Sons and Daughters

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘It strikes me as being grievous bodily harm, which is against the law,’ said the Parson, quick eyes still going from one to the other.

  ‘There’s an option,’ said Boots. ‘It’s either the hammer or telling the police about the bolt that ended up stuck in the van, but which was intended for one of us.’

  ‘I don’t like one or the other,’ said the Parson. ‘One’s going to aggravate my injuries, and the other’s going to make the coppers ask me more questions.’

  ‘So tell us something we’ll believe,’ said Boots, ‘such as why you targeted us, and who paid you to.’

  ‘I don’t like that, either,’ said the Parson. ‘It’s asking me to go against my principles, and that’ll make me ill. I can’t afford to be ill as well as injured.’

  ‘Go to reception, Sammy,’ said Boots, ‘and ask if you can telephone the police.’

  ‘Now wait a minute,’ said the Parson, ‘I’m not saying I can’t put up with being ill.’

  ‘So stop mucking us about,’ said Sammy, ‘we’re busy and we ain’t got all day to listen to excuses.’

  ‘Personally, I’ve got nothing against you gents,’ said the Parson.

  ‘So who has?’ asked Sammy.

  The Parson’s quick optics met Boots’s unblinking grey eyes, and what he saw there didn’t soothe the ache in his broken bones.

  ‘A certain party who wanted a disabling job done on one of you. Nothing fatal, on my oath, just an arm or a leg. You want a name?’

  ‘That’s all,’ said Boots, ‘just a name.’

  The Parson sighed.

  ‘Ben Ford,’ he said, without moving his lips, or so it seemed.

  Boots and Sammy met Sister Phillips in the corridor on their way out.

  ‘You left our patient happy, I hope,’ she smiled.

  ‘Happy, but not delirious,’ said Boots.

  ‘On account of his suffering ribs,’ said Sammy.

  ‘Simple happiness is a pleasure to come by,’ said Boots.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sister Phillips, her starched front crumpling again, ‘yes, indeed, Mr Adams.’

  ‘Thanks once more for making our visit an exception to the rule,’ said Boots. ‘Goodbye.’

  ‘Do come again,’ said Sister Phillips, and watched them as they left, two delightful gentlemen.

  It was lunchtime for Lulu and Paul at the Labour Party’s Walworth headquarters, and as usual they were eating it in the office.

  ‘Let’s see,’ said Paul, tucking into a dressed salad prepared by his mum, ‘I don’t think you’ve told me how you got on in supporting the motion “Socialism is Beneficial to the Country” at that grammar school yesterday evening.’

  ‘Why weren’t you there instead of the Young Socialist you paired me with?’

  ‘I abstained, I had a date,’ said Paul.

  ‘With tarty Henrietta?’

  ‘With an old friend.’

  ‘Female, of course,’ said Lulu, her expressive horn-rimmed specs reflecting sorrow for anyone who put social relationships before the excitement of politics.

  ‘She wore a very nice frock,’ said Paul. ‘So how did you get on?’

  ‘Crushed the opposition, and carried the motion,’ said Lulu.

  ‘With the assembly hall full of toffee-nosed grammar school pupils whose parents probably all vote Conservative?’

  ‘My support for the motion was brilliant,’ said Lulu.

  ‘What were you wearing?’

  ‘Clothes,’ said Lulu, ‘I’m against debating in the altogether.’

  ‘You wore a sweater and skirt, say?’ suggested Paul.

  ‘A dress,’ said Lulu, munching an apple.

  ‘Pretty?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with politics? Aspiring women politicians in pretties don’t get taken seriously.’

  ‘Lulu, you’re still a girl,’ said Paul.

  ‘Piffle,’ said Lulu.

  ‘At only eighteen,’ said Paul, ‘you’ve got years yet before you need to be taken seriously.’

  ‘Listen to you, Methuselah,’ said Lulu. ‘You’re nineteen, aren’t you?’

  ‘Going on for twenty,’ said Paul.

  ‘You like to be taken seriously, don’t you?’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Paul. ‘I’m a senior official of the Young Socialists. Everything sacred would fall apart if I let the members treat me as an Aunt Sally.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ said Lulu. ‘Well, the same goes for me. True Socialism means equality. So put that in your in tray.’

  ‘Equality doesn’t mean you should wear your father’s trousers,’ said Paul.

  ‘I don’t, and I’m not,’ said Lulu, presently clad in a light brown jumper and a dark brown skirt, quite attractive stockings gracing her legs. Somehow, she was coming round to letting her legs be seen.

  ‘Anyway, congratulations on crushing the opposition in the debate,’ said Paul. ‘Did any reward come out of it?’

  ‘A bunch of flowers,’ said Lulu.

  ‘Pretty?’ said Paul.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Pretty flowers?’

  ‘I’m going to say something to you,’ said Lulu.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Get your head examined.’

  Paul laughed. The phone rang. He answered it. ‘Hello, Paul.’

  ‘Hello, Henrietta.’

  Lulu growled.

  But Paul avoided making a date. He was wary of Henrietta Trevalyan. He had an idea that one of her permanent fads was collecting poodles. He didn’t go in for being that kind of bloke. His lifestyle was one which instinctively adhered to Grandma Finch’s values.

  Somehow, in some way, Chinese Lady’s own lifestyle, based on respectable behaviour, had had its effect on her extensive family, from her sons and daughter downwards. No-one stepped out of line. Everyone consciously or subconsciously felt she was looking over his or her shoulder. Boots was the exception. He had had his moments with a woman ambulance driver and his love affair with Eloise’s French mother. But that had been during the Great War, in Northern France, when Chinese Lady wasn’t close enough to look over his shoulder.

  Polly was waiting for someone to break the chains in these years following the war against Hitler. It had been a war that made old-fashioned conventions look archaic, and gave many women ideas about new horizons.

  Yes, someone in the family would kick over the traces one day.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The twins had had their bath, had come down for their Ovaltine, and after saying goodnight to their mother, were now being taken up to their beds by Boots. He was telling the immortalized story of Don Quixote.

  ‘You might not believe this, kids, but he then charged the windmill.’

  ‘Charged it?’ said Gemma.

  ‘Courageously and with determination,’ said Boots.

  ‘Crikey,’ said Gemma, as they reached the landing.

  ‘I know what happened next,’ said James.

  ‘Tell, then,’ said Gemma.

  ‘He fell off his horse,’ said James. ‘Well, I mean, a windmill.’

  ‘Yes, but he didn’t actually think it was,’ said Gemma.

  ‘Barmy,’ said James.

  ‘A valiant eccentric,’ said Boots, and saw Gemma to her bed. He tucked her in. She looked up at him, her dark sienna hair soft and curling, her eyes already dreamy.

  ‘Daddy, you’re ever so nice,’ she said.

  ‘Well, I’m glad you think so, poppet,’ he said, and kissed her nose. A little giggle escaped her, followed by a soft sigh of cosy content.

  Boots then went to James’s room. James, tucked up, delivered himself in manly fashion.

  ‘Well, goodnight, Pa.’

  ‘Goodnight, young ’un.’

  ‘A windmill, I ask you,’ murmured James, and closed his eyes.

  On his way downstairs, Boots wondered, and certainly not for the first time, why life had favoured him so much. To have known his years with Emily, Rosie, Tim and Eloise, was as much as any man deserved.
To now have Polly, Gemma and James, was richer than the icing on any cake.

  Polly’s educated tones interrupted his reflections.

  ‘Something’s going on, you old warhorse.’

  ‘Just Don Quixote and the windmill, Polly.’

  ‘Not that,’ said Polly, knees curled up on the plush velvet of a settee, ‘something quite different.’

  ‘Such as?’ said Boots.

  ‘How do I know?’ said Polly. ‘You haven’t told me. But something is going on.’

  ‘Is it?’ said Boots, looking forward to listening to a radio talk by Lieutenant-General Sir Brian Horrocks, the cavalier wartime Commander of the British 30 Corps. Boots had been with the corps all through the Normandy campaign and its momentous advance into Germany itself. A reasonable man did not bring the war home with him, but it had its moments that could still stir the memory. A talk by Sir Brian was bound to be one of them. ‘Is your intuition at work, Polly?’

  ‘Intuition my Sunday bonnet,’ said Polly. ‘I know you, and I know when you’re up to something. Out with it, or I’ll come and bite you.’

  ‘Bless the woman,’ murmured Boots.

  ‘Procrastination will get you nowhere,’ said Polly. ‘Watch my teeth.’ She showed them, moistly white between modestly carmined lips.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Boots, ‘who’s your dentist?’

  ‘My toothbrush,’ said Polly. ‘Oh, come on, old love, what’s going on?’

  ‘The fact is,’ said Boots, ‘after the incidents relating to the bales of nylon, I didn’t think I needed to alarm you over something else that was a bit murky.’

  ‘Alarm me?’ said Polly. ‘The only alarm I’d feel would be for the opposition, so come on, Geronimo, who’s trying to set fire to your wigwam this time?’

  ‘Same old cowboy,’ said Boots, and told her in detail about the man in the car who had fired a crossbow bolt at himself and Sammy, and how Mitch, in putting the van into reverse at the critical moment, had taken the full impact.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ said Polly, ‘now I am alarmed. And aghast.’

  ‘Yes, not exactly pleasant,’ said Boots, and told of the car’s collision with a bus, the sight he had of a crossbow, the hospitalization of the driver, and the visit that resulted in extracting information and the name of what one could call the prime suspect. Ben Ford.

  ‘Him again?’ said Polly. ‘The Fat Man? Get him here and I’ll lynch him. Or will you and Sammy do it?’

  ‘I think we’ll send him a letter,’ said Boots.

  ‘A letter?’ said Polly. ‘A letter? The man’s Public Enemy Number One. Phone the police.’

  ‘Calling in the police will mean turning keen business rivalry into war,’ said Boots. ‘Very messy.’

  ‘If it’s not messy war already, I’m a mountain goat,’ said Polly.

  ‘We’ll settle for a letter,’ said Boots.

  ‘Can I trust you to make that effective?’ asked Polly.

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Boots.

  Polly gave him a searching look. It was no surprise to find not the slightest sign of a man worried. His lurking smile surfaced, and his lazy left eye performed a slow wink. That told her that what he had in mind for Mr Ben Ford wasn’t likely to make the Fat Man think Christmas had come.

  Polly smiled.

  ‘Go get him, Geronimo,’ she said.

  The following day, ex-Corporal Mitchell broke his journey to the firm’s shop in Oxford Street by parking the van near the Elephant and Castle. It was an area devastated by German bombers, and development had begun by way of levelling ugly sites. Mitch entered the building in which the Fat Man’s offices were situated. He announced himself to a heavy, the man called Rollo.

  Rollo, who, in company with Large Lump, had so far failed to find any hospital that had admitted the Parson, spoke to the Fat Man half a minute later.

  ‘A bloke to see you, guv,’ he said.

  ‘What bloke?’

  ‘Says he’s got an important letter for you, and that he’s got to deliver it personal.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Just some elderly geezer.’

  ‘Let’s have him in, then.’

  Mitch was admitted. He’d been in this place before, years ago, and he recognized the Fat Man at once, a barrel of lard squashed into his padded chair, a large geezer standing beside the desk.

  ‘Morning to yer, Mr Ford,’ said old soldier Mitch.

  ‘You’ve got a letter for me?’

  ‘You bet,’ said Mitch, and drew a stout brown envelope out of his jacket pocket. ‘It’s from Mr Adams.’

  ‘Oh, is it, eh? Which one?’

  ‘Mr Adams senior, Mr Robert Adams.’

  ‘The one called Boots?’ Fat Man’s face contorted, and his voice emerged to sound a bit like a suet pudding fighting for survival in a sea of dumplings. ‘Boots, you’re telling me?’

  ‘The same,’ said Mitch and placed the letter on the desk. Its brown envelope seemed heavy. Large Lump, guarding his boss, watched as the Fat Man picked it up, weighed it in his hand and shot Mitch a suspicious glance.

  ‘It won’t bite, I promise yer,’ said Mitch.

  ‘You’ll be bleedin’ dead if it does,’ said Fat Man, and ripped the envelope. A steel bolt fell out and hit the desk with a dull thud. ‘What the hell . . .?’

  ‘I said so,’ remarked Mitch, ‘I said it wouldn’t bite, didn’t I?’

  Fat Man extracted a folded sheet of notepaper. He read the message it contained.

  ‘Your man’s in King’s College Hospital. You’ll join him any time between now and next week, with a bolt like this one in your belly unless you move far far away. You can believe this. Robert Adams.’

  Fat Man positively paled and his huge girth seemed to shrink like a leaking balloon. He knew Boots all too well and he remembered the two young men who had made mincemeat of his heavies, and done Sparky over. They were more than capable of doing himself over. Suddenly, Fat Man recognized the unpalatable fact that life for him was plainly dangerous.

  ‘Hospital?’ he croaked.

  ‘A bloke name of George Wheeler,’ said Mitch. ‘’Orrible geezer. See that bolt, Mr Ford? He fired it from a crossbow at me employers outside their offices at Camberwell Green. Missed. Then he had an accident that put him in King’s College Hospital. Nasty, it was. He won’t be out too quick. That’s all. Good morning to yer, Mr Ford.’

  Mitch left, leaving Large Lump and Rollo gaping and the Fat Man sagging.

  ‘Well, I ain’t never heard anyone sauce yer like that before, guv,’ said Large Lump. ‘You going to make plans to do a real heavy job, say with extra back-up?’

  ‘And end up in that bleedin’ hospital?’ wheezed Fat Man. ‘No, I ain’t. I’m emigrating.’

  ‘Emigrating?’ said Large Lump. ‘Where to?’

  ‘Bloody Australia, where else?’ bawled Fat Man. ‘But first, you shove off to that hospital and get my fifty quid back from the Parson, real monicker George Wheeler.’

  Lulu and Paul were in Walworth Road, near the East Street market, handing out leaflets to passersby. The weather had turned cloudy and cool, and Lulu was in a thick, shaggy brown jumper and one of her long skirts. She offered a leaflet to a buxom woman carrying an umbrella to cope with the threat of rain. The woman took it, walked on, stopped, read the leaflet and brought it back.

  ‘Here, what d’you give me this rubbish for?’ she said.

  ‘To let you see the Labour Party needs your vote,’ said Lulu.

  ‘Well, they ain’t getting it,’ said the woman belligerently, ‘and I hope they ain’t getting yourn, either.’

  ‘The Labour Party—’

  ‘I don’t want no cheek,’ said the woman. ‘What’s this bit about keeping Churchill out?’

  ‘It’s—’

  ‘It don’t even call him Mr Churchill,’ said the woman accusingly. ‘Where’s your manners?’

  ‘We don’t consider—’

  ‘I’m admiring of Mr Churchill,’ said the woman, ‘an
d so’s me old man, bless his whiskers.’

  ‘Many people don’t share—’

  ‘Well, they ought to,’ said the woman. ‘How many leaflets you got there?’

  ‘A bundle, and—’

  ‘I’ll take the lot,’ said the woman.

  ‘You’re not getting them,’ said Lulu.

  ‘Give ’em here, so’s I can make a bonfire of them in me back yard,’ said the woman.

  ‘Now look here, missus—’

  ‘I’ll learn yer,’ said the woman, and swung her umbrella.

  Lulu ducked, and up came Paul, together with several gawpers.

  ‘What’s the trouble?’ asked Paul.

  The buxom woman, seeing that he too held a bundle of leaflets, cracked him over the head with her umbrella.

  ‘Vote for Mr Churchill!’ she yelled.

  ‘Sorry you’re not one of us, lady,’ said Paul. He took Lulu by the arm and pulled her away, crossing the road with her.

  ‘D’you mind not dragging me?’ said Lulu.

  ‘And d’you mind not upsetting people?’ said Paul.

  ‘Well, that’s choice, I must say,’ said Lulu. ‘What a silly old biddy. Didn’t give me a chance to put more than two words together. How’s your fat head? Did she raise a bump?’

  ‘It’s not damaged,’ said Paul. ‘Come on, it’s lunchtime, and I’ll treat you to a meal in the pie and mash shop in the market.’

  ‘Pie and mash?’ said Lulu. ‘Now you’re talking. And I’m not proud. Pride’s a sin. Tories have got a surplus. My father grew up on pie and mash. Pity he didn’t eat more greens. Then he’d have had more brains. Brains get you to Prime Minister level. Still, he’s on the Honest Joe level. That gets him a steady following.’

  ‘Is that a speech or a large helping of unsolicited information?’ asked Paul as they made their way to the market.

  ‘All of us should receive information gratefully,’ said Lulu. ‘It helps our education.’ She handed out a leaflet to a stallholder as they entered the market. The stallholder promptly used it to wrap up a bunch of spring onions for a customer.