by Bill James
‘What fucking Bentley?’
‘As an illustration, Manse.’
‘It’s not like Bentleys. Every one of them items is different from every other one. This isn’t carburettors and handbrakes. There isn’t no equivalent, not for me. That’s what I’m telling you. These items are items. They got a particular value, especially one of them, and this value is not re money. Spiritual. Historic.’
‘In its way, this is really touching,’ Chandor replied.
‘What’s that mean?’
‘What?’
‘ “In its way”.’
‘Yes, in its way. When I say “touching”, I have in mind the warmth of your evident commitment to these articles. And a further snag, you say? Well, you can really relax, Manse. I’ve got this rectory situation very much in hand.’
‘Shall I leave a key somewhere?’
‘To what, Manse?’
‘The house.’
‘To the rectory? That’s a kindness in you. But I don’t think they’ll need it, will they? As you said.’
‘And keep them away from the safes.’
‘Two, aren’t there?’ Chandor replied. ‘Study-den, drawing room – which is the armoury. I don’t want you to fret about these at all, Manse. Out of bounds. I’ll tell them – “Study-den safe, drawing-room safe right out of fucking bounds.” Both Chubbs? Combination, not keys? Study-den safe for cash and private accounts?’
‘When you say “in hand” does that mean you’ll be there to control your maniacs – you as you, not just fucking Rufus?’
‘Rest assured, I want to look at this constructively,’ Chandor replied at once.
‘There’s considerable stains,’ Shale replied.
‘Often a way to deal with that kind of thing as a stopgap remedy is actually to overstain with, say, coffee or Horlicks, as through an accident, and then redecorate at leisure. Disguise. The chief, short-term objective now is to account to the children for the discoloration, you’ll agree. Or sauce. Might you have been carrying a sauce bottle with a loose top, or no top at all, in that area and stumbled? This kind of treatment makes the original stains a nuisance still, but unsinister. We’ll see to it.’
‘Which area?’ Of course, Shale knew which area, but asked in case the gabby sod gave himself away by saying the snag with his throat snagged was on the staircase.
‘The area of the staining,’ Chandor said.
‘Another thing I don’t get.’
‘What’s that, Manse?’
‘How come you know about the safes and Severalponds, and the names – Laurent, Matilda? You building a dossier? What the fuck for? You been here no time, but you got a file on me?’
‘These are great child names,’ Chandor replied. ‘A royal dimension to “Matilda”. She nearly had the English throne. A warrior lady. Twelfth century? But why am I telling you, Manse? This would obviously be in your mind when you and your wife picked that name. I always think names are significant. You’ve got a bird called Lowri, haven’t you? That’s Welsh. And your wife, Sybil, is over in Wales on an alternative lifestyle, right? One can come across all kinds of odd links and connections through names. But Lowri’s second name, Billsborough, not Welsh at all. Weird. You eat late on these Sundays, don’t you? Look, the least I can do in view of all this – if you give me your order on the mobile when you’re, say, an hour from the rectory with the children, I’ll get meals sent over from the takeaway, Chinese or Indian, simply decide and let me know – chutneys, garlic bread, anything.’
Shale often drove the Jaguar himself these days following the extremely problematical death of his chauffeur, Denzil.* He’d have to speed a bit to make the Severalponds meeting at six o’clock. That search of the rectory and then the conversation with Hilaire Chandor had been necessary but they messed up Manse’s timetable. He always liked to be at Severalponds ahead of Sybil and the children, as a courtesy factor, and because he did not want them wandering unaccompanied in the service station building.
He went back to the naked drawing-room wall safe before starting out and fully loaded one of the Heckler and Koch automatics, then waist-holstered it. Lately, he’d begun to prefer this to shoulder harness. Unless you had some shapeless bloody anorak on, a shoulder holster would generally produce a bulge and scream ‘Gun aboard!’ But a jacket covered the waist weapon without no evidence of it.
He liked to dress in decent style when going to Severalponds. It gave a ceremonial flavour. As a matter of fact, he had a couple of made-to-measure Paul Mixtor-Hythe suits himself. Sybil and the children must not see he came armed on a family occasion such as this. That would brand him so damn thuggish and jumpy, like someone who had a job with Hilaire Wilfrid Chandor. Manse always did go armed on these Severalponds runs. This was no exceptional precaution tonight – not brought on only through that trouble at the rectory and the call to Chandor. Shale never felt at ease in service stations. The crowds and the wide-openness of the car park and the restaurants worried him. That had been so even before Chandor showed off all his dirty research earlier. And so, tool up as standard. They had put a jolly sort of country-scene name on this place, Severalponds, because in old times there must of been several ponds here and maybe tadpoles and ducks and other Nature elements, but that did not make it harmless now. They wanted to seem relaxed – not Threeponds or Eightponds, but Several, like ‘Who’s counting?’
The regularity of these rendezvous – a mistake. Manse had known that. But he would hate to scare Sybil or the children by suggesting they should constantly switch venues, which would have been wiser. Severalponds it must be. Otherwise, he could imagine Sybil going back to that potter or vet she lived with and saying in bed, when winding down and canoodling in a domestic style after intimacy, yes, telling him how right she had been to quit someone in the illegal substances trade whose profession made him frightened all the time that he or she or the children might get wiped out, or all of them. Tears seriously blurred Manse’s eyes as he visualized that bed scene and imagined the conversation, and he brought the Jaguar down to 40 mph for a few miles on the motorway.
Of course, he had to think what might be behind as well as ahead. Chandor’s information on the Severalponds meetings must of come by someone tailing the Jaguar previous. Manse realized he had been so dreamy and slack about watching the rear-view mirror on these trips. That was something Denzil would never of done. He really knew the tricks of driving, although sometimes he refused to wear the chauffeuring cap Shale bought. Manse did a lot of mirror now, but what point? There’d be no need to tail him today. Chandor knew everything, didn’t he, even though he’d had such a short time to discover it. Shale thought he could understand part of Chandor’s game, but not all. Why put on display in that phone talk so much of what he’d dug out re Manse and his family? And then that disgusting raid at the rectory. Had some of Chandor’s animals really gone wild, beyond his instructions and wishes, against his instructions and wishes, thieving and, as an extra, attacking each other, resulting in a death? What were his damn instructions and wishes? How far beyond them? ‘Get into the house and –’ And then? Hilaire Wilfrid Chandor seemed to say people on his staff had mistaken what he wanted. True? Or just a ploy, a tease? What had he wanted? How could they mistake it? Did he employ idiots, drunks, addicts? Or had he talked so vague to them that he knew they’d go miles out of order once they started?
Always there were firms like Chandor’s longing to get right in on the dealing scene locally – Brits, Albanians, Turks, all sorts.* Did Chandor think he could act sweet now, but actually frighten and cow Manse into making a place for him? I know where you live, and where your kids go at some weekends and school breaks, and where you do the handover, and where your safes are, and what your women are called – first and second names – and where your beloved pix hang, hung. So, how about some pleasant cooperation? Manse felt nearly certain Chandor had Lowri’s surname right – Billsborough, or it could be Nettlethwaite or Margerison, but definitely something not at all Welsh
. Was the offer to clean up the rectory as to the body, and restore what could be restored, then bring a choice of takeaways with additionals for Manse and the children, meant to settle Shale and make him forgiving and helpful to Chandor’s outfit in the commercial sector? So many of them new firms eyed up this city and envied the trade cooperation between Manse and Ralphy Ember. They struggled to be part of it. They would try all sorts of dodges and pressures. They’d heard of the happy, sensible arrangement with Assistant Chief Constable (Operations) Desmond Iles, and wanted to be part of this, too. That slob Hilaire might be saying, Here’s what we’re able to do to you and yours, Manse, whenever we like, so get intelligent and matey, mate. We turn kindly now, and, oh! big apologies for the deado, but you’ll understand from this that we can also get really bad if you force us to it, can’t we, Manse? Even if Chandor put them Pre-Raphaelites etcetera back undamaged, that would still be the message. And no need of a key. The rectory didn’t have no alarms. He would not want police all through his home in response and doing an ogle, would he?
Only Sybil and the children came to Severalponds for the transfers, never the jockey or schools inspector or whatever he was she lived with. They also had a Jaguar. That annoyed Shale. It was older than his and not top of the range, but he still felt irritated. For privacy, a sliding glass partition divided the front from the back of Manse’s, but he had hardly ever closed it, even when Denzil was alive and chauffeuring. It would of seemed a bit majestic, and Shale detested pomp. Most likely Sybil said to this partner they better have a Jag because Manse owned one, and she didn’t want to go down to a Ford or Skoda, because of appearance. Pride. If they’d bought something else he might of offered to pay off the hire purchase for them, but not when they offered deliberate disrespect and rivalry by picking a Jag. Total anger he did avoid. Manse almost always tried to understand Sybil. He told himself she might of chosen the Jaguar so the children would not feel the change too strong and sudden of being with her after him and vice versa, like going into a pressure chamber when leaving a wrecked submarine. Now and then he thought he would do the hire purchase for them, regardless. Manse hated petty vindictiveness. Although living in Wales might be quite all right really, Shale considered he should be very kindly to her to make up for it.
Sybil pulled into the next car-park space just after he arrived, the children grinning and making faces at him through the side window. One thing Shale favoured as much as art was fatherliness. He believed he had a flair for this. Matilda and Laurent jumped from the car and ran together ahead towards the restaurant and gaming machines. They went out of sight. If he’d been masterminding here he would not of allowed that, but he knew he should try and keep things cheery. ‘They behave all right this time, Syb?’ he said.
‘As much as they ever do.’
‘And they still get on all right with . . .?’ He could never actually speak the name and always left it for her to fill in.
‘With Ivor? Oh, yes. He’s very easy-going.’
‘That would be his training, I expect.’
‘What training?’ she said.
‘I always forget which job he’s in. Holiday camp redcoat? Supermarket cashier?’
‘He’d tell you if you asked him. Or if you didn’t. And he’d go on and on about it. And things at the rectory?’
‘No changes. Just this great feeling of a good history.’
‘Serene?’
‘Serene, yes. That could be the very word, Syb.’ He had the feeling suddenly then that she might like to be there with him again, and fuck Ivor. Or not fuck Ivor. Never at these Severalponds meetings had he sensed this before. Perhaps he’d been wrong to think of her happy and conversational in the Welsh bed. Then, despite them near-tears on the motorway, he wondered if he wanted Sybil back.
‘No purchases?’ she said.
‘Purchases?’
‘Paintings?’
‘Not at this juncture,’ he said.
‘What’s that mean?’
‘Not at this moment in time.’
‘I do miss them. The Hughes,’ Sybil replied.
‘Oh, the Hughes, yes. I couldn’t be more in favour of art.’
‘Lights up the wall, the room.’
‘It does, it does.’
The children rushed back. They had some winnings and went into the shop to blue them. Afterwards the four sat with soft drinks and sandwiches in the restaurant. ‘They’ve got leaving pressies from Ivor in their overnight bags,’ Sybil said. ‘Not to be opened until you’re home. Things to wear. Modish – or he thinks so.’
‘But it’s kindly.’ Shale wondered why he wanted to defend Ivor – to persuade her to stay with him?
‘Oh, yes, he can be kind.’
She made it sound like nothing, or a disease. Although Shale waited for her to give kindness a slagging she left it there.
Manse, Laurent and Matilda were back at the rectory by 9.30. Manse felt hellishly tense, terrified about what they might find. In the drive, he said: ‘I’d like you to wait in the car for a minute.’ He prepared to go first and check. That bastard Hilaire Chandor was so keen on merrymaking and pressure, the downstairs room and stairs might be as they had been, or worse. They said he’d been named after some joker in the writing game or a circus clown.
‘Oh, cars we’ve had enough of, dad,’ Laurent said. They dashed from his Jaguar as they had dashed from the other. Both had keys to the rectory in case they came back from school or youth club in the week and Manse was out.
Shale yelled: ‘For God’s sake wait. Let me go ahead, will you?’ He unfolded from behind the wheel and sprinted himself but was too late. Lights went on and immediately he heard Matilda give a long, appalled scream. She shouted: ‘Oh, oh, what’s happened?’
‘Come back!’ Shale cried.
‘Oh, terrible!’ Matilda howled.
‘Don’t look,’ Shale bellowed.
‘Dad, why have you done this? Awful! Awful! Awful!’
‘Oh, yes,’ Laurent said. ‘Horrible.’
Shale called out: ‘Why didn’t you wait? Stay where you –’
‘You’ve moved the pictures around on the walls. I don’t like it a bit,’ Matilda said. ‘They look so wrong.’
‘Oh, is that all?’ Manse said. Them Chandor apes – they would not remember which went where. To that crew pictures was pictures and hooks hooks.
‘All!’ Matilda replied. ‘All!’
‘I thought a change might be interesting,’ Shale said.
‘Not interesting at all,’ Matilda said. ‘A mistake.’
‘Yes, bad,’ Laurent said. He took his bag upstairs to unpack and try on the Ivor present in his room. Laurent was touchy about clothes. He wouldn’t want to be seen in gear he didn’t like. He paused near the first landing. ‘What happened here, dad?’ he said.
‘What?’
‘A mess on the stair carpet and wallpaper. Did you spill something?’
‘Oh, yes, some sauce. A stumble.’
‘Sauce?’
‘Yes.’
‘You were carrying sauce on the landing?’ Matilda said. ‘You move the pictures around and were carrying sauce on the landing? What goes on, dad? Have you gone a bit loopy through loneliness?’
‘It doesn’t come out very easily,’ Shale said.
‘No, it doesn’t,’ Laurent said.
‘Dad, put the pictures back right, will you?’ Matilda said. ‘All of them – hall and drawing room and everywhere.’
‘It was just an experiment.’
‘This experiment went wrong, so, so wrong. As if it’s someone else’s house, not ours.’
‘Why don’t you unpack and have a look at your pressie while I pop down to the takeway?’
‘Indian,’ Matilda said. ‘Can we have some chutneys and garlic bread?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘And please, dad – the pictures?’ Matilda said.
‘Yes, of course. All as they were. Tonight.’
‘I’m trying to work it out,’
Matilda replied.
‘What?’ Shale said.
‘The sauce. Spilling it. Were you going upstairs with a bottle of sauce or coming downstairs when you stumbled? If you stumbled when you were coming downstairs you might have fallen all the way and that would have made a real mess with the sauce from top to bottom of the stairs, the carpet and the wallpaper until the bottle emptied itself. The top of the bottle was off, was it, or loose? Plus, you might have been hurt. But what I don’t understand is why you had a bottle of sauce on the stairs at all – it doesn’t matter if you were going up or coming down. What did you want a bottle of sauce upstairs for? A picnic?’
‘Or if you like I could get Chinese,’ Mansel said. He shouted up to Laurent: ‘Chinese or Indian?’
‘This is real rubbish,’ Laurent replied.
‘What?’ Shale said.
‘This rubbish present from Ivor. I’ll never wear it. Oxfam. Oh, Indian. With chutneys. Garlic bread. And is there any sauce left or did you spill it all? Get some more?’
During the meal, Manse thought of asking them whether they would like to see their mother back in the rectory, but then decided this might not be wily. If they said yes, it meant he must say yes to her, suppose she asked. One of the things with fatherliness was you had to take notice of what your children said about their mother even if she was shacked up with someone else. But if Manse did not ask them, and stayed uncertain about how they would answer if he did ask them, he could stay uncertain hisself, and he would prefer that for now. If they said no, they didn’t want her back, this would mean he’d have to be chilly to her if she even hinted at it, like today, and he thought that might be cruel. It could be important for her to have at least a vision of getting out of a place like Wales, and away from a partner called so-and-so. Wouldn’t it be heartless to crush the hope? Of course, one child might say he or she did want their mother back and the other might say he or she did not. That would bring Manse a lot of suffering and anxiety. He always tried to treat them with exact equality, and this could not be if they had different opinions about Syb.