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‘Meaning of course you’re just as capable as me at working things out,’ he said.
Like a lot of folk who love playing games, Roote always reckoned other folk were playing them too. Don’t mind a game myself, long as I’m making the rules.
I said, ‘No. Meaning I’d not believe a bloody word you said! But I can work out you’ve been here long enough for our landlord to know you drink parrot piss.’
‘Cranberry juice actually,’ he said. ‘Full of vitamins, you really ought to try it.’
‘Mebbe after morris dancing and incest,’ I said. ‘As for your reasons for being here, I’m not interested. Unless they’re criminal, which wouldn’t surprise me.’
‘Oh dear. Still the old mistrust.’
‘Nay, just the old realism,’ I said.
Then I went on ’cos I’d never said it direct and it needed saying, ‘Listen, lad, I’ll be forever grateful for what you did for little Rosie Pascoe. Thought you should know that. Won’t make me turn a blind eye to serious crime, mind, but any time you feel like parking your chair on a double yellow line in Mid-Yorks, be my guest.’
His eyes filled. Don’t know how he does that trick, but the bugger’s got it off pat.
‘I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, Mr Dalziel. And how is the girl? Must be growing up now. And dear Mr Pascoe and his lovely wife, how are they?’
‘All well. He were a bit upset losing contact with you. What happened there?’
He sipped his drink. I had to look away. If the buggers can ban smoking, I reckon at least they should put up screens for folk wanting to drink stuff that colour.
Then he said, ‘I was deeply touched by Mr Pascoe’s concern for me. He’s a man I admire greatly. I would love to be able to think of him as my friend. Perhaps it was because of this that, as I gradually improved, I began to worry in case the gratitude he felt should become a burden. It’s all too easy for gratitude to turn into resentment, isn’t it? Mr Pascoe is a man of intense feeling. Sometimes perhaps over intense. It was a hard decision, but I felt it might be best if I cooled things between us, so when I concluded that medical wisdom as it stood in the UK had done everything possible for me and decided to head abroad in search of other treatments, it seemed a good opportunity. I’m sorry if that sounds too altruistic for your view of me, Mr Dalziel, but it’s the truth.’
I found I believed him.
I said, ‘I reckon you got things right for once.’
The bar door opened and a young woman came in, laden with carrier bags. She were tall and skinny as a bow string. Slim they likely call it in the women’s mags, or slender or willowy, some such bollocks, but it’s all skinny to me. I like a lass with a bit of something to get a hold of. Mind you, beggars can’t always be choosers and I’ve known a lot of bow strings that had plenty of twang in them, but on the whole I’ve always steered clear of the lean and hungry ones. Not that this lass weren’t bad looking in a hollow cheek modelly sort of way, with wavy brown hair, a good full mouth, a determined little chin, and soft blue eyes that fastened on Roote.
She said, ‘Franny, hi.’
‘Clara,’ said Roote. ‘Hi! Come and meet my old friend, Andrew Dalziel. Mr Dalziel, this is Clara Brereton.’
She came towards us. She were a lovely mover even with the bags. Fair do’s, probably being skinny helps here, though my Cap doesn’t get many complaints on the dance floor.
She said, ‘Nice to meet you, Mr Dalziel,’ like she knew how to spell it. And she was another who didn’t blink when she spotted how I were dressed.
I said, ‘Likewise, lass.’
‘Why don’t you join us?’ said Roote giving her the full smarmy charmy treatment.
She sat down, saying, ‘Just till Auntie comes. Teddy’s taking us to lunch at Moby’s. He’s supposed to be meeting us here.’
She looked relieved to set the bags down.
I said, ‘They don’t deliver round here then?’ just to make conversation.
Roote chipped in, ‘Indeed they do, but there’s a small charge, and why pay that when you’ve got your own personal service?’
They smiled at each other. Something going on here? I wondered. With Roote, owt’s possible. A gent would likely have made an excuse and left them to get on with it, but gents don’t find themselves sitting in public bars in their dressing gowns. Any road, I wanted to see how Roote would play it. But there weren’t time to make his play.
The door opened again and another woman entered, this one a bit more to my taste. The way her gaze fixed on Clara and Roote, I guessed straight off this were the aunt. She were knocking on, sixties bumping seventy, but well preserved, and built like a buffalo, with an eye to match. If there weren’t enough meat on young Clara to make a Christmas starter, there were plenty here for a main course with something left over for Boxing Day. Not bad looking for an old ’un, but in a very different way from her niece. No smooth pallor here but weathered oak. Only thing in common were the determined chin which age had carved on her face into a bit of an ice-breaker. This was a woman used to getting her own way.
She said, ‘There you are, Clara. You’ve got the shopping? Good. No sign of Teddy? No matter, so long as he turns up in time to pay the bill. Time for a quick one here I think. Alan!’
The landlord was ahead of the game again. There was already a G and T on the bar and an orange juice. No prizes for working out whose was which.
‘Good day, Lady D,’ said Roote. ‘I hope you are keeping well.’
‘I am always well, Franny. I firmly believe most ailments are the invention of the medical profession to extort money from fools.’
She brayed a laugh like it never struck her some poor sod in a wheelchair might not find this all that funny. Roote just grinned and said, ‘If Tom Parker wants a living testimony to the health-giving properties of Sandytown, he need look no further than you.’
She preened herself and said, ‘Kind of you to say so, Franny. It’s true I have been blessed with a strong and lasting constitution. In fact I do believe I never saw the face of a doctor in all my life on my own account, but only on the two unhappy occasions when I was told of the death of a husband.’
Roote looked solemn for a moment, then said slyly, ‘But surely, Lady D, you have seen the face of Dr Feldenhammer, very much on your own account, and on occasions not so unhappy?’
She laughed archly, like a cracked hurdy-gurdy playing ‘The Rustle of Spring’, and I reckon if she’d had a fan, she’d have rapped his knuckles with it as she said, ‘You naughty boy, that tongue of yours will get you into trouble one day.’
‘Then I shall call on you for a character reference,’ said Roote. ‘Can I introduce my old friend Andrew Dalziel?’
I’d seen those buffalo eyes taking me in during all this by-play and I don’t think she much liked the look of me or mebbe it was just my outfit.
I said, ‘How do, missus?’ and in return she gave me a nod that would likely have broken my nose if she’d been close up, then turned to hoist herself on to a bar stool, showing off a pair of haunches a man would be proud to have the tattooing of. The landlord put her drink before her and she leaned forward to engage him in a low-voiced conversation.
The lass gave Roote’s hand a quick sympathetic squeeze, then went to the bar to join her aunt.
I took a drink of me ale. Didn’t taste as good as before. Nowt wrong with the beer, but. It were me. Should have stopped with the first and certainly skipped the scotch. I definitely weren’t feeling up to snuff. Mebbe that was what made me say, all surly, ‘You’ll not get anywhere there, lad. Rich aunts look after dependent nieces.’
One thing for Roote, he may play games but he doesn’t play silly games, like pretending not to understand.
‘Dependent nieces have wills of their own,’ he said giving me a stage wink.
‘Aye, and so have rich aunts, and they make bloody sure anyone gets cut out of them who doesn’t toe the line,’ I said. ‘Any road, it could be a long wait if she’s as fit as she looks.’
‘Oh yes. Dear Lady Denham is nothing if not healthy. And wealthy, of course,’ he murmured.
‘And wise?’ I said.
‘In making and keeping hold of money, very wise indeed,’ he said.
‘Why am I not surprised?’ I said. ‘And I bet you know how much she’s kept hold of, to the last decimal place.’
He grinned and said, ‘You are forgetting, I suspect, that thanks to dear Peter Pascoe’s aid and acumen, I am now a man of moderately independent means, even without the income I generate by my writing. If such a one as I could have any interest in the fair Clara, it would only be centred on her pilgrim soul.’
When an ex-con starts talking about pilgrim souls, I know he’s talking crap, but I knew Roote weren’t lying about the money. Pete had felt so grateful and guilty, he’d moved heaven and earth to make sure Roote got top compensation from Criminal Injuries, plus the leisure complex where he got shot had had a Personal Injury clause in their insurance which a smart brief persuaded a judge covered Roote’s case. Best of all, Roote had just got back from the States on the day he got shot and when Pete were sorting out his stuff, he realized his travel insurance didn’t expire till midnight. The buggers wriggled and wiggled like they always do, but in the end the same brief who’d done the leisure complex got them to cough up for total disability. When eventually it turned out Roote was going to be able to manage a wheelchair, this got considerably pared down, but it still amounted to a hefty chunk of money.
I said, ‘Independent means ain’t the same as independence.’
I were just talking about money but soon as I said it, I saw it could be taken as a crack about his legs. Me and buffalo woman had a lot in common. But I knew better than to say sorry and get the piss taken out of me, so I went on quick, ‘So what’s this writing that’s making your fortune? You’re not Lord Archer in disguise, are you?’
‘Happily not,’ he said. ‘Nor did I mention a fortune. It’s academic stuff mainly, so it pays peanuts when it pays at all. I managed to finish my PhD thesis during my convalescence. Yes, strictly speaking it’s Dr Roote now, but no need to be embarrassed – I don’t use the title. Strangers find it confusing and keep telling me about their back pain. Now I am completing Sam Johnson’s critical biography of Thomas Lovell Beddoes. You recall dear Sam, my old supervisor, who was so foully murdered before he could finish his masterwork?’
‘Aye, I remember the case,’ I said. ‘So you’re getting paid in advance for writing this Bed-loving fellow’s life?’
‘I fear not,’ he said. ‘Though my publishers in California, the Santa Apollonia University Press, have made a substantial research grant available to me. There are however profitable spin-offs in the form of articles and interviews and seminars. In addition I have a small retainer fee for my work as a consultant for Third Thought.’
Why was he so keen to impress me with his ability to earn an honest living, if you can call all this airy-fairy arty-farty stuff honest?
‘Third Thought?’ I said. ‘You mean that dotty cult thing the lentil and sandals brigade are into?’
‘How well you grasp the essence of things, Mr Dalziel! What more is necessary to say? Though the movement’s founder, Frère Jacques, has written a couple of hefty tomes to bring out the fine detail.’
Always a sarky bugger!
He rattled on about how this Jakes fellow had nearly died and realized he weren’t ready for it, so he’d started his movement to help folk get used to the idea afore it were staring them in the face, so to speak.
‘A Hospice of the Mind, he calls it,’ said Roote. ‘My own initial connection with Third Thought was, I freely confess, based purely on self-interest. Then I had my own close encounter, and as I struggled to come to terms with my lot, my mind turned more and more frequently to Frère Jacques’s teachings, and I renewed my connection, but this time with genuine fervour. Eventually Jacques invited me to become a paid acolyte.’
He glanced at me sort of assessingly then leaned forward and said in a low voice, ‘It occurs to me, Mr Dalziel, that after your own recent trauma, you yourself might be seeking a new philosophy of being …’
The bugger were trying to convert me!
I said, ‘If tha’s thinking of sending me a bill for this chat, lad, I’d advise thee to have third thoughts about it.’
He laughed so loud the two women at the bar glanced our way, the old bird with a disapproving glower. Probably thought I’d just told a mucky joke.
Roote settled down after a bit, supped his parrot piss, then said, ‘So how are you getting back up to the Home?’
‘On my own two feet if I have to,’ I answered. ‘If you’re thinking of offering me a lift, I warn you, I’m not sitting on thy knee!’
He grinned and said, ‘I’ll be delighted to take you back in my car, though I suspect it may not be necessary.’
‘Why’s that?’
He glanced at his watch. It looked expensive.
‘I suspect that within a few more minutes someone from the Avalon staff is going to arrive. They’ll order a drink, glance round, look surprised to see you, have a quick chat, finish their drink, head for the door, then as an afterthought say, “Would you care for a lift, Mr Dalziel, or are you sorted?”’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Because not long after you arrived, Alan will have made a call to the Avalon in case they haven’t noticed one of their convies has gone missing. And he’s probably just been reassuring Lady Denham that she needn’t worry about you frightening off the more sensitive customers all afternoon as you’ll be out of here in ten minutes tops.’
‘Why’d she be worried about that?’ I asked.
‘Because she owns the Hope and Anchor,’ he said. ‘In fact, dear Lady Denham owns a great deal of real estate in and around Sandytown. I told you she was wealthy as well as healthy. Moby’s, however, where they are going to lunch, belongs to her dear friend Mr Parker. She enjoys the food there but never goes unless someone else is paying, in this case her nephew, Teddy Denham, who can ill afford it.’
‘For someone not interested in money, you’ve got a sharp eye for how other folk spend it,’ I said.
He said, ‘Only because as a disciple of Third Thought, I have a deep interest in the human condition. Doesn’t Paul tells us that the love of money is the root of all evil?’
‘Paul?’ I said. ‘Thought that were one of Ringo’s. No, sorry, bit further back. Adam Faith, right?’
Not often you can shut Roote up, but that did it.
The women finished their drinks and slipped off their stools, the lass like a snowflake, the old lady like an avalanche.
Clara gave a shy little wave as her aunt said, ‘Alan, perhaps my scatterbrained nephew has gone straight to Moby’s. If he does turn up here, tell him that’s where we will be. And don’t forget to get payment for our drinks. A gentleman does not invite guests and expect them to pay for themselves. Talking of money, these ideas you have about modernizing the cellar, I think we really need to do an in-depth costing. I need quotations, not estimates. If I have time I’ll drop in later to take a closer look.’
The landlord bowed his head deferentially, or mebbe he were worried in case his expression showed this weren’t the best news he’d had today!
‘Of course, Lady Denham,’ he said.
Now she glanced our way and said, ‘Toodle-pip, Franny. Don’t forget you’re lunching with me this week.’
‘Engraved on my heart, Lady D,’ said Roote.
Her gaze shifted to me and she ducked her head and gave a little snort like she were wondering whether to charge but headed for the door instead.
I muttered, ‘Will that be lobster at Moby’s?’
‘Alas, no. Belly pork at Sandytown Hall, I fear,’ said Roote with a little shudder.
Afore I could ask what he meant, the door opened as the women approached and a Yankee voice gushed, ‘Daphne, Clara, how nice. How are you, dear ladies?’
Toilet tooth Festerwhanger.
Well, at least they really had sent Prince bloody Charming not some snotty-nosed orderly to round me up. Always supposing that’s why he’d come. I could see Roote thought it was. He gave me one of them little looks. Quizzical I think they call ’em. Like Pascoe sometimes. Mebbe him and Roote had more in common than I realized.
Stepping into the bar, Festerwhanger flashed the young lass a spotlight smile, then got folded into buffalo woman’s arms. It were like watching one of them Cumberland wrestlers tekking hold, except they don’t clamp their gobs on to their opponent’s face and give his tonsils a tongue massage. I saw now what Roote’s little insinuation were all about.
Eventually he broke loose, staggering a bit like a diver who’d come up too quick. But to give him his due, he made a quick recovery, and soon him and Lady D were chatting away – him all Yankee charm and her sort of girlishly flirtatious – like an elephant dancing in that old Disney cartoon. I almost felt sorry for old Fester. Got the feeling she could chew him up and spit him out all over his consulting room couch. Finally she gave him a farewell kiss which made the first one seem like a rehearsal and set off again but stopped dead in her tracks as the door opened to admit another man.
Different this time, but. No gush and hugs. In fact if I can read a face, there’s neither of them would have lost sleep if t’other had dropped dead on the spot!
The new guy had halted right in the doorway so she couldn’t get by.
‘If you don’t mind,’ she said, haughty as a duchess talking to a gamekeeper she don’t fancy shagging.
He didn’t move. He looked about ninety and I’ve seen healthier looking faces at an exhumation. His eyes were deep sunk, his few bits of hair clung to his pate like mould on an old plum, and he had a beard like a wildlife sanctuary. Despite the heat, he were wearing a mucky old donkey jacket, an old-fashioned striped shirt without a collar and the kind of baggy pants farmworkers used to tie up with string, only no self-respecting rat would have cared to run up these.
Suddenly I didn’t feel so badly dressed.
Still he didn’t move or speak. Then the landlord said warningly, ‘Hen.’
Now he smiled. Bare gums mainly, and the few teeth you could see through the foliage were greeny yallery shading to black at the roots. I half expected Festerwhanger to faint.
