Tableland (13 page)

Pondered this last remark of Alan's during the evening. So Steve had played golf after all. Feel rather annoyed about this. He had let me down at the last minute too. Still, I expect there is a very good explanation.

Julie did not arrive back until 10.30 and didn't seem any too keen on the idea of going to a cultural, high-quality play. However, she eventually agreed with me that the title didn't sound too bad and, as we didn't want to let the Uppes down, we decided to go.

It was 11 o'clock when I rang Alan as promised and I think he must have been in bed as he didn't sound as pleased as I had thought he would.

Must have wrenched my back when stumbling on Wednesday evening as it's been stiff all day. Had calls in the Shropshire area, visiting various builders, without any overwhelming success, and arrived home at 7 o'clock with my back aching.

‘Where are those lumbago pills of mine?' I asked Julie as soon as we had had supper.

‘On the top shelf in the kitchen cupboard where all the tablets and medicines are. I wish we had a proper medicine cabinet in the bathroom,' she replied. I echo that wish fervently. The shelf was littered with old bottles, sticking plasters and endless pills and tubes of cream, and after groping around I found a small paper bag containing my little white lumbago pills. I filled a glass with water and swallowed two down as Trev came into the kitchen.

‘What are you doing with Kipper's worming pills?' he asked.

Worming pills or not (and I don't suppose I shall ever know the truth as there were three or four small paper bags containing similar ones), they seemed to do the trick and my back felt much easier today, which is just as well with my golf match tomorrow.

Did a little very gentle gardening in the morning – our vegetables are not doing too badly at all, it's a pity we haven't more space here. I would like a little greenhouse one day.

Spent a pleasant afternoon at Wellkept and saw some familiar faces as we walked round the rows of fruit trees and hardy annuals.

Going round a pile of peat sacks, who should we come face to face with but Keith Goodchap, sucking on his pipe and carrying a pampas grass. It was too late to avoid him and I waited for a possible burst of anger but what he said was, ‘I hear Stewart gave your Trev a bit of a trouncing the other day, eh?' and winked.

Up bright and early. Steve called for me at 8.45 am sharp and, apart from my toes pinching a little, felt in good form. Was not sure whether to mention my knowledge of his golf game last Sunday or not and, in the end, decided to make a brief reference to it – after all, he owed me an explanation. When we had driven along for a few minutes, I said casually, ‘I hear you managed a game last Sunday after all.'

He gave me a sharp look and said, ‘Mitigating circumstances, old lad. All in the line of business, as they say.'

I said nothing and he felt bound to continue, ‘In other words, I was obliged to have eighteen holes with Robin Crundle of Crundle's Ketchup. He was up for the weekend and as I manage his account personally – well, you see what I mean,' he finished.

‘Say no more,' I replied, which seemed an appropriate answer, and the subject was dropped.

We were at the fifth hole and I was playing rather well, despite occasional cramp in my toes, when Steve suddenly suggested there was something wrong with my drive.

‘It is probably my grip; I don't think I've quite mastered it yet.'

‘No, it's not the grip. I would say it's your rhythm; it's so important to get the rhythm right. Every time I swing, I say to myself, ‘John McAdam.' It works wonders. Try it and see.

‘John,' I said to myself as I swung my club back, ‘McAdam' as I made contact with the ball and a large piece of turf went flying. The ball only went a few yards.

My game started to go downhill at that point. Even my putting couldn't save the day and when we reached the eighteenth hole Steve was three up.

My feet were really in trouble by this time. I could hardly hobble around and was glad to finish the game.

‘Well, here's your 75p,' I said. ‘Your John McAdam didn't do much for my drive.'

‘Did I say John McAdam? I meant to say John McEnery. I use John McAdam for putting shots. There's Ken Dugeon over there. Let's go and have a jar with him.'

We assembled in the bar and I stood a round of drinks, but not before I had taken the newspaper padding out of my shoes. What relief.

‘Una and I are popping down to London on Wednesday for a couple of days. Business trip for me – but we hope to take in a show or two. We'll have to look in the papers and see what's on,' Steve said over his beer.

‘Nice for some people,' said Ken. I suddenly recollected my last telephone conversation with Dave. ‘There's a very good play on at the moment recommended by my brother – called Yellow Pages. He said it was a “must”. ‘I don't know whether you'd get in though.'

‘Oh – I have my contacts,' Steve said with a smile. ‘Good heavens, is that the time – we must be off.'

Catching sight of Gary Humwistle, I quickly agreed with him.

Over lunch, Julie remarked that the “motorbike” family had been round at the house next door this morning yet again.

Am regretting my decision to make an appointment with the dentist as my tooth has given me no bother for the last week. Inclined to cancel it but Julie managed to dissuade me, saying, ‘Better safe than sorry.' Suggested making an appointment for her when I go tomorrow as she seems so keen. Noticed that her enthusiasm seemed to decline with this idea.

The day passed with me in a state of nerves and I had forgotten which tooth it was that had been aching. Brimcup certainly did not help matters by saying, ‘My aunt went to the dentist and he took out the wrong tooth by mistake so she had to go back and have the other one out as well.' And P.H. gave a sickening description of a root filling he had had done last month. ‘I'm only just getting over it now,' he added.

By the time I climbed the stairs to the first floor waiting room, I was in a bad way. The brass plate on the door read:

I had been assigned to V. Hutter. I had supposed the two Hutters to be brothers, or father and son, but I was mistaken. They were husband and wife and V. Hutter was the wife. This did nothing to allay my fears as I chattered to the receptionist. In fact, they increased.

The waiting room, although glossy and modern, seemed to be full of dental magazines and enlarged and horrific photos on the wall showing how you would look if you didn't go to your dentist for regular check-ups.

A small child came down the stairs howling loudly and, by the time my name was called over the intercom, I was ready to run in the opposite direction.

Mrs Hutter turned out to be small, neat and efficient and much younger than I had imagined, which did nothing to bolster my confidence.

I sat on the chair and, at the press of a button, my legs flew into the air and my head sank towards the ground. A white-coated assistant rammed a pair of tinted goggles over my eyes and the taped music was turned up. Felt as if I was about to go into orbit.

The offending tooth was soon spotted and probed, as were two or three others, and I had to make two more appointments as I was leaving. ‘And I'd better make one for my wife as well,' I told the receptionist, through swollen lips.

On leaving the dentist's, I spotted Keith Goodchap's wife, Suzette, who waved and started to cross the road towards me. This was a very tricky situation as my mouth was completely frozen and I could only manage a tortured ‘hello', my mouth turning sideways with a will of its own. Rather than make a complete fool of myself, I hurried into a nearby side street and then had a dreadful job finding my car. Was a bit worried, on reflection, in case Suzette thought I was being rude.

New timber trade publication called Chips arrived at the office this morning. It will appear monthly. P.H. called Brimcup and self into his office.

‘This is a complimentary copy of Chips and the editor has enclosed a typed letter with it asking for contributions from members of the trade. I thought it would be a good idea if we submitted something from I.C.T. to show a willing, as it were. How about it Brimcup?'

‘Will do,' he said

‘And you?'

‘Good idea,' I replied

‘I, of course, will also write an article,' said P.H. ‘I thought I'd do one on “The Why and Wherefore of Timber with Relation to it's Sources in the Northern Hemisphere”.'

Brimcup and I chatted about this project over lunch.

‘Old P.H.'s article sounds very profound, not to say dull,' he said. ‘I thought of doing a snappy little number on “Quick Selling Techniques” myself. How about you?'

‘Oh – I shall do a crossword,' I said and was quite amazed to hear the words coming out of my mouth as it was the first time I'd thought of the idea.

‘That sounds very intellectual. How do you propose to introduce the timber theme into it?' he said.

‘I shall build the whole thing around wood. All the clues will be various types of wood – oak, ash, etc. – with the odd difficult word like veneer and chipboard,' I said, warming to the idea. I could sense Brimcup was quite impressed as he chewed on his battered cod.

The crossword idea seems to be working out fairly well. Trev and I had another session on it tonight, with the aid of the dictionary. Julie was not much help and kept making fatuous remarks. When I asked her if she could think of a wood beginning with the letter B, she said straight away, ‘Barton Wood, where Trev goes with the Cubs.' She was quite cross when I said, ‘Don't be so silly.'

There is a lot more hard work in devising a crossword puzzle than one would think and it is going to take me at least a week to get this finished.

Brimcup says his article is going very well. ‘It'll only take me twenty minutes this evening to polish it up a bit and that will be that,' he said.

P.H. is on his fourteenth page. I'm still trying to think of a wood beginning with the letter B with seven letters in it; this is holding me up at the moment.

The Downes' are back from their London trip. Kevin came round to borrow some of Trev's modelling paints so I asked him, ‘Did your mum and dad enjoy their stay in London?'

‘Yes,' said Kev. ‘Except for a terrible boring play they went to see on Thursday called Yellow Pages or something. It was about a Chinese Statesman and went on for nearly four hours.'

Hardly liked to appear at the Downes' house after the failure of my recommended play but felt that it was about time I asked Steve for more details of the gourmet evening to be held this month. It was alright as it turned out. Steve made no mention of the play.

‘Have you been given the date of your gourmet dinner yet? Just so that I know – don't want it to clash with another engagement, do I?'I asked.

‘Haven't I given you the formal invitation card? Keith Goodchap has a cousin in printing who does these things rather nicely,' Steve said.

‘No, I certainly haven't had the card,' I said, feeling a little annoyed.

‘Oh well, it must be here somewhere.' He started poking about among several papers behind the clock. ‘Here it is.' It read:

The 12th – that is this coming Friday. It's lucky that I have no other arrangement for the night.

Was rather surprised at the expense of the evening and feel gratified at Steve's generosity in treating me to such an extravaganza. Or is he treating me? He did ask me to go as his guest but perhaps this was before he'd seen the price on the ticket. I wondered what to do about this situation. Placed the card on the mantelpiece, where it looks very good.

A brilliant idea occurred to me this afternoon while driving to another appointment with Vic Rednap: BEECH – for my crossword. If I made it BEECHES, it should fit. The problem now was – what clue could lead to the word Beeches?

Was having a political discussion with Mr Rednap when the solution suddenly came to me. ‘Burnham,' I said it out loud.

‘Well, we're not living in medieval days, but you could have something there, laddie. There are times, I must admit, when I feel like burning the lot of them,' he said.

I wondered what on earth he was talking about for a minute then realised that he had thought I had said ‘Burn ‘em'. He obviously seemed pleased by my little remark so I did nothing to disillusion him, and his manner seemed to become more friendly by the minute. I broached the subject of their possible expansion if they merged with the Swedish laboratory cleanser firm. ‘Yes, yes, I think we'll have to expand if the merger goes through – a great opportunity business-wise. How's that young fellow Bob Avery getting on?' I recounted the tale of the wet car and he chuckled.

A promising visit – nothing concrete, as it were, but a good relationship being built up. Before I left, he said, ‘By the way, you can call me Vic.'

I started to work on my crossword after supper. There was quite a lot of research to do on Burnham Beeches – a beauty spot, I knew, but in which county? Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire or Buckinghmanshire?

‘I'm sure it's Oxfordshire,' Julie said. We tracked it down eventually – Buckinghamshire, as I had thought all along.