Her almost perfect husba.., p.8
Her Almost Perfect Husband, page 8
It wasn’t fair … well, not fair shares anyway, but he wasn’t going to argue with Grandad’s will; you mustn’t do that, go against someone’s last wishes. He’d seen a film once, really spooked him, where this guy forced his brother to give him a load of money that wasn’t rightly his. It had brought the guy nothing but trouble; he ended up with a very nasty, painful death. No way was Garry chancing that, no thank you. Besides, that kind of dosh brought responsibility, which was something Garry did not do, not if he could help it. No, things were best left as they were.
It wasn’t as if Grandad hadn’t left him any money. She’d be pleased, Paula would, if he did tell her. He knew what she’d say, though: ‘honest money,’ then she’d spoil it by adding ‘at last.’ No, he wasn’t going to do that. And if he did tell her and she saw the money, she’d want to take it out and count it, bound to, and then she’d see that paper, with the writing: “This time, Garry, do the right thing.” Give it to a charity? Which one, though. Put it in a bank? No sense in that, you got nothing for it. Buy a car, maybe? Wheels of his own; yeah, he liked that – but there was no way he was going to talk to Paula about it.
‘You all right?’ Paula gave him a quick glance; they had left the country road and were now on the A10, heading south.
‘Yeah, fine.’
‘You’re very quiet.’
‘Yeah, well …’ He didn’t mean to, but he looked down at the case on his lap. ‘It’s just …’
‘I know. Grandad’s things; bound to be … well, upsetting.’
‘Yeah. It was.’ It was a good line to follow. ‘Yeah.’ He sighed, turned and smiled at his sister. ‘Sorry, if I …’
‘It’s okay, I understand.’ Paula took her left hand off the steering wheel, patted her brother’s arm.
Instinctively Garry drew away. Immediately regretting his move, he said. ‘Sorry, Sis. I know you’re trying to help, but … it’s not easy. You know?’
‘I know.’ Paula slowed down as they approached a set of temporary traffic lights showing red. She looked at Garry hard; he felt her eyes on him: he mustn’t play the bereaved grandson too much. ‘Course he missed Grandad, but not that much; he’d hardly ever seen him in the past few years, what with one thing and another … and ‘being away’. Grandad had never asked, when they’d spoken on the phone, exactly where Garry had been. Sometimes he really had been away, out of the country, like that time he went to Ibiza. Didn’t remember much of it, the holiday, but he had gone on a plane from Luton, and because Grandad had been in the RAF in the war, it was something they could talk about. Garry’d made the flights there and back last him for several ‘holidays’. He didn’t feel good about it, but it was better, kinder, than letting the old man know where he had been some of those times.
The lights changed; Paula put the car into gear and moved forward.
‘You know …’ she said, hesitantly.
‘What?’ Garry turned to look at her.
‘Whatever you’ve got in that case …’
‘Toys! I got toys! You saw them … old toys.’
‘All right, all right! Keep your hair on.’
‘Well, stop going on about it then.’ The sooner he was out of here the better; thank God they’d soon be at the roundabout with the turn off to the Cross.
‘What I was going to say …’ Garry sighed heavily. ‘... Let me finish! I was going to say … You won’t like this, Garry, but it needs to be said.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake! Will you stop going on at me! I’ve half a mind to get out of the car now, and get myself a lift from someone else!’ He looked straight ahead.
‘Calm down, will you. What’s the matter with you? You’re not on something again, are you?’
‘No, I am not! Jesus! I’m clean, you know I am …’ If only she would shut up; if she went on like this, he would need to take something. He still wouldn’t look at her.
‘I’m sorry, Gaz.’ She hadn’t called him that in a long while; funny, it gave him a warm, being-a-child-again feeling. He turned his head and smiled at her; she worried about him and he was grateful. No one else did, not any more.
‘What was it you wanted to say?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Okay.’ He shrugged his shoulders, looked straight ahead again. Best if they didn’t talk; he knew what she wanted to say: ‘Time for you to get a proper job.’ Nearly there; they’d just passed the big Tesco and Marks’s on the right. The silence between them became oppressive. Did Paula know their grandfather had all that cash? How could she? He had found it, yeah, but maybe Grandad had written something about it, somewhere; in a notebook: Grandad liked writing things down in notebooks, nearly always kept one in his brown overall top pocket. Maybe Paula had seen that notebook; maybe that solicitor, the one who’d told them about who got what in the will, maybe he’d … This was killing him.
‘You hold that case any tighter, you’ll break it. It’s only cardboard, you know.’
Garry looked down at his hands; his knuckles were white. He lifted his hands one by one, stretched his fingers. ‘Yeah.’ He laughed faintly. ‘Don’ like being a passenger.’
‘Since when? You was all right going there.’ Paula shook her head. ‘I don’t know … Time you had some wheels of your own.’
‘With what?’ He hoped he sounded angry.
‘Well, that’s just it, isn’t it?’ He had played right into her hands. ‘If you got yourself a proper job …’
‘I will! Just get out of my face, will you!’ Now he was angry.
‘There’s no need to be offensive. You’re forty years old, Garry, it’s high time you supported yourself, stopped relying on benefits in between the manky jobs you do get.’
‘I know! I will!!’ He took the hardness out of his voice. ‘I promise you, Sis, I will. I owe it to Grandad.’
‘Grandad?’
‘Yeah. I’ve not told you this before …’ Garry wished his heart would stop thumping so loud. ‘... but, not long before Grandad died, he made me promise I’d …’
‘What?’
‘... stop farting around.’ Paula laughed. ‘It’s not funny.’
‘No, I know. It’s just …’ Paula said gently, ‘I can hear him saying it.’
‘Yeah.’ Garry was pensive; he’d made it up, but even so, in his mind’s eye he could see Grandad, in the shop, turning the Open/Closed sign on the door, pulling down the door blind, saying it.
‘And?’ Paula broke into his reverie.
‘And what?’
‘Stop farting around with what?’
‘Oh.’ He looked away. ‘Work. He said I should … I should get some, you know … proper work.’
‘And so you should.’
They were slowing down for the junction ahead.
‘You can drop me off here if you want.’
The lights changed to green; Paula speeded up. ‘No, I’ll take you to the Cross.’ He’d rather have got out here, avoided the next question.
‘So … you got something lined up then, have you?’
‘Well, no … not for definite. Oh, don’t look like that, Sis.’ He thought of the money, the notes in the envelopes in the case lying on his lap. ‘I will have. I been asking around and … well, I didn’t want to say till, you know … till I knew for sure, but there might be a job at the … at a garage.’
Paula – trust her – had noticed his stumble. ‘Oh, which one?’
‘Oh, it’s … down past the Abbey.’
‘Oh. Right.’ Paula signalled left and they turned off.
‘Anywhere here’ll do,’ Garry said.
‘What, you not asking me in for tea?’
‘You want to come in … ?’ Paula had only ever been once to his third-floor, one-bedroom council flat; she had hated the dirty stairwell – litter in the corners and a stink of pee. He certainly didn’t want his sister coming in now; she’d probably want to see what he had brought down from the loft, and he would have no way of stopping her.
‘No, ‘course I don’t. You don’t need to look so alarmed; I don’t want to have tea in your pit.’
‘It’s not a pit. I keep it clean, and most of the time it’s tidy, too.’ She must not come in; he took a deep breath. ‘But not at the moment.’
‘Oh, okay. Best if I don’t come in then, yeah?’
‘Yeah. Best not.’ A couple more minutes and he’d be out of the car; it couldn’t be too soon.
Paula sighed. ‘Why do I care about you? Eh?’
‘Cos I’m your little bruv?’
‘Yeah, must be.’ Paula pulled up in front of the church. ‘Go on, hop it,’ she said. ‘I’m not supposed to stop here.’
Garry unbuckled his seatbelt, gave Paula a quick peck on the cheek, and got out of the car. ‘Thanks, Sis,’ he said, hurriedly. He slammed the door shut; Paula winced, shook her head at him and drove off.
Five minutes later Garry was in his flat, door locked, curtains firmly closed, even the ones that overlooked the scruffy courtyard where kids played on swings. He put down the old suitcase on the battered brown sofa in the living room, wiped his clammy hands down the sides of his jeans, ran them through his hair, rubbed them over his stubble. Jesus, what was the matter with him? He knew what was in the case, so why could he not bring himself to open it? He almost wished he’d told Paula about the money; he could call her, bring her back, here. Oh God, no … then he’d have to explain why he’d not shown her those envelopes when they were in the car. He was sweating hard now; he took a deep breath, straightened up, turned away from the sofa and walked into the tiny kitchen. A drink, that’s what he needed. A beer. He opened the fridge, took out the solitary can, pulled up the ring, shut the fridge door with his foot, walked into his living room, stood in front of the sofa … and looked down at the case. He finished the beer in one, tossed the can onto the pile of free newspapers at one end of the sofa, wiped his hands down his jeans again, crouched down in front of the case, and very, very, slowly – God knows what he thought was going to happen if he just lifted the lid in a normal way – opened it. He let the lid fall back on to the seat cushions. Thank God the toys were on the top, not those envelopes. Jesus, if they had been and Paula had come in and she had … Okay, okay. Enough. She hadn’t. So now, look. See just how much fucking money there is in those envelopes!
Garry lifted out the cars, the lorries, the soft toys; he threw them down anyhow on to the sofa, not taking his eyes off the suitcase. And there it was, underneath … the biscuit tin. Carefully, almost gingerly, as if it contained a bomb, he lifted the tin out of the case and put it on the sofa; opened it; stared at the bundles of envelopes, all shapes and sizes, most of them held together with elastic bands. Funny that, the dosh being in old envelopes with Grandad’s name and address on the front: he’d been sent this money! He’d think about that another time: right now he was interested in what was inside the envelopes. When he’d riffled through the tin before, up in the loft, he had glimpsed enough twenties to know he’d found something worth having; he’d already got up to several hundred counting in his head, so if all the envelopes in the bundles had … He sat back on his heels; he was shaking all over: what the fuck did he think was going to happen? Grandad’s ghost going to speak to him from the depths of the tin? Oh Jesus … that note, under the envelopes, that note in Grandad’s writing … What exactly had it said? Garry dug deep into the tin, lifted out all the bundles and put them on the floor. Yes, there it was, in plain sight, as if Grandad had known exactly what Garry would do – spot there was money here and greedily pull out the envelopes; the old man had made sure Garry wouldn’t miss his note, wouldn’t get it muddled up with the envelopes once he emptied out the money: he had stuck it onto the bottom of the tin. Crafty old bugger! You had to laugh. This was serious stuff, though; that note had not been put there casually. This time, Garry, do the right thing. It was like some message from the grave. Garry shuddered. Oh Jesus, if Grandad’s telling him now to do the right thing ... he must have known all along ‘bout all them wrong things he’d done. Grandad had never told him off, not once. All the more reason to do the right thing for him now. Okay, so ... this right thing: what was it? Do the right thing with the dosh? Had to be that. He looked again at the envelopes; so many of them. How come Grandad had all this money? Where’d it come from? So many fucking questions; it was doing Garry’s head in. If only he had another beer, if he hadn’t given up his fags. He’d start again; needed to, with all this kicking off. Right … I’m going to count it, he said out loud. He took hold of one bundle, removed the rubber band, opened the first envelope. Twenties, ten of them; nice. Next envelope: more twenties, another ten. Garry did a quick count of the number of envelopes in the bundle: six of them. If they all held the same amount … Jesus, this was serious stuff! Over a grand in just one bundle. Never mind ‘the right thing’! What do you do with a load of cash when you live in a shitty council flat where a break-in could happen any time?
CHAPTER NINE
For much of the next day Emma slept. Andrew’s condition, though still not good, was stable; there was nothing to be gained from her being continually at his bedside, the doctor had said when she went back to the hospital the evening before. ‘Get some rest while you can, Mrs. Raven. If there is any change we will let you know immediately.’ Now, in the middle of the afternoon, and with Constance busy in the kitchen, Emma decided to have another look in Andrew’s desk before Bernie came to take her to the hospital: there might be something else in there that could be useful for him … or even for Trev. She was having second thoughts about involving Trev in Andrew’s business, so the more information she could find to help him make a success, rather than a complete shambles, of taking over the search for new stock, the better.
She sat down at the desk and pulled open the deep right-hand drawer; she looked at the array of coloured folders. Now, which one might have some bearing on That Music Place? Not the posh cars one; not the newspaper cuttings one … although, that might have. Maybe there were cuttings about village events as well as shops, events such as antique fairs, at which Andrew could purchase items for the shop, make contact with traders. She lifted the buff folder from the drawer, placed it carefully on the top of the desk and drew out the bundle of tightly-packed cuttings, all held together with two big rubber bands. The top ones were recent, some of them dated only last year. As she went down the pile, simply pulling the tops of the cuttings towards her, not removing the rubber bands in case she got them out of order – which Andrew would notice – she saw that the cuttings went back many years; those at the bottom of the pile, with dates nearly thirty years ago, had become crumbly at the edges. There was nothing about village events. Nothing but articles about village shops. Why collect information about them? It made no sense. The ones about Andrew’s part in saving their village shop … yes, they did; but the others? One cutting she noticed, near the top of the pile, was advertising a village shop for sale. Emma laughed out loud. No, it couldn’t be. Could it? Could Andrew have wanted to have a village shop of his own? Surely not. Carefully, she pulled the cutting out of the bundle. The idea was so ridiculous but at the same time so charming; she laughed again.
‘Emma? Is that you?’ Constance called from the kitchen.
‘Er … yes,’ Emma called back. ‘I was just on the phone.’ It was as good a lie as any. Hurriedly she stuffed the rest of the cuttings into the folder and shoved it back into the drawer. The advert she folded carefully – it already had creases – and put into the pocket of her jeans.
‘Don’t be long, I’m making you some food. You need something warm inside you before you go to the hospital.’
‘I’m coming.’ Emma locked the desk drawer, put away the key and walked into the kitchen. She sniffed appreciatively at the aroma of coffee, toasted cheese and herbs.
There would be time enough later to consider the implications, if any, of those cuttings. For now, she would eat and please her sister.
* * *
On the way to the hospital Emma told Bernie about the cuttings.
‘Andrew’s always liked little village shops,’ Bernie said. ‘It’s not at all fanciful to think he might want to own one … or several. He loved the ones on the way down from Cambridge; we often stopped and went into one … Barley, Braughing … can’t remember the others. He called them “islands of prosperity”. Most of them have gone now.’
Emma smiled. ‘He likes islands. Sardinia, Malta, Menorca … He says they have a real sense of their own identity. I think that’s why he likes villages; they have defined boundaries.’ Her voice was breaking. ‘We had lots of holidays on islands.’
