Collected Short Stories Read online

  My ears pricked up as I anticipated his version of the story of what had actually happened on the night of that pre-war backgammon championship over thirty years before.

  “Really?” I said, innocently.

  “Oh, yes,” said Edward. “It was not as simple as you might think. Just before the war Harry was let down very badly by his business partner, who not only stole his money, but for good measure his wife as well. The very week that he was at his lowest he won the club backgammon championship, put all his troubles behind him and, against the odds, made a brilliant comeback. You know, he’s worth a fortune today. Now, wouldn’t you agree that that would make one hell of a story?”

  À LA CARTE

  Arthur Hapgood was demobilized on November 3, 1946. Within a month he was back at his old workplace on the shop floor of the Triumph factory on the outskirts of Coventry.

  The five years spent in the Sherwood Foresters, four of them as a quartermaster seconded to a tank regiment, only underlined Arthur’s likely postwar fate, despite his having hoped to find more rewarding work once the war was over. However, on returning to England he quickly discovered that in a “land fit for heroes” jobs were not that easy to come by, and although he did not want to go back to the work he had done for five years before war had been declared, that of fitting wheels on cars, he reluctantly, after four weeks on welfare, went to see his former factory manager at Triumph.

  “The job’s yours if you want it, Arthur,” the factory manager assured him.

  “And the future?”

  “The car’s no longer a toy for the eccentric rich or even just a necessity for the businessman,” the factory manager replied. “In fact,” he continued, “management is preparing for the ‘two-car family.’”

  “So they’ll need even more wheels to be put on cars,” said Arthur forlornly.

  “That’s the ticket.”

  Arthur signed on within the hour, and it was only a matter of days before he was back into his old routine. After all, he often reminded his wife, it didn’t take a degree in engineering to screw four knobs on to a wheel a hundred times a shift.

  Arthur soon accepted the fact that he would have to settle for second best. However, second best was not what he planned for his son.

  Mark had celebrated his fifth birthday before his father had even set eyes on him, but from the moment Arthur returned home he lavished everything he could on the boy.

  Arthur was determined that Mark was not going to end up working on the shop floor of a car factory for the rest of his life. He put in hours of overtime to earn enough money to ensure that the boy could have extra tuition in math, general science, and English. He felt well rewarded when the boy passed his eleven-plus and won a place at King Henry VIII Grammar School, and that pride did not falter when Mark went on to pass five O-levels and two years later added two A-levels.

  Arthur tried not to show his disappointment when, on Mark’s eighteenth birthday, the boy informed him that he did not want to go to a university.

  “What kind of career are you hoping to take up then, lad?” Arthur enquired.

  “I’ve filled out an application form to join you on the shop floor just as soon as I leave school.”

  “But why would you—”

  “Why not? Most of my friends who’re leaving this term have already been accepted by Triumph, and they can’t wait to get started.”

  “You must be out of your mind.”

  “Come off it, Dad. The pay’s good, and you’ve shown that there’s always plenty of extra money to be picked up with overtime. And I don’t mind hard work.”

  “Do you think I spent all those years making sure you got a first-class education just to let you end up like me, putting wheels on cars for the rest of your life?” Arthur shouted.

  “That’s not the whole job, and you know it, Dead.”

  “You go there over my dead body,” said his father. “I don’t care what your friends end up doing, I only care about you. You could be a solicitor, an accountant, an army officer, even a schoolmaster. Why should you want to end up at a car factory?”

  “It’s better paid than teaching, for a start,” said Mark. “My French teacher once told me that he wasn’t as well off as you.”

  “That’s not the point, lad—”

  “The point is, Dad, I can’t be expected to spend the rest of my life doing a job I don’t enjoy just to satisfy one of your fantasies.”

  “Well, I’m not going to allow you to waste the rest of your life,” said Arthur, getting up from the breakfast table. “The first thing I’m going to do when I get in to work this morning is see that your application is turned down.”

  “That isn’t fair, Dad. I have the right to—”

  But his father had already left the room, and did not utter another word to the boy before leaving for the factory.

  For over a week father and son didn’t speak to each other. It was Mark’s mother who was left to come up with the compromise. Mark could apply for any job that met with his father’s approval, and as long as he completed a year at that job he could, if he still wanted to, reapply to work at the factory. His father for his part would not then put any obstacle in his son’s way.

  Arthur nodded. Mark also reluctantly agreed to the solution.

  “But only if you complete the full year,” Arthur warned solemnly.

  During those last days of the summer vacation Arthur came up with several suggestions for Mark to consider, but the boy showed no enthusiasm for any of them. Mark’s mother became quite anxious that her son would end up with no job at all until, while helping her slice potatoes for dinner one night, Mark confided that he thought hotel management seemed the least unattractive proposition he had considered so far.

  “At least you’d have a roof over your head and be regularly fed,” his mother said.

  “Bet they don’t cook as well as you, Mom,” said Mark as he placed the sliced potatoes on the top of the Lancashire hotpot. “Still, it’s only a year.”

  During the next month Mark attended several interviews at hotels around the country without success. It was then that his father discovered that his old company sergeant was head porter at the Savoy: Immediately Arthur started to pull a few strings.

  “If the boy’s any good,” Arthur’s old comrade-in-arms assured him over a pint, “he could end up as a head porter, even a hotel manager.” Arthur seemed well satisfied, even though Mark was still assuring his friends that he would be joining them in a year to the day.

  On September 1, 1959, Arthur and Mark Hapgood traveled together by bus to Coventry station. Arthur shook hands with the boy and promised him, “Your mother and I will make sure it’s a special Christmas this year when they give you your first leave. And don’t worry—you’ll be in good hands with ‘Sarge.’ He’ll teach you a thing or two. Just remember to keep your nose clean.”

  Mark said nothing and returned a thin smile as he boarded the train. “You’ll never regret it …” were the last words Mark heard his father say as the train pulled out of the station.

  Mark regretted it from the moment he set foot in the hotel.

  As a junior porter he started his day at six in the morning and ended at six in the evening. He was entitled to a fifteen-minute midmorning break, a forty-five-minute lunch break, and another fifteen-minute break around midafternoon. After the first month had passed he could not recall when he had been granted all three breaks on the same day, and he quickly learned that there was no one to whom he could protest. His duties consisted of carrying guests’ suitcases up to their rooms, then lugging them back down again the moment they wanted to leave. With an average of three hundred people staying in the hotel each night, the process was endless. The pay turned out to be half what his friends were getting back home, and, since he had to hand over all his tips to the head porter, however much overtime Mark put in, he never saw an extra penny. On the only occasion he dared to mention it to the head porter, he was met with the words, “Your time wi