Sons and Daughters (29 page)

‘Eh? Eh?’ Fat Man’s squeezed eyeballs turned a bit red.

‘Well, I ask yer reasonable, guv, where’s any Boy Scout that’s got enough muscle to do yer shop collections? Ain’t we always done them reg’lar rounds of the shops that’s got contracts with you for protection, and ain’t we always brought back the correct monthly commission?’

‘I ain’t denying that, am I?’ rasped Fat Man. ‘But who was it that recommended the Parson, and who’s sloped off with me fifty quid? The bloody Parson.’

‘I ask yer, guv, did anyone tell me he wasn’t honest?’ said Large Lump plaintively. ‘No-one, me word of honour. That reminds me, just as we was leaving last night, some geezer did come up and whisper to try the ’ospitals.’

‘Hospitals?’

‘Course, it ain’t what you call information—’

‘I call it that, you charlie. Start trying.’

‘You think he’s having an operation, guv?’

‘That whispering geezer was probably telling you he’s been done over for another dishonest contract,’ growled Fat Man. ‘So start visiting.’

‘Visiting?’

‘Hospitals.’

‘But we don’t know his monicker.’

‘But you can recognize him, can’t you? Try the accident cases wards. Start now, you and the others, while I take some aspirin.’

The receptionist at King’s College Hospital perked up when two impressive-looking gentlemen arrived to ask if they could see a certain patient.

‘Which one?’

‘Mr George Wheeler,’ said Boots.

‘Last week’s car crash victim, poor old George,’ said Sammy.

‘You’re relatives?’

‘Friends,’ said Boots. ‘How is he?’

The receptionist consulted notes.

‘Better than he was, you’ll be pleased to know, and now able to receive visitors. But visiting times are evenings or Sunday afternoons.’

‘Ah,’ said Boots, and gave the lady a smile. ‘It’s afternoon now.’

‘Yes, sir, Thursday afternoon.’

‘The only afternoon we can manage,’ said Boots.

‘Well, as you’re the first visitors he’s had, perhaps Sister Phillips will stretch a point.’

Sister Phillips, looking crisp, starched and hygienic, crumpled a little when trying to cope
with Sammy’s blue eyes and Boots’s whimsical comment that visitors out of hours could sometimes be better for a patient than visitors at all hours. She attempted to point out that visitors at all hours were never permitted under the hospital’s strictly necessary regulations, but lost the thread of it halfway through.

‘. . . never permitted – oh, well, perhaps as you’re Mr Wheeler’s first visitors, apart from the police who came yesterday to ask him about the accident, I believe, we can make an exception.’

‘How very kind,’ said Boots.

‘Much obliged,’ said Sammy.

Sister Phillips took them to the surgical ward of this internationally famous hospital, now a vital unit of the National Health Service, in which all treatment was free, if one ignored wage deductions imposed on the masses.

The Parson, all done up in plaster and bandages, was awake when Boots and Sammy entered the ward in company with Sister Phillips. If his bones had suffered, his eyes hadn’t. They blinked rapidly.

‘Here are two visitors to see you, Mr Wheeler,’ said Sister Phillips. ‘No longer than twenty minutes now,’ she said to Boots. ‘And don’t excite him.’ She turned to go, then said, ‘Or make him laugh.’

‘I promise you, it’ll only be a quiet, friendly chat,’ said Boots, and she left them to it.

The Parson, caged up in his bed, followed the movements of his visitors out of quick eyes as they sat down, Boots on the right of his bed, Sammy on the left.

‘Yes, sit down,’ he said, ‘I’m at home to visitors today. Would it be inquisitive of me to ask who you are?’

With other patients looking on, Boots leaned forward and said very quietly, ‘I think you know who we are.’

‘Flanagan and Allen?’ The man, Boots and Sammy both noted, spoke without moving his lips, or so it seemed.

‘What we’d like to know ourselves,’ said Sammy, just as quietly, ‘is why you tried to puncture us.’

‘With a very nasty crossbow bolt,’ said Boots.

‘You’re joking, of course,’ said the Parson. ‘I wish you wouldn’t, not with the kind of ribs I’ve got. Didn’t I hear the ward sister tell you not to make me laugh?’

‘Well, let me put it very seriously,’ said Boots. ‘Either you tell us something we believe, or we’ll hit you with a hammer. Show him, Sammy.’

Sammy opened up one side of his jacket to reveal a hammer, its handle tucked inside an unbuttoned section of his waist. He gave the Parson just a brief eyeful of the iron head.

‘That’s serious?’ said the Parson. ‘In here in front of my fellow sufferers?’

‘It’s your party, tosh,’ said Sammy, ‘we’re only here to help you enjoy it. Tell him, Boots.’

‘Pleasure,’ said Boots. ‘Yesterday, the police asked you about the crossbow, of course?’

‘How’d you know that?’

‘Mind your own business,’ said Sammy.

‘What I object to about the police,’ said the Parson, ‘is their nosiness. Even if a bloke was only in possession of a penknife, they’d want to know if he only used it for sharpening pencils. As I explained to them yesterday in the middle of all my pain, I bought it for my dear old dad, a retired Sunday School teacher. It’s the kind of thing he likes to play with, being in his dotage, poor old chap.’

‘Well, you’ll get the hammer one way or another, either here or the day you’re discharged,’ said Boots, the dialogue still very quiet to avoid the straining ears throughout the ward. ‘We’ll be waiting, front and back, or some of our men will, and you’ll be taken back into the hospital with both legs broken. That, Mr Wheeler, is no joke, it’s seriously serious.’

‘It strikes me as being grievous bodily harm, which is against the law,’ said the Parson, quick eyes still going from one to the other.

‘There’s an option,’ said Boots. ‘It’s either the hammer or telling the police about the bolt that ended up stuck in the van, but which was intended for one of us.’

‘I don’t like one or the other,’ said the Parson. ‘One’s going to aggravate my injuries, and the other’s going to make the coppers ask me more questions.’

‘So tell us something we’ll believe,’ said Boots, ‘such as why you targeted us, and who paid you to.’

‘I don’t like that, either,’ said the Parson. ‘It’s
asking me to go against my principles, and that’ll make me ill. I can’t afford to be ill as well as injured.’

‘Go to reception, Sammy,’ said Boots, ‘and ask if you can telephone the police.’

‘Now wait a minute,’ said the Parson, ‘I’m not saying I can’t put up with being ill.’

‘So stop mucking us about,’ said Sammy, ‘we’re busy and we ain’t got all day to listen to excuses.’

‘Personally, I’ve got nothing against you gents,’ said the Parson.

‘So who has?’ asked Sammy.

The Parson’s quick optics met Boots’s unblinking grey eyes, and what he saw there didn’t soothe the ache in his broken bones.

‘A certain party who wanted a disabling job done on one of you. Nothing fatal, on my oath, just an arm or a leg. You want a name?’

‘That’s all,’ said Boots, ‘just a name.’

The Parson sighed.

‘Ben Ford,’ he said, without moving his lips, or so it seemed.

Boots and Sammy met Sister Phillips in the corridor on their way out.

‘You left our patient happy, I hope,’ she smiled.

‘Happy, but not delirious,’ said Boots.

‘On account of his suffering ribs,’ said Sammy.

‘Simple happiness is a pleasure to come by,’ said Boots.

‘Yes,’ said Sister Phillips, her starched front crumpling again, ‘yes, indeed, Mr Adams.’

‘Thanks once more for making our visit an exception
to the rule,’ said Boots. ‘Goodbye.’

‘Do come again,’ said Sister Phillips, and watched them as they left, two delightful gentlemen.

It was lunchtime for Lulu and Paul at the Labour Party’s Walworth headquarters, and as usual they were eating it in the office.

‘Let’s see,’ said Paul, tucking into a dressed salad prepared by his mum, ‘I don’t think you’ve told me how you got on in supporting the motion “Socialism is Beneficial to the Country” at that grammar school yesterday evening.’

‘Why weren’t you there instead of the Young Socialist you paired me with?’

‘I abstained, I had a date,’ said Paul.

‘With tarty Henrietta?’

‘With an old friend.’

‘Female, of course,’ said Lulu, her expressive horn-rimmed specs reflecting sorrow for anyone who put social relationships before the excitement of politics.

‘She wore a very nice frock,’ said Paul. ‘So how did you get on?’

‘Crushed the opposition, and carried the motion,’ said Lulu.

‘With the assembly hall full of toffee-nosed grammar school pupils whose parents probably all vote Conservative?’

‘My support for the motion was brilliant,’ said Lulu.

‘What were you wearing?’

‘Clothes,’ said Lulu, ‘I’m against debating in the altogether.’

‘You wore a sweater and skirt, say?’ suggested Paul.

‘A dress,’ said Lulu, munching an apple.

‘Pretty?’

‘What’s that got to do with politics? Aspiring women politicians in pretties don’t get taken seriously.’

‘Lulu, you’re still a girl,’ said Paul.

‘Piffle,’ said Lulu.

‘At only eighteen,’ said Paul, ‘you’ve got years yet before you need to be taken seriously.’

‘Listen to you, Methuselah,’ said Lulu. ‘You’re nineteen, aren’t you?’

‘Going on for twenty,’ said Paul.

‘You like to be taken seriously, don’t you?’

‘Certainly,’ said Paul. ‘I’m a senior official of the Young Socialists. Everything sacred would fall apart if I let the members treat me as an Aunt Sally.’

‘Oh, really?’ said Lulu. ‘Well, the same goes for me. True Socialism means equality. So put that in your in tray.’

‘Equality doesn’t mean you should wear your father’s trousers,’ said Paul.

‘I don’t, and I’m not,’ said Lulu, presently clad in a light brown jumper and a dark brown skirt, quite attractive stockings gracing her legs. Somehow, she was coming round to letting her legs be seen.

‘Anyway, congratulations on crushing the opposition
in the debate,’ said Paul. ‘Did any reward come out of it?’

‘A bunch of flowers,’ said Lulu.

‘Pretty?’ said Paul.

‘What?’

‘Pretty flowers?’

‘I’m going to say something to you,’ said Lulu.

‘Such as?’

‘Get your head examined.’

Paul laughed. The phone rang. He answered it. ‘Hello, Paul.’

‘Hello, Henrietta.’

Lulu growled.

But Paul avoided making a date. He was wary of Henrietta Trevalyan. He had an idea that one of her permanent fads was collecting poodles. He didn’t go in for being that kind of bloke. His lifestyle was one which instinctively adhered to Grandma Finch’s values.

Somehow, in some way, Chinese Lady’s own lifestyle, based on respectable behaviour, had had its effect on her extensive family, from her sons and daughter downwards. No-one stepped out of line. Everyone consciously or subconsciously felt she was looking over his or her shoulder. Boots was the exception. He had had his moments with a woman ambulance driver and his love affair with Eloise’s French mother. But that had been during the Great War, in Northern France, when Chinese Lady wasn’t close enough to look over his shoulder.

Polly was waiting for someone to break the chains in these years following the war against Hitler. It had been a war that made old-fashioned conventions look archaic, and gave many women ideas about new horizons.

Yes, someone in the family would kick over the traces one day.

The twins had had their bath, had come down for their Ovaltine, and after saying goodnight to their mother, were now being taken up to their beds by Boots. He was telling the immortalized story of Don Quixote.

‘You might not believe this, kids, but he then charged the windmill.’

‘Charged it?’ said Gemma.

‘Courageously and with determination,’ said Boots.

‘Crikey,’ said Gemma, as they reached the landing.

‘I know what happened next,’ said James.

‘Tell, then,’ said Gemma.

‘He fell off his horse,’ said James. ‘Well, I mean, a windmill.’

‘Yes, but he didn’t actually think it was,’ said Gemma.

‘Barmy,’ said James.

‘A valiant eccentric,’ said Boots, and saw Gemma to her bed. He tucked her in. She looked up at him,
her dark sienna hair soft and curling, her eyes already dreamy.

‘Daddy, you’re ever so nice,’ she said.

‘Well, I’m glad you think so, poppet,’ he said, and kissed her nose. A little giggle escaped her, followed by a soft sigh of cosy content.

Boots then went to James’s room. James, tucked up, delivered himself in manly fashion.

‘Well, goodnight, Pa.’

‘Goodnight, young ’un.’

‘A windmill, I ask you,’ murmured James, and closed his eyes.

On his way downstairs, Boots wondered, and certainly not for the first time, why life had favoured him so much. To have known his years with Emily, Rosie, Tim and Eloise, was as much as any man deserved. To now have Polly, Gemma and James, was richer than the icing on any cake.

Polly’s educated tones interrupted his reflections.

‘Something’s going on, you old warhorse.’

‘Just Don Quixote and the windmill, Polly.’

‘Not that,’ said Polly, knees curled up on the plush velvet of a settee, ‘something quite different.’

‘Such as?’ said Boots.

‘How do I know?’ said Polly. ‘You haven’t told me. But something is going on.’

‘Is it?’ said Boots, looking forward to listening to a radio talk by Lieutenant-General Sir Brian Horrocks, the cavalier wartime Commander of the British 30 Corps. Boots had been with the corps all through the Normandy campaign and its momentous
advance into Germany itself. A reasonable man did not bring the war home with him, but it had its moments that could still stir the memory. A talk by Sir Brian was bound to be one of them. ‘Is your intuition at work, Polly?’

‘Intuition my Sunday bonnet,’ said Polly. ‘I know you, and I know when you’re up to something. Out with it, or I’ll come and bite you.’