Sons and Daughters (12 page)

‘Eh?’

‘Having had a few pints first in the local boozer,’ said Large Lump.

‘Shut up,’ growled Fat Man.

‘Right, guv.’

‘Clever my bleedin’ elbow,’ said Fat Man. ‘There’s flatfeet on the beat all over Walworth, like shiploads of sailors searching night and day for who swiped their rum. You think they’re going to look on and sing, “Clap hands, there’s old Charlie”, do you? They’ll cop you as soon as you throw the first brick. So listen.’

‘All ears, guv.’

‘I can bloody well see that, can’t I?’ said Fat Man. ‘Get ’em trimmed. Now, I know the Adams family. Thick as Ali Baba’s forty thieves.’

‘Who’s he, guv?’

‘One of Sammy Adams’s ancestors.’

‘That a fact, guv?’

‘Shut up and listen,’ said Fat Man, whose every word was squeezed out on account of his neck blubber. ‘The Adams family. The men are all ponces, the females all do what they’re told, and they all love each other.’

‘Strike a ruddy light, ain’t that incestry, guv?’ said Large Lump.

‘Only at bedtime,’ said Fat Man.

‘I tell yer, I’m having a bad time believing that,’ said Large Lump.

‘I’m having a bleedin’ worse time knowing you do, you brainless tadpole,’ said Fat Man. ‘Now, what I also know comes from Poky Prodnose who did some work for me yesterday.’ Poky Prodnose was a shifty private investigator. ‘Sammy Adams has got a married niece, name of Rosie Chapman. She’s a favourite of his. I knew that. I’ve now been informed by Poky that she and her husband, and
another niece of Sammy Adams, run a very profitable chicken and egg farm. I want it smashed up, torn to pieces and every chicken turned into a bit of ruined poultry. And you can scramble any eggs you find. Get the idea?’

‘Yus, guv, smash it all up, chop the chickens and jump on the eggs.’

‘The idea, you berk, is to hurt Mister Bleedin’ Sammy Adams through his poncy family,’ said Fat Man. ‘When that job’s done, I’ll get Poky to find out which of his other relatives Sammy Adams cries over at Christmas.’

‘Well, guv, all right, if that’s what you want,’ said Large Lump, ‘but might I be so bold as to mention it ain’t going to hurt his business?’

‘It’s going to hurt him and his bleedin’ loveydovey family,’ said Fat Man. ‘After which, I’ll think about his business. Now then, about this chicken farm and how to get there. Listen again.’

‘I’m still all ears, guv.’

‘Well, don’t wag ’em, or you’ll take off,’ said Fat Man.

‘Boots old love,’ said Polly that night, ‘with you and Sammy away in Cornwall for two weeks, are you sure Tommy can manage if trouble arrives?’

‘Trouble from the Fat Man, you mean?’ said Boots.

‘Yes, I do mean him,’ said Polly. ‘From all you’ve told me he’s a dyed-in-the-wool crook.’

‘He’ll make it a night job for certain,’ said Boots,
‘and Tommy, I hope, will be safely asleep at home. It’s Eli Greenberg’s stepsons who’ll do the managing. They’re already on night duty at the Belsize Park factory.’

‘You’re confident they can cope with a spot of midnight villainy?’ said Polly.

‘I’m confident that Eli Greenberg knows precisely what Michal and Jacob can cope with,’ said Boots.

‘Did you say that with your fingers crossed?’ asked Polly with a smile.

‘Did I?’ said Boots.

‘Did you?’

‘Yup,’ said Boots.

‘You old darling,’ said Polly.

‘What brought that on?’ asked Boots.

‘Your ability to look a possible crisis in the eye without biting your lip, scratching your ear or losing your head,’ said Polly.

‘What’s on the surface can be deceptive,’ said Boots.

‘Your surface is true,’ said Polly. For the umpteenth time she thought how relaxed he always was, and so content with life, dispensing goodwill to all and sundry, awkward or stupid people included. She knew it was his survival from the war of the trenches that had made him treasure life and framed his attitude of tolerance and understanding, although there were, of course, the certain moments when his hidden steel showed. That could excite her, the surfacing of the Viking.
‘Look here, old sport, are you certain the Fat Man won’t blow up the shop and offices, and not the factory?’

‘No, I’m not certain,’ said Boots, ‘so I’ve made arrangements.’

‘Well, tell,’ said Polly.

‘You know Mitch, our van driver, one of my corporals during the war against the Kaiser, and a sergeant in the Home Guard during the war against the Nazi lunatic,’ said Boots. ‘He and an old West Kent comrade are also on night duty. In the Camberwell shop.’

‘But he must be well over fifty,’ said Polly, ‘and so must his old comrade.’

‘No problem,’ said Boots. ‘The moment any villains arrive, they’ll fix bayonets and charge.’

Polly had hysterics.

‘Oh, my God,’ she said, ‘are you real?’

‘Alive and well, Polly.’

‘Fix bayonets and charge?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘Your manner of speaking is sending me dotty.’

‘Fascinating,’ said Boots.

‘Fascinating?’

‘Yes, dotty Polly,’ said Boots.

‘Dear man, come to bed,’ said Polly.

‘Now?’ said Boots. ‘It’s not ten yet.’

‘Can’t help that,’ said Polly, ‘I’m sexy.’

‘You’re what?’

‘Sexy,’ said Polly. ‘Isn’t it bitter that so many people think you shouldn’t have sex when you’re over fifty?’

‘It’s even more bitter when so many people think you can’t,’ said Boots.

Polly had another bout of enjoyable hysterics.

‘I can’t cap that,’ she said.

‘Did I say something?’ asked Boots.

‘Everything,’ said Polly, rising from her armchair. She took a few sinuous steps, bent her head and kissed him. ‘Boots old soldier, you’re dear to me,’ she said.

‘Since it’s mutual,’ said Boots, ‘let’s go up to bed, then.’

‘Yes, let’s show ’em,’ said Polly.

‘No, let’s keep it to ourselves,’ said Boots. ‘That kind of thing is strictly private. The day it becomes public will be the day when it’ll be on a par with shopping.’

In the living room of a house in Kestrel Avenue, Mrs Patsy Adams, formerly Patsy Kirk of Boston, USA, was thumping husband Daniel with a cushion. Daniel, seated in an armchair, was taking the blows like a man. He was, in fact, shouting with laughter.

‘Take that!’ said Patsy. Thump. ‘And that!’ Wallop. Then she chucked the cushion at him. Daniel caught it and cuddled it.

‘Nice when it leaves off,’ he said.

‘Daniel Adams, I hate you,’ said Patsy, dark hair ruffled, hazel eyes full of sparks. She was twenty-two, a few months younger than Daniel, and a credit to the land of her birth in her looks and her outgoing nature. ‘You were letting Betty flirt with you. Worse, you were ogling her.’

‘Patsy, I honestly beg to differ,’ said Daniel. They had been entertaining friends, a young married couple like themselves, and the visitors had only just left. ‘I mean, ogling?’

‘Ogling for sure, when she was sitting on the arm of your chair and showing her skinny legs,’ said Patsy.

‘Believe me, Patsy,’ said Daniel, ‘I reserve my ogling just for you. I can say with a fair amount of sincerity that I didn’t notice whether Betty’s legs were skinny or fat, or even if she had one leg or two. What I did notice was her scent, something like minty garden peas.’

‘You’re not fooling me,’ said Patsy.

‘Come here,’ said Daniel, and he dropped the cushion, leaned forward, grabbed her and sat her on his lap. Patsy let it happen. ‘Now listen, Patsy, you’re definitely what the doctor ordered for me.’

‘Well, I sure am glad I was specifically prescribed and not pulled out of a hat,’ said Patsy. ‘Daniel, d’you like being married?’

‘I like being married to you,’ said Daniel. ‘I don’t think I’d like being married to Betty. She gushes.’

‘I’ll say,’ said Patsy, ‘and all over you.’

‘Well, if she’s got a problem, I can’t help,’ said Daniel. ‘You’re my one and only, now and until I’m ninety.’

‘What happens when you’re ninety?’ asked Patsy.

‘I think that’s when I’ll need my own kind of help, to get myself pointed at you,’ said Daniel. Patsy laughed then. So he kissed her, and her
forgiving lips clung. Daniel was her fun guy, her very own fun guy, and she definitely objected to covetous outsiders. Come to that, Daniel could object very vigorously to any guy giving her the eye, which in a way was kind of thrilling. ‘Well, now,’ he said, ‘I hope Dad’s business worries will be solved by the time he gets back from his holiday.’

‘That fat crook you told me about sounds like a hood,’ said Patsy. ‘Can’t someone blow his head off?’

‘It’ll take a cannon shell to do that,’ said Daniel, ‘and there’s not a lot of them about in this country.’

‘Well, find one, buy it and use it,’ said Patsy.

‘That’s all right in the Wild West,’ said Daniel, ‘but not here. I’d get executed at dawn.’

‘Oh, gee whiz,’ said Patsy, ‘please don’t get executed at dawn, or at sundown, Daniel.’

‘Dad and Uncle Boots are leaving it all to Michal and Jacob Greenberg,’ said Daniel. ‘Hello, do I hear a real cry for help?’

‘It’s Arabella,’ said Patsy, ‘she’s awake.’

Arabella was their infant daughter.

‘I’ll go up,’ said Daniel.

‘We’ll both go,’ said Patsy, ‘she likes seeing both of us.’

‘Right, start legging it to the apples and pears,’ said Daniel, which Patsy knew was the cockney term for stairs.

Up in the Lake District, Sammy and Susie’s eldest daughter, twenty-year-old Bess, was on a little copse-covered island in the middle of Lake Windermere. She had rowed herself there in a hired boat, while her friends and other visitors toured the expansive, shimmering lake in a large tourist motor-driven vessel. Some of her undergraduate friends had become noisy and irritating, and she felt like being by herself for a couple of hours. She had a lunch picnic of fresh rolls, cheese and ripe tomatoes with her, plus a flask of hot coffee.

She wandered in and out of the leafy copse, emerging to find a man sitting near the lapping waters, absorbed in the shining ripples. He turned his head as he heard her.

‘Hi there,’ he said, ‘are you alone?’

‘Oh, sorry if I disturbed you,’ said Bess, fair-haired like Paula and her mum, and distinctly appealing. Once she had been noticeably plump, and Sammy had called her his little Plum Pudding. Blessedly, however, growing up had effected the
demise of hitherto obstinate puppy fat. Now she had no quarrels with her figure.

‘No, you’re not disturbing me,’ said the man, black hair glinting in the sunshine, strong-boned face brown, dark green sweater and well-worn oatmeal corduroys close-fitting. ‘Unless you’ve brought a dozen friends with you.’

I think he’s American, said Bess to herself. At least, he sounds like one.

‘Oh, I’m by myself,’ she said, ‘I was going to have a picnic here.’

‘Search me for a surprise,’ he said, ‘I’m just about to have mine of Lancashire meat pie and cheese. You’re welcome to join me. Where I’m sitting isn’t exactly London’s Hyde Park, but there’s still room for one more.’

Bess hesitated. Compared to Paula and most of her cousins, she was a little reserved. But the day was fine, the lake lovely, the small copse quiet, and the man himself very natural in his friendliness.

‘Oh, thanks,’ she said, and sat down next to him. Her picnic was in a carrier bag.

‘Jeremy Passmore,’ he said with a smile, and put out his hand.

Bess took it and they shook hands.

‘Bess Adams,’ she said.

‘Happy to meet you, Bess Adams,’ he said.

‘I think you’re American,’ said Bess as the waters lapped by.

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘From Chicago. Enlisted in 1942, when I was twenty and thought I knew all I needed to. Had my baptism of fire in North Africa
alongside Monty’s Eighth Army, which sobered me down a little. No, more than a little. I was given a liaison posting later, as a lieutenant, with Monty’s Second Army Group a few weeks prior to D-Day. Slightly wounded during that hell of a battle for Caen, badly wounded early in ’45, hospitalized in England and stayed there when the war was over.’

‘Stayed in hospital?’ said Bess.

‘No, in this little old island. I’ll be going back to Chicago one day soon, I guess. That’s my life story, which you probably noted didn’t start for real until ’42. Now tell me yours, or I’ll hog our time together.’

‘But what made you stay here?’ asked Bess, hair travelling around her head in the breeze.

‘Ancestry,’ said Jeremy. ‘My great-grandparents emigrated from a small town name of Tenterden in your county of Kent. Would you know that, Bess?’

‘I know of it,’ said Bess, ‘but I’ve never been there.’

‘Try it one day, it’s charming,’ said Jeremy. ‘I wonder sometimes, I sure do, why my ancestors ever left it for Chicago.’

‘Most emigrants left because of the economic doldrums, didn’t they?’ said Bess.

‘Economic doldrums?’ Jeremy eyed her like a man tickled. ‘I like that. Well, a few months after the war ended, I tracked my ancestors down and found I had aunts, uncles and cousins. I’ve been hitting it off with Aunt Amy and Uncle
Dan for over a couple of years. They insisted.’

‘You mean you live with them?’

‘Bess, it’s home from home, but I can’t stay under their feet for ever, and as I said, I’ll be sailing for the States soon.’

‘Don’t you have a job?’ asked Bess.

‘You’re asking?’ said Jeremy. ‘So I’m telling. I’ve a work permit and have been earning my English dough as manager of a farm.’

‘I think that’s wonderful,’ said Bess.

‘Wonderful?’ Jeremy looked tickled again. ‘I think you’re being English.’

‘In what way?’ asked Bess.

‘The polite way.’

‘No, really,’ said Bess. The breeze plucked at the skirt of her dress and lifted it. Hastily, she adjusted it. Jeremy noted her slight blush.

‘Your turn, Bess,’ he said. ‘Or shall we start taking in some calories first?’

‘Well, I do feel a bit peckish,’ said Bess, and they brought their food into being and began to eat.

‘Now start talking,’ said Jeremy.

So Bess, put at ease by his camaraderie, told him about her family, particularly about how her dad became a self-made businessman.

‘Yes, and would you believe, he started with capital banked in his old socks.’