Free Chain Reaction by Gillian White

Miss Benson, too, upsetting the woman, perhaps, with her tall stories of conspiracy and unkindness? She is now convinced that someone is stealing her things. Probably not. Miss Benson, so mild, so obviously kind and good, is nothing to do with Mother’s present predicament. She might even be able to talk some sense into Irene, make out she is on Mother’s side.
    ‘I will go on Friday evening, if you don’t mind then,’ says Miss Benson with pity in her voice. And then the rather surprising addition, because she doesn’t look the type to offer such sinful gifts: ‘And I’ll take her some cigarettes along while I’m at it.’

SEVEN
‘Joyvern’, 11, The Blagdons, Milton, Devon
    A ND NOW JOY IS insisting that Vernon take her out to look at some suitable properties. She can’t wait to leave Joyvern, for someone to come along and buy it so she can pick up her dusters and flee.
    All this is too much for Joy and losing face is the worst of it, losing face in front of her friends and neighbours. She has always been needy of other people’s approval; she used to enjoy showing people around her new house, her decorated house, her extended house, her newly carpeted house, always something to show them. But not like this, oh no, not now she is leaving and forced to give it up.
    Vernon and Joy were one of the first residents of this brand-new estate. They were given a bottle of champagne and a bouquet of flowers by the builders. Prideful people, they set the standard as it were, first to put up hanging baskets and their little red mail box beside the gate started a colourful trend. They moved in when the garden was little more than a shape scraped out of the muddy earth by a digger. Those were spindly saplings, now grown into sturdy standard cherries. The road that led to the cul-de-sac was hardly passable in those days, what with the builders’ mess and the asphalt wagons and the dangerous piled-up mountains of paving.
    But during all their fifteen years on the estate, Joy suffered a perpetual worry that someone else would move into the cul-de-sac who was more affluent, more sophisticated than they, forever afraid of embarrassment in front of other people, or of one of her family committing some social gaffe. Vernon is the only one in the world to know how much she suffered. Spend spend spend seemed to be the only answer. Joy’s magazines tell her that this is an illness but Vernon would disagree with this. Joy spent with a purpose. She had to keep in front. The kitchen shines with its new yellow tiles, begonias in the window, bright blue plates, all matching, not cheap. Decorating the whole house every couple of years and then came the roof extension. She wanted to get the builders in but Vernon insisted on doing it himself. ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees, Joy, you really must try to remember that.’ The lists run on and on, ever changing—the small conservatory at the back, greenhouse, gazebo and pergola, the patio and the bathroom Jacuzzi. A sensible navy Ford for Vernon and a neat little Mini in a daffodil hue for Joy. Holidays in Greece, Corsica and Turkey, Benidorm is not for the Marshes. They held barbecues and At Homes on Christmas Eve, and Tupperware parties when they were in vogue and they were the first to join the new Neighbourhood Watch scheme. Suzie and Tom, five and eight when they moved here from Joy’s mother’s house, were well-kept, well-behaved children with green-shampoo-shiny hair and scrubbed and rosy English faces. They played in the garden, not out in the road like they tend to do nowadays. They never had sweets stuck round their faces. They did well at school, went riding, played tennis, joined the Scouts and the Guides and went on to further education and are now living with their partners. Tom is already married with a baby of his own.
    Suzie swears she will soon be engaged and that everyone lives together nowadays. She’s got a good job as a Clinique beautician and as Joy says, you