Lenny did his best to regain his composure, and asked, “Where’s she from?”
“Hungary. She likes to act the part of an upper-class, English lady. Look, old man, gotta go. A photo shoot to do, and she’s the lead model.”
Lenny watched as all four girls pranced around the gardens of the bar, providing the cameraman some usable revealing shots for whichever magazine he was working for.
It was a turning point for Lenny, who decided that if he stood a chance of chatting up stylish women, he’d have to improve his chat-up delivery.
He returned to the other three without comment. Later, he was queuing at the Tesco check-out when someone tugged the sleeve of his overcoat. He looked down and saw little James’ face looking up at him. “Well, hello, young man.”
The only response he received was: “Lenny.” The boy walked away and out of the shop.
The check-out girl said, “Don’t look so worried, sir. He has autism and behaves strangely.”
Lenny decided he had to understand what this thing, called autism, was.
Chapter 9
AS THE gang of four sat in the residents’ lounge before their daily trip to the Talbot, the subject of the great escape arose. The Colonel opened the discussion, “It’s goin’ to be a post office; there ain’t a bank in town. Don’t fancy tryin’ Brighton.” They all agreed their target would be the corner store-cum-café-cum post office in Beech Road.
“I fink it’s a travesty that the banks have closed down,” Lenny complained, using his latest buzzword. “Yeh, a travesty. How do they expect hard-working blaggers like us and any youngsters’ cumin’ through the ranks to make a decent livin’?” These little post offices don’t carry the cash t’ make it worth it. It’s a travesty, downright travesty. Even ‘ittin’ a security van has got more difficult."
“Quite right,” Reg added while banging the table.
“Can we get back to reality?” the Colonel pleaded.
As he began outlining his plan, a large female shape stood in the doorway, dressed in the green uniform of a lady army officer, with the front of her military-style cap pull down over her eyes, in the style of some military police. There were no signs of badges of rank, just a logo attached just above the right breast pocket of her tunic. Brass buttons held down shoulder epaulets. Six more were down the front of her tunic and a leather belt with a brass buckle. She had black stockings and ‘sensible’, brown shoes.
It was Fiona Fuller’s first day in charge of Who Care’s team of underpaid and overworked care-workers to the elderly and infirm scattered around Crabby residential homes.
“Who are you lot?” she barked, stepping forward, holding a cane horizontally and tucked under her left arm. “Stand to attention when an officer’s present,” she bellowed. None of the four stood up.
She strode across the room, military-style, to where the four were sitting, the cane still in place under her right arm, and bellowed again, “You are an insubordinate shower, aren’t you? Now get to your feet.”
No one moved. Lenny leaned to one side, and said, “Colonel, what’s she rattling on about?”
Standing behind Lenny and Jock, she didn’t see him wink at the two. He raised his walking stick and pointed at her, saying in his best ‘officer’ vocal delivery, “And pray tell who are you?”
Fiona Fuller stepped back a pace, switching her cane to her left hand, then saluted with her right hand.
The Colonel had spotted the ‘WC – We Care’ logo and didn’t return the salute. “He said to her you’re a civilian, despite the get-up that looks military. I’m a civilian. People address me as Colonel, even though I’ve never been an officer. Why do you salute me when military etiquette says you don’t need to? Now take off that stupid cap, and let’s get a good look at you.”
Fiona Fuller stood to attention, smartly whipping the cap off her head with her right hand, showing a neat, crew-cut hair style, and barked, “Sir.”
“Another thing. We are not clients of your mob, so shut up, march away and pretend to be an RSM elsewhere.” He waved his walking stick as he spoke.
“Sir,” raising her left leg and stamping her foot down, then doing the same with her right leg. Military-style. She smartly turned around and marched away, her right arm swinging, her cane held horizontally under her left arm.
“Gawd, who is she?” Lenny asked. “Makes those other two women seem positively nice.”
When she had departed, Reg leaned forward, and asked, “How come you know so much about military fings?”
The Colonel smiled and replied, “Simple. I was once banged up with an old army major who’d nicked the regimental silver and flogged it. He taught me army etiquette and suchlike; that’s how I got the nickname: Colonel.”
Lenny looked puzzled and with a slight look of bewilderment on his face, he asked, “What’s this etty-thing? Sounds queer t’ me.”
The Colonel was about to reply when Reg intervened, “It means the right way to do summit.”
“Oh, sounds foreign t’ me.”
The conversation about Fiona Fuller ended. Her overbearing military-style approach to those in care would become an issue with all the council’s residential and care homes.
Fiona Fuller’s opening days as a manager on the Crabby scene would lead to the highest number of complaints ever received by the Council. She had finished her management training with the care company, Who Care, which assigned her to the Crabby office.
She was a former PT instructor with the British Army for three years and then ten years with the Royal Military Police, rising to the rank of Sergeant-Major. She vowed she would bring discipline to her care staff and some sort of order to the elderly under her charge.
By the second day of her command, she instigated a morning roll call of all staff, in her military parlance, at seven hundred hours when she inspected each to ensure they were properly dressed and knew their duties for that day.
Those who failed to attend this meeting because they were on their rest day, sick leave or attending the early morning needs of clients soon found out their names appeared in a disciplinary book, which she called the ‘jankers’ record’. To her, nonattendance because of illness and without her permission was just a feeble excuse, and miscreants should be punished by her imposing ‘jankers’, the military slang for punishment. What this comprised of, she never explained.
If Fiona Fuller had her way, all clients would stand by their beds, ready for inspection, holding any medication in one hand and a small glass of water in the other. Then, on command, they would consume the pills. To her, such discipline was important to build a profitable unit, she argued. She paid no attention to the casualty factor.
By the end of the third week, lawyers were rubbing their hands in anticipation at the fees that could be charged for various court cases involving poor care control, negligence and intimidation involving more than forty cases, where normally bed-ridden or severely disabled residents aged in their seventies and eighties, plus three in their nineties, had suffered broken bones, including two needing double hip replacements following falls whilst attempting to stand to attention at Fiona Fuller’s early morning, military-style roll-call of residents.
This led at times to comical results. Felicity Kendall was ninety-five years old, but still able to look after herself with little help from carers. She was deaf and had switched off her hearing aid. It was early in Miss Fuller’s reign, and she paid ‘Flick’ an unannounced afternoon visit, and didn’t bother to knock before entering her flat.
This visit on one lunch time occurred for a few minutes after she had prepared a bowl of tomato soup and placed it on a small table in front of her arm chair.
Flick, as she liked to be known, was a wartime and post war member of the Women’s Royal Army Corp, better known with its acronym of WRAC. She had just sat down to enjoy her soup, waiting for the hot-steamy dish to cool down when Fuller entered her flat without knocking.
She was about to demonstrate the full extent
of her noncommunication skills and apparent lack of dignity towards, which she described as her ‘charges’. She bellowed at Flick to pay attention.
Startled by the intrusion, she asked, “What’s that?” and turned up the volume of her hearing aid just as Fuller leaned over in front of her. Then, virtually touching Flick’s nose with her own, she bellowed even louder, “You deaf or what? Stand up when I enter the room.”
Flick responding to the old-style military command, stood up and in doing so, tipped the little table over, and the soup cascaded down the front of Miss Fuller’s smart, military-style skirt, the red tomato soup draining down her legs and into her smart, brown shoes, leaving an astonished Miss Fuller spluttering with indignation and Flick laughing at the results.
Miss Fuller turned around in military style and left the room, her feet squelching from the effects of the soup. As she left, Flick giggled with delight. She revelled in telling others of the incident.
This was one example of Miss Fuller’s authoritarian, uncaring, bombastic style, which would lead to clashes with many of the company’s clients.
Her encounter with ninety-four-year-old Northern Irishman, Joe Felan, who steadfastly refused to move to full-time care, would lead to much legal hand-wringing and head-shaking of council officials. Joe had lost both legs when his diabetic condition worsened. He had two prosthetic lower limbs and relied on heavy walking sticks when using them. Most of the time he spent in his wheelchair, a heavy blanket covering his lap, hiding the fact his legs below both knees were missing.
Fiona Fuller visited for the first after breakfast on the fourth day of being in ‘command’. The fact he wasn’t a Who Care client mattered not. In her usual forceful style, she told Joe to stand up when she entered the room. Joe had not fit his legs that morning and simply said ‘no’ to her demand.
He leaned forward, her face a foot away from Joe’s. She shook her head as she lay on the floor, missing her dentures and bleeding from her mouth.
When the police questioned him, he said he picked up his walking stick to protect himself and the stupid woman had collided with his walking stick.
After meeting Miss Fuller and taking guidance from doctors and council officials, the senior officer read the report and took pity on Joe ordering the case closed as an ‘accident’.
Miss Fuller returned to work a few days later, sans dentures and bruised evidence showing she had been clouted in the mouth. None of the residents offered any sympathy.
Another significant change she demanded of the council was the way social gatherings were organised. She wanted control of them two or three times a week when residents interested in any sporting event, game show or a period film and would meet and vote on what they would watch on the large TV in the lounge.
The ‘mouth’ wanted to dictate that the TV could only be watched from eleven in the morning until six in the early evening. Watching any sports programmes, she disapproved of were banned, these included football, snooker or darts. The fact that she had no rights to make such orders mattered not to her.
For many months, the residents had lived in harmony and voted for whichever sporting programme they would watch. This was achieved diplomatically and without rancour.
The one person who didn’t suffer her non-communication skills and apparent lack of dignity towards, what she described as her ‘charges’, was the Colonel. She treated him as a long-retired senior officer of the British Army. Not following protocol, she would salute him every time they met. He usually returned with the RAF version or the three fingers of a scout or the well-known two fingered gesture of contempt when her back was turned.
Within a month, she had alienated many from all residential and nursing homes in Crabby where her company, Who Care, provided carers and many staff members of WC.
She responded to residents’ complaints by describing them as ‘trouble makers’ and that they should be kicked out. She became to be known as the Obergruppenführer. The fact that the title applied to a wartime German SS commissioned officer mattered not. Her parade ground bellowing earned her the nick name ‘The Mouth’ from the wittier.
The council had become alarmed at the number of complaints. Many Who Care clients changed care companies.
As the Obergruppenführer blundered her way through care, the vicar had started the process of restarting the Campanology Club, to the uncultured, the Bell Ringer’s Club.
The ‘face’ mysteriously appears and vanishes. Percy Planter occasionally made a brief appearance saying nothing.
One afternoon, the four mulled over their idea of how to get a ticket back to jail when, as they were about to leave for the lunchtime session in the Talbot, they were met by the formidable Martha. Jock was dressed in grey flannel and black blazer with brass buttons.
She ignored the other three and concentrated on Jock, “Oh! You do look smart,” she brushed imaginary fluff from his lapels, giving him her most charming smile. She said, “You must come and have lunch with me,” attempting to be seductive. She waggled her fingers at him and blew him a kiss as she left the room. Jock shivered with discomfort.
Lenny wanted to meet Miss Creswell but declined to tell the others why. He made his first visit to a library.
As the four made their way to enjoy their usual lunchtime tipple, a fracas in a Birmingham conference venue was attracting police attention and a single arrest was made. Police were trying to figure out how to deal with a retired school teacher, who had clouted a steward at the education conference entitled:
How to discipline children with compassion.
Miss Creswell defiantly refused to apologise, and the police confiscated her two placards, reading:
Cane, the little buggers, more often. And bring back the cane.
They bailed her to appear at the Mid-England Magistrates Court in a month’s time. She arrived home late that night, vowing to increase activity with her Punish, the Blighters campaign. She had yet to understand why the sudden increase in men wanting English lessons and having to be punished for bad spelling or diction emerged. She couldn’t understand why when leaving her lounge class-room. They gleefully rubbed the ‘chastisement’ area of their backsides and made appointments for further lessons. She was annoyed with them when they made the same mistakes again and virtually demanded punishment.
The usual ‘punishment purveyors’ in Crabby and Brighton had noticed a downturn in their trade. They had to do something. Rumours spread that men were being ‘punished’ and weren’t being asked to pay.
Chapter 10
ANY residential home has its range of issues and occupants. The Retreat was no different. Underneath its perceived tranquilly and social harmony lay the quirky lives of other odd-ball octogenarian residents, including a seventy-five-year-old, long retired, semi-recluse, who claimed he was once a vicar in a Midland’s parish. His nickname among residents was the ‘Bishop’. He had peculiar habits (not of the sartorial persuasion), spending most of his time working on a laptop computer. “Writing,” he said, “his memoires.” A ‘carer’ visited him twice a week.
Another odd-ball was the aged ‘doc’, who ran his private, non-NHS clinic on Wednesday and Saturday mornings from a small room on the ground floor of the building. He catered for minor ailments among residents from the social side and the private wing, charging them for any liniment, pills or any other ‘medication’ that didn’t need a prescription. He avoided contact with the Miss Creswell for fear of being battered around the head with her walking stick.
At the beginning of their tenure, the Four made feeble attempts to socialise. Since the day when they moved in, each had been dogged by the activities of the ‘country lady’, who believed she was the real person who ran the establishment, even dictating policy to the warden. The diminutive, Mary Murphy, was irritated by her. Martha Samuels demanded that freshly cut flowers be placed in the entrance hallway and lounge area of the Retreat. Guy Summerton refused to help her and grow the necessary blooms in the greenhouse. To him, growing pr
oduce for sale at the farmers’ market and certain veg for selected customers was more important. At least, it earned him a few quid.
Martha managed to persuade other tenants to contribute a pound a week for flowers. She decided the four and the dreadlocked sporting Sonny, who had a small flat in town, had disgraced themselves and should be kicked out.
Mary had only been in charge for a couple of weeks when the four appeared. She explained to her husband she wasn’t quite ready to face any confrontation with them or the Country Lady as she was having enough difficulties with some other odd-ball resident.
Martha Samuels was a formidable, white-haired lady, who once ran a FTSE100 Company. Now aged seventy-seven, she moved to the Retreat five years before following her divorce. After she had discarded a string of wealthy boyfriends, she married for the first time in her early sixties.
It was said that the tears he shed on the news, that the decree absolute had been granted, were not of sadness, but of joy. He could now let his gay relationship flourish. He’d only married her for the financial security it gave him. The large financial settlement softened the blow to his gay pride and helped his bank balance.
She was always well turned out, and many found it difficult to believe her real age. Those who remember her when she was younger described a slim, busty blonde and working as a dancer until wealthy boyfriend came on the scene. Rumour has it; he died in bed, of heart attack. Although over-weight, she still showed a graceful carriage, with her country-clothing dress sense, as she strode the corridors of the Retreat. She was a founder member of the All Ladies Secret Society. She always claimed it was a female version of the Masons. She had accumulated wealth by astute divorce settlements.
She still believed she was all-powerful, and people should cow-tow to her demands. Some did just to get some peace from her. They avoided social gatherings where she might appear. Members of the gang had managed to avoid her since arriving.
She had purchased an elegant apartment in the private wing of the Retreat and paid for an up-market care company to look after her needs. To her, it was an expedient way of getting servants on the cheap.
The Final Heist Page 6
