by Allan Frost
It didn’t take him long. There was a major shortfall in supplies of every conceivable alcoholic beverage. Most disturbing was the depletion in stocks of Port. He wondered if he could persuade Sir Cedric to make another visit to Oporto, where both he and the aging baronet had struck up an excellent rapport with a grower some years before.
The fact that Julio had been taught Portuguese by his grandfather as a very young child (‘Never forget your heritage, boy!’), coupled with an intimate knowledge of fine wines, had paid dividends. Not only had he been able to negotiate a highly competitive price for a large consignment but he had also acquired several crates of other vintage wines free of charge.
He still kept in touch with the estate manager and seriously thought about replenishing at least some of the empty racks from his own pocket. It was the least he could do.
But then, why should he? Admittedly, his employers were quite generous with his salary and didn’t deduct anything for food and board. On the other hand, he had devoted most of his life to their service. Nor had he let them down by marrying or seeking employment elsewhere. No, he’d earned every penny gaining interest in his Super Saver High Yield Priorton Friendly Building Society account. And time was marching on. By rights, he should have retired by now as, indeed, should Euphemia, but something prevented him from making the first move.
Perhaps they were destined to live out their lives in servitude. This wasn’t such a bad thing. Neither of them was ambitious, they were quite content with their lot. They knew what to expect from life. One day was very much the same as any other. There were no surprises. Humdrum, some would call it. Julio preferred to regard being in service as regular and safe employment.
If they retired, what would they do? He didn’t really fancy a retirement home full of people, having to wait until a carer felt like getting a drink or bringing poorly cooked food and, more likely, living to a strict timetable. No, a regimented life wasn’t for him and he doubted whether Euphemia would readily accept one either. They were free spirits, working in a lax household were the spirits were also free.
Would they be suited to married life together, that was the question. It’s all very well sharing the odd bottle or two and retiring before their legs gave way every evening, but would his beloved ever be able to cook again without being under the influence? In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time she hadn’t been under the influence.
And what did she look like first thing in the morning before she’d had time (which seemed to be getting progressively longer) to make herself presentable . . . well, as presentable as she could be. That bright orange hair treatment must have got mixed up with one of the food colourings, but you never could tell.
She was forever experimenting in the kitchen, sometimes with astounding results, like the blue potatoes served last Christmas. Lady Cynthia had commended Euphemia on her ingenuity, saying how much like blue Curacao they tasted. She could well have been right. Perhaps the hair dye was, in fact, orange Curacao. Several bottles had gone missing like so many others; one council red recycle bin just wasn’t enough for a fortnight’s consumption in the cellar, let alone upstairs.
This lunchtime party with the Easons and Youngs had thrown a spanner into the works. However, they were, unlike his employers, quite ordinary people.
His forebear Garcia was undoubtedly an unscrupulous criminal whose tendencies passed from one generation to another but Hives suddenly felt a twinge of guilt at stealing from his employer. He resolved to buy a few bottles of sherry, whisky, gin and a small variety of mixers from ASDA (their special reductions were still on offer) at his own expense. Oh, and another bottle of vodka for Euphemia. That should be enough. Can’t be fairer than that, can I?
His glass was empty. Julio picked up the bottle: it was empty as well. How did that happen?
He was about to open another when he heard the irritating tinkle of a handbell. It was a signal from Euphemia that either Sir Cedric or Lady Cynthia had returned.
III
Sir Cedric was not in the best of spirits.
He’d spent the whole morning at Priorton County Court hearing yet another of PC Blossom’s spurious cases against Mick Sturbs. After so many failed prosecutions of the same defendant, he couldn’t for the life of him understand why Blossom didn’t just give up and leave the poor man alone.
Everyone in the town knew Sturbs was a career poacher but he was such an affable character that, whatever evidence was presented to the court, there were always at least ten witnesses to explain the situation away or confirm his whereabouts elsewhere. Perhaps they preferred to side with someone who would reward them in his own unique way (especially since the pheasant season wasn’t far off) rather than the distinctly odd Bud Blossom.
Sir Cedric resolved to have a quiet word with Chief Inspector George Young to see if anything could be done to end this futile vendetta and save the court’s time. On the other hand, Cedric quite enjoyed seeing Blossom’s cases gradually falling apart at the seams. Furthermore, it meant he was usually able to leave court early to pursue his own private quest in Wellingley.
Hives appeared from nowhere.
‘Hot toddy, sir?’
‘Hot totty! Whatever are you suggesting, Hives?’ His heart sank as his eyes spotted the full glass on the tray Hives was holding. Oh, well, it was better than nothing.
He removed his bicycle clips and tossed them on the hall table. He’d rather have taken his wife’s car but the licensing people had refused to renew his driving licence last year until he could prove he was not a menace on the roads. Apparently, dignified progress at a stately twenty miles an hour was not acceptable these days. Anyway, the two miles to the court weren’t too arduous and it did seem to make him feel both better and fitter.
‘I’ll be in the study if anyone calls. Don’t want to be disturbed. Bring the bottle, would you?’
‘It’s already there, sir.’ He knew his master of old.
‘Any messages?’
‘No, sir, I’m afraid not,’ Hives replied, taking care to shield Sarah’s telephone message from Cedric’s view. The lunch party was supposed to be a surprise and there was little to be achieved by spoiling it.
It only took a few minutes for Cedric to unwind in front of the dying embers of the log fire. Swirling the contents of a second tumbler, he closed his piercing blue eyes to reflect on the success his investigations had failed to achieve after the court hearing. He needed to find a solution to his problem. He couldn’t go on like this for much longer.
He loved his wife, far more than he could express in words. But, like so many married couples, they had taken each other for granted and, after a while, drifted their separate ways. When did it begin to go wrong?
Cedric racked his brains to see if he could pinpoint any specific event, possibly an unwelcome or hurtful comment, that had nudged them apart. Perhaps it was the fact that Cynthia couldn’t have children. They would both have loved to have them around and, indeed, did during their early years when her nephews and nieces came to visit. He smiled at the thought. Unfortunately, they all grew up and, as is so common these days, went to live and work in different places. Eventually, occasional telephone calls and holiday postcards stopped arriving and spasmodic communication became demoted to a hastily scribbled Christmas card.
They’d been married for, how many years was it? Over fifty, certainly. She’d been quite a looker in the old days. You could still see it, beneath the cracks and wrinkles that even ‘Because you’re worth it’ expensive skin treatments and cosmetics couldn’t hide. Her eyes lit up in a particularly wicked sort of way every time she smiled, as if inviting him to flirt with her.
He could remember responding with great enthusiasm to those smiles. But not now. Somehow, the spark had burned itself out. Cedric had been brought up with the belief that having offspring was essential to continuing the family line. His ancestors had been at Blister Grange since the sixteenth century and this was the first time there wasn’t an heir appare
nt. Lord knows, he’d flung himself into fulfilling his obligations. It wasn’t his fault if the woman he loved was barren.
Barren. Such a horrible word. It would have been laughable if he’d been the one unable to create a child: he could have been called the original Barren Knight! But there was something essentially sad when a woman, so keen to have children, couldn’t, even after expensive fertility treatment which, when they explored every desperate avenue, led to nothing except dashed hopes and a lighter bank balance. Except those of the private clinics and expensive Harley Street quacks, of course, who smiled and said all the right things. Now it was far too late.
Perhaps the knowledge that Cynthia couldn’t get pregnant had taken the fun out of the proceedings. The thrill of seduction ceased immediately after marriage vows had been exchanged and, later, the anticipation of expectant parenthood made them both so unhappy to the point of despondency. Adoption, of course, had been considered but, to Cedric’s traditional mind, it was unthinkable that Blister Grange would eventually pass to someone who didn’t have Foot-Wart blood coursing through their veins.
Cedric, judging from the number of debutantes throwing themselves all over him and clinging to his arms like limpets, had cut quite a dashing figure in his youth. And, like any cat with copious quantities of cream put in front of him, he lapped it up. Not that there was ever any scandal, oh no. He knew where to go to meet secretively and, more importantly, where to draw the line.
As far as he knew, there was never any ‘going too far’, apart from one occasion. Following his mother’s sound advice about there being safety in numbers, he’d purposely misinterpreted her comments and organised an orgy while his parents were away on holiday in Scotland in the early 1950s. While his father was there to shoot grouse, Cedric probably managed to bag more braces of birds in a weekend than Sir Algernon Ponsonby Foot-Wart had in a whole week. Cedric recalled the occasion reasonably well, even after half a century, and remembered being so grateful afterwards that he hadn’t been presented with a sheaf of marriage proposals through carelessness or recklessness during moments of passion.
Sir Cedric sighed the sigh of a man who knows the boat has slipped its moorings without him. He was lucky Cynthia was such a wonderful person. In fact, her selflessness, combined with understandable although unjustifiable feelings of guilt at having let him down so badly, contributed to Cedric’s ongoing misery.
Realising there was no easy solution to the problem of producing an heir herself, Cynthia had insisted he seek a mistress. After all, he wouldn’t be the first Foot-Wart to do so: Jasper Foot-Wart, for example, once claimed to have sired most of the girls (married and unmarried) in the vicinity during the middle of the eighteenth century, even the ugly ones who didn’t want to be left out and apparently only met him on dark moonless nights so they could have a good time and earn a shilling or two without making him vomit or fail to rise to the occasion.
After much misgiving, Cedric agreed to Cynthia’s suggestion. However, by that time he was well into his sixties and no longer had the killer instinct or, to be perfectly honest, the desire to follow her sound, considered advice. The fact that it was her idea somehow took the excitement out of the proposition. It didn’t help when she placed an advertisement in The Times: ‘Elderly but attractive baron, eyes still twinkling, requires mistress to produce heir to estate. Any woman of child-bearing age considered’. There were no takers.
If Cedric’s quest were to stand any chance of success, roving away from home would have to be with someone not known to Cynthia and done without her knowledge. After several uneasy and uncomfortable discussions, Cynthia reluctantly agreed that her insistence on vetting each and every candidate was unreasonable and, whatever the outcome and provided there was no scandal, she would support him in his efforts and, should the situation arise, acknowledge any resultant offspring as his rightful heir.
And so it was, after several years of rejection by even the most unworthy candidates and continually riddled with guilt, Cedric plucked up the courage to reply to a paragraph in the Lonely Hearts column of the Shropshire Bugle Advertiser (‘Don’t blow your own trumpet; we’ll do it for you’) and made the acquaintance of Fatima Arkwight, ‘Attractive, experienced, imaginative and warm hearted career lady, GSOH, non-smoker but likes to smoulder, seeks mature gentleman for mutual enjoyment and adventurous indoor entertainment. Special consideration given to over sixties.’ She seemed the ideal solution to the Foot-Wart dilemma.
He well remembered their first meeting at her basement flat in a well-appointed late Victorian villa on the outskirts of Wellingley. She was very welcoming and, although in her mid to late thirties, didn’t seem to mind the disparity in their ages. There was a moment of awkwardness when a fee for her companionship was discussed: Cedric only had twelve pounds in his pocket and the taxi fare back home was five plus a tip, so she graciously accepted a five pound note for an hour-long chat to see how they got on, and to decide which of her services were appropriate.
After a shaky start because of his unfamiliarity with the etiquette of treating a mistress, the tension in her tastefully furnished and lace-bedecked lounge gradually relaxed. She didn’t seem over keen to discuss her past other than to say she had been made redundant from a managerial job near Shrewsbury and wanted nothing more than to devote her experience to helping ‘those of more mature years’. Fatima was more interested in Cedric’s own uninspiring past.
It had crossed his mind that she might be a, what was the term? Pros— . . . propositioner? . . . Prospector? No, gold digger. But she seemed very kind and not in the least concerned with making large sums of money. He sensed she had other male friends yet she treated him as if he were unique, someone very special.
During his many years on the Bench, Sir Cedric had observed more than enough examples of ‘women of the night’ to judge that Fatima Arkwright was not one of them. He’d half expected, hoped even, that she’d greet him wearing a pink frilly nightie, and whip it off within seconds of his arrival. It would have taken some of the embarrassment out of the situation. But she didn’t. Instead, she made him a cup of strong, sweet Chinese tea.
‘To overcome the shock,’ she explained. ‘You haven’t done this sort of thing before, have you?’ she enquired in a kindly way.
‘Not for over fifty years. It wasn’t the same then,’ he’d replied. ‘I didn’t have to look for . . . companionship, I mean. It sort of just happened.’
The hour soon went and, in fact, continued for two more. It was only when she began to make frequent glances at the clock on the mantelpiece that he realised he’d outstayed his welcome.
No doubt such an unprofitable period would put her off entertaining him again, but no.
‘I’m terribly sorry, Cedric, but I have another appointment in a few minutes. Will the same time next Thursday suit you?’
He couldn’t believe his ears! Or luck!
‘Fine, excellent, yes! Er, is there anything I should bring . . .?’
‘Just yourself. I can provide everything we’re likely to need.’
She sensed a return of tension.
‘What’s wrong, Cedric?’ she asked gently.
‘It’s just that, hm, you won’t call me at home, will you? It might upset Cynthia.’
‘Don’t worry. I wouldn’t do anything to embarrass you.’ She gave him a quick hug and a peck on his wrinkled cheek as if to emphasise the point. ‘And I won’t be offended if you change your mind and decide not to come back.’
The door bell rang. Fatima saw the look of horror on his face. Oh, God! He could see the headlines: ‘Senile Sir Cedric Seduces Society Sex Kitten.’
‘Don’t fret! It’s only the gas man,’ she whispered, opening the door. ‘Thank you for your advice, Sir Cedric,’ she said loudly as she ushered him out. ‘It was kind of you to call.’
He left Fatima’s flat on cloud nine, drifting euphorically towards the taxi rank in the centre of Wellingley.
‘You OK, guv?’ enquired the Ackney C
ab (‘We know every spot in town’) driver.
‘I’m fine, thank you. Kind of you to ask. Haven’t felt so good in years. Blister Grange, Priorton, cabbie. No need to rush.’
The twenty minute journey was just enough time to calm down before he saw Cynthia. What should he say to her? Should he tell her everything? No, that would ruin the excitement. However, he needed an excuse for returning home late, thus breaking his predictable pattern of usual behaviour.
The taxi lurched over a hump-backed railway bridge. Bridge! That was it. He could say he’d joined a Bridge group. It met on Thursday afternoons!
No, better not be so specific in case the day changed. One of the solicitors at Wellingley had asked if he wouldn’t mind playing Bridge occasionally to make up the numbers. Yes, that would do.
And so the deceit began. But was it really deceitful? It had, after all, been Cynthia’s idea and she had agreed not to be told, hadn’t she? Settled, then.
Cedric did turn up at Fatima’s door a second time. And a third and fourth. In fact, he visited her regularly every week whenever court appearances permitted, and she didn’t mind at all if his civic duties prevented or rescheduled an appointment, as long as she was forewarned.
It was, in both their eyes, an odd sort of relationship but one which meant more and more to them as time went by. There was no question of it being a long term relationship; as Cedric admitted on more than one occasion, ‘I could pop my clogs at any time, so let’s not get serious. Just enjoy ourselves.’
Fatima concurred. Despite his advanced years, dry skin, age freckles, ear hair and creases, her guest had countless qualities to attract her affection. He had a good, if wicked, sense of humour, could make her laugh one minute and give sound advice the next.
It was a relationship new to them both, not based on lustful passion or greed but rather one of mutual understanding. The one thing Cedric kept from her was his desire to have a child. The opportunity for him to mention this hadn’t arisen. It had taken several years and countless visits (still at a bargain price) before they had inadvertently progressed to the more physical aspects of human expectation.