Her almost perfect husba.., p.14
Her Almost Perfect Husband, page 14
‘His slurred speech?’ the doctor said. They were in his office; the doctor behind his desk, Emma and Bernie side by side, facing him. ‘Yes, well that’s partly because of the medication he is on. Think of it as a medical hangover if you like.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Emma managed the beginning of a faint laugh, but within seconds she stopped it; Andrew’s speech was not her main concern. ‘But he’s still …’ It was hard to say the word. ‘... paralysed, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, he is,’ the doctor said, ‘but it’s a really positive response, the fact that your husband is trying to speak. He is doing well, Mrs. Raven, and there is a good chance that he will make an almost full recovery …’
‘Almost?’
‘Hear me out, Mr. Silver, please.’
Bernie lifted both hands, palms upwards and spread. ‘Carry on,’ he said.
‘I say almost because there is likely to be some residual weakness – we can't say yet what form it will take, mental or physical – but there is no reason why, eventually, your partner should not be able to lead a totally normal life and resume his career. But not for some considerable time and, of course, there must be no pressure put on him, either to return to work or not.’ The doctor paused, cleared his throat. ‘I’m sorry to sound so prescriptive,’ he said, then seeing Emma’s smile, he relaxed, sat back in his chair. ‘Yes, I suppose it is an appropriate word for a doctor to use … although … I cannot, nor can any medical man … person …’ He made quotation marks with his fingers, ‘“write the future”, and every stroke patient’s recovery is different.’
What a difficult job this man has, Emma thought, annoyed with herself for being irritated by him earlier. He knows that people like me, like Bernie, want only good news.
‘We understand,’ she said. ‘We know it won’t be easy, but …’ She looked at Bernie. ‘... we both love him – Bernie is a life-long friend as well as a business partner – and we want the best for him.’
‘And that you shall have.’ The doctor stood up; the consultation was over. They shook hands and left the room.
Standing just outside the door, not caring if the doctor could see them, Emma put her head on Bernie's chest. ‘We’ll get through this,’ he whispered. She drew back. Oh, my God, what am I doing, she thought.
* * *
Emma pulled into the gravelled Pengate drive ahead of Bernie. They locked their cars and walked side by side to the front door. Emma put her key into the lock.
‘Before you go in,’ Bernie said, putting his hand over Emma’s. ‘I meant what I said: we will get through this.’ He took his hand away.
‘Yes. We will.’ Emma’s voice was flat; she was tired and there had been enough emotion floating around for one day. She wished Bernie had not driven home with her, but he had muttered something about the green notebook and how he needed to look at it, now. Emma had felt too weary to argue.
The house was quiet and Constance had obviously gone to bed. She wouldn’t be asleep; she’d be reading, waiting to hear the sound of the key in the lock.
‘That you, Emma?’
‘Yes, and I’ve got Bernie with me. He’s just getting some papers from Andrew’s office. I’ll be up in a minute.’
‘Do you want me to make a hot …?’
‘No, Connie, thank you. Go back to sleep.’
‘Oh, I wasn’t asleep.’
‘Yes, well, whatever you were doing go back to it,’ Emma said, trying not to sound cross.
Bernie had already gone into the office.
‘Come and sit down,’ he said, pulling out Andrew’s swivel chair.
Emma shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, ‘just take what you want and go.’
‘Emma?’
‘I’m tired, Bernie. I want to sleep. I just want to stop thinking, wondering, worrying.’
‘Come here.’ Bernie held out his arms to her.
‘No. No. Please.’ The way she was feeling, if she went to him now … ‘No, Bernie.’ It would be so lovely, so easy. It was a good thing Connie was awake. ‘Take the book and go. Please.’
Bernie dropped his arms. ‘Bottom drawer?’
‘Yes. Red folder.’ A whisper was all Emma could manage; she suddenly felt faint. While Bernie opened the drawer and took out the folder, she put her hand on the back of the swivel chair, steadying herself until the faint feeling passed.
‘Got it,’ Bernie said, turning round.
‘Good. Well, I hope it gives you the information you need.’
‘Don’t you want to know what …?’
‘No! If it’s anything to do with that horrible shop, I certainly don’t! Not now, anyway.’ She waved Bernie and the book towards the door. ‘Maybe tomorrow, when I’m not feeling so …’
‘I know.’ His voice was full of warmth and tenderness. ‘You can’t think straight when you’re tired.’ Please, Bernie, just go. ‘I’ll see myself out. Call you tomorrow. Sleep well.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Chigwell house was warm. Bernie took a glass and a bottle of malt whisky into the living room. He put them on a small table beside his favourite chair; it had been his mother’s and now it had become his. Although the sight of it, empty, made him sad, it was strangely comforting to be sitting in it.
For a while he just sat there, sipping his drink and thinking. Emma, Andrew, their future, their past. There was something in their past, his and Andrew’s, that troubled him. Andrew hadn’t always told the truth; Bernie knew that, but it had never bothered him. On the contrary, he had found it amusing. If he had had what Andrew called, in an unguarded wine-fuelled moment, his ‘humble beginnings’, maybe he would have wanted to invent different ones, starting himself off higher up the social register. Had Andrew’s father owned a small hardware shop, but become too ill to run it, and subsequently died? Or had he lost money, gambling on a business venture, then left his wife and child? Or was neither of those stories true? As far as Bernie was concerned it didn’t matter two hoots, but then it was easy for him not to care; he had an assured, well-documented background: successful lawyer turned businessman father, mother from a prosperous Jewish family almost as well established as the Rothschilds.
He drained the glass and reached for the bottle; one more dram and he would look at that notebook. Dutch courage; he felt he needed it. He downed the whisky quickly and took the notebook out of his jacket pocket. He stared at it for a few moments. For God’s sake, what was he expecting? That something horrific from Andrew’s past was going to jump off the pages and hit him? Oh, pull yourself together, Bernie, it’s only a notebook with numbers and letters in it; it’s just Andrew doing what he liked to do, giving the appearance of being mysterious, a schoolboy playing with codes. If Andrew had had a different background, one like his, Bernie reckoned he might have become a spy; he had told him so once, and Andrew had taken him seriously. ‘Oh yes,’ he had said, ‘I could have done that very well.’
Figures and initials. That was all the information, if you could call it that, the notebook contained, and to Bernie’s eyes it seemed very random. The figures could mean anything: pounds sterling, dollars, euros … or not money all; units of merchandise maybe? And the sets of initials … well, they were anybody’s guess. Places, people, map references. It was no good; the more he stared at the pages the less he understood. Besides, it was late; time he went to bed. He glanced at his watch: 10.45. Probably not too late to phone Trev; get the number of that guy he had met at the shop. That would seem the only way, Bernie thought, of making sense of all this: talk to … Garry, that was his name. See if the two and three hundred pounds in envelopes had any connection with 200 and 300 in the notebook.
‘Oh, hi Trev. I need some info from you.’
* * *
Bernie pulled into the car park of The Goose and Pheasant. The pub didn’t appear to have changed in the thirty years since Bernie had been here: mock-Tudor frontage, pebble-glass windows, the same two birds on the swinging sign. Inside, too, it was as he remembered it: dark oak beams and furniture, an ingle-nook with a real wood fire and faded hunting prints on the dun-coloured walls; it was almost exactly how an American tourist would expect an English pub to look, with the exception of the wide-screen TV, not on just now, at the far end.
Trev had advised against talking to Garry: ‘I think the guy said more than he meant to. You might do better with the landlord; his name’s George. If you get there around twelve he’ll be there, and he’ll have time to talk.’
‘A half of your best bitter,’ Bernie said, walking purposefully up to the bar, where a large, imposing-looking man was polishing glasses.
‘Certainly, sir.’ The man pulled the beer and placed the over-flowing glass on the towelling mat.
‘And one for yourself, of course.’ Bernie put a ten pound note on the counter.
‘Oh, thank you, sir.’ The man took the money, gave Bernie his change. ‘And will you be having lunch too, sir?’
‘Oh. Yes … I may as well,’ Bernie replied, as if he wouldn’t have thought of it if the landlord, as the man obviously was, hadn’t put the idea into his head. ‘It is about lunchtime. Yes, good idea, landlord.’ His acting skills were not so rusty after all.
‘George.’
‘George,’ Bernie said, smiling, lifting the glass of foaming beer.
Bernie drank deeply; he would need to eat after this. He smacked his lips. ‘That is a very good ale, George. Mmm. Very good.’ Fortunately it was.
‘Local brewery, sir.’
‘Really?’ Up to now Bernie hadn’t decided quite how he would ‘play this part’. He began to see a way. ‘Yes, yes … I do seem to remember … let me think … Mm … Chilbey? Charlbey, something like that ...’
George laughed. ‘You’re nearly right, sir. Chorley’s.’
‘Chorley’s! Yes, of course. Oh, it’s there on the pump! I must need specs! Right,’ he put the glass on the counter. ‘let’s have a look at your menu.’
‘On the board, sir, above you.’
‘Ah, yes.’ Bernie stepped back and looked up at the chalked board above the bar. ‘I think I’ll have the … um … yes, I’ll have the steak and kidney pie.’ He was tempted to ask if it was home-made, but thought better of it, in case it wasn’t. He was doing all right with George; he didn’t want to put a foot wrong now.
‘If you like to sit down, sir, I’ll bring it over.’
Bernie had already noticed that there was a free table by the window that looked across the road. He walked over to it, sat down and peered out of the window. ‘Brockwood Stores,’ he said aloud, as if reading the faded sign. He paused, dramatically he hoped, and turned to the landlord. ‘D’you know, I thought I recognised this pub the moment I walked in here.’ He pointed out of the window. ‘And that shop opposite. Good lord. Yes, it’s all coming back.’ Oh, Trev, eat your heart out. ‘Must be … oh, let me see … thirty years ago, at least.’ He looked up at George. ‘You weren’t here then, were you, George?’ By his reckoning the landlord would have been about ten when he and Andrew used to come into the pub for a pint – and then go into the shop to buy sweets to hide the smell of the beer.
‘No no, I’ve been here fifteen years. I think. Dotty,’ he called into the kitchen, ‘is it fifteen years we’ve been here?’
‘Sixteen,’ Dotty answered.
‘Sixteen,’ George said.
‘And how long has the shop been closed? Lovely little shop; sold just about everything, I seem to remember.’ George was looking puzzled. ‘Student,’ he said, ‘on my way from Cambridge, snatching a quick pint before I went home to my mother!’
‘Oh yes, we still get some of those.’
Bernie continued to look out of the window, as if entranced by the view, until George brought his food to the table. It hadn’t taken long – five minutes in the micro-wave, probably.
‘Enjoy your meal, sir.’
‘Thank you; that looks good,’ and before George could turn away, ‘Tell me, George, why is the shop closed?’
‘Oh well …’ George slung the tea-towel that had held the hot pie dish over his shoulder. ‘the old man died …’
‘Oh, sorry to hear that. He was a nice old chap … well, he wasn’t old when we … when I knew him. What happened?’
‘He was just old. He was about eighty, I think.’
‘Yes, of course. And his wife?’
‘Oh, she died some years ago. I don’t think she ever got over the problems they had.’
‘Oh?’
‘They had a break-in.’
‘Oh, that’s nasty. Yes, very.’ Bernie paused. ‘So … what’s going to happen to the shop now?’
‘Well … someone’ll buy it, we hope.’
‘Oh. Yes.’ Bernie hoped he wasn’t sounding too ingenuous. Thank God he’d not given George his name, just in case Trev had mentioned it in his conversation with Garry. ‘Yes. Pity to see these village shops closing.’ Another look across the road, appearing to be sad to see this once-lively shop forsaken; in truth Bernie had no idea what he was going to say or do next. He would take a flier: ‘Who’s the agent, d’you know?’ he asked casually.
‘Estate agent, you mean?’
‘Yes.’ What other kind of agent would be selling a village shop?
‘You thinking of buying it, sir?’
‘Me? Oh no, but I do know someone who might be interested.’
‘Hm … that’s two in a week. Garry’s going to be very pleased.’
‘I’m sorry …?’ Bernie was now either getting somewhere or the landlord had smelt a rat; he would have to be careful.
‘Garry Wade. He’s old Freddie’s grandson; he’s selling it.’
‘Of course. Freddie, yes …’ Bernie rubbed his chin, as if thinking hard, ‘and his surname was …’ Oh God, what was it? Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he did know it.
‘His surname was …’
‘No, let me see if I can remember!’ A dramatic pause. ‘It was … it began with a ‘G’, I know that. Um ... Goossen ... no, that’s a family of musicians.’ George was giving him a very odd look. Time to come clean; well, half-clean. ‘It’s what I’m in; classical music.’
‘Oh.’ George seems reassured, but unimpressed.
‘No, definitely not Goossen. Hm ... something very like it.’ Come on, George is waiting. ‘Got it! Gesson. Yes?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ George nodded and smiled. Bernie felt he was undergoing some kind of test.
‘And his wife … his wife was … Oh, I can see her now, small round lady doling out sweets from a big jar.’
‘Freddie had some of them right to the end; kids loved them,’ George said, not supplying the name that was eluding Bernie.
‘Probably not allowed now.’ A glance out of the window, as if seeking inspiration from the shop itself. He had known the woman’s name; he just couldn’t quite bring it to mind; and then it came: ‘Myrtle, that was her name.’
‘Yes, that was her.’ He’d passed the test. ‘Anything else for you, sir?’
‘Yes, a coffee would be nice in a minute or two; thank you.’ Bernie wasn’t ready to leave yet; he wanted as much information as he could get. With George behind the bar counter – a group of five laughing women, who obviously knew him well, were in need of ‘his service’ they said – Bernie finished his steak and kidney pie. Home-made or not, it was very good. He placed his knife and fork tidily together on the plate and sat back in his chair. Now what? He knew the name of the shop owner, Freddie Gesson – well, he sort of knew that before, really – and the name of his wife, but how was having that confirmed by George going to help him? And how did it connect with what Trev had told him, or with Andrew, or Andrew’s green notebook? He took the notebook out of his pocket, opened it at a page with the mysterious letters and numbers. He began to run his finger down the column of figures, the two hundreds and the three hundreds, and next to them the initials B.F.G. He felt his hand turning clammy, his mouth dry. He reached for the beer and drained the last drop; he put the empty glass down on the beer mat; his fingers were shaking. B.F.G. Brockwood, Freddie Gesson. It had to be. Andrew had been giving money to Freddie Gesson. Bernie’s stomach churned.
‘You all right, sir?’ George had brought his coffee.
‘Yes. Yes, thank you.’ He reached for the coffee, trying hard to keep his hand from trembling. ‘Thank you,’ he said again, wondering why the landlord had not moved away. He lifted the cup to his lips. As he drank, he felt his nerves steadying. ‘Good coffee.’ He put the cup down on the saucer, spotted the tiny caramel biscuit. ‘Ah,’ he said, unwrapping it, ‘I like these. Never see them for sale, though, do you?’
‘They’re specially for the catering trade, sir; I can let you have a few if you’d like.’
‘Oh, that would be nice; thank you.’
‘You live in this area now, do you, sir?’
The question threw Bernie; oh God, think quickly, man. ‘Er... no. I live in Essex. I have a friend who … who wants to move into this area and …’ a sudden semi-truthful inspiration ‘ … Well, I quite often go to Cambridge, you see and … I thought, well … go back the way I used to, when I was a student … through all the lovely old villages, so many of them beginning with a B.’ He gave a faint laugh. ‘Barley, Barkway, Braughing … Brockwood. Yes … mmm … and I don’t think any one of them has a village shop now. Do they?’
‘Braughing does.’
‘Oh, really? Oh, that is good.’
‘The others, no. Sadly, they’ve gone.’ George smiled and went behind the bar. Quickly Bernie gathered up his coat and gloves and paid his bill: he’d been here long enough.
‘Don’t forget your biscuits, sir.’ George held them out over the counter.
‘Oh no. Thank you.’
‘If you come this way again, do please drop in.’
