Duplicity Read online

  Every evening, Henry came home and crossed to the window to admire and tickle his plant before going into the kitchen to fill the old plastic container with water and plant food to quench his protege’s insatiable thirst. Only after attending to all its needs, did he deign to speak to his wife, but he did, at last, notice that she was extremely edgy and irritable. ‘What’s up, Liz? You look a bit under the weather.’

  ‘Nothing’s up!’ she snapped, avoiding his eyes.

  ‘Oh, come on! I know perfectly well something’s bothering you. What is it?’

  ‘It’s your damned tomato plant!’

  ‘Oh, for any sake! I thought you’d got over that silly idea.’

  ‘It’s not a silly idea. I told you before there was something fishy about it. It’s been watching my every move for days, and …’

  ‘Oh, Liz!.’ He raised his eyes to the ceiling in exasperation.

  ‘It has, Henry! And I’m sure it’s evil. It’s planning to do me some harm, I can feel it. It’s - oh, it’s really sinister, just sitting there plotting all day.’

  He was astonished at her vehemence. ‘Look darling,’ he began in a soothing tone, ‘you must have been overdoing things lately. You’re run down and beginning to imagine things. I’d better phone the doctor.’

  ‘I have not been imagining things!’ Elizabeth shouted hysterically. ‘That monster’s just biding its time, then it’s going to do something terrible to me, I know. You don’t understand! It’s different when you’re in the house. That plant’s very clever. It can hide things from you, but I can see right through it. It can’t fool me!’

  She buried her face in her hands but allowed her husband to lead her upstairs. She undressed automatically and sank thankfully on to the bed, while Henry went to the telephone in the hall.

  Dr Sim rang the doorbell in a little over five minutes. ‘You just caught me,’ he said when Henry let him in. ‘I’d a call to make in Graham Street, but I came here first since it’s on my way. Now, what’s all this about Elizabeth?’

  When he heard the whole story, the old doctor shook his head. ‘I’ve never known her to behave like that and I brought her into the world - forty-something years ago, would you believe? She sounds as if she’s bordering on a nervous breakdown, I’m afraid, but I’ll have to check her to find out more.’

  In the bedroom, he checked her pulse rate, her heart beat and even under her eyelids, then asked her what was worrying her. Remembering Henry’s reception of her suspicions - more than suspicions - she wouldn’t tell him anything. He could easily cart her off to an asylum. Unwilling to admit that he hadn’t a clue about what was wrong, Dr Sim gave Henry a prescription for tablets, along with instructions to keep her in bed for a week or so.

  ‘She’s probably been overdoing things, over-tiring herself, so a few days in bed may do the trick. The brain’s a fragile, unfathomable piece of mechanism, but rest quite often works wonders.’

  ‘Thanks Doctor, I’ll get these made up straight away.’

  Henry did wonder if he should ask old Mrs Will next door to sit with his wife while he was out, but Elizabeth would probably be even more upset if he allowed a neighbour to see her in her present state. In any case, the chemist was only a few minutes’ walk away, and was one of those who remained open until doctors’ surgeries were closed.

  While he waited for the prescription to be filled, his thoughts were on his wife. It was most unusual for her to be so irrational. Surely she couldn’t have been jealous of the tomato plant? Had he been lavishing all his attention on it to the exclusion of her feelings? But she couldn’t be so … childish, surely? He’d have to make it up to her, let her see how much she meant to him.

  He hurried home with the small pillbox, took the stairs two at a time and then stood looking at the empty bed, prickles creeping all over his scalp. Liz was definitely not in the bedroom, nor the spare room nor the bathroom. Blind panic setting in now, he shouted ‘Liz!’ as he leapt down the stairs.

  She was not in the louinge, either, and he stood in the doorway looking at the tomato plant, an icy horror deadening all his senses.

  Mrs Will poured Elizabeth a second cup of strong, sweet tea. ‘I’m glad you told me about it, dear. How do you feel now?’

  Elizabeth gave a wan smile. ‘Exhausted, but much more sensible. How on earth could I have been so mad as to believe a plant could harm me? Just talking about it has made me realise how ridiculous that was.’

  The old woman patted her hand. ‘You’re too much alone in the house, that’s the trouble. It’s enough to make anybody imagine things … especially at your age. I used to think daft things, and do even dafter things, when I was going on fifty.’

  ‘If only Henry would have discussed it with me, but he wouldn’t listen.’

  Mrs Will silently resolved to have a quiet word with the man later.

  Elizabeth stood up and pulled her neighbour’s coat closer round her shoulders. ‘Thanks for everything, Mrs Will. I don’t know what you must have thought of me running here in my nightie.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, my dear. I’d better come round with you in case your husband’s been held up at the chemist’s.’

  They were quite unprepared for the sight that met them when they went through the open front door of the Millers’ home. Amid the wreckage of broken furniture and ornaments lay the tomato plant, chopped off in its prime by the axe on the floor near Henry’s lifeless hand.

  Some of the foliage had fallen across him, tiny green clusters showing vividly against his death-white face.

  ***

  Word count 1533 words

  Written July 1986 for Writer’s Monthly competition. Returned 24.10.86 with no comment. Because it wasn’t the sort of thing I usually wrote, I didn’t know where else to send it.

  Committed

  Margaret Donaldson looked sadly around the room; cold and forbidding now, yet she didn’t want to leave it. It hadn’t always been so unfriendly. She had liked the whole house when she came here as a bride, fifty years ago, this room in particular. It seemed to stretch out a hand of welcome to her and she had always loved it far more than any of the others. What a host of memories was contained within its walls. When she left it for ever, in so short a time, would she lose this link with the past?

  When she voiced her fears last night, Kate had said, ‘Don’t be silly, Mother!’ but then Kate had never been in the least sentimental.

  Adam had always been mystified by his daughter’s cynicism. ‘Hard-boiled,’ he had described her years ago, ‘and she doesn’t take that from you - you silly old romantic,’ he had added, with the usual twinkle in his eyes as he patted her hand affectionately.

  Dear Adam. How she had missed him over the five years since he passed away. He’d lain for many months in this room, yet his spirits had never flagged, and he had cheered her up when she felt depressed. Not that she often got depressed when she was sitting here with him.

  ‘Come on, Maggie,’ he used to say, even after he knew his life was ebbing away. ‘Let me see your smiling face again. If I’m not worried about it, why should you go about with your chin touching the floor? It’s such a bonnie chin.’

  She recalled how happy he’d been when Kate made her first squawking appearance, although she’d been disappointed for his sake that the baby wasn’t a boy. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind it being a girl?’ she had asked him.

  ‘I’m delighted with her,’ Adam had smiled, ‘and I’ll be even more pleased if she turns out half as good as her mother.’

  The following year, when John was born, their joy had been unbounded. Kate had always been her father’s girl, while she had doted on her son. Her heart jolted as her thoughts jumped forward twenty-five years to the day John had announced he was emigrating to Australia. It had felt like only the next week that she was waving tearfully to a fast-disappe
aring train and turning to her husband for comfort.

  Later, he had taken her in his arms in the big double bed and whispered, ‘We can’t live their lives for them, Maggie. If that’s what he wants, we’ll have to try to accept it.’

  She had cried silently far into the night, long after Adam had fallen asleep. She had fully believed that she would never get over the parting, but almost fifteen years on, she could recall it rationally. John had never come home, but he wrote regularly and sent snapshots of his wife and their twins. Her only grandchildren, Margaret mused sadly, and she had never met them.

  Then there was the night before Kate’s wedding. Her daughter had come into her bedroom and cried on her shoulder. ‘I can’t get married,’ she had sobbed.

  Margaret had questioned her gently. “What’s wrong, Kate? I thought you loved Robert, but don’t tie yourself to him if you’re not sure. It’s not too late to cancel the wedding.’

  ‘I do love him,’ Kate had gulped. ‘It’s just … oh, I don’t know. I can’t explain it.’

  ‘It’s pre-wedding nerves, dear. Most girls go through that.’ And sure enough, Kate had walked down the aisle the next day on her father’s arm, her delicate, floaty, white dress making her look like an angel.

  She had been happy and content then, not at all like the aloof person she had become. Perhaps, if she and Robert had adopted a child, she wouldn’t have developed the hardness that seemed to encase her like armour. But it was foolish to think of the might-have-been.

  When Kate and John were small, they had loved this room as much as she did. They had played in the huge bed when the weather prevented them from going outdoors, making it do duty as a circus ring, a classroom, a battlefield or whatever their busy young imaginations commanded. When they had measles and chickenpox, they had lain in this bed during the days, rather than in their own single ones, until she nursed them back to health. Funny, they had always taken all the childish complaints at the same time - except when John got mumps. Poor soul, he didn’t know what to do with himself lying there on his own and she had had to spend a lot of time amusing him.

  Sighing, she walked over to the door and went down the stairs to the kitchen. Kate called it the sitting room, but to Margaret, born and brought up in a tenement, it had always been the kitchen. Here, again, the bareness struck chill into her bones. Had she made the right decision? Was she being rash in giving up her home? If only Adam were here to advise her. But then, if Adam were still alive, she wouldn’t be in this position.

  There were only about fifteen minutes until she would be entering the tall gaunt building, grey and hostile, in that dingy side street. All the arrangements had been finalised a few months ago, she had signed the necessary forms with some misgivings. The wheels had been set in motion and there was no way to stop them. She wasn’t even sure that she wanted to stop them.

  If only she could make herself a cup of tea, but everything was packed away ready for disposal. Kate had arranged for the removal van to call tomorrow to take her belongings to a sale room. All her lovely things, which it had taken her a lifetime to collect. She could hardly bear to think about it, though she had put her foot down and was taking some of her more personal mementos, like photographs and jewellery, with her. She didn’t suppose she would ever wear the jewellery again, but you never knew.

  Margaret blew her nose on her way to the bathroom to comb her hair, and then studied her reflection in the glass. She didn’t think she looked her age, and sixty-nine wasn’t really old nowadays. Her hair was white - pure white without that yellowish tinge so often seen in white hair - and Adam used to say it made her even prettier. He would never let her have it cut, even when bobbing the hair was the height of fashion. She pinned it in place, then fetched her new hat from the hallstand because, although Adam had never liked to see her wearing a hat, she thought that this occasion called for some degree of respectability.

  ‘Don’t cover up your bonnie hair,’ he used to say, in the Scottish burr she’d loved from the first time they met.

  There, she was ready for Kate to collect her in the taxi. She hoped that her daughter wouldn’t think the hat was too frivolous, but she needed a little colour to give her the courage to take this momentous step.

  Ah, that was the taxi now. ‘Goodbye, dear house. Goodbye, Adam, I’ll never forget you,’ she whispered, wiping away a tear as Kate opened the front door.

  ‘You’re looking very nice, Mother, but you haven’t been crying, for goodness’ sake, have you? Come on now, it’s a lovely, sunny day, and you don’t want to be late today of all days, do you?’

  ‘No, dear,’ Margaret said quietly, and the sadness dropped from her as she walked down the path to the car which was to take her to marry Walter Munro, Adam’s closest friend, at the Registry Office.

  ***

  Word count 1299

  Written in September 1986 and refused by Woman’s Story.

  The Intruder

  Mrs Repper opened her eyes and listened. There was a noise somewhere in the house, an alien noise she was unable to place.

  She knew every creak and whisper of this house -she should do, after living in it for over sixty-five years - but she had never heard that particular sound before … and she didn’t like it. Everything seemed silent now, but she held her breath and strained her ears in case the sound came again.

  Yes! There it was! She lay motionless, frantically wondering what it could be and what she could do about it. It would be absolute madness to go downstairs and confront a burglar at her age. An eighty-five-year-old woman would stand no chance against one of those young hoodlums she had read about, who took a delight in preying on old people. She had seen some of the results of their handiwork on the television, and had shuddered at the sight of the poor, battered faces looking at her pathetically from the square box, but she had never imagined that it could happen to her. The newsreader had even said that some of the victims had died from their injuries. Murder, really, when you came to think about it.

  Her heart was pounding like an express train, but, if she lay quietly enough, the intruder might think there was no one in the house and go away. The trouble was, if it really was a burglar and he was looking for something to steal, he’d come upstairs. All her money and jewellery were in the bedroom, not that the jewellery was worth very much, apart from the beautiful cameo brooch that had belonged to her grandmother.

  She wished now that she had listened to her daughter. Catherine was always going on at her. ‘You’re just asking for trouble keeping that money in the house, Mum. Get it into a bank, or a building society, or somewhere safe.’

  Mrs Repper had just laughed, she recalled. ‘Nobody’ll suspect an old woman like me has any money worth stealing. I’ll be all right.’

  She didn’t trust banks. Well, it wasn’t exactly that she didn’t trust them, but some of her friends had told her that they had to pay income tax on what they had in the bank. That was the main reason for her keeping hers under the mattress. The tax man would never find out about her hoard, and nobody would ever take her four hundred pounds away from her without her knowing.

  That was the noise again. Keeping perfectly still she prayed that the thief would give up if he found nothing of value downstairs. Then she remembered something else that Catherine had said. ‘You should have a phone put in, Mum. If you were ill, or in trouble, you could phone the doctor or Mrs Haley next door. They would help you, or let me know and I’d come as quickly as I could.’

  She had sniffed, she recalled. ‘I can’t be bothered with those new-fangled things.’

  ‘Oh, Mum!’ Catherine had sounded exasperated. ‘The telephone isn’t new-fangled. You’re so stubborn.’

  Mrs Repper smiled at the memory. She supposed she was stubborn. Frank had always said so, too. How long was it since Frank died? 1956? No, definitely 1955. Goodness, it was over thirty years ago. Time
certainly did fly. He was such a tall, well-built man, afraid of nothing, and if he’d been here now he’d have made short work of any housebreaker.

  But … he’d been two years older than she was - the fact had nearly escaped her - so he would have been eighty-seven by this time. She couldn’t imagine her husband as an old man, but her own legs were giving out on her nowadays, and she got a wee bit muddled now and then, so Frank would probably be showing his age, as well. He wouldn’t have been much use as a defender, but he’d have done his best. Oh yes, he’d have done his best.

  If only she had agreed to get a telephone, she could have called her neighbour. Young Mrs Haley was strong and athletic, going jogging, as she called it, every morning. She’d have come round immediately, even if it was the middle of the night. Mr Haley would have come to her assistance, too, and he was over six feet and played rugby every Wednesday. Tackling a burglar would be child’s play to him.

  They were a nice couple, always willing to help her. Mr Haley had even fixed a chain to her front door a few weeks ago. ‘There’s a lot of unscrupulous characters going around these days, Mrs Repper,’ he had said. ‘When anyone rings your bell, you only have to open the door as far as the chain will go, and if it’s a stranger don’t let him in. And nobody can force their way in, either.’

  She was very proud of the chain, but it hadn’t kept this intruder out. She gasped as her mind returned to her present predicament. The man couldn’t get in. The noises she’d heard were from outside the house, that’s why she hadn’t recognised what they were. It was all right, then … but it had given her a proper turn and her heart was still palpitating madly.