Chapter 33 #2
‘That’s just it. He wouldn’t need to be involved much on the practical side.
I’m after more of a silent partner, if that’s the right term – someone with the experience I lack who’ll take an advisory role, and help train up an apprentice when we’re in a position to take one on.
But he turned me down flat when I suggested it. ’
‘Really?’
‘Perhaps you could talk to him? The offer’s still open if you think he might change his mind.’
‘Why did he turn you down?’
‘I couldn’t say.’
They were interrupted by Charlie.
‘It’s all right,’ he said to Bobby. ‘No concussion, just a nasty bump. How did she get it anyhow?’
‘She had a fall. I’ll tell you how it happened later.’
Bobby cast another puzzled look in Roger Turner’s direction.
Why on earth would Charlie turn down a role that sounded so eminently suitable for him, when she knew he longed to return to veterinary work?
A partnership where his role was advisory rather than practical sounded ideal – more than ideal.
It could have been made for him. Bobby couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t bite this new friend’s hand off.
‘So, did you show Roger everything?’ Charlie asked her.
‘I showed him the bull emasculator.’
Charlie shook his head. ‘It really worries me that that’s the only one you ever remember. Come on, Roger, let me talk you through it all.’
Dr Minchin eventually turned up and was able to confirm that Lilian wasn’t suffering from a concussion. After he had been over to the Parrys’ to see to the captain’s nose, he had kindly offered to drive Bobby and Charlie home in his car.
Bobby hadn’t liked to leave her sister alone, and had been making plans to stay at the cow house overnight. Tony had arrived home, however, chastened and surprisingly still sober, which had changed matters.
‘You’d better go, Bob,’ Lilian had said quietly. ‘He and I ought to talk.’
So Bobby had left with Charlie and the doctor, but not without a glare that told Tony exactly what she currently thought of him.
‘Well that was quite a day,’ she said to Charlie when they were home.
‘I can see that,’ Charlie said, glancing at her dirty, bloodied pinny. ‘Sit down, Bob. I don’t know what happened today but I’m sure it can’t have done you any good.’
‘I’m jolly glad I was there, though.’ She sighed. ‘What a mess it all is.’
Charlie guided her to the settee. ‘What on earth went on earlier? I saw that look you gave Tony. He didn’t do that to your sister, did he?’
‘He did.’
Charlie shook his head darkly. ‘That bastard. I wish I’d been there. I might have thought Tony Scott was a lot of things, but I never had him down as a wife-beater.’
‘It was a little more complicated than that. Hold me, can you?’
Charlie sat down beside her and guided her into his arms.
‘Well, what happened?’ he asked.
After Bobby had filled him in, Charlie looked rather stunned.
‘Gosh,’ he said at last.
‘I know.’
‘Your sister and Captain Parry! I’d have thought he’d be too stuffy for anything as exciting as an affair.’
‘It wasn’t an affair. Not exactly.’ Bobby sighed.
‘I felt so sorry for them when they said goodbye. I think they’ve fallen quite deeply in love.
And now they can never see each other again, except to nod to in the village.
Lil’s had so much bad luck, it doesn’t seem fair that there won’t be any happy ending for her. ’
‘She ought to leave him. Tony,’ Charlie said grimly. ‘I’ve got no time for men who hit women. I heard you tell your brother you weren’t sure you believed in cowards, but I do. Men who prey on the weak. Men who beat women. They make me sick.’
‘I don’t believe Tony’s a bully by nature. He looked horrified when he realised what he’d done.’
‘Good. He should do.’
‘What do you think will happen to them? Could they ever be happy?’
‘I don’t know, Bob. It draws a line, something like what happened tonight. The fact Tony hurt you sister, I mean. Everything afterwards will be coloured by it, even if it never happens again.’
‘You might be right,’ Bobby said with a sigh. ‘I wish there was something I could do.’
‘You can’t fix everything, darling. It’s between Lil and Tony now.’
‘I know.’ She stroked his hair. ‘Why don’t you rest your head in my lap? Marmaduke always sleeps when he feels you there.’
‘All right, but not for too long. You need to eat, Bob.’
He lay down, and Bobby let out a deep sigh. She could feel the tension of earlier dissipating with Charlie’s head in her lap and the baby settling in response. Once again, she wondered how Marmaduke always seemed to know when his dad was near.
She felt rather sleepy herself. Her eyes started to flicker, but Bobby forced herself to remain awake. There was something she wanted to ask Charlie before she let herself relax.
‘Did Roger say anything about that equipment?’ she asked.
‘He seemed impressed by the bull emasculator. I think you rather oversold it.’
Bobby smiled. ‘Don’t joke. Do you think he’ll take it?’
‘He was definitely interested, but he had some things to arrange first. He’s going to let me know when he’s made a decision.’
Bobby hesitated, wondering how to proceed.
‘It must be galling for you,’ she said. ‘Seeing him making plans to open his own practice. I know how much you miss veterinary work.’
‘I do,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Still, if he takes everything, that’s ten pounds. We’ll be quite rich, won’t we?’
‘Yes,’ Bobby agreed, thinking guiltily of her biscuit tin containing nearly three times that. ‘That’s if he takes it though. He told me he was having trouble finding a partner, with so many vets gone to war. If he can’t find someone then it could be all off, he said.’
‘He told you that?’
‘He did.’ Bobby paused. ‘And he told me… he told me he’d offered it to you. Is that true?’
‘Yes, it’s true. What of it?’
‘I just can’t understand why you’d turn it down, darling.
Roger said it was more an advisory role than a practical one, suitable for someone with a lot of experience.
I can’t think of anything more perfect. I know you’re unhappy at the bank, and how much you miss your old work.
And to be a partner in your own practice too. ’
Charlie gave a bleak laugh. ‘He didn’t tell you about the money then.’
‘What money?’
‘The investment money to get the thing started. It’s a hundred pounds, Bobby. Roger’s putting in fifty and he’s looking for a partner to put in another fifty. Where am I supposed to get money like that?’
Bobby almost laughed. ‘That’s what’s stopping you?’
‘You say it like it’s nothing. Even if Roger took my instruments in part payment, where would I get the other forty quid?
Reggie doesn’t have that kind of money to lend, and there’s no one else I’d ask.
Even if the bank would consider giving me a loan, it’s a big risk.
I’d be giving up a guaranteed salary of three pounds four a week – three pounds eight when the baby comes – in the hope this new practice will be successful. ’
‘Do you think it will?’
‘I think it’s got a good chance,’ Charlie told her. ‘There’s no practice within ten miles of where Roger will be setting up, which works in his favour.’
‘So if you had the forty quid, and you weren’t worried about bringing in a regular wage to support your family while you grew the business, would you do it?’
He laughed. ‘You mean if I was a completely different Charlie, with no family and wads of ill-gotten cash under the mattress? Yes, Bobby, then I’d do it. Unfortunately I’m this Charlie, which rather puts the kibosh on the whole idea.’
All Bobby’s excitement about the news she had to share, forgotten during the scene between Lilian and Tony, had returned stronger than ever. Because now that news could really make a difference.
‘All right, sit up and brace yourself,’ she told Charlie. ‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’
‘If it’s a secret fortune of forty pounds, you and I are going to have words, Mrs Atherton. The scandal of where your sister got that fur coat would pale by comparison.’
‘You’ll see,’ Bobby said, with a grin she couldn’t manage to suppress.
She went to the bedroom and retrieved the biscuit tin under the bed. When she had taken it back to Charlie, she removed the lid and tipped it out on the coffee table. Bank notes and postal orders, bound together with elastic bands, tumbled out. Charlie stared at them.
‘Well?’ Bobby said after a moment’s silence.
‘Pardon my language, but bloody hell!’ Charlie said. ‘What… where… I mean, how much?’
‘Twenty-five pounds in cash and three pounds in postal orders.’
‘But where on earth did you get it? I hope you haven’t been selling your favours to Ernie King.’
‘They’d never fetch so much,’ Bobby said with a smile.
She picked up the bundle of banknotes. ‘This is from my dad. I’m sorry, Charlie, but I wasn’t completely honest about my share of the money from the sale of the house.
It was thirty-five pounds, not ten. My dad told me this story about him and my mam that made me think…
well, I wanted to put it aside as rainy day money, just in case.
I knew it would be too tempting to spend it otherwise.
And it worked, you see? Because now we need it, there it is. ’
Charlie stared dazedly at the money before picking up the stack of postal orders. ‘What about these?’
‘There’s a story attached to each one.’ Bobby drew out one of the five-shilling postal orders. ‘This one, for example. Do you remember last month when we were listening to ITMA – how you laughed at that joke of Funf’s about careless talk?’
‘Vaguely,’ Charlie said, blinking. ‘What does that have to do with anything?’
Bobby beamed. ‘Now guess who wrote it.’
He stared at her. ‘No!’
‘Honestly. I must have sold over a dozen jokes to radio comics since Christmas. You don’t know how hard it was not to tell you.’
‘But why didn’t you tell me?’
Bobby sat down by him.
‘I’m sorry, darling,’ she said softly. ‘I was desperate to have some writing to do when I left work, and I did hope I could bring in money by it while you were unemployed. But I knew it got you down, the way you weren’t able to support your family.
Then when you got your job at the bank, and felt so humiliated doing a woman’s job… I was worried it might upset you.’
‘Upset me?’ Charlie looked again at their riches, and started to laugh. ‘You daft apeth. I’m as proud as anything.’
Bobby kissed his cheek. ‘I hoped you would be.’
Charlie became sober. ‘This doesn’t really change things though, Bob.
I mean it does, in a lot of ways. We won’t need to worry about buying things for the baby, and any extra you can earn at home will help.
But this is still some way short of what I’d need to go into business with Roger.
Even if it was enough, the postal orders you’ve been getting would be a pretty unpredictable source of income if I couldn’t bring in a regular wage.
You don’t have any sort of contract with these radio comics, I suppose. ’
Bobby grinned at him. ‘No. Not with them. The money in the tin is actually only half my news. The other half came this morning, and I’ve been bursting to share it with someone all day.’
‘What is it?’
Bobby went to fetch the envelope she had received from the Girl’s Own editress. She extracted her story and handed it to Charlie.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘Read this first. Ignore the bits in blue for now.’
Bewildered, Charlie took it from her and read it through. Bobby watched him keenly, alert for every change in his expression.
‘Well?’ she demanded when he was done. ‘What do you think?’
‘It’s very good,’ he said. ‘The sort of thing Florrie likes. Funny too. Is it yours?’
‘It is. It came in the post today with those editorial notes, and a letter and contract. Not to mention a cheque for four pounds – half of what I’ll be paid for it in total.’
Charlie blinked. ‘Four pounds? You earnt four pounds for this? That’s more than I make in a week.’
‘It’ll be eight pounds when they send the other half.
Plus they’ve sent a contract for five more stories, and the editress says she’d be interested in a serial if the readers like them.
’ She sat by him, smiling. ‘That ought to get you enough for your practice, don’t you think?
And with a contract in place, it makes for a more secure income than selling gags.
We can afford to keep Jenny on as home help, so I can make a little time for writing each day.
I hope it might turn into something I can make a proper career out of – something that won’t interfere with my duties at home. ’
Charlie was silent for a long time, his head in his hands. He was staring at her contract as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. Bobby had started to worry he was upset, until eventually the dazed look faded and he started to laugh.
‘Oh my God,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you what, it’s a wonderful thing to have a clever wife. I’ll be recommending it to all the young bachelors.’
‘You’ll do it, then? You’ll telephone Roger and tell him you want to take the partnership?
If we cash the cheque and postal orders and add the six pounds left in the baby pot, that’s thirty-eight pounds.
If Roger’s willing to take your instruments in lieu of another ten, I’m sure Reg would loan us two to make it up.
I can pay him back when I get the four pounds I’m owed. ’
‘I think…’ Charlie stared at the contract.
‘I think… yes. If you honestly don’t mind funding me, darling, then I’d really like to do it.
I know it’s a risk, but I’ve always been a vet first and foremost. I don’t think I can be happy doing anything other than tending beasts, the same way you need your writing. ’
‘I know.’ Bobby gave him a hug. ‘I’m so pleased, Charlie. I’ve hated to see you unhappy in your work. I just know you’ll make a success of it. You can make a success of anything you turn your hand to.’
Charlie smiled. ‘Says Agatha Christie over here.’ He kissed her. ‘Thank you,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll do everything I can to make sure you never regret it.’