Collected Short Stories

by Jeffrey Archer

  Deirdre stopped and stared into his deep blue eyes for a moment, but said nothing. Her companions stepped out into the cobbled road and quickened their pace, pretending it was not them to whom the stranger had spoken. Deirdre smiled at him as he stood to one side, allowing her to continue on her way. Arnold had warned her never to engage in conversation with the natives.

  When they reached the restaurant at which they’d arranged to meet for lunch, the three ladies found their husbands drinking imported lager at the bar. Arnold was explaining to the major and Malcolm why he had refused to pay his subscription to the Conservative Party that year. “Not a penny will I part with,” he insisted, “while they can’t get their own house in order.” Deirdre suspected that his unwillingness to pay had rather more to do with his recent defeat when he had run for chairman of the local branch.

  Arnold passed the next hour offering his views on everything from defense cuts to New Age travelers to single-parent families, all of which he was resolutely against. When the bill for lunch was finally presented, he spent some considerable time working out what each of them had eaten, and therefore how much they should contribute toward the total.

  Arnold had already resigned himself to the fact that he would have to allocate part of his afternoon to bargaining on Deirdre’s behalf, now that she had finally found the dinner service she had set her heart on. Everyone else had agreed to come along and watch the born entrepreneur at work.

  When Arnold entered the House of Pétros, he had to admit that Deirdre seemed to have “located the correct establishment.” He kept repeating this observation, as if to prove that he had been right all along to insist that she wait until their final port of call before the big decision was taken. He seemed blissfully unaware of how the price of pottery had increased from island to island, and Deirdre made no attempt to enlighten him. She simply guided him over to the “Delphi” service displayed on a large table in the center of the room, and prayed. They all agreed it was quite magnificent, but when Arnold was told the price, he shook his head sadly. Deirdre would have protested, but she, like so many of the bank’s customers over the years, had seen that look on her husband’s face before. She therefore resigned herself to settling for the “Pharos” set—excellent, but unquestionably second best, and far more expensive than comparable sets had been on any of the other four islands.

  The three wives began selecting the pieces they would like to buy, while their husbands gravely reminded them how much they could afford. The choices having been made, Arnold spent a considerable time haggling with the shopkeeper. He finally managed to get a 20 percent discount on the total. Once the figure had been established, Arnold was dispatched to find an English bank at which he could change the necessary travelers’ checks. With passports and signed checks in hand, he left the shop to carry out his mission.

  As Arnold stepped onto the sidewalk, the young man who had approached Deirdre leaped into his path and asked, “You English?”

  “Naturally,” replied Arnold, sidestepping him and marching on briskly in order to avoid any further conversation with such a scruffy individual. As he had told the major over lunch, “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentis.” It was the one snippet of Latin he could still recall from his schooldays.

  When he had selected a bank, Arnold marched straight into the manager’s office and changed everyone’s checks at a minutely better rate than the one displayed on the board in the window. Pleased with his saving of fifty drachmas, he headed back to the House of Pétros.

  He was displeased to find that the young man was still loitering on the pavement outside the shop. Arnold refused to favor the unshaven ruffian with even a glance, but he did catch the words, “You want to save money, Englishman?”

  Arnold stopped in his tracks, as any born entrepreneur would, and turned to study more closely the loutish youth who had addressed him. He was about to continue on his way when the young man said, “I know where pottery is everything half price.”

  Arnold hesitated once again, and looked through the shop window to see his companions standing around waiting for his return; on the counter stood six large packages, already wrapped up and awaiting payment.

  Arnold turned back to take a closer look at the inarticulate foreigner.

  “Potter comes from village called Kalafatis,” he said. “Bus journey only half hour, then everything half price.”

  While Arnold was digesting this piece of information, the young Greek’s hand shot out hopefully. Arnold extracted a fifty-drachma note from the roll of money he had obtained at the bank, willing to speculate with the profit he had made on that particular transaction in exchange for the information he had just acquired—the act of a true entrepreneur, he thought as he marched triumphantly into the shop.

  “I have made an important discovery,” he announced, and beckoned them all into a corner to impart his inside information.

  Deirdre did not seem at all convinced, until Arnold suggested, “Perhaps we might even be able to afford the ‘Delphi’ set you hankered after, my dear. In any case, why pay double, when the only sacrifice you need to make is a half-hour bus journey”?

  Malcolm nodded his agreement, as if listening to sage advice from senior counsel, and even the major, though grumbling a little, finally fell into line.

  “Since we set sail for Athens early this evening,” declared the major, “we ought to take the next bus to Kalafatis.” Arnold nodded, and without another word led his little band out of the shop, not even glancing toward the packages that were left behind on the counter.

  When they stepped out onto the street, Arnold was relieved to find that the young man who had given him the tipoff was no longer to be seen.

  They came to a halt at the bus stop, where Arnold was a little disappointed to discover several passengers from the ship already standing in the line, but he persuaded himself that they would not be heading for the same destination. They waited in the hot sun for another forty minutes before a bus eventually pulled up. When Arnold first saw the vehicle, his heart sank. “Just think of how much money we’ll be saving,” he said when he noticed the looks of despair on the faces of his companions.

  The journey across the island to the east coast might well have taken thirty minutes had it been in a Range Rover with no reason to slow down. But since the bus driver picked up everybody he saw along the way, without regard to official stops, they eventually arrived in Kalafatis an hour and twenty minutes later. Long before they had clambered off the ancient vehicle, Deirdre was exhausted, Joan was exasperated, and the major’s wife was developing a migraine.

  “Bus goes no further,” said the driver as Arnold and his companions filed off. “Leave for return journey one hour. Last bus of the day.”

  The little band gazed up at the narrow, winding track that led to the potter’s workplace.

  “The journey was worth it for the view alone,” gasped Arnold, as he came to a halt halfway along the path and gazed out over the Aegean. His companions didn’t even bother to stop and look, let alone offer an opinion. It took them another ten minutes of determined walking before they reached their destination, and by then even Arnold had fallen silent.

  As the six weary tourists finally entered the pottery, what breath they had left was taken away. They stood mesmerized by shelf after shelf of beautiful objects. Arnold felt a warm glow of triumph.

  Deirdre immediately went about her business, and quickly located the “Delphi” dinner service. It looked even more magnificent than she remembered, but when she checked a little label that hung from a soup tureen’s handle she was horrified to discover that the cost was only a little less than it had been at the House of Pétros.

  Deirdre came to a decision. She turned to face her husband, who was toying with a pipe stand, and declared in a clarion voice that all could hear, “As everything is at half price, Arnold, presumably I can go ahead and buy the ‘Delphi’?”

  The other four swung around to see how the great entrepreneur would react. A
rnold seemed to hesitate for a moment before he placed the pipe stand back on the shelf and said, “Of course, my dear. Isn’t that why we came all this way in the first place?”

  The three women immediately began selecting items from the shelves, finally gathering between them one dinner service, two tea sets, one coffee set, three vases, five ashtrays, two pitchers, and a toast rack. Arnold abandoned the pipe stand.

  When the bill for Deirdre’s purchases was presented to her husband, he hesitated once again, but he was painfully aware that all five of his shipmates were glaring at him. He reluctantly cashed his remaining travelers’ checks, unwilling to bring himself even to glance at the disadvantageous exchange rate that was displayed in the window. Deirdre made no comment. Malcolm and the major silently signed away their own travelers’ checks, with little appearance of triumph showing on either of their faces.

  The goods having been paid for, the six tourists emerged from the workshop, laden down with shopping bags. As they began to retrace their steps back down the winding track, the door of the pottery was closed behind them.

  “We’ll have to get a move on if we’re not going to miss the last bus,” shouted Arnold as he stepped into the center of the path, avoiding a large cream Mercedes that was parked outside the workshop. “But what a worthwhile excursion,” he added as they trundled off down the track. “You have to admit, I saved you all a fortune.”

  Deirdre was the last to leave the shop. She paused to rearrange her numerous bags, and was surprised to see a number of the pottery’s staff forming a line at a table by the side of the shop. A handsome young man in a grubby T-shirt and torn jeans was presenting each of them in turn with a small brown envelope.

  Deirdre couldn’t take her eyes off the young man. Where had she seen him before? He looked up, and for a moment she stared into those deep blue eyes. And then she remembered. The young man shrugged his shoulders and smiled. Deirdre returned the smile, picked up her bags, and set off down the path after her companions.

  As they clambered onto the bus, Deirdre was just in time to hear Arnold declare: “You know, Major, I should never have taken my father’s advice and settled for the life of a banker. You see, I’m one of nature’s born entre …”

  Deirdre smiled again as she looked out of the window and watched the good-looking young man speed past them in his large cream Mercedes.

  He smiled and waved to her as the last bus began its slow journey back to Mykonos.

  NOT THE REAL THING

  Gerald Haskins and Walter Ramsbottom had been eating corn flakes for over a year.

  “I’ll swap you my MC and DSO for your VC,” said Walter, on the way to school one morning.

  “Never,” said Gerald. “In any case, it takes ten boxtops to get a VC, and you only need two for an MC or a DSO.”

  Gerald went on collecting boxtops until he had every medal displayed on the back of the box.

  Walter never got the VC.

  Angela Bradbury thought they were both silly.

  “They’re only replicas,” she continually reminded them, “not the real thing. And I am only interested in the real thing,” she told them haughtily.

  Neither Gerald nor Walter cared for Angela’s opinion at the time, both boys still being more interested in medals than the views of the opposite sex.

  Kellogg’s offer of free medals ended on January 1, 1950, just at the time when Gerald had managed to complete the set.

  Walter gave up eating corn flakes.

  Children of the fifties were then given the opportunity to discover the world of Meccano. Meccano demanded eating even more corn flakes, and within a year Gerald had collected a large enough set to build bridges, pontoons, cranes, and even an office block.

  Gerald’s family nobly went on munching corn flakes, but when he told them he wanted to build a whole town—Kellogg’s positively, final offer—it took nearly all his friends in the fifth grade at Hull Grammar School to assist him in consuming enough breakfast cereal to complete his ambition.

  Walter Ramsbottom refused to be of assistance.

  Angela Bradbury’s help was never sought.

  All three continued on their separate ways.

  Two years later, when Gerald Haskins won a place at Durham University, no one was surprised that he chose to study engineering and listed as his main hobby collecting medals.

  Walter Ramsbottom joined his father in the family jewelry business and started courting Angela Bradbury.

  It was during the spring break in Gerald’s second year at Durham that he came across Walter and Angela again. They were sitting in the same row at a Bach cello concert in Hull Town Hall. Walter told him in the intermission that they had just become engaged but had not yet settled on a date for the wedding.

  Gerald hadn’t seen Angela for over a year, but this time he did listen to her opinions, because like Walter he fell in love with her.

  He replaced eating corn flakes with continually inviting Angela out to dinner in an effort to win her away from his old rival.

  Gerald notched up another victory when Angela returned her engagement ring to Walter a few days before Christmas.

  Walter spread it around that Gerald only wanted to marry Angela because her father was chairman of the Hull City Amenities Committee and he was hoping to get a job with the council after he’d taken his degree at Durham. When the invitations for the wedding were sent out, Walter was not on the guest list.

  Mr. and Mrs. Haskins traveled to Multavia for their honeymoon, partly because they couldn’t afford Nice and didn’t want to go to Cleethorpes. In any case, the local travel agent was making a special offer for those considering a visit to the tiny kingdom sandwiched between Austria and Czechoslovakia.

  When the newly married couple arrived at their hotel in Teske, the capital, they discovered why the terms had been so reasonable.

  Multavia was, in 1959, going through an identity crisis as it attempted to adjust to yet another treaty drawn up by a Dutch lawyer in Geneva, written in French, but with the Russians and Americans in mind. However, thanks to King Alfons III, its shrewd and popular monarch, the kingdom continued to enjoy uninterrupted grants from the West and non-disruptive visits from the East.

  The capital of Multavia, the Haskinses were quickly to discover, had an average temperature of ninety-two degrees Fahrenheit in June, no rainfall, and the remains of a sewage system that had been indiscriminately bombed by both sides between 1939 and 1944. Angela actually found herself holding her nose as she walked through the cobbled streets. The People’s Hotel claimed to have forty-five rooms, but what the brochure did not point out was that only three of them had bathrooms, and none of those had bath plugs. Then there was the food, or lack of it; for the first time in his life Gerald lost weight.

  The honeymoon couple were also to discover that Multavia boasted no monuments, art galleries, theaters, or opera houses worthy of the name, and that the outlying country was flatter and less interesting than the fens of Cambridgeshire. The kingdom had no coastline and the only river, the Plotz, flowed from Germany and on into Russia, thus ensuring that none of the locals trusted it.

  By the end of their honeymoon the Haskinses were only too pleased to find that Multavia did not boast a national airline. BOAC got them home safely, and that would have been the end of Gerald’s experience of Multavia had it not been for those sewers—or the lack of them.

  Once the Haskinses had returned to Hull, Gerald took up his appointment as an assistant in the engineering department of the city council. His first job was as a third engineer with special responsibility for the city’s sewerage. Most ambitious young men would have treated such an appointment as nothing more than a step on life’s ladder. Gerald however did not. He quickly made contact with all the leading sewerage companies, their advisers, and his opposite numbers throughout the county.

  Two years later he was able to put in front of his father-in-law’s committee a paper showing how the council could save a considerable amount of the
taxpayers’ money by redeveloping its sewerage system.

  The committee were impressed and decided to carry out Mr. Haskins’s recommendation, and at the same time appointed him second engineer.

  That was the first occasion Walter Ramsbottom ran for the council; he wasn’t elected.

  When, three years later, the network of little tunnels and waterways had been completed, Gerald’s diligence was rewarded by his appointment as deputy borough engineer. In the same year his father-in-law became mayor, and Walter Ramsbottom became a councillor.

  Councils up and down the country were now acknowledging Gerald as a man whose opinion should be sought if they had any anxieties about their sewerage system. This provoked an irreverent round of jokes at every Rotary Club dinner Gerald attended, but they nevertheless still hailed him as the leading authority in his field, or drain.

  When in 1966 the Borough of Halifax considered putting out to tender the building of a new sewerage system they first consulted Gerald Haskins—Yorkshire being the one place on earth where a prophet is with honor in his own country.

  After spending a day in Halifax with the town council’s senior engineer and realizing how much had to be spent on the new system, Gerald remarked to his wife, not for the first time, “Where there’s muck there’s brass.” But it was Angela who was shrewd enough to work out just how much of that brass her husband could get hold of with the minimum of risk. During the next few days Gerald considered his wife’s proposition, and when he returned to Halifax the following week it was not to visit the council chambers but the Midland Bank. Gerald did not select the Midland by chance; the manager of the bank was also chairman of the planning committee on the Halifax borough council.

  A deal that suited both sides was struck between the two Yorkshiremen, and with the bank’s blessing Gerald resigned his position as deputy borough engineer and formed a private company. When he presented his tender, in competition with several large organizations from London, no one was surprised that Haskins of Hull was selected unanimously by the planning committee to carry out the job.