Remembrance Day

Ruby had always liked Bridget for her sense of humour. Once when she had asked her why she had left the North of England to come to Fakenham, of all places, Bridget had pressed hands to bosom and said it was to forget.

‘To forget what?’ Ruby asked.

‘I’ve forgotten,’ Bridget said. Ruby had often repeated the joke, even when she suspected Bridget had borrowed it from a TV comedy. Perhaps the joke also expressed something unconfiding in Mrs Bligh’s nature. She had a grown-up son, Teddy, who worked in the shop on occasions, but nothing was ever heard of husbands or lovers. For this reserve, Ruby had much respect.

At ten minutes to eleven, about the time when Bridget produced cups of coffee, Ruby glanced out of the window and saw, further down the street, a man she recognized. It was Noel Linwood, white hair stirring in a slight breeze. He had climbed slowly from his ancient car and was gesticulating to someone sitting in the passenger seat; Ruby could just make out a female with a shock of black hair.

Whatever Noel Linwood’s exhortations, they failed, for he slammed the car door and began to walk, shoulders hunched, along the street towards the shop. The sight of that curious mottled face brought a feeling of panic to Ruby and she rushed into the back kitchen, clutching Mrs Bligh.

‘It’s that old chap, Noel Linwood. I think he’s coming in here. Please go and serve in the shop – I can’t face him. Ray told him we were Muslims …’

Bridget surveyed her coolly. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a relation, dear.’ But she went into the shop as requested.

A minute later, the door opened, the bell tinged, and Noel Linwood marched in, showing his large teeth in a smile.

‘Good morning, Mr Linwood, and what can I do you for? Cream horns are nice today.’ Ruby cowered behind the refrigerator as she heard Bridget’s pert voice. Most of the traders in Fakenham knew the elder Linwood, and his reputation for being in the money; although there were dissenters who, having seen the dilapidated house in Hartisham, claimed he hadn’t two brass farthings to rub together.

Noel looked about him short-sightedly, came to some sort of decision, and said, ‘I’ve got my sister in the car. Give me a dozen cream horns. Got to feed the bitch.’

When Bridget had arranged the cream horns in a cake-box and he was paying, he said in a sharp tone, ‘So where is Mrs Tebbutt? I understood she worked here. Is my information correct?’

‘No, dear,’ Bridget said, handing over his change. ‘There’s no such person works here. Oh, hang about, though. Would it be Ruby Tebbutt you’re asking after? Rum-looking little woman? Yes, she did used to work here, that’s true. Not no more. Can I pass on a message for you?’

‘Certainly not.’ He stood by the door, nursing his box of cream horns. A female assistant from the nearby chemist came in, bought a sandwich and left. Still Noel Linwood hesitated on the threshold.

Bridget leaned over the counter and spoke in a confidential way. ‘I don’t know if this Ruby Tebbutt is a friend of yours? Tell you what, frankly it was men. Men all over the show, like nobody’s business … Once she turned Muslim there was no stopping her. I mean, you’d think at her age … Well, what was I to do? I’m sorry, but if you keep a cake shop, you’ve a reputation to keep up, so it was Off she went …’

The elder Linwood regarded her with some distrust. ‘I met such cases during a long career in the Middle East. However …’

Giving her a savage frown, he left, slamming the shop door behind him. From the vantage point of her window, Mrs Bligh watched him return to his venerable car, parked on double yellow lines. It appeared that as he climbed into the driver’s seat, he and his passenger started an energetic dispute. Then the car pulled away in a series of jerks.

Ruby burst forth from the kitchen, stifling her laughter in a handkerchief.

‘How dare you?! “Rum-looking” – look who’s talking. As for my reputation … You’re as bad as Ray.’

The two women had a good laugh together, controlling themselves only when the next customer entered the shop.

‘Wonder what on earth he wanted,’ Ruby said later, over their cups of coffee. ‘But you didn’t have to make up that crazy story …’

And the more Ruby thought about it, the more she worried. The mere sight of Noel’s approach had triggered all the fears awakened by Ray’s problem at the garage two days ago. Her first notion was that he had been coming to complain – perhaps to say that they should not have lent his irresponsible son money.

On reflection, and increasingly as the morning wore on, she cursed herself for hiding from him. Who knows, perhaps Noel had come in to repay the debt. It was not inconceivable that the old boy would regard it as a social slur to be beholden to people like the Tebbutts.

Or he might have intended to drop in a message from Jean. Jean counted as a kind of friend. The Tebbutts had few enough friends in their exile in this strange part of the world. Possibly Jean was angry with Mike for imposing on Ray; it seemed likely.

And another thing. Bridget’s joking deception might have unpleasant repercussions. If Jean were told that she, Ruby, had been sacked because of affairs with men, that rather strait-laced lady might not wish to associate with the Tebbutts any more – might, indeed, even use this false knowledge as an excuse not to pay back the three hundred pounds.

It was a worried Ruby who caught the bus and dragged her old bicycle out of the hedge that evening. As she cycled home to put the kettle on, she said aloud, free-wheeling down the lane, ‘Ray’s going to be mad at me.’

Their back garden was one of her refuges. After she had dealt with her mother, Ruby went out into the sunshine.

July was almost over and the raspberries were coming on so fast she could not resist, as she passed along the row of canes, reaching under the netting to pick a few fruits. In case the overripe ones, cushiony crimson under sheltering leaves, fell at a touch into the grass and spoiled, she kept her other hand cupped below the clusters. As the fruits eased away, they left little mottled white noses behind on their stems.

Savouring the sweet fruit, she unlatched the gate into the goat’s enclosure. She was bringing the animal the tribute of a stale slice of bread. Tess had a soothing effect on her jangled nerves. She loved the lines of the nanny, its bumps, its curves, its sharp angles. She stroked its white coat lovingly. The goat looked interestedly at her with its inhuman eyes. It knew Ruby meant well.

As she entered the back porch, the phone rang.

She thought immediately that Ray must have run into trouble. But it was their daughter Jennifer on the line.

Jennifer’s voice was always a delight to Ruby, so clear was it, so calm and untroubled, so – what was the word Jenny would have used? – together. Today there was a trace of excitement in that clear voice. Jenny was driving up to Norfolk for the weekend with a young man.

‘Oh, that’s lovely,’ Ruby said, looking hastily round the living-room and thinking how shabby it was. Bolivar had sharpened his claws on everything in sight. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll introduce him when we meet, Mum,’ said the clear voice, possibly with a trace of mockery. ‘He happens to be foreign.’

‘Coloured?’ Ruby asked, and could have kicked herself for letting the word slip out. So unsophisticated of her.

‘Not very coloured. He’s a Czech – from Prague, you know? We are going to stay on the coast, so we shan’t be a burden to you, but we’ll look in for tea on Sunday on our way, if that suits. How’s Father?’

‘Well, Jenny, he’s very upset just at present—’

‘I am sorry, give him my love. See you Sunday.’ And the clear voice was replaced by a dismal whirring tone. Ruby put the receiver down, frowning.

Czech? She’d have to give the cottage a bloody good clean before Sunday. Czech. Presumably he would speak a bit of English since, as far as she knew, Jennifer spoke no Czech. If only the window-cleaner would buck up and come. She’d have to get in another pint of milk. Chocolate biscuits, of course. Perhaps she should bake a cake.

Ruby started to go round in circles, slowly, lighting a ciggy as she did so.

Czech? What on earth did Czechs eat on Sunday afternoons? Ginger biscuits? Something savoury? Perhaps she could ask Bridget Bligh, whose sister had once been married to a Finn. She didn’t want to let her daughter down. It wasn’t as if they saw her all that often these days.

‘I shall get the palpitations,’ she told herself. She went out to the garden to finish her cigarette in the company of Tess and Bolivar.

Friday came. The hot anti-cyclonic weather continued. Ray Tebbutt was working as usual in the garden centre. At lunchtime, he sat under the poplars, resting in their shade and eating a pasty from Mrs Bligh’s shop which Ruby had provided for him.

Gregory Yarker came over, grinning under the brim of his hat, his deep-set eyes in shadow. He was wearing Wellington boots, jeans, and a tattered old multi-coloured pullover his wife had knitted. ‘His looks are against him,’ Tebbutt always loyally proclaimed.

Yarker plonked himself down on the bank beside Tebbutt, saying, ‘How’re you going on? You’ve got something on your mind, that I know. Your wife hasn’t left you, has she?’

‘Nothing like that,’ said Tebbutt, laughing at the idea.

‘’Cos if so, I’ve got a nice piece of crumpet lined up over in Swaffham.’

‘No, no. Thanks all the same.’

‘I shall have to see to her myself, no doubt of it. What’s up with you, then, Ray? It’s nothing catching, I hope.’

Ray took a swig from his can of Vimto. ‘It’s nothing catching, Greg. It’s just I’ve been a bloody fool. I lent someone some money and he isn’t inclined to give it back.’

‘Ah.’ A pause. ‘Perhaps we could creep up on him one dark night and sort of incline him.’

‘It’s an idea.’

‘Do I happen to know this fly gent?’

Letting a little more of the liquid run down his throat, Tebbutt decided to tell his boss everything. Yarker listened intently, sucking a long grass from the hedge behind him.

‘Pity you was carrying that credit card,’ he commented, when Tebbutt finished. ‘They’re a trick of the banks to get you in their power. If you’ve got money, carry it round in fivers. If you haven’t got money, go round with empty pockets. You’re a townee, that’s your problem.’

‘I love the way you blunt countrymen see everything in black and white. What if you’ve got too much money?’

‘Get married.’

‘Or buy a pig?’

‘I’d like to see this bugger Linwood’s eye in black and white. He got you over a barrel proper, didn’t he? Tell you what, go and confront him tomorrer, that’s Saturday, demand your rightful money back, and tell him if he don’t hand it over by Monday we’ll beat him up. That’s straightforward, isn’t it? He should understand that.’

He stretched himself out on the dry ground, hands clasped at the back of his head, satisfied with his own plan.

Tebbutt tried to explain his latest thoughts. ‘I’m afraid the poor sod may not have the three hundred to give back. That’s what I’m afraid of. Having worked with him, I know his problems. If I press him, it may only get him in trouble with his father. I was wondering if it wasn’t better to go and have a word with his bank manager. I know he banks—’

‘What? I must have been falling into a light doze here. I thought for a moment as you uttered the dreadful words “bank manager”. No, you’ve got to have it out with the bugger straight. No other party involved.’

‘I suppose you’re right.’

‘’Corse I am, boy, and don’t you never doubt it. Now, time’s up. I ent paying you to lie about drinking Coke. See if you can make an impression on this here soil, and I’ll give some thought to your problem.’

‘Thank you, Uncle Greg.’ He sat where he was for a moment, listening to the second-rate music issuing from Pauline’s radio before returning to his work.

On Saturday mornings in season, Ruby worked and Ray did not. He drove her into Fakenham to the cake shop, keeping the car to a crawl, to the annoyance of other drivers, so that they could talk over anew the problem of the debt. He had hoped for a cheque from Linwood in the morning’s post. It had not arrived.

‘You’ll have to go over to Hartisham and confront him,’ Ruby said. ‘It’s our money. We’ve got every right to get it back. But keep that goon Yarker out of this. You don’t want to be had up for GBH.’ She laughed.

‘Supposing he’s even now preparing to drive over to us and return the money. He did say he’d pay it back by the weekend. Then he’d be offended if I showed up there this morning. It would look as if we didn’t trust him.’

‘We don’t trust him.’

Agnes had been let in on their problem over breakfast since they could not keep it to themselves. Agnes had her own indignant opinion.

‘What you should do, Ray, is get on to your bank and cancel the payment. Don’t let it go through. Three hundred pounds is three hundred pounds, I mean to say. It was a year’s wages when I was a young girl.’

He frowned. ‘Forget about Victorian times. This is now.’

Agnes said no more, withdrawing hurt from the discussion.

It’s no fun stuck in this chair. He ought to understand that. Your bottom goes numb after a bit. Of course I hark back to the old days. I was properly alive then. It’s very rude of him. I reckon it was because of his way of behaving that Jenny ran off and joined the CND. She couldn’t stand her father any more.

Still, all families have their differences, I suppose. I was lucky. Good husband, nice couple of girls, Ruby and Joyce. Well, Joyce was nice till she married that builder. All through the war, I was terrified Bill was going to be killed, him being at sea, but he came through safely. Never torpedoed.

First thing I ever remember was the war. I’d be, let’s see, about seven. That was the Great War … And I was asleep when there was this terrific bang. I remember sitting up in bed. We were living down in Southampton then, of course. I got up and went through to Mum’s room and the far wall was missing. There was the sky and our garden where the wall used to be, and the early morning sun shining in. Mum and Dad were sitting up in bed looking surprised. And what I thought was … sounds silly now … ‘How beautiful!’ I was clutching my golliwog.

So we went to live with Auntie Flo down the road from us. Poor old Auntie Flo, I liked her. She was fun. It would be 1917. Yes, that’s it, because she had lost Uncle Herbert the year before, fighting in France, so there was plenty of room in her house. I was as proud as punch, telling the kids at school as we’d been bombed out.

Years later, perhaps that was after I married Bill, Mum heard me telling someone we’d been bombed out when I was a kid, and she corrected me, saying it was a gas main blew up and not a German bomb at all. But I always somehow connected it with the Germans. The entire wall, gone like that, and the sun shining in, lighting up the room …

Bill and I had a lot of fun … Purser on a P & O liner, so he was away a lot of the time, and I pretty well brought up Ruby and Joyce on my own. But when he came home, well, we always had parties and presents. The thirties … Looking back, I reckon they were the best time of my life. Somehow, after the war, the second one, Bill wasn’t quite the same. He used to be very depressed at times … I suppose we were getting older by then …

Ruby was always our pet. We ought to have made more of Joyce, but she was more difficult. I suppose she’s paying us back now by never having me to stay with her and her husband in their posh house in Norwich … Still, things could be worse. It’s quite nice here, and Ray really isn’t such a bad chap. At least Ruby likes him, and that’s half the battle …

Although Ray had dismissed Agnes’s remark over breakfast, he took her advice and went to his bank.

He always felt apologetic in the bank. Even the modest Fakenham branch oppressed him with its pretence that money was easy to acquire, easy to spend. He looked at the posters on the wall, offering him huge loans so that he could buy a new car or house, or take a holiday in Bermuda; immune to such seductions, Ray nevertheless felt that he was the only man banking here who could not afford to take advantage of such offers.

It had to be said, however, that none of the other customers looked particularly rich, though some wore suits and ties. I’m glad that someone’s keeping up the country’s standards, he told himself and, slightly amused, went up to one of the girls behind the counter. She explained to him in some detail why it was impossible for the manager to interfere with any credit card transaction, which did not go through the bank but through a central accounting system in Northampton.

Was she sympathetic or condescending? he asked himself, returning to the comfortable anonymity of the streets. The little bitch had probably just come off a training course in Purley or somewhere.

He drove slowly out of town and along the road to Hartisham but stopped before reaching East Barsham. Other traffic roared by as he pulled up in the gateway to a field.

By the side of the road a phone-booth stood knee-deep in cowparsley and alexanders. From it he could ring Mike. It would save him the embarrassment of a personal encounter. He sat for a while, thinking over what he would say. As he walked back to the booth, he could hear Mike’s voice clearly in his head. Oh, hello, Ray. I’m sorry you had to ring me. Jean and I were just going to pop over to see you and Ruby – you know Jean has always had a bit of a crush on you. Yes, I’ve got the money, of course. I had a slight problem or I’d have been in touch sooner. We’ll be over in about an hour, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you for getting me out of a hole. You know what an awkward cuss Joe Stanton is – trusts no one.

The Linwood number was ringing. It was Jean who answered.

Immediately she spoke, the sound of her voice, the intonations she used, conjured up her face, her figure, and the way she stood. Ray saw in inner vision her dark old kitchen with the portrait of her father-in-law above the grate, and Jean with her dark hair about her cheeks. He also heard the change in her voice when he announced himself.

‘Oh, Jean, hello. How are you? Could I speak to Mike?’

‘Mike’s still over at Pippet Hall. What exactly do you want?’

‘Well, it’s something really between the two of us.’

Her tone was unyielding. ‘It’s about the money, is it?’

‘Jean, it’s about the three hundred quid I lent Mike at the beginning of the week, and I didn’t want to bother you—’

‘I’ve got quite enough problems here, Ray, thanks very much, without being pestered for money just now.’

‘Look, Jean, it’s not a case of—’

In the same undisturbed voice, she cut in, saying, ‘Michael will repay you that money next week, OK? Does that satisfy you, because right now we’re involved with the suicide at Pippet Hall. Goodbye.’

Suicide? Tebbutt said to himself, as he replaced the receiver. What was the cheeky woman on about? Inventing excuses not to pay, rather as he had invented excuses not to stay with Noel Linwood; but at least he’d been drunk on that occasion. What a misery! She was lying – well, forced to lie, of course, because the Linwoods were dirt poor and still keeping up a middle-class façade. Bloody suicide, indeed: ‘bankruptcy’ was the word she was looking for.

Ray took a walk in the field to try and calm down. The sheep moved grudgingly out of his way, as if, he thought, they too had borrowed money from him.

He could write a book about being poor, except that it would be so awful that no one would read it. The poor would not read it. They could not afford to read, they had an increasing contempt for reading, being slaves to the video machine; in any case, they knew all about the miserable subject. The rich would not read it. Why? Because being rich they did not want to know. And why should they?

Every day, almost every hour, brought a humiliation unknown to solvency. He did not want to have that conversation with Jean. Moreover, looked at coolly, the situation was such that she probably did not want to have that conversation with him. She liked him, and maybe more than that, though not a word on the subject had ever passed between them. She too was in bad financial straits, poor dear.

He did not want to be walking about this field, trudging through sheep shit. He did not want to be wearing these clothes – in particular, not these boots and these trousers. He did not want to be wearing his patched underclothes. He would not want to eat whatever it was he was going to have to eat for lunch (nor did he want to call it ‘dinner’, as did most of the people with whom he associated). He did not want his poor wife to work in a cake shop, a sign of genteel poverty if ever there was one.

This evening, he would most probably go out and get pissed at the Bluebell. He did not particularly want to do that, but there was little else to do in North Norfolk on a Saturday night if you had not got two pence to rub together.

When he had walked round the field three times, he went back to his car. He did not want to be driving this clapped-out old Hillman.

What he really wanted was a brand-spanking-new red BMW from the dealer in Norwich. He would whizz over in his sporting clothes to see the Linwoods in their eroded old house in Hartisham. Mike would be out, taking holy orders or something they could laugh about. Noel and the boys would be out of sight. Jean would be there on her own. And he’d say, as he put his arm round her waist, Sorry about this morning. Just testing. Look, forget about that three hundred. Have it as a present. And now you and I are going to scud down to Brighton for a dirty weekend.

That Saturday evening he went as usual to get pissed at the Bluebell. As he left home, Ruby kissed him tenderly and said at the gate, ‘Don’t have too many, darling. Remember Jenny’s coming with her Czech boyfriend tomorrow, and we’ve got lots to do to get ready.’

He always left the car at home and walked to the Bluebell. It was four miles to Langham, but he preferred to walk both ways rather than drive after he had downed a few pints. His mood was cheerful. You generally had a laugh in the Bluebell. True, the company was not exactly out of the top drawer, but they often had good raunchy tales to tell. The incidence of adultery and grosser sexual offences must be higher in Norfolk than anywhere, if the tales they told were to be believed.

As he came to the crossroads and turned right, he overtook old Charlie Craske hobbling in the same direction.

‘Rain’s holding off still,’ Tebbutt said.

Charlie squinted up at him. ‘What you think about Tom Squire’s fruit-packing business failing, then?’ he asked, more in the way of a statement than a question. ‘It’s a bugger, ent it?’

‘What’s that then?’

‘Well, it’s a bugger, ent it?’

Entering the Bluebell, where several drinkers had already gathered, Tebbutt found that the same state of gloom, and the same opinion that it was a bugger, prevailed. They were eager enough to divulge the bad news to Tebbutt, on the principle that there was always enough misery to be shared.

Sir Thomas Squire at Hartisham had an orchard and a fruit-packing business on his grounds. It had rated as a small local success in the late seventies, to be written up in the local papers, shown on Anglian TV. Squire had extended the business and packed for a number of Norfolk fruit-growers. There was even a rumour at one time that he might build a private rail-link from Pippet Hall to Norwich Thorpe BR station. But imports of fruit from the European Community had cut into the trade. Local growers were undersold by the French, Spanish, and Italians.

After losing money for two years, Squire had closed the enterprise down. Ten men had lost their jobs.

A man named Burton, who sometimes brought tame ferrets to the pub, said, ‘That weren’t no reason for young Lamb to go and hang himself, to my mind. Blokes have been kicked out of jobs before this.’ He laughed. ‘It’s always happening to the likes of us.’