by Ivan B
“Richard, might have known it was you causing trouble.”
I shook his hand, he still shook hands like he was practising picking up jelly.
“No trouble, I just want some items you’ve stored for me.”
I offered him the deposit slip. He read it.
“Oh, It’s a Royal and Ancient, you should have said.”
“She didn’t ask.”
He held the deposit slip up to the light though goodness knows why. He nodded to himself.
“Look Stephen, why don’t you go and get yourself a cup of coffee and come back in an hour? There’s no point in hanging about here.”
At least he was honest.
“That’s the first sensible set of words I’ve heard in this place.”
He grinned sloppily;
“Bit different here, it’s not about customer care, it’s about training the customer so that we can make the most profit.”
I took that thought down the road and had a coffee and a Danish pastry that must have had a terrible journey from Denmark.
When I returned there had been a change of receptionists and I was now confronted with a spotty youth who’s tie was loose with his collar button undone, still if I’d had to wear that disgusting yellow tie I might have tried to disassociate myself from it as well. To my surprise he’d been primed and he immediately pointed down the corridor.
“Mr Bradshaw is in room 12B” he intoned. I found Tom with four different size boxes, a pot of coffee, a plate of biscuits and a thousand questions. By the time we’d finished gossiping I’d learnt two items of interest. Firstly Mr Grant had an account with the Royal & Ancient and secondly working for SCABS was hell personified.
Chapter 25
Settling
I didn’t open the boxes even though curiosity was burning inside me, instead I decided to wait and open them with Yolande. To my surprise she called me on my mobile as I was driving home and asked to meet me in a lay-by. The lay-by was situated on the A14 just before the turn off to the rectory, she was waiting when I arrived and I slipped into the passenger seat of her van and we said hello. When our lips finally parted we sat and held hands. I felt like raising an eyebrow, but knew I couldn’t do it as well as her. She licked her lips.
“I wanted to talk about Effie.”
There was hesitation and uncertainty in her voice and I wondered if she was jealous that Effie was staying in the rectory. She momentarily bit her bottom lip and I became certain that she wanted me to encourage Effie and Mark to move out; how wrong can a man be? She took a deep breath and words tumbled out.
“I had long talks with Effie at the hospital,” she said. “You know she’s ever so grateful that you paid for their treatment and offered one of your kidneys without hesitation.” She paused and added, as if giving an aside, “Though I’m selfishly glad you didn’t have to undergo an operation.” She paused again, “You know that they wouldn’t be able to move on for some time and that Mark needs to stay near Ipswich Hospital, just in case.” She took a deep breath, “I also don’t think that Effie really wants to get a job in the short term, she wants to be near Mark and look after him. In any case I think they’re both totally physically and emotionally knackered.”
I was beginning to be at a loss, where was this leading? She squeezed my hand and I tried to ignore the blip in my heartbeat. “I was wondering if you’d mind Effie becoming a sort of housekeeper? She has made enquiries about teaching immigrants English, but there’s no real possibility of work before the end of summer. But she’d really like to feel useful and do something which helps us.”
I gazed into her eyes, which in the low light had those widely expanded pupils that make women attractive. Before I could give a definite answer I had to know one thing.
“How do you feel about it, after all it’s going to be your house, do you mind another woman taking charge?”
Yolande shook her head.
“Not if it’s Effie. Do you know I had to spend a couple of hours persuading her not to seek accommodation elsewhere? She was dreadfully nervous about staying at the rectory, especially as you’d already been so good to them.”
I was treated to one of her heart-stopping pulse inducing smiles.
“And I know that they are both speechless about the way you furnished the rooms for them, especially as we haven’t got round to furnishing the rest of the place.”
She squeezed my hand again.
“And it would help me. I know you’ve said that I don’t have to work, but I really do want to work for a little while after we’ve married, having Effie around would take the pressure off of me.”
“And you don’t mind?”
“Not the least, in fact I’ve already asked Effie to cook a meal for us all tonight, I hope you don’t mind.”
Visions of Millicent’s cooking raced across my forebrain.
“As long as she’s not a cook in the terms that Millicent is a cook.”
Yolande laughed.
“Well did you know that Millicent won the prize for the best cook in our year at school?”
My mouth must have dropped open because Yolande burst into a fit of giggles. She patted my knee causing another blip in my heartbeat.
“Relax. The best cook was voted upon by all the year that was doing cookery classes and we decided to vote for Millicent because she was trying really hard, considering, and we also knew that the nominated best cook bakes a cake for the staff-room’s end of year party.”
I still didn’t know what I should consider when thinking about Millicent’s cooking, but I began to feel sorry for the staff if they’d had to eat her cake. Yolande glanced at her watch.
“We’d better go, Effie said that she’d cook for seven.”
Dinner turned out to be a sort of grand fish stir-fry followed by a lightweight lemon mousse; if Effie kept up that sort of standard I’d have no concerns over her culinary abilities. After lunch we all had a brief chat about Effie and housekeeping. Somewhere along the line I agreed to buy two vacuum cleaners (one upright and one especially for stairs) and a better set of kitchenware. However, the main problem was holding Effie back as she was childishly keen to try and do everything at once. When the chat was over I carried in the four boxes I had relieved from the SCABS vault and we sat looking at them. They were remarkably different sizes, but all made of some sort of leather. One was the size of an engagement ring box, the next about as big as two reams of A4 paper. The third looked like a case for a side-drum and the last the size of a family biscuit tin. All of them were made of some sort of tough looking red leather with the lids held shut by stainless steel spring clips.
Eventually I decided to tackle the boxes in order of size, that meant the smallest came first. I carefully opened it and then gazed at what was revealed after peeling away the foam packaging; it looked for all the world like a half-inch long black aluminium tube with three wires protruding from the bottom. Yolande peered at it closely.
“I think it’s a Germanium transistor.”
She picked it up.
“It’s got OC71 written on it, I’ll look it up, but I think it was the type they used in early transistor radios.”
Mark look at me in bewilderment.
“You mean this guy Grant paid to have this stored in a bank vault?”
I really didn’t have a reply so I moved on to the next parcel. I opened the lid, removed a piece of A4 grease-proof paper and blinked at what I saw. Effie read out what was written in a spidery longhand on the top piece of what was obviously a pile of A4 paper.
“The History of Grant Radios by Mr John Grant.”
Mark and began to chuckle.
“Well you’ve got the transistor and the history, what next?”
I went for the drum-case look alike.. I placed it on the table, opened the lid and removed a thin circular piece of sponge. We all peered inside, Yolande was the first to laugh.
“Marbles,” she cried almost in hysteria, “it’s full of marbles!” She was right an
d I could hardly believe me eyes, lying in carefully carved out sockets in another piece of dense sponge were marbles laid out in ten lines radiating from the centre. As I was gazing I heard Mark chuckle.
“What kind of guy puts marbles into a bank-vault!”
Effie peered closer at the marbles before announcing.
“Not just any marbles, these are Dingles.”
We all looked at her, she seemed engrossed.
“I remember them from school, the boys used to go mad over them, there were even fights in the playground; some schools banned the trading in them. My neighbour’s son was mad about them. Dingle only ever produced one size of marble, but there were ten colours and I think ten inner shapes and ten tints.”
I was beginning to feel another parallel universe coming on. “How can you have different shapes. Marbles are spherical by definition?”
She pointed at a line of marbles.
“Look, the shape is that bit in the centre,” She began to recite as she worked her way along the line of marbles.
“Star, cube, ball, cone, crescent, cylinder, disc, flat square and spiral.”
She ran her finger along the line.
“See the central colours are black in this line and then as we move round, red, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, gold, silver and white.”
Yolande frowned.
“Hang on, there are eleven marbles in each line and you haven’t mentioned the ones nearest the centre.”
Effie smiled.
“Ah, there’s the collector’s enticement. The marbles were each sold in a little silver foil wrapper so you never knew what you were buying. They were also given away in cereal boxes, with petrol, in all sorts of places. On the inside of the wrapper it said what sort of marble it was, you know , ‘clear glass- red core – star shape.’ Once you had all ten of one colour centres in the same outer glass tint you sent the ten wrappers off to Dingle and they sent you back the ‘D’ version of that set. She ran her finger round the box, “Collect all ten ‘Ds’ for one colour tint and they sent you a plain marble of that tint, see?”
She pointed to a plain glass marble in the centre. She lifted out the piece of sponge and placed it on the table revealing a similar set underneath.
“And the outer glass is clear in the first lot, but as we move down,” she lifted out the first set in their piece of sponge and then the other sets underneath.
“We get yellow, orange, light green, dark green, pink, red, light blue, dark blue and mauve.”
Yolande peered at the last set of mauve tinted marbles, “What happened if you got all ten sets?”
Effie gave a seriously elfish grin.
“That was the dream of every schoolboy get them all and ten clear marbles and you should get a golden marble, although they never actually called it a golden marble, they always called it the binary marble.”
I rapidly did a calculation.
“That makes a thousand marbles for ten complete sets, plus one hundred ‘D’ marbles of various colours and tints, plus ten plain marbles, so the last one – your golden marble – is marble number 1111!”
Mark gave me a sarcastic clapping of hands.
“Give the man a peanut.”
Effie laughed, I didn’t think it was that funny. She closed her eyes and started to recite.
“You collect them by ones till you get to one-o. We make it one-one till you get one-one-o. We make it one-one-one till you get one-one-one-o and then,” she used her fingers to do a drum-roll on the table-top, “you get the one-one-one-one – the grand binary marble.”
Effie took out the last set of marbles and there lying in splendid isolation in the last piece of sponge was indeed a golden marble with it’s hallmarks clearly on display. Yolande gazed at it.
“How many people got one of those?”
Effie grinned again obviously pleased to be the one in the know.
“It’s said that they only ever produced ten. Just before I left home one of the girls at school was given a complete set of one tint – that’s just 111 marbles - by an uncle, she was the envy of every boy at school. I would guess that a real complete set with a golden marble is worth a small fortune.”
I still wondered about my parallel marble universe.
“How come I’ve never heard of them?”
She shrugged.
“It was a Scottish thing, I don’t think they ever sold them South of Hadrian’s Wall, besides they went bust.”
Yolande looked at her in amazement.
“How could they go bust, I mean they must have been onto a good thing, especially if they tailored production so that some of the marbles were difficult to get?”
Effie shrugged.
“They seriously went out of vogue, some other craze came in, like Ninja Turtles or Game Boys, and they’d produced thousands and thousands of marbles that they couldn’t get rid of. I did hear that they even tried marketing them in South Africa, but they didn’t catch on.”
I looked at Mark.
“But you’ve obviously heard of them even if I haven’t.”
He grinned.
“Effie’s got a blue tint with a green spiral centre, she calls it her lucky talisman as she dropped it in a bar and I picked it up. As I recall our first conversation was her explaining to me what it was and me not understanding a word of her wonderful dialect.”
I suppose love is in the eye of the beholder, but for him to call Glaswegian a wonderful dialect meant that he must be besotted by her. We carefully repacked the case and our eyes simultaneously swivelled onto the last biscuit tin sized parcel.
In the end I pushed the package over to Yolande. Without hesitation she opened the two spring clips and threw back the lid. It appeared to be full of shredded paper and Yolande started to empty it from the package and onto the table. Before long she had exposed four small cardboard boxes the size of OXO tins. She carefully lifted one out and opened it up, her eyebrows rose. Nestling in the tin, in more shredded paper packaging, were two small radio valves. The other three boxes yielded the same result. Mark thought that this was hilarious. Yolande picked up the whole package.
“I don’t understand it the leather can’t be as heavy as this.”
We raked out the rest of the shredded paper and Yolande took out a sort of cardboard base. Lying in the bottom, flat on their backs, were thirty krugerrands. Simultaneously we all had the same thought and re-examined the other packages. Under the golden marble were sixteen more krugerrands, under the story of grant radios were twenty-five krugerrands and under the transistor were half a dozen large uncut diamonds. I just wish I could have captured the expression on Mark’s face, it lay somewhere between Laurel and Hardy’s bewilderment and Dumbo’s amazement when he could fly. Yolande raised and eyebrow at me and I automatically knew what the question was. “Depends on the exchange rate. But they’re usually valued at around $400, which is currently around £225, give or take a few pence.”
Mark spluttered, “Each?”
“Each,” I said firmly.
I could see his brain working so I put him out of his misery, “That’s just under £16,000 plus whatever the diamonds are worth.”
I suddenly felt generous and decided that I could kill two birds with one stone. I pushed the marbles package over to Effie.
“I’ve been wondering what to get you two as a wedding present – congratulations. Have this as a gift from me and Yolande”
Effie backed away stammering, for once in her native tongue, something about she couldn’t possibly. Yolande leant forward, “Yes you can, he’s got more than enough money tonight.”
Mark looked me in the eye.
“You sure bro? It’s a lot of dosh.”
I met his gaze.
“I’m dead sure. I’m glad you’re alive, glad you and Effie are happy together and glad to give you something that’s both useful and useless.”
Mark frowned.
“What’s useless about it?”
I tapped the package.
Effie and Yolande simultaneously cottoned on.
“You mean he bought up all their old stock?”
“Some of it I think, he then must have bought the odd marbles he was missing and had the golden marble made, you should be able to check it out from the hallmark.”
Mark put on his bewildered look again.
“But why?”
“Because he never liked to fail.”
As we contemplated this I also contemplated my benefactor, just what other bits of his history were destined to alter mine?
Chapter 26
Branching Out
The following morning I was up early as I had miles to cover and things to do. To my surprise when I visited the kitchen Mark was up and drinking a cup of coffee. As the kettle was hot, and for once I was ahead of schedule I made myself a cup and joined him at the table. Calvin was nowhere to be seen.
“Effie out walking the dog?”
Mark grinned.
“Not a hope, she’s still in bed, Calvin is asleep on the landing outside our door. She’s not too much of a morning person.”
I inwardly groaned, mornings was the time I like to practice my piano, Mark must have noticed my face.
“Don’t worry bro, she’s always up by nine.”
He sipped his coffee and gazed at me through the steam, “Thanks for the present last night, that was really good of you.”
From somewhere up above I heard a door open and close. “That’s alright, I only hope you can sell the marbles for something reasonable.”
Mark gave me a wry smile.
“Somehow I don’t think we’ll be selling them. Last night Effie was wondering about putting them on display in our lounge.”