Chapter 6
That evening, at my mums flat, she and I were dunking Digestive biscuits in our tea and idly chatting when I decided I would tell her about Pete and the car.
‘I went to Wimbledon today to see an old bass player mate of mine Pete, who you’ve never met. Pete’s also a car dealer.’
‘Oh that’s nice dear. I expect he was pleased to see you?’
‘Yeah,’ I said wistfully. ‘It was nice to catch up and chat about old times, but the main reason I called in on him was to ask a favour. He’s such a nice bloke….’ I stopped talking to watch half of my digestive biscuit sink without trace into my tea. ‘D’ya know he let me have one of his cars for nothing?’ I said scalding my fingers probing for the soggy remains.
‘Oh!’ She said surprised ‘He has more than one then?’
‘Yes Mum,’ I laughed. ‘Pete’s a car dealer.’
‘That’s nice dear.’ She said and used a pair of sugar tongs to rescue a piece of biscuit from her tea. ‘Oh. That reminds me,’ she said reaching across to a notepad by the phone. ‘Someone rang while you were out. A Harry Cooper wants you to ring him back.’
I frowned. The name rang a bell. I took the page from her. Then the penny dropped… Perfect Plumbers! Mum had written.
Harry Cooper was the proprietor of a central London plumbing company. I’d called him up a few days ago; only to be fobbed off by a guy on the other end of the phone telling me Harry was out for the rest of the day. I left my phone number and explained a little about my experience and said I was moving up to London and needed a job. I never expected to hear from them.
This bit of news had to amount for something... didn’t it?
I picked up the phone and dialed the number. The burring went on for some time.
‘Hello George speaking, Perfect Plumbers.’
I recognised the voice. This was the guy I spoke to the other day
‘Oh. Hi. It’s me again. Art Blakely… we spoke on the phone the other day… I asked about a plumbing job… Harry called my home and asked I ring him back.’
The line went quiet. I could hear muttered voices in the background and then a man came on the line, his voice was sharp, snappy, this was a man who was used to making decisions. This could only be Harry. I was right.
‘Hi Art…. Harry Cooper here. You rang about a job. I’ve been looking at the list of your experiences and if you can do half of what you claim, I want you on my team. Can you get here for three today. It’ll take me about an hour to show you the ropes.’
‘Sure no problem.’ I said breathless from the pace of the conversation.
‘D’ya know where we are?’
‘Oh. Yeah… no problem.’ I said lying through my teeth, anxious not to say anything that might stall the momentum. ‘I’ll be there at three. Thanks Harry.’ I heard more muttered voices… instructions being thrown out. The line went dead. I stared at the handset. I was in a state of shock. Had I just been given a job?
With parking costs what they were in Central London I used the bus and then tube to get to Victoria where I had no trouble locating the offices of Perfect Plumbers. I was surprised. I had half expected the firm to be a tin-pot, sleazy operation run from a dingy office under a railway arch. Instead, Harry Cooper had impressive offices in the basement of a block of four-story Georgian Houses.
I think I might have done a hop and a skip after leaving Perfect Plumbers. Not only did Harry give me a job, he had also handed me the keys to a company van. Whahay! Result.
This really changed things. For starters, I could now dump the hot Transit. Getting shot of that would be a huge load off my mind.
Today was Thursday. Tomorrow would be Good Friday. I was crossing Battersea Bridge and from the height advantage of the company's Mazda van, I had a good view of the Thames at high tide. The blue sky shimmering like diamonds on the fast flowing river had me so excited that for a moment I lost sight of how my family in Devon had to be suffering. I had an image of them shivering in the cold and wet. The experience brought me down to earth with a jolt.
Last night at my Mum's flat Julie and I spoke on the phone. The intercourse felt awkward, as if we were strangers.
She asked me how the drive up to London went.
‘Oh. Not bad, traffic was okay.’
‘Trip was uneventful then?’
I froze. Did she suspect something, had she guessed the Bluebird had died?
'I had a few problems getting here, ’ I said. ‘I’ll tell you all about it when I get back tomorrow… Mum’s here, she wants to say hello.’
That got me off the hook and I hadn’t had to tell any lies. I left Mum chatting to her.
Mum’s sofa bed didn’t provide me with the best night’s sleep ever. It wasn’t just the bed. I was worried how Julie would take the news her beloved Bluebird was extinct. I would hand her the keys to the Astra and then prostrate my head on the block.
Shortly after 6:0 AM, leaving Perfect Plumbers van parked up near my mum’s flat I set off in the Astra. It was Good Friday. I was hoping the traffic wouldn’t be too bad. Compared to the journey up to London in the ailing Bluebird, the run in the Astra was a dream. After a few delays crossing the suburbs of south London, I hit the A3 at a run.
I had Radio 2 on, listening to pop music. Now quite familiar with the route I was able to drive at a leisurely pace. Twelve-thirteen I pulled up on the driveway of Moors Cottage. Without a car Julie wouldn’t have been able to get out to buy food, so I stopped in the mini-market in town and stocked up with groceries. My face was all smiles when laden with shopping I walked into the house. Julie wasn’t smiling!
'What’s that car on the drive and where's my Bluebird?'
I explained what happened.
‘I hate green cars!’
‘All green cars?’
‘Yeah. Pretty much.’
‘It’s a great motor,’ I protested, ‘It drives like a dream and … it has road tax and an MOT.’
‘It’s not great. It’s gross. I hate green cars.’ She snapped, arms across her chest.
‘You’re being unreasonable Julie,' I said. 'Take it out for drive and I promise you’ll love it.’
‘I loved my Bluebird.’
‘Yes I know you did,’ I said shame-faced. ‘And I’m sorry it's gone. Would it help if I told you that she died peacefully and not in a road accident?’ The look she gave was a “No!”
‘I know you Art Blakely and I bet you drove that poor thing into the ground. What did you do? Forget to top up the oil I bet? I bet you abused the poor thing’
She had a point. I had to confess, I’d done all of the above. ‘It was a car Julie, not a mule.’ I protested.
I couldn’t blame Julie. She had had the car from new and with its low-slung spoilers and high-spec -mod cons and gleaming white bodywork she was very proud of it. For it’s age the car was a looker. It took a while for her to come around but eventually Julie had to agree the new car would to be more reliable.
Over the course of the evening, Julie stopped glaring at me. I wouldn’t go so far as to say she had forgiven me.
After spending half an hour out on the drive personalizing her new car, I sensed Julie had calmed down. When she walked back in the kitchen she was in better spirits.
Easter Friday: The leaden sky was oppressive. The rain was coming down in sheets. We ate the hot cross buns we had toasted on the Aga.
In the afternoon I put a beef casserole in the oven and joined Julie dozing in front of the TV. Eleven pm. I took myself off to the bathroom. The shower curtain, having lain in wait for me fell upon me like a wet weekend. So far, this particular Easter was proving to be spectacularly unremarkable. In my view, eating a few stale hot cross buns was never going to engender the Glorious Devon spirit and when I climbed out of bed at four minutes past seven on the Saturday morning, my mood was no more elevated than the previous day.
br /> While other folk were making the most of the long weekend break from work or school, Julie and I were huddled around the Aga nibbling stale hot-cross buns, and every now and again checking the dark brooding sky hoping for a break in the constant drizzle so that we could walk Solomon and Rats. The Bassett hound never worried what the weather was like, but Rat’s the Yorkie, had dense fur, and five minutes in the rain and he resembled a vacuum cleaner blockage!
Living in Devon was supposed to have liberated us, freed us from the bone-grinding poverty of our past, instead, we were living like impoverished fugitive bank robbers. Just leaving the house was an exercise in subterfuge. Fortunately, other than the Blakely’s who owned the farm there were no neighbours to gossip about our clandestine behaviour. Maybe it was the holiday weekend thing that got me going, all of a sudden, I got angry with us… us as a family. We shouldn’t be living like this! It was time we got over being scared to show our faces in public. This was not how it was supposed to be. We needed to buck our ideas up and do something... anything to get out of this damp, muddy place, where the sun never seemed to shine and the locals treated us as if we had scabies. Perhaps we could have done more to socialise? Maybe then the locals would stop spreading rumours that the Blakely family who was renting Moors was practitioners of the Dark Arts. I was constantly surprised how frequently witches and curses and shrunken heads were openly spoken of in these parts.