Dead Suited

by Jean G. Goodhind

  ‘It’s a real racing car,’ he said to her. ‘And there’s a message.’

  She nodded and muttered an unintelligible acknowledgement. Of course there was.

  ‘Winner takes all,’ he said, his hot breath blowing into her ear.

  She felt like saying that she did not form any part of the prize for this competition, but knew it would fall on deaf ears. Julian Cunningham’s ego was big enough to fill the Albert Hall. He wasn’t the sort to take no for an answer – despite having his shoe trampled on.

  In all honesty it was a good effort and deserved to be considered. But she didn’t want to give him five. Basically she wanted to wipe that smug smile off his face. Giving him a high score in the competition would equate to him acquiring a high score with her. She could do without that.

  And yet...there was no doubting it was a good display. If only it would disintegrate...Dark thoughts. Mary Jane, resident professor of the paranormal at the Green River Hotel, had mentioned at some time that if you think dark thoughts hard enough, they’ll take root in the real world and happen. It wouldn’t hurt to try – would it?

  It was sudden, too sudden to be as a result of her thoughts surely.

  The coloured lights, green, red, white, purple and blue, had been flashing in sequence for some time. Suddenly purple fizzed, sparked and went black. Then blue did the same, a shower of sparks falling directly into the driving seat of the racing car.

  ‘My God!’

  A picture of animated panic, Julian Cunningham threw up his arms and screamed something to somebody inside the shop as he leapt over the threshold. One of the chequered flags meant to be waved over the bonnet and head of the race winner, became singed then blackened at one corner. Made only of cheap nylon the corner caught light. Fire licked over the flag. Cunningham was leaping around inside the window with a fire extinguisher, screeching at everyone to get more fire extinguishers, to put out the fire before the car got damaged and his name was mud.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Lee, curiously undisturbed by all the excitement and showing no inclination to assist in putting the fire out. ‘I do hope he’s got fire insurance.’

  Honey shook her head. ‘I doubt it. He spent too much money on those shoes and blonde highlights.’

  ‘Probably,’ murmured Lee and walked on.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Nobody had opened the curtains. That was the first thing the old man noticed. And nobody had brought him his breakfast. Seven thirty and that was the time he had his breakfast; not a minute earlier, not a minute later. He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. He couldn’t see it clearly but it didn’t look as though it were reading seven thirty. Was that gone eleven? If that was the case, where was everybody?

  With painfully rheumatic hands, liver spotted with age, the skin as slack and wrinkled as that on a bad apple, he fumbled for his mobile phone and punched in his son’s number. It didn’t matter if his son was only downstairs it was the best method of getting hold of him. Saved him shouting. Saved him shifting himself from the bed.

  A tinny voice told him the number he was calling was unavailable. The ungrateful scoundrel had turned his phone off. What was he playing at?

  It occurred to him that Nigel had been evasive and even a little rebellious in the days before he’d been rushed to hospital. Damned hospital! He hadn’t wanted to go, but then he hadn’t wanted to grow old either. He’d never expected to grow old. Even in middle aged he’d been convinced that his faculties would remain intact and he would physically stay at that age for many years to come.

  Things hadn’t worked out as he’d planned and he’d fallen and broken his hip. On arriving home with a new hip, he had then caught a cold that the doctor feared was turning into pneumonia. He’d suggested going back into hospital, but Arnold had held out.

  ‘If I’m going to die I prefer to do so at home.’

  Not that he’d had any intention of dying. Defiant to the end – that’s what he would be!

  The doctor had persisted, but Arnold, despite being delirious, had won the argument, mainly because Nigel had sided with him.

  ‘If my father doesn’t wish to go into hospital, then we have to respect his wishes.’

  Yes, thought Arnold as he thought back. Best I stay at home, an ambulance drive away from the hospital and its emergency facilities. What you meant my son was there might be more chance of me dying if I stay at home and that would, of course, be best for you. Everything would be yours then, wouldn’t it, son? Or so you think.

  Arnold couldn’t help chuckling to himself, his chest rattling with the effort. ‘I’m stronger than you think,’ he muttered and chuckled again. ‘And just wait till you read the will! Just you wait!’

  In the meantime he’d put Plan B into operation. If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed...if you can’t be bothered to come upstairs with my breakfast, then I’ll have to come down. ‘I’m stronger than you think, my son. Stronger than you think. In fact, I might even outlive you. Now wouldn’t that be a turn up!’

  He reached for his walking stick. It wasn’t there.

  He shook his head in exasperation. If he could just get up on his feet and get downstairs. His big dream was to get to the shop. Tern and Pauling was still his shop. He prided himself on supplying tailoring of quality. Those who had both status and money were his favourite customers because for the most part they also had manners. There were exceptions of course, one in particular...he pushed the vision of that man from his thoughts. Scoundrel! Cad! As for that son of mine...

  ‘Useless boy! Can’t even get that right. Can’t get anything right. No breakfast. No walking stick. Well I’m not that incapacitated that I can’t descend those stairs and give you a piece of my mind!’

  After pushing back the bedclothes, he shuffled to the edge of the bed, grumbling as his pyjama trousers wriggled into the crack in his bottom trapping his slack skin. In order to escape its clutches, he rocked from one buttock to the other. It was slow progress, but it worked.

  His pyjamas rearranged, he slowly eased one foot over the edge of the bed, then the other. Finally he had both feet on the floor and within inches of his slippers. He could see that his walking stick had fallen across the fur lined moccasins his son had bought him last Christmas. His son, Nigel, bought him slippers every Christmas, even though the old ones were never worn out. He got them at Harrods. There should be half a dozen pairs in the wardrobe, but there weren’t. There was only ever one pair. He presumed the old pairs went to charity, but didn’t enquire.

  He heaved a big sigh and uttered a few more unkind words about his son. He should have checked the position of the walking stick, making sure it couldn’t possibly fall over. Why hadn’t he checked what he’d done? Why always in such a hurry? But there, that was Nigel. Too much like his mother. She’d never been methodical either. Good in bed though – if you can call submitting to anything he wanted as being good. On reflection she’d never shown any sign that she was as enthusiastic about sexual pleasure as he was.

  Bending down to retrieve his walking stick was out of the question. His back wouldn’t stand for it and his hips certainly wouldn’t.

  With the resolve of one who always expects to come out on top and to have things done his way, he slid first one foot and then the other into his slippers. The walking stick remained in situ, lying across the arches of his feet.

  His right knee was a little more flexible than his left knee. His hips were stiff from lying in bed too long.

  Positioning himself just right he carefully raised his leg at the same time reaching for his stick. His bones creaked and groaned a little, but determination won through.

  Now to see what the young scallywag is up to, he thought to himself, indifferent to the fact that his son was fifty years of age and had a head as bald as a billiard ball. He was still ‘the boy’, the scallywag, the undisciplined disciple in the business of Pauling and Tern. Even his tailoring was inferior. He basically managed the business, taking care of banking and administratio
n, the high quality tailoring done by outside contractors.

  All in all, his son was a great disappointment to him, a mummy’s boy. Mollycoddled. Spoilt by his mother. He’d done his best to rectify matters, but to no avail. Boarding school had helped make him a man, but not that you’d notice. He still bounded about like a common grammar school boy – even in his fifties.

  It had been some weeks since Arnold Tern had been downstairs in the large Edwardian house purchased by his grandfather back around 1900. The house was well situated up a side road not far from Victoria Park, close enough to see the trees though not close enough to hear the raucous shouts of playing children.

  The bedroom door was very wide and also very heavy. He eyed it accusingly as he opened it, wondering why he hadn’t noticed it before. He’d get the boy – Nigel – to do something about it. The hinges might be altered to ease the weight.

  Shuffling out onto the galleried landing, he looked over the banisters, one hand firmly gripping the handrail. His legs felt wobbly and so did his head, understandable seeing as he’d been in bed for weeks. From somewhere in one of the downstairs rooms came the drone of a vacuum cleaner.

  The light from the glass upper half of the front door streamed into the hallway. It was the first daylight he’d seen for weeks; he’d insisted the curtains be kept drawn in his bedroom.

  There seemed to be nobody else around except for Mrs Cayford, the cleaner.

  He called his son’s name. ‘Nigel?’

  There was no response. Not entirely surprising. It was quite possible that Nigel had an appointment with a client – they never called the gentlemen who came to be measured for suits, jackets or trousers, customers – the gentlemen they served were always referred to as clients. Esteemed clients. The client, or more likely their valet or agent as they now seemed to term them, would telephone to make an appointment. Not for them hanging around in a shop all day.

  He looked down the flight of stairs, debating whether it was worth going down. Nigel was undoubtedly in the shop. There was nobody there except the cleaning woman. And those stairs; they looked so steep; such an effort, though for a moment it seemed they were coming up to meet him, blurring, swimming...

  ‘Mr Tern?’

  His shouted name was followed by the thudding of pink plastic Crocs as Mrs Cayford pounded up the stairs, just catching him before he tottered over.

  ‘Mr Tern, whatever are you doing out of bed?’ she scolded. ‘Now come on. Let’s get you back there. No arguments.’

  Edwina Cayford was a part time nurse who came in to do their cleaning two days a week. She reckoned getting a break from working in the hospital kept her sane as well as solvent.

  Nigel had suggested they get somebody who could come in for a few hours every day, but his father was having none of it. To his mind it made sense to have a nurse on hand if only for two days a week. Anyway he liked her. Sometimes she popped in still wearing her nurse’s uniform, though only if he asked her to. He’d licked his lips at the prospect. He loved nurses in uniform. There was something extremely attractive – sexy even – about a nurse wearing a dark blue dress with starched collars and cuffs and a belt that cinched in her waist. No matter her size, a woman couldn’t help achieving an hour glass figure wearing a belt like that.

  Unfortunately, he’d failed to take on board that nurses didn’t wear such an inconvenient outfit nowadays. They mostly wore what they termed ‘scrubs’, a tunic top and trousers. He’d been totally dismayed when he’d seen her dressed like that.

  ‘But what about your uniform?’

  ‘This is my uniform,’ she’d said with a smile. ‘Things have changed, Mr Tern. The old uniform wasn’t practical. This is better. Easily washed and dried and non-iron. Couldn’t be better.’

  Arnold Tern contented himself with eyeing the swell of her bosoms against the tunic top which he ascertained was a size too small. Same for the pants she wore, though he only ascertained that aspect of her anatomy when she bent over. The trousers were tight around her bum which was very round and filled them out nicely.

  Apart from her more obvious attractions, Edwina cleaned the house in a very efficient manner, everything scrubbed and sparkling by the time she left.

  ‘Now go careful.’

  She had one arm across his back, the other holding his arm around her shoulder. He liked the way she held on to him, gripping him with strong brown fingers, her plump arms holding him upright. She was good at her job was Edwina, both cleaning and nursing. That’s why he liked her around; she was used to giving assistance to those who could not help themselves.

  ‘Let’s get you back to bed,’ she said in a forthright manner that left no room for argument. Not that Arnold had any wish to argue. He liked her manhandling him.

  ‘You have very strong arms,’ he said to her. ‘I like feeling them around me. If I was twenty years younger I might take advantage and get you into trouble.’

  ‘Mr Tern!’ She sounded shocked but amused.

  ‘You are a naughty boy!’ she added, chuckling as she said it. She continued to guide the old man back to his bedroom and the warm bed he’d just got out of.

  ‘I haven’t had my breakfast,’ he said to her. ‘Nigel is under instructions to bring me breakfast at seven thirty. My stomach demands it. What time is it now?’

  ‘Gone eleven thirty.’

  ‘It’s nearly lunchtime?’

  ‘It is indeed. He must have forgotten. Never mind. I’ll get it for you.’

  ‘I like it when you get it for me.’

  ‘I know you do, but no naughty business,’ she said laughing whilst at the same time adopting an accusing expression.

  ‘If I was younger...’ he chuckled.

  ‘But you’re not,’ she said as she bundled him into bed. ‘He should have told me you hadn’t had breakfast. I expect he forgot what with all the excitement this morning.’

  Arnold’s eyes lit up at the possibilities of what she was saying.

  ‘Excitement? I take it my son has gone to the office.’

  He always called the premises occupied by Pauling and Tern an office. Terming it a shop was far too common.

  ‘I should think he has,’ trilled Mrs Cayford. ‘What a wonderful day this is!’

  To Arnold’s ears it sounded almost as though she were going to burst into song. What the devil was she so happy about?

  The only reason he could think the day was so wonderful was the identity of the client his son had gone to meet. His old heart leapt with joy at the possibilities; royalty was the ultimate of course. No matter how rich the Russian oligarch and how much their craving to be anglicised, there was no substitute for the royal connection; the British royal family of course.

  There was one prince above all others who favoured well cut sports or hacking jackets. A man who rode to hounds – or did before fox hunting was banned. His heart swelled with pride.

  ‘Ah! My son is meeting somebody very important today,’ he said with an air of great satisfaction and also great reserve. Pauling and Tern never betrayed their clients’ names.

  ‘Indeed he is,’ declared Mrs Cayford as she folded him back into the bed, turning the bedclothes tightly as nurses do.

  ‘Wonderful,’ declared Arnold promising himself to ask for all the details the moment Nigel was home. Efficient and sexually enticing as Mrs Cayford was, there were certain things one did not share with the hired help.

  She drew back the curtains with muscular arms then bent to turn over to adjust the thermostat at the side of the radiator.

  ‘I hope he was suitably discrete.’ His gaze rested on Edwina’s ample backside. In his mind he imagined them unclothed, round and glossy and richly brown.

  ‘I don’t know about that, Mr Tern, but he was so sure he was in with a chance, and when he phoned and told me a few minutes ago...well...I was as pleased as he was.’

  Arnold blinked. He was losing the thread here. What the devil was the woman talking about?

  ‘Could you explain exact
ly where you think he’s gone, Mrs Cayford?’

  ‘Well yes, Mr Tern. He’s gone to collect the prize. Isn’t it wonderful? I must say I thought it was the best window display, though Bob’s Boots was pretty good too. So was the chocolate shop...but there you are the window display at Pauling and Tern won the five thousand pound prize...Mr Tern? Mr Tern? Are you alright?’

  Arnold Tern’s lower lip trembled. His eyes stared straight ahead. If he had been fit and well he might have punched somebody – probably his son. As it was all he could do was sit like a boiling kettle, bubbling inside and in danger of steam coming out of his ears.

  Edwina had gone downstairs to make his breakfast leaving him tucked up in bed, his walking stick and mobile phone close to hand. There was also a glass of water and tablets for his heart, his blood pressure, his cholesterol and his bladder. He couldn’t take any of them until he’d eaten something, but his mind had shifted from all thought of food. Edwina had told him in more details about the shop window display. She’d admitted going into town and staring at it for quite some time.

  ‘It was lovely. A highwayman with a noose hanging in the background and all the jackets and coats looking like giant autumn leaves flying around the edges of the window.’

  Arnold was dumbfounded. Pauling and Tern had never indulged in flamboyant window displays. In fact they’d never indulged in ANY window displays.

  It was Pauling and Tern’s remit to always be discreet and thus have shaded windows. Their clients expected total discretion. They were rich people, titled people, people who had no wish to be photographed whilst being measured for their latest hacking jacket or morning suit. People whose private lives could make headlines if anyone at Tern and Pauling repeated some of the secrets told to them whilst measuring a titled person’s inside leg.

  He attempted to tell her that his son had gone behind his back and that Pauling and Tern never indulged in window displays. In fact they curtained their windows, after all their clients did not window shop. They made appointments.