EPISODE TWENTY


It was well past time as Mike peered through the window of the White Hart. The police car was still parked by the green near the crossroads. Mike cursed quietly and asked Marion to order him a taxi. This would mean another argument with Claire. He had promised to run her to the station first thing in the morning. While the landlady ordered him a taxi, he chatted to Ivor, one of the pub regulars,
‘I don’t see your mate in here anymore,’ he said. ‘You two were inseparable.’
‘He moved to Cranbrook,’ Ivor told him.‘ He had to buy a bungalow for his wife’s knees.’

*

The following morning Mike sat opposite his son at the breakfast, sipping strong black coffee. ‘D’you have to crunch those Frosties so loudly?’ he complained.
Andrew, who was studying notes on a scrap of paper, replied, ‘Does Mum know you’ve got a hangover?’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Claire in a resigned tone as she came into the kitchen. ‘Which is why I’ve got to get a cab to the station.’
They had already exhausted the argument over his drinking. Claire checked her handbag contents to see if she’d got everything she needed. ‘Shall I give Chloe your love?’ she asked Andrew.
‘If you like.’
‘Not if I like.’
He looked up at her. ‘Yeah, alright, give her my love. What are you going all the way up there for, anyway?’
‘I told you – I knew you weren’t listening – Chloe wrote to me. She sounds desperately unhappy.’
‘It’s probably just boyfriend trouble, as usual.’
‘I hope that’s all it is.’
‘Why can’t she tell you on the phone? Newcastle’s a long way to go in one day.’
Claire snapped her handbag shut. ‘What do you care, Andrew?
Mike tapped his watch. ‘If that taxi, doesn’t come soon, you’re going to miss it.  They’re so unreliable.’
Claire’s mouth tightened. ‘Like someone else I could mention not a million miles from here.’
‘We’ve been through all that,’ snapped Mike.
Claire was about to respond, but Mike was spared by the front doorbell as her taxi arrived. She dashed out to the hall. ‘I don’t suppose I’ll be back until quite late,’ she called.
The front door slammed. Silence. Apart from Andrew’s intermittent crunching noise.
After a brief interval, Mike asked, ‘What’s that you’re reading?’
‘Oh...just some notes I made.’
‘In other words, mind your own business.’
Andrew gave his father a defiant stare. ‘If you must know,’ he said, ‘this is list of pubs...pubs where the fruit machines are due a big win. And those that have just paid out.’
‘You can’t make a career out of feeding coins into a slot. What sort of life is that?’
‘Well, it’s a hell of a sight more interesting than cutting hair. Snip, snip, snip, all day long. Boring.’
Mike sighed deeply. ‘As it happens you’re right. What’s it all about, I wish I knew? What is the point of it all?’
Andrew wasn’t in the mood to cope with his father’s navel gazing, as so often happened following a night on the booze. He got up from the table and left his cereal bowl on the surface above the dishwasher.
Mike’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘I’ve just realized, this is the crack of dawn as far as you’re concerned. What are you doing up at this time of the morning?’
Andrew laughed. ‘I’ve only just got in. That’s why I’m off to bed.’

*

‘I’m sorry, Maggs,’ Craig mumbled as she opened the front door. Although she wasn’t crying, he could see her eyes were puffed and smeared. As he entered, he could smell alcohol on her breath.
She led him into the living room, then stood there helplessly shaking her head.‘ It’s so unreal, Craig. I think I’ll wake up in a minute from a bad dream.’
Craig cleared his throat before speaking.  ‘Where’s Mum and Dad?’
In the kitchen with the children.’
‘Do they know yet?’
She nodded and her eyes filled with tears. ‘But I’m not sure if they’ve really taken it in.’
‘Maggs, I’m sorry.’
He held her close and she sobbed quietly on his shoulder. He stroked her hair soothingly, and after a while she composed herself, picked up a glass of brandy from the coffee table and finished it.
‘I keep asking myself, why am I crying over that bastard? Because of the kids, I suppose. They’ll never know what a 22 carat shit he was. Their innocent minds will stay innocent, and they’ll wonder why I’m such a hard, unfeeling bitch.’
‘You’re not unfeeling, Maggs. It’s understandable...in the circumstances.’
‘You don’t know the half of it, Craig. I expect they’re laughing about it at the hospital. The joke of the Kent and Sussex.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘They weren’t wearing seat belts. They would have got in the way of what she was doing to him.’
Craig tried to look shocked, but his impression was one of prurient interest. ‘Not while they were driving?’
He tried to imagine it. He also tried to wipe the slight smile that was tugging the corners of his mouth.
But Maggie wouldn’t have noticed. She laughed bitterly and said, ‘At least he went out the way he would have wanted.’
Their mother put her head round the door and spoke softly. ‘Hello, Craig.’
‘Hi, Mum.’
‘I’ve just made a pot of tea. Would you like some?’
He nodded. ‘How are the kids?’
‘Coping.’
She shuffled quietly back to the kitchen.  Craig looked at his sister for a while before speaking.
‘Do Mum and dad know about Gary and...’
‘They know he was with another woman. Course, they don’t know the sordid details. Funeral’ll be a farce, won’t it? What can anyone find to say about Gary?’
Craig looked embarrassed.
Still, it’s an ill wind,’ Maggie continued with false brightness. ‘Your brother-in-law’s about to give you a bonus. On his behalf – ‘cos he can’t have been all rotten – I am giving you one of the shops. Well, you could look pleased about it.’
But Craig had remembered that on Saturday night he and Tony Rice planned to burgle the Working Men’s Club. And if there was a change of plan, how would Rice and Harvey Boyle take it?

IN EPISODE TWENTY-ONE ON THURSDAY

Playing the fruit machine, Andrew’s eyes are opened to some shocking truths; and Mary has another dodgy offer from Harvey Boyle.

Episode Twenty-one  Homepage