Keats Grove.’
‘Down the warehouse. That’s our warehouse down Thornton Heath, Croydon way if you know it. The lady’s not got so much she’ll need more than one container.’ He named the rental Sheila would have to pay per week for the storage of her tables and chairs.
‘It’s stacked up in this container, is it, and stored along with a hundred others? Suppose you said you wanted it stored for a year and then you changed your mind and wanted to get, say, one item out?’
‘That’d be no problem, guv’nor. It’s yours, isn’t it? While you pay your rent you can do what you like about it, leave it alone if that’s what you want like or inspect it once a week. Thanks very much, lady.’ This last was addressed to Sheila who was dispensing cans of beer.
‘Give us a hand, George,’ said the old man.
He had picked up Sheila’s four-poster on his own, held it several inches off the ground, then thought better of it. He and the man called George began dismantling it.
‘You’d be amazed,’ said George, ‘the things that go on. We’re like a very old-established firm and we’ve got stuff down the warehouse been stored since before the First War . . .’
‘The Great War,’ said the old man.
‘OK, then, the Great War. We’ve got stuff been stored since before 1914. The party as stored it’s dead and gone and the rent’s like gone up ten, twenty times, but the family wants it kept and they go on paying. Furniture that’s been stored twenty years, that’s common, that’s nothing out of the way. We got on lady, she put her grand piano in store 1936 and she’s dead now, but her daughter, she keeps the rent up. She comes along every so often and we open up her container for her and let her have a look her piano’s OK.’
‘See if you can shift that nut, George,’ said the old man.
By two they were finished. Wexford took Sheila out to lunch, to a little French restaurant in Blenheim Terrace, a far cry from Mr Haq’s They shared a bottle of Domaine du Parc and as Wexford raised his glass and drank to her happiness he felt a rush of unaccustomed sentimentality. She was so very much his treasure. His heart swelled with pride when he saw people look at her, whisper together and then look again. For years now she had hardly been his, she had been something like public property, but after Saturday she would be Andrew’s and lost to him for ever . . . Suddenly he let out a bark of laughter at these maudlin indulgences.
‘What’s funny, Pop darling?’
‘I was thinking about those removal men,’ he lied.
He drove her up to Hampstead where she was staying the night and began the long haul back to Kingsmarkham. Not very experienced in London traffic, he had left Keats Grove at four and by the time he came to Waterloo Bridge found himself in the thick of the rush. It was after seven when he walked, cross and tired, into his house.
Dora came out to meet him in the hall. She kepther voice low. ‘Reg, that friend of Sheila’s who was going to marry Manuel Camargue is here. Dinah Whatever-it-is.’
‘Didn’t you tell her Sheila wouldn’t be back tonight?’
Dora, though aware that she must move with the times, though aware that Sheila and Andrew had been more or less living together for the past year, nevertheless still made attempts to present to the world a picture of her daughter as an old-fashioned maiden bride. Her husband’s accusing look – he disapproved of this kind of Mrs Grundyish concealment – made her blush and say hastily:
‘She doesn’t want Sheila, she wants you. She’s been here an hour, she insisted on waiting. She says . . .’ Dora cast up her eyes. ‘She says she didn’t know till this morning that you were a policeman!’
Wedding presents were still arriving. The house wasn’t big enough for this sort of influx, and now the larger items were beginning to take over the hall. He nearly tripped over an object which, since it was swathed in corrugated
‘Down the warehouse. That’s our warehouse down Thornton Heath, Croydon way if you know it. The lady’s not got so much she’ll need more than one container.’ He named the rental Sheila would have to pay per week for the storage of her tables and chairs.
‘It’s stacked up in this container, is it, and stored along with a hundred others? Suppose you said you wanted it stored for a year and then you changed your mind and wanted to get, say, one item out?’
‘That’d be no problem, guv’nor. It’s yours, isn’t it? While you pay your rent you can do what you like about it, leave it alone if that’s what you want like or inspect it once a week. Thanks very much, lady.’ This last was addressed to Sheila who was dispensing cans of beer.
‘Give us a hand, George,’ said the old man.
He had picked up Sheila’s four-poster on his own, held it several inches off the ground, then thought better of it. He and the man called George began dismantling it.
‘You’d be amazed,’ said George, ‘the things that go on. We’re like a very old-established firm and we’ve got stuff down the warehouse been stored since before the First War . . .’
‘The Great War,’ said the old man.
‘OK, then, the Great War. We’ve got stuff been stored since before 1914. The party as stored it’s dead and gone and the rent’s like gone up ten, twenty times, but the family wants it kept and they go on paying. Furniture that’s been stored twenty years, that’s common, that’s nothing out of the way. We got on lady, she put her grand piano in store 1936 and she’s dead now, but her daughter, she keeps the rent up. She comes along every so often and we open up her container for her and let her have a look her piano’s OK.’
‘See if you can shift that nut, George,’ said the old man.
By two they were finished. Wexford took Sheila out to lunch, to a little French restaurant in Blenheim Terrace, a far cry from Mr Haq’s They shared a bottle of Domaine du Parc and as Wexford raised his glass and drank to her happiness he felt a rush of unaccustomed sentimentality. She was so very much his treasure. His heart swelled with pride when he saw people look at her, whisper together and then look again. For years now she had hardly been his, she had been something like public property, but after Saturday she would be Andrew’s and lost to him for ever . . . Suddenly he let out a bark of laughter at these maudlin indulgences.
‘What’s funny, Pop darling?’
‘I was thinking about those removal men,’ he lied.
He drove her up to Hampstead where she was staying the night and began the long haul back to Kingsmarkham. Not very experienced in London traffic, he had left Keats Grove at four and by the time he came to Waterloo Bridge found himself in the thick of the rush. It was after seven when he walked, cross and tired, into his house.
Dora came out to meet him in the hall. She kepther voice low. ‘Reg, that friend of Sheila’s who was going to marry Manuel Camargue is here. Dinah Whatever-it-is.’
‘Didn’t you tell her Sheila wouldn’t be back tonight?’
Dora, though aware that she must move with the times, though aware that Sheila and Andrew had been more or less living together for the past year, nevertheless still made attempts to present to the world a picture of her daughter as an old-fashioned maiden bride. Her husband’s accusing look – he disapproved of this kind of Mrs Grundyish concealment – made her blush and say hastily:
‘She doesn’t want Sheila, she wants you. She’s been here an hour, she insisted on waiting. She says . . .’ Dora cast up her eyes. ‘She says she didn’t know till this morning that you were a policeman!’
Wedding presents were still arriving. The house wasn’t big enough for this sort of influx, and now the larger items were beginning to take over the hall. He nearly tripped over an object which, since it was swathed in corrugated
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