Holidaying on a Greek island alongside
marauding teenage booze hounds might not be cheerful, but
would certainly be cheap.
She had pressed the claims of Verona
and Sardinia but Paul assured her that neither met their budget:
So what do you fancy, Ayia Napa, Kos
– or we could motor down and take a break in the South of France?
She didn’t fancy any of it,
but faced with Paul’s preference for a traditional gite (meaning
primitive, verging on filthy, with unspeakable toilets) it was no
contest because Ayia Napa was out of the question.
They arrived in Kos at the beginning of
August, depositing Vanessa and Richard with her parents.
The hotel was decent and so was Kos,
once she had overcome an instinctive reluctance to spurn any of the
sights recommended by Kathryn who had been on some
tremendous digs in the vicinity of Kardamena.
Days assumed a routine; mornings meant
temples and ruins; beach or pool denoted après-midi and they
could be found most evenings taking dinner in one of the town
tavernas.
Then it was travel Scrabble, nightcaps
and bed, followed by breakfast and a repetition of the same.
Afternoons were her best time; perched
on a hotel sun lounger (Paul preferred the beach, but she hated the
sensation of sand under her feet) with The Bone People by Keri
Hulme or Janet Frame’s An Angel at My Table. Before leaving
home she had packed nine holiday books and these additional treats
had sidled into the suitcase; courtesy of reviews in The Sentinel on
Sunday.
Reading was serious stuff and she
prided herself on never judging a book by its cover.
It was a principle she had failed to
observe when selecting a husband.
As he tucked into a dish of souvlaki
and the inevitable Greek salad, she thought that in terms of the
cover test, Paul looked decidedly dog-eared. The aquiline
features of the Frank Churchill manqué (Bunters circa 1977)
had been overlain by fleshiness around nose and jaw, and a pink hue
that owed more to Jameson’s than sunshine.
He was not fat, but an established roll
of flesh straining against the buttons of his red, white and black
holiday camp shirt necessitated averting the eyes when the Full
Monty was paraded to all-comers on the beach.
Of course many – even the majority -
of British males en vacances looked execrable with their
lurid shorts or (worse) posing pouches and sandals.
And most men who would not see thirty
again were carrying a few extra pounds – Fatty for example.
But she was not married to Fatty,
and the fact remained that these days, Paul looked better in a
business suit than a birthday suit.
She caught her own reflection in a
glass, wincing at the hint of double chin and a hairstyle that was
neither Annie Lennox crop nor chin length bob. She was 34. Paul was
39.
And they were well on the way to fat
and forty.
They finished the meal; paid up and
walked the short distance to the hotel, where they ordered Metaxa
for him, ouzo for her ,and unleashed the Travel Scrabble.
Tomorrow they would visit the Mosque of
Hassan Pasha, lunch at the harbour and write postcards in ‘wish you
were here' mode.
In vino veritas
Without the camouflage of children,
dog, work, The Duke and the Nuttalls; she and her husband had little
or nothing to say to each other.
Will Ladislaw of Bunters had
become the Casaubon of Kos.
Two years earlier, circa August 1987,
new starts had been the flavour of the month.
Politically, business as usual
applied only to the ruling Tories.
The Party had added precisely three
seats to its 1983 tally and majorities in constituencies like
Lowerbridge were now wafer thin.
Poor Derek – oh damn!
cursed Sylvia who had snagged her black
Wolford tights on one of the packing crates in Hazel’s front
room.
I don’t know why you dislike him!
He must have nightmares about getting kicked out – and he always
seems less stuck up than some of them.
The thought of Derek being kicked
out was truly delicious but she could not share it, and right
now, the person who had received the order of the boot
(metaphorically, if not literally) was Martin Sweet.
Hazel called time on the marriage
shortly after the election; rented a flat above the feminist bookshop
in Gridchester and was now in the process of moving.
Martin and the fish would remain in the
marital home.
Hazel’s bombshell was dropped almost
en passant at the end of their weekly drink at
the Malmsey Head.
Martin and I are splitting; can you
give me a hand with the move?
This was why they were filling packing
crates and orange boxes and ferrying them to the flat in Gridchester.
It was cramped and a bit dingy, but
Hazel planned to decorate it, and Poppy (who ran the bookshop as a
cooperative) would be a good neighbour.
Her first thought was that as far as
Martin was concerned, still waters ran deep.
Hazel’s husband was a weekend
twitcher and apart from a secondary interest in tropical fish,
had no other hobbies outside Party activity. Who had he met – and
more importantly; where had he met her?
Twitchers were solitary by nature and
added to that, Martin’s aversion to eating anything that had not
been cooked at home (or scooped from one of the tins in the Sweet
larder) made him an improbable philanderer.
On the other hand, they had recruited a
couple of new members during the General Election campaign and Martin
had been seen leafleting with one of them.
But Cheryl Smithers, who worked behind
the counter at the wholefood shop, was in her fifties --- still, she
was pretty trim and Hazel had let herself go.
Some men preferred older women.
However, Martin Sweet’s sexual
preferences were in this instance, irrelevant.
There’s no one else: I was just
dying inside,
observed Hazel cheerfully.
We haven’t had a conversation for
years; we go nowhere; do nothing – and as for a sex life!
They did not ask her to elaborate, but
she exchanged glances with Gail and Sylvia.
Hazel was a good ten years older than
the rest of them. Her children had flown the nest; she had
worked at the Council with Martin for the entire duration of her
marriage and the idea of starting over at 46, to quote the
late lamented John Lennon – was unthinkable.
Do you think it’s the menopause?
whispered Sylvia as soon as Hazel went
to the toilet.
Although if it is, she ought to be
grateful – I had another scare last month. I mean – what will she
do? Do you think she’ll go berserk and wear boob tubes and short
skirts and take lovers? How positively AWFUL if she does…
The thought of Hazel (thirteen stone in
Evans’ smocks), doing any such thing- was grotesque, as
Paul, who disliked 'Stalin’s Granny', was quick to point
out.
Old Mart’s had a lucky escape!
Imagine knocking on heaven’s door shackled to that!
He’ll be squiring some fit piece
as soon as Granny’s packed her bloomers!
This insufferable comment, made whilst
she had just spent an hour on the family ironing, prompted her to
leap to Hazel’s defence – boob tubes or not.
That’s terribly unkind – and
anyway, I don’t know what you’ve got against Hazel; you’re
always horrible about her.
I think she’s really brave to get
out of a dead-end marriage; they never go out, never go on holiday,
and the bloody fish are virtually pushing her off the sofa!
I hope she gets a toy-boy – or TWO
– so I can have one!
She spat the last comment, softening
its impact with a smile.
Paul picked his shirts out of the pile
and detached Richard’s hand from the cord of the iron.
Steady Sweetie … this little chap
nearly had an accident….
Think I might pop round on Mart;
maybe he’d like a jar in The Duke on darts night.
Replying was pointless.
In the short term, Hazel acquired
neither gigolos nor toy boys – but changes were made. She lost
weight, having renounced comfort eating, and the smocks were replaced
by a rather preppy style; shirts, well cut jeans and penny
loafers from Jones the Bootmaker.
Martin had kept the television, so she
made do with a radio and joined a small theatre club. And she left
her job and joined up instead with Poppy in the cooperative
bookshop. At Party meetings she was civil to Martin; her children
were too absorbed by their own love lives to fret about the potential
peccadilloes of their mother, and she ditched the red cagoule.
Hazel Sweet was happy.
It’s worked out for her,
admitted Gail, rather fretfully as they finished their drinks at The
Malmsey Head; minus Hazel who had gone to Brussels on a Singles
Weekend.
You never know, she might be swept
off her feet by some gorgeous hunk. She certainly gets out enough –
she’s never in!
They were officially pleased for
Hazel; but privately each felt slightly peeved. because Hazel’s
new life served to highlight the shortcomings of their old
ones.
Sylvia’s disquiet was understandable.
Brian and Lisbet Pelleroe had left the Party; whispers on the
grapevine hinted that Gridchester’s Chief Rodent Officer was
applying for new jobs, and Sylvia was happily spared the torment of
attending meetings and encountering the repellent couple.
But the unpleasant publicity had left
its mark. Shaun remained chilly and Joe was bullied by infants at his
primary school who repeated their parents’ gossip without
understanding the words.
Joe did not understand either; but a
week of playground hounding
Ho! Ho! Your Mummy’s a Ho!
culminated in him fleeing the classroom
and cowering behind the bushes at the back of the playing field,
where he was discovered an hour later with wet pants and cut knees.
Sylvia attended a meeting with the Head
where they agreed a school/home support programme for Joe; but
his mother considered that she had been criminalised.
It was horrid; that nasty old bag
kept on mentioning Social Workers and said something about children
being damaged by unusual family set-ups. And nothing happened –
NOTHING! Apart from slaving over a stove to make a pie that they
FORCED into the carpet! I wish I’d shoved it in Lisbet’s face!
Gail’s source of unease had political
rather than personal origins.
The disastrous Election results
prompted renewed speculation about the Party’s ability to survive
the 20th century. The Leader had fallen on his sword; but
his successor, a former Ear, Nose and Throat specialist without a
bedside manner, realised that a narrative (or scapegoat) must
be found.
The Red Heart Sect, so
destructive in Lowerbridge and elsewhere, seemed specially tailored
for the role.
Battle was engaged at the 1987
Conference.
Entirely without warning, the Leader’s
speech was ditched in favour of a rigorous debate about the
infiltration of Red Heart at every level of the Party. She
watched television highlights as delegates hailing from the length
and breadth of the nation took to the podium to denounce the Sect and
all its followers.
It was galling to see Derek Kingsmill
in starring role; detailing the crimes and misdemeanours of Party
members in Lowerbridge, including a Council Leader who had corrupted
the channels of democracy, imposing extreme and revolutionary
policies by bullying, intimidating and blackmailing the members.
And worst of all, they had been
siphoning money from the Party into a secret slush fund
held by Red Heart nationally.
Red Heart was a cancer feeding
on Party flesh, but he had confidence that the new Leader; a former
medical man
would whet his knife and slice it
out!
Derek’s peroration assaulted her ears
in a high pitched squeal (like a stuck pig) and the Leader;
riding the acclamation, announced a programme of show trials to
expose, expel and dispatch Red Heart and consign its followers
to oblivion.
Duncan Musgrave, Norris Farmer’s
replacement as Head of the Sectional Team. was a man from the same
mould as the Leader ,and was determined that Gridchester North would
pay for its role in scuppering the General Election.
Shortly after the Conference, Secretary
Peabody received a letter outlining a root and branch
investigation into the workings of the local Party.
Hearings of named individuals
would be conducted on consecutive Saturdays at the St John’s
Ambulance hut, and members wishing to supply information about
their colleagues could be assured that this would be received in
strictest confidence. If summoned for examination, colleagues
(not comrades) should note that it would be in their best
interests to attend.
It was all very frightening, and
despite the assurances of Fred Hoy, who had replaced Brian as
Chairman:
Lot of hullabaloo about nothing!
It’ll blow over – it always does!
she felt extremely uneasy.
The whole thing had a whiff of 1984
and Ivan Denisovich about it and she dreaded the arrival of
the post and the sight of a tell-tale envelope, adorned with the
Party’s familiar franking, topping the pile on her doorstep.
Paul, by contrast, found the situation
hilarious and lost no time in ringing Donald, Gillian and Eric to say
so.
Bloody marvellous! I’ve half a
mind to join myself so that I can denounce a ridiculous old boot
called Stalin’s Granny! Can’t wait to see if this one
(prodding her stomach playfully) gets called in!
Yes! (to Eric). Just like
McCarthy!
I’ve asked her if she’s been
selling that paper to keep her in tights!
Oh come ON darling! Just joking!
If there was a funny side, she had
missed it.
It was all right for Paul. He wasn’t
a member and was spared the atmosphere of mistrust and hatred that
now poisoned meetings; or the shared, but unvoiced realisation that
denouncing an unpleasant colleague might be the best
way of getting rid of them.
Ned Pitt was an early victim.
Gail called after her hospital shift,
fresh from depositing Daisy at the village hall, where she was
meeting friends from The Woodcraft Folk brass-rubbing group.
Usually, Gail Pitt was renowned for a
stoical cast of mind that led some to impose upon her good nature,
but Ned’s interview at the hut had disturbed her equilibrium
She had not changed out of her uniform,
and toyed fretfully with one of the flapjacks that Vanessa had made
at school.
He’s been accused of selling the
paper and giving the proceeds to Sect members in Lowerbridge!
Well – he’s been working in
Lowerbridge recently; it was quite a big job installing central
heating in one of those Victorian houses in Sacheveral Way.
Apparently, it’s owned by the College Principal, but he doesn’t
KNOW them – or if they’re in the Party. How would he?
You don’t have that sort of
conversation with a client.
Musgrave refused to say who’d
tipped them off – and of course, Ned had to admit he’d read the
paper – well, we all have.
This was true.
Copies of Pulse, the Red Heart
paper had been appearing at meetings in the back room at The Duke or
in the St John’s Ambulance hut for the past year or so.
Nobody had thought anything of it. She
took a second flapjack, and decided that Vanessa’s first
cordon-bleu efforts had turned out really rather well.
I thought, she replied between
mouthfuls
that Darren was sent them from Party
HQ along with other bumph – like the NHS stuff and non-nuclear
defence policy briefings.
Gail deputised for Darren when he
attended football fixtures at Gridchester Wanderers instead of Party
meetings at The Duke, and was adamant that this was not the case.
Darren had nothing to do with the papers. They were normally in a
pile at the back of the room at the start of meetings and somebody
took them away at the end.
She thought (although she could
not be sure) that she might have seen Chantelle Beech with one or two
copies and a collection tin – but there again, from behind, the
dyed hair and black roots could have belonged to Sian Norfolk.
Ned had admitted to buying a
paper; if dropping a few coins into a collection tin on a table
amounted to a purchase – but the destination of the tin at the end
of the evening was anybody’s guess.
It’s destroying him
said Gail, in a tone of barely
suppressed horror as she described how Ned had come home from the St
John’s Ambulance hut and then proceeded to get completely blotto
on left - over Strongbrew from Maureen’s fish and chip social.
And he doesn’t even like it!
Duncan Musgrave, who was rapidly
acquiring the fearsome reputation of a Nuremberg inquisitor, had
declared that he remained to be convinced that Ned had not
embarked upon a course of action that could be described as
prejudicial to the Party. His membership had been suspended
pending further enquiries.
Although at this rate, hissed
Gail angrily as she left to pick up her daughter, there won’t be
anyone left to embark upon anything! Laurence has been called in
next, and the Beeches have already been suspended over that car boot
sale.
I feel like tearing up my card –
save them the bother!
The idea that Ned Pitt, (a Party
loyalist to his toes who pounded the streets come rain or shine in
one of the safest Tory strongholds in the nation) could embark upon
anything, whether prejudicial or not, was ludicrous.
But Lester Beech would stop at
nothing, and his very existence was prejudicial to the fabric
of a civilised society!
Her father would have called him a tyke
,and she winced at the thought of his drunken aggression in The
Duke, when he had pushed his face so close to hers that she could
smell his breath and see a food particle lodged between his two front
teeth. He hated her because he knew that she knew the
truth about the car boot sale.
For once the children settled for a
quiet bedtime, pacified by hot chocolate and Vanessa’s flapjacks.
She pottered about aimlessly,
reflecting that Paul was late again (first round of the Fairway/
St Agnes Convent debating competition), for the third time that
week, and switched on the television for the nine o’clock news –
to be confronted with a mug shot of Brian Pelleroe and a scenic
view of the spice factory.
Duncan Musgrave, a small man,
channelling a bank manager with navy blue suit and clipped moustache,
was confiding to camera outside the St John’s Ambulance hut that
the investigation of the Gridchester Party was progressing as well
as could be expected at this stage and that no, of course it
wasn’t a witch-hunt.
The Party would be strengthened when
the process was complete, and members in Gridchester and elsewhere
might rest assured that all and any information leading to the
ejection of the rotten apples would be treated in the
strictest confidence.
She turned off the set just as Paul
arrived, bearing a polythene bag containing a meal for two from the
Chinese takeaway.
Witch-hunts, she mused, were naturally
unpleasant for the witch - but seen from the perspective of
the hunter…
A letter to Duncan Musgrave might be
a very good idea
No comments:
Post a Comment