Authors: Sue Townsend
“When are we next in court?” he asked, though he knew perfectly well when it was.
“Nex’ week,” said Beverley. “I’m dreadin’ it.”
He noticed that four of her back teeth were missing. He wanted to kiss her mouth. The sun came out and her split ends sparkled; he wanted to stroke her hair. She lit a cigarette and he, a vociferous anti-smoker, wanted to inhale her breath. It was madness, but he suspected that he had fallen in love with Beverley Threadgold. Either that or he was suffering from a virus that was affecting his brain – or at least his judgement. She was not only a commoner, she was common. As she started to move off Charles tried another delaying tactic. “What an absolutely splendid-looking baby!” he said.
But baby Leslie was not, in truth, an attractive child. She lay on her back and sucked angrily on a large pink dummy and the pale blue eyes that stared up at the sky over Hell Close seemed old, like those of an old man disappointed by life. A rancid smell emanated from her. Her tiny clothes were not entirely clean. Beverley adjusted a fluorescent pink cellular blanket around Leslie’s shoulders and took her foot off the brake of the pram.
Charles gabbled, “Hasn’t taken long to get to court, has it, our case?”
“Our” – what a precious word it was, signifying something shared with Beverley Threadgold!
“It’s ’cos it’s
you
,” said Beverley. “They want you out of the way, don’t they?”
“Do they?” said Charles.
“Yeah,” said Beverley. “In the nick, where you can’t do no harm.”
“Oh, but I won’t go to
prison
,” said Charles. And he laughed at the absurdity of the notion. After all, he was innocent. And this was still Britain, not some lawless banana republic ruled by a despot in sunglasses.
“They don’t want you goin’ round trying to get your mum back on the throne.”
“But it’s the
last
thing I’d do,” protested Charles. “I’ve never been so happy. I am, at this moment, Beverley, deliriously happy.”
Beverley dragged heavily on the last millimetre of her cigarette and then threw the burning filter into the gutter, where it joined many others. She looked at Charles’s grey flannels and blazer and said: “Warren Deacon’s sellin’ shell suits for ten pounds a throw, you ought to get one for your gardening. He’s got some trainers an’ all.”
Charles hung on to her every word. If Beverley advised it then he would find Warren Deacon, hunt him down and demand a shell suit – whatever it was. The baby started to cry and Beverley said, “Ta-ra then,” and carried on down the Close. Charles noticed the blue veins behind her knees, he wanted to lick them. He was in love with Beverley Threadgold! He wanted to weep and to sing, to laugh and to shout. He watched her as she went through the barrier, he saw her spit with contemptuous accuracy at Chief Inspector Holyland’s feet. What a woman!
Diana knocked on the window and mimed drinking out of a cup. Charles pretended not to know what she meant, forcing her to come to the front door and ask, “Tea, darling?”
Charles said irritably, “No, I’m sick of bloody tea. It’s coming out of my effing pores.”
Diana said nothing, but her lip trembled and her eyes filled with water. Why was he being so horrid to her? She had done her best to make their frightful little house comfortable. She had learnt to cook his horrible macrobiotic food. She coped with the boys. She was even prepared to accept his silly pigtail. She had no fun. She never went out. She couldn’t afford batteries for her radio, consequently she had no idea what records were in the charts. There was absolutely nothing to dress up for. Sharon had butchered her hair. She needed a professional manicure and pedicure. If she wasn’t careful she would end up looking like Beverley Threadgold and then Charles would go
right
off her.
“Are you building wigwams for the boys?” she asked, coming out and touching the bean canes. Charles gave her a look of such withering contempt that she went back inside. She had cleaned the house and washed and ironed; the boys were out somewhere, there was nothing else to do. The only thing she had to look forward to was Charles’s trial. She went upstairs and looked inside her wardrobe. What would she wear? She sorted through her clothes and selected shoes and a bag and was instantly comforted. When she was a little girl she had loved dressing-up games. She closed the wardrobe door and made a mental note to save her serious black suit for the last day of the trial – after all, Charles
could
go to prison.
Diana re-opened the wardrobe door. What should she wear for prison visiting?
24 Mechanicals
Spiggy was lying on Anne’s floor in a pool of water at midnight. Anne was mopping up around him. She was wearing green Wellingtons, jeans and a lumberjack’s shirt. Her thick, blonde hair had escaped from the clutch of a tortoiseshell clip and cascaded down her back. Both of them were wet and dishevelled.
Anne had turned on the washing machine, gone out to visit her grandmother and returned to find the kitchen tiles floating in three inches of water. Spiggy had been sent for.
Anne asked: “What did I do wrong?”
“Your hose is come loose,” said Spiggy, making an effort to sound the “h”. “Tha’s all it is, but you done good! Ain’t many women ’oo can plumb a washer in.”
“Thanks,” said Anne, pleased with the compliment. “I must get my own tool set,” she said.
“Ain’t yer ’usband got one?” asked Spiggy.
“I separated from my husband two years ago,” said Anne.
“Did you?” said Spiggy.
Anne was astonished, surely everyone in the English-speaking world knew her business, didn’t they? Anne squeezed the mop into a galvanised bucket and asked, “Don’t you read the newspapers, Spiggy?”
“No point,” said Spiggy. “I can’t read.”
Anne said, “Do you watch television, or listen to the radio?”
“No,” said Spiggy. “They do my ’ead in.”
How refreshing it was to talk to somebody who had no preconceptions about her! Spiggy tightened the hose, then together they screwed the back plate onto the washer and pushed it in place under the formica worktop.
“Right,” said Spiggy, “Owt else you need fixin’?”
“No,” said Anne. “Anyway, it’s very late.” Spiggy didn’t take the hint. He sat down at the small kitchen table.
“
I’m
separated from
my
wife,” he said, suddenly feeling sorry for himself. “Perhaps we can have a drink at the club one night, play a few games of pool?”
Spiggy put his arm on Anne’s shoulder, but it was not a sexual move. It was the chummy gesture of one separated washing machine mechanic to another. Anne considered his proposition and Spiggy imagined making an entrance at the Working Men’s Club with Princess Anne on his arm. That’d teach his mates to sneer about his size and shape. A lot of women liked small, fat men. Look at Bob Hoskins; he’d done all right.
Anne moved out from under Spiggy’s dolphin-like arm and refilled his glass with Carlsberg. She glanced at herself in the mirror. Should she cut her hair? She’d had the same style for years. Wasn’t it time for a change? Especially now, when she was at rock bottom: a single parent living in a council house, being wooed by a small, fat man at midnight.
“Yes, why not, Spiggs?” she said, surprising herself. “I’ll get a babysitter.” Spiggy could hardly believe his luck. He’d get a film for his camera and ask one of his mates to photograph him and Princess Anne chinking glasses together in celebration. He’d get the photo framed and give one to his mother. She’d be proud of him at last. He’d buy a new shirt; he had a tie somewhere. He wouldn’t make the mistake he made with most women: lunging at their bra straps on the first date, playing them his dirty joke cassette in the car. He’d go easy with her. She was a lady.
Reluctantly, he got to his feet. He rearranged his overalls around his crotch. He had acquired a van. It stood at the kerb outside. An amateur sign-writer had written, “L. A. SPIGGS, HIGH CLASS CARPET FITER” on the side. The previous owner was British Telecom, it stated in the log-book. This was the only legal document in his possession. He had no driving licence, insurance or road tax. He preferred to take his chance and, anyway, where was he going to get the money? I mean, after he’d forked out for the van? Legality was expensive and so was petrol.
“Right, I’m off,” Spiggy said. “Gotta get my beauty sleep.”
Women liked you to make them laugh, he’d heard. Anne saw him to the door and shook his hand on the doorstep. She had to bend slightly to do so. But Spiggy felt ten feet tall as he slammed the door of his little yellow van and sped out of the Close with his exhaust pipe popping. Anne wondered if she should have told Spiggy that “Fitter” was spelt with two t’s.
The noise made by Spiggy’s van woke Prince Philip and he began to whimper. The Queen cradled him in her arms. She would send for the doctor in the morning.
25 Lying Down on the Job
On Sunday morning, Doctor Potter, a young Australian with child-care problems, took Philip’s hands in her own.
“Feeling crook, Mr Mountbatten? A bit low?”
The Queen hovered nervously at the end of the bed. She hoped Philip wouldn’t be rude. He had been the cause of so many embarrassing incidents in the past.
“Of course I’m feeling bloody
low
. I’m lying down!” barked Philip, snatching his hands away.
“But you’ve been lying down for – what is it …?”
The Queen answered, “Weeks.” The doctor glanced at the titles of the books on the bedside table.
Prince Philip Speaks, The Wit of Prince Philip, More Wit of Prince Philip, Competition Carriage Driving
. She said, “I didn’t know you wrote books, Mr Mountbatten?”
“I used to do a lot of things before that bloody Barker ruined my life,” he replied.
Dr Potter examined Philip’s eyes, throat, tongue and fingernails. She listened to his lungs and the beating of his heart. She made him sit on the side of the bed and tested his reflexes by tapping his knees with a shiny little hammer. She took his blood pressure. The Queen held her husband down whilst blood was removed from the vein inside the left elbow. The doctor used a spot of the blood to check his blood sugar level.
“Normal,” she said, throwing the test strip into the wastebin.
“So, may I ask if you have made a diagnosis yet, Doctor?” asked the Queen.
“Could be clinical depression,” said the doctor. “Unless he’s trying to swing a sickie. K’niver look at your pubes, Mr Mountbatten?” she asked, trying to undo the cords on his pyjama trousers.
Prince Philip shouted, “Sod off!”
“K’ni ask you some questions, then?” she said.
“I can answer any questions you may have,” the Queen said.
“Nah, I need to know if his memory’s crook. When were you born, Phil?” she asked cheerily.
“Born 10 June 1921 at Mon Repos, Corfu,” he replied mechanically, as though before a Court Martial.
The doctor laughed: “Mon Repos? You’re pulling my leg; that’s Edna Everage’s address, surely?”
“No,” said the Queen, tightening her lips. “He’s quite right. He was born in a house called Mon Repos.”
“Your ma’s name, Phil?”
“Princess Anne of Battenburg.”
“Like the cake, eh? And your Pa?”
“Prince Andrew of Greece.”
“Brothers and sisters?”
“Sisters, four. Margarita, married to Gottfried, Prince Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Officer in German Army. Sophie, married Prince Christopher of Hesse, Luftwaffe pilot …”
“That’s enough sisters, darling,” said the Queen, cutting in. Too many skeletons were coming dancing out of the cupboard – enough to supply a Busby Berkeley musical.
“Well, he’s compos mentis,” said the doctor, scribbling on her prescription pad. “Try him on these tranx, eh? I’ll come back this arvo, take some urine. Can’t stop now, I’ve got a list longer than a roo’s tail.”
When they got to the bottom of the stairs, the doctor said, “Trine clean him up, will ya? He stinks worse than a diseased dingo’s den.”
The Queen said she would do her best, but the last time she had tried, he had thrown the wet sponge across the room. The doctor laughed: “Funny how things turn out. I did my Duke of Edinburgh’s Award y’know. Got a gold. Last time I saw your husband was in Adelaide. He was wearing a sharp suit and half a ton of pancake make-up on his face.” Doctor Potter hurried across the road. She had another house call to make in Hell Close. Poverty was hard on the human body.
26 The Show Must Go On
Harris was in mourning. His leader, King, had died under the wheels of a lorry delivering Pot Noodles to the service bay at the back of Food-U-R. Harris had barked a warning, but it was too late.
Victor Berryman had covered King in a piece of sacking and laid him inside a Walkers crisp box. He had then gone to the house of King’s nominal owner, Mandy Carter, and broken the news to her. Mandy, who rarely fed King and often denied him shelter in his own home, sobbed over her dog’s body. Harris watched her cynically. Poor King, he thought, he didn’t even have a
collar
. He had nothing, not even a food bowl, to call his own.
Mandy Carter had rung the Council on Victor Berryman’s phone and they had called round with a grey van, slung King inside a sack, thrown the sack into the back of the van and driven off. The Pack had chased the van for a few hundred yards, but had eventually given up and gone to their homes.
Harris had waddled back to Hell Close and crawled under the hall table. He had refused a meal (a succulent oxtail), which had caused the Queen some concern, but not for long, he noticed. As usual, she was too busy with Philip to give her dog the attention he needed.
After a short sleep Harris barked to be let out and ran through the back gardens of Hell Close until he reached Charles’s cultivated plot. Harris scattered the compost heap around and then ran up and down the neat seed drills so painstakingly planted by Charles only the day before. He rested for a while, then jumped up and pulled Diana’s white jeans down from the line, chased a robin and ran off to find and sexually harass Kylie, who was playing hard to get. If King had taught him one thing, it was that you had to be tough to survive in Hell Close. And now that King was dead Harris intended to be Top Dog.