Anything For a Quiet Life

by Michael Gilbert

  He spoke for some minutes.

  “It’s going to mean a lot of hard work for you,” he said. “And you’ll have to move quickly. You’ve only got this afternoon and tomorrow.”

  “You can do a lot in a day and a half if you give your mind to it,” said Queen. “One thing, we shan’t have to waste much time over explanations.”

  Sambrooke said, “Might be a good idea to get the press in on it. Sammy Clayton’s father is sub-editor of the South Coast Gazette and News. It publishes bi-weekly, on Tuesdays and Fridays.”

  “Tuesday,” said Jonas thoughtfully. “Yes, that should be about right.”

  At the school that morning Tim, who had heard the crash of the desk going over, had hurried into the room. He had almost been knocked over by Laura sweeping out. He silenced the shrill babble of explanations and said to one of the visiting masters who had come in with him, “Can you look after everyone for half an hour, Alex? Keep them all in here. I’m going to get these two boys home.”

  When he got back to the school Alex said, “Am I glad to see you! I had to lock the door to keep half of them from running away.”

  Tim said, “Does anybody not want to stop for lunch?”

  A dozen hands went up. Mostly boys who lived within walking distance of the school. He said, “All right, off you go.”

  Lunch was a mad-house, with everyone talking so excitedly that they could hardly find time to eat. “A pity,” said Pamela. “Cook always makes a special effort for Saturday lunch.”

  Laura did not put in an appearance.

  When it was over the boys dispersed, some on foot, some on bicycles. A few more were collected by their parents. Tim could see them beginning to talk before the car doors were even shut, the words coming out like bubbles in a cartoon, “Mummy, do you know what Mrs Cullingford . . .?”

  When the last of them had gone Pamela said, “What are you planning to do?”

  “I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do,” said Tim, “and that is hang about here waiting for the storm to break. I thought we might run over to Brighton. We’ll have dinner there and get back late.”

  “So you’re running away?”

  “Right,” said Tim. He had a word with Annie, the more sensible of the two housemaids who lived in. He said, “I expect there’ll be a lot of messages, people asking particularly to talk to me. Could you just make a note of the calls, and say I’ll ring back first thing tomorrow. Leave the notes in the letter rack in the staffroom.”

  Annie looked doubtful, but promised to do her best. After that they spent a peaceful afternoon, sitting in the sun on Brighton Pier and resolutely refusing to discuss school matters. They had a good meal and a glass of wine at the Albion Hotel, and thus fortified drove back to Clifton House. There was a chink of light from the window in the headmaster’s study, but otherwise the building was in darkness. They went in by the back door and Tim made his way to the staffroom.

  There was a single sheet of paper in the letter rack.

  It was in Annie’s schoolgirl handwriting. It said: “Ten p.m. No messages so far.”

  They stared at each other in disbelief.

  Over Sunday the mystery deepened. The telephone was silent; no one came to the house. Laura confined herself to her own quarters. Tim and Pamela went for a walk over the downs behind Shackleton, had a combined tea and supper in a village pub, and once again got home after dark. Still no messages.

  “The trouble’s going to start when the boys get here tomorrow,” said Tim. “I don’t mean Jimmy and Vincent. They may still be under doctor’s orders. It’s the other boys. They’ll have had time to tell their parents all about it.”

  “And the story,” said Pamela, “will have lost nothing in the telling.”

  The members of the visiting staff who were involved in Monday’s programme turned up in good time and joined Tim and Pamela in the main classroom. Laura did not normally attend prayers. The service, a brief and interdenominational one, had been conducted since Dan Cullingford’s death by Tim. The science master played the piano, badly. Everyone was ready. There was only one thing missing. There were no boys.

  After ten minutes it became clear that this was not a question of lateness. It was mass desertion.

  Tim was not sure whether he was worried or relieved. On the whole, relief predominated. Whatever happened now, this was going to bring things to a head. He wondered who had organised it.

  He sent the visiting staff home and went straight to have it out with Laura. From her vantage point in the study she must have been able to observe what was happening.

  She said, “Is this something to do with you?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Then what—”

  “The fact is,” said Tim brutally, “that you’ve frightened the boys so badly that their parents won’t let them come to school. I don’t blame them. What you did was cruel and totally uncalled for.”

  For a moment he thought that Laura was going to explode but the spirit was out of her. She said plaintively, “What are we going to do? What can we do?”

  “The first thing,” said Tim, who was looking out of the window, “is to deal with the press. Isn’t that Giles Clayton, from the Gazette? His son’s in the school. No doubt that’s why he’s first in the field. I expect there’ll be others. Are you going to talk to them?”

  “No,” said Laura wildly, “I can’t. I wouldn’t know what to say. You must do it. After all, by tomorrow you’ll probably be headmaster.”

  “If there’s any school for me to be headmaster of.”

  “What are you going to tell them?”

  “The truth,” said Tim, and went out.

  In fact Giles Clayton was their only visitor. He listened to what Tim had to tell him, and said, “Yes, that’s more or less what Sammy told me. It’s pretty bad for the school, isn’t it? I could tone it down a bit, perhaps.”

  Tim had already made his mind up about this. He said, “Don’t tone it down at all. Tell the whole story.”

  The South Down News and the South Coast Times, both of which were weeklies, telephoned later that afternoon. Their interest in the story was diminished by the fact that the Gazette was ahead of them. In any event, by the time they came out on Friday the story would be public property.

  Laura’s nerve did not finally break until Tuesday morning. The story was on the front page of the Gazette under a full-size headline:

  The Schoolboys Who Daren’t Go To School.

  Thinking about it had been bad. Reading the story of it in cold print was intolerable. It led her to take a step which, if she had been in full control of herself, she would have known to be unwise. She telephoned Derek Price at his office.

  At first there seemed to be some difficulty about putting her through. Finally she lost her temper with his secretary and said, “If he doesn’t ring me back in five minutes I’m coming round in person.”

  Almost as soon as she had put down the receiver the telephone rang. Price sounded cool. He said, “From what I’ve seen in this morning’s paper, it looks as though you’re in trouble.”

  Laura said, “We’ve got to talk about this. Now. This morning.”

  Price said, “It wouldn’t be very sensible to meet in public. People might start to imagine things.” Laura said nothing, but he had no difficulty in visualising the state she was in. Like an unexploded bomb, he thought. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’ll drive out to the school. The back entrance. Meet you there. Then we can drive up on to the downs, and talk this over.”

  Half an hour later they were parked in a lay-by from which they could look down on Shackleton, its roofs shining under the clear November sun.

  Laura said, “We planned to get married as soon as we could after Dan’s death. As soon as public opinion would stand for it, was what you said. Well, after what’s happened I’m past worrying about public opinion. I’ve got to get away from here, and I’m not going alone. If we got a special licence we could be married in a month.�
��

  When Derek said nothing she added, “Couldn’t we?”

  He said, “I’m very fond of you. And I don’t want to sound mercenary, but things are a bit different now.”

  “Different?”

  “Well, when we made the arrangement, I understood that after Dan’s death the school would be yours. Now it seems you’ve only got a half-share of what it fetches when it’s sold.”

  He looked at her out of the corner of his eye to see how she was taking this. She seemed to be taking it surprisingly well.

  She said, “Cedric Porter told me about that. There are institutions who buy these things. It’s called a settled reversion. It could be sold now for quite a reasonable sum.”

  “I expect that’s right,” said Price. “But there’s something else. The buzz is that the fathers of both the boys you hit are planning to sue you. When you’d paid damages and costs there mightn’t be much left of what you got for your share in the school.”

  “I see,” said Laura. “Well, that’s that, isn’t it? Perhaps you’d be kind enough to drive me back to the school.”

  Derek stole another glance at her face. She seemed to be taking it all very calmly. If he had been shrewder, he would have looked at her hands. Those traitors were clasping and unclasping themselves.

  Halfway down the steep hill into Shackleton she leaned across, grabbed the wheel and twisted it.

  “I’m not sure what she meant to do,” said Major Appleby. “Perhaps she was trying to kill them both. If that was her idea, it didn’t work. She hit a telegraph pole, and turned the car over. Price got off comparatively lightly. Broke an arm and three ribs. She cracked her skull, and will be in hospital for months.”

  It was a fortnight after the accident, and the Major had called on Jonas for a further discussion on income tax.

  Jonas said, “R. and L. Sykes have already had instructions. Price is going the whole hog. Not just damages. He wants a charge of attempted murder. She’ll wriggle out of that. She’ll say it was an accident. Her word against his.”

  “Whether she wriggles out of it or not,” said the Major, “it’s quite clear she can’t come back to the school.”

  “How are they doing there?”

  “They’re fine. I took our football team down to play them yesterday and we got walloped. Sambrooke and Queen scored two goals each.”

  7

  Holy Writ

  In his youth Jonas Pickett had been a keen golfer. When he qualified as a solicitor he had abandoned the game as a distraction from the more important matter of making a living. Now he had been lured back on to the course.

  “An old roué returning to the sins of his youth,” said Claire uncharitably.

  On that Sunday afternoon he had a game arranged with Ronald Sykes, now the senior partner in R. and L. Sykes. It was a fine April afternoon, with no threat of rain and he had decided to walk to the golf club. He was crossing the market square when he noticed the crowd at the far side and could hear people shouting. He had lived long enough in Shackleton to guess what was happening. Well, it was not his trouble. Let them sort it out for themselves.

  The town had once boasted three cinemas. Now only one remained open. One had turned itself into a dancehall; the other had taken to bingo. Claire, who kept him informed of all local gossip, had said, “I hear they’ve got permission to open on Sunday afternoons. It was a close thing in the committee. A good deal of opposition from local fuddy-duddies.”

  “Absurd,” said Jonas. “I play golf on Sunday. Why shouldn’t they play bingo?”

  Claire had said, “Tell that to the Reverend Tobias Harmer.”

  The rector of St Michael’s was, in truth, a notable character. Physically notable, being over six foot high, with snowy white hair, piercing eyes and a nose like the beak of a bird of prey; and a notable menace to all in charge of local arrangements. Assisted by other earnest reformers he had striven to clean up Shackleton. He was now engaged in demonstrating a one-man opposition to Sunday bingo.

  He had taken his stand, Jonas saw, on the top step in front of the doorway of the hall and was underlining his arguments with flourishes of a stick.

  “You will find it written in the Commandments of our Lord that you keep holy the Sabbath day. Six days shalt thou labour and do all that thou hast to do, but the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord, thy God. In it thou shalt do no manner of work—”

  “Bingo isn’t work,” called an objector from the back of the crowd.

  “A jesuitical argument, my friend. You may be amusing yourselves, but what about the people who are running the place?”

  He swung round and a small man who had poked his head through the half-opened door hastily withdrew it.

  “It is in the sweat of their brows that you are pursuing your godless pleasures. Pray keep your distance, madam.”

  The crowd was divided. The people at the back looked on the whole thing as a welcome distraction on a dull Sunday afternoon. The front rank were hopeful bingo players. They were angry.

  Someone behind him said, “If he hits anyone with that stick I shall have to take him in.”

  He turned and saw Detective Superintendent Queen.

  “Wouldn’t want to arrest a man of the cloth. Couldn’t you have a word with him?”

  “For God’s sake, Jack. He’s not my client.”

  “You could have a try.”

  “I’ve got a date at the golf club.”

  “Public order’s more important than golf.”

  Jonas considered this for a moment. He saw that one of the ladies, a Mrs McClachan, a leading light in the Women’s Institute, was edging up to the rector. Strife was imminent.

  “I’ll try,” he said and pushed his way through the crowd.

  He had reached the top step before the rector focused his grey eyes on him and said, “Who the blazes are you, sir?”

  “I’m a lawyer.”

  “Woe to ye, ye lawyers. Luke eleven, forty-six.”

  “And because I’m a lawyer I believe in the law. Every word of it, you must remember, has an exact and important meaning.”

  The rector had allowed Jonas to get so near that he was inside the sweep of his stick and in no immediate danger. He leaned closer and continued speaking quietly, but firmly.

  Surprisingly, the rector allowed him to finish. Even more surprisingly he smiled, swung round and said, “It would appear, ladies, that I was wrong about one point. A small point, but an important one.” He bowed to Mrs McClachan. “Enjoy your childish game, ladies. I’ll not stand in your way.”

  The crowd parted and allowed him through. The rear ranks seemed disappointed at this tame conclusion. Noticing this, the rector said, “Have patience, friends. The matter is not disposed of. Only postponed,” and he stalked off down the street swinging his weapon like a quarterstaff.

  “How the blazes did you manage that?” said Queen.

  “I told him he was misquoting his own authorities. The seventh day is the Sabbath. But it is the Jewish Sabbath. That’s not Sunday, it’s Saturday.”

  “Well, blow me down,” said Queen. “I’m most obliged, I’m sure. If he comes back next Saturday we’ll have a few of our men here. And someone on the door a bit tougher than that rabbit Henshawe.” He saw Jonas looking at his watch. “If you’re late for your game I’ll give you a lift. My car’s just round the corner.”

  Jonas was in time for the tee-off. He played less successfully than usual. His mind was on other things. Later, in the bar, where a garbled account of what had happened in the market square seemed to have reached the club, Sykes said, “Is that right you managed to make Harmer see reason?”

  “Sort of,” said Jonas.

  “It’s more than I’ve ever been able to do.”

  “Do I gather he’s your client?”

  “He was. I guess he’ll be yours now.”

  “I’m not looking for clients,” said Jonas. “All the same, he sounds quite a character. Let’s go over to the table in the corner. I’d li
ke to hear more about him.”

  “If he does consult you,” said Sykes, “you needn’t be afraid you’re poaching on my preserves. Harmer’s the bad penny. He gets passed round from hand to hand. He started with Porter and Merriman, who normally conduct church business. But that didn’t survive the cleansing of the temple.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, you see, the trouble is there’s no church hall at St Michael’s, so functions had to take place in the church. They had a stall, just inside the door, which sold postcards and books and religious stuff and every so often they’d have a more ambitious affair, a sort of jumble sale, cakes and jam and sweets and cups of undrinkable coffee. The usual sort of thing. The Women’s Institute ran it. The mistake they made was not telling Harmer what they were up to. It was early days. I suppose they thought he’d be as broadminded as his predecessor.”

  “Natural, perhaps. But foolish. What did he say?”

  “He didn’t say anything. He just threw everything out into the churchyard.”

  “Everything? Cakes and jam?”

  “The lot. All among the tombstones.”

  “It must have made a terrible mess.”

  “It made a terrible row. Cedric Porter edged out of it by refusing to keep Harmer as a client. So he went to Smardon and Clover. I suppose young Clover thought he could handle him. Well, he couldn’t. So he came on to me. I’ve had him for nearly two years. Certainly kept us lively. There was no saying what he’d be up to next.”

  “Is he mad?”

  Sykes considered this question seriously. Then he said, “No. In any legal meaning of the word he’s unquestionably sane. The trouble is that he operates strictly by his own rules. Take that time he bought a second-hand car. When the moment came to renew the licence he was quite prepared to pay the road fund tax.”

  “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”

  “Exactly. But he refused to insure it. The Bible says, ‘Take no thought for the morrow.’ Insurance was taking thought for the morrow. Therefore it was forbidden.”

  “So what did he do?”