The Shooting in the Shop (4 page)

‘Suitable for what?’

‘As presents.’

‘For whom?’

‘For Stephen or Gaby?’ Jude replied innocently,
precisely aware of the response her words would
attract.

She was not disappointed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘Well,’ said Jude, full of mock-penitence, ‘you know
them so much better than I do. I was just thinking
something like this’ – another wiggle of philosophers
– ‘might appeal to their sense of humour.’

Carole wondered momentarily whether her son
had a sense of humour. Gaby did, she felt sure, and
Stephen had relaxed so much since their marriage
that maybe by now he had developed one too. Maybe
a sense of humour was contagious, like chicken pox.

‘I think’, she said, ‘I’m going to do better sticking
to the M and S shirts for Stephen.’

‘Well, all right, but you still can’t give Gaby toilet
water.’

Carole grudgingly conceded that there might be
some truth in that. She looked around at the display
of discounted knick-knacks with something approaching
despair. ‘But I still haven’t a clue what would be
right for her.’

‘It’s always struck me’, Jude began tentatively, not
wishing to be too pushy with her suggestions, ‘that
Gaby’s full of fun. She’s got a very bubbly personality.’
Carole agreed that this was the case. ‘She’s also very
girly in some ways.’

‘Ye-es.’

‘So I think you should give her something to put
on.’

‘Clothes, you mean? But I don’t know her size.’
Carole anxiously surveyed the hanging garments in
Eastern silks, crumpled linen and PVC. ‘I wouldn’t
begin to know what Gaby would like to wear.’

‘Oh, come on, you’ve seen her enough times. You
know the kind of stuff she likes.’

Carole tried to focus on what her daughter-in-law
did actually wear. Jeans and sweatshirts mostly these
days, as she spent most of her time at home looking
after the baby. While she was still working as a
theatrical agent, Gaby had had a couple of dauntingly
businesslike trouser suits, but those hadn’t seen the
light of day since Lily’s birth.

‘She likes sparkly things,’ Jude prompted.

Yes, now Carole came to think of it, a lot of Gaby’s
tops did have glittery designs on them. And she wore
quite a bit of costume jewellery in what her mother-in-law would have described as diamanté. ‘So you’re
saying I should get her a brooch or something?’

‘No, I’m saying you should give her something
frivolous. Something like this perhaps?’ Jude’s hand,
by now denuded of Socrates, Spinoza, Descartes,
Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, reached up to pull something
down from its hook. It was a six-foot long stole
formed by sprays of feathers alternately white and
silver.

Carole scrutinized the object. ‘Well, it wouldn’t be
very warm, you know, as scarves go.’

‘It’s not a scarf, it’s a boa.’

‘Maybe, but what for?’

‘For fun!’ Jude replied with something approaching
exasperation. ‘For when Gaby wants to glam
herself up a bit. For when she wants to forget that
she’s a wife and mother and remind herself she’s a
girl.’

Carole continued to look dubiously at the boa. ‘Do
you think she’ll like it, though?’

‘I’m sure she will. And I can guarantee that Lily
will like it too. In a few years’ time she’ll be using it
for dressing up.’

The granddaughter argument swayed Carole, and
when she looked at the cost of the boa, she was won
over completely. Originally, it had been twenty-five
pounds, which would definitely have come under her
definition of overpriced. But that had been slashed to
ten pounds, and then a further reduction had been
made to four pounds fifty. Carole decided she had
found Gaby’s present.

Emboldened by this success, she started wavering
about the Marks and Spencer shirts for Stephen.

‘You could still give them to him,’ Jude suggested,
‘so that he doesn’t die of shock at not getting them
after all these years. But then you could give him
something else as well.’

‘What kind of “something else”?’ asked Carole
suspiciously.

‘Something frivolous.’

‘Stephen’s never going to wear a feather boa.’

‘No, I know he’s not,’ Jude replied, though she
couldn’t deny that the image was quite amusing. ‘But
there are other frivolous things in here.’

Carole looked around the shop. In her view, a
Santa Claus Willy Warmer was simply in bad taste.
And she wouldn’t have dared to be present when
Stephen opened such a thing. Nor was she attracted
by a key ring with a small Rubik’s cube attached. The
combined digital stopwatch and bottle opener didn’t
do much for her either. And as for the thought of
giving anyone a sumptuously boxed, gold-plated Belly
Button Fluff Extractor . . .

‘Maybe I should just stick to the shirts . . .’ she
announced uncertainly.

‘No, Carole, don’t give up so easily. Put yourself in
Stephen’s shoes for a moment. What would he like?
What are his interests?’

‘Work, mostly.’

‘And his work involves . . . ?’

‘Money and computers, in some combination
which I have never quite worked out.’

‘Well, I’m sure Lola stocks something for computer
buffs.’

‘I doubt it. This isn’t a technology shop.’

‘Ah, look, the very thing!’ Jude swooped on a
basket full of wind-up toys. ‘A Glow-in-the-dark Computer
Angel!’

‘What?’ asked Carole weakly, as the package was
thrust towards her. Under a plastic bubble there was a
translucent green plastic figure of an angel. Printed
above it were the words: ‘Your Computer Angel deals
with all your computer problems, glitches and
viruses. Just wind her up and her flapping wings will
spread her protection over your desktop or laptop.
And when you turn the lights off, your Computer
Angel will glow in the dark.’

‘How does it work?’ asked Carole.

‘Blind faith.’

‘No, I mean how does it work as anti-virus protection?’
After long resistance to the idea of computers,
Carole had recently become something of an expert
on the subject. ‘There isn’t a software CD with it, as
far as I can see. And it doesn’t have a USB plug.’

‘Carole,’ said Jude patiently, ‘it’s a joke. It’s just a
fun thing. To bring a smile on Christmas Day to the
face of a computer obsessive like Stephen.’

Her neighbour still didn’t look convinced. But
then she saw the price tag: £7.50 reduced to £4.00,
then reduced again to £1.50.

As she paid for her purchases, Carole and Anna
at the till exchanged half-smiles, as if to say, ‘Yes, we
have seen each other before.’ But neither took the
opportunity to embark on conversation.

And so Carole completed her Christmas shopping.
Which meant that, as well as the Marks and Spencer
shirts, Stephen Seddon would shortly be the proud
owner of a Glow-in-the-dark Computer Angel.

Carole at first demurred at Jude’s suggestion they
should lunch at the Crown and Anchor. Some atavistic
instinct told her it was self-indulgence to go out
for a meal so near to Christmas. But, as it often did,
Jude’s more sybaritic counsel prevailed, and so they
made their way from Gallimaufry to Fethering’s only
pub and the lugubrious welcome of its landlord, Ted
Crisp.

A large man with matted hair and beard, he
nodded acknowledgement of their arrival and started
pouring two large glasses of Chilean Chardonnay
before they gave an order. The interior of the pub was
decorated for Christmas, but there weren’t that many
Christmas customers. Therein lay the cause of his
lugubriousness, as he wasted no time in telling them.

‘Look at the place. Empty as a barn. This should
be the time of year I’m coining it, doing all the local
office Christmas lunches. Should be packed out for
the whole of December, and what have I had? Bugger
all.’

They looked around and saw his point. A few frail
Fethering pensioners had braved the cold weather to
take advantage of the Crown and Anchor’s Midweek
Special deals. A small, thin woman sat in an alcove
nursing a pint of Guinness. Low winter sun through
the pub’s windows turned the long hair, cascading
down over a flowered smock, a golden colour, giving
her the image of a hippy chick from the Sixties. But
neither she nor any of the other customers looked as
if they were big spenders.

‘Is it still because of what happened in the
summer?’ Jude asked Ted tactfully. She was referring
to the time when the Crown and Anchor had been
invaded by Hell’s Angels and a murder had taken
place on the premises. The pub had nearly been
closed down and, although it subsequently emerged
that Ted Crisp had been the victim of criminal harassment,
memories in Fethering were long and adverse
publicity slow to dissipate.

The landlord nodded assent. ‘Yeah, that’s it. Going
to take years to build up the business again. And now
with all this financial chaos going on, people are even
less inclined to come out and spend their money
down the pub. They’d rather sit at home with a pile of
half-price cans of supermarket lager.’

‘It’ll get better,’ said Jude.

Carole picked up the baton of reassurance. ‘Of
course it will. You’ve still got Ed Pollack as your chef,
haven’t you?’

‘Yes, he seems happy to stay . . .’

‘That’s good news.’

‘. . . as long as I can afford to keep him on,’
Ted continued gloomily. ‘I sometimes worry about
how long I’ll be able to keep Zosia on, too.’ He was
referring to his Polish bar manager, who had been
introduced to the Crown and Anchor by Jude.

‘Don’t be silly,’ Carole said. Then, looking around,
asked, ‘Where is Zosia, by the way?’

‘Got some Christmas drinks thing at the university.’
The girl was managing to fit a degree in
journalism around her work at the pub. ‘So I’m on
my own here today.’ He looked mournfully around
the bar. ‘Not that I’m exactly rushed off my feet.’

‘Ted, it’ll all be all right,’ said Jude soothingly.
‘This is a great pub. Ed’s a great chef. Word’ll soon
spread again about how good the food is at the Crown
and Anchor. By the summer you’ll have a waiting list
for tables.’

‘If I’m still here then.’

When he was in this kind of mood Ted was not to
be comforted, so Carole and Jude thought their best
course of action was to order their lunch. He handed
menus across and stood with ballpoint pen and pad
poised. ‘Can’t tempt you to the full Christmas menu,
can I? It’s very good.’

‘I’m sure it is,’ said Carole, ‘but I’ll be doing all
that on Christmas Day.’ And she felt a little flurry of
excitement at the thought.

‘I might go for it,’ said Jude.

‘What, the full Christmas menu?’ asked her
astonished neighbour.

‘Why not? I like turkey and stuff – not to mention
turkey and stuff
ing
.’

‘But you can’t have all that before Christmas.’

‘’Ere, are you trying to restrict my trade?’ asked an
aggrieved Ted Crisp. ‘If the lady wants to order a full
Christmas menu, don’t go putting her off.’

‘I’m sorry, Ted,’ said Carole contritely. The teasing
element with which he usually made such remarks
seemed to be absent that day. The lack of business
really was getting to him.

To compensate, Carole ordered a fillet steak, the
most expensive thing on the menu and, while Ted
took their orders through to Ed Pollack in the kitchen,
the two women moved to one of the pub’s alcove
tables. The thin woman with the Guinness seemed
to be giving them the once over. Closer to, she no
longer looked like a hippy chick. Out of the sunlight,
her flowing hair was grey and the contours of her
face were scored with wrinkles, like an apple that had
been stored for too long. Carole and Jude were aware
of the curious stare from her faded brown eyes, but
quickly forgot about her when they sat down. Their
conversation soon homed in on Lola Le Bonnier.
Carole was intrigued as to how Jude had met the
owner of Gallimaufry.

‘Just going in and out of the shop, really. Then
one of her kids, her baby Henry, had a problem with
asthma, so she brought him along to me for a session.’
Professional discretion prevented Jude from mentioning
the condition which had brought Lola herself
to Woodside Cottage for a consultation.

‘Can you actually
heal
asthma?’

‘I can sometimes ease it a bit.’

At another time Carole might have asked more
about that, but on this occasion she was more interested
in Lola Le Bonnier, who, she observed, didn’t
conform to the usual image of a shopkeeper.

‘No, I think Gallimaufry for her is really just a rich
girl’s hobby.’

‘And she’s rich through her husband, is she? The
Ricky she mentioned?’

Jude shrugged. ‘Lola may also have money of her
own, I don’t know. But certainly Ricky never seems to
lack for a few bob.’

‘Have you met him too?’

‘Only a couple of times recently. But I saw a bit of
him in London in the early seventies.’

‘When you say you “saw a bit of him” . . . ?’

Jude grinned. ‘I do not mean we were lovers, no.
He did try it on with me a couple of times, but I was
a rather conventional teenager and—’

‘You mean you were a virgin?’ asked Carole,
intrigued by this potential new insight.

‘God, no. But I was sleeping with someone else
and at that stage was very much a one-man woman.’

Intriguing. Was the implication that she was no
longer a ‘one-man woman’? Carole hadn’t heard
much about her neighbour’s teenage years, but
before she could ask a supplementary question, Jude
had moved on. ‘Anyway, Ricky was involved on the
periphery of a lot of pop groups back then. Did some
producing, promotion, that kind of stuff. Very trendy.’

‘And successful?’

‘He behaved as if he had a lot of money.’

‘But you don’t think he did?’

‘I’m not saying that. The music business has
always been full of bullshit, and Ricky Le Bonnier
could splash it about with the best of them. I never
did know with him – and I still don’t – how much
of what he says to believe. He sounds like a namedropper,
but when you get down to the details, he
does actually know the names he drops quite well.
So if he says he’s been in Mustique with Mick Jagger,
he probably has. If he says he’s toured with Led
Zeppelin, then that’s probably true too.’