child is arriving today!’ Mum’s voice was panic-striken. ‘Ten o’clock at Heathrow Airport! What are we going to do?’
‘Stupid Twits!’ said Dad. ‘You mean they sent the kiddy off without waiting for a reply?’
‘Eileen says “If everything’s all right, don’t bother to reply”.’
‘I always knew she was a daft ha’p’worth!’
‘That’s neither here nor there,’ said Mum. ‘It’s the child we’ve got to think about. How long will it take to get to Heathrow?’
‘At least an hour unless we get a taxi,’ I chipped in.
‘A taxi?’ I might have asked Dad to fill a petrol drum with his own blood. He turned to Sid. ‘What about your van?’
‘What about my van!!?’ Now Sid started to shout. ‘It was a write-off, wasn’t it?’
‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘Did the insurance pay up?’
Sid looked uncomfortable. ‘Yes, well – er in a manner of speaking, yes. They made a ridiculous offer that I was eventually compelled to accept. Muggins lost out as usual.’ Sid stood up. ‘Right, that’s it. I’ve said what I wanted to say. I will now leave you to grapple with this latest self-inflicted disaster. No doubt we will see each other at Christmas. I don’t know which one but—’
‘What have you done with the insurance money, Sid?’ I asked softly. ‘I mean, I was contributing to the down payments on that van, wasn’t I? It was one of the fringe benefits I was getting instead of a salary.’
At this point Sid began to look uncomfortable and Mum turned her beady eye on him. ‘That old car outside the front door. Who does that belong to?’
‘That is my car,’ said Sid, with a firmness that was almost vicious. ‘Paid for with my money. Taxed and insured with my money – or it will be when I can get around to it.’
‘Where’s my money then?’ I said.
Mum held up a restraining hand. ‘You can talk about that later. Right now I think the least you can do is go and meet little Harper. We can’t have him wandering round London Airport by himself.’
Sid’s face screwed up like an old sock. ‘Lumbered to the bitter end,’ he groaned. ‘I should have known better than to come round here. Right—!’ He banged his fist down on the table and the marmalade spoon performed a couple of somersaults and landed up in his breast pocket. I refrained from applauding. ‘Let it be known that this is the last service that I will perform for you lot. Once I have delivered the infant Harper into your clutches I will be leaving this house for ever. The fluff from your sitting-room carpet will never fill my turn-ups again.’ So saying, he stood up smartly pausing only to crack his knee on the underside of the table.
He was still worked up as we sped down the M4 in what I read on the bonnet to be an Armstrong Siddeley. The name was familiar to me. Like Boadicea or the Ancient Bede. ‘Make no mistake,’ he said. ‘I meant what I said back there. This is the parting of the ways.’
‘I’m sorry, Sid,’ I blurted. ‘I’m sorry for everything. Are you really serious?’ I don’t know why I was going on like this because I had often thought I needed my brain examined to keep tagging along with Sid’s disastrous schemes. However, when it came to the crunch, there I was, grovelling with the best of them.
‘I’ve never been more serious in my life,’ said Sid. An edgy hand snaked into the glove compartment and emerged with a fag which he shoved between his lips. Eager to show willing, I snatched out the cigarette lighter and then found that it was one of the knobs on the walnut fascia. I quickly tossed it aside before Sid could say anything and got hold of the right article. With exquisite care I applied it to the end of Sid’s fag and waited for the maestro to do the necessary. There was a squeal of brakes in front of us and Sid stepped on the anchors. When I looked back at the ciggy it was concertinaed against the noble lips with the lighter nearly inside Sid’s cakehole. His mince pies were peering down towards it like they might tilt out of his nut. I waited a few seconds and then realized that Sid had lost interest in this particular cigarette. ‘You might as well throw it away,’ he said slowly and bitterly. I don’t know what came over me then. I knew he meant the cigarette but it was the lighter that I chucked out of the window. I emitted a nervous shriek when I realized what I had done and promptly pressed the remains of the fag into the hole where the lighter lived. Sid looked at me suspiciously but did not notice what had happened.
We whipped round a roundabout and entered the long tunnel that leads to the airport. ‘Terminal Three,’ I said helpfully.
‘I know, I know,’ snapped Sid. ‘I’ve got to park, haven’t I? Keep your feet on the mats. This car represents all I have left in the world. I want to keep it nice.’ A thought occurred to him and his brow started to unroll over his eyes like a shop blind. ‘If that horrible little kid starts smearing bubble gum all over the upholstery he’ll get to Clapham as a jigsaw puzzle.’
I did not say anything because I knew that there was no point in talking to Sid when he was in one of his moods. You just had to wait for him to become himself again – not that that was worth hanging around for if there was anything good on the telly.
We went through the traffic lights, past the filling station and up a ramp. The entrance to the car park was via a slip road on the left. Sid stopped at the white pole and a geezer wearing a Sikh’s turban stuck his head out of the kiosk and started addressing Sid in Hindustani. It took me a moment to understand what was happening and then I realized that he had mistaken Sid’s bandage for a turban. Laugh? I thought I’d never stop. Until I saw Sid looking at me. Then I stopped immediately. Sid is tragically slow to see a joke against himself.
We parked the car in silence and not a word was spoken until we reached the arrivals board. Sid looked up at the flashing lights and groaned. ‘The flight’s in. Typical. The day we arrive there has to be a tail wind across the Atlantic. Normally they’d be stacking over Shannon.’
I did not ask him what he was talking about but looked down the hall towards the ‘Arrivals’ gate. Standing with his back to us was a small figure wearing a stetson and high-heeled cowboy boots. Sid followed my eyes and his lip began to curl. ‘That must be him,’ he said. ‘Blimey, what a twit. The kids down Scraggs Lane aren’t half going to give him a going over. I reckon even Jason could handle him.’
Jason Noggett was my brother-in-law’s first-born and as about as handy with his fists as Dame Edith Summerskill. Sadistic, mean and untrustworthy – but no exponent of the noble art.
Sid loped off and I was about to follow him when I glanced through the glass wall into the baggage claim area. Imagine my surprise – go on, I dare you – when my peepers collided with a large carpet bag that had just been lifted off the conveyor belt. On its side in large italic letters was woven the word ‘Harper’. My eyes panned up from the bag and – wow! – what a favour they did themselves. A bird not unlike Farrah Fawcett Thingamybobs was shaking her blonde curls and gazing hopefully for sight of more baggage. I did no more than establish that she was about nineteen years old and definitely a looker of the first magnitude before turning back to grab Sid. Clearly there had been a misunderstanding or an amazing coincidence. ‘Sid—’ My voice struck him firmly between the ear holes but he did not stop. Before I could get close to him, he had sailed up to the American kid and grabbed it by the arm.
‘OK Hopalong Cassidy. Where’s your bag?’
