Prudence

Chapter Nine

I woke next morning back in my own bed and not feeling any better. A fire had been lit in the grate. The smoke made me cough. Ace and Jack came in to see me on their way to the firm’s board meeting.

‘I’ve left a note for Mrs Braddock to ring the doctor,’ said Ace.

Hours later Maggie wandered in. ‘I tried to ring the doctor just now but he was engaged. I think he hunts on Monday anyway. Blasted Mrs Braddock’s got flu, too. Do you need anything?’

‘I’d love some water,’ I said.

She filled the jug from the bathroom. She was wearing a silver-grey silk shirt.

‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ she said. ‘Ace brought it me from America. I’ve been dying to have a gossip with you. Wasn’t it awful Pen grabbing me like that? You missed the best part, rushing off. They simply swore at each other after you’d gone. Ace is getting so righteous, he really ought to go into the church.’

‘It’s only his family being hurt that he minds,’ I said. Heavens, who was I to defend him? But Maggie wasn’t listening.

‘It’s incredible this thing Pen has for me,’ she said. ‘He felt guilty about you. D’you know, he deliberately brought you up here because he knew Jack would fancy you. But I told him not to worry, you were having such fun with Jack. Perhaps we should swap.’

It’s a vicious circle, I thought wearily. She droned on until Rose walked in.

‘Hullo, sweetie, how are you? Mrs Braddock’s got the bug. Such a bore — cold meat again for supper. Mustn’t come too near; flu can play havoc with one’s looks at my age. Are you ready, Maggie?’

‘Is it time to go?’ said Maggie.

‘We’re going out, darling,’ said Rose to me. ‘You’ll be all right. They always say starve a fever. We’ll be back soon.’ She drifted out on a wave of expensive scent.

At first I was glad to be left in peace, but as the hours limped by and night fell, I began to get frightened. One moment I was drenched in icy sweat, the next hot as a volcano. It started to rain and the wind was rising.

The telephone rang. I dragged myself out of bed. Black whirls of giddiness overwhelmed me. It took hours to get along the passage, and as I reached the telephone it stopped ringing.

Burglars, I thought in terror, ringing to see if anyone was in. A door was banging. The wind was rattling the trees against the window pane. I staggered back to bed, delirious with fear.

I don’t remember how long I waited, but suddenly another door banged downstairs. Someone was coming up the stairs, moving lightly but inevitably towards me.

‘Oh God, Oh God!’ I wept.

The door was pushed open. A figure towered in the gloom. I gave a shriek and was about to pull the sheets over my head when I suddenly realized it was Ace.

‘I thought you were burglars,’ I said, bursting into a wild fit of sobbing.

He crossed the room in an instant and put his arms around me.

‘It’s all right,’ he said.

‘I was so frightened.’ I sobbed. ‘The telephone rang and stopped as soon as I got there.’

‘There, there, it’s all right.’

He was stroking my hair. I felt sanity flow back into me from the warmth of his body.

‘The bloody board meeting dragged on and on. It was me ringing. I came straight back when there was no answer.’

He laid me gently back on the pillows.

‘Where’s Mrs Braddock?’

‘She’s got flu.’

‘And Rose and Maggie?’

‘They popped out for a minute.’

‘For lunch, I suppose. What did the doctor say?’

‘He hasn’t arrived yet.’

Ace’s face blackened. ‘He soon will,’ he said, stalking out of the room.

I heard him dialling. ‘Can I speak to Doctor Wallis? It’s Ivan Mulholland.’

There was a pause, then: ‘I don’t give a bugger if he’s in the middle of his supper! I want him over here at once.’

Ivan the Terrible! The doctor was over in ten minutes. A little man with spectacles, absolutely gibbering with fear. His hands were cold and sweating when he touched me.

I heard him mutter about pneumonia as he went downstairs. I was scared rigid. I’m a terrible hypochondriac.

‘I’m not really ill, am I?’ I asked Ace when he came back.

He smiled and pushed my damp hair back from my forehead. ‘You’ll live,’ he said.

‘Dear Jane,’ I wrote five days later, ‘I’m sorry I haven’t written before, but my rotten temperature has only just come down. I hope Pendle rang and said I wasn’t coming back. His family really are weird. I’d better not say too much as they’re quite capable of steaming this open. I wish you were here. Pendle has two brothers. One is terribly handsome and lecherous (right up your street) the other one is older — in his thirties. I loathed him at first, he’s very tough and doesn’t give an inch, but he’s been simply angelic since I’ve been ill. He brought me a kitten from the stables today to cheer me up. I think Pendle and I are washed up — his choice not mine. I’ll tell you about it when I see you. Do write soon. Tons of love, Pru.’

Certainly Ace had been angelic. Never in a million years would I have expected him to display such patience, gentleness and sensitivity; comforting me through the worst phase when I was half delirious and screaming for Pendle, bringing me hot lemon laced with honey and whisky in the middle of the night when I was coughing my guts out. Even on the nightmarish occasion when I forced myself to eat some lunch in an attempt to please him, and promptly brought the whole lot up over newly changed sheets, he didn’t bat an eyelid. Afterwards as I sat huddled in a basket, shuddering with mortification, watching him put another lot of sheets on the bed with admirable deftness, I suddenly thought how hopeless Pendle with all his fastidiousness would have been in such a situation.

Not that we didn’t have our battles. Ace was inflexible about me taking my medicine, and wearing a dressing-gown, and not smoking, and he promptly confiscated my wireless, when he came in at midnight one evening, and caught me curled up under the blankets at the bottom of the bed, listening to Top Twenty. Nor would he allow me any visitors. I liked that. I didn’t feel up to the scrapping and intriguing of the rest of the family. I was quite happy lying in bed, flitting through novels, playing with the kitten, which we christened McGonagall, listening to the gentle snoring of Wordsworth and Coleridge stretched out in front of the fire, and the faint scratch of Ace’s fountain pen steadily moving over the notepad. He was finishing a piece on Venezuela for the Sunday Times and had holed up in my room, sitting in the big, faded blue velvet armchair, a pile of books and papers at his feet, only leaving occasionally to make telephone calls, or walk the dogs. I admired his application. He could gut a book in three-quarters of an hour, and he only paused occasionally when he was writing to cross out a word, or listen to a few bars of music on the wireless. It was so different from my haphazard methods of producing advertising copy, chain-smoking, gossiping to Rodney, writing endless variations on different bits of paper, only to produce one very undistinguished slogan by the end of the day. Rodney had sent me a bunch of yellow chrysanthemums as big as grapefruit, and a get-well card signed by the rest of the department. All the same, advertising and the tinned peaches campaign seemed very far away. It was very cosy in my bedroom. I got to know the blue and green flower pattern of the curtains extremely well and I found my thoughts straying less and less to Pendle.

Friday was a red letter day. I managed my first meal: chicken soup, hot ginger bread and a cup of tea, and Ace finished his piece as night fell, and went downstairs to telephone his copy through to the paper.

Ten minutes later Jack walked in clutching two enormous whiskies.

‘One each,’ he said, sitting down on the bed and removing his jacket. ‘I thought you might need cheering up. I certainly do.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Maggie. She hasn’t even got the energy to row with me. She just slops around looking broody.’

‘How’s work?’ I said, taking a slug of whisky. It tasted vile.

‘Tough. Plenty of orders, but no one’s paying us. My secretary and my wife are both suffering from pre-menstrual tension. My head is splitting from furiously banged doors. They’ve just opened a home for battered husbands in Manchester. I’m thinking of booking a room.’

I giggled.

Jack edged towards me.

‘What’s more important, how are you? Ace never lets me near you these days.’

‘He’s looked after me jolly well.’

‘The lady-killer with the lamp,’ said Jack.

‘I’m dying for a cigarette,’ I said, ‘I haven’t had one for nearly a week.’

Jack got out a packet of Rothman’s.

‘Do you think I dare? Ace’ll go bananas if he catches me.’

‘Oh he’ll be hours yet. It’s pretty inflamatory stuff he’s phoning through, from the bit I heard downstairs.’

The cigarette tasted fouler than the whisky. I started to cough.

Jack admired Rodney’s chrysanthemums.

‘Who sent those?’

‘My boss.’

‘Must have cost a few bob. Is he after you?’

‘No — more interested in my flatmate.’

‘And who sent that enormous rubber plant?’

I laughed, and coughed even more.

‘The Admiral. He wanted an excuse to come and see Rose. He barged in here this afternoon when I was half asleep. Imagine waking up and seeing his bright red colonial face peering through all that tropical vegetation. I thought I was hallucinating. Ace threw him out.’

‘Ace is getting much too proprietorial where you’re concerned. Not sure I like it.’

I took another tentative puff, and started to choke really badly.

‘Oh God, another nail in my coughing.’

Jack patted me on the back. Then his hand slid round my waist, pulling me towards him.

There is a moment when you decide whether or not you’re going to have an affair with a man. Pendle was gone. Jack’s marriage was in smithereens. He was extraordinarily attractive. We stared at each other for a long, sexy moment. I saw the lines of dissipation creeping round his merry, blue eyes. Not my line of country, I thought. Easy to get, but impossible to hold. He lacks that wintry detachment, that stripped bone quality that attracted me to Pendle.

‘You’re sweet,’ he said. ‘All work and no play makes Jack adulterous,’ and he leant over to kiss me. At that moment Ace walked in. With a swift glance he took in the clinch, the whisky and my cigarette smouldering in the ashtray. He hit the roof. He absolutely roared at us. I was terrified. Jack edged away from me. Ace grabbed my cigarette, throwing it into the wastepaper basket, and snatched my whisky from my hand, spilling a great deal of it over the kitten, who spat and took it in very bad part.

‘Do you want to have a complete setback?’ shouted Ace, his eyes blazing.

‘No,’ I said nervously, and started to cough again.

‘Look at you,’ he said. ‘Have you got some sort of death wish?’

‘She soon will have if you don’t stop bullying her,’ said Jack. ‘Did the Sunday Times like your piece?’

‘And you can shut up too,’ snapped Ace. ‘Of all the fucking irresponsible behaviour.’

Fortunately at that moment a diversion was caused by the wastepaper basket bursting merrily into flames.

‘Quick,’ said Ace. ‘Throw your coat over it.’

‘Why not your coat?’ protested Jack. ‘Mine’s just come back from the cleaners.’

I started to giggle. Ace grabbed the water jug beside the bed, and emptied it into the wastepaper basket, which flickered and died.

With an effort he gained control of himself.

‘I’ve just been talking to Pendle,’ he said. ‘He’s got a case in Devon that’s going to carry over into next week, so he can’t make it this weekend. I told him you weren’t well enough to travel anyway, so he’s leaving it until next weekend.’

It was as though I’d been reprieved. I put it down to the fact I wasn’t feeling strong enough to face Pendle.

There was a knock on the door and in walked Maggie. She looked beautiful, but definitely fat. All that misery eating, I suppose. She was wearing a black velvet dress with a cross-laced bodice, but her bust had got so big, the laces were almost horizontal with strain. She was obviously dressed for a party, and had dropped in to show herself off.

‘What are you all talking about?’ she said.

‘Pendle,’ said Ace evenly. ‘He’s not coming up this weekend.’

‘What a shame,’ said Maggie lightly. (I had a feeling she already knew.) ‘How disappointing for you, Pru. Are you ready?’ she added turning to Jack.

‘What for?’ said Jack.

‘Felicity’s party.’

‘Christ. Didn’t know she was having a party.’

‘I told you twice this morning, but you were so engrossed in your hangover. Are you coming, Ace?’

‘No,’ said Ace, picking up the empty water jug and going towards the door.

‘Oh, do you need a break after all that sick-bed attendance? Felicity’ll be frightfully disappointed. I’m sure she’s got half Westmorland coming, boasting you’ll be there.’

‘She’ll have to lump it. I never gave her a definite “yes”.’ He was still extremely tightlipped.

‘Oh well,’ said Jack, putting on his jacket and draining the remains of his whisky, ‘one may as well get drunk at someone else’s expense, rather than one’s own.’

The front door bell rang.

‘Who the hell’s that?’ said Maggie.

‘Probably Vatman,’ said Jack.

There were sounds of commotion downstairs. Then we heard feet pounding up the stairs, and a child’s voice saying, ‘Daddy, where are you?’

‘Jes-us,’ said Jack, ‘It’s Lucasta, I completely forgot she was coming.’

‘Oh God, so did I,’ said Maggie in carefully simulated horror.

No you didn’t, I thought to myself. One never forgets things one’s dreading — like the dentist.

The door burst open, and framed in the doorway, wearing a blond fur coat and jeans, was the most ravishing child. For a moment she stood looking at us — making her entrance — the image of Rose forty years ago. Then she shouted ‘Daddy!’ and threw herself into Jack’s arms. There was no question of their delight at seeing each other.

‘I’m going to be king in the Christmas play, because I’m tall,’ she screamed. ‘Jason White’s going to be Gold, I’m Myrrh, and Damion’s going to be Frankenstein.’

Only Maggie didn’t join in the laughter.

‘And I’ve got a wobbly tooth,’ she went on, opening her mouth and wiggling it for Jack’s benefit.

‘If you leave it under your pillow, the fairies might bring you 10p,’ said Jack.

‘The fairies left Jason White 50p last week. You can’t get anything decent with 10p,’ said Lucasta, wriggling down off Jack’s knee.

‘Hullo Lucasta,’ said Ace. ‘D’you remember me?’

‘Of course I do,’ said Lucasta, holding up her face to be kissed. ‘You used to tell me bedtime stories, without a book. Mummy said you might be here. Did you have a nice time in America? Did you meet Six Million Dollar Woman? D’you know what knocks down little old ladies and pinches their bread?’

‘No,’ said Ace.

‘Bionic Pigeon,’ said Lucasta. ‘Did you bring me a present?’

‘Lucasta,’ said Jack in mock horror. ‘You’re getting even more avaricious than your mother.’

‘She said I was to remind you about the school fees. Oh, look at that kitten. Isn’t it sweet?’

McGonagall was licking off the whisky and making terrible faces.

‘Aren’t you going to say hullo to Maggie?’ said Jack.

Suddenly all expression was wiped off Lucasta’s face. ‘Hullo,’ she said tonelessly, then turning to Jack, ‘Why’s she wearing a party dress? Are you going out?’

‘Of course not,’ said Jack, ignoring Maggie’s furious signals. ‘Not on your first night. Maggie’s wearing a party dress to welcome you. You haven’t met Pru either.’

‘How do you do,’ said Lucasta, sizing me up watchfully. She plainly didn’t believe in giving herself too easily. ‘Where’s Granny?’

‘Out I think,’ said Jack.

‘Is she still going out with James Copeland?’ said Lucasta. ‘Or has she got a new boyfriend? Mummy says she’s a sexy maniac.’

‘Your mother’s biased,’ said Jack. ‘Come on, let’s go downstairs and find you a Coke, or would you like something stronger?’

‘I’d like a highball.’

Jack roared with laughter. Maggie looked like a thundercloud.

Feeling absolutely played out, I lay back on the pillows, and caught Ace watching me. I gave him a beseeching look of apology. For a second he glared at me, then he grinned, his harsh face suddenly illuminated.

‘Come on, everybody out,’ he said, ‘Pru’s had enough excitement for one evening.’

‘See you tomorrow,’ said Lucasta, going towards the door, and adding to Jack, ‘If you let me stay up and watch Bride of Dracula, I don’t mind if you go to that party.’