Anything For a Quiet Life

by Michael Gilbert

  Jonas half-rose in his chair. The lion said, “Siddown, Granpa, and behave yourself and doan get ideas.” He grabbed the telephone, jerked it off its cord and slammed the instrument back on to the desk.

  The bear was standing over Aylett. He had grabbed his hair in one hand and bent his head back so that Aylett was forced to look up at him. He said, “Did my ears deceive me, Cyril, or did I hear you say something about making a statement? You wouldn’t do a thing like that, would you?”

  Aylett managed to shake his head.

  “That’s what I thought, because you know what happens to people who talk out of turn, don’t you?” When Aylett said nothing he slapped him across the face. There were rings on two of his fingers and they tore long gashes in his cheek.

  “Stop it,” said Jonas.

  The bear swung round on him. He said, “That’s a funny thing to say, isn’t it, Leo?”

  “Very funny,” said the lion.

  “He’s telling us to stop it, when we haven’t even started. When we’ve finished with Cyril, we’ll think up something special for you. Teach you to keep your nose out of other people’s business.”

  The overhead light came on. Sam was standing in the doorway. He said, “What’s this? Circus time?”

  It was clear that the bear recognised him. He said, “You keep out of this,” but a lot of the confidence had gone out of his voice.

  “That’s no way to talk to an old friend,” said Sam. “Colley, innit? I thought it was. Used to be a bit of a boxer in your youth, I seem to remember. Let’s see some style.” He formed up to the bear as though he was facing him in the ring, then lashed out with his right foot, catching him on the knee. Jonas heard the kneecap crack. The bear let out a scream, went down on the floor and lay there nursing his knee and cursing.

  Sam took no more notice of him. He turned his attention to the lion, who had removed himself from the corner of the desk and was standing beside it, clearly uncertain what to do next.

  “You a boxer, too?” said Sam. “Or just a fighter?” He sidled up to him, presenting his left shoulder. The lion lashed out with one foot. Sam stepped aside, caught the lion’s foot in both hands and twisted it. The lion managed to grab the desk with one hand and started to hop. He had his back to Jonas who picked up the telephone and brought it down hard on the lion’s head. The lion went down without a sound.

  “Really, Mr Pickett,” said Sam. “That’s no way to treat Post Office property.”

  Jonas said, “Thank you, Sam.” He was surprised to find he could speak at all. “You’d better get the police. Use the phone in Claire’s room.”

  “I rang ’em before I came in,” said Sam. “I think that’s them coming now.”

  “I take it,” said Queen, “that you’ll be preferring charges.”

  “Certainly. And in case there’s any doubt about who said what, I might mention that I already had the recorder switched on to get Aylett’s statement. The whole scene’s on tape.”

  “The court should enjoy it,” said Queen grimly. He turned to Aylett. “Do I gather you’ve got something to tell us? If so, go ahead. You’ve got your lawyer here.”

  Aylett looked at Jonas who said, “The whole story. It’s your only chance.”

  When he had finished, Queen said, “You’d better get that face of yours attended to. The car will take you round to the station. We’ll have the statement typed out and you can sign it.”

  When they were alone, he said, “Nice work, squire. Did you know those beauties would come after him?”

  Jonas said, “No. That was luck.” He added, “Shake the tree and you’ll find that all the fruit will fall off.”

  It was three months later before Jonas had the chance to spend another morning on the pier. It had been a busy three months, but satisfactory. As soon as Fredericks had seen all the guns pointing at him he had lost no time in involving Claude Schofield, who had turned on Louie the Nose. It had been a reign of terror in reverse, thought Jonas. Everyone trying to shift the blame on others and only involving themselves more deeply.

  At Lewes Crown Court sentences had been dealt out by Mr Justice Roche to all concerned which had satisfied even Chief Superintendent Whaley. Aylett, who had been given an indemnity, was the main witness for the Crown. Defence counsel had given him a shellacking, but there was no shaking his story.

  Very satisfactory. Even Whaley had been moved to say that he thought Mr Pickett had done a public service. A temporary truce, thought Jonas.

  It was the end of the season and the pier was nearly empty. He walked back to the arcade, purchased a fivepenny disc from the attendant and went over to the corner where the old slot machines stood.

  “Real works of art, they are,” said the attendant. “They don’t make ’em like this any more. They ought to be in a museum, really.”

  Jonas inserted the disc. The tricoteuses waved their needles, the aristocrat bowed his head, the blade of the guillotine descended. The blade was blunt, but repeated applications must have weakened the aristocrat’s neck and on this occasion his head fell right off and rolled amongst the old ladies.

  “End of the Reign of Terror,” said Jonas.

  “Not a bit of it,” said the attendant. “It’s happened before. We sew his head on again.”

  This seemed to Jonas so funny somehow that he started to laugh.

  5

  The Admiral

  “For eleven months in the year,” said Admiral Fairlie to Jonas, who was his solicitor and friend, “Shackleton is as nice a spot as you could find on the south coast. Plenty of young families on the new estate. The fathers have their businesses at Saltmouth or Poole, but they prefer to live here because it’s quiet.”

  “And the rates and rents are lower.”

  “Maybe. Good folk, anyway, who work hard and give no trouble. Then there are the old brigade. People like me, who came here to retire. It’s not so up-market as Eastbourne, but there’s plenty to do.”

  “One repertory theatre, one cinema, a bingo hall and a dancehall. And if everything else fails, you can spend your money in the slot machines in the amusement arcade on the pier.”

  “Right,” said the Admiral. “For eleven months no complaints. Then we come to August, which ought to be the best month in the year. And find that August is” – he paused to pick his words carefully – “a shambles, an inferno, a nightmare.”

  “Bailey’s Circus and Funfair.”

  “Which isn’t a circus at all. Just a roundabout, complete with steam organ, which makes so much noise that no one can hear themselves speak for a quarter of a mile downwind of it and the rest a shanty town of sideshows, run by a crowd of swindling didicoys, whose brats spend their days shoplifting and their evenings making piddling nuisances of themselves round the streets.”

  Jonas thought about it. His sympathy was with the Admiral. The circus did not worry him personally. Being his own master he usually arranged to take his holiday in August and departed for Switzerland, a country he preferred when it was empty of skiers and full of wild flowers. But not everyone was as well placed as he was. He knew that a lot of the older people did suffer.

  “Couldn’t the council do something?”

  “In the old days, when I was on it, and a few of my friends with me, we would have done. I promise you. Now it’s different. The council’s split. People like Colonel Rattray and Saul Melford, they’d be happy to clear Bailey right out. But they’re outvoted by the commercial lobby. People like Forbes and Greenaway. What they say is, it brings a big crowd into the town, and that means money through the shops and cafés. After all, it’s only a month! Why not let everyone have a bit of fun? Besides, they say, it’s never been proved that the circus people are the ones who commit these crimes. Which is partly true. Even with the shoplifting, because the circus brats lead the town children on, only they’re cleverer at it. So it’s the townees who get caught.”

  “What about the housebreaking?”

  “No proof.”

  “
Difficult,” said Jonas. “As long as they abide by the terms of their licence from the council I can’t see any legal way of turning them out. All I can suggest is that you and your friends keep your eyes open. Get one or two cases of crime and you might make the council listen. The police will support you. They hate the circus. Have a word with Superintendent Queen.”

  “Jack Queen’s a good man,” agreed the Admiral. “But he can’t do much on his own.”

  “There is one other way,” said Jonas. “Why not get back on to the council? You’d have no difficulty. Lots of people would be glad to vote for you. You and one or two other people who think like you.”

  “Ten years ago I might have done,” said the Admiral sadly. “I’m an old man now.” He paused. “Here’s a better idea. Why don’t you stand for the council?”

  “Good grief,” said Jonas. “Didn’t I tell you that I came to Shackleton for peace and quiet?”

  The Admiral’s house stood below the eastern end of the front where the concrete of the Esplanade stopped and the chalk and turf of the East Head began. It was a square building set on a ledge in the hillside. From its flat roof he could, as from his quarterdeck, oversee the town. Bailey’s Circus was in plain view and although it was nearly a mile away the blare of the steam organ came clearly to his ears.

  He had a telescope, with a mounting on the roof, through which he used to inspect the shipping in the Channel. Swinging it inland he picked out the details of the fairground. The parked caravans, where the stallholders and their families lived; the stalls which sold a hundred useless trinkets, the roundabout dominating the centre.

  “Like an Eastern market,” said the Admiral. “Smelly, noisy and alive.”

  He went down to put on the kettle for his tea. For the most part he looked after himself. Mrs Matcham, the daughter of one of his old petty officers, came each morning to clean the house, cook his lunch, and lay out a cold supper. Breakfast and tea he managed for himself.

  “He’s no trouble at all,” said Mrs Matcham. “It’s my belief he could do it all himself if he chose. But I think he enjoys a gossip. It stands to reason. He’s lonely.”

  After tea the Admiral armed himself with a walking stick and made his way down into the town, stopping from time to time to talk to his numerous friends, and to pass on the advice Jonas had given him. All promised to do what they could, but were not hopeful. “Like rats, those gypsies,” said Colonel Rattray. “You know they’re there, and you know they’re up to no good, but you can’t catch ‘em at it.”

  Following Nelson’s precept the Admiral decided to close with the enemy. He walked down to the Lammas. When he got there he found to his surprise that he had to pay to go in.

  “Novel idea,” he said to the man on the gate, “making us pay for the privilege of being skinned.”

  The gateman (could it be Mr Bailey himself?) smiled and said, “You see that, sir?” It was a new perimeter fence, stout mesh, topped by two strands of barbed wire. “We had to do it. No choice. First two or three years we were wide open. A lot of riff-raff got in and made trouble. Now we can keep things under control. Better hang on to your ticket. You may have to show it when you go out again.”

  “I expect you know your business,” said the Admiral. He paid twenty pence and went in.

  He found every known device to tempt money from the pockets of the unwary. There were gambling machines of all sorts. Machines in which race cars circled the track and spacecraft circled the moon. There were stalls where you could throw at dart boards and stalls where you could shoot rifles at targets, or at ping pong balls bouncing on jets of water. It seemed to the Admiral to be harmless and rather childish.

  He came finally to the roll-a-disc stall and stopped by it to examine the technique of what was clearly a popular pastime.

  For ten pence you purchased eight metal discs, roughly the size of an old-fashioned penny. These you rolled down a slotted piece of wood on to a board, which was divided into spaces, each of them a little, but not much, larger than the disc itself. If you succeeded in landing your disc fairly in a square, not touching any of its edges, you received back five, ten or twenty pence according to the number marked on the square.

  The Admiral, who had been something of a mathematician in his youth, had just calculated that the chances against landing a disc of that size clearly inside a smallish square were roughly thirty to one when he became aware that a disturbance was taking place on the far side of the stall. A young man with a very red face was saying, “You scooped up my disc with the others but it was in a square marked ‘ten’. Why aren’t I getting paid for it, eh?”

  “Touching the line, I’m afraid, sir,” said the man in charge of the stall.

  The Admiral switched his attention to him. Thick-set, black-haired, brown-faced, sure of himself.

  “It bloody wasn’t touching any bloody line. It was smack in the middle.”

  The stallholder jerked a thumb at the notice which hung above the table. “In any doubt or dispute the decision of the proprietor is final.”

  “It’s a bloody swindle,” said the young man.

  “Other people waiting to play.”

  “If they want to be swindled.”

  “Come away, Jack,” said the girl who was with him. “It’s not worth arguing.” She pulled him by the arm. He went reluctantly. His place in front of the board was immediately filled. There seemed to be no lack of people willing to lose their money playing against odds that would have shamed the authorities at Monte Carlo.

  The Admiral edged away and made for the roundabout. He was thankful that he was a little deaf. The great whirling machine was slowing to a halt. Some of the riders dismounted and there was a rush of children to take their places. The smaller ones climbed into the cars, the miniature stagecoaches and the railway carriages. The older ones jumped on to the painted and gilded horses, tigers and birds which made up the glamorous menagerie of the roundabout. When all were seated there were still a few places left. The man in charge, casting an eye around, spotted the Admiral.

  “Come along, sir,” he said, “only ten pence. Show the youngsters how to do it.”

  The vacant mount seemed to be asking for a rider. He was a magnificent red, black and gold cock, crowing defiance out of a lifted beak.

  “Why not?” said the Admiral. He climbed aboard and swung himself into place.

  The owner, slightly alarmed at the success of his salesmanship said, “You will hold on tight, won’t you, sir?”

  “I was riding before you were in long trousers,” said the Admiral. “Let her rip.”

  It was a curiously enjoyable sensation. He treated himself to two more rides. The pair of horses in front of him were occupied by two boys, dressed identically in jeans and blue sweatshirts. A cut above the other children, he thought. They had both looked back once at the Admiral, mounted on his fiery rooster, and then at each other, but neither of them had smiled. Serious types, evidently.

  His ride finished, the Admiral climbed down, feeling a bit stiff, and decided to walk it off by circling the encampment and inspecting everything. Some of the stalls were interesting but most of them were gimcrack. He bought a china ashtray in the shape of an oyster shell for Mrs Matcham.

  It was getting on for suppertime by now and the crowd was diminishing. No doubt it would thicken up later. One of the many complaints which the police had against the fair was that it was allowed to function until midnight. This meant that drinkers, who had been turned out of the pubs at eleven, often made for the fairground for a final fling.

  An inferno, it must be, thought the Admiral.

  His perambulation had brought him to the far end of the compound. It was at that moment that he heard the sound of running feet. It was the boys he had seen on the roundabout and they were going fast.

  The first one threw himself at the wire mesh fence, wriggled under the bottom strand of the barbed wire and landed on the other side. The second was not so lucky. The barbed wire caught in the belt of h
is jeans and held him firm.

  The Admiral could now see his pursuer. It was the roll-a-disc stallholder. He was red in the face and he had a hedge stake in his hand, a dangerous-looking weapon.

  Seeing the boys at his mercy he checked for a moment, took careful aim, and brought the stake down hard on the curved bottom. The boy made no sound, but jerked like a gaffed fish. The stake descended again.

  The Admiral said, “That’s enough. If you hit him again with a weapon like that you’ll do some real damage.”

  “I’ll hit him as much as I want, the fucking little bastard.”

  “No, you won’t,” said the Admiral.

  There was a note in his voice which made the man hesitate.

  “Because I happen to have some influence with the Watch Committee. If you hit the boy once more, I can promise you that you won’t see Shackleton again. More likely you’ll see the inside of a police station.”

  The boys had taken advantage of the interruption. The first boy, turning back, had managed to free number two from the barbed wire. He wriggled clear, and both of them took to their heels.

  “Right,” said the man sourly. “Now he’s got away with it.”

  “Got away with what?”

  “Got away with not paying. They get in through holes in the fence. They can’t go out of the gate because they’d be asked to show their tickets. So they try to get out the way they got in. I saw the little buggers sneaking off and I guessed what they were up to.”