The Poisoning in the Pub

by Simon Brett

  She tugged at Matt’s arm, indicating it was time they moved on. “Right, Ted,” she said. “I’ll leave you with your somewhat gnarled floozy.” And again, before Carole had time to react to such an overt insult, Sylvia went on, “Don’t envy you, love. Dealing with the drinking, apart from anything else. Still, it’s not my problem, thank God.” And she led away her massive fiancé like a docile dog.

  Ted Crisp seemed to have caught some of Matt’s dumbness. He had shrunk into himself. This time Carole didn’t curb her instinct to reach across the table and put her hand on his. Ted made no attempt to resist the gesture, but there was no answering pressure from his hand. Carole wanted to wrap her arms around him, just to protect him from any future blows. In a sudden memory of the kind she usually tried to repress, she recalled the surprising softness and vulnerability of his naked flesh.

  “That talk of solicitors…” she began gently, “that’s about a divorce, is it?” He gave the briefest of nods. “But, Ted, I thought you were already divorced. You always talked as if you were, even made lots of jokes about what divorce was like for a man.”

  “Old rule of stand-up,” he said with a sigh. “If something really upsets you, put it in the act. Other old rule of stand-up: never let the truth get in the way of a good line.”

  “So what happened? That is, if you don’t mind telling me…”

  He shrugged. “I don’t mind. Not much to tell. I dropped out of university to do the stand-up stuff. Met Sylvia at a gig – she was there for a hen night. I was in my late twenties by then. She was about nineteen, working for a building society. We got together. I took her out a few times…and the sex, well…” He was embarrassed to be discussing the subject with a former lover. “Anyway, it all seemed to come together. It was quite fun. I was working late so many nights that we didn’t see that much of each other, really, which made the times we did see each other feel more important, more precious, I don’t know…”

  He ran his hand through his sweat-damp hair. He wasn’t enjoying the effort of recollection. “Then, after a few months, Sylvia thought she was pregnant…”

  “You mean she trapped you into marriage?”

  “No, no, I wouldn’t say that. But it made me kind of think that I should may be show a bit of responsibility, you know, if there was a nipper on the way, so I asked her to marry me. Pretty soon it turned out there wasn’t a nipper on the way, but the idea of marriage stuck. And yes, there was a bit of pressure from her parents, but not that much. Don’t think they ever really approved of me. But at the time I really thought it was a good idea. Very nomadic life doing the stand-up circuit, I needed to have a base somewhere. And the idea of kids later, I didn’t mind the thought of that. No, I wasn’t trapped into the marriage.”

  “But it didn’t work out?”

  “It was all right for a couple of years, but then…And I have to take some responsibility for things going wrong. You know, you’re out late every night, you want to lie in in the mornings, but you’ve got a wife who’s got to check in nine o’clock sharp at the building society. It puts a lot of stress on a relationship.”

  “As did your drinking?” asked Carole rather beadily.

  “Yes, OK, I’ll own up to that. Stand-up, you’re always in bars and pubs. And it’s scary stuff. You never know what the audience is going to be like, what they’re going to throw at you. And I don’t mean just heckling – in some of the rougher clubs it was bottles and glasses too. So you have a couple of bevvies to calm your nerves before you go on, and then you have a couple more to wind down after you’ve finished. And then you have a couple more for the road, and a long drive home. And you’re still wide awake when you get back home, but of course your wife’s fast asleep and…Well, it’s not conducive to a great relationship.”

  “Did you have affairs?” asked Carole, uncharacteristically direct, given the intimate nature of the question.

  He blushed. “Nothing major, but you know, away from home so much…a lot of booze flowing…there’s bound to be the odd skirmish…only human nature.”

  “Really?” said Carole coldly.

  “So all right, there were faults on both sides. Perhaps more on my side, I don’t know. But when things started to go wrong, Sylvia just clammed up on me. Shut me out, wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t discuss anything. It was never going to go the distance.”

  “But when it did end, she was the one who left you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You once said she went off with a double-glazing salesman, but I never knew whether that was one of your jokes or – ”

  “Bloody true. My wife went off with a double-glazing salesman. Didn’t seem much of a big deal at the time. We’d made a mistake. I wasn’t making her happy, she’d found someone who did – fine. We didn’t really have any possessions, lived in a rented flat. After a few months I hardly noticed Sylvia had moved out. Not having her around didn’t make much difference to ninety per cent of my life. I was still doing as many gigs – though that did begin to drop off after a while – but Sylvia had never gone to my gigs, anyway. She’d heard it all before.”

  “One question, Ted?”

  “Hm.”

  “Had Sylvia met Dan Poke before last Sunday?”

  “I’m not sure. As I say, she didn’t go to any of my gigs. Though, actually, now I come to think of it, she must’ve met him. When. Dan finished the gig on Sunday, she was all over him, saying how good it was to see him again, introducing him to Neanderthal Man.”

  “Neander – ?”

  “Her fiancé.”

  “Matt, the biker.”

  “Don’t know whether he’s a biker or not. I do know that he’s a delivery driver.”

  “Ah. Sorry, go on. You were talking about your marriage…”

  “Or the Third World War, as it was affectionately known.”

  “But why has Sylvia suddenly reappeared in your life?”

  “Money. It always was money with Sylvia. Maybe working in the building society all day made her obsessed with the stuff. That’s what a lot of our arguments were about when we were married. She said I was off every night, boozing away anything I made from the bloody gigs – which wasn’t a million miles from the truth – and we ought to be saving a deposit for a house and getting a foot on the property ladder…Oh, it went on and on…”

  “But had the double-glazing salesman got money?”

  “You betcha. He was a very successful double-glazing salesman – got a big spread out near Chelmsford. Sylvia liked that, liked being the lady of the manor, liked giving up work, liked spending his money. So she wasn’t bothered about getting a divorce. I was as poor as a church mouse. She wouldn’t get anything out of me, just be a waste of solicitor’s fees.”

  “So what’s changed?”

  “Two things have changed. One, Mr Double-Glazing Salesman suddenly took a look at the woman who’d been sharing his bed for the last however many years and decided she was beginning to show signs of wear and tear. And since they weren’t married, there was nothing to stop him replacing her with a younger model. Which he did with remarkable alacrity and gave Sylvia the old heave-ho. So she’s out in the cold cruel world the wrong side of forty, and she hasn’t got anything, not even the tiniest toehold on the bottom rung of the old property ladder.” He spoke almost with satisfaction, and took a sip of the coffee which must have gone cold long before.

  “You said two things had changed.”

  “Yes, well, the other thing of course is that I’m no longer the old church mouse, am I? I’ve built up the Crown and Anchor, haven’t I? And though the actual finances there are very shaky, to my greedy little ex-wife it looks like I’m coining it. So suddenly divorce becomes a rather more attractive idea.”

  In the cause of fairness, Carole felt she should point out that Sylvia also had a new man in her life. “She does actually want to remarry.”

  “Yes, but I reckon marrying Matt is relatively low on her priorities. What she really wants to do is stitch me up.”<
br />
  “Sure you’re not being a bit paranoid?”

  “No. This is not a fantasy. Sylvia’s out to get me!”

  Carole refrained from commenting that she’d never heard anyone sounding more paranoid, instead asking, “And presumably Matt hasn’t got any money?”

  “You’re bloody joking. Like I said, he’s a delivery driver. Very much a step down for our Sylvia.”

  “Then how’re they going to pay the bill at a place like Yeomansdyke?”

  “On her credit card, I imagine – and their prospects of getting half the proceeds when I finally have to sell up at the Crown and Anchor.”

  “Oh, Ted, it won’t come to that.”

  “No? After the couple of weeks I’ve just had, I wouldn’t put money on it.”

  “But you’ve built up that place on your own. Sylvia made no contribution at all. She has no rights on the business.”

  “Not what her lawyer says.”

  “Really?”

  “She’s got one of these really sharp feminist solicitors. Real man-hater. All men are rapists – let’s squeeze every last penny we can out of them.”

  “And what’s your solicitor like?”

  Ted Crisp shrugged. “Don’t know. I’ve hardly met the guy. He dealt with the purchase of the Crown and Anchor, that’s about it.”

  “And was he any good?”

  “How can you tell with a lawyer? The paperwork came in. Followed by the bill. Par for the course, isn’t it?”

  “But does he specialize in divorce?”

  “I’ve no idea.” Ted had become listless now.

  Cataloguing the history of his marriage had depleted his last resources of energy.

  “Don’t you think you ought to get someone who does specialize in divorce?”

  “I think what I ought to do, Carole,” he said as he rose from the table, “is to thank you for the coffee – and your concern – but to tell you once again that this is my bloody mess and it’s down to me to get out of it.”

  He turned and shambled away. His jeans and scruffy T-shirt looked out of place amidst the bright beachwear, and the cheerful shouts of children splashing at the edge of the sea seemed only to accentuate his misery.

  “Where are you going?” Carole called across to him.

  “Back to the Travelodge.”

  And, no doubt, to the bottle of Famous Grouse.

  Fifteen

  The healing had worked. The woman with the dodgy hip had left Woodside Cottage walking more easily and in a lot less pain. As always at such moments, Jude felt a mix of satisfaction and sheer exhaustion. Only someone who has done healing can know how much the process and concentration involved drains one’s energy.

  She was infusing a restorative herbal tea when the phone rang. It was Sally Monks, the social worker who had provided Ray’s address for her. Her voice sounded tense. “I’ve only just heard the news.”

  “About Ray?”

  “Yes. Obviously I knew that there had been a death down at the Crown and Anchor, but I’ve only just heard that it was Ray who died. Wondered if you knew any more about it.”

  “A bit. Not a lot.”

  “Well, look, I can’t talk now. I’m on my way to an appointment and talking in the car – which I know I shouldn’t be – but I’ve got to drive through Fethering later this afternoon. Might you be around then?”

  “Sure. What sort of time?”

  “I can never be quite sure because my visits can get complicated, but hopefully fourish. That be OK?”

  “Fine,” said Jude.

  ♦

  In fact it was after five when a black Golf parked outside Woodside Cottage and Sally Monks came bustling out. She was a tall redhead of striking looks. All Jude knew of her private life was that she didn’t wear a wedding ring, but someone who looked like that couldn’t lack for masculine attention. Jude had come across a good few social workers in the course of her working life, and found they fitted into three main categories. There were the ones who were simply bossy and always knew better than their clients. There were the ones who got so personally involved with the people they were meant to be looking after that they almost ended up needing social workers themselves. And there were the buck-passers, dedicated to the covering of their own backs, so that wherever responsibility ended up, it wasn’t with them.

  Sally Monks was an exception who didn’t fit into any of the categories. She was the ultimate pragma-tist. The moment she encountered a problem, she started thinking of solutions to it. But she didn’t impose these solutions, she worked with her clients, so that they felt part of the process of finding a way forward. She was also very direct, she didn’t dress up the truth with vague reassurances. This characteristic, as well as an allergy to paperwork, frequently brought her into conflict with her employers. She had been the subject of any number of disciplinary meetings and reprimands, but the social services always stopped short of sacking her. They couldn’t afford to lose anyone who was that good at her job.

  “Sorry to be late,” she said as she came through the front door (which Jude had left open to get some air moving round the house). “Client was an old boy who’s just moved into a nursing home, and who hates watching television in the communal telly room. I’ve tracked down his son to get a set into the old guy’s bedroom.”

  “Are the residents allowed to have their own televisions?”

  “No.” Sally Monks grinned. “But I’ve fixed that with the managers of the place.”

  She put down her leather bag and flopped on to one of Jude’s heavily draped sofas, glowing not only with the heat, but also with another small victory over bureaucracy. She wore a black linen shirt and trousers, creased from too long spent in the car, but still looking pretty damned elegant.

  “Can I get you a drink?”

  “Love one.”

  “Virtuously cooling or alcoholic?”

  Sally Monks glanced at the watch on her slender wrist. “Oh, go on, you’ve twisted my arm. I was full of honourable intentions to write up three weeks’ backlog of case notes tonight, but…what the hell?”

  “White wine be OK?”

  “White wine would be perfect. Pinot Grigio for preference.”

  “Sorry, don’t have that. Can you make do with a Chilean Chardonnay?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Sally with a grin. “I’ve always been prepared to slum.”

  As she got the drinks, Jude reflected how easily she and Sally always slipped back into relaxed banter. They didn’t really know each other that well, but there had never been any strain in their relationship. And some things – like their love lives – they just never discussed.

  Jude also felt a slight guilt at how much less relaxed the atmosphere might have been had Carole been there. Much as she loved her neighbour, she knew there was always a necessary period of awkwardness when Carole was introduced to someone new. So it had been some relief to hear that that afternoon had been earmarked for one of her neighbour’s monthly Sainsbury shops. (Carole had forgotten her fabricated excuse of doing a big shop the previous Saturday.)

  The sitting room of Woodside Cottage felt as warm as the day outside. There was no doubt the weather was getting hotter. Fethering residents mumbled darkly about global warming, with a complacent ignorance and the comfortable feeling that they’d probably be dead before it got really bad.

  The two women sipped their wine gratefully. “So…” said Sally, “anything you can tell me that isn’t the usual Fethering inflated gossip?”

  “Perhaps a bit. Carole and I were almost the first people to see the body.”

  “Almost?”

  “The chef at the Crown and Anchor, Ed Pollack, I think he probably saw Ray dead before we did.”

  Sally Monks shook her head in pained disbelief. “I’m still having a problem taking it in. Ray, of all people. I can’t think of anyone who’s done less harm in his life.”

  “That’s what everyone seems to say about him. Incidentally, what was his surname? I never heard any
one refer to him as anything other than ‘Ray’.”

  “Witchett. Ray Witchett. He was one of the gentlest men I ever knew. I mean he was never going to be playing with a full deck, he’d got serious problems, but they didn’t manifest themselves in violence. I suppose he had a mental age of, I don’t know, under ten, but so long as he had his football and his television and all his magazines about people from the telly, he was fine. And that independent living scheme up at Copsedown Hall seemed to work very well for him. For all the people there. No, it’s a great set-up…” her brow darkened “…for as long as it lasts.”

  “Oh?” asked Jude, picking up the hint.

  “Funding threatened there, as well as everywhere else. Central government and local government both trying to close down places like that. Get more people out ‘into the community’…regardless of the fact that most of the people in places like that can’t cope ‘in the community’.” The social worker sighed with frustration. “Oh, don’t get me started on that. I’m afraid I very quickly lose my sense of proportion.”

  “All right,” said Jude hastily. “Let’s not go there. Tell me, what actually was wrong with Ray? Is there a technical term for what he had?”

  “Yes, there are lots of technical terms, lots of ‘syndromes’ describing various aspects of his condition, but basically he suffered the effects of being deprived of oxygen at birth. That’s where it all sprang from, his stunted growth, impairment of his motor functions and the mental incapacity.” Sally shook her head again. “I can’t believe he’s dead. Still, from all accounts it was total chaos up at the Crown and Anchor on Sunday. In that kind of mêlée anything can happen. I guess poor Ray was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”