by David Carter
‘At least that’s a long way away,’ he said, unthinking.
‘He’s asked me to join him.’
Gringo grimaced. Thought as much.
‘And?’
‘I’ve said yes.’
‘Oh Christ, Glen, have you still not learned your lesson? The guy is a complete tool.’
‘You don’t know him, Gringo. You’d like him if you met him.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘I love him.’
‘Sometimes you don’t know your own mind!’
‘I know my own mind better than anyone else does, better than you possibly could.’
‘I’m not so sure of that.’
‘Anyway, I just wanted to tell you before I go.’
‘When are you going?’
‘Friday.’
‘So soon?’
‘Yeah, we both thought the sooner the better. It will be so much easier down there without his family and pushy parents hanging about, sticking their oar in every five minutes, we both realise that. We’re looking forward to it so much. Neither of us knows anyone in Argentina so we’ll have to work it out together.’
‘Can we have dinner before you go?’
‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’
There was a brief silence as he thought of something to say, so she jumped in and spoke again.
‘Anyway, I wanted to thank you for all your help when I came back from New York.’
Gringo ignored that.
‘What does Paul say about all this?’
‘He’s in bits.’
‘Poor dear.’
‘Don’t be so nasty, Gringo.’
‘Do you want me to take you to the airport?’
‘No, but thanks for asking. Dad’s taking me.’
‘Okay. Makes sense I suppose.’
‘You’re not too disappointed, are you?’
‘Me? Disappointed? Course not! Why should I be disappointed?’
‘I just thought you might have been; that’s all. Well, bye, Gringo, and keep well.’
‘You can always ring me if you want.’
‘Thanks for the offer, but I won’t this time. Farewell Gringo, and keep smiling,’ and with that she was gone, out of his life forever, Farewell Gringo, just like that, is if some fancy fairy story had come to an end, if only it were that simple.
‘Fuck it!’ he yelled to the four walls. ‘Fuck it! Fuck it! Fuck it!’
Why did she always make him feel that way? It had been an horrendous couple of days, and Glenda Martin had just about topped it off, and if that wasn’t bad enough, things were about to get worse.
Sixty-Three
Five days later he received a handwritten letter postmarked Newcastle-upon-Tyne. His heart rate jumped as he tore it open.
Dear Gringo,
Thank you so much for your kind letter. I have to admit I had reservations about moving up here but everyone has been so welcoming. To top it all I have met a truly wonderful man called Toby, between you and me he is a minor aristocrat, a Right Honourable no less, and talk about whirlwind romance, he has proposed and I have accepted.
I can’t believe my luck, and all because of you. I wouldn’t have come here at all, but for you.
We are so busy getting the Hall ready before I move in, before our big day, and after that we shall be known as The Right Honourable Toby Wellingham and his wife, Lady Julie Wellingham.
I have to keep pinching myself. Sometimes I feel like it’s all a dream and I shall wake up at any moment. Me a lady no less, can you believe it?
He is not a Feb twenty-niner like us; that will never happen to me again, meeting another rare bird such as we, but a girl can’t have everything.
You must forgive me if I refuse your kind luncheon invitation; let’s just say that I have far too much to do, which is the truth of the matter on this occasion.
Concentrate on one lady, Gringo, that’s what matters, for no one wants a butterfly who flits from bloom to bloom.
I shall always think of you with great fondness and shall go into my marriage with newfound confidence, and all because of you.
Please accept a big kiss from
Your private and personal VAT inspector,
Julie C,
XX
He folded the letter and returned it to the envelope and sat back and closed his eyes. When things go against you, they really do.
The following day more mail arrived; fifty-six letters in total, each one a neat brown manila envelope. Seeing them nestling there on his doormat he imagined there must have been an election on, an upcoming poll that had totally passed him by. He grabbed the letters and took them through to the kitchen table and sat down and stared at the first one.
It looked mighty official.
Each one was addressed exactly the same. No title, name in full, Kevin Houseman Greene. In the modern way of things the envelopes didn’t bear a stamp or postmark. Citizens were no longer permitted to know from where their post had originated, or so it seemed to him.
He had no idea what was inside unless perchance he had won fifty-six prizes on the premium bonds, which though possible, was highly unlikely, seeing as he only possessed three hundred of the darned things.
He opened the first and unfolded the news.
He had, according to the printed writing, exceeded the speed limit on Saturday the such and such, at such and such, and accordingly had been fined £60, and had received three penalty points on his driving licence. The good news was that if he voluntarily attended a Safer Drivers’ Training Course, (To be held at the old aerodrome on the edge of the city, with any number of vacant dates still available, and, get this, no charge would be levied to attend,) the number of points would be reduced to two. Generous.
All fifty-six letters repeated more or less the same thing. Fifty-six separate £60 fines, his office-based expertise advised him that that totalled £3,360. Fifty-six identical speeding offences at three penalty points each, totalled 168 points on his driving licence, and with twelve points attracting a year’s driving ban, or so the small print happily informed him, he was looking at a loss of licence of fourteen years. Lovely!
All the offences had taken place during the period that Staff Nurse Linda Drayton had been hurtling around the town in his car, though as it turned out, and to be more accurate, up and down and up and down the same stretch of tightly controlled tarmac, in his black beast, the previous Saturday afternoon.
At the foot of the letter were some condescending remarks relating to any possible appeal. If you would like to appeal please write to the Chief Constable at blah blah blah.
Too right I want to appeal! But before that, a certain little lady had some explaining to do. He picked up the phone and punched in the number as if he were punching her face. No reply. Transferred to voicemail. He thought of yelling at the recorder, but resisted the temptation. He would ring again later, and he did.
This time she was in.
‘Hello, Gringo,’ she said, a note of optimism in her voice, perhaps she imagined he’d come to his senses, perhaps he was going to beg her forgiveness, but that optimism was short-lived.
‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’
‘Excuse me?’
That awful Americanism that has inveigled its way into the English language. Excuse fucking me. What is wrong with pardon, or I beg your pardon?
‘You know what I’m talking about. Speeding through a radar trap… time and again!’
‘Oh, you’ve heard, have you?’
‘Of course I’ve heard, fifty-six fucking times!’
‘I wish you wouldn’t swear so much, and if you must know, I actually drove through seventy times, but because of the slow traffic, I was forced to go under the limit for fourteen of them.’
‘Well that’s a fucking relief!’ he yelled, deliberately cursing.
‘It serves you right.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘For being so beastly to me. You upset me, Gringo, you r
eally did.’
‘I’m really sorry, Lin, I’ve already said sorry, haven’t I?’
‘Yes, well, saying sorry is hardly enough, is it?’
‘You don’t think I’m going to accept this, do you?’
‘I really don’t care what you do.’
‘I’ll deny I was the driver. They will have photographs. You are looking at a very long driving ban, Miss Drayton, and a huge fine to boot.’
‘I doubt that,’ she said, and her confident manner worried him.
‘Why?’
‘You’ll see.’
‘What have you done?’
‘Me? Done? Absolutely nothing. If you had paid a little more attention I think you will find that it was you who was doing all the doing, if you get my drift.’
‘I’m going to write to the Chief Constable and tell him I’m not responsible for any of this!’
‘You can write to the King of Siam for all I care!’
That was a phrase her father often used when arguing with her mother when she was twee. She’d always wanted to use it in anger, and now she had. Was there a King of Siam, she pondered, with a queer giggle, was there even a country called Siam? She didn’t have a clue, and cared even less. When she was a young teenager SIAM scrawled on the back of love letters or valentines cards meant Sexual Intercourse At Midnight, not that it ever happened of course, but it was fun, and she giggled again at those childish memories.
‘You haven’t heard the last of this!’ yelled Gringo, yet even to him it sounded a hackneyed line.
‘No, I rather imagined I hadn’t. Would you like to come round later?’
‘No, I would not!’
‘Suit yourself,’ she said, and gently set the phone down, happy with her day’s work, chuckling loudly.
Gringo sought out the writing pad and wrote a furious denial to the Chief Constable. The thought occurred to him he was becoming something of an inveterate letter writer, almost an Angry of Tunbridge Wells or a Beastly from Eastleigh type character. He would have to watch that.
A few days later in the early evening a uniformed policeman called at the house. A youngish guy who couldn’t stop smiling by the name of PC Colin Rifleman, very apt. Perhaps he was in the wrong profession, thought Gringo, or maybe not.
‘This is a most unusual case,’ he said, grinning.
‘You can say that again.’
‘Fifty-six speeding tickets in one afternoon is something of a record on our beat.’
Gringo could imagine that, on any beat.
‘You say you weren’t driving?’
‘Of course I wasn’t f… driving!’
The guy rolled his eyebrows, happy that the object of his investigation, one Kevin Houseman Greene, had at least refrained from swearing in his presence… just about.
‘So who was driving the vehicle?’
‘It was… look I don’t know who was driving, but it certainly wasn’t me.’
‘Was the car stolen?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘No it wasn’t, I have checked on that, there has been no notification to us of your vehicle having been reported stolen, so I repeat, who was driving the car?’
‘I don’t know. You must have pictures!’
‘Oh, we do.’
‘So you can tell it wasn’t me?’
‘We can’t.’
‘Why not?’
Colin Rifleman opened his black leather file and pulled out a magnified and blurred picture of Gringo’s car passing beneath the radar trap. The cop smirked again and handed it to Gringo.
‘Bloody hell!’
‘Exactly. You see our problem. So who is the person driving the car wearing the black crash helmet?’
‘I don’t know! But it certainly isn’t me.’
‘Do you know something, Mister Greene; I don’t think it’s you either; because if you attempted it, I don’t think there would be enough headroom for you to sit in the car, wearing that.’
Gringo stifled a laugh. The clever, conniving, bitch. You had to hand it to her. I wonder how she thought of that ruse, and where on earth did she get the helmet?
‘So,’ the PC began again, still grinning, ‘Who is the lady?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘What do you mean, you’re not sure?’
‘I can’t really make out the picture.’
‘I’m not talking about the photo, Mister Greene; I’m talking about who you leant your car to last Saturday?’
‘I didn’t lend it to anyone. She must have borrowed it. Sometimes I leave it unlocked on the drive.’
‘With the keys in it?’
‘Yes, sometimes, silly thing to do, I know, but being Saturday morning and all, with so many things on my mind, you just don’t think, do you?’
‘Clearly, you didn’t.’
‘I’m sorry about that. Will the tickets be cancelled?’
‘That is yet to be decided. I may need to make further enquiries.’
Yes, thought Gringo, he had pictured that development, and if PC shotgun here was to ask the neighbours about last Saturday’s little contretemps, they would be sure to fill in the missing pieces.
‘I see,’ said Gringo, an actor’s puzzled look now set on his face.
‘Well, I think that’s all for now,’ said the copper, smiling, as he packed up his evidence and headed for the door. ‘We’ll be in touch,’ he said cheerily, as he let himself out.
‘Thank you,’ said Gringo, slightly too loud, adding, but only when he thought his visitor was out of hearing range, not too soon I hope.
He watched from the front window as the laughing policeman climbed into his peppermint twist car and motored off down the close. No doubt the other residents will have clocked that too, and no doubt they would make their own judgements as to why the law was interested in the decidedly odd Gringo, as he preferred to call himself.
He grabbed the phone and dialled the nurse.
‘You clever little bitch!’ he said, in a surprisingly cheery tone, the moment she picked up the phone.
‘Excuse me?’
‘You know what I’m talking about, Evel Knievel.’
She let out a girlish giggle. ‘You know about the crash hat, then.’
‘I do now.’
‘Have you seen pictures?’
‘I have.’
‘Can you tell it’s me?’
‘I couldn’t.’
‘Can the cops?’
‘Doubt it.’
‘Did you tell them it was me?’
‘Nope, I didn’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘I didn’t think there was anything to be gained by it.’
‘Thanks, Gringo.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
‘Do you want to come round later?’
That was a hard question to answer. Did he want to go round? Did he have anything better to do? Yes and no.
‘Yes,’ he heard himself saying, though he could barely believe he had, such weakness it showed, he knew that well enough, and later he would blame it all on the dreaded demon, the one good thing about that evil little devil, he could take the blame for everything, and for once Gringo could live with that, and then he added: ‘I’m going to punish you – well and truly!’
‘Ooh! Promises, promises!’
Sixty-Four
On the morning of Glen’s departure for Argentina a card was delivered to the Martin household. It was addressed to Glenda. It had been written in longhand, a curiously large and untidy writing that she would immediately recognise.
Her father regarded the envelope with great suspicion before passing it to his departing daughter. He stood by, waiting for her to open it, but she ran upstairs and disappeared, saying that she still had some packing to finish. She sat on the bed and ripped it open. It didn’t say a lot.
You take good care of yourself, Bonnie Lass,
All my love,
Gringo
XXX
Ah!!! The soft man. Not so man
y words, but tender ones. No one else would send her a Bon Voyage card. In a strange way she would miss him, their chats, and his care, and the hot-cold, hot-cold dates they enjoyed and endured. She knew he felt something for her, that much was obvious, but it couldn’t be helped for her heart lay elsewhere, and there was nothing she, or anyone else, could do about that. She grabbed her mobile and dialled his number at work.
Julian Smeaton had been on his way to Gringo’s office. There were things he needed to see Gringo about. He heard the telephone ringing and walked into the office. Gringo was missing; no doubt preening himself in the Men’s room, as he was wont to do. Julian stooped and grabbed the phone.
‘Good morning, Gringo Greene’s office, Julian Smeaton speaking, Gringo’s away from his desk at present. May I help?’
Glenda listened to Julian’s oddly whining voice. For a moment she pondered on whether to speak.
‘Hello!’ shouted Julian again. ‘Is anyone there?’
She didn’t say a word. If she couldn’t speak to Gringo she didn’t want to speak to anyone. She cut the line and set down the phone and read the card once more. She grinned to herself and returned it to the envelope and slipped it in the drawer of the bedside table and forgot all about it. At that moment Gringo returned, just as Julian was setting down the phone.
‘Who was that?’
‘I don’t know. They didn’t say anything. Just put the phone down.’
Gringo instinctively knew who it was.
‘Can’t you use call-back?’ suggested Julian.
‘Doesn’t work on this system.’
So, Gringo imagined, she’d received his card and she’d rung him, but on hearing someone else’s voice, she’d baled out. Yep, that made perfect sense. But what did it tell him? He was more confused then ever. Gringo sat down as Julian closed the door and sat in the guest chair.
‘I suppose you’ve heard?’ said the old guy.
‘Yeah, I’m so sorry, Julian.’
‘Don’t be. I’m ready to pack it in. The closure terms are not so bad. I’m really looking forward to stepping out of this mad house. I’ve plenty to do. You can take over my responsibilities and good luck to you.’
‘I don’t think it will be me,’ said Gringo, taking the small blue envelope that Julian was offering: ‘This came for you this morning.’
