Arrivals & Departures

by Leslie Thomas

  The garden ended in a threadbare field, the sort of field, never now aspiring to be the meadow, that lay in the unkempt countryside about Heathrow. His horizon was near, a gentle rising of the land, studded by a few hawthorns above which lay a drift of smoke. Anthony and Annabelle Burridge had lit their campfire.

  Adele came out into the garden. She had been out all day and she had bathed and changed. ‘While you were sorting out the Istanbul drama, a Mrs Kitchen called for you,’ she said. ‘She left a letter.’

  ‘Mrs Kitchen? Who’s she?’ He took the envelope from her.

  ‘Bedmansworth Residents, she said,’ Adele told him. ‘She lives in one of those dreadful brick boxes on the new estate.’

  ‘Bedwell Park Mansions,’ he said. He had opened the letter and was reading it in disbelief. ‘I don’t believe this,’ he said. ‘This woman, the bloody Residents’ Association, says that I’ve got to take down my observatory! According to them it contravenes some damn covenant. What a cheek! What nonsense.’

  She took the letter from him and read it.

  ‘I checked,’ he said. ‘I checked with the planning department. It’s only a greenhouse after all.’

  ‘On the roof,’ she pointed out. He could not help feeling she was pleased.

  ‘What are you going to do about it?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m going to ask her what the hell she’s talking about.’

  Adele said: ‘She quotes a covenant from nineteen thirty-seven. Sometimes these things get lost – until somebody turns them up.’

  ‘Thanks. That’s very encouraging.’

  ‘Sorry, I’m only telling you what I know from my own professional experience. The social services are often coming across odd things that suddenly resurrect themselves.’

  ‘I’m not concerned,’ he said bitterly. ‘She’s obviously just one of those self-appointed busybodies.’ They walked from the garden through into the dining-room. She had set only two places.

  ‘Toby’s out with Lizzie,’ she said. They sat down at the table as they had done for twenty years. She served the salad bowl and he poured two glasses of white wine.

  ‘The woman’s mad,’ he grunted. ‘That sort really gets up my nose. God, she probably hasn’t been here five minutes.’

  ‘I have to live with them all the time,’ she shrugged. ‘They’re always on committees.’

  ‘I don’t know why you bother,’ he said. It was a well-worn argument.

  ‘Because it’s my job. You do remember I have a job?’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘I should never have left my job at the airport.’

  ‘There’s no guaranteeing any job at the airport.’

  ‘Not even yours?’

  ‘Not even mine.’

  ‘I don’t know why you don’t just give them the two fingers and go and work for Gohm, Brent and Byas.’ She regarded him thoughtfully. ‘It might make a difference to our lives.’

  They had grilled lamb chops, potatoes and ratatouille. The discussion, none of it new to them, ceased. They ate moodily.

  ‘It would make a difference to mine,’ he said eventually. ‘One I don’t want.’

  ‘You must be crazy. The minute they can do without you, out you’ll go.’

  ‘The same could happen with Gohm, Brent and Byas.’

  Adele knew the argument was terminated, for the present.

  ‘I went to St Sepulchre’s yesterday,’ she said neutrally. ‘While you were in Istanbul. The old people’s home. We’re trying to place one of our cases there.’

  ‘Odd situation for a place like that,’ he said, glad also at the change of subject. Sometimes they both needed to back off. Neither had anywhere else to go. Peter Rose had faded from her thoughts into another marriage. She had read it in one of the columns. ‘Right on top of the runways.’

  ‘They were given the house for nothing,’ she said. ‘So they took it. It’s a condition that they can’t change the name which is unfortunate for elderly people. They sit at the windows and watch the planes landing and taking off. It’s sobering to see it. They had homes, jobs, responsibilities once. Now they have to be amused until they die.’ She pursed her lips. ‘It’s like seeing the future.’

  ‘The future is not yet,’ he said. ‘Have another glass of wine.’

  ‘The Burridges have invited us to a barbeque,’ she said. ‘Do you want to go? It’s in aid of the church. They’re trying to recover some of the money stolen from the offertory box.’

  ‘Ah, the famous Footballs for Africa Fund,’ he mused. ‘Why not?’

  ‘As long as it doesn’t rain. It will be crowded in that tent.’

  They knew they were just making conversation. They were both relieved when they heard the front door opening and shutting. ‘Toby,’ said Adele. ‘He’s got something he wants to ask us.’

  ‘He’s not getting married?’

  ‘Not at sixteen, I hope.’

  Richardson half turned in his chair towards the door as the boy came into the room. Toby kissed his mother on the side of her hair.

  ‘How is Liz?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh all right,’ shrugged Toby. He was square and short with untidy fair hair, his face serious. ‘She’s into older men now, so she says. She wants to marry Richard Branson.’

  ‘I’ll get you something to eat,’ said Adele. She seemed anxious to leave the room but Toby delayed her: ‘No, not yet, Mum. I want to ask you something.’ He pulled out a dining chair. They watched him cautiously. He was their only child. Richardson suddenly realised he could scarcely remember his growing up. ‘It’s not about Liz,’ Toby said. He glanced at each in turn. ‘So don’t worry.’

  Richardson continued eating. ‘It all sounds a bit portentous,’ he said.

  ‘Well, it is, to me,’ remarked Toby. ‘I want to leave the college. I want to get out of it. I’m not learning any of the things I want to learn, only maths, economics, all that stuff, I’m no good at them anyway. I want to get a job.’

  ‘So do a few million others,’ pointed out his father. Adele glanced at him quickly. ‘What job are you thinking about?’ she asked.

  Toby swallowed and looked first at his mother and then, challengingly, at his father. ‘Antiques,’ he said firmly.

  No one spoke. ‘Antiques,’ said his mother eventually. She looked at her husband. ‘Antiques,’ said Richardson.

  ‘Antiques,’ repeated Toby doggedly. ‘I like old things.’ He smiled miserably. ‘Like Liz really, I suppose.’ He stared at the table. ‘Richard ruddy Branson,’ he muttered with sadness and scorn. ‘Virgin Airlines should be just right for her.’

  It was cloudy, not a night for watching the stars. Adele was already in bed, propped up against her pillows reading a multi-paged report. She had a committee at nine. Edward came from the bathroom. ‘Antiques,’ he repeated gently shaking his head. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’

  ‘Maybe there weren’t any in your day,’ she suggested over the edge of the page. Her shoulders were plump below the straps of her nightdress.

  ‘Well, it’s different, you’ve got to give him that,’ he said. ‘But he’s got to learn the trade properly from somebody who knows what they’re about.’

  ‘He’s going to see the man at Windsor. That shop’s been there centuries, I’ve looked in.’ They were both relieved to have it to discuss. It was like meeting in No Man’s Land.

  Richardson took off his dressing-gown and prepared to climb into his own bed. They had abandoned their double bed. The excuse had been his arrivals from late flights, his astronomy and his and her frequent early leaving of the house. Now, going to bed was as compartmentalised as the rest of their lives, lying just too far apart.

  He went to the window and touched aside the curtain. A glow was coming from the other side of the field beyond their garden. ‘The Burridges are up,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘The campfire is still burning.’

  ‘What an extraordinary thing to do,’ she said without looking up from her papers.

 
‘Living in a tent? Well they’re obviously enjoying it,’ he said. ‘It’s given that marriage a new twist.’

  ‘That marriage can’t have been going very long,’ she observed over the edge of the page.

  ‘They seem to enjoy both,’ he said. ‘Marriage and camping.’

  ‘Until winter comes,’ she forecast.

  He turned from the window and said: ‘As it does.’ Both were tempted but neither wanted to quarrel now. He kissed her on the cheek and got into his bed. ‘The Burridges were in the Swan tonight,’ he said. ‘Two Americans were in there. An incredible old lady and her daughter.’

  ‘I heard,’ said Adele. ‘They’ve decided to visit England out of Bedmansworth. The Swan’s bound to be cheaper than the Savoy. What’s the daughter like?’

  ‘Nice, educated, American,’ he said.

  ‘Is that an official category in the airline business?’

  ‘Not necessarily. I thought it summed her up. Mid-thirties, I’d say. Smart, probably divorced. She’s called Rona.’

  Mr Old’s name had always been Benjamin Old. ‘I didn’t change it because I’m in the antique business,’ he often said. ‘I was Old when I was born.’ The shop had been opened by his grandfather before the First World War and the original black and curly gold lettering still embellished the front window. In those days Victoriana was derided; now it formed the main part of the trade. Uncertain items were casually referred to as ‘turn of the century’ and even pre-war radio sets and old telephones, popular with suburban householders, were stocked. The bell at the door sounded with a Dickensian tinkle as Toby entered at noon. The elderly owner was seated on a high stool eating a Chinese take-away from the counter.

  ‘Have to eat when you can in this business,’ he said, rice cascading from his fork. ‘You never know when there’s going to be some terrific excitement. About this time of the day there’s always a lull. It comes just after the morning lull and just before the afternoon lull.’ He scraped together some chicken remnants and ate them. ‘So it’s a job in antiques you want.’

  Mr Old pushed his plate aside. He lifted it and examined the base although only casually. ‘Why antiques? No money in it, you know. All that stuff about old dears coming through the door lugging Captain Kidd’s treasure chest is baloney. Do you know anything? Do you know what that is?’ He pointed to a dusty Georgian tantalus.

  ‘Three bottles in a rack,’ suggested Toby.

  ‘Good observation,’ Mr Old conceded. ‘Actually, it used to be a trick to frustrate the servants. You kept the booze in the decanters and then locked in the wooden bit to stop the butler tippling, see. It’s like that bit there, see, standing under the fake Rubens. The Rubens is late Margaret Thatcher period. That thing’s called a dumb waiter, another device to defeat nasty Victorian servants. They used to put the food and stuff on that so that they didn’t have to have somebody serving who was going to earwig on their conversation. How much do you want a week? How about fifty pounds?’

  Toby swallowed but replied: ‘How about seventy-five?’

  ‘All right. Glad you can haggle.’ He was spooning up cashew nuts. ‘Fancy a spring roll?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Toby diplomatically.

  ‘Not much good,’ summed up Mr Old handing the roll across in his fingers. ‘God knows what they put in them but it’s not as fresh as spring.’ He leaned forward conspiratorially, so much so that he almost tipped from the stool. ‘But I buy my grub there because I know they’ve got some lovely Chinese blue and white in the back of the take-away. He’s shown it to me. Lovely. Not a hair crack in it. I’ll buy that one day. If his grub doesn’t poison me.’

  He cackled. Some of the rice had fallen on his waistcoat and he carefully picked it off and put it into his mouth. ‘Waste not want not,’ he said. ‘Good motto for this business. All right, I’ll take you on. Seventy-five a week. Another tenner if you work on your day off.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Toby said happily. ‘That’s brilliant.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ cautioned Mr Old, ‘is not a word to use in this shop. Too shiny, touch of the repros.’

  ‘No, of course not, Mr Old.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry. Just learn. We’ll start you off right now, studying silver marks. You know that silver is marked with a stamp for the city of manufacture, a letter for the name of the year it was made, and sometimes the initials of the silversmith? No? Well, Hester Bateman was a famous English silversmith. See if you can see her mark on that pile of old knives and forks and spoons over there. While you’re cleaning them.’

  The Reverend Henry Prentice was sweeping rubbish from along the churchyard wall when Richardson emerged from his house. ‘Thirsty work, Vicar?’ Richardson suggested.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind one, Edward,’ said Prentice. ‘It might make me feel more Christian.’

  He left the broom propped against the wall and they went into the Straw Man, Bedmansworth’s second inn, adjacent to the small oval green. Although Prentice was not very tall they both needed to crouch through a low and narrow door, built three centuries before when people were much smaller. Mrs Mangold, who had kept the licence for twelve years since the death of her husband, was behind the bar, so confined that it always reminded the clergyman of a pulpit, her grey hair in a bun perched above a miniature beaming face. ‘You’re the first tonight, Vicar,’ she told them, her eyes like bright insects behind her glasses. ‘Good evening, Mr Richardson.’

  She knew the vicar would have a Guinness. ‘I’m having a scotch,’ said Richardson. ‘I need a little Dutch courage. I am off to see our formidable Mrs Kitchen.’

  Prentice blew a bow wave across the black surface of the Guinness as though trying to cool it. ‘Who’s Mrs Kitchen when she’s home?’ asked Mrs Mangold. ‘I thought I knew everybody.’

  ‘Chairman of the Residents’ Association,’ he said. ‘She’s only just moved in here.’

  ‘Ah, yes, I know,’ nodded the clergyman. He looked in a concerned way at Richardson. ‘Formidable. No sooner had she come into the parish than she began taking things over. As far as the Residents’ Association was concerned, it was a coup d’état, a putsch. She and her husband and a few cronies hijacked the committee and that was that. You know how people around here don’t bother turning up for things. I’m surprised some of them get to their own funerals.’

  ‘She wants me to pull down my observatory.’

  ‘That’s terrible,’ said Mrs Mangold looking upset. ‘Your nice glass dome.’

  ‘On what grounds?’ asked the vicar frowning.

  ‘A covenant, so she says. I’m not worried, she’s just trying it on.’ He finished the scotch and refused the vicar’s offer of a refill. ‘I needed one,’ he smiled. ‘But two might make me truculent.’

  He and the clergyman walked out into the evening. Mrs Mangold called: ‘Good luck, Mr Richardson.’ The vicar picked up his broom and began sweeping where he had left off. The village street was empty except for two parked cars. A cat had placed itself on the wall and sat prospecting for graveyard mice. An airliner droned low and slow overhead, just passing by. An insect whine sounded in the distance and, without speaking, the two men waited until the fragile motor cycle bearing the bulky Bernard Threadle turned the corner. He made an attempt to wave to them, thought better of it, and clumsily circumnavigated the green island in front of the Straw Man before cruising back.

  Wobbling alongside them, as though combating a difficult wind, he put his booted foot on the kerb and attempted to lift the visor of his winged helmet but remained trapped within the window. He gave it a second desperate push and it rose. The framed, artless face was revealed.

  ‘All quiet, Vicar. All quiet, Mr Richardson?’

  The first was a statement, the second an inquiry. They exchanged glances. ‘Yes, it’s very quiet indeed, Bernard,’ confirmed the vicar checking along the clear and dusty street. The only noise was the mild coughing of the vigilante’s own motor cycle until it was joined and drowned by a DC10 of Air Lanka, climbing for C
olombo. It took a long time to rise over the house-tops. ‘As quiet as it ever is,’ he added.

  Bernard studied Richardson. ‘Nothing to report,’ added Richardson. ‘Not yet.’

  Bernard blinked. ‘You think there may be, sir?’

  ‘There could be sounds of a fracas from the direction of Bedwell Park Mansions,’ Richardson told him. The vicar grinned thoughtfully at the handle of his broom.

  ‘I’ll keep alert for it,’ said Bernard. He revolved his attention to the clergyman. ‘I don’t suppose the official police have any news of the robbery in the church? “The Footballs for America”.’

  ‘Africa, Bernard,’ corrected the vicar mildly. ‘Americans don’t need footballs.’

  Bernard’s enclosed face frowned. ‘Africa it was. My mistake. But they’ve found nothing.’

  ‘There have been no arrests,’ confirmed the vicar.

  The vigilante tutted his head, swaying. ‘Not a clue,’ he sighed.

  He revved his machine, pulled down his visor and with a stilted wave of his gloved hand, set off on his patrol once more.

  ‘He means well,’ said the vicar shaking his head. ‘I only wish the poor fellow’s face in that helmet didn’t look so much like a turkey in an oven.’

  They laughed, shook hands and parted. Richardson walked on purposefully. He had never had need to walk through Bedwell Park Mansions before. From a distance it appeared as a conglomerated place and it was now revealed, as he walked, as functional and square, rectangular detached house faces, the same windows, the same roofs. Only the colours of the doors and the odd embellishment, a wagon wheel here, a private lamppost there, a short flagmast in a front garden, distinguished one dwelling from another. The newly laid gardens had known no opportunity for individuality. Evening cars were canted in drives, and faces looked out at him from picture windows, but there were few people outside; a man metallically tapping below the bonnet of a Toyota, another peering glumly at some meagre roses, and a lost-looking child sitting on a step.