Chapter 22
Everyone, apart from Tim and Frank, was already sitting at the table in ‘Old Tom’ when Roo arrived there.
Frank was preparing the veg for tomorrow and he didn’t want any help, he’d told those who offered.
In truth, he just wanted to be by himself.
Being in the kitchen helped him think, helped him sort out his head the way dog walks or ironing or lying in the bath did for other people. And he had a lot to think about.
‘Baby, it’s Cold Outside’ was playing from the radio that someone had set up at the head of the table.
‘They’ve ruined this song for me, saying it’s about coercive control,’ said Grace. ‘I always liked it before.’
‘Is it really?’ Roo raised her perfect brace of eyebrows.
‘Well, they can read anything into everything these days, can’t they? They’ll be giving trigger warnings for Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer next because of the bullying,’ said Vince, tutting.
‘Thinking about it, I suppose if you were of a mind to, you could actually interpret the words as being a little… insistent,’ said Jane, tilting her head in cogitation.
‘But then again, I remember Clifford winning me round when I said I wouldn’t go out with him when he first asked, not taking no for an answer and so I eventually gave in and it was the best decision I ever made.
’ Jane didn’t add that she knew the difference between a man who had his limits on how far to push and one who didn’t.
‘Where did he take you, Jane?’ asked Elizabeth.
‘A little Greek restaurant just outside Manchester. It wasn’t anything impressive décor-wise, but my – the food.
We had a meze, the food kept coming out and coming out as if the chef was under the sorcerer’s apprentice spell.
Clifford said it had been his plan to seduce me afterwards but neither of us could move. ’
She laughed at the memory. ‘I was fifty years old at the time. I thought my days of being seduced were well and truly over and it was quite a lovely surprise to find out they were just beginning.’
‘Jane, you mucky pup,’ Roo exclaimed, while thinking that was lovely, even if she didn’t want to think too much about people generations above having sex.
Elizabeth had never liked the song anyway and she hadn’t needed to be convinced that the male in it wanted his own way and be damned, especially as she was in the sort of relationship where her opinion was of little value and so there wasn’t much point in her giving it.
But she had to accept that Gregory was a strong personality, someone who wanted to be the driver on the control bus, that’s why he was so successful.
Like with the engagement ring situation, for instance.
It was even more annoying to wear since she had lost some weight and it needed resizing.
She made an executive decision; she pulled it off and stuck it in her jeans front pocket. She felt the relief instantly.
‘I’ve got the Monopoly board all set up for later,’ Brian said as the tune ended.
‘I always end up having to pay Mrs Cosgrove a lot of rent for her hotels. She’s missed her calling, I think, she would have suited being a business typhoon so much more than she would a cleaner at the school in St Hilda. ’
Jane’s ears pricked up. ‘St Hilda? Isn’t that where they were picking the engineer up from?’
‘Did he just say “typhoon”?’ asked Vincent.
‘An interesting fact you may not know about Monopoly. It was invented at the beginning of this century by a lady and originally called The Landlord’s Game. Elizabeth somebody or other.’
Vincent gave Elizabeth a pointed look across the table.
‘Not guilty,’ she said. ‘And I think Brian’s got his centuries a bit mixed up there.’
‘I do it all the time,’ put in Jane.
‘Shh, you lot,’ said Roo with playful disapproval. ‘This is interesting.’
‘Anyway, it was originally half-game, half-educational tool and much copied with people doing their own versions of it, even though Elizabeth had a patent on it. Now skip forward about twenty-five years and along comes someone calls Charles Darrow who ended up playing this Landlord’s Game at a friend’s house when he and his wife had dinner with them.
Anyway, what does the crafty little beggar go and do?
He pinches the idea and makes his own version, calling it…
’ Brian left a gap for people to fill in the missing word which they did.
‘Monopoly,’ came a chorus of voices.
‘And the game people, Parker brothers, buy it from him.’
‘Little beggar indeed,’ Jane tutted.
‘That’s not the “b” word I would have used,’ said Roo.
‘Now, Parker finds out that Elizabeth has patented the game so they fob her off by buying the rights for five hundred dollars, only that. And she was never given the credit for inventing it. And Mr Darrow became the first millionaire games inventor in history. And they say crime doesn’t pay.
Poor Elizabeth. Excuse me.’ There followed the sound of a nose being blown.
‘I always get quite emotional when I tell that story. I’m just going to have a moment before we make our Christingles so I hope you’ve got everything ready.
I think a little bit of “Adeste Fideles” by Ol’ Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra, will sort me out. ’
‘Blimey, I never knew that,’ said Vincent, turning to John. ‘Obviously crime does pay, doesn’t it? Although not so sure it must feel like that if you get caught. Is it a cushy number in prison, John? Mind you, if you’ve got blokes trying to escape in this sort of weather, maybe not.’
‘Who was it that ran off?’ asked Jane. ‘A lifer, presumably?’
‘No, he’d done eight but he had a few years to serve still,’ replied John.
‘He wasn’t one of the ones they watched, never caused any trouble.
He was part of a gang of seven up in Middlesbrough who were accused of robbing a train in which a guard was clobbered and sustained significant injuries.
The police knew who’d done it, someone blabbed, and three were arrested, four got clean away.
‘Smith, the lad who broke out last night, was only small-time and… he realised he was in over his head with that lot and legged it before they’d even stopped the train.
And yet, months later, when the guard had recovered, he picked him out in a line-up as being the one who injured him.
One hundred per cent, no doubt in his head. ’
‘Why would he lie?’ asked Vincent.
John shrugged. ‘Someone got to him, that’s why.
I guess he was given a… sweetener for his troubles to mete out the punishment to Smith for running off.
Not a very wise thing for Smith to do, especially not with the sort of people he got himself involved with.
The idea being they’d force the rap on him and the others would get lesser sentences: robbery but no violence.
Except it didn’t work out like that because the judge was determined to make the three of them pay equally for the full seven.
One of them, Tommy Andrews, couldn’t take it, he was just a bairn, and after five years…
’ John left a suitable gap for them to fill in.
‘The third member, a fella called Jimmy Grimes, got poorly, no chance of a recovery, and he coughed up a confession in September. Didn’t want to go to his grave carrying the burden that it was him who hit the fella.
I think he felt bad about young Andrews as well.
Sang like a canary, backed up everything Smith had said, including about him not even being there.
But the government decided to do nothing with this new info.
Henry Smith would serve his full time and not a day less.
So, I suppose it just got to him, being in prison for something he hadn’t done when now he could finally prove that. But nobody was listening.’
‘Well, if he is innocent, I hope he got away and contacts the newspapers,’ said Elizabeth. ‘He should make as much noise as possible so that someone at least investigates. He needs a good legal bod.’
‘And what would he pay them with?’
‘There are many legals out there who would take on such a case, pro bono. For all sorts of reasons: for the PR, the exposure but also for sheer altruism,’ Jane answered him.
‘My late father-in-law for instance. He was wealthy enough to work for the mere thrill of fighting for the underdog sometimes.’ She smiled at the dusty memory of August Wutheridge QC, his stout Charles Laughtonesque figure and his voice that had the ability to extract the truth from a witness by stroking or scaring it out of them.
‘The more people who hear about it, the more chance he’s got of getting help. There are good people in the world as well as knobheads,’ Roo added, although her world was more densely populated by the latter, including the mack daddy of all knobheads, Aaron Ewerin.
‘That was the smooth tones of Mr S,’ said Brian, after the closing bars of the song. ‘Are we all ready to make Christingles?’
The door to the coach opened and in walked the large frame of Tim.
‘Room for one more?’ he asked.
In the galley Frank had stuffed the turkey with the sausage meat he’d found in the pantry – good quality stuff it was too, rich with the aroma of fresh sage and garlic.
He had cut the carrots into batons, peeled the potatoes, some ready for mashing, some for roasting.
The parsnips were small, young and didn’t need the core taking out, which was lucky because it wasn’t his favourite job.
He’d trimmed the bottoms of the sprouts and not wasted his time putting crosses there like his mum always did.
Then again, she wasn’t the best cook, but like his dad said one day when they were battling through her attempt at a Keith Floyd fish curry, she needed to have a couple of faults or she’d be an angel and be whipped up to heaven away from them.
She was a world expert on Yorkshire puddings, though and, because they were in the county, it would be unforgivable not to have them tomorrow, so he’d made a bowl of batter and put it in the fridge.
And he’d just finished preparing a dish of cauliflower cheese with sprinkled chopped onions on top, because he knew that it was something his wife particularly liked.
Yep, he was aware he was still seeking her approval, still hoping to find that one something that would break the spell cast on her and bring his Grace back to him, but he was losing faith and he knew the point was nearing where he had a decision to make: stay with Grace or continue to see Ella.
But Grace had given up on her marriage, and he couldn’t save them alone.
He pulled his cotton hankie out of his pocket and wiped his eyes, but it wasn’t the onions that were making them water.