Mrs caldicots knickerboc.., p.24
Mrs Caldicot's Knickerbocker Glory, page 24
Mrs Roberts’s friend was no shrinking violet. She had been in not entirely dissimilar situations before. Indeed, on one occasion, at a doctors’ party at the hospital where she had trained, she had found herself in a situation which bore a startling resemblance to this one. But if a man was going to tear off her clothes in public she expected him to, at the very least, ply her with substantial amounts of alcohol and flattery. Mr Muller-Hawksmoor had done neither of these things. Abandoning her modest pose she pulled her right arm back, took a good pace forward and aimed a solid fist at Mr Muller-Hawksmoor’s jaw.
Unfortunately, just as her first shot out Mr Muller-Hawksmoor moved slightly to one side. Ms Jones, standing behind him did not move. The nurse’s fit landed not on the nose of Mr Muller-Hawksmoor’s nose but on the nose of Ms Jones. Ms Jones, although hit only a glancing blow, collapsed as though felled by a boxing ox. When she realised that she had missed her primary target the nurse let fly with her other fist. This time the intended target was the recipient. Mr Muller-Hawksmoor hit the floor at almost exactly the same moment that Mrs Torridge succeeded in spitting out her gag and freeing herself of the ropes which had bound her. Mrs Torridge was not a woman for whom a grudge was a long-term affair. For her a grudge was something to get rid of in as rapid and as dramatic a fashion as was possible. ‘Hoorah!’ she shouted. She took two strides to where Ms Jones BA was attempting to sit up, bent down and proceeded to flatten the Council employee with a single, effective blow. Ms Jones BA collapsed again and lay sprawled on top of Mr Muller-Hawksmoor’s unconscious body. Mrs Torridge, avenged, stood and beamed.
‘Well, I do declare,’ said Mrs Caldicot, who had watched these events with all the curiosity of a disinterested spectator. Just then Doris and Mr Livingstone entered the room. Mr Livingstone had succeeded in locating and rescuing Doris’s missing grapefruit and the well-rounded citrus fruit, restored to its temporary owner, had been reinstalled in its new home.
‘Mrs Caldicot,’ said Mr Livingstone, taking advantage of the fact that both Mr Muller-Hawksmoor and Ms Jones BA were no longer taking much interest in the proceedings, stepping over the scattered bodies as though this was something he did every day of his life, ‘I think you should meet Doris Knight, your new nurse,’ he said.
Mrs Caldicot’s reaction was not quite what he, or anyone else in the room, expected.
She burst into laughter. ‘So,’ she said eventually. ‘Would someone like to explain to me why Jenkins is dressed up as a nurse with what looks very much like two grapefruit stuffed down his dress?’
Jenkins stared at her. ‘Well damn me,’ he said. ‘You saw through it.’
‘Would anyone like a cup of tea?’ Mrs Caldicot asked. There was much murmuring of assent. ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ she said. She turned to Jenkins. ‘Perhaps you’d be kind enough to ring for an ambulance, nurse,’ she said.
Chapter 63
By the time the ambulance arrived both Mr Muller-Hawksmoor and Ms Jones had regained consciousness. Ms Jones, still sitting on the carpet, turned towards Mrs Caldicot. ‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘You keep still, love,’ one of the ambulance men told her. ‘We’ll have you on a stretcher in just a jiffy.’
‘I don’t need a stretcher!’ snapped Ms Jones, turning towards the ambulance man and attempting, unsuccessfully, to struggle to her feet. She turned back to Mrs Caldicot and repeated her question.
‘I’m afraid that Mr Muller-Hawksmoor sexually assaulted one of our nurses,’ Mrs Caldicot told her. ‘He tore off her dress and exposed her. You were helping him. The nurse simply defended herself.’
Ms Jones remembered. She would have gone pale, had her natural skin colour allowed such a thing. ‘I wasn’t helping him,’ she said. There was a catch in her voice. ‘I was trying to stop him!’ she protested, rather weakly.
‘I’m afraid that isn’t quite how it seemed to the rest of us,’ said Mrs Caldicot rather coldly.
‘He thought the nurse was a fraud,’ said Ms Jones. ‘I...er...we...thought she was a man I recognised.’
‘She wasn’t,’ pointed out Mrs Caldicot.
‘No,’ agreed Ms Jones. She closed her eyes and shuddered. ‘I remember.’
‘Come along now, love,’ said the ambulance man, trying once again to move Ms Jones onto a stretcher which he had arranged on the floor next to her.
‘I’m not your `love’!’ snarled Ms Jones. The ambulance man recoiled, as though threatened by a snake. Ms Jones pushed away his helping hand and stood up. She wobbled for a moment and then sat down on the arm of a nearby easy chair. The ambulance man, looking rather hurt, picked up his stretcher and moved across to his colleague, who was kneeling next to Mr Muller-Hawksmoor.
‘What happened?’ asked Mr Muller-Hawksmoor, blinking and looking around him. There was a trickle of blood running from his nose and he still had a rather dazed look. He had never been hit before, let alone knocked out.
Ms Jones told him. She did not spare him any of the details. Mr Muller-Hawksmoor, being quite capable of going pale went pale. The pallor increased as he gradually realised the full consequences of what he had done.
‘Is the nurse going to, er, press charges?’ Mr Muller-Hawksmoor asked Mrs Caldicot.
‘I don’t think so,’ replied Mrs Caldicot. ‘Can I assume that this visit is now over and that you’re happy with our staffing arrangements?’
‘Oh absolutely,’ said Mr Muller-Hawksmoor, eagerly. ‘Very satisfied.’ He did not struggle as the ambulancemen moved him onto their stretcher. He turned to Ms Jones as they wrapped a blanket around him.
A couple of minutes later the ambulance left, siren squealing, with Mr Muller-Hawksmoor in the back.
Ms Jones, having rejected offers of a cup of tea or a bed for an hour or two, drove after the ambulance. She was not a good driver and as the little car jumped and bounced down the rutted drive she had to concentrate hard on what she was doing. She had to concentrate so hard, in fact, that as the car left the driveway she did not notice the three people standing on the pavement nearby selling their last few bunches of flowers.
Chapter 64
The flower selling was going very well.
The arrival of Jenkins, still dressed as Doris, had added the glamour which Mr Roxdale and Mr Williams had been unable to provide, and had provided evidence to support the old adage that you can use sex - even the rather superficial sexual artifice of a middle aged man and two grapefruit sharing a frock - to sell virtually anything.
Attracted by the grapefruit rather than the middle aged man cars squealed to a halt by the pavement’s edge and Mr Roxdale and Mr Williams sold every last freesia and dahlia in minutes.
‘So,’ said Mr Roxdale, contemplating several buckets, containing nothing but a few broken green stalks and some slightly grubby water, ‘now what shall we do?’
‘We could mend the roof,’ suggested Mr Williams, without a moment’s hesitation. ‘That would give Mrs Caldicot a nice surprise.’
‘That’s a splendid idea,’ agreed Mr Roxdale, with a nod of approval. ‘Mrs Caldicot would be delighted.’
‘She’s been trying for weeks to find someone to put those loose slates back,’ said Mr Williams.
‘Even if she could find someone they’d no doubt charge a fortune,’ said Mr Roxdale.
‘So we’ll do it,’ said Mr Williams.
‘It can’t be all that hard,’ said Mr Roxdale.
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ agreed Mr Williams. ‘But we’ll need a ladder.’
‘Can’t do it without a ladder,’ nodded Mr Roxdale.
‘Big ladder,’ said Mr Williams. ‘Have to be a big ladder.’
‘Long way up to the roof,’ said Mr Roxdale.
‘Long way,’ agreed Mr Williams.
Jenkins, still disguised as Doris, feared that mending roofs might prove more demanding than selling flowers. ‘Does either of you know anything about mending roofs?’ he asked.
‘Don’t be a wet blanket,’ said Mr Williams, sharply.
‘It can’t be all that difficult,’ insisted Mr Roxdale. ‘I’ve known several roofers and they were all complete idiots. I knew one who failed his driving test three times.’
‘I know where there’s a ladder,’ said Mr Williams. ‘I saw one round the back. In the shed. Hanging on two nails on the wall.’
‘What on earth has failing a driving test got to do with mending roofs?’ asked Jenkins.
It was not an entirely unreasonable question but the other two didn’t hear him and so they didn’t bother to try to answer. They were half way up the driveway, carrying their empty buckets (they had emptied the water down a nearby drain and stuffed the remaining bits of greenery behind a bush so that they could, as Mr Roxdale put it, ‘compost down’) and hurrying towards the hut where Mr Williams felt sure he had seen a ladder.
Chapter 65
They found an old wooden ladder just where Mr Williams had remembered seeing it, and carried it around to the front of the house.
‘Gosh,’ said Mr Roxdale, looking up. ‘They put the roof up very high, didn’t they?’
Mr Williams started up the ladder, reached the third rung and stopped. ‘I feel dizzy,’ he said. ‘Hold the ladder. It keeps going round and round.’
‘You’re only two feet off the ground,’ Mr Roxdale told him. ‘And I am holding the ladder.’
‘I never did have much of a head for heights,’ Mr Williams admitted.
‘I’ll blindfold you,’ suggested Mr Roxdale. ‘If you can’t see anything you’ll be fine.’
‘What are you going to do when you get up there?’ asked Jenkins.
‘He’s going to mend the roof,’ said Mr Roxdale. ‘He can either take off the blindfold or else I’ll shout instructions.’
‘But what’s he going to mend the roof with?’ asked Jenkins.
Neither of the other two said anything. Mr Williams, still standing on the ladder, turned and looked at Mr Roxdale. Mr Roxdale looked back at him.
‘He won’t know that until he takes a look around,’ said Mr Roxdale. ‘If the slates have just slipped then all he needs to do is to climb onto the roof and push them around a bit.’
‘I’m going to get out of this dress,’ said Jenkins, deciding that things were getting a little too serious for him to be sharing a dress with two grapefruit. He hurried off towards the front door just as fast as his high heels would allow.
As he disappeared, Mr Williams turned. ‘Climb up onto the roof?’ he said, clearly startled. ‘No one said anything about climbing onto the roof. I don’t like this ‘all he needs to do is climb onto the roof’ stuff. What do you think I am? A cat?’ Clearly unhappy, he stepped back down a rung. The wooden rung, which had held his weight when he’d been going up decided that it had had enough and snapped in two.
‘That’s it,’ he said, jumping down onto the ground. ‘I’ve had enough. I’m not going up there again. It was terrifying.’
‘Hello, there,’ said another voice. ‘What are you lot doing?’ They all turned. It was Mr Merivale. They explained.
‘But we’re all a bit nervous,’ admitted Mr Williams. ‘It’s a long way up and the ladder is rotten.’
‘You speak for yourself,’ said Mr Roxdale. ‘I didn’t say I was nervous.’
‘Then why don’t you go up the ladder?’ demanded Mr Williams, not unreasonably.
‘Someone has got to stay down here and give instructions,’ said Mr Roxdale. ‘I’m management.’
‘Since when?’ asked Mr Williams.
‘Since we decided to mend the roof,’ replied Mr Roxdale.
‘I’ll go up,’ offered Mr Merivale.
‘OK!’ said Mr Williams and Mr Roxdale simultaneously. ‘If you insist,’ added Mr Williams.
Gingerly, Mr Merivale tested the bottom rung of the ladder with his foot. It snapped in two. He tested another rung, by putting his weight onto it. That broke too. Now the bottom three rungs were all broken. ‘Is this the best ladder you’ve got?’ he asked.
‘It’s the only one we’ve got,’ replied Mr Williams.
‘I really don’t think you should go up it,’ said Mr Williams. ‘I don’t think it looks very safe.’
Mr Merivale smiled at him, put his right foot onto the edge of the lowest remaining rung and launched himself upwards. He scampered up the ladder more like a monkey than a man and reached the very top of the ladder in less time than it would have taken any of the others to run the same distance on the flat. Every rung snapped as he ran upwards. As soon as Mr Merivale reached the top of the ladder he clambered onto the roof and Mr Roxdale, down below, was left holding two long thin pieces of wood which were no longer connected to one another.
‘He made it!’ said Mr Williams.
Mr Roxdale struggled to hold onto the two separated poles but failed. The two side pieces of the former ladder fell sidewards and crashed onto the ground.
‘That was absolutely amazing!’ said Mr Roxdale. He and Mr Williams looked at each other, then up at Mr Merivale, and then back at each other. They then clapped enthusiastically
‘What do I do now I’m up here?’ yelled Mr Merivale, peering over the edge of the roof and shouting down. He waited for some response.
But down below Mr Roxdale and Mr Williams had panicked and had rushed into the house to fetch help.
There was a long pause. ‘Er...why did I come up here?’ Mr Merivale called. ‘Is anyone there? Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?’
Chapter 66
There was some dispute about who panicked first.
Mr Williams claimed that it was Mr Roxdale. ‘It was definitely Mr Roxdale,’ he still claims. ‘Mr Roxdale ran into the house and telephoned for the fire brigade.’
‘I didn’t panic at all,’ insisted Mr Roxdale. ‘Mr Williams was hysterical. He was convinced that Mr Merivale was going to fall off the roof. I quietly walked into the house and telephoned for the fire brigade before things got completely out of control.’
The fire brigade arrived within ten minutes (a huge, bright red engine and a large number of large men still buttoning up their tunics and stuffing stockinged feet into their boots, as though they had all been disturbed at some extraordinary single sex orgy) but by then it was dark. The residents and staff of the Twilight Years Rest Home were gathering and standing on the lawn looking up at the roof. Jenkins had had time to take off his dress but not time to put on his trousers. He shivered in Doris’s underwear.
‘I can’t see any fire,’ said Mr Livingstone, who had left the house with Mr Roxdale to join Mr Williams on the lawn and was now peering up at the house, the roof and the sky, searching in vain for flames or smoke.
Before leaving the house Mr Livingstone had broken the glass on the fire alarm just inside the front door. It was something he had always wanted to do but the fulfilling of this simple ambition had, in the effect, proved to be rather disappointing.
‘There’s isn’t a fire,’ said Mr Roxdale. ‘Someone is stuck up on the roof.’
‘The ladder simply fell apart,’ explained Mr Williams.
‘Why did he go up there in the first place?’ asked Mr Livingstone.
Mr Roxdale explained.
‘Who is it?’ demanded Mrs Merivale. ‘Who’s stuck up there?’
Mr Williams looked at her and placed a comforting hand on her arm. ‘It’s Mr Merivale,’ he said.
‘My Mr Merivale?’ said Mrs Merivale.
‘Yes,’ admitted Mr Livingstone. ‘I’m afraid it is.’
‘Oh well he’ll be all right,’ said Mrs Merivale. ‘Who on earth called the fire brigade?’ she demanded. Mr Livingstone stared at her and assumed that she was in shock. ‘I’ll fetch you a blanket and a cup of tea,’ he said. `Would you like some brandy in it or sugar?’
‘What’s happened?’ demanded Mrs Roberts, looking up at the front of the house. ‘Where’s the fire?’ On Mrs Caldicot’s instructions she had left the house to start a roll call of the residents.
Mr Roxdale explained.
‘Who’s in charge here?’ demanded a stout, round faced man whose helmet carried a very large badge and an instantly identifiable yellow flash.
‘Mrs Caldicot,’ said Mrs Roberts. ‘She’ll be here in a moment,’ she began. ‘Oh, there she is!’ she said, interrupting herself and pointing towards the front door where Mrs Caldicot was following Miss Nightingale and Mrs Peterborough down the steps. Mrs Caldicot was holding Kitty and a torch. Kitty looked very upset at having been moved from her warm place in front of the fire.
‘Is everyone out of the building?’ demanded the stout man, striding over towards Mrs Caldicot.
‘I’m not sure,’ replied Mrs Caldicot. She walked towards Mrs Roberts, standing with the residents and asked her the same question. She remembered, too late, that she had forgotten to put the fireguard in front of the fire.
‘Everyone except Mr Merivale,’ said Mrs Roberts.
‘Mr Merivale?’ called out Mrs Caldicot. She decided that not having put the guard in front of the fire didn’t much matter if the house was already on fire.
‘I’m here,’ said Mr Merivale from the darkness at the outer edge of the group.
‘Everyone is accounted for,’ said Mrs Caldicot, feeling a great sense of relief.
‘We had a report that there was a man stuck on a roof,’ said the chief fire officer.
‘Perhaps I can explain,’ said Mr Roxdale. ‘It was an accident.’
‘I rather thought it might have been,’ said the chief fire officer, drily. ‘Most of our ‘men stuck on roofs’ incidents are accidents. Where exactly is he and what happened?’
‘I’m not sure where he is. We can’t see him. But a friend of ours climbed up onto the roof to repair some slipped slates,’ explained Mr Roxdale. ‘And then the ladder broke.’
The chief fire officer removed his helmet and scratched his head. ‘And he’s still up there?’
‘He must be,’ said Mr Roxdale. ‘He couldn’t have come down because we don’t have another ladder.’ He lowered his voice and looked around to make sure that no one else was listening before adding, ‘And if he had fallen off we’d see the body, wouldn’t we?’
