Any sense of responsibility Ted
might have felt towards Marjorie he put behind him as he sneaked out of the
house. She would be left in the
darkening silence, calling out for him to attend to her needs, and he couldn’t
care less.
Having
arranged to meet Donald at five-fifteen, he arrived breathlessly at the station
five minutes late. Donald was nowhere to be seen, and Ted felt nauseous waves
of irrational panic. What if Donald had
gone without him? But the train wasn’t
due until twenty-six minutes past.
Perhaps something had gone wrong.
Maybe Donald had changed his mind.
The thoughts of walking back across the common to face Marjorie filled
him with dread. Not to mention loathing.
Suddenly
a taxi pulled up and there was Donald, waving and smiling from the back
seat. Ted glanced at his watch, feeling
anxious about catching the train. As
Donald walked towards him, Ted thought he looked older than he remembered.
A man in his mid-sixties, at least.
But then he was wearing a sober, dark suit,
so perhaps that aged him.
‘Sorry
I’m late. I had to wait ages for a
taxi,’ Donald explained. ‘I’d better get
our tickets.’
‘I’ve
already got mine,’ said Ted. ‘I don’t
have to pay.’
Donald
regarded him with amusement. ‘Oh yes, I
forgot – you work for the company. Well
I still need a ticket.’
As
they joined the small queue at the ticket office, Ted noticed the quality of
Donald’s suit and compared it to his own inferior sports jacket, with its
bulging pockets. Suddenly he went hot
and cold. One of the pockets contained
the plastic bag with the virulent chipolatas.
He had intended disposing of it on the way to the station but in all the
excitement it had slipped his mind..
Somehow he would have to get rid of it on the train.
As
they neared the front of the queue, Donald said, ‘I had to leave Bamber to lock
up the shop. We have an antique shop in
the Pantiles – jewellery and china’s our speciality.
And leaving Bamber in charge is
dangerous. Talk about a bull in a china
shop.’
Donald
laughed uproariously at this.The person
in front of him turned round to look.
‘Who’s
Bamber?’ Ted asked, speaking quietly, hoping that Donald might do the
same. But Donald was a naturally loud
person and continued in stentorian decibels.
‘Bamber
is the friend with whom I share my abode.
I sometimes allow him to do some work for me;
when he’s not going through a clumsy
time. Unusual name, isn’t it?’
Donald
stared at Ted, waiting for a response.
Ted nodded passively and it was all the encouragement Donald needed to
continue.
‘His
mother was a fan of University Challenge – poor sod!
She lives in Brighton
She’s quite well off but she’s a
dipsomaniac. There won’t be much left
for Bamber by the time she pops her clogs.
Spends every waking moment doing The
Times crossword. What a waste of an
agile brain. Ah! Here we are.
One return to London,
please.’
They
caught the train with only minutes to spare.
As soon as they had settled into seats opposite one another,
Donald asked:
‘Whereabouts in Tunbridge Wells do you live, Ted?’
‘Er
– Molyneux Park Road.’
Donald
looked surprised. Ted leaned forward and
explained as quietly as possible: ‘We
used to live on Ramslye. Then Marjorie –
my wife – inherited our house from her grandmother.’
‘How
absolutely splendid.’
Ted
looked as if it was far from splendid.
As the train moved off he leapt to his feet, excused himself and dashed
to the toilet. Making certain the door
was locked, he took the chipolatas out of his pocket and stuffed them into the
waste bin, covering them with layers of scrunched-up paper towels.
When he got back to his seat, Donald
commented on how flustered he looked.
Ted nodded and smiled thinly.
‘What’s
your favourite Shakespeare play?’ Donald asked.
Without
thinking, Ted blurted out: ‘Titus
Andronicus!’
Donald
frowned. ‘That’s a curious choice.
Bit bloodthirsty.
Bit morbid.
Isn’t it the one where the queen is fed her own sons in a meat pie and
collapses over the dinner table?’
Ted
looked confused. Somehow Shakespeare’s
rarely performed play of mayhem and murder had slipped out of his
subconscious. Now thoughts of poison and
police and prison rattled about inside his head.
What if Marjorie died?
That would make him a murderer.
He
noticed Donald staring at him, frowning.
‘I – I don’t know why I thought of Titus
Andronicus,’ he explained. ‘It’s not
my favourite. Not by a long chalk.
I think I like A Midsummer Night’s Dream best.’
Donald
leaned forward and tapped him on the knee.
‘You must allow me,’ he said conspiratorially, ‘to take you to the Open
Air Theatre in London during the
summer. It’s a magical evening.’
‘Could
I see your tickets, please?’
Ted
looked startled. He hadn’t heard the
guard approaching.
‘Hello,
Ted,’ said the guard. ‘Where are you off
to then?
‘Mmm.
London,’
mumbled Ted.
‘We’re
going to see Macbeth at the Albery
Theatre,’ said Donald, showing the guard his ticket.
‘Oh
well,’ replied the guard, looking suspiciously from one to the other, ‘each to
his own.’
Donald
smiled and looked across at Ted, whose hands were tightly clenched and he was
blushing to the roots.
*
Maggie had been on the phone to her
mother for an hour. She hadn’t long hung
up when it rang again. She thought it
might be Gary and braced herself
for another argument.
‘Yes!’
she snapped.
‘Could
I speak to Gary?’
‘He’s
not here.’
She
heard pub noises in the background. She
was about to slam the phone down when the man’s voice shouted urgently over the
noise:
‘It’s
Mike Longridge. I cut your husband’s
hair yesterday. Sorry about last
night. I don’t suppose he’ll be allowed
out to play for a while.’
‘What
d’you mean?’
‘It’s
the longest poker session I’ve ever known.
Gary did all right for the
first couple of hours. But by the end of
the game I think he was down about two hundred.
Pity I bumped into him last night.
I feel it’s down to me he lost his shirt.’
‘He’s
old enough to make his own decisions,’ she said, her voice frosty.
‘Well,
anyway, sorry about that .You don’t know
what time he’ll be back, do you?’
‘No,
I don’t.’
She
slammed the phone down.
At
his local, Mike rejoined Gary at
the bar. ‘I think it might have
worked ’ he said. Gary
slapped him on the back. ‘Cheers,
mate! That’s one I owe you.’
IN EPISODE ELEVEN ON THURSDAY
Jackie, single
mother of two teenage daughters, finds they are opposed to the new love of her
life, Nigel Pooley. And Craig, fed up
with working the chippie, decides to return to a life of crime.
