Cuckoo (6 page)

Frances hated going into pubs alone. It was almost three o' clock, closing time, and the Bricklayer's Arms was noisy and crowded. How, in heaven's name, was she supposed to find a Mr Smythe? She whispered to the barman and then wished she hadn't. ‘Any bloke here for a Medfield Mini-Cab?' he shouted, fortissimo. ‘Lovely lady driver! Don't all rush at once.'

She tried to ignore the catcalls. Mr Smythe was struggling through the crowd, a small, spindly man, with an apologetic moustache in one shade of ginger and a toupee in another.

‘Medfield?' he grunted. His voice was surprisingly deep, as if God had made a mistake and given him the voice of a Titan.

‘Yes. Where to?' She'd learnt already to cut through the formalities. Even the female passengers seemed to want her life history, and she didn't intend giving it to anyone.

‘Broke down, didn't I? Right on the way to a fancy customer. God knows when I'll see my car again. You need wheels in this job. I'm a salesman – suppose they told you, didn't they? Hygi Hankies, South West London area.'

He paused, as if for congratulation. Frances said nothing. She was fighting her way through two dozen beer-laden stomachs.

‘Must admit I've never heard of Medfield. All women drivers, are they?'

Frances side-stepped a lighted cigarette. ‘No.' Monosyllables were safer – she'd discovered that the first few days. There were only two female drivers to twenty-three males, but she wasn't going to tell him that.

The air outside smelt blessedly fresh. ‘Where to?' she asked again, opening the car door and holding it for him.

‘Thanks, Miss, but I'll sit in front if it's all the same with you.'

Frances left him to open the front door himself, and edged over as far to the right as possible. ‘Where are you going, Mr Smith?'

‘Smythe, with a ‘‘y'', dear. Lesley Smythe. Pleased to meet you. Nice little car you've got here. Not that I'd ever touch a foreign car myself.'

‘Mr Smi – er – Smythe. I'm due to finish at five o'clock sharp, so if …'

‘Sorry, dear – thought they gave you all the details before you picked me up. Sunbury Trading Estate, please, and fast. I should have been there half an hour ago.'

Frances did a neat U-turn and accelerated sharply, feeling irritable and out of sorts. The job had proved a disappointment. She'd gone into it as a sort of holy rebellion, expecting excitement and regeneration, and all she'd found was traffic jams and crude boring passengers who wouldn't stop nattering, or tried to chat her up. A drawing-office assistant had spent the whole journey to Gerrards Cross and back again telling her what an intrepid drinker he was, how many times he'd lost his licence, and how he rigged the breathalyser. And an electronics engineer from Staines had boasted about fathering three babies on three different women and not paying a penny for any of them.

She glanced at Mr Smythe, who was waving what looked like a strip of blue and white awning above his ginger head.

‘The Hygi Hankie, dear. Quite a different little product. I wondered if you'd ever come across it?'

‘No,' she said.

‘It's half-way between your fancy handkerchief and your all-purpose Kleenex. Man-made. Man-size. No washing, no ironing, no wispy bits of paper sticking to your nose. One a day, throw away. Lasts all day even when wet.' He blew his nose loudly.

The product demonstration, Frances assumed, making a mental note to gargle that evening. She hadn't realized what a germy job cab-driving would prove to be. She'd already risked two colds, three coughs, one roaring influenza, and a bad case of eczema.

Mr Smythe finished blowing and started doing unspeakable things with the handkerchief. ‘You see, it still holds together even with the heaviest cold. I can guarantee you'll never go back to ordinary hankies, once you've tried ours. What about your husband? Men are mad for Hygi, you know. You're married, I presume?'

‘Yes,' said Frances firmly. She usually got that one in, somewhere near the beginning of the ride.

‘The only way to be, isn't it? I'm widowed myself. Twenty-five years we had together. You should have seen the stuff we got on our silver wedding! Bloody great teapots, silver cocktail shakers. The wife did all the catering herself. She wasn't well then, but she never said a word. Six months later, she was gone. Want a Polo?'

Frances shook her head. She'd earned a hundred black crosses, on the strength of the job alone, without ruining her teeth on top of it.

‘Two years, it took me, to get over it. You never do, though, do you? Of course, we had the boys, but they were always closer to their mother. The older boy married, though I must admit, I didn't like his wife. She dyed her hair. Turn left at the garage and then it's first left. You needn't wait. I'll make my own way back.'

He tipped her generously and left her two boxes of Hygis and half a tube of Polos. She watched his small figure breezing up to the ugly red-brick factory, preparing his patter; wondered how many doors were slammed in his face in the course of a normal working week. She hadn't been exactly friendly herself. Quite the stuck-up, frosty little bitch, in fact. But, somehow, the way he mixed up death with silver cocktail shakers … Maybe Charles was right – it wasn't what you said, it was the way you said it. Charles meant it cynically, but it seemed to operate in life. When his partner's wife died, for instance, the poor bereaved fellow carried on like the matinée idol of a cosmic tragedy – until someone caught him fondling his secretary in the back of his new Mercedes, just three days after the funeral.

No, she mustn't think of what went on in the backs of cars – or not until she'd handed in her notice. That was the reason she had to be so sparing with her sympathy. You offered them a friendly ear, and soon they were grabbing something further down. No wonder women didn't work as cab-drivers. Yet, Laura would have handled it superbly, slapping them down with just the right mixture of flattery and fury, so they'd be eating out of her hand by the first green light. And Viv would be maternal and relaxed, chatting and sympathizing, and even managing to enjoy herself, for heaven's sake. She slumped at the steering wheel. Perhaps she was a misfit, only functioning when she was in her own neat, safe world, with Charles by her side, pointing her in the right direction and engraving her soul with his maxims for life.

She cruised through the side streets, searching for a phone box. ‘Reg, it's Mrs Jones. I'm signing off now. I'll ring you in the morning, and bring my cash in then.'

‘Do me a favour, love. I'm desperate for drivers and there's a Mr Bradley called from Acton. 57, Wyndham Road. Doing his nut, he is. He's been waiting half an hour already, and he's got to get to Southmead Polytechnic, urgent. He's got a load of stuff. Sheep, I think he said.'

‘Sheep?'

‘That's what it sounded like.'

‘Reg, I'm not only exhausted, but I draw the line at animals. Even that wretched Mrs Barker's lap-dog ruined my upholstery.'

‘Well, forget about the sheep and rescue Mr Bradley. I doubt if they're real ones, anyway. You don't get sheep in Acton.'

The pips were going and she didn't have another coin. ‘OK love?' Reg shouted. ‘You'll do it for me then?'

‘OK.' Frances swore silently. Blast Mr Bradley and his flock of sheep. On the other hand, there was nothing to go home for. Charles was away till the following evening, and the house always felt lost and limp without him, as if it had shed its stuffing and its spine.

The traffic was appalling. She tried to take a short cut and landed in a cul-de-sac. She hoped Mr Bradley wouldn't storm and shout. Some of the passengers almost attacked you, the minute they opened the door, lambasted you for being late, or ruining their plans. It was rarely her fault, anyway. Reg ran the firm on a shoestring and had no idea of management. He took the scanty profits, and she and the other drivers took the ample abuse.

Mr Bradley didn't appear to be in. She knocked twice and then rang. Silence. That was another disadvantage of the job. You trailed all the way to some outlandish place and then found the passenger had disappeared. On Tuesday, she'd waited two whole hours at the airport for a Mr Wong (Peking), and when at last the flight arrived, he wasn't even on it. You didn't get paid for all that wasted time. OK, she didn't really need the money, but the principle was wrong. She knocked once more, and began to walk away down the crumbling stone steps. Acton looked dingy and faceless, as if it had been overlooked or abandoned by the Great Builder in the Sky.

‘Hi there!' said a deep voice from the direction of the dustbins. Frances looked up and saw a pale blue corduroy bottom and two matching legs. The head was out of sight, the arms elbow-deep in tins and tea leaves.

‘Would you be looking for James, by any chance?' The voice was muffled – there was still no head.

Frances stopped in her tracks. ‘Who?'

‘Jim. He gets all the good-lookers – lucky bloke. Flat 3, top floor. Just walk up. The bell's out of order.'

Suddenly, the bottom turned round and a top came into view – quite an appealing one. The red and white checked shirt was open to the navel, revealing an exotic purple vest and a mass of hair curling on the chest. The hair on the head was lighter, streaked by the sun into stripes and shadows. The eyes were yellowish green, the mouth grinned. There were tea leaves in his hair.

‘I was searching for a fish-hook,' he explained. ‘The one that got away. You wouldn't have a fish-hook concealed about your person, would you?'

‘No,' said Frances. She genuinely wished she had. It suddenly seemed important to be the sort of female who walked around with fish-hooks in her handbag.

She took a step towards the dustbins. ‘Would Jim be Mr Bradley?'

‘What?' He was sitting on the largest dustbin now, pulling the petals off a dandelion.

‘Mr Jim Bradley?'

‘Mr Ned Bradley.'

‘Ah, you know him then. Where is he? I understand he ordered a mini-cab.'

‘He did, he did. About a hundred years ago. Sadly, it never came.' The dandelion was only a stalk and a centre now. He twisted it through his lowest buttonhole, disturbing the hair.

‘Oh, it did. It has, I mean. I'm it.'

‘You're Medfield Mini-Cabs?' He laughed delightedly and the stalk fell down inside his shirt. ‘My stars were right, for once. ‘‘An apparent disaster will be turned to your advantage.'' Star-Scope in the
Mail
. Terrible rag, but I read it. What are you born under?'

‘I think it's Virgo.'

‘Think? You should know, my love. Astrology rules our lives. That's bad, though.'

‘What is?'

‘Well, Sagittarius and Virgo. They're horribly incompatible. I think I'd better walk to Southmead! On the other hand, there may be some mitigating factors. Perhaps our moons are in the same sign, or we've both got Libra ascendant. Shall we risk it?' He slithered off the dustbin and brushed his blue bottom. His trousers were deplorably tight. Frances tried to concentrate on higher things.

‘Look, let me get this straight. Are you Mr Bradley?'

He nodded. ‘Call me Ned.'

She tried to ignore his cheerful grin. ‘The Mr Bradley who ordered a mini-cab?'

‘You're quite a girl, aren't you? Is this interrogation part of the service? Yes, of course I ordered the bloody cab. I was just about to phone and tell them what I thought of them. But perhaps I can tell
you
. I'd like that. You're pretty and bossy and you've got the most smashing blue eyes I've ever seen. And you're lovely when you're angry. That's what they say in bad B-movies.'

She drew herself up to her full five foot. ‘I understand, Mr Bradley, there were also some sheep to be transported.'

‘Christ! I'd clean forgotten about the little blighters. You're a clever girl, you know. You deserve a reward.' He handed her a second dandelion, allowing his hand to brush against hers for longer than it should. There were strange foreign colours mixed and marbled in his eyes. She tried to look away. He wasn't even handsome – too small, too messy – so why on earth should he light up everything around him? Even the dingy house and the bedraggled front garden leapt into shining focus when he looked at them. He took the steps three at a time and then ran back to fetch her. ‘I'll need your help with those godforsaken creatures. Do you mind? How about a coffee before we start? To give us strength. Come in, come in. Welcome to my shambles!'

Reg had said emphatically that Mr Bradley was in a rush, and if he wasn't, then she most certainly was. She had letters to write, and a list for Mrs Eady, and her notes to prepare for the Historical Association. Just because she'd been dazzled by too much charm and a couple of dandelions … ‘Look, Mr Bradley …'

‘Ned.'

If only he wouldn't sparkle like that. It was easy being cold and offhand to the Mr Smythes and Mrs Barkers, but this one seemed so sunny, he was frost-proof.

‘Have
you
got a name?' He had suddenly, maddeningly, lured her through the front door. The house smelt of cats. The hall was high and bare, with flaking yellow paint.

‘Mrs Parry J …'

‘Oh, just my luck, a Mrs. Shouldn't I have guessed. Jim gets all the single ones. Let's pretend you're single, shall we? What's your first name?'

‘I only took this booking as a favour, Mr Bradley. I was on my way home, and …'

‘Home to hubby?'

‘No, my husband's away, if you must know.'

Why in God's name had she told him that? He was rude and nosey enough already, without her breaking all the rules she'd made. Charles always advised her to create a new set of rules for every situation, so she'd drawn up her Medfield Mini-Cab Code the very first day – coldness, caution, and monosyllables; no names, no revelations, no chats, no chatting up. And yet here she was almost moving in with Ned.