David Hamilton 'Flowers For Fiona'

What little detail I had been able to give the private detective agency was 43 years old, so a caller with results only three days later was a surprise. The young man, thanking me with polished politeness for the invitation to sit down, looked smart, fit and brightly alert.
‘I like your private office, Mister Cox,’ he opened.
‘Don’t be fooled by the hi-tech plushness,’ I told him with a chuckle. ‘I long ago had the sense to delegate all the real busy-bee stuff to younger managers. They respond well to being trusted and at my age of sixty-two, I just enjoy posturing as the minor tycoon.’
‘I’ve heard you started your business as a teenager peddling cans of cleaning fluid from door to door,’ he ventured with frank admiration.
‘It’s true. Right then, Mister Hockley, can you start with a quick word-picture of the chap I asked your firm to look into for me?’
He did not need to consult notes. ‘Ronald Percival Barber,’ he raped, ‘like you he’s sixty-two. Widower, unemployed, made redundant from engineering design work seven years ago. Resulting financial hardship lost him the house he was buying on a mortgage. Pension fund failed, now struggling to make ends meet living alone in a run-down rented flat. Two children, grown up, but they don’t visit him much. No close friends, and an acquaintance describes Barber as a victim of modern industrial streamlining, almost forced by frustration into becoming a bit of a loner.’
‘That’s terribly sad,’ I muttered, remembering an outgoing and competent youngster. Hockley stared keenly, then held up an envelope. ‘That’s the gist, mister Cox, and all the formal detail is in this report. Er, did you once know the man, sir?’
‘Yes, I once knew him,’ I admitted heavily, then did my own keen stare. ‘Questions beyond what you’re getting paid for, Mister Hockley?’
He grinned, frankly and engagingly. ‘I’ve found that sometimes a client also wants an investigated person approached on his behalf more confidently than a solicitor could manage, which is further work for me and I’m damn good at it.’
‘Hmm,’ I mused, ‘I can believe you would be.’
‘Was it long ago, when you knew him?’
The memories settled, giving me that mix of pain and pleasure that loosens the tongue. I asked, ‘Have you ever heard of Mods and Rockers?’
Hockley frowned, then slapped his knee. ‘My grannie told me. Swinging sixties. Rockers rode motorbikes, Mods had scooters. Gang fights at seaside resorts.’
*
To the casual observer, we must have all looked the same in those olive-drab parkas. Among ourselves we were distinguished by our individualistic scooters, and scooters and parkas were an immediate bond when we met on the road. I’m nineteen again, back in 1965, forty-three years ago. On a chilly Easter Sunday heading for Great Yarmouth.
What’s the collective noun for Mods? A scoot? I think ‘a menace of Mods’ because as Mods collectively we generated hostile potential. My menace was populated by East Hammers and his was from Buckhurst Hill.
I first saw him on the A11. My Lambretta had conked out near this Wymondham place. We were asking locals how far to why-mond-ham and they were looking blank. He stopped his Vespa Supersport and told us, ‘Its pronounced win-dam, okay?’ While we ogled the lush dolly-bird on his pillion, he saved me pushing my Lammy into Wymondham by toeing its kickstart and grunting, ‘Fuel blockage, okay?’ He produced tools, tinkered for ten minutes and my Lammy was fine. He took off again impressively. ‘I’m Stinker,’ he called from astride his scooter. ‘After-shave, okay?’ There was a surging roar – his passenger’s shapely bottom bulged her jeans – and wow – that was acceleration. By the time we reached Great Yarmouth he’d probably already found somewhere for the night. We slept huddled in a sea front shelter. It’s amazing, how stupidly tough we were.
The Easter Monday was the big day – only a bank holiday was really right for it. We saw dozens of police mustering on the sea front even in early morning, and by ten o’clock the locals were looking nervous. We outsmarted police to get onto the beach, joining an ever-growing crowd of fellow Mods. I spotted him by recognizing his dolly-bird’s neat anorak and close-fitting jeans first and yelled, ‘Hi Stinker.’ A quarter-mile away along on beach a herd of Rockers was growing too.
My clear memory is that I didn’t feel vicious at that point, or even that I hated Rockers much. For me the buzz was the sense of unity with all the other olive-drab parkas, now transported to a sandy expanse with the salty-flat smell of sea strong in my nostrils and a raw breeze sending our faces red. The backgrounds are vivid on my memory too. North of us the leather-clad Rocker army; the grey sea to the east; the big fairground called the Pleasure Beach to the south, its rollercoaster lofted onto the skyline; the pleasantly quaint town behind the promenade to the west. Add a sense of freedom because you were where you weren’t known. With banter flying, there was laugh-a-minute exhilaration too.
I never knew who gave the orders. I just knew we’d begun moving. We progressed in short bursts of trotting punctuated by halts when we collided into parkas stopped in front of us. I began seeing through gaps in the parkas ahead that the Rockers were closer. When I saw that above their black leather jackets their hair was long and filthy-greasy and their faces contorted in snarls, this queasiness entered my stomach. It was not unpleasant queasiness; perhaps it was closer to sexual excitement than anything else. Everyone else was screeching hostility so I yelled, ‘Kill the filthy bastards.’ Other Mods were picking up stones and I too ducked to gather some. Then an awesome thing happened while I was low. The feel of a stone in my hand made me imagine its impact if it were thrown at me, and the thought of that shocked me rigid.
About ten others around me were frozen down on their haunches too. We gaped at one another as if pleading for explanation of our immobility. Our crowd went past, stumbling around us. Someone swore at us, his obscenities containing nothing we didn’t casually use ourselves, but in our loss of aggression it shocked enough to send us wild-eyed.
Stinker was crouched near me. A stone narrowly missed his shoulder, landing with a spurt of sand. Through the cacophony of incoherent shouting I heard his rapped order. ‘We’re getting out of this. Follow me, okay?’ And he was up, tugging his dolly-bird away inland with him.
Panicked, clutching at leadership, we followed. My feet flailing up sand, I concentrated my tear-blurred vision on the gorgeous seat of the dolly-bird’s jeans for my direction. Charging onto concrete past a shutdown tea stall, we evaded policemen, then I blundered close behind the dolly-bird across a putting green and we made the promenade. ‘Saint Peter’s Road,’ Stinker yelled, pointing, ‘I know an alley we can hide in.’ Any rugby player would have been proud of his jinking run, which deceived another knot of police to let us cross the promenade, then at last I was retching in a narrow passage between houses. There were only six of us by then.
‘Wait here, okay.’ Stinker ordered, and left us huddled while police cars prowled by. He was soon back, decisive and resourceful, on his resplendent Vespa. He seemed to have a map of Great Yarmouth burned onto his brain, for on our hazy descriptions he ferried us to collect our scooters, expertly avoiding areas where groups of parka and leather-clad figures were being cornered by police. Stinker then guided our line of five machines through backstreets to the A47 exit. On Stinker’s order, we broke from a side-street’s cover and fled Great Yarmouth.
Forty miles clear, we stopped at a café. Seated around a table sipping tea, we deferred to Stinker’s chairmanship and nodded to his wise summing up. ‘Had some good capers with Mods, okay? But maybe it’s time to be individuals instead of just another parka?’
I was home by teatime. I still marvel at fate’s timing, because if I’d arrived a minute later I would’ve missed an opportunity. What was say, a skilled tradesman earning in 1965? About £20 a week without overtime? Well, a neighbour was offering a van-load of cans of cleaning fluid for £45, and I happened to have forty-six pound notes in a wallet. I gradually built this successful business from that opportunity, a start I got on that Easter Monday when I could have gained a criminal record instead.
*
‘An interesting story, Mister Cox,’ young Hockley commented.
‘I’d like Stinker – Ronald Barber – approached. Tentatively and discreetly.’
‘It seems well within the scope of my skills.’
‘I’ll guess he never learned my actual name. He would’ve filled me by what my mates were called me, which was Pippin. I had rosy cheeks in those days and the surname Cox.’
‘Cox’s Orange Pippin. In a nutshell, approached with what in view?’
I said carefully, ‘I think I might owe him some money, and for old times’ sake I’d like to offer him a good job. You know my reputation locally, Mister Hockley. Anyone in this district will tell you I’m a decent and caring employer.’
Again his stare was keen, assessing beyond my words. ‘Give him just that nutshell?’
‘You can, and I think should, remind him of everything I‘ve told you…’
‘Mister Cox, I perform better if I know a full story, even if the fullness doesn’t show up to the other party in a tentative approach.’
‘What does that mean, young Hockley?’
‘Well sir, from what you’ve told me Stinker was vital to you that Easter Monday. Without his leadership in escaping from trouble, you probably would’ve been arrested and convicted of violent public disorder. You would’ve been grateful to stinker, perhaps especially so since you ended that day getting a start for building your present big and thriving business. Thing is, your business has been thriving for some forty years and my impression is, you’ve never seen Stinker since that Easter Monday. Why has gratitude been delayed so long?’
I got up to walk to my office’s window and stared out at the busy warehouse yard. Without turning I admitted, ‘Dammit, in those days I was still enough of the immature tearaway to be ruthless even when I was grateful. Stinker and his dolly-bird left that café first. In getting up, he unknowingly dropped his wallet and it got sucked into my parka.’
Ah. And it had forty-six pounds in it. I see. A sort of rationalizing, sir?’
‘Rationalizing?’
‘You don’t earn a community and business reputation like yours by being a thief, so theft was a youthful vice you contemptuously discarded with maturity. You would’ve had to rationalize your past misdeeds as best forgotten, tell yourself that what’s done is done and they’ll never be repeated by the better person you’ve become.’
I told myself I liked this young man for his sharp intelligence and understanding. ‘You’re a perceptive young sod, Mister Hockley,’ I told him. ‘Yes, you tell yourself you’ve no choice but to rationalize, and you try to compensate when you’ve made it to honest wealth by being community-conscious generously. Then one day when you’re older, you remember a particular person you stole from and…’
‘I understand the job, Mister Cox. I’ll sound Ronald Barber out and assess his reaction to being reminded of you, and to hearing of your offer, without incriminating you or mentioning any specific sum. I’ve found long-term memories vary, sit. He could recall everything as if it happened yesterday, or he may not remember even a hint of you. But whatever his reaction, I’ll get it in confidential safety and report it to you.’
*
Ronald Barber’s flat was half the top floor of a house in an old, dingy terrace. You had to press a bell button in a dim hall and wait for him to peer downstairs and invite you to climb rickety stairs.
In his cramped sitting room I guessed the furniture came from a second-hand shop. He returned from his kitchen with two mugs of tea and grinning, shook his head at me. ‘Forty-three years ago,’ he marveled, ‘but yes, I eventually placed you when I remembered clearing sediment from your Lambretta’s fuel pipe on a Norfolk roadside. Now I’m looking at you I’m even getting a hazy memory of your face then.’
‘Someone mentioned you a couple of weeks ago as an engineer type without a job. Anyway, your name jogged my memory and young Hockley was working this way so I asked him to make enquiries. Er, did he mention I might owe you some money?’
His hair was thin and grey and his face wizened into lines etched perhaps by anxiety, but I thought I still detected something of his young-days competence. He shrugged and spread his arms dismissively. ‘If I lent you a quid or two, I can’t remember doing so. All I’ve been thinking about since young Hockley called is the chance of a job. If you haven’t been made redundant in your fifties, you just can’t realize how impossible it gets to seem that you’ll ever have another job. The job is still a serious offer?’
‘You’re technically minded and have nearly three years left before retirement age. You’ll fill a gap in our staffing plans nicely, overseeing maintenance and safety check schedules for warehouse machinery. Here, the job description and salary and conditions are set out on this paper. You can start tomorrow if you like.’
He read and muttered, ‘Oh my god, this is heaven for me. A job to go to every day instead of sitting here and a regular wage – they bring me back into the world.’
‘Now,’ I said nervously, ‘this money I owe you…’
‘Can’t remember, but how much?’
I steeled myself and met his eyes, ‘Can I trust you, Stinker – I mean Ronald?’
He stared back and said, ‘with the chance of a job, I was happy to deliberately have a bad memory. But if you prefer, someone giving me a job can trust me absolutely.’
‘Then I’ll trust you by inviting you to have a good memory.’
‘My wallet. It was you?’
‘Yes,’ I admitted huskily.
‘I was a trainee engineering designer. I’d worked a lot of weekends to help the firm out and they’d just caught up with my overtime pay. Forty-six quid was in that wallet, a small fortune in those days to a youngster of nineteen. I was heartbroken.’
‘What can I say?’
His face broke into a wide grin. ‘I got over it soon enough. Why not just say here’s your forty-six quid back, Stinker? Then we can forget it, because I’d love to walk into a supermarket this evening with forty-six quid to spend, okay?’
‘Okay, thanks. Actually it’s a bit more than forty-six quid now.’
‘Wow – you’re allowing for inflation?’
‘No, that wouldn’t fairly reflect the profitable use you could’ve made of your money. Your attitude now means that in effect, you gave me a loan without security. You don’t get those from banks, you get them only from daring speculators who demand interest rates that justify the risk. I’ve been expertly advised about this. The interest rates I would’ve had to pay would’ve resulted in something very close to a consistent compound interest rate of sixteen and a half per cent over the full period. Is that acceptable to you?’
Stinker chuckled and wagged his forefinger at me. ‘Now be careful, Pippin. I know maths and compound interest is talking exponential growth and you’d be amazed…’
‘I’m not amazed,’ I interrupted, ‘I’m a businessman and I know. Compound interest sixteen point five per cent for forty-three years takes an original forty-six pounds to thirty-two thousand, seven hundred and sixteen pounds and ninety-four pence. Here’s my cheque for that amount.’
He sat holding the cheque in silence while a long minute ticked by. Then he mused quietly, ‘we all do things when we’re young that we’re not proud of when we’re older, okay? We have to shrug them off to get on with life, and tell ourselves we’re better now, okay? Most of us are content with coming to terms with ourselves like that. I can understand if you want to pay me back. I could understand if you want to make it a few hundred to apologize better. But this cheque virtually revises history by turning that loss by theft into an investment on super-generous terms for my old age.’
‘Revise history is what I want to do.’
‘You’re driven by more than a desire to apologize. Care to confide, Pippin?’
With a catch in my voice I could not hide I asked, ‘Remember the girl on your pillion?’
‘Now you’re really taxing my memory. I was a hit with the girls in those days and I changed my passengers often. Was it Marge Stevens – sexy little blond package?’
‘No. She was medium height and brunette, exceptionally lovely figure. Named Fiona.’
‘Rings a bell. That’s it, Fiona from Epping way. Now you’ve jogged my memory, I’m remembering that when I got her home from that trip she told me she wouldn’t be seeing me again. She couldn’t have meant much to me though – I just forgot her and passed on to the next dolly-bird.’
‘Remember leaving us huddled in an alley off Saint Peter’s Road in Great Yarmouth, hiding from the police cars, while you went to get your Vespa?’
‘Yes. I simply left my parka with you, and police who saw me didn’t turn a hair.’
‘While we waited, your girl didn’t say a word to us…’
‘I remember the type – say nothing and keep a deadpan face. It was a trendy affectation some girls at that time thought sophisticated.’
‘Then she back-stepped into me, as if accidentally, and somehow my hand met the gorgeous seat of her tight jeans. She stayed silent and kept a blank face so nobody else noticed, and she let me secretly fondle until you got back. For me it was as unexpected and impromptu as that. Her shape, her deadpan compliance and our getting away with it without the others noticing thrilled me. When we were back on our scooters, I rode close behind your scooter just to keep watching her, and her poses told me she knew I was watching. Luckily, you didn’t need to brake suddenly.’
Stinker chuckled and commented, ‘You got a better treat than she ever gave me, then.’
‘There’s more, Stinker. By the time we stopped at a cafe and she got off the back seat of your scooter, she and I were reading each other’s minds. We were simply magnetized beyond caution, so it couldn’t really be called cheek or daring. In a back corridor to the café’s toilets, there was a little room for cleaners’ gear and I sneaked in there with her. She still hadn’t uttered a word to me at that stage.’
Stinker, both amazed and amused, guffawed and guessed, ‘My god, mate – did her tight jeans peel off?’
‘Neither of us had had sex before, but standing up we just melted together, and we shouted helplessly together – the first time I heard her voice – as we climaxed together.’
‘Well, er, good for you,’ Stinker praised, but also looked away in embarrassment.
‘You’re not understanding yet. I didn’t tell you that as coarse boasting. I’ve told you how outrageous yet spontaneous it was because I want you to understand why it could happen like that. Stinker, it wasn’t just casual gratification – it was actually an instant expression of an intense sense of togetherness that had swamped us.’
Watching my face intently Stinker recalled, ‘I suppose it was about a quarter of an hour since she’d slid off my scooter when she came back still reticent and deadpan to join us around a café table. You came back too and drank tea and talked, and the rest of us never suspected a thing. I took her the rest of the way home, and outside her house she told me straight out she wouldn’t see me again because she had someone else.’
So I stole from you twice that Easter Monday. To you Fiona was just a girl you forgot when she finished with you. To me, Stinker, she became a beloved wife whole impulsive young passion had heralded her remaining lifetime’s devotion to me.’
‘Well, well – so you married Fiona.’ Then Stinker lost his surprised smile and queried sharply, ‘Remaining lifetime?’
‘Fiona died a month ago,’ I said, feeling it all welling up inside me and needing to get it out in the form of words. ‘You know, even when she was young there was a magnificent person hiding under the sixties pop-and-fashion dolly-bird. She soon spotted my dodgy habits and straightened me out, made me grow up almost overnight into a decent man. She never knew about your wallet, because it was submerged among the rest of the guilt I had to forget in order to get on with life. Then in her last days, while she lay dying…’
Pushing my mug closer to me Stinker advised quietly, ‘Take a drink then just let it come out, Pippin. I’m not sneering at a man’s tears for a beloved wife.’
‘She reminisced, lovingly. Said that Easter Monday we found each other still shone in her memory as all blue sky and sun and birdsong, whatever the weather had actually been. Apart from the weather, she had it all filed on her memory in just vivid accuracy. The feel of running in sand, my breath on the back of her neck in that alley, the pop-pop of scooter engine exhausts as we slowed for bends, the way my rosy cheeks made me look so innocent, the yellow tea-mugs in that café. She took me all through it until I was living it again. And that’ s how I came to remember a crafty duck to scoop a wallet inside the cuff of my parka as you left the café. Well, I couldn’t tell Fiona that, I couldn’t spoil her memory of her shining day with it. It was the first and only time I intentionally kept any secret from her. So after she passed away I wanted to somehow make the memory of a shining day she died with a true one…’
Stinker nodded slowly several times. ‘I see now, Pippin. This cheque I’m holding is revising history so that there’s not even a blot she didn’t know about on her shining day. It says everything about how much you loved her, and how well she deserved to be loved.’
‘It’s also belatedly acknowledging that you too helped to change my life, Stinker, when we were nineteen.’
He said gently, ‘I’m so sorry she died, Pippin. If you’ll tell me where she’s buried, I’ll take her flowers. With a note saying they’re to show that Stinker too thinks her shining day was a good one.’
‘That would be nice, Stinker.’