displayed for so long. Hardly the sort of attractive package to attract the punters his way. He does not envy those hopeful few who took on premises in the new arcade. He suspects it won’t be long before his own fate overtakes them. Some developer will build or convert somewhere new and better and more glittering, and so the vicious circle will continue.

Most of the time Vernon spends sorting out his papers, already sorted a hundred times, composing letters to hold off the bailiffs, and cleaning and dusting his listless-looking stock. Any repair jobs that come his way he undertakes of an evening. He turns nothing down, but still these repair deals that he made when his hopes were high cost him more than he earns. He takes sandwiches to eat at lunchtime but dare not leave and close the shop even for a half-hour in case a customer should come in.

So he is trapped; his failure has formed bars around him like the caged bird who failed to get away. His brain is working, always working, round and round the old questions: how much would they need to come out clear, how much would they make on the house, how much of the bits and pieces of stock will he be able to off-load at the end? He is making himself ill with worry, his doctor tells him that every time he goes for a prescription for more of his blood-pressure pills. And he must lose weight or he’ll die. Until the house sold this week, despair blocked his every route of escape but now there is hope at last.
Is it possible that all might be well in only a matter of months?
These dark times put behind him and even, one day, forgotten? Sometimes when he thinks about this his hands, normally so steady, actually begin to shake at the prospect of this tiny glow on the horizon. He tries to dismiss it from his mind, fearing that too much hope might put out the precarious flame.

Joy confided in him last night but he was not in the mood to be big-hearted. ‘I know you’ll laugh and tell me I’m hopeless, but I have let it drop to that awful Adele Mason that we are merely renting the Swallowbridge flat while we do up that cottage we saw,’ she said, going on to explain with her usual maddening logic. Vernon sat down in his chair heavily and tried to hide behind the paper. ‘I did it for the children’s sake… no need to look at me like that! The idea just slipped out and by then it was too late to retreat.’

Vernon sighed. Once he might have laughed and sympathised with his wife’s little idiosyncrasies, like always taking five years off her age. After all, they make her what she is. ‘I am not looking at you, Joy. I am trying to read the paper.’

‘She believed me, of course.’ She looked at him with exaggerated straightness so as to give some sincerity to her ludicrous words.

‘Of course.’

‘So I would be grateful if you could try to remember to keep to that little white lie whenever you happen to be out there putting the world to rights with Bob.’

She must invent a drama. She must never allow another soul to see her as she really is; even old and well-worn clothes might give some sense of herself away. She cannot abide decay or disintegration. Everything has to be new, artificial and strained and quite without flaw. Better still if everything and everyone was kept under cellophane wrapping. Vernon seems to be seeing much further into his wife since their downfall, and into himself too, no longer contented with the superficial stuff that oils so many old relationships. He has never forced her into giving away what she couldn’t. But this time he was saddened by the glimpse of the real Joy, as disappointed, and probably as wistful as he. When she was young she had loved her mother, but as she grew up she had developed selfishness, and selfishness destroys the power to love. Oh, it’s his fault, Vernon knows that. No monster is created without somebody sustaining the embryo.

It has always been so easy to give way to Joy, especially when your temperament is as easy-going as Vernon’s. Theatrical and manipulative, it has always seemed natural to try not to ‘burden her’ and he’d wanted her to feel cherished. But there are so many fraught and important issues firing his brain at the moment that it seemed quite bizarre to Vernon that his wife should still be worrying over such insignificant matters as image.

‘Will you do that for me, Vernon? Will you remember?’