Read Online Dear Beneficiary by Janet Kelly - Free Book Online Page A

people through when they have accidentally got into the wrong lane, all qualities that make superior drivers if you ask me.
    I can’t be that bad. I did start an Advanced Driving course, after all. Even if I was a bit distracted throughout the one and only occasion I attended and didn’t really believe anything that dreadful woman said about using speed on bends. Anyway, my car has more dents in it than a teenager’s stock car, as well as a shaky front bumper from the incident with the next door neighbour’s raised bed. If only I hadn’t decided to go on a late night trip to the supermarket for Maltesers.
    I’d gone in search of chocolate because I always get a taste for it after drinking sherry. I’d only had a couple. Oh, yes, and the Spanish brandy, but it isn’t really brandy so doesn’t count. There was so little to look at on the television and my book had started to bore me, so the distraction of illicit and pointless calories had a certain allure. Nothing was capable of distracting me from the gap Darius had left in my newly awakened life and my growing concern for him. I hadn’t heard any more about his predicament and was at a loss about how I could act without knowing exactly where he was or what I might be able to do to help.
    It was only a little accident but seemed to befuddle all those who eventually became involved. There was an awful lot of pushing and shoving by a lot of people (men) who finally decided they couldn’t use sheer will and fading testosterone to get the car to move. A neighbour called the AA to get it lifted up and off the brickwork. The damage was probably more to my ego than anybody’s property, although many people (apart from the people next door, whose cyclamens were crushed beyond recognition) were very much amused for many months.
    On hearing about the incident, Jonjo castigated me for the potential consequences of being caught drinking and driving, particularly in my position as a local magistrate. It all reminded me slightly of the incident with the skip, at which point I thought how judgemental my son had become.
    â€˜It is hardly a great example to society, is it?’ he’d said, rather pompously, I thought. ‘There’s you happily taking away the licences of any hapless driver who happens to tot up twelve points for daring to drive at a decent speed on motorways so they can go about their business, and you’re endangering all and sundry just for the sake of a bag of sweets!’
    The tune of ‘Mrs Robinson’ sprang into my head and the line ‘most of all you’ve got to hide it from your kids’ seemed highly relevant, as if written just for me.
    What he didn’t know was that I was no longer allowed to sit on the bench after telling one of the unemployed defendants he should jolly well get a job and stop relying on the benefits system to pay his court fines. I’d been feeling particularly alone that day and had been reminiscing about my time with Darius and whether my messages had got through to him. The thought of never seeing him again had put me in a particularly bad mood.
    That and the conversation I’d had only a few days previously with the young policewoman at Epsfield station after my parking incident put an end to my interest in the legal system. After dutifully reporting as requested, I was told the officer who’d arrested me had lost all his paperwork in an altercation with some angry bus passengers and had since been signed off sick with stress.
    Anyway, apparently one isn’t allowed to express disgust at laziness and theft – or suggest to young parents they should think about contraception if they can’t afford their children. I wasn’t exactly asked to leave the magistracy but was told I might need ‘retraining’ so decided to resign. I didn’t fancy being patronised by a left-wing legal executive on the merits of social inclusion or how to