Prudence (4 page)

Tiger and Rodney having established they were at school together were swapping anecdotes across me. Jane was hanging on their every word, and not taking any notice of Pendle who was sitting opposite me. I daren’t ask him about work, as I knew Jane and Rodney would start mobbing me up. Suddenly our eyes met, and he gave me that swift wicked smile, and for the first time that evening I felt like not cutting my throat. Stick with me baby, I pleaded with my eyes, I’m not enjoying it any more than you are. But the next moment he had turned back to Ariadne, who was talking about some diet book that had just been published. ‘Butter’s evidently quite all right in moderation,’ she said. She was awfully pretty; perhaps he fancied her.

Tiger’s elbow kept falling off the table, and we all had to wait while he ploughed through a second helping.

‘D’you mind if we look at the box during the News at Ten break?’ asked Rodney, who had several crumbs in his hairy chest. ‘I want to see the Virago Tyre commercial. I keep missing it. Have you seen it?’ he added to Pendle.

‘I don’t watch television,’ said Pendle.

Rodney flipped his lid. ‘That’s what I’ve got against lawyers,’ he howled. ‘Your attitude is positively antedeluvian. How can anyone not watch television in this day and age?’

Oh God, he was about to launch into his anti-legal profession tirade. I leapt to my feet.

‘Could you pass your plate up, darling?’

But Rodney was not to be halted, and when I staggered in with the beef en croute five minutes later he was still at it.

‘My own divorce would have been perfectly amicable; my wife and I might even be struggling on together today if it hadn’t been for lawyers putting their oar in. Everyone should conduct their own defence.’

‘Oh rubbish,’ I said. ‘If Eve had had a decent counsel, we’d probably all still be living in paradise.’

I thought that was quite a bright remark, but no one took any notice. They didn’t like Pendle. They were waiting for Rodney to carve him up.

‘Lawyers are a lot of incompetent hacks,’ said Rodney, ‘blinding people with their own mumbo jumbo. All you care about is reputation. You don’t give a bugger about the issues of the case; you just want to beat other lawyers.’

‘That’s right,’ said Jane.

‘I think PLJ’s a rip-off,’ said Ariadne hopefully. ‘No pastry thank you, Pru.’

Pendle sat very still, looking at Rodney, the expression on his face too complex for me to read its meaning. In spite of twelve hours marinading, the boeuf en croute had overcooked to the consistency of horse meat. Only Tiger seemed to have no trouble with it.

‘The people who control our courts,’ went on Rodney, splashing wine into everyone’s glasses, ‘are a lot of geriatrics in fancy dress. The whole system, in fact, is designed to isolate them from the pressures of modern life. Who, pray, are the Rolling Stones? Christ you’re cushioned against reality.’

‘We deal with murders, rape, divorce every day,’ said Pendle mildly. ‘I’d hardly call that…’

‘Exactly my point,’ interrupted Rodney. ‘You can only deal with the horror of life by turning it into a play with a stage and a cast in period costume.’

‘We haven’t got any napkins,’ said Jane, leaping to her feet.

Rodney was warming up now. ‘Why do legal costs increase as the price of a house increases, although exactly the same amount of paperwork is involved? Why can’t you go to four different lawyers and get estimates for their services? And it’s all geared to the rich, isn’t it? Pay a fine or go to prison, so the rich pay up, and the poor have to go to jug.’

‘Napkins anyone?’ said Jane, coming in with a roll of loo paper and proceeding to break bits off for everyone. I put my head in my hands.

‘It’s time for drastic reform,’ said Rodney, tipping back his chair. ‘The crime rate’s going up and up, the divorce rate’s rocketing and parasites like you are cleaning up.’

Pendle was playing with his knife. Pale, ascetic, watchful, beside Rodney and Tiger he looked like a Jesuit priest among a lot of debauched jolly cardinals.

‘The reason why crime is going up,’ said Pendle softly, ‘is because people have never before been so well informed about what they’re missing. And we’ve got your profession to thank for that. Every time we turn on a television set, or walk down a street, or go in the tube, we’re bombarded by advertisements, tempting us with the promise of a better life. As a result everyone thinks they’ve got a right to a modern kitchen, a new car, a beautiful girl in a cornfield, a happy family life, children in permanently white jeans, a bouncing bright-eyed dog. No wonder marriages break up when people are constantly bombarded by an idealized picture of marital bliss.’

‘Oh don’t give me that old crap,’ spluttered Rodney. ‘Advertising provides a service; we tell the public what’s on the market.’

‘Rubbish,’ said Pendle. ‘You create discontent, envy and avarice. You encourage a constant desire for novelty. Change the packaging, sell the product as new.’

‘Everything is backed up by market research and statistics,’ said Rodney pompously.

‘Advertising people use statistics like a drunk uses a lamp post,’ snapped Pendle. ‘For support rather than illumination. What sort of world d’you think you’ve created when there’s no child whose unhappiness can’t be dispelled by a sunshine breakfast, no romantic setback that can’t be cured by using a new kind of toothpaste, no marital dust-up that can’t be ended with a box of chocolates?’

He was playing with words now.

‘Bravo,’ I said.

‘Advertising’s fun; no one takes it seriously,’ protested Jane.

‘Oh yes they do,’ said Pendle. ‘Thousands of people write in for an amazing offer of a £2 so-called steak knife that’s worth 99p. Dress anyone up in a white coat and the public think he’s an unimpeachable authority. I came across an advertisement the other day which claimed its product was used by 90 per cent of actors who play doctors on television.’

‘Sounds like the sort of line I write,’ I said in a desperate attempt to lighten the atmosphere.

‘At least advertising keeps people in work — actors, writers, designers,’ stuttered Rodney.

‘Advertising stultifies creativity,’ said Pendle crushingly. ‘That’s why hardly any decent poetry or painting or music’s being produced in this country at the moment. All the creative talent is being frittered away in advertising.’

There was a silence. Tiger Millfield let out a huge belch, but no one giggled. Somehow when Rodney had attacked Pendle it had just been bluster, but with Pendle one felt it was the real thing. It was too late to do any rescue work. I really ought to catch the eye of the highest lady of rank, and whisk her out of the room, leaving the combatants to their port, but we hadn’t had pudding yet.

‘I’m sure some of the advertising for slimming products is very suspect,’ said Ariadne.

‘Isn’t it time for your commercial, Rodney?’ said Jane.

‘Well if that concludes the case for the prosecution,’ said Rodney, getting to his feet and switching on the box, ‘I think we might indulge in a little animated corruption.’

I cleared away. It was sad that people could leave more on their plates than you appeared to have given them in the first place. I didn’t bother with the pudding, and by the time I got back with the coffee, the commercial break was over, and Jane and Rodney were stuck into some political scandal on the news. Tiger Millfield was listening owlishly to Ariadne yapping on about wheat germ. Pendle was looking at his watch.

‘Where’s your glass?’ I said.

‘I must go.’

‘But it’s early. Now beastly dinner’s over we can relax.’

‘I’ve got to drive down to Winchester early tomorrow morning. The brief only arrived this evening. I haven’t studied it yet.’

He nodded a curt goodbye to everyone else, and I followed him out into the hall.

‘Will you be down in Winchester long?’ I said, suddenly overwhelmed by desolation.

‘A couple of days. Thank you for having me.’

‘You certainly floored Rodney,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know you felt so strongly about advertising.’

His eyes gleamed wickedly.

‘I don’t. If I’d wanted to I could have argued the case for advertising just as well.’

‘B-but you were so convincing,’ I said.

‘That’s my job.’

And he was gone, without even saying he’d ring me.

Back in the drawing-room Tiger Millfield was trying to ring for a taxi on the answer-phone. In the end he decided to go and flag one down in the street, taking Ariadne with him, thank goodness.

‘You get so tired on a diet,’ she said. ‘Are you coming, Rodney?’

‘I’ll stay on a bit,’ said Rodney. ‘Mustn’t break up the party all at once.’

I left Rodney and Jane, and went into the kitchen. I felt near to tears, physically and mentally exhausted. The hostess with the leastest, Mrs Utterly Beaten. A pile of pots, pans, glasses, plates and uneaten food greeted me. I couldn’t face it. I went back into the drawing-room. Rodney was sitting in an armchair, rolling a joint, telling Jane about the pot he grew in his back garden. Jane was leaning against his knees. They stopped talking when they saw me.

‘Lovely dins, darling,’ said Rodney.

‘I’m sorry about the beef,’ I said, flopping into an armchair.

‘You were had by the butcher,’ said Jane.

‘I never know if meat’s tender just by looking at it,’ I said. ‘It all looks the same, like Chinamen.’

‘Rodney’s going to put me on a poster,’ said Jane. ‘You’re going to see me hoarding down from every stare.’

There was a long pause. Then they both said simultaneously,

‘Darling, he’s not for you.’

‘Why not?’ I said, blushing.

‘Because he’s a bastard,’ said Rodney.

‘It’s only because he worsted you in an argument,’ I said. ‘He didn’t really mean what he said about advertising, he admitted it outside in the hall. He could’ve just as easily argued
for
advertising.’

‘That’s what’s wrong with him,’ said Jane, ‘he’s inhuman.’

‘Beneath that cold chilly legal exterior,’ said Rodney, ‘is an even chillier legal heart.’ He handed Jane the joint; she inhaled deeply.

‘I don’t know why he didn’t go and sit in the fridge,’ she said with a giggle. ‘Might have warmed him up a bit.’

She offered it to me, but I shook my head. I felt too miserable.

‘Come on, cheer up,’ said Rodney. ‘There are plenty more cold fish in the sea.’

‘But I don’t want to go out with a fish. Why does he keep asking me out?’ I said with a sob.

‘I don’t know,’ said Rodney. ‘He’s obviously far more interested in his own briefs than getting into yours.’

‘If he really cared for you,’ said Jane, ‘he’d have made an effort to be polite instead of freezing us out.’

‘Whatever he feels for you,’ said Rodney, much more gently, ‘it isn’t the normal healthy lust a man feels for a beautiful normal girl. He’s playing games with you, Pru, and I don’t reckon he’s up to any good.’

Whatever game Pendle was playing, he left me to stew after the dinner party. He didn’t ring me for a fortnight. I kidded myself he must be working hard, probably out of London. I tried to forget him, but instead spent a lot of time sobbing in the bath and composing long quotation-loaded letters of renunciation in my head. An added irritation was that Jane was having a riproaring time, going out every night mostly with Rodney.

On the Monday evening, a fortnight later, she was getting ready for yet another date, trying to repair the ravages of a weekend of dissipation in front of the drawing-room mirror, while I sat slumped on the sofa, eating my way through a box of chocolates.

‘You’ll get spots,’ said Jane, squirting blue liquid into bloodshot eyes.

‘Do you know what I’m sitting on?’ I stormed.

‘W-what?’

‘The shelf. I am hurtling towards spinsterhood and middle age without even a whisker of a supertax husband on the horizon. D’you know how long it is since I’ve been out with a man?’

‘What about Mark?’

‘He’s not a man, he’s a stockbroker.’

I got up and wandered into the kitchen next door.

‘I doubt if anyone will ever ask me out again. I must face up to a future looking after cats in an attic. I’ve definitely decided to give Pendle up.’

‘Good,’ said Jane.

‘At least I would, if he’d have the decency to ring me up, so I could tell him so. I’ve got nothing to do. And no one to do nothing with. I think I shall buy a dog.’

I opened the fridge, and found a jar of pickled onions. I ate five.

‘If he asked you out, I bet you’d go,’ said Jane, trying to paint out the purple circles under her eyes.

‘I would
not.
Not if they stripped me naked and wild horses dragged me four times round the world, through the forests and across the burning deserts.’

I ate another pickled onion noisily. The telephone rang. I must have qualified for the Olympics, hurtling across the room. It was Pendle. He apologized — but not quite enough — for not ringing before, he’d been impossibly busy. Had I eaten? Would I like some dinner?

An hour later, my curls still wet from a hasty washing, I sat in Julie’s bar, lapping up a large glass of wine, and talking out of the corner of my mouth like a gangster, so as not to asphyxiate Pendle with the smell of onion. He looked even rougher than Jane, his face greyish-green with tiredness, his eyes heavy-lidded and red-rimmed. I hoped it was from poring over legal documents not loose-living. When I first saw him I wondered why I’d been eating my heart out for him. Then, as the wine curled down inside me, the old magic started working again.

‘Have you had any exciting cases?’ I asked.

‘Just routine stuff, but I’ve got a big case coming up tomorrow.’ He smiled slightly. ‘Defending a rapist.’

After the way he’d tried to pull me the night we’d met I was tempted to point out that he must have plenty of experience in that field. But it seemed a shame to rot up the evening so early on.