Guilt Trip

by Judith Cutler

  I tried to look at the van with his eyes. The fuchsia was either eye-catching or vulgar, depending on your viewpoint. ‘I’ve been trying to get rid of the small van altogether,’ I confided, feeling instantly disloyal. I never, ever criticized Griff, especially to Pa. But I ploughed on, ‘I thought a nice little Ka or something.’

  ‘I’ll keep an eye open for offers on the ads on TV,’ he said seriously. ‘I’d have thought one of these jobbies that look as if you’re going to drive across the Sahara would be useful.’

  ‘A four by four? Not very environmental,’ I said. ‘And the only time I’d need it is when I come to see you. When are you going to sort out this business with the trustees and get the track fixed, Pa?’ I stared glumly at the potholes.

  ‘When you get something without your name blazoned all over it.’ He pulled a face. ‘Wish you’d take the family name, you know. Nothing distinguished about Townend.’

  ‘I don’t think Lina Elham would work,’ I said, taken aback by the offer.

  ‘Wouldn’t be Elham, you silly girl. That’s the title. The family name is Doughton, remember.’

  ‘Lady Doughton?’ I repeated stupidly.

  ‘No, no – you’d be Lady Lina . . . I think. Lord, years since I even held Debrett’s, let alone opened it. Wonder where it is.’ He rubbed his hands over his face as he did when something worried him. ‘Lady Lina – doesn’t sound very good, does it? You’d have to revert to being Evelina. And then I think I’d have to adopt you first – they won’t do wrong side of the blanket courtesy titles.’ He scratched his head, looking more puzzled and confused than he ever looked doing the killer sudoku.

  ‘Look, Pa, I’m too old for anyone to adopt me.’ Griff and I had looked into it a few years back, and there was no chance then. ‘In any case, I’m happy being straight Lina.’

  ‘But you’re not, are you? Happy, I mean. Look at you. You look as if you’ve lost a guinea and found a rusty button. Had a row with that old queer of yours?’ He peered at me. ‘No, it’s worse that that. Dear God, Lina, you’re not up the duff, are you?’ He sounded as outraged as if he’d practised foolproof contraception all his life.

  ‘No,’ I said flatly, putting the cardboard box down so I could fish out my keys. Chance would be a fine thing, I added mentally. How long was it since Morris and I had had a nice uncomplicated night together?

  He narrowed his eyes still more. ‘Ah, that chappie of yours is still swanning off round Europe, is he? Why don’t you tell him to get his bum over here?’

  ‘Because he’s working, Pa. And he wants to keep an eye on his little daughter, don’t forget.’

  Pa didn’t do father-daughter relationships, not in the way anyone else would recognize. He certainly wouldn’t have changed a nappy, and I didn’t recall him ever building a sandcastle for me. In fact, my only memory of him was in the library in the main part of the house, giving me a priceless book to read while he had a row with my mother, long since dead. But something obviously twanged in his brain. ‘That’s all very well, but it’s my daughter he should be worrying about. We did absentee landlords at school. Messed things up shocking they did. Absentee lovers are even worse. Remind him of that old proverb – absence makes a fond heart wander.’

  I was just about to correct him, when I wondered if he had a point. What if Morris was neglecting me because he’d found some fabulous svelte Frenchwoman to love? And where did a horrible voice come from, that whispered in my ear it might be easier all round if he had? Suddenly, the idea of going to Fenwick’s seemed less attractive.

  Griff was wearing an apron and sporting his rubber gloves as he opened the door to me and my box of figurines. ‘Oh, don’t bother with that rubbish! Where did you find this?’ Closing the door with his heel, he flourished something in his left hand. After the bright sunlight, I could scarcely make out what his treasure might be.

  ‘This!’ He held up the Parian bust I’d bought in Hythe. I’d forgotten all about it.

  ‘Twenty quid from that stall with all the heads and Toby jugs,’ I said dismissively. ‘But what are you doing with it?’

  ‘I was just about to clean it up for you, my dear one.’ He turned to the washing up bowl.

  I could see the detergent bubbles from where I stood. ‘No! Put it down. Griff, for God’s sake!’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ He flushed bright red, as well he might, the tone I’d taken.

  But I couldn’t stop. ‘You mustn’t let it get anywhere near water. Not Parian ware! What the hell are you thinking of?’

  ‘I just wanted to save you some work, Lina – you’ve done so much recently, and I thought—’

  ‘China, yes. Wash all the china you want. But not in Fairy liquid, come to think of it. Oh, Griff . . . I’m sorry. I know it was only twenty quid, but—’ I took a deep breath. We never argued about money, and here I was yelling at my mentor just as my teachers had yelled at me. ‘I’m sorry. A good dust, that’s all. You can do him all sorts of damage if he gets wet. Here, come to Lina, you poor thing. Diddums!’ If I acted the fool, perhaps he’d forgive me and everything would be all right. ‘Did the man want to put you in nasty wet water? Lina’ll clean you up, won’t she? With that funny tickly thing on the vac. And then you’ll make Tripp and Townend a bit of money. I hope. You don’t think twenty was too much?’

  Griff was now as pale as he’d been red before, and he was breathing noisily. But he knew what I was trying to do and took my hand and squeezed it in his usual loving way. He managed a smile. ‘Twenty pounds. Did you have to haggle?’

  ‘I didn’t have time. And it didn’t feel too much.’

  ‘Unlike you not to argue.’ He looked at me over his specs. It took me a moment to realize his eyes were twinkling. At last.

  I played along. ‘Don’t tell me I’ve been robbed. You’ll have to take it out of my share of the week’s profits.’

  ‘I might indeed. Did you realize that this was a bust of Ulysses S. Grant? Oh, Lina, you’ve never heard of him, have you?’ he added, not exactly reproachfully because he was all too aware of the gaps in my knowledge. ‘A US President, sweet one.’

  ‘Ah!’ That was good news. The American market was more buoyant than ours.

  ‘And you’ve heard of Isaac Broome?’

  I nodded doubtfully. Heard of: no more than that.

  Griff clearly knew more and was impressed. ‘This is his handiwork. Which I nearly ruined. Oh, Lina!’

  ‘Well, what’s twenty pounds? Anyway, you didn’t. And you think it’s worth more than I paid?’

  ‘With luck . . .’ He stripped off his gloves and took the bust. ‘Well, Mr President, Lina can work her magic. And then we’ll decide where to offer you for sale. I might just contact a couple of American colleagues for their advice. And I see, sweet child, that you found a sauce boat,’ he added, deadpan, putting Grant on the kitchen table and holding up my Derby bourdalou.

  ‘I did indeed. A hundred and fifty from Dave Hutton.’

  He mimed strong shoulders. ‘Big Dave from Leeds? So what was this doing amidst all his horticultural implements?’ He put it back and dug out some stomach tablets from the nearest cupboard, quickly slipping a couple into his mouth as if he didn’t think I’d notice. Since when had he been chomping those? He always claimed to have the digestive system of an ox, even when, having checked on the Internet, I’d pointed out that an ox had far more stomachs than he did.

  ‘Looking lost. He didn’t know what it was and hadn’t even bothered washing it.’

  ‘I hope someone had, before it went on sale!’

  I ignored his lavatory humour. ‘He only wanted a tenner, but I didn’t like to take advantage.’

  He tipped his head to one side. ‘Soft hearts don’t make profits, my love. On the other hand, I’d rather have Dave on my side than not, and we should still make a hundred or so profit ourselves. Excellent. What would I do without you, beloved?’ He looked at me anxiously, as if it really was a question.

  I hugged him as if it wa
sn’t. ‘More to the point, what would I do without you?’

  ‘You’ll have to one day, you know,’ he said. ‘My age – your age. But we must make sure you have adequate provision for the future. Absolutely sure.’ He marched off to the bathroom without waiting for a reply – even if I could have given one.

  He’d propped a letter addressed to me – standard A4, with a computer-printed adhesive label – on the mantelpiece. A French stamp? Morris! But all he’d done was enclose a picture postcard of Le Havre, unsigned. We’d spent a nice day there a month ago – perhaps he thought he didn’t need to say anything to revive happy memories. Suddenly, I was happy again, despite Griff’s ominous words.

  SIX

  ‘We’ve decided to skip the next couple of weekend fairs,’ I told Morris happily, when he called about ten minutes later, knowing he’d hear the smile in my voice even if he couldn’t see it on my face. ‘So I’m free to hop the Channel any time you want.’

  Actually, both venues were too far away to justify the fuel costs against the small returns we could expect, and Griff was getting twitchy about my doing all the driving and having to do most of the setting up on my own. But economics hadn’t really weighed with me when I helped make the decision. I just wanted to spend my free time with Morris – and Leda too, if she had to be part of the deal.

  There was a long silence at the other end of the phone. I could feel his sigh.

  ‘I’m really, really sorry,’ he said at last. And he sounded it. ‘I’ve got to go to Kraków this weekend, and the chances are I shall still be there or in Budapest the following weekend. It’s really manic at the moment. But at least it means my leave is stacking up nicely, so when the case is closed, we should have a good long break together.’

  I think I made a joke about breaks and my job repairing them.

  In which, of course, you didn’t really take long periods off. People didn’t stop taking chunks out of their best vases, and they didn’t stop wanting them repaired in less than no time. But there was no point in telling him that, not really, so we nattered a bit until we ran out of things to say.

  I forgot to thank him for the card.

  Swallowing a lot of emotions I wasn’t at all sure about, I arranged my face into something like its usual lines and, because I didn’t want to spend the evening howling and tearing my hair, went along with Griff to the second indignation meeting in the village hall. This time we should hear what our parish councillors thought of the antiques centre.

  The councillors were our neighbours – friends of a lot of us – but we bayed for their blood as if they’d helped decorate the new antiques centre themselves. To be fair, they did look dead shifty, especially when the vicar’s wife raised the accusation, thinly veiled, that they might have made money out of the deal. But without hard evidence all we could do was huff and puff. However, one enterprising soul said that if they couldn’t give us hard information, we’d have to go to the media, and all of a sudden they said that if we’d adjourn this meeting, they’d come back with all they could find next week.

  If they overheard the muttered suggestion that we should keep them under surveillance so they didn’t slip off to France, they didn’t give any sign – apart from a dull flush on the cheeks of one of them.

  So here I was with a weekend to kill. A wet weekend, too. I spent the Saturday dealing with some of the restoration backlog and hearing Griff’s lines, reading aloud for him the speeches that led into his, so he could pick up cues. On Sunday morning was a rare visit to church – the village one, not one at which my friend Robin was vicar – and a skim through the Sunday papers. All the news was depressing. On impulse, as Griff started off for the oast theatre, I offered to go with him.

  ‘My dear one, it’ll be like watching paint dry.’ All the same, I caught the note of relief in his voice at not having to drive. ‘Now, where’s that bag with my script and props?’

  ‘I can mind the van. I might even go and have a look at some car showrooms, actually. We can’t go on worrying about it, Griff, can we? We need the sort of car anyone could drive, with those complicated number plates no one would remember belonged to us.’

  ‘But I’ve always had a fuchsia van.’

  ‘You’d still have the big one. But think of the times we’ve had to hire anonymous wheels – it’s time we bit the bullet and got a nice little hatchback, same as everyone else’s. Heavens, if we got a low mileage second-hand one, we could even keep the van, if you insisted – there’s just about room in the yard.’

  He chuntered away for most of the journey, even suggesting that it wasn’t appropriate to swan into showrooms wearing jeans and trainers. I let him get on with it. It wasn’t often I got the bit between my teeth, but now I had, no amount of sulking from Griff was going to make me change my mind. In any case, he was forced to agree that sitting in the awful car park watching rain trickle down the screen wasn’t anyone’s idea of excitement, and he certainly didn’t want another episode with lorries or tyres.

  I was just waving him goodbye and putting the car into gear when the phone rang. Titus. I preferred to give him my whole attention in case I missed anything, so I stopped again.

  ‘That centre. Word is, the guy who’s running it is well dodgy. Forgeries. You’d want to watch any cup of tea he sold, let alone the china it’s served in. And I dare say his plants are plastic. So don’t you go having anything to do with him, doll. On the other hand, don’t go stirring shit either, in case you annoy him. Remember old Croft. Get Griff off that protest committee. Oh, make some excuse, doll. Safer not to attract any attention. Right?’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Haven’t got to that yet. Can’t ask straight questions, now, can I?’

  Not of the sort of person from whom he got all his information. ‘So how did this guy get Change of Use Planning Permission?’ I asked, sure, after the meeting, that I’d got the lingo right.

  ‘Couldn’t possibly say, madam,’ he said, sounding as if he’d got an official plum in his mouth. ‘Actually, I don’t think it’s your councillors that are bent. Think it’s higher up. Just stay out of it, though – OK? Now, one more thing: your Pa says you’re feeling blue, doll. Tell you what, ditch that bloke of yours. Shagging one of the filth, in-bloody-deed.’

  ‘You can give me advice when you’ve sorted out the centre,’ I said, with one or two other words Griff wouldn’t have approved off, and cut the call. That felt better. Usually, it was he who hung up on me.

  While I’d been talking, another couple of cars had pulled up, disgorging more wrinklies, with elasticated waists much in evidence, for both men and women. Hell, I’d never thought of Griff as old before! But he must be pushing seventy-five. Maybe more, since that was all he’d admit to. And he wasn’t old, not really. Just compared with me, I suppose, as if he really was my grandfather. And he certainly didn’t dodder, like these old ducks. Not unless he meant to. And his eye still gleamed when he saw eye candy, such as that David Tennant lookalike I’d come across the other night. Griff had said there were no young actors in this company, so perhaps he was part of the backstage team – lighting, for instance. On impulse, I decided to stay and check him out. The latest arrival, another pensioner, had parked so badly that there was room for me between her and the car she was nearest to, so I eased the van in between them. If the vengeful lorries came back, they’d have to box in a whole load of people, not just us, and there were plenty of other tempting tyres besides ours.

  Which was how I found myself sucked into the world of Am Dram.

  It wasn’t dramatic in itself. I don’t even think anyone noticed I’d arrived, and in any case, all I was doing was casing the joint in the hope that the guy with the gorgeous eyes was somewhere around. But the moment I slipped into the rectangular room attached to the oast, I knew I had to stay. When Griff and I read aloud to each other, he made people and places come alive in a way I didn’t know was possible – and certainly my voice never did the same, no matter how hard I tried.
None of these people was in the same league as Griff, and to be honest very few were even as good as me. But they were trying to manage without scripts, and if I couldn’t remember words when I needed them, how on earth would I manage whole speeches? Besides which, the play was cast. And there were no roles for young people. And definitely no sign of the good-looking bloke. So I might as well fall out of love with the whole thing and go car hunting instead.

  But I stayed.

  I should probably have coughed and drawn attention to myself. Instead, I just stared.

  Griff – still in his everyday clothes, of course, but somehow looking different – occupied the downstairs acting space, sitting behind a couple of planks that were meant to be a desk. By the light of a very twenty-first-century reading lamp, one of those bright spotlights they advertise in the papers, Griff was using the props he’d brought. Apparently, he was reading a diary, a thick pad, the binding of which I recognized as an old tooled-leather Radio Times cover which he’d bought for a pound the other day, the sort of thing a fifties stockbroker’s wife would buy to conceal an everyday item she thought was a tad vulgar. Since he’d already learned his part, he could pause and look around and generally bring this actor-manager guy to life.

  Emilia, his twenty-first-century equivalent, was with the rest of the cast up on the balcony which ran round half the space. She was hopping into and out of role like a flea, hamming it up as Griff’s wife or mistress – it wasn’t clear which – then trying as director to extract a modicum of feeling from their ‘son’, the man whose tyres had been slashed. Three or four other middle-aged to elderly women were staring at their scripts, mouthing their words silently as they tried to learn them. Someone was picking his nose and inspecting the results before stowing them in a hanky.

  None of them, of course, realized they had an audience.

  To put it another way, that someone was spying on them.