Guilt Trip

by Judith Cutler

  Autumn, with rough channel crossings and nowhere for Leda to play. Unpleasant drives across to cold church halls for antiques fairs that hardly paid. Probably ferrying Griff in the dark to this oast house theatre. It was a good job we didn’t have a cat or I’d probably have kicked it.

  FOUR

  It would have been a very bruised cat indeed – if it had hung around long after the first assault – by the end of the weekend. Sales at Sevenoaks were brisk, but there was no reason for Griff not to leave me on my own for the second day and toddle off to his rehearsal. No reason at all, except a phone call late on Saturday night from Morris, calling from Paris, saying he might just be able to slip over for the day.

  ‘I’ve got to work,’ I whispered. ‘At a fair up in Sevenoaks.’

  ‘Can’t Griff cope?’ he asked reasonably. ‘Or Mrs Walker?’

  ‘She’ll be in the shop, as usual, and Griff’s booked elsewhere. So I’m doing it on my own. And no, much as I’d like to, I can’t just skive off. It’s a two-dayer. All our stuff’s laid out already.’ I was near to tears. ‘You know how it is at weekends,’ I added defensively.

  ‘Of course.’ He sounded as glum as I felt. ‘What’s this about Griff being booked?’

  I reminded him about Aidan’s visit to New Zealand and added, ‘He’s been very low recently. So when some woman from his past burst into a fair at the Mondiale and demanded that he star in her show, I encouraged him,’ I explained. Then I added glumly, ‘I didn’t know about the Sunday rehearsals then.’

  ‘Every Sunday?’ His voice was so controlled that it was obvious he was close to losing his rag.

  ‘Looks like it.’ I tried to appease him. ‘But, of course, we don’t have fairs every Sunday.’ And I didn’t actually have Morris many Sundays, either.

  ‘So on top of everything else, I have to try to juggle my free time to suit not just your work, but also some aged thesp’s crappy play in a location no one’s ever heard of.’

  I hoped he meant Emilia, not Griff. ‘I suppose if you put it like that, yes.’

  ‘How else can I put it?’

  He could have put it that I was stuck in the UK, with him swanning round Europe following a career choice he didn’t have to make – he could easily have stayed at the Met. It was a six months’ commitment, he’d said, maybe longer. We were nearly halfway there, and this was our first tiff – but it felt as if the next months would be very long.

  Before I could say any of this in a quiet and reasonable way, as opposed to a half-sobbed scream of complaints, I heard a wail. He must be speaking from Leda’s mother’s apartment. I’d been the first to say that Leda should be everyone’s priority. But I hadn’t realized that appeasing her mother would be the second. Not to mention his job coming in as a pretty hefty third. Which left me . . .

  It would have been easy to throw a strop and cut the call. Instead, I took a deep breath and asked how she was.

  ‘Starting the terrible twos early,’ he said. ‘I think she’s going to be an opera star. Lungs and attitude – a proper prima donna. I’d better go and deal with her before the neighbours start complaining again. Catch you soon, OK?’

  And that was that. At least we hadn’t ended on an open wound, but I had an idea that if I wasn’t careful I might say something that would cause one.

  The following afternoon I was just loading the last plastic storage box into our van and longing for a deep, bubbly bath, when the phone rang. Silence. Number withheld. And again, ten minutes later. And again. Each time I had to stop to check, of course.

  And then Griff phoned.

  ‘Have you had a good day?’ he asked.

  I’d worked out the answer to this in advance. If I said I’d been busy, he’d beat himself up for having deserted me; if I said we’d been slack, he’d beat himself up for letting me waste time I could have spent on my restoration work – I’d not told him about Morris’s call and didn’t intend to, in case he was sweet and sympathetic and I got all teary. Or hissing spitting furious at him for him indulging that overdressed old cow I’d never heard mention of before. I knew I’d encouraged him, but that didn’t make it any better.

  ‘We ticked over nicely,’ I said. ‘Fewer customers than yesterday, but about the same takings. I’m just about to set out for home, as it happens. Get the kettle on if you get there first.’

  ‘Ah.’

  So there was a problem.

  ‘Emilia’s invited me back to her home for afternoon tea, my angel, and a gossip about old times. So I may not be back until – say, sevenish? Maybe later?’

  ‘No problem,’ I assured him. ‘But promise me you’ll set out early enough to get home in the light. The nights are beginning to draw in already, remember.’ And Griff didn’t drive well in the dusk. Put it another way, he scared me rigid.

  Meanwhile, I’d get to unpack everything and stow it safely. For some reason, I knew that any moment now I’d sound and feel like the younger angry version of me, the one Griff had transformed, who had lashed out and broken things. I didn’t like all these feelings one scrap. Apart from anything else, they were illogical. After all, times out of number I’d shooed him out the way and done everything myself. But tonight I just seethed.

  At last I could turn the final lock on our boxes of stock and go and run myself that bath. If Griff had been around, he’d have pressed a glass of wine into my hand. On my own I plumped for tea. And a slice of Griff’s latest cake. I even flicked on the TV to watch the last overs of a cricket match I didn’t care about and picked up the Observer, left in a mess, as usual, because as Griff finished with each section he dropped it on the floor. I ought to start supper, too. Cooking was usually his area, but after an afternoon rehearsing and the long drive there and back, he’d be knackered.

  It had better be a quick shower, not that long deep bath.

  Just as I got thoroughly wet, hair too, the phone rang. I had a stupid hope it might be Morris, saying he’d come over to Kent anyway and was just down the road. So trailing drips and letting the shower run, I dived to answer it.

  It was such a quiet, embarrassed-sounding Griff that I swallowed my scream of frustration, disappointment and – yes – anger. I did manage to tell him to call back in two minutes when I’d turned off the shower.

  This time he sounded even more embarrassed. ‘I’ve been boxed in, loved one, and can’t move the van. I can’t persuade a taxi firm to come out here and collect me.’

  ‘Where’s “here”?’

  ‘Out at the oast.’

  ‘I thought you were going to Emilia’s.’

  ‘And so I was. But two lorries have absolutely trapped the van so I simply can’t shift it.’ Actually, he sounded as breathless as if he’d been trying to push them away. ‘I didn’t want to call you on your mobile in case you were driving.’

  ‘Police?’

  ‘Private land, according to Emilia. She’s terribly upset, as you can imagine – talked very briefly about driving me back. I can’t even reach our overnight bags or I’d find a pub to put me up.’

  ‘Give me two minutes to throw some clothes on and I’ll be on my way.’ I cut the call before he could protest and before I could scream aloud.

  Whoever had manoeuvred those lorries into place really knew their business. They’d backed in at right angles to the little van, with about two inches between their huge tyres and our bumpers – one at the front, the other at the rear. Then they’d unhitched the trailers from the cabs, which had now disappeared.

  The trailers couldn’t have parked like that by accident, and no other vehicle had been singled out for such treatment. No other vehicle, however, was brightly painted in the colours of Tripp and Townend, Antiques.

  ‘You see,’ he wailed.

  ‘I do indeed. Surely there must be something to say who these belong to?’

  Griff’s look told me that he might be old but he wasn’t an idiot. He’d looked all right.

  I took photos of the scene with my mobile, though I wasn’t at
all sure why. Perhaps because I couldn’t see a single CCTV camera – weird in a place with so many small businesses in need of protection. But I was still angry and needed someone to be cross with. ‘No Emilia?’ I demanded sarcastically.

  ‘I sent her home, of course.’ Griff seemed surprised I should even have asked.

  ‘Some friend, to leave you stuck like that,’ I snapped.

  The drive home was an unnaturally silent one. Usually, Griff chattered away about whatever he’d been doing. I’d expected he’d treat me to a probably libellous account of his afternoon’s activities, spiking his fellow actors with barbed comments.

  At last, as much to hear someone say something – anything – as to know the answer, I asked, ‘Did that guy get his tyre fixed OK? You remember, the other night?’

  ‘Oh, I believe the AA turned up eventually. He said something about it having been slashed, not just an ordinary puncture.’

  I shivered. Had that gorgeous young man done it? Surely not – I hadn’t seen him anywhere near the car.

  ‘And you can imagine what tyres cost for a monster-mobile like that. He’s a solicitor – wonderful orotund delivery. The trouble is, he’s no idea how to turn a line. I rather expected him to have a tantrum and depart in view of the attack on his vehicle, but he’s stuck it out. Half of me is relieved, I must admit: we have a plethora of women of a certain age and a shortage of men. No one under fifty, of course, of either gender.’

  I didn’t want to hear abut their casting problems, especially with another alarm bell ringing: if the David Tennant lookalike wasn’t part of the cast, why was he there? Perhaps he was one of the backstage people. ‘I can understand anyone getting away with slashing a tyre – all you have to do is creep up and plunge in the knife. But two huge lorries like those! Great noisy beasts. Surely, people must have heard them. Why didn’t anyone dash out and stop them?’

  ‘Thrown themselves under their wheels in protest?’

  ‘Not exactly. But asked the drivers why they’d done it. Emilia could have gone down on her knees like she did the other day. That would have wrung the hardest heart.’

  He stroked his chin. ‘Perhaps it happened when we were looking at the so-called dressing rooms, the far side of the courtyard on the other side of the building: Emilia marched us over there en masse in our tea break. I hope to God it doesn’t rain during any of the performances – we shall be soaked to the skin as we scuttle across. Imagine those Victorian skirts dragging in the mire – there are still traces of it having been a farmyard, with the usual occupants. In fact, I’d venture to say that our changing area might have been one of the milking parlours once. All we’ve got are wooden tables, a couple of benches and some pegs. Quite Hardy-esque. How fortunate I’ve still got my mobile make-up kit.’

  Still got? It was surely one thing he’d never part from. Although from the outside it looked like little more than a battered leather attaché case, inside there was an Aladdin’s cave of colour. The top tipped back to provide a mirror, complete with battery operated lights round the edge. I’d joked it ought to have a space for a vase, so admirers’ flowers could be kept fresh. Griff had looked at me reproachfully: an artiste wanted far bigger bouquets than could be kept in a mere vase.

  ‘Have any of the others had mishaps to their cars?’ I asked.

  ‘Not that I know of. Just someone’s idea of a silly jape.’ He reached across and switched on the radio. Classic FM. So he wanted to be soothed, not nagged or argued with. Feeling guilty myself, I let him get on with it. Or perhaps, in my head, I corrected myself, I let him get away with it – again.

  FIVE

  Someone else who was really good at getting away with things was my father, who phoned while we were heading back to the oast house to rescue our van from its strange imprisonment. Pa might be a noble lord, living in part of a stately home people paid good money to see, but he was also a mate of Titus, which damned him as much as anything. He’d also taken zero notice of any of his tribe of illegitimate kids, and paid, as far as I could work out, no maintenance at all to any of their various mothers. Now at least a trust fund was in place for my half-brothers and sisters, but apart from me, none was in touch with him.

  Actually, I was getting quite fond of him, now he’d given up trying to get me to leave Griff and live with him in the wing of Bossingham Hall which was all the trustees allowed him. All! At least three families could have lived there without any sense of being squeezed in. But I didn’t want to talk to him just now, even though we had a hands-free phone set-up.

  ‘I’ll call you back later, Pa,’ I said, ‘when I’m not driving.’

  ‘You’re not on the phone when you’re at the wheel! Good God! That’s against the law!’ He cut the call in horror.

  ‘I guess your friend Titus has been talking to him,’ Griff said, adding scathingly, ‘him and his butter-wouldn’t-melt ways.’

  ‘They keep him and Pa out of gaol, don’t they?’ I snapped, wincing as the van lurched from pothole to pothole in the road through the industrial estate. ‘Heavens, this is as bad as Pa’s track. Why don’t the firms get together and have something done about it? And install a few cameras while they’re about it?’

  ‘Not everyone’s as security minded as us, dear one. Ah! I’ve been set free!’

  So he had. There was no sign of the trailers, which had departed without leaving so much as a scratch on the paintwork. He was just about to drive away when I noticed another little problem, however: both the tyres on the passenger side were flat. Slashed like the Range Rover’s. We carried one spare, of course, but not two. I sent Griff off in the large van and phoned the AA tearfully, knowing they’d prioritize a lone female. I didn’t sit twiddling my thumbs while I waited for them, of course. I had a good prowl round, hoping to follow the lorry tracks to one of the units, so I could go and offer several chunks of my mind. But there were so many ruts and the ground was so dry that it was hopeless.

  The AA man, who turned up within forty minutes, might have wondered why I’d parked in the middle of nowhere, but he didn’t ask any questions I couldn’t answer. I’d worked out a few hints about a relationship with one of the guys working nearby, with the possibility of a vengeful wife, but didn’t need them. Job done in virtual silence, we exchanged smiles and went our separate ways.

  My route home could be adapted to go past my father’s place; I called him to let him know I could drop in. I should have known it wouldn’t be as simple as that.

  ‘Are you anywhere near a supermarket? Because I’m low on quite a lot of things . . .’ He dictated a list, including – miraculously, for a man once addicted to Pot Noodles to the exclusion of all else – such things as salad and fresh fruit. I assumed he wanted me to stay and lunch with him. Work apart – and how many hours had I wasted this morning? – I was happy to be away from Griff for a bit longer. Nothing would ever stop us loving each other, but we had snapped at each other a bit recently. Correction: I had snapped at him.

  Waiting till I thought he should be home, I called to say I was stopping off at Sainsbury’s and asking if he wanted anything.

  ‘That means Elham’s out of champagne, I suppose,’ he said.

  ‘It’s on his list,’ I admitted, trying not to sound cross – with either of them. ‘And loo rolls and porridge oats. It’s over a week since I saw him, so I’ll feed him while I’m there.’

  ‘But what about “The First Cuckoo”?’

  ‘What about it? I’ve finished it.’ I reckoned I had done all I could for the poor Worcester girl. Actually, for a double amputee, she didn’t look at all bad. She’d never be absolutely perfect – and I’d put a note in her box to warn her owners that the porcelain was more brittle than I’d have expected – but she could grace a display cupboard again.

  ‘But aren’t the Harpers collecting her this afternoon?’

  ‘You can do the biz, can’t you? The invoice is in the box.’

  ‘Well, I was thinking of . . . Oh, very well. I suppose I can se
e to it.’ He sounded really pettish, not like himself at all.

  I was almost ready to ring back and ask what was wrong, and even promise to get straight back, but for once I thought I’d put Pa first. And I might even return to Bredeham via Canterbury, where I could have a sniff round Fenwick’s end-of-season sale.

  Pa emerged blinking into the sun. Since his hands smelt strongly of soap, I assumed he’d been working on something for Titus I didn’t want to know about and had had to scrub telltale ink off his fingers. He helped me ferry goodies into the kitchen he still managed to keep clean, nodding doubtfully as I produced a different flavoured green tea from his usual blend. But the heavily discounted cases of champagne produced a broad grin, and he stowed two bottles straight into the fridge, where a couple from a previous batch already lurked. It was the work of seconds for him to open one, pouring nice cold bubbles into a fine Georgian flute I really ought to confiscate and sell for him.

  We ate the flan I’d bought, with a bowl of salad and some nice bread, which was a good thing because I found myself getting outside of another glass of fizz.

  The routine was that before I left I would hunt around to find items to sell. I made a note of them, Pa initialled the record, and once I’d got rid of them, taking ten per cent, we both signed them off. The saleable pile was steadily diminishing, but I reckoned there was still enough china alone to keep him in champagne for the next five years. After that I’d have to bone up on other things such as silver and the odd antiquarian item.

  He held open his front door for me – not the seriously elegant main one, of course, with the fabulous flight of steps leading to it from the oval gravel carriage drive, but a side one, originally meant for the steward, whose room Pa lived in – as I carried a box of assorted Victorian figurines to the van.

  As usual, he scowled when he saw it. ‘That shocking pink – not really the thing, you know, Lina. Never liked it. Couldn’t you persuade Griff to have something a bit quieter?’