Cat O'Nine Tales: And Other Stories (2 page)

Mr. Rodgers
rose a second time.

“You were no
doubt hoping that I would grant your clients bail, Mr. Rodgers?” inquired the
judge, raising an eyebrow, and before the surprised young barrister could
respond Mr. Justice Gray said, “Granted.”

Jasper Gray
told his wife about the plight of Mr. and Mrs. Haskins over lunch on Sunday.
Long before the judge had
 
devoured his rack of lamb, Vanessa Gray had
offered her opinion.

“Sentence them
both to an hour of community service, and then issue a court order instructing
the Post Office to return their original investment in full,” she declared,
revealing a common sense not always bestowed on the male of the species. To do
him justice, the judge agreed with his spouse, although he told her that he
would never get away with it.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because of the four passports.”

Mr. Justice
Gray was not surprised to find Mr. and Mrs. Haskins standing dutifully in the
dock at ten o’clock the following morning. After all, they were not criminals.

The judge raised
his head, stared down at them and tried to look grave.

“You have both
pleaded guilty to the crimes of theft from a post office and of falsifying four
passports.” He didn’t bother to add any adjectives such as evil, heinous or
even disgraceful, as he didn’t consider them appropriate on this occasion. “You
have therefore left me with no choice,” he continued, “but to send you both to
prison.” The judge turned his attention to Chris Haskins. “You were obviously
the instigator of this crime, and with that in mind, I sentence you to three
years’ imprisonment.” Chris Haskins was unable to hide his surprise: his
barrister had warned him to expect at least five years. Chris had to stop
himself from saying, thank you, my lord.

The judge then
looked across at Mrs. Haskins. “I accept that your part in this conspiracy was
possibly no more than an act of loyalty to your husband. However, you are well
aware of the difference between right and wrong, and therefore I shall send you
to prison for one year.”

“My lord,”
protested Chris Haskins.

Mr. Justice
Gray frowned for the first time. He was not in the habit of being interrupted
while passing sentence. “Mr. Haskins, if it is your intention to appeal against
my judgment...”

“Certainly not,
my lord,” said Chris Haskins, interrupting the judge for a second time. “I was
just wondering if you would allow me to serve my wife’s sentence.”

Mr. Justice
Gray was so taken aback by the request that he couldn’t think of a suitable
reply to a question he had never been asked before. He banged his hammer, stood
up and quickly left the courtroom. An usher hurriedly shouted, “All rise.”

Chris and Sue
first met in the playground of their local primary school in
Cleethorpes
, a seaside town on the east coast of England.
Chris was standing in a queue waiting for his third of a pint of
milk–government regulation for all schoolchildren under the age of sixteen.

Sue was the
milk monitor. Her job was to make sure everyone received their correct
allocation. As she handed over the little bottle to Chris, neither of them gave
the other a second look. Sue was in the class above Chris, so they rarely came
across each other during the day, except when Chris was standing in the milk
queue. At the end of the year Sue passed her eleven-plus and took up a place at
the local grammar school. Chris was appointed the new milk monitor. The
following September he also passed his eleven-plus, and joined Sue at
Cleethorpes
Grammar.

They remained
oblivious to each other throughout their school days until Sue became head
girl. After that, Chris couldn’t help but notice her because at the end of
morning assembly she would read out the school notices for the day.

Bossy was the
adjective most often trotted out by the lads whenever Sue’s name came up in
conversation (strange how women in positions of authority so often acquire the
sobriquet
bossy,
while a man holding
the same rank is somehow invested with qualities of leadership).

When Sue left
at the end of the year Chris once again forgot all about her. He did not follow
in her illustrious footsteps and become head boy, although he had a
successful–by his standards–if somewhat uneventful year. He played for the
school’s second eleven cricket team, came fifth in the cross-country match
against Grimsby Grammar, and did well enough in his final exams for them to be
unworthy of mention either way.

No sooner had
Chris left school than he received a letter from the Ministry of Defense,
instructing him to report to his local recruiting office to sign up for a spell
of National Service–a two-year compulsory period for all boys at the age of
eighteen, when they had to serve in the armed forces. Chris’s only choice in
the matter was between the Army, the Royal Navy or the Royal Air Force.

He selected the
RAF, and even spent a fleeting moment wondering what it might be like to be a
jet pilot. Once Chris had passed his medical and filled in all the necessary
forms at the local recruiting office, the duty sergeant handed him a rail pass
to somewhere called
Mablethorpe
; he was to report to
the guardhouse by eight o’clock on the first of the month.

Chris spent the
next twelve weeks being put through basic training, along with a hundred and
twenty other raw recruits. He quickly discovered that only one applicant in a
thousand was selected to be a pilot. Chris was not one in a thousand. At the
end of the twelve weeks he was given the choice of working in the canteen, the
officers’ mess, the quartermaster’s stores or flight operations. He opted for flight
operations, and was allocated a job in the stores.

It was when he
reported for duty the following Monday that he once again met up with Sue, or
to be more accurate Corporal Sue Smart. She was inevitably standing at the head
of the line; this time giving out job instructions. Chris didn’t immediately
recognize her, dressed in her smart blue uniform with her hair almost hidden
under a cap. In any case, he was admiring her shapely legs when she said,
“Haskins, report to the quartermaster’s stores.” Chris raised his head. It was
that voice he could never forget.

“Sue?” he
ventured tentatively. Corporal Smart looked up from her clipboard and glared at
the recruit who dared to address her by her first name.

She recognized
the face, but couldn’t place him.

“Chris
Haskins,” he volunteered.

“Ah, yes,
Haskins,” she said, and hesitated before adding, “report to Sergeant Travis in
the stores, and he’ll brief you on your duties.”

“Yes, Corp,”
Chris replied and quickly disappeared off in the direction of the quartermaster’s
stores. As he walked away, Chris didn’t notice that Sue was taking a second
look.

Chris didn’t
come across Corporal Smart again until his first weekend leave.

He spotted her
sitting at the other end of a railway carriage on the journey back to
Cleethorpes
. He made no attempt to join her, even
pretending not to see her.

However, he did
find himself looking up from time to
time,
admiring
her slim figure–he didn’t remember her being as pretty as that.

When the train
pulled into
Cleethorpes
station, Chris spotted his
mother chatting to another woman. He knew immediately who she must be–the same
red hair, the same trim figure, the same . . .

“Hello, Chris,”
Mrs. Smart greeted him as he joined his mother on the platform. “Was Sue on the
train with you?”

“I didn’t
notice,” said Chris, as Sue walked up to join them.

“I expect you
see a lot of each other now you’re based at the same camp,” suggested Chris’s
mother.

“No, not
really,” said Sue, trying to sound disinterested.

“Well, we’d
better be off,” said Mrs. Haskins. “I have to give Chris and his dad dinner
before they go off to watch the football,” she explained.

“Do you
remember him?” asked Mrs. Smart as Chris and his mother walked along the
platform toward the exit.
“Snotty Haskins?”
Sue
hesitated.
“Can’t say I do.”
“Oh, you like him that
much, do you?” said Sue’s mother with a smile.

When Chris
boarded the train that Sunday evening, Sue was already sitting in her place at
the end of the carriage.

Chris was about
to walk straight past her and find a seat in the next carriage, when he heard
her say, “Hi, Chris, did you have a nice weekend?”

“Not bad,
Corp,” said Chris, stopping to look down at her. “Grimsby beat Lincoln
three-one, and I’d forgotten how good the fish and chips are in
Cleethorpes
compared to camp.”

Sue smiled.
“Why don’t you join me?” she said, patting the seat beside her.

“And I think it
will be all right to call me Sue when we’re not in barracks.”

On the journey
back to
Mablethorpe
, Sue did most of the talking,
partly because Chris was so smitten with her–could this be the same skinny
little girl who had handed out the milk each morning?–and partly because he
realized the bubble would burst the moment they set foot back in camp.
Non-commissioned officers just don’t fraternize with the ranks.

The two of them
parted at the camp gates and went their separate ways. Chris walked back to the
barracks, while Sue headed off for the NCO quarters. When Chris strolled into
his
Nissen
hut to join his fellow conscripts, one of
them was bragging about the WRAF he’d had it off with. He even went into
graphic detail, describing what RAF knickers look like.

“A dark shade
of blue held up by thick elastic,” he assured the mesmerized onlookers. Chris
lay on his bed and stopped listening to the unlikely tale, as his thoughts
returned to Sue. He wondered how long it would be before he saw her again.

Not as long as
he feared because when Chris went to the canteen for lunch the following day he
spotted Sue sitting in the corner with a group of girls from the ops room. He
wanted to stroll across to her table and, like David
Niven
,
casually ask her out on a date. There was a Doris Day film showing at the Odeon
that he thought she might enjoy, but he’d sooner have walked across a minefield
than interrupt her while his mates were watching.

Chris selected
his lunch from the counter–a bowl of vegetable soup, sausage and chips, and
custard pie. He carried his tray across to a table on the other side of the
room and joined a group of his fellow conscripts. He was tucking into the
custard pie, while discussing Grimsby’s chances against
Blackpool
,
when he felt a hand touch his shoulder.

He looked round
to see Sue smiling down at him. Everyone else at the table stopped talking.
Chris turned a bright shade of red.

“Doing anything
on Saturday night?”

Sue asked. The
red deepened to crimson as he shook his head. “I was thinking of going to see
Calamity Jane”
She paused.

“Care to join
me?” Chris nodded. “Why don’t we meet outside the camp gates at six?”
Another nod.
Sue smiled. “See you then.” Chris turned back
to find his friends staring at him in awe.

Chris didn’t
remember much about the film because he spent most of his time trying to summon
up enough courage to put his arm round Sue’s shoulder.

He didn’t even
manage it when Howard Keel kissed Doris Day. However, after they left the
cinema and walked back toward the waiting bus, Sue took his hand.

“What are you
going to do once you’ve finished your National Service?”

Sue asked as
the last bus took them back to camp.

“Join my dad on
the buses, I suppose,” said Chris.
“How about you?”

“Once I’ve
served three years, I have to decide if I want to become an officer, and make
the RAF my career.”