by Louth Nick
“Excuse, me can you direct me towards…food?” I ask her.
“Oh, yes. Food. I did see some, up on the left. Past school uniforms and slippers. There’s bound to be something to eat down there. Will you be alright until then, or would you like some Hula Hoops?” she asks, waving a packet the same size as a pillow.
“No, it’s fine. I left my wife there.”
Half an hour and 32 aisles away, I find Eunice in a state of agitation. Her wagon train of groceries has come to a halt in the foothills of the Andes of Andrex.
“Bernard, where have you been! We were supposed to pick Digby up from school at four, and it’s already quarter past.”
“He’ll have walked home, won’t he? It isn’t far.”
“Yes, but he won’t be able to get in.”
As we hurry out, Eunice fills me in on the campaign so far. The yoghurt has sold out, and the cinnamon grahams are no longer on special offer, so she only bought six packets. The salad cream has been located, and the stuffed olives liberated. I’m absolutely exhausted, and still have an evening’s babysitting of the tyrant tyke to go.
The final straw. Five minutes from Brian and Janet’s and we’re crawling in heavy traffic along red route territory. Eunice notices a health food shop and insists I stop so she can look for the damned Welsh yoghurt. I ask her to hold on for a moment, until I can park, but no, she flings the door open without looking and suddenly there’s a wallop, and a gymnastic cartwheel onto the pavement involving high visibility clothing, cap, torch, radio and other sundry items: Eunice has knocked a Community Support Officer off his mountain bike.
Saturday 22nd April: Mills and Boon
Still stuck at Brian and Janet’s with Digby. Amazingly, Eunice escaped with a caution for her savage and unprovoked attack on the constabulary. Perhaps they were swayed by her Florence Nightingale impression, but it didn’t fool me. Tearing open the young man’s uniform and feeling his hairy chest might have won her a Mills and Boon fantasy medicine award, but seeing as the poor fellow had only been winded and chipped a tooth it was medically unnecessary.
“Are you a nurse?” the poor man had muttered while Eunice laid my Harris tweed jacket in the filthy gutter for him to lay his head upon.
“No, but I’ve seen every series of Holby City,” she cooed, stroking his forehead.
Meanwhile, I’ve got a £140 bill from the Dent Doctor for removing teeth marks from the Volvo’s offside door. Janet is on the mend after her whateveritscalled-oscopy and will be back this afternoon. Brian is still at the hospital, so I’ve drawn the short straw. I’m tasked with preparing lunch for the fussiest child on the planet, a process requiring more care and planning than removing spent uranium fuel rods from Sellafield. I start with a casual tone.
“What do you normally have for lunch, Digby?”
“Chicken McNuggets at McDonalds.”
Nice try, I have to admit. “Now, Digby I know that Janet doesn’t approve of McDonalds. How about sharing a couple of slices of Welsh rarebit with your good old grandad?”
“Uurgh….What’s that?”
“It’s cheese on toast..”
“I don’t like cheese. And I hate toast.”
“You can’t hate toast. No-one hates toast.”
“I do. It’s rubbish.”
“It’s just cooked bread.”
“I don’t like bread.”
“Digby, don’t lie to me. I’ve seen you eat bread. What about those salad cream sandwiches.”
“Yeah, but I can’t taste the bread then.”
“Well you won’t taste this. It’s Sunblest. There’s nothing in it and it has no flavour. It’s designed to hold things. Like cheese for example.”
“I hate cheese.”
“Digby there are hundreds of types of cheese, so you can’t say you don’t like them all.”
“But Mum only gets cheddar. I hate cheddar. I don’t mind a salad cream sandwich though.”
“You can’t have a salad cream sandwich.”
“Why not?”
“There’s no nutritional value in it.”
“Grandma says that you hide food which is all sugary in a secret drawer at home. Mum says sugar isn’t good for you.”
That child is too clever by half. “What I eat for elevenses isn’t my lunch, Digby. It’s in addition to a nutritious lunch. You’re young and you need vitamins to help you grow properly.”
“But I’m tall for my age, Grandad.”
So in the end we went to McDonalds.
Chapter Sixteen: The Conquests of Harry Staines
Wednesday 26th April: Money talks
Share club meeting at Ring o’Bells. Mike Delaney had given us his apologies, and everyone had brought along an annual report so that K.P. Sharma, the only one of us who knew anything about accounting, could test our knowledge.
“These are bigger and more boring than my old bat’s underwear,” said Harry Staines, as he tossed a Vodafone annual review onto the pile among the beer glasses. “I can’t get my head around gearing, amortisation and stuff like that.”
“The thing is, Harry,” K.P. said, “that if you don’t understand how balance sheets are built, and what can and can’t go on them, you don’t know what you’ve actually bought in a share. If you can spot a company that has assets like property which are in reality worth more than the share price values at them, you have an absolute bargain.”
“But how can anyone do that with Vodafone. There’s an army of share analysts crawled all over it,” Harry retorted.
“True,” said K.P., but if you apply the same rules to a smaller and less well-researched company, you might do well.”
Harry was spending more time looking at Chantelle. Our resident goth was wearing a pink duffel-coat type woollen dress with a tatty black basque over the top and long motorcycle boots. While Harry was clearly interested in this unique and risqué ensemble and the curves it emphasised, to me she looked more like a mobile Barnardo’s outlet.
Martin Gale expressed all our frustration when he suggested that we really needed more money to make fresh investments. “This is what I wanted to join a share club to do. But we’ve only got a few hundred quid,” he said.
“Well, I did suggest that we had a more substantial minimum investment,” said K.P. Sharma. “But you all voted me down.”
“Well, we don’t have the lolly,” said Harry. “Bernard’s weighed down by his wife’s conservatory, Martin’s up to his neck in debt, Mike’s got a 30-a-day fag habit, and Chantelle’s on minimum wage. I’m not doing any better. The Jag’s been off the road for three months now, and it’ll cost me a grand to get it sorted so I’m ready to use it when my ban expires. That’s if I can afford the insurance.”
Chantelle looked puzzled. “Harry, how does someone who lives two doors down from the pub ever need to drink-drive?”
“I didn’t! It was after Sunday lunch chucking-out time at the Harrow and I knew I shouldn’t drive so I kipped in the car for a while. My mistake was to be parked on double yellows and have the engine on to keep the heater going.”
This was an edited version of the story I’d heard before. “Harry, from what I recall the bigger mistake was to offer the young WPC who arrested you ‘a good seeing-to’ on condition she let you go.”
“Well, she had a face like a weasel’s divorce, so I thought I’d do her a favour.”
“Do her a favour!” Chantelle grimaced at Harry’s bilberry-hued nose, ruddy face and sporadic teeth. “No mirrors in your house then, Harry?”
The aged lothario’s self confidence was miraculous. “It’s all about personality, my darling. Age doesn’t matter. Look at Bruce Forsyth, look at Hugh Hefner, look at whatsisname, Onassis. Look at John Prescott, for Christ’s sake.”
“That’s money and power, not personality,” Chantelle insisted, as the rest of us dissolved into laughter.
Harry, now in his element, continued. “No, no. Take Henry Kissinger. Ugly as a warthog’s thong. Not proper rich, but pulled a
sexy young thing. If even he can, I don’t see why Harry Staines couldn’t tempt a mangy police dog.”
“Sexist!” we all bellowed, but only Chantelle really meant it.
“Alright,” said Harry. “You want evidence? In the last five years I’ve had the landlady of the Harrow….”
“You’ve had Majorie Bellingham? You dirty dog!” Martin muttered.
“…both the lunchtime barmaids at the Fox and Hounds, busty Beatrice from the cold meat counter at the Co-op and a West Indian traffic warden called Annie or Anneliese or something.”
“Bullshit,” we all roared.
“I’ll tell your wife,” Chantelle teased.
“She wouldn’t believe you.”
“We don’t believe you, either,” I said. “I think Chantelle’s right. No twenty-five year old woman is going to be attracted to anyone over sixty unless he’s loaded.”
“In which case,” Martin said, “Let’s get this bloody share club on the road to riches. I’m twenty years younger than Harry, and I’m clearly not getting my share.”
K. P. Sharma had been silent for some minutes. “This is all disgusting. Listening to you, I can’t believe the British have the nerve to accuse Asian men of not treating women with respect.”
“Okay,” said Martin. “Fair enough, but when are we going to start getting results with these shares?”
K. P. let out a gasp of exasperation. “Martin, we’ve only been going a few months. You can’t expect to be catapulted into wealth, however well we do. If we aim for double the return you can get on a good savings account, we’ve done really well! The only way to get much higher returns is to take big risks, and by my estimate none of you can afford to lose what you’ve got invested here.”
There was a general grunt of agreement.
“Look,” K.P. continued, “Do you know what the average annual return over 100-odd years the U.K. stock market has made, after inflation? It is less than six per cent, and most of it comes from re-investing dividends. If you’re all thirsting for risk, why not start a separate portfolio just on paper, give yourselves ten million imaginary pounds and see how you do?”
“That’s quite a good idea,” said Harry. “Then I could say I’m a self-made paper millionaire. Then maybe even Chantelle would fall for me, wouldn’t you, darling?”
“In your dreams, Grandpa. And my nightmares.”
As Harry agrees to get the next round in, I reflect that investment can be a laugh even when you’re not making a bean.
Thursday 27th April: Heinkels over Isleworth
Drive around to Dot’s as planned at 5pm. Had to park around the corner because the Victorian school opposite is in the process of demolition, and a JCB is half blocking the road. When I get to Dot’s house I see the curtains are still drawn, local newspaper sticking out of the letterbox. No reply to doorbell. In something of a panic I use my own key to get in. I throw open the lounge door and put on the light. For half a second I think she’s dead. Dot’s legs, complete with zip-up slippers protrude from under the dining table.
“Have they gone, Geoffrey?” she whispers. It’s always a bad one when she calls for my father, dead since 1988.
“It’s me, Mum, Bernard. Are you alright? It looks very cosy!”
Under the table with her is a torch, a Thermos flask, the Radio Times and a collection of tinned fruit. She has walled one end of the table in with the sofa’s seat cushions on their edge.
“Is it over? I didn’t hear the All Clear,” she rasps.
“There hasn’t been a raid, Mum. I think it’s the workmen opposite.”
“Oh, there was a raid. Terrible noise from first thing. The whole street’s got it, I expect. Didn’t have time to tape the windows. Luckily, I’ve still got the Morrison.”
Mum’s Morrison shelter is actually a bleached pine economy table from Ikea, chosen because it’s light enough for her to move. While the old oak heirloom she used to have may have boasted good anti-Luftwaffe credentials, this one wouldn’t survive a direct hit from a meringue nest.
“It’s alright Mum. They’ve demolished the old school. That’s what you heard,” I say gently.
“Oh they haven’t! The poor, poor children. A direct hit, I expect.”
“Mum, please. It’s not been used since 1978. The war’s been over for 60-odd years, look. It’s 2006.” I draw the curtains, and lead her over to look. For a few seconds her face is a tapestry of wonder, as she absorbs the street scene as if for the first time.
“We won, then?”
“Of course we did,” I say as I put the kettle on. “So have you been under there all day?”
“Since ten-to-eight. The house was shaking. It was awful.”
“Well, it looks like they have done the noisy stuff. It should be quieter tomorrow.”
Just when I think she’s back with me in 2006 she throws me completely.
“Are we expecting a leaflet raid then?”
Tuesday 9th May: Keeping up with the Joneses
A moment I long dreaded. Went to Dot’s to explain that Dad’s share certificate in English Electric circa 1938 is now worth £600,000 and discuss the hurdles we need to cross to claim it. The full story is that EE was bought by GEC which largely went down a black hole called Marconi, all bar £593 worth which has washed up in a new firm called Telent, which is itself being dismembered. The real value is in another company, BAE Systems, which bought a chunk of GEC in 1999 and issued shares in payment. Getting our hands on the money will be just as tricky. The certificate is invalid, but if we can match Dad to a name and address on the register, we can claim. Trouble is, there are hundreds of Mr G. Jones there (curse of a common name). Even if there’s a match, additional identity checks will be needed, admin fees of £60 and hundreds of pounds for an indemnity from an insurance company to protect BAE (in case of what, I’m not sure). If the claim is established, a new nominee holding will be set up, and then the shares can be sold.
What I actually told her was this: “Mum, here’s a special competition. If you can remember all Dad’s addresses since 1938 we might be able to get some money. Quite a lot, actually.”
The response was immediate. “Oh, I don’t do competitions. Anyway, I’ve got enough here. I’m quite comfy.”
Damn. She might be comfy, but what about me? I’ve got Eunice’s credit card and conservatory habit to support. Clearly need to try another tack.
Elevenses: Excellent as always. Dot provided four cups of strong tea, plus two toasted teacakes with strawberry jam and clotted cream.
Wednesday 10th May: I told you so, at the Ring o’Bells
Arrived at the pub at 12.30pm for our usual fortnightly share club meeting. This time we deferred to Martin Gale, our Mondeo-driving 58-year-old civil engineer, who last month made a passionate case for investing in a tiddler called Fortune Oil when it was 5p. Since then it has briefly soared to 8.75p on news of a Chinese coal bed methane gas deal, and has now retreated to 6p.
“It’s only going to be here for a week or two before shooting ahead!” he insists. “Let’s buy now.” K. P. Sharma shakes his head and insists this would be a speculation, pure and simple.
Harry Staines says, “Go on, give it a go, it’s only a tanner a share. That’s dirt cheap.”
I am against, but don’t admit the real reason, which is that I haven’t a clue about coal beds or methane reserves. Won’t it just mean more dead canaries down the mine? Most interesting thing about the heated exchanges is the flecks of pork pie pastry that oscillate up and down on Martin’s moustache. In the end he wins, with Harry and Mike Delaney’s backing. Chantelle, the metal-studded gothic barmaid (today in black dress, black engineers’ boots and red eyeshadow) is opposed. So is K.P. Sharma. I abstain. Chantelle, clearing the table as I leave says. “We’ve only got two investments, and they’re both dependent on oil or metals. Ain’t good, is it?”
Elevenses: The Bells has started doing a lunch menu. Warned off the scampi by Chantelle, I instead chose beef cobbler, at £6.99
. Bad move, it’s awful.
4pm: Peter Edgington has left a telephone message saying that he is off to Capri with the family, has sold most of his portfolio and finally: “The charts indicate shares are heading for a real pasting this summer. I should lighten up holdings on some of those dog stocks of yours Bernard, in all seriousness.”
What an impertinent, overbearing and arrogant man! Rushed to the den to check the latest prices. All seems well (ish).
Thursday 11th May: Black widow rituals
Eunice’s credit card bill would not disgrace Imelda Marcos. Seems last month’s bunion emergency was merely a cloak to justify the complete renewal of her shoe collection. Nothing under sixty quid a pair! Doesn’t she realise we have a conservatory to support? Then I notice £131.50 from Life Renewal Enterprises Inc, presumably that appalling life coach Josh Fenderbrun. Hadn’t heard from him for a while, and hoped Eunice had got a refund. Prepared to tackle Eunice about it, with all the uneasiness of a male spider contemplating sex.
She turned on me in a second. “Bernard. If you want to waste your present that’s up to you. Irmgard says Josh Fenderbrun is the best in the business, and she’s shocked you were so rude to him. They won’t refund, so you may as well get some use from it.”
Friday 12th May: Edgington vindicated
Stock market fell out of bed! Sat at the keyboard at breakfast, munching on toast and honey, and amazed to see all those red numbers. What on earth is happening? Didn’t have much chance to mull it over, because I have to find a birthday present for my monster grandson Digby, who will be eight a week today. Phoned Janet for some hints for what to buy. Forget hints, the woman has a detailed list that wouldn’t disgrace a society wedding: X-Box console, mountain bike, new skateboard, some very specific kind of training shoes. (In fact so specific that she said she and Brian would purchase them to make sure they weren’t somehow ‘wrong’. That baffled me. So long as they fit, how can they be wrong? )
