Chain Reaction (32 page)

‘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 the 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.’

‘We certainly will,’ says Mrs Peacock exultantly, with her scrawny hand in the air, bestowing a smoky kind of blessing. ‘Because we have right on our side.’

N
OW VERNON FINDS HIMSELF
resisting the self-destructive urge to confess. In the past he has been victim to bouts of such masochistic whims, particularly at school when the compulsion to step forward and take the blame for something he had not done occasionally overwhelmed him. It was something to do with feeling guilty anyway, and knowing that he deserved punishment, if not for the crime in hand then for the secret thoughts in his head and the small misdemeanours he had successfully got away with in his past. Even before he committed the hideous murder of his wife, Vernon would feel a natural but inexplicable guilt when passing a policeman. He always hurried by wearing his most innocent expression.

Not that he had ever done anything for which to reproach himself, until his brush with bankruptcy, until he killed his wife. In his schooldays Vernon was a sturdy plodder who worked hard to the best of his ability and showed some talent on the games field which, lacking the necessary aggression, never blossomed.

Of course, it is the sturdy plodders, the ones who get stuck in the middle of the class, not through lack of trying, the reliable, the regular and the easy-to-please who annoy their masters so—unlike the bright and shining ones with their charm and promise who sit at the front, and the downright bad who sit at the back, able to command both sympathy and attention.

And therefore Mr Norman Mycroft regarded Vernon with distaste this morning as the offender sat down uneasily in the opposite chair while his case history was flashed up on the screen in front of the manager.

Vernon was early through nervousness, and had to wait twenty-five minutes, but as a branded failure he was well used to this treatment by now. In the chair at last he wanted to cry out, ‘I have just buried my wife,’ in order to save himself, but managed to refrain from doing so. ‘It was my wife,’ he said, instead. ‘She has been suffering from depression just lately and took it into her head to go on a spending spree without my knowledge. When I got home after your telephone call yesterday I had it out with her and she became overwrought and depressed and could give me no logical explanation for her behaviour.’