Dangerously Healthy  - Copyright © Malcolm Birkenshaw [List all 43 Chapters]

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Chapter 21.

`Bloody marvellous, it'll be like cycling two hundred miles
carrying the weight of a spare bloody bike fixed to my legs,' my
shouts pursuing his shrinking car. But it was too late, one last
puff of a distant exhaust and he was gone, leaving me stuck, unable
to say no, M.S. sufferers needing the funds for research and he
ruddy-well knew it. `Better have an early night, then,' I returned
to our house and started to get ready for bed.

`Dad, there's someone at the door,' Claire called from the
kitchen.

`Hello,' I said, at the door, after refastening my flies.

`Do you know anyone round here with a car?' It was Mack, from
the back, standing on our top step, well aware that Lena's Morris
Minor was parked in the drive.

`Have you broken down?'

`Not really. It's my lad, he's borrowed my car and locked
himself out.'

`I'm too busy,' Lena called.

`It's not far, seven miles,' he said, over my shoulder. `This
side of Cawood.'

`I'm still too busy. Martin can take you, if he likes.'

I looked at the clock. `I shouldn't, but, all right,' it was
still early evening.

We chugged along the lanes, winding between water-meadows having
left Bishopswood behind. `There he is,' Mack pointed, his son was
practising golf at one end of a football pitch where the fields
became dryer.

I eased my foot off the accelerator. The car lurched. Just a
coincidence, I thought, for otherwise it is what I imagined it would
feel like if a front wheel had come off. Best do nothing, remain
nonchalant, for we were travelling quite nicely and it was best that
Mack should not know that I harboured such thoughts. But there “was”
something wrong, with a noise as though the chassis was scraping
along. I looked between my feet, relieved that there was no sign of
the road coming through. Only then did I glance at my passenger. He
was sitting bolt upright, gripping his seat, eyes bulging, his feet 
digging into the dashboard, trying to apply the brakes despite every
pedal being on my side.

As soon as the car slid to a halt he leaped out, remaining at a
distance until after it had failed to burst into flames. `Your front
suspension's collapsed,' he shouted, having eventually risked
looking under the chassis. `That's all that's wrong, apart from the
paint.'

That's all that's wrong! Lena's Morris Minor was like a
knackered horse down on its knees. I restarted the engine and
reversed, dragging its nose onto the verge. `It can wait for a
garage to collect it tomorrow,' I said, locking its doors. `Better
phone the police when I get home, though. Don't want knocking up
during the night,' and with that we got into Mack's car.

My early night was gone, and from the look on Lena's face she
was a mite less than pleased, though I was unable to tell what she
was actually thinking. `It's an ill wind,' I smiled, confident of
cheering her up. `At least it didn't happen whilst “you” were
driving.' Yet cheer there was none, this wind of good fortune
blowing cool. `It's got nothing to do with me cycling to London,' I
defended, as though I was to blame.

She remained unimpressed, said nothing, just went to bed,
leaving me to telephone Tom and leave him to arrange for a garage to
collect and repair her car whilst I was away.

Only the birds were about next morning when I took my bike from
its shed, having knocked up the repairer to collect it last night.
The weather looks a bit noncommittal, I thought, sniffing the cool
air whilst giving my bike a final check over, haze from yesterday's
heat hanging uncertain like a dry dew. Better wear my track suit.

My movement had disturbed Lena. `I don't have a car, so now
I've had to get up early,' she said, demonstrating her martyrdom by
insisting upon cooking me a large breakfast, the monotone in her
voice as warm as a November fog.

`Thanks, thank you very much, but you had no need to...,' as I
said that Ken's car arrived early and started to reverse down our
drive.

`Well, I've cooked it now.'

`OK I only said thank you, meaning that you had no need to 
get up early just for me when you've got school to think of.'

`Don't remind me,' she snapped, just as Ken put his head round
our kitchen door.

`Take your time, whilst I'm putting your things in my car,' he
said, `We're in no rush.'

But I knew that we were and I hurried to bolt down my food,
ignoring local wisdom that to cycle on a full stomach is a bad thing
to do. `Thanks again,' I called out. But Lena had gone upstairs to
the children. Once outside I looked up at their bedrooms. Blank
faces were pressed against glass, bemused, with Lena not revealing
even the slightest hint of a smile.

The car's engine almost whistled as we sped along empty roads,
with rush hour yet to begin, and we arrived in Leeds amongst a few
first buses, milkmen and a road sweeping wagon. `We're here,' Ken
pulled in front of the civic steps which were already under the
guard of a commissioner, fresh as a daisy.

`What did you say?' growled an ex-sergeant major with his chest
puffed out as though he "owned" the Town Hall.

`Nothing. We're just here for the start of the...'

`Hang on a minute, hang on a minute,' he marshalled some
photographers away before taking over the supervision of our
unloading. `The Lord Mayor's not here this morning, gentlemen,' he
said, making another attempt to usher them back. But they only
withdrew as far as the statues where they lolled against a lion's
paw, with camera cases untidily slung, their shabby raincoats
creased, carrying the stains of late nights and pubs, waiting for my
official departure. Persistence was rewarded for Councillor Mrs.
Lockwood appeared. Now that's more interesting, they obviously
thought.

`I'll catch up with you,' Prod signalled, leaving me to cope
with Radio Leeds and rush hour traffic.

Even so, I felt immune in my bright orange top, high on my
bike, looking down over the cars, even over the roofs of limousine
height, until I started mixing with drivers who were jostling for
advantage where every lane spider webbed close to the motorway.
`The motorway's still half a bloody mile away,' I swore. Yet
someone impatient continued hooting their horn. `Twit,' I wobbled, 
concentrating on hugging the gutter and not falling off, leaving
space so he could pass. The hooting continued. I glared over my
shoulder, just missing a bus. Hell! It was Prod, sporting a grin
all over his face and a sign on his roof, DRIVE WITH CARE - INVALID
CYCLIST, and two damned undersized bikes in the back. `Is this the
support van?' I shouted when he drew level.

`I thought you'd feel safer if I followed you with this.'

Like hell he did, from the comfort of his Escort estate.
`Where's the spares?'

`What spares?'

`Spares, in case I get a bloody puncture, break a chain, or
fall off, bend a wheel.'

`No problem, you can borrow them from one of these.'

`They're both a different damned size.'

But he was suddenly driving too fast to hear, having spotted a
telephone box in the distance where he stopped. When I caught up he
was lost in conversation, presumably sorting things out. I carried
on into the country where the cycling became easier, freed from that
traffic which was bound for the motorway. That was until I sensed a
slight drag. `I hope that's not a breeze blowing up,' I spoke to my
wheels, then was caught by another wind, that of Prod's car shooting
past. TOOT, TOOT, TOOT, he played a tune on his horn and stamped on
his brakes.

I swerved furiously, just in time to prevent customising myself
upon his rear bumpers. `There's a reception waiting for you,' he
bellowed, waving me onto a short cut, leaving me and my tyres
fuming.

Down a steep hill, with rims overheating, I shot across a
junction and between the gates of an old brewery, just missing a
line of staff who were waiting to greet me. `We're only a bottling
plant, now,' the manager apologised, presenting me with a pewter mug
and a generous bag of sponsorship money. Prod's camera clicked.

Their chef limped across, hat tilted over one eye. `Your
breakfast is ready,' he escorted me to his canteen.

`Breakfast? I've already had one,' I smiled, doing my best not
to offend him.

`Oh dear, that is disappointing, I was right looking forward to 
meeting you,' he said, wanting to tell me of how he had been a polio
victim since being a lad. `You'd better have these, in case of
emergency,' he said, sort of all cripples together, taking two
lobster salads from the directors' canteen.

`Just what the doctor ordered,' I beamed. `Ideal for healthy
eating.'

He swelled with pride, showing me photographs of his family
just to prove that being disabled need not stop the best things in
life.

`We're running behind schedule,' Prod tugged at my elbow,
concerned that my health should not be overtaxed.

`OK,' I nodded, got on my bike, sprightly and sharp until we
reached the main road where morning breeze had obviously stiffened.
By the time we were skirting the Pennines it had turned into a gale.
Once again Prod shot past and led me onto a short cut before
throwing a wave and driving off, leaving me to struggle not knowing
where the hell I was going. Damn, damn, damn, that blip south of
Greenland had found me, and the rookery rocked.

Two hours behind schedule I arrived at their Tiger Ale brewery
in Sheffield. Prod was waiting in the canteen, but the shutters were
shut. `Don't worry, I've got everything rearranged. The radio and
newspapers will be here any minute to interview you.'

`Never mind the interviews, I'm knackered. Why the hell did you
change the route?'

`It was quicker.'

`Quicker!'

`Yes, definitely, definitely shorter.'

`Quicker for you in a car but not for me on my bike. Why do you
think I planned a detour, using the valleys, avoiding those hills?'

`Well, at least once up them you'd be all right freewheeling
down the other side,' he laughed.

`All right! Freewheeling? I had to stand up when pedalling
downhill because the headwinds were so strong. Don't you ever do
that again,' my temper blew at gale force eight. `Anyway, I need
something to eat. It's a good thing your chef at Oulton gave me two
salads.'

`You took so long to get here I ate one of them whilst waiting. 
You can have the other when you're doing the interviews to save time
because we're running behind schedule,' he unfolded his map,
checking my route. I just stared, as though he was not real. Here
was I, marooned with a Burke, forty miles from home, having to carry
on because of being expected in London, banking on the fact that he
could only improve.

Yet almost as soon as we set off he did it again, this time
taking a short cut which led onto the motorway. `Balls to him, I'll
get the hell off this death trap and find my own way to their Kopsow
depot,' forgetting that he had my map in his pocket. Just then the
sun reappeared. I guessed roughly the direction for London and
turned right, landing myself with having to pedal three miles in
bottom gear, being overtaken by a milk float crawling past up what
seemed to be like a near perpendicular gradient. I was legless upon
reaching Kopsow, arriving just in time to miss the last of the
workers leaving.

`It's all right, they've left a generous collection,' Prod
rattled his cash bag, `But they've forgotten about you needing
somewhere to sleep.'

My tongue was stripped naked for words.

`Don't worry, I'll find you somewhere, perhaps in Blyth,' he
again rattled the cash bag before I could express a response.

`Why Blyth?' I asked, cautiously wanting to know what was under
this stone he had laid.

`Ah, well, er,.. Because under the circumstances I don't want
to explain to our brewery's pubs why we'd forgotten to book you a
place,' he sidled, then drove me to stay incognito at a rival
company's inn. `I'll see you first thing,' he dropped me off in the
Blyth Hotel's car park, leaving me to book my own dinner, buy a
couple of pints, and retire bleakly to bed.

Next morning he arrived late, after the bill had been paid, by
which time that damned wind had returned. `Sorry, I've been trying
to finalise the day's arrangements. Unfortunately not everyone was
up. So you'll be all right until Mansfield?' his question gave me
little time to answer.

`I suppose so, if you give me back my map.'

`Right, this is it, I think, see you in the Eagle's Arms.' 

`The what?'

`Ask anyone, you can't miss it, right in the middle of
Mansfield, with a sign of a bird without wings holding pints in each
hand,' he slammed his door and drove south.

But the wind was not yesterday's wind. Today it was cool,
bearing clouds, bringing the odd shower, although still blowing
straight into my face. Mind you, he was right about one thing,
despite it taking longer for me to cover each mile, the Eagle's Arms
was easy to find. So was he, chin in hands, elbows holding a
paperback open on the first oaken table, his back to a wallpaper
which was tatty and torn, its original maroon pattern embossed and
hung with a chevron of paintings of Eagles like birds in a flight.
he looked up, `Have a beer, until the reporters arrive,' and yawned,
returning to the paragraph my arrival disturbed.

`No thanks, I'd rather wait until Nottingham,' I sagged onto a
seat, resting whilst expecting what turned out to be phantom
reporters.

`I'll find somewhere better than Nottingham for food,' he
turned his wrist, checking the time, having finished another
chapter. `We're running behind schedule. I'll leave you to follow.'

Two days of battling against wind were beginning to tell, my
legs turning even more slowly by the time I next caught sight of his
car. It was empty, parked in a deserted village, without any human
in sight.

`Oy,' a voice shouted.

I steered left up a low-walled lane, trying to home in on the
shout. `He's sitting in a bloody graveyard! - sorry,' my eyes
raised to the skies, `It's looks like a very nice graveyard,' as
though Prod had realised that I would be arriving dead beat.
`Though perhaps it's only a mirage, the affect of wind on my eyes?'
No, it was real, and so was he, lolling back on the bench in its
garden of rest.

`Here, over here, come and have a break,' he edged through a
wicket gate and lifted my bike over the wall. `The village shop
doesn't sell salads,' he opened a packet of crisps. `But they stock
crisps, ice cream, and lemonade. Help yourself.'

My cornet dripped molten ice cream from my wrist, a wrist 
already blue from the day's chill air. I was also exhausted, in need
of more rest, but Prod was uneasy, wanting to get moving. `The next
depot is just over the hill,' he said to encourage me.

`Don't worry, we'll get there, somehow, there's too much money
at stake for me to fail.'

Yet, despite him agreeing to me extending the break, my legs
started to stutter soon after beginning to pedal over the
Leicestershire Wolds. `Just over the next hill!' I chuntered. `Like
hell it is. I'll walk to the top,' I signalled, sending him into a
company panic.

That made him wait, his car not speeding away until he was sure
it was downhill so I should complete today's stage unaided. `London
is still a hell of a distance, though,' I thought, `What with us
being only half way,' these and other doubts blowing through my hair
as I eventually freewheeled into their Loughborough depot.

`Do another circuit for the photographers,' Prod waved me into
their car park. `And again,...... and again,....'

`That's enough,' the mayor stepped forwards, holding his hand
up. `That's enough,' he repeated. He knew all about overexertion,
his friend's husband having M.S. `Take it easy, young man, we've
got a buffet waiting upstairs.'

`Upstairs?' I sagged.

`Don't worry, we'll carry you.'

I shook my head. `No thanks, I just need a short rest. Only a
couple of minutes, on these steps, and then I'll be able to manage,'
I masked my stagger, too proud to be carried.

`Take your time, young man, take your time. These lads will
look after you 'til your ready,' he set off, portly and proud, to
turn upon nearing the top of the stairs. `I'll keep the reception
simmering and everyone happy until you're fit to do justice to the
food we've laid on,' he jollied.

`Thanks,' I smiled, but only for a second, distracted by a
different voice in my ear.

`You've ridden all the way here on this!' exclaimed someone
behind me. It was a cycling reporter, short socked with thighs as
powerful as oak trunks, his cycling shorts city blue-grey since he
had come to interview me on business. `I think your sponsors could 
have done better.'

`They did, at least they think they did. It's their public
relations officer who's to blame, probably using company money
earmarked for me to make the budget for his other projects stretch
further.'

`No wonder you suffered,' the reporter lifted my bike, using
both hands. `Apart from its weight didn't you realise that lack of
fluid even stops professionals in their tracks.'

`Well, he bought me the odd beer.'

`Beer! - Here,' the man in best shorts produced a jar of green
powder from somewhere on his cycle, `Make this up, for tomorrow,
it's mainly glucose and salts. Drink some every thirty minutes, and
always eat a little food on the hour.'

The despair which had been growing since Leeds suddenly became
hope.

`Are you all right?' drifted a voice from above.

I looked up. The mayor had sent a civic officer with cloth
covered buttons, probably his chauffeur, to check whether everything
was going according to revised plan. `Oh, yes, yes. Coming.'

Upstairs everyone was rolling with laughter, the mayor letting
them in on some past council secrets. `Come in, come in. Someone
give him a chair.'

Thank goodness for that, I won't have to give them a speech.
Three courses later the mayoral limousine drew up. `Now then,
you're staying at my friend's home tonight. No trailing round pubs
for a bed, we don't treat visitors that way in this town,' he
rattled his chains and the chauffeur opened the door. `And another
thing, none of the pubs round here have even seen one of your
sponsorship forms, so our local M.S. society are correcting that
matter right now.'

That was really good news. Obviously this was not one of those
places where the official Society's local secretary treated our
fund-raising for research as a threat to their empire.

`Come in, meet my husband, he lectures at the University,' the
mayor's friend greeted me. We all shook hands and her husband
eagerly started to chatter. `You can talk later. I've run Martin a
hot bath, it's waiting, tonight we're taking him to our club,' said 
this dynamo of a woman who was also a councillor.

`Marvellous,' I sank into the waters, delaying the dinner.

`I won't cook the greens until you're ready,' she called up the
stairs. `They're fresh from our garden..... And don't pull out the
plug, our soil needs all the water it can get because of this
drought.' - I had been wondering what a green hose pipe was doing
dangling into outer space through their bathroom window.

Whilst we were dining she borrowed her husband's car and
collected the mayor. No rattle of chains this time, what with him
being in his off-duty clothes. `I think you'll squeeze into the
back,' she attempted to lever me into their DAF automatic. The
mayor, being more portly than me, was riding shotgun up front.
`Here,' she tucked my knees through the door, pushing it shut with
her bottom. `Next stop the club.'

What kind of club? I wondered, not wearing correct clothes.
`Here we are, the best club in town,' she spun round her steering
wheel, juddering us to a stop.

`Is this? Are we there?'

`Of course we are. It's our social club, the best club in
town,' she tooted her horn and the club doors swung open, its disco
blasting out the “Push Bike Song”. A round of applause as I entered,
being their guest of honour, someone thrusting a drink into my hand
whilst the hat was passed round, to return overflowing with cash as
another drink was pushed into my left hand.

But as soon as I emptied it someone else filled it. `This is
not the best way to prepare for tomorrow's ride,' I laughed, in the
vain attempt to say no. `That's enough, thanks,' but the beer kept
on flowing, the clock having struck twelve, and soon it would be
one. `No, no, really. Tomorrow I've got the A.6 to cope with, and
if there's another headwind like today's someone will have to drive
me to Harpenden and let me cycle back.'

`What for?'

`I'm determined to earn that sponsorship money, somehow. After
all, the forms don't say in which direction I've to ride in.'

`Haven't we told you, there's nothing to worry about, your next
door neighbour's been on the phone?'

`Ken! Has he? Good old Ken,' I held up my glass as the clock
struck one. `Tomorrow I'll be pedalling a pumpkin ..... but,
tonight, what the hell!'

Chapter 22.

A six o'clock call next morning was intended to give my legs
time to un-knot, sort themselves out, ready for an eight o'clock
start. `Your neighbour's also phoned,' the message wafting upstairs
was accompanied by the smell that my breakfast being ready.

`That'll be Ken. They told me last night at the club that he'd
phoned,' I hurried downstairs to bacon and eggs.

`You shouldn't really have these.'

`I know, but I never eat fat and the rest will be burned off
before lunch time.'

`He phoned this morning, you know.'

`As well as last night? I pulled a chair up to the table,'

`He's put things right so you won't be left unescorted along
the A.6.'

`That means Prod's probably been on the sharp end of a rocket.'

`Prod, who's that? Would you like tea or coffee?'

`He's their personnel relations officer.'

`Do you take sugar? I don't know about Prod, is that his name?
but your neighbour's coming himself.'

`Ken? That's good news.... I didn't fancy being left to cope
with the trucks on my own.' The doorbell rang.

`That'll be him,' she glanced at their grandmother clock and
left to answer the door. I listened, stirring my tea, hearing more
than one voice. `Come in, have a cup of coffee,' she said, `Martin's
still eating his breakfast.'

`Now then, what's thee bin up to?' six foot nine dipped its
head through the doorway.

`Lofty!' I exclaimed, `Where's Ken?'

`Ee's outside, tying yon rack o' yours wi' its sign on't roof
of 'is car,' he chuckled, whilst also emitting a slight groan as he
unfolded himself arthritically into a seat. `Thought I'd keep `im
company.... This the coffee?' he reached forward without leaning.
`I've left Ma and t'lad minding t'Jolly Poacher whilst I 'ave me
summer `oliday.'

The clock chimed a quarter to. `I'll have to make a start,' I
drank down the last of my tea whilst getting up. `You and Ken take 
your time, have your coffees, but I better set off before the wind
has chance to start up and the roads are still quiet, Radio
Leicester are expecting me before nine o'clock.'

`Will thee be all right?'

`Of course I shall. Besides, I won't have got far before you
overtake me.'

The road seemed so level, perhaps the affect of last night when
my spirits had been lifted, for now my legs were gobbling the miles.
Thirty minutes later Ken caught up, did not overtake, but switched
on his hazard lights and sat on my tail to keep the traffic at bay.
It started to rain. Time for my first drink. It started to pour,
time for some food, Ken turning left whilst I rode down a one-way
street for buses and cyclists only. `See you on the main road, to
Bedford, after the interview,' I shouted, but could not be heard
over the diesel exhausts and noise of tyres squelching trails
through the rain.

It became a deluge, but even when pedalling up and down over
what I supposed were the toes of the Leicestershire Wolds that
racing cyclist's diet really was working. `I've never ridden this
fast before,' I laughed at the trees, as heavy with foliage they
were bent by their drenching. `It's madness,' I remained upright,
racing down every hill, wheels slicing through water, accelerating
furiously in time for the next climb.

Through waterlogged eyes I glanced at my watch and signalled to
Ken. Another hour gone, time to eat, in fact time for lunch, a
transport cafe in sight on the top of the next hill. `Do you know
you were doing over forty miles an hour down those hills,' he said
after parking his car, unsure as to whether I was brave, foolhardy
or balmy.

`I'd no option, my brakes wouldn't work,' I climbed from under
my cape, hair dripping in rivulets down my forehead, chaining the
bike to some railings whilst Lofty limped ahead into the cafe and up
to its counter. The serving lady, five feet tall, looked across the
rows of plastic red tables at our car outside, saw its “Disabled
Cyclist” sign, then looked back at Lofty. `Take this, love,' she
reached up and slipped five pounds into his pocket. `You with him?'
she turned to me. 

I nodded.

`Take good care of him,' she ladled me an extra helping of
mash. `Ethel,' she shouted at a girl on the far side collecting
dishes, `Give their table a wipe down, I can see puddles of gravy
from here.'

After lunch the sun appeared, first time for three days, and my
pace slowed. `Stop for a break,' Ken flashed with his lights before
pulling onto a curve where the old road was relegated to being a
lay-by. `Here,' he indicated, unfolding a garden chair from his car,
planting it firmly on the verge, overlooking the plain leading to
the next hill upon which spread Luton.

`Now that really is going to be a test,' I mused, remembering
this area from the days when Peter lived near Clophill, psyching
myself up for that long climb ahead. `Let's go,' I said.

Being mainly downhill or level my pacing was easy until we
passed through Barton in the Clay. Ahead the A.6 narrowed into a
cutting which climbed remorselessly until reaching Luton. `This is
where I'd have had to get off and walk, clinging to the chalk walls,
with my bike's wheels nipped into the gutter, trucks crawling past,
had Prod been my back-up.'

But today I had Ken's car guarding my tail, refusing to be
pushed by the ever-lengthening snake of vehicles which were
gathering behind him, all being denied space in which to squeeze
past. Mind you, I feared that their drivers would be swallowing
their frustrations so I pedalled as close as I dare to physical
exhaustion - the number of times in the past I had played hell with
a cyclist holding me up! ..... One last steep slope, so close to
London, having just covered 90 miles in less than five hours. `Don't
know what you're looking so pleased about,' I felt my rook dancing
up and down on its twig, `With average speeds like that you wouldn't
even qualify for a Skimmed Milk race.'

`You're early,' the security man said, in Harpenden, checking
the clipboards hanging round the inside of his glass kiosk from
which he worked the barriers up and down guarding the gates to Tiger
Ale's main brewery `The reporters aren't here, and there will be a
lot of disabled people coming to the reception to greet you,' he put
on his cap, looked at his watch, before coming outside to negotiate. 
`Can you cycle round town for a while?'

`I've just done a hundred miles!'

`Right then, who's the one who's disabled?' he adjusted his
cap, again looked at his clipboard, curling his moustache, not
authorised to make unscheduled decisions, seeing me unbent on my
bike as not making sense of his orders.

`It's all right, it's all right,' their Sports and Social
Secretary hurried over, `Alf's only obeying orders,' he clicked his
heels. Alf's moustache twitched, his barrier raising lever hand
responding with pedestrian pace after taking his time to check the
polished gleam on his buttons. `Come on, have a pint or shandy or
something,' the Secretary took charge of my bike, he had seen our
arrival from the top of a ladder from which he was festooning their
canteen with streamers and three “New M.S. Research Society” banners,
`The reception can't begin until knocking off time.'

`All right, just a shandy, thanks, with it being so early,' I
unlocked my knees, mindful of the beer that I had drunk last night
once the party got going.

`Right, coming up. How's Lofty Cartwright doing? Is he still
landlord of the pub in your village?'

`He's here, somewhere,' my eyes opened, surprised. `How do you
know him? He rode shotgun in the car that......'

`Lofty Carters,' he suddenly saw him. `How you doing? Over
here, what are you drinking?'

`By `ell, it's Danny. What's tha' doing down here? It's a long
time since thee delivered beer to me pub.'

`Been promoted, Lofty. Here's to Tiger Beer, the bitter with a
bite,' Danny slapped his back, and the evening began, premature
like, with the management and staff presenting cheques, collecting
cash, having left off long after where Prod had been too mean to
make even a start. `And we'll have this changed before I give you a
lift to the hotel,' Danny, their Secretary, raided the company
stores and painted out “INVALID CYCLIST”, inserting
“MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS RESEARCH”.

`I'm sorry,' I rehearsed an inadequate apology, it being three
o'clock in the morning, hoping to find the hotel doors unlocked and
unguarded whilst the taxi's diesel engine noisily ticked over, 
un-stilling the still of the night. But the hotelier himself was
waiting up, ensuring I got his best suite. `Don't worry,' he waved
aside my concern, `Would you like a night-cap?'

`Night-cap? No thanks, I've got to be up in four hours' time.'

`That's all right, I start serving breakfasts at six,' he
intercepted my fumbling for money. `And there'll be no charge.
Accept it as my contribution for M.S. research.'

Next morning I was still thinking of how wonderful strangers
can be when Danny, this time in his own car, and in his own time,
having volunteered to lead me all the way into London, winkling out
shortcuts to dodge most of Saturday's traffic.

“FLASH”.

Bloody hell, an assassin exploded out of the hedge. Didn't he
know, I wasn't carrying the cash? Or perhaps he was linked to a
rival charity from which we were creaming off funds?

“FLASH” again, but this time no bang. Come to think of it, there
was no bang before. `Oh, it's him, panic over,' I started breathing
again, recognising the cycling reporter from Loughborough, this time
in his non-business shorts, tight to those oaken thighs.

“FLASH”. `Just one more in front of the War Memorial,' he called
out, loading another film on the hoof, or rather whilst on the
pedal.

Why did I agree? From then on whilst not avoiding traffic I
found myself dodging this jack-in-the-box photographer who
persistently found ways to surprise, leaping from behind buildings,
pillar boxes, trees, leaving me expecting him to erupt any moment,
casting aside a manhole cover to get the last-picture-ever of me
being squashed by London-bound bus.

But my pace became slower and his appearances evaporated with
the heat. `I think my tyres need pumping up,' I signalled.

`I got everything out of Ken's car. What you want's not here,'
Danny said, his head emerging red faced after searching deep between
the seats of his car, the “MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS RESEARCH” sign now
clamped to his roof.

`Damn, PROD's taken my pump and repair kit back to Leeds with
those two bloody bikes..... And just when I needed it most,' the
roads now melting. `It's like pedalling through molasses,' I 
shouted, sweating, wondering whether my slow pace was entirely due
to soft tyres? Or were too many late nights to blame? Or, for the
first time in my life, was the sun having an affect after drinking
beer so close to excess?

But suddenly we were filtering amongst traffic which was
teeming off the M.1, braking and fuming, their engines still hot
with intent, reluctant to be held up by the Great North Way, all the
time Danny's car protecting and directing me from behind, two toots
on his horn for left and one for a turn to the right.

A peppering of toots later we were relatively free from the
mayhem, aiming along roads for the City, wide but emptied on
weekends and, despite fears that my tyres would run out of legs, we
arrived at Tiger Ale's head office and its original brewery.

`You're early. Better go for a ride and come back when the
management's arrived,' a man rearranging decorative barrels pointed
me back up the road.

`Not again.'

`What do you mean, not again?'

`Sorry. It's just that I arrived early in Harpenden.'

`That's not my fault, mate. Just tell me, what am I supposed
to do with you when I've got all this lot to sort out before the
bosses arrive?'

`Can't I ride round in the old brewery yard? I'd rather not
tempt fate on flat tyres and return to the main roads.'

`They're not bloody flat.'

`Soft, then.'

`Suit yourself. It's all cobbles, you know.'

`I beg your pardon.'

`Cobbles stones, you know, like they used to make streets out of.'

He was right. Wall to wall cobbles, polished by cart wheels in
the days when Tiger ales were brewed here, but nowadays scrubbed
clean for effect until the colour of mature stone red had begun to
show through. `Can I just stay here out of sight?' I braked, having
been bounced off my saddle.

`Cecil, is it all right if this bloke's what's cycled from
Yorkshire stands by the fire hydrant?' 

`Oh, it's 'im, is 'e 'ere? Tell `im they're ready and 'ee's to
cycle to the front where the photiographers is waiting.'

They were, and so too was the cast of a West End show and
members of the New Multiple Sclerosis Research Society, all there to
welcome me. Goody, good, good, beautiful girls and actors asking me
to sign copies of a commemorative book, published by the directors
to celebrate the ride they had sponsored. Goody good good.

`You'll stay for the show, tonight,' invited the girls as they
swung their dresses to please the photographers, pleasing me too.

`Sorry,' I smiled.

`You won't have to pay, just come to the stage door.'

`You can stay for the weekend,' they continued to try to
persuade me whilst we were shepherded downstairs to the company's
vaults, nowadays decorated for lavish events, today with tables
spread under white linen and set in three rows against the high
table for a banquet.

`You'll sit here, Mr Mytholmroyd,' the head waitress showed me
to my place amongst the actors and dancers close to the top table.

`My lords, ladies and gentlemen,' started the chief barker,
appearing out of the shadows from behind the high table after
banging his gavel.

`I think I know him,' I muttered through the side of my mouth.

`He's their chief security officer in Harpenden.'

`Ah, that's where. Hardly recognise him dressed up in that
outfit. Looks like a blue budgie.'

`They're swallowtails.'

`What are?'

`That's what they call the sky blue swallow-tailed coat which
he's wearing,' referring to the top part of his chief barker's
uniform in company colours, tailored tightly to a Mr Micawber-like
paunch.

`More a marine blue, like the water they use for their beers,'
whispered someone to my left.

When the speeches ended special presentations began, including
more donations for M.S. research and a commemorative book for each
guest, this time from the directors.

`We'll put you up,' the cast kept topping my glass with wine 
for each course of the luncheon.

Pity, such beautiful girls... And why now, twenty years too
late? `Don't forget, Claire's French friend is arriving today, her
first trip to Britain,' my damned conscience kept scratching my
neck. `And don't forget your health, you need a rest,' it continued
to whisper, sitting heavy upon my right shoulder.

`We'll have to be going, we're on stage soon, it's matinee
time,' a hand was gently placed on my elbow. `Are you sure you can't
come,... though tonight would be better?'

Get off my left shoulder, damn, damn, damn, my head reluctantly
shook no, pushing that damned rook to one side whilst my smile
vainly wished yes. But, like the last night of a show, the party
was suddenly over, leaving the directors' vaults bleak and hollow
with a skeleton of staff clearing up. `Come on, we'll give you a
lift,' Fiona had organised help from a member of our research
organisation.

`Which station?'

`Kings Cross.' I had been left victim to PROD's budget,
abandoned to cycle back to Leeds or buy my own ticket.

`How long will it take to get the wheels off your bike so I can
fit it into my car?'

`Don't bother, I've managed to arrange with their Social
Secretary for it to be returned to Leeds on the back of a brewery
truck.'


`That's very good of them.'

`I suppose so,' my heart heavy. A wealth of good will and
generosity had come from the brewery. Pity, if only Prod had
distributed the sponsorship forms my ride would have raised an
additional fifty thousand pounds for research.

`Will you be all right?'

`Yes, thanks. Just drop me near to the ticket office.'

`Keep in touch.'

`See you.'

`Cheerio.'

With a tug the carriage slid imperceptibly along the platform,
or was it another train moving? No, it was us, and soon I was
watching the blackened stone wall accelerating past as we left
King's Cross and entered the first tunnel.

`I'll never do this ride again.' Damn him, damn Prod, a case of
King's Rook to pawn..... and I feel a right prawn, netted in
Adderton only to be left high and dry two hundred miles away.

Chapter 23.

Father was delighted with the photographs and newspaper
cuttings when I visited him on Monday. `I bet you raised a lot of
money,' he smiled with the warmth of a last-night's-fire which still
had a long way to burn. Mother was there, elsewhere in the ward,
talking to strangers, doing her visiting dignitary act.

`Where's Mummy?'

`Stop nagging, Edward, I'm here. What do you want, you've
already had one cup of tea. Do you already want another?' she
demanded.

Ted's lips said yes without daring to risk emitting a sound,
for tea was one thing the ward already provided plenty of without
her bothering to bring a thermos small enough to fit in her handbag.

`Come here,' she pulled the empty plastic cup from his fingers.
`Wait, you haven't got milk yet.'

`I can see,' he shrank smaller. `But when am I coming home?'

`Next week,' she snapped, not mentioning the fact that she had
sold the house that he built. I cringed, doesn't he know yet what
that flat's all about?

`You're managing all right, with our garden?' he asked.

`Of course I'm managing. Hurry up with that cup, Martin wants
to be home before dark,' she screwed it back onto the thermos.

`Dark? It's almost midsummer, you lying old cow,' I chuntered
under my breath, unable to avoid this unforgivable stress. I'll
make up for this next week, Dad, I silently vowed, for Lena's been
talking about seeing you when the school holidays arrive.

Claire also had said she wanted to see Pop, as she and John
called him, so when next weekend arrived we set off for the yellow
brick buildings. `Edna,' he squeezed her fingers, his eyes full.
Had he really forgotten her name, or was Edna a memory popping up
from his youth? Claire must have been sad, seeing Pop in this
state, but she succeeded in disguising her emotions.

All too soon, after what seemed a long time, a bell rang three
times.

`Bye Pop.'

`See you on Monday,' I said. 

`Bye,' Lena gave a faint kiss to his cheek, intending never to
visit again, for as soon as we got home she claimed not to like
seeing people in hospital.

That's strange, I thought, things seem to be getting on top of
her. `How about us going to Wales, with the children, like last
year?'

`Wales? My bank account's permanently in the red,' she
retaliated.

I turned away, over-familiar with this perennial whinge.

`Please, Mum.'

`Please.'

`All right,' she yielded. `But the best I can afford is a
weekend at Freda's.'

`Freda's!' they jumped with excitement.

`We've been invited to see her new house, near Blackpool, so
perhaps, but only perhaps, we might fit it in, somehow,' she started
to turn pages, calculating her way through her diary.

What a cheek, I thought, for Freda was divorced, and Lena was
thick with her husband before the end came. Spent that bloody
weekend with him at the Saint Lucifer in Scarborough, she did.
Still, Claire and John had grown up with their children, so why
should this kiss of conflict be brought into their lives. Besides,
the mortgage, and electricity, and other bills spoke for the whole
of my pension so I was unable to fund an alternative.

`Can we go to the pleasure beach, we've got our own money?'

`Mary gave us some.'

`Money? Mary?' - Lena's mother. Lena's ears pricked up.
`Provided we go when the season is over.'

It was October, half-term, before her diary had saved up enough
money for our summer holiday. Hooray! hooray! they danced into the
car. But this year's trip over the Pennines, along the M.62, was
shrouded like autumn, even the rare sheep seemed to have sunk into
the peat .... Claire and John would not have noticed, could they?
I wondered. Yet experts do say that children attempt to hold their
parents together. But no, not us, for things were not as bad as all
that.

`It's Freda,' Lena threw open both arms when we pulled up 
outside 221 B, Corsica Road, Blackpool, her smile radiant, one as
genuine as that of a crocodile whilst I unloaded the car and the
children raced in.

`Can we go to the pleasure beach, tomorrow?' they raced back.

`Why not?' I agreed, happy, like in the old days, for a chance
to take all the kids out together, this time to a different sea
front, round the House of Laughs, in fact anywhere cheap whilst Lena
stayed with Freda... Women's talk, I guessed, whilst she assists
Freda with lunch, giving her chance to ensure that anything
compromising said over the weekend would have been rubbished well in
advance, for whilst we were walking along the beach they would be
speaking of many things, of oysters, of cockle shells, and of how
does your garden grow?

`You're walking too fast,' Claire complained when we set off
next morning.

`Will you race me, like last year?' John threw down a
challenge now there was chance he could win.

`No,' I smiled, shaking my head.

`You better start doing your exercises again, then,' Claire
teased.

She's right, I thought, deciding that when we got home I would
take out my bike for the first time since London.

Eventually our holiday was over, but not before Lena and Freda
had walked along the beach. Who knows about their cockle shells and
oysters?

But never mind cycling. Next day after getting home I went to
see Father and called at Mother's on the way back. `Don't say
anything to Lena,' mother's hushed voice stemmed me at the entrance
to her flat, `But the answer is no.'

`No,... no to what?'

`Keep your voice down.'

`No to what?' I repeated one chorus quieter.

`About the money.'

`What money?'

`Of course, I forget, you don't know.'

`Know what?'

`Promise you won't say anything,' she said, bursting to tell 
all. `But Lena's asked me to transfer a lump sum of cash, to assure
your future, for when you succumb to the disease.'

`Cheeky bugger,' my indignation returned fortissimo, swelling
her lounge.

`Keep your voice down,' she put a finger to her lips. `They
were Lena's words, not mine. Although I did agree to leave this flat
and move into a smaller house so as to tie up some capital for you.'

`Move! After I nearly crippled myself rushing to fit these
bloody carpets when you said Father was coming to live here?' the
brass, woodwind, strings and percussion exploded.

`You said you wouldn't be angry.'

`I didn't. I only said I wouldn't tell Lena,' I angrily snapped
back.

After storming out of her flat, the stairs reverberating to the
temper of my feet, I leapt onto the bike and pedalled towards
Adderton. `Bugger!' the chain snapped. `Sod it,' I permed a
thesaurus of profanities, determined to complete the rest of the
journey on foot, but reason got the better of valour and I walked
the cycle back up the drive to the Hall, leant it against the stone
dog, and timorously rang on her doorbell. `Can I use your telephone,
please?'

`Oh, it's you, I wondered who it was,' she tried to look
surprised. `I'll put the kettle on whilst you telephone,' she busied
herself, unhappy to have been left on her own now that Peter was
banished. It will be solicitor time yet again, I thought, their
doors always open for legal costs to help relieve her of Father's
money. This time it will be Peter's turn to be out of her will.

`Lena's out,' I replaced the receiver.

`Oh dear, what can you eat without flour?' she pondered. `I
know, we'll warm a tin of beans. Then I'll ask one of the Hall staff
to run you home.'

`There's no rush,' I said, so as not to overexcite my stomach
whilst she was searching for a tin-opener, her kitchen cupboards
having the means but not any wherewithal since she had continued to
live on bread and lentil soup since moving in. `Never mind, there's
a screwdriver in my saddlebag,' I left her opening the drawers for
the umpteenth time. 

`Here,' I returned, waving a suitable tool.

Several near injuries later a jagged hole had been brutalised
and the beans shaken into a pan splattered with sauce. `I'll do
that,' she grabbed, putting it on to simmer at frugal low heat.

`Have another cup of tea.'

`No thanks.'

`What about a slice of bread to help fill you up?'

`I don't eat flour.'

`Of course, I will keep forgetting.... How about another cup of
tea?'

And so it went on until daylight was fading, when she
considered the time right for summoning his Lordship's gardener to
give me a lift home in a horse-box. `Sorry about not backing up to
collect your bike,' the gardener said, glancing nervously at his
watch. `Bit short of time, my rear lights aren't working, not
waiting to be stopped by highway police.'

More likely you're not wanting his Lordship to know.

`Pardon?'

`Um?... Oh, just thinking we better not end up needing a tow.'

`Engine's all right, it's just the lights I'm bothered about.
Thing is, if we only had our local bobby to bother about we'd be
all right.'

`Does that make a difference?'

`It better do, otherwise he won't get his usual perks when the
game is in season,' he remained gentle with the accelerator until we
were out of hearing.

Then he really put his foot down, adding more wear and tear to
a vehicle that looked almost as old as his Lordship's estate. `Here
will be all right,' I thanked him, jumping down from the cab as he
steered full lock round Adderton green, anxious to double back to
the Hall before today's vanishing shadows vanished completely.

`Where've you been?' Lena asked.

`To see Father.'

`In a horse-box?'

`No. I got a puncture on the way back after calling to see
Mother.'

`Did she say anything?' 

`About what?'

`Nothing, in particular,... it's just that you, er, seem to be
late.'

`Oh, that. She gave me some food and didn't have a tin opener.'

`Typical,' she tutted. Did I spot a glimmer of relief as she
thought hard and long about collecting my bike?

Several long weeks later she was still thinking. `If I had a
bloody beard like that hairy git of a headmaster it might be
different,' I shouted, slamming the door, setting off to walk to
Otterlake Hall.

Soon this temper was pounding my heels into the asphalt fast
past the Brickpond, then up and over Adderton Hump and on towards
Otterlake Hall seven miles away, the extra tools for repairing my
bike bulging to escape from my track-suit pocket. Yet within three
miles that old strange sensation began to appear in my legs, causing
a hic in their rhythm. It was nowhere near as bad as that evening
three years ago when I got stuck on Adderton Hump, and yet not what
I should expect when last year Snowdon had been climbed with such
ease. Is this what my doctor had meant when he warned me against
cycling to London?

I rested against a gatepost. No gate, no hedge, just an old
stump, all that was left of history to mark where one ploughed field
began and another one ended. I looked up, not in search of mustard
seeds, but attracted by the shrill call of martins, wheeling as
though catching insects, taking turn in turn to congregate along
telephone wires, preparing for migration across Africa once the
winds and weather and time was right.

Good news for that spider with a web in the corner of the
specialist's consulting room, throughout winter it will have all
the insects left over for itself. But then, on the other hand, it
will not, for when the frosts arrive they will hibernate or die.
Mind you, despite this unexpected return of bad legs I was neither
going to hibernate nor get into the specialist's wheelchair. `You
stick to your wings, little birds, just see what cycling has done to
my legs.'

Better get moving, I returned from the clouds, and this time
pace yourself. Walk a bit, rest a bit, walk a bit,... damn, things 
were not right. `And to you,' I returned an expansive gesture to a
driver who, driving fiercely, had just missed me as I limped and
staggered round a bend where the lane narrowed between hedges which
reached for the light.

That's a thought, here I was entering where his Lordship held
fiefdom, fields and hedgerows kept unchanged for his hunting and
shooting. After trying several short cuts to the Hall I discovered
a gap where an old gate was only half mended. Trouble was, the
length of the grass caused me to stumble over the meadow before
tumbling into a ditch. Damn, this must be his Lordship's ha-ha, one
of those grassy dry moats intended to divide cattle from his garden
without spoiling the view,.... and at the same time keep his
tenants' herds safe so they could keep paying their rents.

Brown-eyed cows nodded, watching me, chewing their cud as I
crawled out, my numb legs locked in a tangle. `If anyone's watching
they'll think I'm drunk,' I chuckled, imagining Mother's face if any
of her posh friends had seen me weave across the courtyard before
reaching her flat.

`Is that you, making that noise?' she opened the door. `Come
in, come in,' she harried me, domineering her staircase, not knowing
whether I had put her reputation at risk. `I've got nothing in for
you to eat,' she locked all doors behind her and started to search
through her cupboards. `Wait a minute, can you have beans?'

After this snack and a couple of hours' rest I fixed the chain
on my bike and did a test ride. Amazing! I had recovered so soon
and could ride home, things feeling good, muscles strengthened from
cycling to London. Today's interference with my walking would be
temporary, of course, I persuaded myself, and discovered that even
better news waiting in Adderton - Ransley had been offered a
non-teaching headship miles away. `Non-teaching, that figures, he
never taught John anything, at least nothing worthwhile,' I
muttered.

`I beg your pardon?' Lena snapped, refusing to see it that way,
throughout the following weeks grouching about her lot in life, what
with the children and me to contend with.

Things continued to deteriorate so far as she was concerned,
culminating in her burning the gravy for our Christmas turkey. 
`Don't cry, mum,' the children pleaded, trying to make everyone
happy.

Like the Christmas tree I remained prickly and joyous, knowing
the subtext to this state of affairs. `Smile,' I said, `Like all the
other villagers. They're celebrating, partying and dancing now that
Ransley, the deadly nightshade in our community has gone.'

They were dancing, all right, but Lena danced elsewhere once
Boxing Day was over to spend the rest of her holiday preparing
teaching schemes in Norby for his new school. Will she never learn
that he's only making use of her, I despaired? It's time for me to
send him a letter.

“Dear Ransley,
Please leave us alone. We want to be a family, again, etc..”

I thought this was reasonable, under the circumstances, but was
wasting my time. He outmanoeuvred me by showing my note to his wife,
making it look as though I was some kind of nut. Convinced, she
telephoned Lena.

`Oh dear, I'm so sorry,' Lena turned pale, whispering, as
though in sympathy. `I'll come up and see you right away,' she
opened a new packet of cigarettes.

I did not believe it, the brazen gall, is this the woman with
whom I had been building a family throughout all these years? Or is
this really what she has always been like?

Things continued to go from bad to worse. I fought to ignore
them, keeping things suppressed, leaving them silently grinding
inside as winter tightened its grip, hoping that with him building a
new empire at Norby School he would soon jettison Lena before the
cold added even more to the numbness of my M.S.

At first it looked as though things might stand a chance for,
cut off by the snows, Mother took Lena's advice and agreed to leave
her flat in Otterlake Hall for a new house. `It's convenient, isn't
it,' Lena said, `Having your mother in the next village?'

`Convenient! Convenient, when it's barely two years since I
risked my condition by fitting those huge carpets in her flat, a
task which few men fully fit would have attempted single handed.' 

`Don't be so small minded. Just think of how she'll be able to
take over family duties whenever you become ill,' she started to
fill in a form, a form applying for a job at Ransley's new school.

Bloody marvellous, she'll never be home if she gets that damned
job, I stormed out of the room, taking refuge in the extension. Time
to write a letter to the Chief Education Officer. I'll ask him if
having my wife working so late with her former headmaster is because
of local government cutbacks?

It snowed knee depth that night, but the roads had thawed to
dirty macadam by the time she got the interview Ransley wanted, his
School Governors refusing to appoint her. Furious, Ransley bypassed
them and dialled County Headquarters direct. He argued his case,
bankrupting the county's telephone bill, but his plan to appoint her
had been blocked.

Goody, good, good. Things were going to be all right after all,
and I went for a quick ride in the frost round the lanes.

That evening I was in the garage, nose still red, removing salt
from my bike, when our telephone rang. I answered it. `Lena,' I
called from the passage which linked garage and house, `That creep
Rasputin wants to speak to you.'

She took the call in the living room and I returned to carry on
working.

`Are you free to talk?' his words floated crisp and clear from
the extension before I was able to reach and replace it back on its
hook.

Suddenly in slow motion my hand hovered whilst my mind raced as
I heard Lena's reply. `Wait a minute, Ransley, I'll send the
children to bed.'

The children to bed? My bile rose. If they're playing secret
games then it's reasonable for me to find out what are their rules
and what are they up to? I listened, and fifteen minutes later
Ransley was still talking. `I hope things will remain the same
between us, despite you not getting the job. Do you think we can
meet in the usual place?'

The usual place? My pulse raced. `Serves you right for
listening,' my considered reaction, only to relieve the tension by
making rude gestures in silence. `Why the hell should it serve me 
right?' stress was beginning to make itself felt. `Whether it serves
you right or not, put things to the back of your mind, keep yourself
fit,' in silence I ranted away to a spider. There you are, in
danger of losing your mind, what the hell am I doing speaking to a
spider, it doesn't even look like that one at the specialist's? `Get
off my bloody fresh paint,' I set about smashing its web, relieving
my tension. `This affair will die a natural death,' I slung it
outside into the cold. `He has other women, can't leave them alone,'
I kept repeatedly telling myself.

But over the weeks Lena and Ransley waved two metaphorical
fingers towards me and the education authority. They even arranged
to take a holiday at Easter with our village school.

`He can't, he's left, he's headmaster at.....?'

`So?' Lena's lips pursed defiantly.

`You look like Mussolini,' I lost my temper.

`Rubbish,' she sneered. `Anyway, Claire will be in France this
Easter, so Ransley and I are taking John with the school.'

Damn them, they were trying to isolate me. Then I remembered,
`John's class is going in summer.'

`So?'

`Put your lips back, mind you don't get spaghetti down your
front,' I substituted insult for reason, searching my mind
desperately for a solution. What about if I left a letter to the
Chief Education Officer lying around? That should at least stir
things up.

Stir things up! Such was their conceit they were able to stir
things up to a syllabus very different to mine: Lena told Ransley
and Ransley wrote to County Hall. What was in his letter I never
discovered, but he defended himself in great detail, perhaps
inferring that the multiple sclerosis has addled my brain, so
determined was he to put his side of the story to pre-empt the
arrival of mine. They did nothing, just sat on their hands,
waiting, eyebrows raised in anticipation.

But I am a simple soul, so their eyebrows probably raised even
further when nothing turned up since I never posted my letter. In
fact I had never intended to, for it only contained blank sheets of
paper. That's a stop put to his hanky-panky.

Chapter 24.

County Hall must have said something because Ransley
disappeared off the scene, the new headmistress settling in nicely.
She attempted to rescue the oldest children, from the black hole of
ignorance he had created, by teaching a crash course in arithmetic
before they started at the comprehensive.

When he was headmaster arithmetic had been called mathematics
and consisted of dishing out “SUM” complete with the answers,
leaving his pupils to mark their own work - he never did check why
they always did so well. In fact it was not in his interests to find
out, not so long as their results filled his wall-to-wall graphs
with a floribunda of coloured flags to baffle the school governors,
plus charts and displays to impress County Hall and accelerate his
climb up the education ladder.

John also needed help with his reading. `Do I have to?' he
whinged, when I started to coach him.

`Yes, before you watch television,' I battled. More stress, on
top of having to abandon cricket yet again whilst Lena continued
going on courses, still sneaking away with that damned Ransley
despite whatever County Hall had said.

Those defiant lips protruded even further when half term
arrived. `It's Claire's turn to take a trip with the school,' she
pursed.

`With your school, with the juniors, for a week?... She's a
fourth former at the comprehensive taking `O' levels next year,' I
protested.

`So?'

`Il Duce,' I saluted in despair.

`You can look after John,' she folded her arms, completing the
image.

`You're doing this deliberately, just to sabotage my
exercises.'

`Rubbish.'

So far, so bad, I gave up the skirmish and stormed off along
our lane before her stress clouds deluged upon me to bring on an
exacerbation, the spate of my pace never easing until I was half 
past the Brick Pond. The house needs painting, I thought, watching
its wildlife unperturbed by my worldly worries swimming on the
surface. It was after trying to make sense of the orderly confusion
of their wakes in the water which finally convinced me, `That's
right, I'll borrow a long ladder and do the whole house whilst
they're away,.... always providing John will play safely down at the
farm.'

`Ladder?... Tha wants scaffolding to do t'job right.'

`No, thanks, my neighbour's ladder will do nicely.'

`Waste o' paint, waste o' paint. Use scaffolding, do t'job
right, and it'll last a lifetime,' his white-overalled girth barring
my way to the counter.

`All right, then how much to borrow some for the week?' I tried
to walk round him.

`Oh, no, dangerous to do it yourself. Specialist's job,
specialist's job, but worth the extra bit that it costs.' he was
pitching his price to take account of how much or of how little my
accent could stretch to.

`I can't afford anything extra.'

He smiled, having heard that one before.

`I'm on a pension.'

`Pension,' he laughed, `At your age? It must be a right job.'

`A disability pension.'

He laughed even louder. `Who says it's a disability when you
come here on't bike?'

`A neurologist.'

`A new what?'

`Neurologist.'

`Told you, that's where you're going wrong, using anything new.
Stick to traditional methods, that's what I always say. Take for
instance scaffolding, you can't say them what's doing York Minster
is wrong.'

`A neurologist said it was to do with my nerves,' I opened both
eyes wide.

`Nerves, you said nerves?' he backed away a little.

`Yesss, Nervesss,' my eyes opened even wider.

`Ah, understand,' he picked up two drums of paint, with a ding 
of the bell upon the trade counter. `Percy, customer for you,' he
called towards the warehouseman's closed door, then backed out
through the exit. `Just a customer myself, no offence meant.'

The Easter sun bit through a dank sky, making little difference
to my timorous activity, leaving me frozen at the top of Ken's
ladder. `What are you doing up there, Martin?' Roy asked.

`I've nearly finished,' I held on, not daring to look.

`It's not worth it,' he said. `That timber will still be there
after you're dead, even without paint.'

`Thanks very much, it's nice to know my life can be measured in
less than a few wooden growth rings,' my feet felt for the ground.
`I'm doing this to keep myself occupied whilst Lena's away. Besides,
this climbing is improving my legs.'

`Can't you go for a walk instead?'

I shook my head and pointed. `I do, every day, up and down this
lane waiting for John to come home. I don't know why Lena can't cope
with them together?'

`I don't want to cause trouble, you understand, but I've heard
her.'

`Heard her what?'

`Taking them aside, one at a time, telling them what a naughty
daddy you are.'

`Pull the other one, Roy,' I laughed. He was obviously winding
me up, but upon the matter of safety I took his advice and never
reached the top of that long ladder again.

Following his caution could have made this week a repeat of
that time before I went into hospital, seven days when my health had
failed as a result of just looking after John whilst Lena was doing
whatever she was doing at the Saint Lucifer hotel in Scarborough.
Since then I had learned the lesson of avoiding inactivity and
decided to use a pair of steps in lieu of the long ladder.
`All right, so only the downstairs windows will get a second coat of
gloss,' I talked to the can and continued to nip up and down for the
sake of my legs and the windows, so successfully that the lot was
done long before half-term was over. Time to do something else, how
about repairing my car in time for summer? - Claire's French friend
will be staying with us again. 

`Hum?' I mused, wondering whether the wings of my rooks would
overshadow the project for I had never stripped a Rolls engine
before.

But it was no longer an engine by the time Lena returned,
having been reduced to just bits which did not make sense. `Don't
worry. If you leave them exactly where they are they're in the
right order for reassembling.'

`Don't be so ridiculous.' She still thought it would be better
if I got a proper job instead of me messing around with a car which
I could not afford.

`That's why I'm doing it myself.'

`I don't see what difference that makes.'

`Well, you find me a job and I'll do that instead.'

`That's your task, finding yourself work, instead of turning
the new extension supposedly built for all of us all into your own
private scrap-yard,' she turned her head and withdrew to unpack,
averting her eyes from the parts I had scattered ignoring those
parts reassembled.

And yet within weeks the car was put together and running
again, purring impressively for the first time in years, well before
the French children arrived on this year's exchange..... And it had
not cost me a penny, so reluctantly she accepted that perhaps after
all it was only a part waste of time.

The swallows and house martins had returned even sooner so
everything was just like the old times, happy families and visitors
popping in and out before the French landed. Trouble was, these
family demands kept me so broke that the slightest additional
expense had to balance upon an escarpment of insurmountable
proportions thus, when a French kid embedded a dart in one of the
windows, I bellowed with an unforgivable loss of temper.

Clearly it had been an accident, due to youthful high spirits,
which would not cost much, but how much is not much when not much is
much more than a lot? Poor Claire, she had been trying so hard,
rushing around, wanting to make the evening a success when her Dad
had ruined it all by blowing his top.

Still, Lena was forced to admit that my car was coming in
handy, its seats being flesh deep in youngsters as I bussed them 
from one party to another. And the weather, so sunny so hot, just
like in France, except for that overcast day at Knaresborough when
they were just messing about on the river. But then, on the other
hand, having fun messing about upon water must be international, no
matter what my school had taught me about the French ships at
Trafalgar.

`Right then, how about driving on to Whitby and the sea and its
alleys and streets and its kipper sheds and.....?' I suggested, next
morning, as I manoeuvred the car amongst the ewes and lambs which
were meandering heads down from one meal to another over the moors
of North Yorkshire, that desert-like moonscape of heather where
sheep follow their stomachs without heed for the traffic.

`Exactament. Exactament le meme,' seemed to mutter Claire's
French friend when we parked by the harbour.

Of course, I had forgotten, her grandparents lived in Brittany,
where, I guess, many of their fishing villages would look almost
like this. Still, she had never spent time feeding bread to the
sheep so we doubled back to the moors with loaves of wrapped bread,
plus a ball to chuck about where grassy fringes grew to the edge of
the peat.

But like a midsummer moon, motionless to the excited eye, the
fortnight passed and first light stole upon them with its tears and
embraces and au revoirs until, until, until their coach was gone and
the road was deserted and dead.

The following Saturday, despite the visitors having gone,
Claire and John still rose early. `That's unusual,' I mused,
particularly since Lena was also in the kitchen. Now, her being up
at that time during the holidays was even more peculiar. `But
perhaps they're going special shopping and don't wish to wake me,' I
turned over, thinking of what to do until they got back.

`Dad,' Claire eased open the door, and gave me a kiss. `You'll
be all right on your own, until next Saturday, won't you?'

On my own? What was she talking about? Yet she was clearly
embarrassed. `Of course I'll be all right,' I smiled to put her at
ease, my brain running a hard disc to compute an interpretation from
what facts were to hand.

Then an engine started, opening a new file. It sounded like 
Lena's Morris Minor. `Bye,' John shouted.

I cocked my head, straining for additional clues to feed into
the database.... `Hell, they're setting off somewhere,' I jumped
from the bed, suspecting that Lena had involved them in some kind of
subterfuge, my trousers hauled thigh height as I bounded bare footed
into the kitchen, it sounding as though her car had stopped in the
lane.

Just then, whilst wrenching my zip up at crippling quick speed,
I paused, watching the door opening quietly, it was Lena creeping
back in, looking for something. `Oh, it's you...,' she paled,
startled. `Er,... I didn't want to disturb you,...but, er, Freda
phoned, last night, inviting us to Blackpool.... You were at the
pub,... and there's only room for two in their house, ...now that
their children are growing up.'

Circumnavigated, yet not by the zip, I was in a quandary of
what could I do without ruining the children's holiday? "Nothing",
rattled into my mind, but that was no reason why she should get away
with it so easy. `Two children, plus you, makes three. At least it
was when I went to school, unless Ransley's Alice Through The
Looking Glass mathematics is correct after all.'

`Two children, is what I meant to say,' she retaliated rather
than squirm. `Someone will have to share beds with Freda,'
nevertheless she had turned even paler.

Lying toad, my eyes replied. But best not to argue, not with
Claire and John waiting in the car with its engine still ticking
over, doubtless puzzled by a deception they did not understand.

The lane emptied as the “put-put” of Lena's Morris Minor faded
into the distance, a distance I had not gone outside to farewell.
Oh, well, might as well cycle up to Tom and Ola's, there's no way in
which I'm going to let this situation she's created get my health
down.

On Tuesday, after tea, the telephone rang. `Hello, can I speak
to Lena, please?' It was her friend, Alison.

`I'm sorry, she's taken the children on holiday,' I sounded
casual.

`Ah, yes, I should have realised, but forgot. I met Mary last
week, she was going as well, wasn't she?' 

`Yes, yes,' my hard disc raced up to full speed. Mary, Lena's
mother?.. `Yes, I think it's Blackpool they've gone to,' I trawled,
wanting Alison to keep talking since she might innocently be privy
to much more than I knew.

`That's right. I think they're staying at the North Palace
hotel,' she remembered, whilst doubling checking with her diary, I
could hear pages being turned.

`Perhaps we'll be seeing you next weekend, then, after they get
back?' I floated an invitation as though all was well at our house,
continuing to chat until the time came to say, `Cheerio.' I lightly
replaced the receiver and set about giving the cupboard doors a
bloody good slamming, stopping just in time with their hinges
intact.

I bet bloody Ransley's near Blackpool this week. Probably on a
course in the Lakes, somewhere near enough for her to pop up and see
him. Well, if she's got enough money to chase after Rasputin then
I'll use part of my pension on petrol to take Father out for a
drive.

`He's somewhere at the end of the ward,' a nurse in stiff white
uniform greeted me, looking up from her paperwork, lamp on even
during daylight, leaving me to wander in and find him myself.

`Thanks,' I raised my hand in acknowledgement. Some itinerants
were shuffling about in blue tartan slippers, in amongst others who
remained staring into the middle distance, immobile, unmoved by the
coloured pictures upon television, whilst the rest slouched at skew
angles in high-backed chairs, as though filling in time waiting for
death, often sleeping, ......

Oh, there he is, gazing at what I could never know in a world
where only his mind held court. His face melted into a smile when
his eyes saw me.

`Would you like to go out for a while?' I rested my palm on his
hand.

`Out?'

`Yes, for a run in my car or whatever you want.'

`Ooh, I would,' he gripped the chair arms as though to spring
up, but rose nowhere at all.

`It's all right, Ted, your son's not in a rush,' a nurse 
smiled, looking over his shoulder, making sure he could see her face
as she spoke, soon being joined by another who helped to start get
him ready.

A third nurse also wheelchaired him as far as the car and
angled him onto the passenger seat, tucking him well in before
slamming the door shut. `Enjoy yourself, Ted,' they waved, and his
eyes smiled back.

`Where shall we go?' I asked.

In silence his pleasure sequinned a puzzled reply.

`Newmillerdam, then, how about that?'

`Where is that?' his face withdrew back into his world.

`Newmillerdam. It's near here, you'll have passed it many a
time when driving your men to Sheffield.'

`Oh, I know Sheffield,' his face became animated.

`Well, this is even nearer.'

`Don't like Sheffield. It's all steelworks.'

`Not now, it isn't - not since the Thatcher experiment. Anyway,
you'll see, where we're going to is like a lake in the country.'
That put him at ease and we continued in the direction of
Newmillerdam.

Ducks. Why do people always take old folk to see ducks? He did
not seem to mind, in fact contentment settled him into his seat.
Perhaps he was being reminded of those walks he had taken until
recently around Roundhay Park's lakes and Valley Gardens.

`Here's some bread,' I helped him open his window and throw out
a crumpled bit. `I'll be back in a moment.'

He could only mumble thanks with his gums for the ice cream
that I bought. `They're nice,' he watched their tails waddle free
of the water as ice cream ran down his fingers.

`Here, spread this handkerchief on your trousers,' I wiped away
drips, the nurses having dressed him up specially for his outing.

`I think we better be getting back home. I don't want to keep
them waiting,' his house and the staff and the hospital having
merged all into one in his mind.

On the way to Adderton, after returning Dad to his ward, I
called in to see mother. She was busy, having left Otterlake Hall
and moved to her new house in the next village. `Funny you should 
call. I've just been thinking about your father. I wanted to visit
him this week, but there's only two buses a day, and they pass
through mining areas,' she said, laying on her Arundel Castle
accent.

`Shall I tell you about Father? Are you interested?'

`Oh, yes,' she poured from the kettle to tea pot and tea pot to
cup.

I stirred a spoonful of honey into my tea. `The social services
have their own coach. Yesterday they took every patient in the ward
to Bridlington.'

`Did they?' I watched her reaction.

`Yes, and the nurses even had Father paddling in the sea,
enjoying himself.'

`Your father?' she exclaimed.

`Yes,' I preened.

`I just couldn't cope,' she searched for a handkerchief and
found her tin opener. `He's as strong as an ox,' she wiped away a
dewless tear with her wrist. `What will happen to him when I'm
gone?'

When you've gone! I thought. Before you've gone they'll have
buried the lot of us, as I suddenly realised she had no intention of
having him home. `How about me giving you a lift, next week, then
you won't have to bother with those miners' buses?' I said, seeking
to embarrass her.

`A lift? Perhaps I could manage that, if I go before I have any
carpets fitted,' she wilted.

I remained unmoved, not intending to fall for that tactic a
second time. Not this time, not with poor Father locked away, his
money under house arrest being used to pay for yet another set of
carpets without him knowing.

But before then Saturday was here, the Morris Minor returning
from Blackpool. `Hi, Dad.'

`Hi.'

`Did you enjoy yourselves?' I smiled, delighted they were back.

`YES, terrific.'

`It was great.'

`Did Mary enjoy herself?' I enthused whilst Lena was outside,
emptying the car.

`Yes,' they chorused.

`She looked after us whilst Mum took the week's holiday with
Alison,' Claire bounced onto the settee next to me.

`In the Lake District,' John bounced onto the other side.

I gave them a hug, saying nothing, for this was the same Alison
who had telephoned to speak to Lena whilst they all were away!

Chapter 25.

I dropped Mother outside the entrance to Father's yellow brick
ward; that part of a yellow brick wing of a yellow brick hospital.
`I'll be back in a minute. Might as well pick up my prescription
from the infirmary next door.'

When I returned they were talking at a table, obliquely facing
each other since Mother was keeping one eye on what else was
happening about her. `I've got three good sons,' Father reflected,
his elbow in a puddle of tea.

`You've got two sons, not three,' both eyes threatened to
pierce him, Peter now being a non-person for not dropping a girl
whom she had tried to have banned. `Move your arm, Edward, you've
spilt something on the Formica.'

`Yes, Mother. Two sons,' he yielded, gazing into the distance,
his present predicament being the outcome of her attacking him with
a poker for standing up for Peter. `You know, Mother, love's a funny
thing.'

`What's he going on about?' she turned, wrong-footed, realising
that I was back.

Perhaps Father had not noticed my return for he continued.
`Are you managing all right at home?'

`Of course I am, Edward. Just get yourself better. I'll come by
train next week,' she struggled whilst replacing the top of her
thermos, its thread becoming crossed as a consequence of her
discomfort. `Are you ready?' she demanded, wanting to get me away
from her predicament.

`Yes,' I gave Father a kiss, started to walk, then cast a final
look from the doorway. He was back in his world, oblivious to those
all around, some sitting, waiting for their next meal, others
sleeping away that part of their lives before sleep becomes life.

`It's fortunate, about you discovering that you're able to come
by train next week,' I said, closing my jacket against the fresh air
outside. `Unfortunately I won't be able to bring you, I'll be
looking after the children,' I started the car, my mind drifting.
What had Ransley said, “Meet you in the usual place”? Damn him,
I'll check Lena's speedometer every morning, then see how far she
has travelled the previous night.

`Are you listening to what I'm saying?' Mother poked my
shoulder.

`Mmm,' I nodded, pretending to concentrate on the traffic
ahead. I'll be able to read her mileometer whilst she's still in the
bathroom, getting ready for school.

Fallen leaves swirled in the slipstream of my car, spinning
orange amongst the autumn sunshine before tumbling back onto the
road for the next vehicle to hurl about. `Drop me here, drop me
here.'

`Here?'

`Here, here. That's what I said.'

`It's no trouble, leaving you at your.....'

`There's somebody in the village I promised I'd see.'

`Cheerio, then. I'll cycle up to see you next week when I'm no
longer looking full time after Claire and John.'

Each morning I put operation Bearded Nonentity into effect
whilst Lena was, as usual, busy in the bathroom. I intended to use
the distances she travelled to enable me to draw circles of
probability on a map and deduct the kind of places they might be
going to.

Some nights she claimed to be going to Leeds, other times to
Cawood, Selby, York, or even further afield, yet the mileage she
covered was always the same. I could never have anticipated that she
would be so stupid, so predictable, leaving me with just one simple
circle to draw through the precise place of her nightly destination.
Do nothing to alert their suspicions, don't frighten them off, I
decided. They think themselves so clever, more intelligent than
anyone else, they're bound to make a mistake sooner rather than
later, so don't give them cause for suspicion, at least not until I
can prove exactly what they are up to.

`Did you see Father?' I asked Mother, the following week.

`Yes. He's terribly fit. I carried a full flask of tea, all the
way there and, would you believe it, he drank the lot, and even ate
both buns that I bought.'

`He doesn't like bought cakes.'

`Doesn't he? Like them or not, he finished them. Anyway, I'm 
not wasting money heating up my oven just to bake him two buns.'

I switched topics. `Was the train journey all right?'

`When the train found the right platform it was,' she waved a
timetable. `I knew they were wrong, so I stuck to my guns, and
managed to catch the London train - it misses out those awful
stations where the workers get on.'

`London?' I grinned. `I bet you were dressed for a garden
party, big hat and all.'

`Don't be so ridiculous. Why shouldn't I catch it? It has to
stop at Wakefield for bankers and business men who work in the
city,' she raised her accent an octave. `The guard didn't even ask
to see my ticket. Besides, I've been invited to Canada, so I won't
be seeing your father for a month.'

Canada! What's getting off trains in Wakefield got to do with
Canada? she left me unable to believe that having got hold of his
money she was now intending to clear off for a transatlantic
holiday. But eventually I believed her so, petrol or not, I'll take
him out in my car, he's not going to be left all on his own for a
month.

On Monday I returned. `Can I take my father for a drive?' I
asked an auxiliary nurse.

`Should be all right,' she dodged the decision. `Best ask him,
that coloured fellow, in the white coat.'

`Sure, man. We'll give you a hand. Tea's at five, so try get
him back before then if you can.'

Father remained limp, docile, yet eyes ever watchful as I
talked to the nurses whilst they pushed him into his clothes. `Here
you are, Ted,' they lifted him feet-first into my car.

`Mind your head, man.'

`See you at tea time,' they waved, a nurse with jet black hair
being particularly friendly.

He might have been put away amongst the senile but I'm sure
that a flash of his eyes was sufficient for me to realise that he
had detected flirtatious motivations behind the smile which she had
flashed in my direction.

We cruised slowly to the gates. `What would you like to do?' I
asked, looking left and right, fearful that his answer might be that 
he wanted to go home.

`Anywhere,' he surprised me.

`How about Newmillerdam?' I said, grabbing the first loose
thought in my mind, having been caught with my fears down.

`Is it far?'

`I've taken you there before.'

He turned his head, stared through his window, looking at ease
with the world. Does this really mean he's content to go wherever
the car takes him? That's unusual, he's normally anxious, not
wishing to risk the chance of being back late, nor to inconvenience
the nurses. Had hospital now displaced the house he once built?

No, I was swiftly aware that he knew the difference. `Is
Mother managing, looking after the house by herself?' he said, as
though where we were going was of secondary importance.

`Yes, she's managing. We're already there, this is
Newmillerdam, don't you remember? Would you like an ice cream?' I
changed the subject, wishing to avoid having to explain why she was
not here.

He gave a strange nod.

But to which question? I wondered. `An ice cream?'

Another nod, an uncomfortable nod, as though he wanted the
toilet.

`It's over there. Can you manage?'

He shook his head, whispering, `No,' slowly, quietly.

`I don't think I can carry you.' I joked, but too late, his
trousers were wet.

`What about your car, Martin?'

`The car doesn't matter. It's your day out, would you like to
feed the ducks?'

`Yes,' he replied, embarrassingly quiet.

`Right, then. I'll get the ice creams and if you don't want
one it won't matter, they'll welcome soggy cones.'

But he was busy watching as children came, ducks quacked,
wanting more, and children left. The ice cream van remained tilted,
lonely, two wheels on one pavement, business slack, my order
startling the man in his white half jacket out of his sport's page.
For him the season was over, the dew days now gone, spiders' webs 
having been wetted away last week by a different rain. `I cycled
along here to London.'

`Oh, yes, I saw the pictures you showed me. Did you raise much
money?' his eyes pools of understanding, no longer on fire.

`Yes, quite a lot. Would you like another ice cream,... or a
cup of tea, or packet of crisps?'

`Have you any biscuits?' he apologised.

`We've fed them to the ducks. But I'll get some more.'

`Doesn't matter.'

`It's no problem, there's a shop back there.'

`Don't bother, crisps will do.'

A comb of cool air passed over the dam, its waters shivering,
catching a chill under the darkening sky, then autumn had gone and
the air became still. `Do you want to go back to......?' do I call
it home, hospital, or what? - I know Father frets nowadays if he
thinks there is chance of him being late, `.... go back for tea?'

He remained silent, as though not wishing to reply, happy
watching the stillness which had glassed back over the water, the
ducks poddling next to his door waiting for something extra to eat.

`Ready for another ice cream?' I was floundering, having too
little to say, even the trees remaining silent and rook-less.

He shook his head.

`We used to come along here, in your wagon, when you were
building in Sheffield,' I tried again. This time memories were
evoked and he smiled, remaining content as time continued to slip
past. `You'll be late, if we don't set off soon. Do you want to
leave now, I'll bring you again on Friday,' I pressed, concerned
that he would be bound to become worried.

`No,' he replied, in another low whisper. He wanted to stay.

`Just a bit longer, then,' I said, ever more anxious about the
guilt he would feel if we returned late. `Claire and John will be
home soon,' I dipped into memories familiar for something different
to say.

`Oh, Claire and John. Don't keep them waiting,' he strained to
pull himself upright, shuffling as I fastened his seat belt. They
mattered a lot, must not be left waiting, empty houses and other
horrors engraved in his childhood: yet one final pause as he took 
another look at the waters and trees, a convoy of ducks now
scuttling back into the reeds as today's ceiling of clouds began to
press down, their grey turning black as though starting to fume,
leaving us the only animals in sight, yet his anxiety subsided
again. Strange, it was as though he was wanting to eke out the day,
not the usual rush to return for his tea.

`Hello, is that you, Martin?' It was my brother, William, next
morning, on the telephone, `Father died last night.'

Chapter 26.

`Out of sight out of mind,' Mother might have been thinking
long before the silver tips of her jumbo jet had climbed into the
clouds above Manchester. She could have been right, years ago, but
not nowadays, not when Canada is a mere Atlantic's distance away,
and not after she had boasted to the hospital telling them where she
was going. Thus, as in the case of Doctor Crippen, it is upon small
oversights that Murphy's Law can practise its humour.

`Humour,' is not what she called it after the finger of fate
had dialled her number in the middle of a day trip to the Niagara
Falls. `I hadn't even got my cases fully unpacked,' she tantrumed,
emerging from the airport still ranting on about how Edward could at
least have waited until her holiday was over. Still, now she was
here she intended to take command of the funeral arrangements,
insisting he should be cremated after a service to be held at the
biggest church in Leeds, ignoring his desire to be buried.

`Cremated?' The thoughts of being burnt had always filled
Father with terror.

`Well, he's not having to pay, is he?' she retorted, having
discovered how much it would have cost for him to be buried next to
his sisters, his wishes thus being conflagrated when she instructed
the Co-operative society to arrange his cremation.

`The Co-op?' I exclaimed. `He always avoided them, ever since
they put his late grandfather's shop out of business.'

I withered in her glare, not daring to remind her that she
never shopped at the Co-op because, in her world of imaginary
splendour, it was not the kind of place where the best people wished
to be seen.

But money was money, especially since in this instance, and
upon the specific condition, that there would neither be a
Co-op sign on his hearse nor in the car in which she would follow.

`Just one car?'

`Just one... I'm only a widow, do you think I'm made of money?
In fact, if I wasn't a widow I wouldn't be here, would I?'

Lena was also at the funeral, and Peter and William. We were a
family again, Father having achieved in death all that he had 
striven for when living on earth.

Dust blew in eddies upon the stone steps we mounted in front of
the church, inside its tall gothic arches climbing high above carved
oaken pews and empty choir stalls, the flagged aisles and colours of
its stained glass windows dead in the grey October day.

The organ began to drone. A door latch clunked. The sound of
traffic entered, wide doors opening to let cool air whisper in. The
doors banged shut, yet still a shiver, I raised my eyes. How small
the coffin, how small the coffin: “except ye be as little children”
haunted my mind, submerged in guilt, heart humbled by memories of
unkind things done and words left unsaid. Such a tiny coffin,
surrounded by rows and rows and rows of empty pews, the silence of
his history less than a tick from the clock of the story of life.

With a measured pace of finality the pallid pall bearers left
with his coffin upon its final journey. `I think it's disgusting,'
Mother chuntered whilst climbing into the car which was ready to
follow (choosing to forget that Christ's death had also been
lonely), Father's hearse having already started drawing away,
destined for the crematorium: in that brief moment the street became
empty and deserted.

`Awfully low, awfully low,' she kept repeating in our car on
the way back, having dismissed the cortege. `He deserves better than
that. I'm going to arrange for a Memorial service with incense, and
a choir, and proper hymns at my own church.'

Claire's eyes asked their silent questions when Lena and I got
home, my eyes giving answers without words. `Tea, would you like a
cup of tea?' she asked. To that we could reply, and the day of heavy
skies began to submerge into darkness.

`Who's got the Radio Times?'

`John.'

`Ask him to return it, I think we'll stay in tonight.' Damn,
before I could read Lena's mileometer she went out. Though, in truth,
today I could not be bothered.

What to do today? I thought, next morning once they had left
for school. But there was no need for almost immediately the
telephone rang. `Hello, Adderton 572.'

It was Mother. `I've bought an eternity ring by which to 
remember your Father,' she announced.

An eternity ring, in memory of your disposable husband? I
silently gasped.

`Pardon?'

`Nothing.'

`I'm sure you said something.'

`Not that I know of.'

`Well, there's also my engagement ring, the one which you've
stolen, I want that returning before the service.'

`I've not stolen it,' I snapped.

`Lena has, and that's the same.'

`Lena? Of course she hasn't,' I exploded. `You've us to thank
for rescuing it following one of your tantrums with Father when you
threw it away.'

`Don't be so ridiculous. Who in their right senses would throw
valuables away?'

Point proven, I thought, silently biting my lip. That's all
the thanks you get for scratting through her dustbin, searching for
the ring, holding it in trust until Father came home from hospital.
Of course, she never intended that he should; so I returned to
Adderton dejected, yet another of my hopes cremated with him, and to
our loft where it had been stored in secrecy in case burglars broke
in - then she really would have had something to shout about. Mind
you, fancy the old nag remembering with clinical accuracy where the
ring had gone? She must have been pretending to be beside herself.

Driving along Adderton lane and past the Brick Pond I mused,
recalling how it was only a week since I had taken him to Newmiller
Dam. What premonition or influence had caused him to want to linger,
taking in as much as he could upon his last day on Earth? He could
not have known, could he?

`How much did you get in the will?' Lena barely gave me time to
park my car and close the kitchen door.

`I don't know,' I replied, aghast at the question. `I'm not
interested, I've come home to look for her ring.'

`Ring?'

`Yes, she say's you've stolen her engagement ring.'

`Rubbish.' 

`That's what I told her. I wouldn't care, but on top of the
worry it's cost us a fortune insuring the blasted thing,' I set off
with a pair of steps to climb into our loft.

Damn it, everything was hidden too well, being secreted between
the rafters and joists. After a couple of hours I was sagging, and
by then Lena had gone out. `Hello,' I telephoned Mother, `I'm
exhausted, going to have a cup of tea, but in the morning I'll put
on a mask and have a thorough search, turn the fibre glass
insulation upside down.'

`I said that Lena had stolen it,' she exploded.

I slammed down the receiver, evil-minded old bag.

Five minutes later the telephone rang. `Have you found my ring
yet?'

`No, I have not. I've told you I'll find it tomorrow,' it was
my turn to explode

`I knew Lena was wearing it,' she said. `Anyway, it's too late
now, I've told the police. They'll arrest her. She deserves to be
shown up.'

`She's not wearing your bloody ring,' I crashed down the phone
in an ill-tempered desire that the bang would leave her ears
ringing.

By the time Lena returned home I was musing in bed, one eye
shut, mouth half open - but I'll tell her tomorrow for she had
already undressed and slid silently into her side of the bed.
That's a relief, closing my mouth, happy to put off the moment,
preferring to avoid knowing whether or not she had fallen
immediately asleep.

Next morning the kitchen and bathroom were in their usual state
of sullen urgency whilst Lena and the children were getting ready.
`I had a right do with my mother, last night, on the phone, whilst
you were out,' I said, engineering a light-hearted laugh, having
waited until Claire and John were out of the room. `She's reported
you to the police for stealing her ring.'

Lena's face stayed the reflection of stone-coloured dough.
Remaining unmoved she opened her bag, unwrapped a fold of white lint
and threw something across the room before leaving for school, the
whatever-it-was ricocheting round the walls and bouncing off the 
fireplace to end up somewhere under the settee. Hell! my hand
eventually found it, the missing engagement ring. How the devil had
she known that Lena was wearing it?

Then the dawn of an idea in my mind began to break and make
sense. Maybe they both have similar minds, so perhaps it takes one
to know one? Damn, whilst this first light was beginning to create
long shadows in my mind I had forgotten to check her mileometer when
she was still busy in the bathroom.

`On the other hand,' I mused, pouring full cream milk over my
cornflakes, full cream milk that had been skimmed by the children,
`There's plenty of time for a second cup of tea.' I opened the
newspaper, `I've all morning to read her mileometer,' the school
being less than ten minutes away, `All I need to do is deduct a mile
from the reading.'

Outside the sun was still rising, its rays taking over where
Lena's illuminating behaviour had left off. Its lemon light was
focused upon her Morris Minor, focused upon its speedometer,
focused so precisely that FIFTEEN MILES shouted out the moment I
glanced - lackadaisically pretending to be doing something else.

Bloody hell, she's been with him again, bugger, bugger, bugger.
Time to do something about it, right now, my jugular vein flushed
with hot blood as my temper rose. On second thoughts, tomorrow might
be even better, it's John's birthday, she'll be expecting me to stay
in for his party, and logic cooled my brain.

I bet she lights the candles, playing "Here Comes Jolly Mum",
and then whilst they're occupied clear off for the evening. That's
it, that'll be her plan, to leave me tied up with the children.
Well, let's see if I can also give her a birthday surprise, devise
some way of getting away for an hour to follow her and see where she
goes? But how? But how?

`Martin,' a voice called out from across the road.

Who is it? I pretended to be adjusting Lena's wing mirror
before casually looking up. `Hello,' I said. It was Brenda, Stan's
wife.

`Hi, how are you?' she walked over, wanting inquisitively to
help. `It's Iain's birthday tomorrow, you know.'

`It's all right, thanks, I've done it,' I straightened up,
wiping phantom dirt down my front. `Iain, your lad?'

`Yes, he's having a party, and wants your John to come.'

`That's an unfortunate coincidence, it's John's birthday as
well, and he's having a party at our house.'

`I know, Lena's invited our Iain to it. But, as a solution, I
thought they could all start at your house and finish off at
ours..... A kind of joint party,' she attempted to look past me,
still curious as to what was wrong with Lena's car.

`Great idea,' I beamed, realising that perhaps this could be
the chance I was looking for. `When should I bring them, anytime
special?'

`As soon as you like. Just drop them off, then Lena and you can
go out for a while during the evening.'

Chapter 27.

I looked over Brenda's shoulder. She succeeded in peering round
my elbow, at the car beyond, saw nothing, apart from the usual rust
and neglect; while I watched the trees littering the playground with
leaves, their foliage no longer a cover-up for any rook set upon
mischief.

That's good, my smile broadened, not caring about where the
black omen had gone, hardly believing my luck about John's party,
they say God moves in mysterious ways. On the other hand, my mind
toying with the fantastic, could it be Father keeping an eye over
me? Either way, or whatever, tomorrow evening I intended to tread
lightly in a pair of thinly-soled shoes able to feel the slightest
tingle sent to guide me.

`Happy birthday, John.'

`Happy birthday.'

`Happy Birthday,' next morning.

The sun, with its face set upon another hemisphere, was still
shining a postscript upon Adderton, its refraction playing with the
moving eye to produce fleeting rainbows that ran up and down a
spider's invisible thread that looped from bush to house. Is that
how Tarzan spiders, having swung from bough to bough, end up indoors
to lie unseen, until they dash in leggy staccatos weaving phobias
across carpets.

`Oy, what were you doing with my wife yesterday morning?' Stan
shouted from the ill-serviced tractor which he brought out of
retirement each autumn, its exhaust coughing smoke and soot into the
sky as it passed, towing what might be loosely classed as a trailer,
just as I collected today's milk off our doorstep.

`Oh, that.'

`Aye, that,' he laughed.

`Wouldn't you like to know,' I laughed back. `Anyway, how did
you see us?'

`Hoeing.'

`Hoeing, this time of the year?'

`Aye. Ho what a wonderful morning, ho what a wonderful day,
ho what a wonderful feel........' 

`Daft bat, you know bloody well what we were talking about.'

`..... Everything's coming my way,' he giggled his way out of
range of the armful of bottles I was miming to throw.

After the exchange of fraternal abuse I breakfasted, having
decided against cycling far, intending to save my energy for the
evening and for whatever demands fate had in store.

Boring, so boring, waiting for “Operation Pied Peeper” to
begin. Bored, so bored, I went for several strolls after lunch, all
the time watching the sky as the thin blue of day started draining
away, an orange-red half igniting, half polluting, eventually
swamping where once the horizon had been.

`Hi.'

`Hi.'

`This is..,' John started to say, accidentally remembering his
manners.

`Iain, I know,' I attempted to start a conversation as the
gaggle of mites elbowed their satchels into the kitchen.

`Like to play a game, lads?' I tried, wondering what were the
games we used to play and would they still be in the interests of
furnishings which already were upon their third career? But they
were gone, the thumping and bumping and laughter upstairs outside
territorial limits.

But time caught up, Lena looked at the clock. `Food,' she
called from the bottom of the stairs. `Food,' she repeated, half a
banister higher. `Food,' yet again, but still it fell upon deaf
stomachs. `I'm lighting the candles on the cake.'

Like the rumblings of buffalo they burst from John's bedroom
and swept down upon us.

`Food first, then I'll light them,' she stood back as plates of
sandwiches and buns canvassed mixed popularity until the jellies
were started and finished. Then, just as I had anticipated, Lena,
ready to go, put a match to the candles. `Cheerio,' she sounded so
jolly.

`Bye,' John half waved, his paper hat slipping over one eye,
more interested in lighting and blowing out candles again and again
rather than eat birthday cake.

`Just one last go, John,' I found a spare match. 

`Ohhhhh,' he howled.... Then his face brightened, `I know, we
can light them again from the cooker?'

`John!' I raced after him, leaping ahead to grab the ignition.
`No, I'm taking you to Iain's house. He's got a birthday cake with
a fresh set of candles, just waiting to be lit.'

`Great,' the herd with little feet thundered for the door, and
into my car, having forgotten all about my last manky match.

Brenda, hearing the car when it entered their yard, switched on
a light, its wide beam revealing a muddy morass where tractors had
churned up the ground. Better get them past that mess, I thought,
doing a ten point turn before reversing with wheels spinning until
we were snug by their front door. `Hello, everyone all right?' she
sparkled, reaching out to lift them clean-footed over her threshold
rather than send them through mud to the dairy. `Remember, boys, if
you ever come here with dirty boots the dairy door at the back is
the one you must use.'

`Yes,' they chorused, ignoring her words as though they were
ether whilst their feet scampered for the kitchen. `Where's the
matches?'

`I'll have to go, whilst we still have a home,' she laughed.
`Don't rush back, enjoy yourself, they'll be all right until ten.'

`I will, I will,' my eyes agreed whilst I wound up my window
quickly as she disappeared. This is where the evening really
begins, my pulse decided, hoping the time was right, subdued green
illuminating the car clock within a burr walnut dashboard. Lena had
only a ten-minute start, at least that's what the hands said, so
she'll still be at his house if I tighten my seat belt and let the
engine have its head.

Damn, no sooner had the acceleration begun to throw mud off my
tyres than the main road became busy, a snarl of traffic
ill-tempered with itself, exhaust fumes clouding into mist as
drivers, their cars like panthers upon their haunches ready to
pounce, revved their engines. Three miles, three miles. `Hurry up,
hurry up,' I too looked for a gap, caution and impatience being
thrown into conflict as I looked for a shortcut though the filling
station forecourt all blazoned with light at the next junction.

Suddenly “Operation Pied Peeper” was not catching the rat I 
expected for Lena was there, she was there, head down, putting
petrol into her Minor. Quick, I reversed into the car park for the
local ex-servicemen's club, its brick and asbestos building unlit.
`That's fortunate, there's no snooker tonight. No-one to ask what
I'm up to.'

Why was she taking so long? I wondered, deciding to slide out
of my car and creep nearer. Crouching, remaining within the shadow
of the War Memorial which I had cycled past so often, I peered round
a privet hedge, my movements unnoticed in the black molasses of a
November night. It's a good thing I had seen her, but what's she
doing now?.... Checking her radiator! How far is she planning to
go? I chuntered, stamping my feet quietly upon grass against
tonight's cold. Hurry up, hurry up, then, at last, she was ready for
off. I scuttled back to the car but delayed starting its engine so
as to give her a safe lead before nosing my wheels onto the road,
wheels which must steer into the glare of the filling station's
lights; a lead I could afford because I knew where my pursuit would
take me.

Being on the smug side of confidence I dawdled even longer
before accelerating fast, having worked out precisely just how long
it would take her to get there. Hell! I almost rammed into the
“put-put” of her exhaust halfway round a double bend after racing
under the railway bridge arch. What the...? I steered sharp right
towards the station, unlit, the last train gone, hoping I had not
been spotted. Where the...? Obviously she was not going to his
house, “Operation Pied Peeper” had almost run into deep trouble.

I pulled up hidden by a copse just past the abandoned goods
yard, yet with a good view now their foliage had thinned. Are those
her lights, in the distance, on the lane which meandered to Cawood
as though following the river? I hoped they were, my head lights
remaining switched off, waiting this time to make sure she was well
ahead before restarting my engine.
Right, change of plan, renamed “Operation Goldilocks” since
I'll be relying on following any clues that she drops, as I switched
on my spot lights to stab into the night so that she'll think the
vehicle following is a sports car. Where is she going now? She was
taking an even more devious route. 

Best turn up this lane to avoid alerting her suspicions, I
grabbed at the first plausible escape which soon turned out to be an
unmade road to a farm. On behalf of my springs I soon drew to a halt
and waited, watching the scattered beams from her headlights dancing
away before deciding it safe to rejoin the trail, this time with my
full configuration of headlights and spots to make it look as though
it was a Rolls Royce that was some distance behind her.
`Here we go again, she's making another detour. If this is what
Ransley and Lena have schemed up together they deserve an A-plus for
effort but Z-minus for imagination,' I smiled, dowsing all my lights
before turning back on just one of my spots so as to appear like a
motorcycle, then a couple of miles later replacing it with my two
inners only which squinted and mimicked a Land Rover before I
finally reverted to headlights and becoming a family saloon. Damn,
being so clever I had lost her, not the slightest sign of her rear
lights in sight. What to do now?
Winding, curving, dipping, I drove along the lane slowly past
’Beware of Flood“ signs, through a simpering ford then, all of a
sudden, she was there. `That's her, parked, with everything
switched off, no wonder I lost sight of her lights.' I turned up my
collar, buried my face, and drove past where her Minor was tucked in
behind a hedge of the Thruby Arms' car park. Round the next corner
I stopped, `Yes, it's definitely Lena,' and just as his car was
approaching from the opposite direction. `Oh, too clever by half,
definitely Z-minus, they'll think that it's foolproof, their plan to
drive on past each other if either is being followed,' I chortled,
tingling with excitement now their deception was over.
I nudged my car closer to where I could see them in his car,
sitting together. More minutes past and now all I could see were
his windows misting up. In fact it was all that I wanted to see
because she wouldn't, not with him, not with that squirt; but just
in case I edged out of my seat and crept nearer and nearer just to
make sure.
`Talking, just bloody-well talking, it makes the mind boggle,
all day at school together and still bloody-well talking. Mind you,
thank goodness for that,' I relaxed. But his windows were not
misted enough. They spotted me, panicked, abandoned his back seat, 

and each drove away in their own car.
`Serves you right,' I chastised myself, my curiosity having
tripped over my ego and tumbled me into a quandary in which my mind
was in danger of floundering. Which way out? Which one to follow?
They're both taking different escapes. Decisions, decisions,
`Better sit on Lena's tail, I'm not bothered about him. In fact,
now that I come to think about it, what a convenient end to the
evening it would make if he were to skid into the river....all that
matters is that Claire and John get their Mother back safe,' with
heart racing I continued chatting to my steering wheel. `This is
the end of her accusing me of going mad, or of imagining things.'
On and on we bobbled over bumps and cambers as her Morris Minor
drove close to its sound barrier until, when approaching Tadcaster,
she dodged sharp left up a lane out of sight. It looked like a
well-rehearsed manoeuvre, yet one that failed to worry for by now I
had grown confident that someone was guiding my hands. Was it
Father? Was he really that something or someone that was directing
me along unfamiliar streets to meet her coming in the opposite
direction?
Each time I appeared she bolted, sometimes reversing against
one-way streets, yet whatever she did it never mattered for I always
came upon her again. `This is ridiculous, it really must be Father,
looking down upon our every move,' although the fuel gauge was
beginning to catch my attention. `Better not have to stop for need
of petrol.'
So next time I drove past where she was hiding, pretending I
had lost her, only to sneak back along dark side streets until I was
overlooking the main car park where she was tucked away in the
corner.
Slowly, slowly, catchy monkey - one down, one to go... So with
the cheese; slowly, slowly, catchy rat. Within twenty minutes
Ransley's car had emerged, sniffing round the parapet, checking for
safety. She flashed a signal whereupon he risked the sodium lights,
nosing his car over the bridge, its whiskers still twitching and,
with engine running, courageously left Lena to run across and risk
being caught in the open before they drove off at speed.
I jumped back into my car and followed. `Damn, too close, he's
spotted me in his mirror. If only I had hung back until we were on 

the dual carriageway with the lights of Tadcaster well behind us.'
Lena swivelled round, as though confirming that it was my car on
their tail, before wriggling down out of sight onto the floor on his
passenger side.
What good will that do her when I know she is there? Perhaps
they don't want a chance encounter to witness him having a woman in
his vehicle now that the chase is on (this time C for effort, still
only Z-minus for inspiration) as we raced on along the York by-pass
onto the Scarborough road, cats' eyes flashing past, before he did a
screeching wheely wrong way round a roundabout to double back into
central York.
Even this made no difference, whether on fast lanes or slow,
side streets or highways, for my steering wheel unerringly found
them. I guess he finally took a wrong turn because the inevitable
happened, me driving down an unfamiliar street to find him jammed at
the end, attempting to do a three point turn, trapped in a
cul-de-sac with my radiator grill bearing down upon him.
This time he just raised his hands off his steering wheel and
gave up, unable to think of anything better to do than just grin, as
though hoping that this act of submission would lessen the violence
of the spanking he was about to be given.
But he had no need to shiver. `What, and get myself charged
with assault?' I muttered to myself, shaking my head in disgust.
`No, Ransley, I've got what I wanted, this is the end of your
affair,' I reversed out of the street.
Back on the road home it was my turn to grin. `She'll be mighty
uncomfortable, all that time she's spent on the floor,' I thought.
`On the other hand, she could still pretend I was imagining things.
Better immobilise her car, remove all its lights, then let's see how
she explains that away to his wife when they turn up at his house
still looking dishevelled from her ride on the floor of his car.
It was two o'clock when she slipped into bed. I remained still,
saying nothing, just thankful. `I suppose I ought to think of
something to say, draw a line, agree a pax, ...... but what?'
failure in communication again blocking my tongue. `Anyway, how the
hell has she got home without lights?' Had I sewn a few mustard
seeds over her car instead of deadly nightshade I suppose things
might have been easier.
`Would you like me to repair your headlights?' I asked, next
morning.
But the portcullis had fallen. She walked straight past me, as
though I was invisible or mad. `Hello, Ransley,' she phoned his
home. `I'm driving to Leeds to get parts for my car. Will you
contact Adderton school and arrange a relief for my class?'
_

Chapter 28

A family of bats might have run the risk of finding themselves
roosting in my mouth had I let it loll open for very much longer.
Did Lena and Ransley have no shame? Was there no limit to their
impudence? He is no longer headmaster at our village school and yet
they are prepared to treat the education system as though it exists
solely for their convenience.

Worse, our own children were being affected; my mouth dropping
shut, ready to bite, matters had gone far enough. `Even Claire's
being teased on the school bus about you,' I pounced as Lena passed,
blocking her way, this time she would be unable to pretend to walk
through me.

`Rubbish,' her answer intended to brush me aside.

`Still good at repartee, I see.'

`You've not got a job, it looks as though you never will, so if
you don't like things you can get out.'

The swine! She's right, I suppose, yet things might settle now
the charade's over and she knows that I know she is the one who has
been lying. Mind you, he might dump her first, which would solve
the problem, though I am not banking on that, certainly not if it
means running the risk of leaving Claire and John at the mercy of
his machinations.

But logic seems to pass warped through a one-way mirror for
people caught up in entanglements like that of Lena and Ransley
thus, being caught last night, did nothing to inhibit the bubbling
of their cauldron for, after she collected her new lights, which he
immediately fitted, she moved into our spare bedroom, though still
keeping her clothes hanging with mine. That is all except for her
underwear, she hid that in a locked suitcase. `Does she think I'm
going to stoop to sabotaging the elastic in her knickers?'

The spiders that had invaded our house during the autumn did
not know the answer to that one. In fact they were gone, having
disappeared completely, like everything else, leaving the walls
empty and dead. `I don't know why you stick it, Dad?' Claire said,
following yet another of Lena's early morning tantrums.

Though as Christmas drew nearer she became more reasonable, at 
least towards the children. Perhaps things were blowing over after
all, so I slipped round to the pub.

`Can tha still get record players?' Stan supped the froth off
his pint as he offered me a drink.

`I don't know, do you want one?'

`Aye, more if they're the right price. One for me, one for my
brother, and another for uncle Granville.'

If you can spare a fourth, remember me,' Bungie, our local
baker, always quick to save even a currant in a tea-cake, signalled
across, raising his voice over the tide of late drinkers, who were
ebbing against the bar, just in case I was unable to lip read.

`Me, as well,' Fixel the accountant from the next village, yet
another man doing his late Christmas shopping, slipped me another
pint. `One of them would be ideal,' he raised his glass in salute,
having at last found something for the wife which he would enjoy
using himself.

`That's five wanted. I'll see what I can do in the morning,' I
returned his salute, and the mat stuck to the base of my glass fell
away without spillage.

Things were looking up. The walls of home also had the air
that we were returning to normality when next morning I remembered
the name of their sales manager. `Good morning,' I telephoned,
clearing my voice, `What's delivery like on audio units?....... Is
it?....... Don't worry about delivery, we can send a man to collect
them....... You're giving extra discounts on quantities of five or
more?....... We'll order five, then, and also take the cash
discount.'

That's a stroke of luck, Lena's always going on about us being
broke. I'll buy three presents as a surprise with the profit, one
for her and one each for the children.

The walls were now in festive spirit, and garlanded by the time
Mary arrived on Christmas Eve, the decorated tree in a tub filling
one corner, its branches reaching out, pretending still to be
growing, sparkling with lights, the fairy on top sitting
uncomfortably after so many Christmases of being rammed up against
the ceiling, this year looking down upon Mary's case which was
packed for a week. Suits me, I thought, Lena becomes a changed 
woman when her mother arrives. `Go to sleep, Mary's watching
television,' I called upstairs to the children.

`We stopped believing in Santa Claus years ago.'

`Perhaps you did. But so far as I'm concerned Santa Claus still
refuses to call when he finds children awake, irrespective of age.
It's two o'clock now, in ten minutes' time it'll be too late and
like me he'll be going to bed.'

They stopped talking, calculating their next move, but
tiredness soon outwitted their minds and, as though the world had
ceased working, what remained of the night sank into a panorama of
silence as far as the ears could hear.

`Ho, ho, hoooe! Happy Christmas John, happy Christmas Claire,'
I called out when I got up, exhaustion having made them sleep in.

They bounded downstairs. `Happy Christmas. What's this?'

`Happy Christmas. You're opening my parcel.'

`Who's this one from?'

Torn wrappings were scattered all over the room as fingers
fought their way into selotaped packages.

`Happy Christmas,' Mary shuffled into the room, started
watching, and became strangely silent, her back to the table against
the dining recess, assessing the presents as they emerged from their
packing. Lena became uncomfortable in the shade of this silence.
There was a present from Martin to Lena, where was the one from her
daughter to Martin?

Reading these thoughts she slipped away, her destination our
bedroom going by the rustling of paper which preceded her return
with a parcel, as though it was something she had overlooked in the
haste of last night.

I smiled, knowingly, supposing it had been intended for
somebody else, unless I had suddenly grown. `Thanks, very much, I
needed a new pullover,' I hauled its neck over my head, having to
exhale completely, my arms working their way like moles up the
sleeves until two hands reappeared complete with bare wrists. What
will Ransley's response be when Lena turns up with a parcel of home
woven excuses? My eyes beamed mischievously. Still, that's her
problem for later, forget him whilst Mary is here, she's eager to be
our baby-sitter so we can go out together; and a spider fiddled its 
way bleary legged from under the edge of the carpet, wondering what
all the noise was about.

Upon four evenings in succession we accepted invitations to
parties, and next week we were expected at several New Year
celebrations, so it came as a surprise that on the fifth morning
Lena should be up early, together with Mary. What on earth are they
doing out of bed at this hour? I wondered. Better get up just in
case they're intending to slip away to Blackpool again. No, it's
not that, I could see, but there's definitely something going on,
the way they are waiting, standing together.

`There's a letter for you,' Lena pushed a brown window envelope
on the table towards me when I entered the kitchen.

More than the tea had been brewed, I could tell by their eyes.
Perhaps Lena was playing a prank? I glanced at the calendar. Yes,
she must be, it was a Bank Holiday Monday, today there's no delivery
of mail. Besides its postmark is dated two weeks before Christmas.
Is that the joke?

I eased open the envelope, carefully withdrawing its contents,
just in case it was some kind of jack-in-the-box trick. It still
could be a joke, I started to read, and slowly read on. No, it was
not a joke, but I had to laugh at its cheek, it was a genuine
divorce petition. My eyes began to scan the list of complaints: I
was “a man of violent disposition, with only love for his son.”
She claimed that she and her daughter “were terrified.” Then,
referring to our early years, “Sixteen years ago, when we were
living in Whitby, waiting for a mortgage, we slept with our
mattress on the floor for three weeks. This caused me great
distress.”

I broke off, unable to quell my smile as she sheltered behind
Mary to make it look as though any moment now I might be about to
turn savage. Silly woman, I thought, and returned to the
fiction,... “Five years ago she paid for part of our
family holiday in Somerset. She wanted the money back.....
John was also suffering great distress...”

The list went on, events both real and fictional being woven
into a sinister picture. But it was still quite funny, in a black
kind of way. Better say nothing, though, go for a walk, read the 
rest of it elsewhere.

I paused by the Brick Pond, the same pond I had strode past
less than four years ago after seeing the specialist, only to end up
leg-less upon the lane over the hill. Then this same pond had seen me
stride past the following year each time I went to cricket, and a
year later ride past before cycling to London, and when I built
those extensions to our house, and climbed Snowdon.... How things
have changed in so short a time for, although the Brick Pond still
looks almost the same, with its coots pedalling their wakes in
amongst reeds now dead for the winter, I was today holding a
petition which failed to make sense. I had to tell someone.

`You're joking,' Stan gasped, finding it hard to believe,
changing out of his working clothes, Christmas or not the pigs had
to be fed. `I know she used to carry on with men in the pub, but I
always assumed she was flirting.'

Brenda was also befuddled, but found time to read it whilst
preparing their lunch. `I should have realised, though,' she
reflected, stirring gravy stock for their cold turkey which began to
thicken like the plot. `When Ransley and his friend took Lena on a
course she sat between them, on the front seat. She couldn't have
got any closer, not without being inside their trouser pockets.'

`Come on, cheer up, stay for a bit of lunch,' Stan started to
carve pieces off what remained of the carcass.

`No, thanks, I better get home.'

`Come on, at least have a drink whilst you're here, help cheer
yourself up. I'm sure there'll be an explanation. You know what
they say about letting sleeping dogs lie.'

`No.'

`Well,' he hesitated, having never previously considered the
answer, `They, er, I suppose, just leave them lying.'

With that piece of advice to sustain me I eventually returned
home, more mellow than when I had left, though soon forgot all about
dogs. Best ignore Lena and her mother, I decided, unable to think of
a suitable phrase safe to use. Well, what could I say when it seemed
that anything I uttered could be misinterpreted and used against me?
Justifying my silence when just a few words, had I scattered them as
though they were a gift of mustard seeds, might have helped. But no, 
not for me, not when it was easier to dig in my emotions and leave
them buried in pride.

Mary remained flabbergasted. `Your father and me had many
arguments,' she said, turning to Lena, shaking her head, `But I've
never seen anything like this. It's unnatural, someone refusing to
talk. Is he always the same?' Poor Mary, she probably believed
everything Lena had told her.

Yet another opportunity missed, this time to let slip a few
mustard seeds through open fingers over Mary, but pride still said
why should I? Far easier for me to muse and consider whether Lena
really wanted a divorce, or did she have an ulterior motive? Better
to continue to say nothing, then, I convinced myself, cautious of
making things worse. Better see a solicitor, first thing after the
holidays, he'll know how best to keep the marriage intact.

Infuriated by my continued silence Lena lost her temper. `Say
something,' she demanded, threatening to pour coffee over my head.

`Go on, throw it over him,' Mary blurted, having been dragged
down by the day's acrimony, obviously unaware of the true situation.
`That'll make him talk,' she added in a desperate attempt to loosen
my word jam.

Coffee steamed and soaked into my clothes whilst Lena remained
standing, barring my way, the emptied cup in her right hand, as
though challenging me to strike her in front of a witness. I
dismissed her stare for she was terrified of violence, a coward, and
yet behind that mask she was drawing upon courage from somewhere.

She's wasting her time. Doesn't she know me, after all these
years? Perhaps she is steeling herself for the pain, or is she
banking on the fact that I would never hit a woman? Slivers of
emotion, like darts of lightning, prickled through my mind as I
remembered those jewels of hope from the past, diamond cut, my
determinations that Claire and John would never have miserable
childhoods like mine.

And now this is what things have come to, how things have
actually turned out, a sledgehammer poised over their lives.
But the gem was not yet shattered, I stiffened my resolve, there was
still hope, so I must be sure not to make a mistake.

Upstairs they were playing a game. Did they already know? 
Perhaps, but a fog still fell when I told them that their mother
wanted a divorce. They remained silent whilst my words, no matter
how gentle, were lethal, as bullets. All they had been was now dead.
Whoever pulled the trigger was unimportant. `We want everything to
be like it was before Ransley came on the scene,' they said, wishing
for a rainbow, hoping that some heart-to-heart resuscitation could
be administered to their parents.

I was also hoping, hoping that they were not saying this just
to please me. It was going to be difficult, keeping the M.S. under
control, whilst coping with the additional stress. `All right,
then, promise, I really will do my best,' I smiled, disguising my
sorrow. `And I'll exercise even more to keep fit, so we can haul
our family out of this mess,' I went back downstairs.

Where does one turn to without money or a solicitor? I
wondered, floundering, having never been divorced before. That
damned Mytholmroyd pride about one's personal washing and having
failed in a marriage stood in the way of me climbing the steps to
the Citizens' Advice Bureau. Instead I washed up on the private
beach of telling my mother about the petition, hoping she could
suggest someone who would follow my wishes and believe what I said.
`A solicitor, without money? Use mine,' she said, revelling in the
flotsam of my predicament. `I always said Lena was no good, but you
refused to listen.'

`Of course we can help,' invited the siren voice of the
solicitor's secretary. `Tomorrow, at two thirty?'

Up the barren staircase I climbed, with its polished handrails
and glass polished doors, until I reached the one with the name
Gotcha and Gotcha etched in gold onto its surface. `Can I help?'
defended their receptionist, protecting all the partners' offices
and, in my case, that of Mr Hadzik.

`Come in, come in,' he welcomed me into his office as a spider
to its web. `Of course we handle divorces,'

`But I don't want a divorce.'

`Not a divorce,' he put a slow line through his notes and
started again. `Reconciliation. The children's interests are
paramount,' he underlined. But the whirlpool was whirling, sucking
me in, and the longer it whirled the more money he made. If only

someone had told me that a divorce is too often a solicitor's best
friend. `Of course, of course, we'll give it priority treatment.'

Three months later nothing had happened by the time a social
worker called at our house. She was young, married, spoke to us
together, even stayed for a meal. Things were normal again, just one
family chatting round the dinner table like we used to. I felt
relief, there was hope. `I'll see you in two weeks' time,' she said,
having thanked us for an enjoyable time.

I always knew that if I remained patient things would turn out
all right. The air throbbed with hope. I was content, even though
that night we still slept in separate beds.

Next morning things remained bright, especially when Claire
glanced through the window whilst pouring milk over her corn flakes.
`You've got a puncture,' she said, pointing to Lena's car which had
settled one corner.

`I'll change the wheel,' I rushed out, this time grabbing the
chance to sow mustard seeds whilst leaving Lena to finish her
breakfast.

`Can you manage?' she asked.

`I think so,' I smiled, teasing. `I did do a Rolls engine last
year.'

The acid past had evaporated. `Thanks,' she said, collecting
her school books together.

`Leave the wheel with me. I'll get the puncture repaired whilst
you're at school,' I washed the grease off my hands, enthusiastic at
our reconciliation.

`You don't have to bother,' she said, as though acknowledging
kindly, `Ransley will do it for me.'

On second thoughts, I have used a lot of Yorkshire dialect in “Dangerously Healthy” – an autobiography written under my pseudonym because some of the protagonists were still alive at the time, and also in a novel “Don’t You Dearest Me”. If any Themestream reader wants to contact me I should be pleased to translate any puzzling words . In fact, does anyone think I should produce a list of words and phrases for the series? If so, your e-mail would be welcome.

Chapter 29.

`Bloody Ransley,' my temper exploded. Lena had been wasting my
time, the seed having fallen on stony ground. Nothing had changed,
last night was probably just an act to impress the social worker. I
must know what she is up to if there is to be any chance of keeping
my promise to Claire and John.

That's a thought, I wonder if she keeps anything else besides
knickers in that red suitcase, that sacred red suitcase she clicks
open every morning in the room she's moved into? Perhaps that's
where the divorce petition was hidden before Christmas after she had
intercepted it in the mail. I'll make a key, use a bent hair grip,
or anything to unlock it and find out whilst she's at school.

`The swine,' I exclaimed, examining its contents, handling them
carefully, leaving them appearing as though undisturbed. It had been
an old key from a toy chemistry set which had opened its locks.
One, two, three building society accounts in her name, two dating
from the time I was diagnosed as having M.S., and one from even
earlier, perhaps almost as old as our marriage. `The rotten swine,'
I repeated, my attention briefly diverted by noises outside, `She's
been stashing money away, pretending to be broke, making the
children do without holidays.'

I looked through the window, wondering what to do next, the
noises being of house martins screeching as they wheeled round our
house, reoccupying last year's nests, having only just arrived.
`The sod,' she had even intercepted my business mail. Suddenly I
understood her modus operandi. Everything she falsely accused me of
doing, like opening her mail, she was actually doing herself. I had
broken her code, from now on I would know exactly what she was
thinking and doing.

I wonder how many are the same birds I saw on the telephone
wires last year before they left for Africa?.... Before Father
died?.... Before,.. my thoughts were diverted by the numbers
swirling and shrieking. Where do the ones without nests go? And
that's another thought, where does Lena expect me to go? I know she
thinks I was left money in Father's will, hence the divorce, and
Ransley's keen interest, their plan being to drive me out, forcing 
me to find somewhere else to live, thus forcing my inheritance into
the open.

Well, what they do not know, and what they will never believe,
because of the way their minds work, is that I never got a penny
after Mother forged his signature - thank goodness for that. But
since they are so devious there is something else I can do, feed
them with loads of innocent facts so their brains will have to work
overtime. All being well they will end up convincing themselves that
everything is going according to plan. I turned over another
envelope, `The devious sods,' it was a letter addressed to me from
Claire's school.

I see, trying to make it look as though I'm not interested the
children's well-being. Right then, how about this for a start? I
shall go to her school, but not let it be known, so that both you
and Ransley can sit night after night huddled in his car, pleased
with yourselves, dreaming up ever more schemes and perhaps making
further mistakes.

`I'm pleased you were able to come,' the senior mistress
welcomed me. `Take a seat. I know about your M.S., and the problems
at home, and ...'

`Problems! From Claire?'

`Oh, no, no. Not from Claire, but from village talk,' she
opened my daughter's school file.

`From village talk?'

`Oh, yes, yes. But shall we discuss your daughter's problems,
and how best we can help her?'

It soon became evident that Claire had probably known for
years. `But, you see, you're the rock to which she clings,' the
senior mistress said, whilst closing the file. `A shaky rock,
admittedly, but still her rock.'

`That means I'll have to remain healthy,' I looked through the
window, across empty playing fields white lined for grass games
nobody was playing. `Thank you very much for your help,' I stood up
as though two hundred percent fit, closed her door and strode
smartly away, leaving the school by its main entrance, striding away
from the glass walls and concrete until I reached where my cycle was
hidden. 

The ride home, straight into an easterly wind, soon sorted out
this exhibition of pride, reducing me to a shambles, exhausted,
pedalling bowlegged, trousers of my best suit now protected against
chain oil by knee-length tartan socks which had previously been
hidden. `How do I dodge the stress, though, with Lena and Ransley
going out of their way to make me ill?' thoughts churned round in my
mind as the wheels turned.

A juggernaut overtook, started to slow, and then heaved into
the gutter, its air brakes snorting as it lurched to a halt like a
beached whale. `Pin-minded pillock' I grunted, my demeanour having
turned meaner as I struggled to pass it whilst being shunted by
cross-winds.

`Oi, oi say there, Jock,' its driver shouted before I was level
with his cab.

Jock? Obviously not me.

`Oi, oi Jock,' he repeated, sounding like someone from Somerset or
somewhere, his tanned elbow sticking out above head height.

I slowed down, trick cycling, wobbling at just short of falling
off speed, glancing up at his porky elbow and stubble chin. Not me?
Not for swearing back there? Surely not? He could never have heard
me over the noise of his engine? I hoped, fearing that inside that
cab his might be a leather-belted beer-belly ready to leap down and
add weight to the argument.

`Jock. Eee with `is knees wrapped in `ighland bandage,' he
laughed an agricultural laugh, the sort that is supposed to grow on
you.

`Me?'

`That's right, boy. Oi'm just wanting to know if this 'ere road
is the right road for Adderton?'

`Well, sort of, but it's a bit complicated,' I hesitated,
seeing rooks from the fields being swirled up and away by the gusts,
and risked grounding a foot. `You've some complicated turns onto
narrow lanes before you get there,' I gestured with a luxurious
swathe of the arm which had let go of my handlebars.

`Complicated? `Ow complicated be it then?'

He sounded quite harmless, perhaps Norfolk in fact. `You can
follow me, if you like, it's only three miles, I'm going there 
myself.'

`At your speed, Oi'd be falling asleep?' he opened his door.
`Let's `ave that there bike up `ere whilst you be climbing in the
other side,' his hands shovelled my cycle behind the back of his
head onto what looked to be like a bunk for overnight stops. `You be
looking knackered, and you'll look even more knackered if Oi don't
give ee a lift there.'

`Thanks,' I gasped, `What's the address you're looking for?'

`Know the Jolly Poacher, do ee?'

`The Jolly Poacher, delivering, with a vehicle this size?' I
remained short of breath, my legs still aching. Was the stress of a
possible divorce beginning to affect my M.S. already?

`No,' he laughed, in amongst another outburst of agricultural
mirth, `Moi daughter married Lofty Cartwright's lad last month, and
`is missus suggested Oi stay next time when Oi'm up `ere in the
North.'

`Doris! You're sure it was Doris who invited you?'

`That's right, boy.'

`There's not much room,' I said, cautiously, averting my eyes
from his paunch. `Until the last century it was just a couple of
cottages. Are you sure Doris said...�Do you come up North often?‘ I
don't know how she finds space for Lofty, let alone..,' I glanced at
his bunk where my bike was now resting, `... I've never known her
accommodate guests. When their Virginia creeper dies back you can
still see where they knocked two cottages together to make a pub.'

`Don't forget there'll be space for one now their lad's gone.'

`It's not quite that simple. I understand he shared that room
with his brother.'

`I don't be minding sharing.'

`Not the room. I think they shared the same bed. It's there,
the pub.'

`Where do ee want to be...'

`Here will be fine.'

He stamped on his brakes, the cab jumped, his juggernaut
dancing to an emergency stop just in time to drop me off at the end
of our lane. `Thanks,' I half caught my bike as he let go of it into
my outstretched arms. `If the pub's shut you'll have to wait until 

opening time. Lofty always goes for a kip in the afternoons,' I
called out as Norwich Norman re-engaged gear, leaving me to push the
bike home since he had dislodged its chain against the back of his
neck. Yet his lift had done me a bigger favour than he could
possibly have imagined, each of my strides were celebrating that my
legs had recovered as a result of the rest.

Lena gave me a where've-you-been look when I entered the
kitchen, all joy falling away from my face. Maybe she had seen me
climb down from the truck, our lane end being visible from the
window through which she had been watching. Suits me, I thought,
for it would give Ransley and her something extra to think about,
especially if I remained silent until I had a better idea of what
they were up to. In any case, the more I made them think the more
likely they were to arrive at the wrong solutions.

I did not have to wait long, within days she started to buy her
own food. Doubtless this move would have a machiavelian motive but,
in the short term, it suited me, my invalidity pension being already
well over-stretched, what with having to settle the bill for her
telephone calls on top of feeding the children and paying the rates.

Her next move was to buy Claire and John presents and clothes.
That's a help, I had to admit, for it was also doing something to
break up their misery. Doubtless it was meant to strengthen her
case. My only response was to scatter a few seeds in my silence,
hoping that something would turn up. I was puzzled, though, by the
way she kept her food separate. Was this another tactic? Did she
think I might steal it? If so, she was wasting her time. Besides,
she can keep her bloody pilchards, geriatric sardines more like
mutton than lamb, I hate the damned things.

`John,' she called from her bedroom after school on Wednesday.
`I'm having a salad, would you like to join me for tea?'

What a sick mind you've got, Lena, playing with the children's
minds. Doubtless one of Ransley's warped suggestions, I thought.
More his style, though I suppose the salad is your idea, trying to
make your figure more marketable.

Claire looked terribly hurt, ignored and penalised for not
supporting her mother. This was a punishment in addition to Mary
having verbally disowned her for not abandoning me. 

`What about paying for the electricity you use,' I started to
reel off a list, my silence having finally cracked, `And for all
those telephone calls to your mother? My pension's intended for
keeping the children.'

`Grow up,' she sneered, opening her door to stick out her
tongue.

I winced. Is this the genuine Lena? Or am I the scratch on her
skin which is letting all that was good turn to this? Or is she
being schooled in Ransley's mean ways? I suppose in his brave new
world divorce is to be routine, where people prepared to put up a
fight are to be looked upon as Luddite, reactionary, uncivilised.

How do our children cope whilst their lives are torn apart?
They never say. Is the joy from their pasts now buried beneath
winter's drifts? They never reveal. Are former certainties being
transmuted like ice floes? They drift and break up, their
destinations uncertain. Do they sleep? Do they dream? Do they
hope? On and on my mind gyroscoped, spinning yet trapped until the
morning mail arrived with its familiar clop.

Another brown window envelope? This one from the Social
Security. Bloody hell! “It has come to our attention that your wife
is now working.” The buggers, they're reducing my pension. I bet
Lena's reported the situation, probably anonymously, yet another
machiavellian plot that met the light of night upon the back of
Ransley's car.

Well, there is no alternative - not if I am to prove I am
capable of running this house, from now on it will have to be a
siege economy. But how, without the perks that have kept us going
since Christmas? Cast more mustard seeds, have faith, keep trying in
the hope that something will turn up. For a start, cancel the
papers, take your car off the road, cycle to the cheapest
supermarket for the main shopping, the fifteen mile journey will
help keep you fit, I persuaded myself.

The sun climbed into the high months, brother Peter called to
see how I was coping. `Are you doing all this yourself?' he looked
round, seeing that Lena was out.

`Yes,' I wiped my hands dry.

`All of it?' 

`Mmm.'

`Don't wear yourself out,' he said, switching on the kettle.
`Would you prefer to go to the Jolly Poacher?'

`Not this time. Tea will do, thanks.'

Steam fogged his spectacles as he fumbled around the kettle for
the switch. `How about taking the kids on a holiday, then?'

`To the pub?'

`Daft bat, you know what I mean.'

`You must be joking. I can't.'

`Why not?'

`For a start, I'm broke, on top of which the social worker is
coming again in the next week or so.'

`All right, then. After he's been,' he wiped his lenses with a
handkerchief and checked his watch for steam damage.

`He's a she.'

`What difference does that make? Just let me know when she's
been,' he dabbed round his mouth with the handkerchief, even his
moustache had become damp whilst he struggled as the kettle had done
its best to boil dry. `Good gracious, is that the time?' he used his
watch as an alibi. `I'll be late for my next customer,' he excused,
having decided to leave for the heated environment of his car before
the creases in his suit turned limp. `Don't forget, I'll be
reminding you,' he started his engine. `Remember, it won't cost you
a penny.'

`Why not?'

`We get plenty of cancelled holidays at Fantabulous Travel,' he
bragged, running his fingers down his creases to ensure they
remained sharp.

`What difference does that make, your customers get their money
back, don't they?'

`Not when they cancel late,'

`Isn't that to cover Fantabulous Holidays' expenses?'

`Sometimes, although we never lose as much as they pay, and if
we at Fantabulous resell their holiday it adds even more to our
profits. You having one free won't send us bust.'

A magpie, at the end of our drive, distrustful of movement,
took off and flapped archaeopteryx-like low into the trees, its 
raucous cry a solo above the cawing concerto of rooks that were
circling over the trees to the rear of our house.

No wonder they were gloating, three days later the social
worker had returned. `Come in,' I welcomed her. But this time she
held back, not being here for a friendly family dinner on this
occasion.

`I'll interview your wife first, if you don't mind,' her eyes
ushered me politely out of the room.

`Fine,' I said, attempting to maintain a good impression,
though fine is not what I felt like. `I'll wait in the extension,
shall I?' turning to leave with a smile of bonhomie.

`The extension?'

`I'll direct you,' Lena cut in, assuming her throne of mythical
superiority.

The extension was tinged with bright sunlight, much of which
was reflected off a recent growth of verdant grass. I pretended to
myself to be busy. How much longer was she going to be? Lena must be
reciting all she and Ransley had schemed up over the months. Spider,
spider on the wall, spin a web to prevent my fall.

Time went by, and by went time, then footsteps. `Ah, come in,'
I said, looking up from what I was in the middle of not doing. `Sit
down, wherever you wish,' I gestured towards the choice of two
chairs.

She ignored the rocking chair, preferring an upright posture,
and only asked a few questions. `Is there anything else you'd like
to say?' she had suddenly completed her notes.

Hell, she had spent ages with Lena, obviously I was on a hiding
to nothing. `Only that neither the children nor I want a divorce.'

`Your wife says that if she doesn't get custody she'll move
out. What will you do if the children are awarded to her?' was her
reply.

I was trapped, thoughts racing past going nowhere, what could I
say but the truth? Who had planned that idea, Ransley, Lena, or
both? `Move, I suppose. Don't want to, of course, because of the
children. Can you suggest an alternative?'

She continued writing her notes, never replied, deaf to
questions served out of court. Nightmare visions agitated my mind, 
of being stuck in a caravan, perhaps seeing unhappy children once a
week, their visits a duty, destructive of love. Everything was
slipping away as the social services woman left.

No wonder spiders look neither happy nor sad, with heavy hearts
their webs would snap. Better go for a walk, get out, let honest air
get to my lungs, but Lena had gone.

Several days later she was still away most of the time, so I
got out my bike and rode to Ola and Tom's whilst the children were
out. `What makes it worse,' I said, when they were making the
coffee, `We've hardly seen her since the social worker made her
final visit.'

`She's been at Ransley's,' Tom replied. `Our friends say she's
playing at being auntie Lena to his children.'

`Auntie Lena?' I exploded. `I'm anti-Lena at the moment.'

He laughed.

I had intended the joke, but not to be that funny. `His wife
must be thick.'

Tom became serious. `She's been in hospital, having a
hysterectomy.'

`Oh,' my anger evaporated, `Is his wife all right?'

`I suppose so. She was discharged on Friday. He sent Lena to
pick her up in his car.'

`Lena picked her up!' I went wild. `Ransley sent the other
bloody woman to the hospital to pick up his wife after an operation
like that?' Right then, that's it, I drank down my caffeine and left
to race back to Adderton, my wheels in a fury. From now on my
silence at home was to become an active disgust.

Within a few days Lena moved out, officially to her mother's,
another tactic doubtless engineered with Ransley, particularly since
she stopped outside our house daily, pretending to be a responsible
parent, watching for my slightest mistake, despite it disturbing the
children.

`Be damned if I'll fail,' I cursed the cupboards which she had
left empty. Worse was to come, my pension remained reduced,
assuming a contribution from her income, on top of which she still
kept the children's allowances. But a mustard seed germinated before
Claire and John could see how worried I was about us ending up 
unable to survive - brother Peter found me a Saturday job at
Fantabulous Holidays' head office. Each week I cycled the thirty
miles, saving on bus fares, leaving the children sleeping, to earn
cash for three hours as a temporary filing clerk.

How sad the ride, the same fields, the same hedges, the same
road along which I used to pedal when we all went to Elsie's for
Sunday lunch. And now the same road, the same hedges, the same
fields on the way back. Perhaps things will turn out well again if I
persevere, I mused to myself as I freewheeled into our drive.

But there was someone bent at the kitchen door. It was Stan, I
had not recognised him at first, not another new suit, must have had
a good harvest last year. `Can you make use of these?' he said,
propping a bag of potatoes against our steps on his way to the pub.
`They're earlies. Best if you don't peel them,.... which is another
job saved,' he chuckled. `And you get all the goodness in the
skins, so they'll grow hairs on your chest.'

`That's great,' I beamed, digging into my pockets, hardly able
to believe our luck.

`You can put that away,' he stuffed my cash back before it
entered his hand, precious cash I had just earned at Fantabulous
Holidays'.

`Thanks. Are you sure?' I said, keeping my fingers crossed as
I lifted the bag out of his way, also not wishing his ale in the
Jolly Poacher to go flat.

`Hang on a minute,' he stopped my door before it lazily swung
half shut. `There's a tray of eggs on the back seat.'

Funny how seeds were continuing to germinate in ways least
expected. Perhaps things with Lena would end up normal again, on
top of which we were solvent again, at least for a week. How could I
thank him? `Can I give you a hand with the harvest?'

`You can, if you want,' he hitched up his trousers and
tightened his broad leather belt. `You don't have to, unless you
fancy stooking a few bales,' he grinned.

I did, I did. The chance to repay him in at least part, leaving
me feeling a little less indebted and, when the time came, it would
also help keep me fit whilst the sun shone.

`A few bales?' I muttered to the stubble when the time came, 
straightening the aches in my back, one field joining up with
another, and the one after that, my knees numb, no longer able to
tell how much they were wilting.

`Stop complaining,' he laughed. `Next year we're pulling out
more hedges, it'll be even bigger.'

`What for? Hedgerows are home to animals that help control
pest.'

`Bollocks!'

`Tell that to the environment,' I smiled.

`We've enough with bloody Greenpeace without you starting.
Anyway, you look knackered, bugger off home. See you in the
morning.'

I pushed my bike down the lane, arriving just in time to answer
the phone. `Can you coach biology for university entrance?' asked a
voice I failed to recognise. `You don't know me, but Percy
Farrington recommended you.'

`Percy Farrington, from Arkston Bash?'

`That's right, I work with him, it's for my son.'

Percy Farrington, I had taught his daughter before I left
education for business, a move made because I thought my hint of a
limp was due to the stress of reorganisation. Talk about out of the
frying pan into the fire. `Yes, I should like to. When would you
like me to call to make convenient arrangements?'

Thus another job had germinated, though until its fruit began
to ripen my pockets were again like Mother Hubbard's cupboard. `Do
you still fit carpets?' the phone rang almost immediately.

`This weekend? Friday? Of course.'

Thus week after week, always down to the last penny, I never
worried, faith would see us through, as it did without fail. `Will
you repair our record player?' ... and `Any good at
chemistry?'... or `Will you give us a hand picking potatoes?'
...

Eventually I knew we were bound to succeed, yet it is against
such attitudes that Saint Sod lurks ready to guard, particularly
when one has a sixteen year old daughter. She had worked out how to
avoid failing her exams by leaving school, getting a job, and not
bothering to take them.

Three days later I caught sight of her riding pillion without
a crash helmet. `Claire,' I bellowed across the village green.
`Where the hell have you been until two o'clock in the morning?'
almost chasing her home.

In the pain of this conflict I woke early, listening for
her footsteps descending the stairs as she left for work. But
silence, she was already gone, moved to Wattlefield, lodging with a
girl from the office. It was as though John had lost another limb,
`Will this affect your divorce, dad?'

`I don't know, it might do, but if it saves her having an
accident,....' I gazed at the wall, imagining her misery, wishing
her well, hoping she would be happy again. One day would they
forgive me?

On second thoughts, I have used a lot of Yorkshire dialect in “Dangerously Healthy” – an autobiography written under my pseudonym because some of the protagonists were still alive at the time, and also in a novel “Don’t You Dearest Me”. If any Themestream reader wants to contact me I should be pleased to translate any puzzling words . In fact, does anyone think I should produce a list of words and phrases for the series? If so, your e-mail would be welcome.

Chapter 30.

Was Claire keeping well? How was she managing? After three
weeks of relying for news via John, fourth hand; I had to find out,
and picked up the telephone upon the seventeenth attempt. Half way
through dialling my courage failed yet again, leaving me doing
meaningless jobs round the house before I brewed up the courage to
ring the number yet again. `She's fine,' answered a woman's voice,
sounded to be the mother of the girl where Claire was staying, `I
told you last night.'

`Last night?' I nibbled, wondering if I was phoning the wrong
number.

`That's right. When you and your wife called.'

I submerged under silence, as overwhelmed by surf, trying to
make sense of what she was saying.

`You are Claire's father?' she queried, presumably my silence
emitting vibes.

`Yes, but I'm afraid I've never met you,' I paused for what to
say next. `Did the man last night have a beard?'

It was her turn to suffer in a maze of confusion before
cautiously replying, `Yes.'

`That's the man who's having an affair with my wife,' I
gritted my toes before they kicked through a window.

`Oh, dear me,' she again hesitated, her direction wrenched off
course before she gabbled, `I thought he looked odd. We've never
been involved in anything like this before. Don't blame Claire, she
didn't know.'

`Don't worry,' I gabbled back to put her at ease. `As long as
she's all right, that's all I want to know. Give her my love, and
thank you again.'

Our home, little more than a warehouse for a man and his son,
now echoed in silence to the joy that was gone. Seeking company,
John started to play cricket with the boys' team. I struggled to
remain in touch by umpiring, imagining the day when he might play
for the men's side. Would he and I open the batting together? Would
we have become a family again?

`How about a drink at your local?' Peter called to see me. 

`The Jolly Poacher?.. Besides, I can't leave John.'

`What's in a name? So long as they sell a decent pint.'

`It's all right, Dad, you go with uncle Peter, I'm off to
cricket practice.'

`See you when you get back.'

`Come and watch me practice after you've had a drink, if you
want, uncle Peter.'

`Sure, sure,' we dropped him at the ground ringed by trees and
a rookery on our way to the Jolly Poacher.

Peter parked his car whilst I went in to order. `Eh, I want
thee,' Lofty Cartwright pointed a long finger at me as soon as I
entered his pub.

`Me?'

`Aye. Tha's the silly bugger what showed that bloody Norman the
way 'ere.'

`Norman?'

`Aye, bloody Norfolk Norman.'

`Oh, him. I thought Doris said...?'

`It were a wedding, weren't it? She were drunk at the time.'

`Carter!' Doris hoisted her bust.

`Sorry, ma, but tha was.'

`I didn't know, I could have cycled home, Norman never told
me.'

`Take them on holiday,' Peter joined in, despite missing the
start, having now entered the bar.

`Who?'

`The kids, Claire and John. Where's the pint you came in to
order?'

`Holiday?'

`Of course, take them on holiday.'

`Aye, thee take 'em on 'oliday,' Lofty nodded, having started
drawing the beer, not knowing what we were on about but all ears to
what we were on about.

`I'm not buying his love,' I muttered for Peter's hearing alone
from behind my cupped hand.

`I didn't mean that,' Peter supped the froth off his pint.
`It's also you, you could do with a break,' he pulled a handkerchief 
from his breast pocket and dabbed his moustache dry. `Besides, John
deserves a holiday, and it will provide Claire with an opportunity
to return home without losing face.'

Getting her back into the family? That's worth considering, I
thought, before asking, `What kind of a holiday?'

`There are hundreds to choose from. Every one cancelled and
cheap.'

`Why cancelled? How cheap?'

`Don't concern yourself about that, just take your pick from
this list,' he un-concertinaed a print-out of cancellations.

`They're all at the same place. It must be a bum hotel,' I
laughed.

`Are they?' he grabbed back his list. `Damned computer, it's
always going wrong,' and attempted to stuff the sheets down into his
overcoat. `It's the best hotel on the island, but there'll be
nothing to pay.'

`Thanks, but,. I can't...,' I scratched the back of my neck as
I searched for excuses.

`There'll come a time, one day, when you can pay me back. Take
the holiday now, they won't be children for very much longer.'

I suppose he has a point there, I thought, finishing my drink
before wishing him a safe journey, the car park full of empty spaces
now that the dribble of lunch-time customers had gone home.

`Cheerio.'

`Cheerio,' and I strolled to the cricket ground from where
sounds of leather on willow punctuated the silence with commas and
full stops and the occasional asterisk hit for six.

`I've had my turn, Dad. Where's uncle Peter?'

`He's gone somewhere on business, but we're fixed us up with a
holiday.'

`Who's paying?'

`He is.'

`Where are we going?' he unfastened his pads, head bowed,
somebody having warned him about tug-of-love children.

`Anywhere we want, provided it's at the Hotel Resplendix,' I
grinned.

`Is it posh?' 

`I don't know. Uncle Peter said it was supposed to be one of
the best,' I hoped to encourage him, wondering myself whether the
lawyers would think of this as being bribery. Well, think what they
may, they'd be wrong. Whether they accepted the truth or not this
might be my last chance to give them a holiday to make up for those
they had missed whilst Lena was secretly stashing our money away.
`Uncle Peter's going to see Claire. He's going to try to persuade
her to go. Tell your mother she can also come,' I added, hoping the
invitation might work as we turned left onto our drive, like that
time when the social worker had stayed for dinner.

`She has something arranged,' John returned from the phone,
his thoughts distant. `But she'll be phoning you later tonight.'

`I bet she has,' I muttered, wondering why she was ringing
instead of seizing the initiative by sending her a bouquet of
flowers. I was too proud, no longer trusted her.

After tea John and I cleared the dishes and mats to make room
for a game of smash table tennis, he learning his shots and me
recovering my reflexes. `Home-work time,' I said when we had
beaten each other.

`Oh! Do I have to?'

`What do your teachers say? Besides, your mother will be
phoning tonight.'

The telephone rang when John was in bed. `I've made
arrangements for us to see a marriage consultant,' she announced.

`Where?' I asked, taken off guard.

`Number 24B, Abadabar Street.'

`Whose car will we....'

`Eight-thirty, Thursday evening, and I'll make my own way
there.'

Will she? I thought, smelling a sprat. `I'll have to refer to
my solicitor.' She was not going to make a mackerel out of me.

`Your solicitor!' she snapped. `Well, I shall be there,' she
slammed down the phone.

Come Thursday evening I turned up early and hid in the shadows
of Abadabar Yard until she arrived. `Cheeky sod, she's come with
Ransley, and in his bloody car,' I swore, watching them drive down
the main road. `I knew it was a sodding trap,' I swore, stamping in 
the puddle where the moon was reflected; unleashing my temper upon
the wet cobble stones instead of entering the marriage consultant's
office with a greeting on my face and a present in my hands.

Right, then, `Aba-daba-dab said the monkey to the chimp,' I
sang to the steering wheel on my drive home. She can go on an
Aba-daba honeymoon, we're off to the Hotel Resplendix.

Washing, ironing, packing, I prepared cases for John and me,
hoping against hope that Claire would go with us, but three weeks
passed without any message.

Should I pack something for her? No, better not tempt fate, so
John and I set off for the coach station alone, going through the
motions of setting off on holiday. Peter's right, I suppose, they
are only young once, I should not have humiliated her that night in
our village.

`Dad, dad! Claire's there, with her case,' John pointed
excitedly. So she was, I smiled, and Claire smiled back, at least
one of my prayers had been answered. Perhaps everything was going to
be all right in the end, especially when Peter hurried out from
Fantabulous Holidays main office.

`Here, enjoy yourselves,' he slipped some cash into my pocket.

`No, I can't,...'

`Nudge, nudge. Remember, you're travelling under the names upon
these cancelled tickets,' he tapped his nose knowingly. `There'll
come a day when you can pay me back,' he placed a hand on my
shoulder, then disappeared towards the coach.

Funny, he was not on the coach as it reversed into the bay
where our gaggle of holidaymakers were waiting. Still, I'll see him
when we get home.

`Bring your luggage round to the back, please,' its driver
unlocked the baggage doors. At least he looked like a driver,
despite his baggy brown suit, he was wearing an orange-coloured
company peeked cap. His mumbling suggested that he was a corporation
bus driver moonlighting on weekends.

`These are your seats,' the driver directed us towards the
rear, then climbed in behind the steering wheel and hissed the doors
shut.

Why the special treatment, I wondered? Claire and John assumed 
it was because uncle Peter was a boss. But I was five years away,
recalling the self-same journey over the Pennines when we had gone
on holiday to Wales. It was there, by the stream from the mill, that
I had sensed that it might be the last time they would play together
as children. What a sad prophecy, yet perhaps they could still have
a flurry of fun during our stay at the Resplendix.

`Here we are,' the coach driver announced over his crackling
P.A. `Liverpool Pier-head.'

`Where are we going?' panicked John as we followed the other
passengers off the coach onto the road.

`The Isle of Man, all being well,' I guessed. `You've never
been on a ferry before.'

`We have, on the Humber.'

`Oh, not that kind of a ferry. This one will be much bigger,
with dining rooms and games and things.'

`Do we need passports?' John's mind dashed back to his fears of
being a tug-of-love child.

`No, it's not really going abroad. The Isle of Man is part of
the British Isles.'

`Have you got tickets?' Claire now became anxious.

`Uncle Peter said their driver would give them to us when we
got off.'

As though moved by the same spirit which was troubling the
children the driver leaned out. `Here you are, mate,' he called,
thrusting a large envelope into my hand before immediately slamming
his door and driving off. Everyone looked my way, wondering, what
happens next?

Might as well open the envelope whilst they're finding a
company representative, I thought.

`What is it, Dad?' Claire asked, seeing the despair leaping out
of my face.

`Bloody Uncle Peter. This is a passenger list, with a bundle of
boat tickets. He's put me down as being the courier.'

I could see the Ferry, funnels smouldering as though ready to
sail. `This way,' I waved the passengers to follow, each lugging
their own luggage. I should not really be doing this, I thought
whilst leading them down a steep roadway onto Prince's Landing stage 
which was floating at low tide height. I should have been following
at my own pace, taking care of the M.S.

`Oy!... Oy!' chased a little man in an oversize uniform and a
limp leg. `What you doin' down 'ere?'

`Come to get on that ferry, before it sets off for the...'

`Oh no you're not.'

`...Isle of Man.'

`I've got the tickets.... Here,' I waved the Fantabulous
Holiday's envelope.

`You might have Moses' bloody tablets but you've come down the
wrong way.'

`That's the right ship.'

`That's got nothing to do with it. You lot came down the
roadway reserved for vehicles.'

`It's not a car ferry.'

`Are you bloody arguing with me?'

`No, no,' I hastened, finding it impossible to reason with an
unreasonable man.

`Well, bloody get back and wait until you're led down the right
way.'

`What about our luggage?'

`Us porters will carry the lot down,' he griped, as though we
were doing his men out of a job.

`I've nearly buggered myself, lugging it here. I'm not going to
cart the faggin stuff back,' one of my brood joined in.

`Aye, neither am I.'

`Nor me,' chorused the others.

`My husband's got a bad heart. We thought we were coming for a
rest.'

`Did you hear that? I've a good mind to stove your faggin head
in,' loomed one of my holidaymakers a foot higher than everyone
else.

`All right, then,' oversized uniform sagged a little baggier.
`Leave it there, to one side, whilst you come the proper way,
escorted by registered porters.'

`We were not born in bloody Lancashire. I'm not leaving my
faggin cases unguarded.' 

`Having considered the matter as it stands, at this moment in
time, in the interests of security and in our tradition of deploring
the social consequences of crime, I am prepared to negotiate with my
rank and file porters for you to stay as a designated guard, upon
the explicit agreement that your wife and the others comply with
regulation 462 and are accompanied in the prescribed manner,' baggy
suit swelled as he negotiated this compromise with seven foot-one
from Luddenfoot.

Two bronzes of vultures or something smirked down from the
Royal Liver building as two gulls took off from the mast and pea
green soup lapped under the landing stage.

This was only the start of a holiday best left forgotten, save
to mention the least of the many complaints from my charges, `Why do
we only get boiled eggs when other companies' holidaymakers get a
full English breakfast?'

Two weeks later we returned home, wiser for the experience,
having abandoned our mutinous holidaymakers in Leeds. Never again,
not a cancelled holiday from uncle Peter.

`What's this?' I muttered, opening our door over a tumbled pile
of mail. `Two thick manila envelopes. Not more trouble from the
solicitors?' I ripped the first one open and started to read it
aloud. `Witness in the case of Mytholmroyd v Mytholmroyd.' Mother
was suing brother Peter, claiming the money for his car was a loan!'

I tore open the second one. `Peter's also citing me in his
defence, claiming that I could testify that it was only a gift!' How
the hell should I know, I was not even there. No wonder he had given
us a free holiday. “There'll come a time, one day, when you can pay
me back,” his words haunted `We'll soon see about that, brother
Peter. I've enough on my legs to worry about without being involved
in this petty dispute.'

Following a couple of telephone calls both solicitors were
horrified, neither calling me lest I said the wrong thing, leaving
the court to do a Solomon and financially divide the car down the
middle. `Someone had to teach him a lesson,' Mother said with
missionary zeal, back straight, moral victory claimed.

`She won't get a penny, the tax man will take her share,' Peter
laughed, paying his half with a smile, the other half of his car
having still cost him nothing.

But the solicitors remained silent, they had nothing to say,
each client's loss their partnership's gain.

Read the following chapters that tell of how Martin "cured" his M.S. and climbed mountains by the following year.

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