Unfaithfully Yours (4 page)

Yours,

Elizabeth Price

PS When the time comes I will act appropriately. I am relying on you to keep our correspondence completely secret. In fact, I would recommend you to burn all my letters as soon as you receive this. I have to go away for a few weeks. I am enclosing £850 in cash. Do not stint in your endeavours while I am away.

From the desk of

Gerald Price QC

112 Heathland Avenue

Putney, SW15 3LE

20 July

To:

Michael Larner

24 Lawson Crescent

Putney

Dear Mike,

I felt I had to write to say how sorry I was about Pamela. I know it happened a long time ago. I think I only heard she had passed away a few years after she actually got the ultimate P45; and I always felt bad I didn’t write to you with a bit of the old ‘she was an unrecognized genius’ sort of thing. We had all lost touch, had we not? It’s taken me yonks to get your address.

I was reminded of her because I ran into old Norman Staines in the Northumberland Club and we got talking about people stiffing – as you do – and your missus was mentioned.

‘Was it cancer that got Pamela Larner?’ I said to him. ‘Or was it her heart? She was always a tense sort of person!’

He dragged his bulbous nose out of his pint and said, rather mysteriously, ‘I heard it was suspicious circumstances. Although I couldn’t quite say where I heard that.’ You could have knocked me down with the proverbial feather, Mike. Suspicious circumstances!

‘What kind of suspicious circumstances?’ say I.

‘I’m not exactly sure,’ says Norman, ‘but there was something dodgy about it.’

It seems only yesterday that we were all standing around the playground at St Jude’s Primary and watching Conrad and Jasper and Barnaby and Molly (or was it Milly?) and dear little Elaine (did she become a nun, I wonder?) skip around in their green uniforms. Do you remember Conrad absolutely fucking up as the Roman soldier in the nativity play? And ‘Find a Bin’?

Find a Bin

Find a Bin

Find a Bin and PUT IT IN!

Jesus, we’re all getting so old. Where did the years go, Michael?

Suspicious circumstances! Pull the other one. It’s usually cancer, isn’t it? Was it cancer? Almost everyone I know seems to have cancer. Toby Loosestrife has a brain tumour and is clearly on the way out. I saw him in the Green Man at the top of Putney Hill the other day, wearing a woollen cap, presumably to hide the scars on his bonce, and staring into his beer as if it was about to suggest an answer to the question ‘What Was It All For?’

God knows, mate. You go to school. You manage to slither through to university. You are a lawyer. You have 2.4 children. You die. That’s about it. Oh, in my case, it’s more like 1.75 children since no one in their right mind would dare to suggest that Conrad is a fully developed human being.

Mavis Whatever Her Name Was had a stroke apparently and Peter Vansittart is in a coma – only this time it’s official! Don’t mean to sound callous. I sometimes feel making a joke is the only way to get through it all.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not about to try to raise a few cheap laughs about the demise of your wife. Although – as you will remember from the old days – Gerald is a man not averse to the cheap laugh. Do you remember the time when I locked ‘St’ Johnny Goldsmith in the lavatory at Courseullessur-Mer? Served the pompous fucker right – and I did let him out eventually.

Seriously, Mike, Pamela was a really special person. She was one in a million. She was always so well turned out, and the work she put into those children was phenomenal. Norman seemed to think they had all got into Oxford, which is amazing. Molly was always bright, wasn’t she? And Barnaby and Leo, I seem to remember, could read and write Latin from the age of three! Maybe Barnaby bullied Conrad a bit, but bullying is about the only way to get through to Conrad.

God knows what happened to Jas and Josh Goldsmith. Extended prison terms for both of them, I imagine. Dr John Goldsmith may be a paragon of virtue but his and Barbara’s kids should, in my humble, have been strangled at birth.

But Pamela! My God! Pamela! I remember her in the kitchen with Elizabeth knocking up banquet after banquet while we men lounged around and played tennis. She was a very beautiful woman, Miguel – at least, she was fifteen years ago. We’re all getting senile, Mike, and it won’t be long before we, in our turn, are being shipped down to Putney Vale Crematorium in a rented saloon.

We are still jogging on. Elizabeth is still tormenting the daughters of estate agents at Dame Veronica’s, and I am still doing the old medical negligence. Every time a heart surgeon’s scalpel goes wide of the mark or an anaesthetist tries to take forty winks in the middle of a bladder operation, it’s ‘Send for Gerald’. I have just finished a very lucrative eight weeks demolishing some hopeless loser who seemed to think he knew as much about the large bowel as I did. Professor of fucking Surgery! I don’t think so!

The wife has been a bit depressed of late. Maybe it’s being married to me; but I suspect it might be something to do with the Conrad situation. I do wish he would get a job. Or at least look as if he’s interested in finding one. She won’t read him the Riot Act and I am forbidden to force his head into the toilet bowl in order to emphasize any points I want to make to the little bastard. Elizabeth spends hour after hour locked up in her study. I suspect she may be writing a novel. Do we really want any more novels? Aren’t they all written by lesbians for lesbians? I did read a rather good one recently about an SAS man taking apart the fellaheen. He reminded me of me.

Anyway, my little troubles are, obviously, nothing compared to yours. Unless, of course, you were glad to see the back of her! You always had a pretty combative relationship, I seem to remember. There was a real bust-up one night when the six of us were staying in that villa in Corsica – though I think it might have been to do with tensions between Mrs Dimmock and Mrs Larner. Scratch away, girls!

It is possible you and Pam got divorced years ago. But even if you weren’t speaking when she hit the buffers, I’m really sorry, mate. Really sorry. She was one of my all-time favourites. If you want the God’s honest truth – I always fancied her rotten. Which is a compliment to you, Mikhail. I’ll never forget her in that Portuguese place, hoovering the stairs in her nightie. Way to go, Pammie!

All my best, mate,

Gerald Price

From the bed of

Mike Larner

24 Lawson Crescent

Putney

26 July (probably)

To the desk and indeed the front hall of

Gerald Price OBE by now, why not?

112 Heathland Avenue

Putney-on-Sea

Dear Gerry,

Nice to hear from you. Well – ‘nice’ is not quite the word but I was glad you wrote to me. It’s been years, hasn’t it? Fifteen? At least that and maybe more.

We’re still here, though. Well, I am anyway. A letter of condolence – even from you and nearly ten years late – is always appreciated. You took the trouble to write it – I’m assuming you did give it
some
thought – and, perhaps even more importantly, when you had written it you bothered to dig out an envelope and the appropriate stamp. I write far more letters in my head than on paper and even the ones on paper do not always make it to the pillar-box at the end of Lawson Crescent.

Pamela died over ten years ago. There were no notices in the papers. She just died and that was it. I can’t remember whom I told. All I can say is that it is not a night I will forget in a hurry. I don’t want to go into detail. Suffice it to say that she should not have died in the way that she did. Almost anything would have been preferable.

I don’t see many people now. I took early retirement from the BBC. Which is actually virtually indistinguishable from working for it. I don’t think I miss it. They don’t seem as committed to serious wildlife programmes as they once were. David Attenborough – The Man Everybody Likes Apart From Me – has somehow smarmed his way into total control of all animals everywhere.

He has always had a prejudice against fish – as far as I can see. ‘Oooh, isn’t that Arctic fox cute as it burrows away in the snow?’ There is no longer the space for the poor old mackerel, the fascinating and intense story of, say, how sprats mate, or the willingness to sit down and take a good long look at the life cycle of the perch. Small fish, for some reason, are beneath contempt for the present-day gurus of natural history films. Back in the eighties I was allowed five hours of airtime to do a really in-depth study of gudgeon. The programmes won awards because they were a serious study of the lifestyle of a particular fish. We went into the subject in fantastic detail. Nobody questioned the fact that it took me four years to make the show or questioned my expenses, which were considerable.

Thanks for asking about the children – although I am afraid none of them got into Oxford. Milly spent three unrewarding years at Exeter and is now working part-time in local radio. She lives in Leeds – with a tall, thin, self-righteous boy whom everyone, apart from me, calls Spon. Barnaby and Leo never really showed any aptitude for Latin. I can’t think where you got that idea.

At least you didn’t suggest we meet up for a drink. I went through a phase of doing that. Drinking alcohol with people I don’t really like. And then I realized it was completely pointless.

I don’t see anyone these days – and certainly not people from Putney. Even though I still live here it is remarkably easy to avoid them. Maybe they’re at home, hiding behind drawn curtains, avoiding me. I’m sitting up here in my bedroom, looking out at the rain-swept garden, filled with an awful empty rage. The summer seems to have given up trying, doesn’t it? In the street, a woman in a grey coat has just come out of the house opposite. Her husband died of a stroke three years ago. She fiddles with her handbag. I know she’s checking if she still has a key. I know her son lives in Norwich and she hardly ever sees him. I know she’s lonely. I know I’m lonely. But there’s no point in talking to her. It would only emphasize our complete isolation – from the world and from each other.

The children never call. They have their own lives. Leo married a truly ghastly woman from a place called Budleigh Salterton, in, I think, Devon. I only went there once, for the wedding. I paid for it – but that was about the extent of my involvement. Jacinta (where do they get these names? Who are they trying to impress?) wore a beautiful white dress. She was the bride’s mother. Her daughter, who is called Jazz or Jizz or something like that, wore a slightly less glamorous white dress. The best man made a speech in which the word ‘cock’ was mentioned twelve times. He closed by saying, ‘Leo is a queer!’ which drew gales of laughter and a huge round of applause.

It was as well Barnaby wasn’t there. I don’t think I can face bringing you up to date with what’s happened to Barnaby. It’s not a pretty story. Pamela used to say it was all our fault for giving him that fucking stupid name but I don’t think being called Dave or Alan would have stopped him doing what he did.

Am I angry about Pamela’s death? I suppose I’m angry about a lot of things. I’m as angry about what happened to Pamela as I am about the decline in the standard of wildlife programmes on the BBC. But, as you have probably gathered, I am really pretty angry about that. Did you see that sickening elephant programme the other day? Insulting, self-congratulatory rubbish. ‘Oooh, look – they’ve got big ears and they like each other!’

But nobody cares what I think about wildlife programmes. Nobody cares that my wife died in such peculiar circumstances. The rain has started again. It’s beating against the shrouded windows of the house three doors down on the other side. Gordon Bliss lived there for nearly forty years. He was a civil servant and now he’s dead. Who cares?

I’ve had a few whiskies. Thanks for writing anyway. I think I’m grateful. Though I’m not sure. We both know what we think of each other, don’t we, Gerry? I don’t think either of us has any illusions since that last sponsored cycle ride, but at least you bothered to pick up the pen and write. Not that it will bring back Pamela. I suppose, if I’m honest, your letter had a bad effect on me because it reminded me of what Pamela and I went through and of that awful night in November when she died . . . Whoever said the suburbs were peaceful?

Best anyway,

Mike Larner

From the desk of

Gerald Price QC

112 Heathland Avenue

Putney, SW15 3LE

5 August

To:

Michael Larner

24 Lawson Crescent

Putney

Dear Mike,

Bloody hell, mate, you sound in a bad way! I tried to find your number but no one seemed to have it and when I tried Directory Enquiries, which, like everything else, has gone completely down the tubes and is full of smooth-talking people with regional accents offering to connect you for ten quid a minute from a BT line, they said you were ‘ex-directory’.

Oho! Very important and mysterious. Have you been shagging someone you shouldn’t? Or do you just owe a fuck of a lot of money like the rest of us?

Sorry to hear about the Beeb. I have great respect for wildlife programmes. I always thought you had an absolutely jammy job, Mike. They are the only things I watch, apart from the footie. And the rugby, of course. And, oh, well, yes, the tennis and the winter Olympics and hockey – or girliehock, as we like to call it – and it is true that I always find time to sneak a look at anything to do with sailing or athletics or boxing, wrestling, cricket, fives and good old squash!

I did actually see the elephant programme you mentioned and found it pretty riveting. I know what you mean about it being a bit too cute and giving them names and that woman practically blubbing in the commentary when one of them fell down that hole and couldn’t get out. But, that being said, I did find I was really rooting for Tonga the Bull, pride of the herd, and when he did that neat bit of tusk work on his rival Bimbo Baggins, or whatever his name was, I was there for him, perhaps because I identified with his need to keep all the other fucking elephants in line. Literally. I thought old Tonga definitely deserved his go on Zimbo or Zimbu or whatever she was called – the Marilyn Monroe of the herd. She may have looked like a wrinkled London bus to us humans but she clearly meant a lot to the male trunkmeisters. And when she moved her five-foot-wide arse and let Tonga know she was ready to accommodate his three-foot long schlonger you could really feel the heat of it. Even in Heathland Avenue! Not a venue in which the resident human female does a lot of arse-spreading I can tell you, mate.