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  ‘Slow down, Fred,’ he said, lowering his cleaning rag. ‘You’ll do yourself an injury!’

  Wilson stopped in his tracks and then sat down on the old settee in deep thought about the past robbery. ‘Will obviously managed to get the safe open. He’s deaf so he didn’t hear the alarm which meant that he got trapped when the cops arrived. The problem is whether he told them who we are. The question is, did he keep his mouth shut or did he talk?’

  ‘I remember a war film about an airman who was captured by the enemy,’ cut in Sam quickly, ‘They tortured him for the information but he held out for a very long time... enough for the allied aircraft to bomb the place. I don’t know about Will though.’

  ‘You idiot!’ snapped Brad tiredly. ‘We’re talking about a real-life situation and you’re wittering on about a war film. Will’s been arrested by the cops. There’s no allied aircraft coming to bomb the place!’

  ‘I was only doing a comparison,’ retorted Sam irately. ‘Truth is stranger than fiction so don’t go on about it!’

  ‘I wonder what’s happening to Will,’ uttered Ginger, feeling remorse for the man.

  ‘They’ll haul him down to the police station and grill him to find out all our names,’ returned Sam glumly.

  ‘That’s what worries me,’ exclaimed Wilson sadly. You see, Marley’s desperate to get his hands on me. We have a long history from way back and he’s got a memory like an elephant. He put me in jail a few times.’

  ‘Maybe Will won’t talk,’ suggested Sam, although he truly believed otherwise. ‘It’s a pity he’s not dumb instead of deaf.’

  ‘That’s the most sensible thing I’ve ever heard you say,’ intervened Brad rudely.

  ‘Gee, thanks, Brad!’ returned Sam as though he had been complimented for his sagacity.

  ‘In the end, you know what’ll happen. He’ll start to blab and they’ll come looking for us,’ bleated Wilson weakly.

  ‘Then maybe we should move somewhere else so that they don’t catch us,’ forwarded Ginger, in an attempt to resolve the situation.

  ‘Where?’ cut in Wilson. ‘Where could we go? This is the only place available to us. We’re all in digs where we owe rent.’

  ‘I’ve got an uncle in Newcastle,’ ventured Ginger.

  His comment angered Brad who was coming to the end of his tether. He was the last member to join the gang and he was totally dissatisfied with the results so far. It had been his intention to leave burglary behind and upgrade his situation as a bank robber but it seemed that there were nothing but problems, especially with the gang formed by Fred Wilson. He reflected that he had been quite satisfied at burgling houses and stealing money from people in a number of different ways. The change to robbing banks had led him down the garden path which was proving to be exceedingly unprofitable. ‘You twerp!’ he shouted irately. ‘What use is that? We’re in London. Newcastle’s hundreds of miles away!’

  ‘We could go by train,’ responded Ginger naively as if that was the solution.

  Wilson took off his cap and started to swipe Ginger around the head with it in annoyance. ‘In times like these,’ he went on, replacing his cap on his head, ‘it’s always darkest before the dawn.’

  ‘I saw a film where they said that,’ cut in Sam swiftly. ‘There was this couple where the man...’

  ‘Do shut up!’ snarled Brad angrily.

  Wilson ignored the squabble and scratched the stubble on his chin. ‘We’ll just have to wait and see what happens,’ he told them bleakly.

  ‘Poor old Will,’ uttered Ginger unhappily. ‘I bet he’s still in that bank with all the money.

  Wilson and Brad looked at him ruefully realising that he might be right but they knew in their hearts that it was not the case at all. After all this time, it was highly probably that their colleague had been arrested and was helping the police with their enquiries, and that was exactly the case!

  ***

  A taxi pulled up outside Waverley’s house early one morning and a middle-aged woman alighted. She walked up the path and pressed the front door bell tapping her foot impatiently as she waited for a reply. She pressed it for a second time and Waverley opened the door. He stared at her for a few moments as his mind went into gear.

  Judith Waverley was a very independent woman who often showed her abrasive nature especially as she never suffered fools. She was the grand-daughter of a strict Victorian village vicar and it was clear that many of his prudish ways had been passed genetically down to her. She had few friends and their number tended to diminish as the years went by mainly because of her sharp, caustic and incisive attitude towards them. They had designated her with the nickname as ‘the woman who tells it as it is’, which, while being very austere, was exactly the way she handled personal situations. When asked a question, she would state her mind with regard to the truth, exposing the exact facts, which often proved fatal in terms of relationships doing maximum damage. For example, when having tea with a friend one day, the woman turned to her and said: ‘My husband’s late home today. I wonder where he is?’ Mrs. Waverley’s reply stunned her to the core.

  ‘He’s at 15, Wilmington Street, in bed with that tart who works for one of the major food stores,’ came the response.

  The friend immediately left the house for the designated address and stormed into the bedroom after the front door was opened to find her husband in the nude in the woman’s bed. Not surprisingly, a divorce followed a short time afterwards. This might have been avoided had the friend learned about the affair in the normal way. In that way there would have been every chance that she might have forgiven her husband for one indiscretion. However, seeing him naked in the woman’s bed finished off the marriage in an instant. On another occasion, the police questioned Mrs. Waverley about a series of shop-lifting offences which had been reported to them. She told them, without hesitation, that it was the son of a friend who had perpetrated the offences because she could never tell a lie and that swiftly ended another friendship with his mother. However the crowning point of her incisiveness came about when Elizabeth came into her son’s life. Even from the start, she had always disliked her future daughter-on-law for they were like chalk and cheese whenever they came into contact with each other. Elizabeth had devised a cock-and-bull story about being thrown out of her parents house and, Judith’s son, being soft and in love with the woman, had taken her into his home. Mrs. Waverley scoffed when she heard the story, disbelieving it entirely, and she was invited for dinner a few days before her son asked Elizabeth to marry him. On the following morning, Elizabeth asked Waverley where he had put the silver tray on which they had served tea and they searched everywhere until Elizabeth realised that his mother had to have taken it with her when she left. She asked Waverley to contact his mother and to ask her diplomatically whether she had seen it.

  ‘Yes,’ admitted his mother when he put the question to her. ‘I wanted to know whether you were sleeping together before you got married to each other so I put the tray inside the pillow in Elizabeth’s bed in the guest room. Clearly it’s now quite obvious that she was sleeping in bed with you because she didn’t find it.’

  There was little more that he could say but it showed how difficult it was to be the son of a woman with such firm views and an incisive attitude whereby ‘she always told it as it was.’ Now she had visited him without an invitation and he stared at her in astonishment.

  ‘Mother!‘ he said slowly. ‘What are you doing here?’

  She pushed past him walking directly into the lounge. ‘I’ve come to see how my son’s getting on,’ she replied with an element of suspicion in her voice. ‘Is anyone else here?’

  ‘Why don’t you come in and see for yourself?’ he muttered sarcastically to himself. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

  He went into the kitchen only to hear the footsteps of his mother on the stairs. It was quit
e clear to him that she was snooping to see whether anyone else was in the house.

  ‘You’re very suspicious,’ he called out at the top of his voice. ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘I’ve every right to be suspicious,’ responded his mother as she reached the landing at the top of the stairs. ‘I know you, Neil. If that tramp argued with her lover and asked to come back to you, you’d give in right away, You’re too soft-hearted, that’s your trouble.’

  ‘You’ve got it all wrong, mother,’ he returned, filling up the kettle with water from the tap and placing it on the gas ring. ‘I wouldn’t take her back if she went on her knees and begged me. Not that it’s likely to happen. She’s gone to New York to live with her lover. I doubt if I’ll ever see her again.’

  ‘Don’t bank on it,’ came the prophecy. ‘Take a mother’s advice. Be prepared. You told me that she went off with a married man who has children. If she thinks it‘s a permanent arrangement then she‘s a bigger fool than I took her for. He’s just having his way with her. Give it a few weeks and the rot will start to set in. It’ll be a fast honeymoon experience for her before the roof caves in. I’ve seen it all before.’

  ‘But she’s gone to New York to live,’ persisted Waverley as though it made a difference.

  His mother looked into the bedrooms to check that the woman wasn’t there and then came downstairs feeling satisfied. ‘How long do you think she’ll stay in New York?’ she asked, although the answer was rhetoric. ‘After he’s dumped her to go back to his wife and children, she’ll be penniless and then come back pleading that she made a terrible mistake, throwing herself on your mercy.’

  ‘It’s never going to happen, mother.’ he insisted. ‘You’re not listening to me.’

  ‘No!’ she interjected. ‘You’re not listening to me! She’ll be back. She’ll have no money... nowhere to live. There’s nowhere else for her to go. You mark my words!’

  He waited until the kettle boiled and then poured out two cups of tea before sitting down to face her.

  ‘Let’s not talk about Elizabeth,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘She’s gone and will soon be forgotten.’

  His mother shook her head sagely. ‘I hope you’re right but I have a woman’s intuition that she’ll be back... sooner than you think. Anyway... the good news is that she’s left. I’m sorry to have to say this but I’m delighted. She was never any good in my eyes and definitely not good enough for you.’,’

  ‘Don’t gloat, mother!’ he chided gently. ‘You made your views known about her... as you always do.’

  ‘And rightly so,’ defended his mother frankly. ‘You could never see it but it was obvious to me. She was selfish... very selfish. I’m sorry to have to say this but I doubt whether she ever loved you at all. Inevitably, in time, the cracks began to show and she threw herself at someone else. What are you going to do?’

  ‘What can I do?’

  ‘I presume you’re going to divorce her.’

  He paused to reflect for a moment. ‘Of course,’ he said woodenly. ‘but... there is one other thing. I’m going to sell the house. It holds too many memories.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re thinking positively,’ came the comment. ‘Get her out of your system entirely. You’ll surface in due course. Time’s a great healer. You’ll find someone else who’s really worthy of you.’

  ‘Well I’m not in the market for a relationship at the present time. That’s for sure,’ he told her candidly.

  At that moment, his mind flashed back to the time in the rehearsal room when he had kissed Paula for such a long period of time that the Director was forced to tear them apart. He was unable to explain the situation to his mother because she would never understand. No doubt she would tell him that he was on the rebound and advise him to end any kind of association with Paula... for his own good. Despite his reticence with regard to a relationship, it was something he preferred not to consider for some time. Within a short while, he stared directly at his mother’s face as he came back to reality and sipped his tea.

  ‘Time will tell, mother,’ he uttered dolefully. ‘No one knows what Fate has in store.’

  ‘It beats me how you couldn’t see through her,’ continued his mother, reluctant to let her views pass inanely.

  ‘All that’s in the past now. I need to move on and I think it’s best that you do the same.’ he advised her.

  She stared at him directly before responding. ‘You seem to be doing pretty well, I must say. I thought you’d be a complete mess but you’ve surprised me. A break-up is a tremendously emotional thing to happen to anyone. And, forgive my French, but it was all on the side of that bitch. She was having an affair with someone else and then left without warning simply giving you notice of her intentions without any thought for you.’ She paused for a few seconds before continuing. By the way, where were you last week? I couldn’t get hold of you.’

  ‘I took a week’s holiday in Spain,’ he admitted, regretting that he hadn’t left a message to advise her of his plans.

  ‘So that’s why you didn’t answer your telephone. I suppose it was a wise thing to do... resting on a beach on your own to clear you mind.’

  ‘I wasn’t on my own,’ he revealed almost biting his tongue for revealing what had happened.

  ‘Really?’ she uttered in surprise. ‘Who did you go with?’

  ‘Someone from the amateur dramatic society,’ he went on, determined to hide the truth from his mother although it was obviously going to come out into the open.

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ came the next question. ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘It wasn’t a him... it was a her.’ The cat was among the pigeons. Now that she knew of his association with another woman he assumed that she would come swiftly to the wrong conclusion.

  She paused for a few moments. ‘I see,’ she said eventually. ‘I hope you’re not going to get involved in another messy relationship.’

  ‘No, mother!’ he protested fiercely. ‘We have a platonic relationship. Nothing more.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ she countered, raising her voice to a higher level. ‘I can’t believe that a man and a woman can go on a week’s holiday abroad and have only a platonic relationship.’

  ‘They can if they have separate rooms and that’s exactly how it was!‘ he stated bluntly.

  The postman arrived at this point and dropped a letter through the letter-box which landed on the mat behind the front door. Waverley left the kitchen to pick it up and open the envelope to examine the contents

  ‘Well,‘ he muttered almost to himself. ‘Here’s something new. Liz’s solicitor has served me with divorce papers. What do you thing of that?’

  ‘I thought you indicated that you were going to divorce her,‘ came the quick response. ‘On what grounds is she doing it? I presume she’s asking for money and the proceeds of half this property.’

  ‘No... she’s not,’ explained Waverley flatly. ‘She believes the man’s she’s with is going to leave his wife and she wants to marry him as soon as the divorce comes through.’

  ‘And pigs might fly!‘ came the response ‘What are you going to do about it?’

  ‘I’m going to sign the papers and post them back later. The quicker it’s done, the better!’

  His mother nodded her approval. ‘She’s really deluded if she thinks that divorcing you will help her to rush things through so that she can marry this other person. He’ll need to get a divorce too but I doubt whether he‘ll ever marry her,’

  ‘Who cares?’ he uttered glumly. ‘As soon as the divorce is on its way and the house is sold, I’ll be rid of her for good... except for the memories. They’ll take a little longer to forget.’

  ‘That’s going to be the hardest thing to do but you will forget,’ she told him sagely. ‘I still don’t think you’ve seen the last of her
.’

  He shrugged his shoulders aimlessly. ‘I have other fish to fry,’ he uttered solemnly.

  ‘Excuse me for a moment,’ said his mother standing up. ‘I must go upstairs.’

  She left the room and went directly to her son’s bedroom, opening the wardrobe doors as well as the drawers in the dressing table. She came down a few minutes later and picked up her teacup to drink the liquid.

  ‘I see she’s taken everything with her,’ she stated with an element of glee in her voice. ‘Just as well. You don’t need to have anything to remind you of her.’

  Waverley thought about the jewellery he had left in the hotel safe in Spain and smiled inwardly, He regretted not taking Paula’s advice to throw it as far as he could into the sea but he considered that his reasoning was correct for the tide sometimes went out a short distance from the shore and someone might have picked it up to bring it back into circulation. There were too many coincidences which created problems in life. It was best left in the hotel safe for eternity. Certainly he never wished to see it again.

  ‘Yes,’ he uttered in a low tone. ‘She took everything that belonged to her.

  ‘Forgive me for my language,‘ cursed his mother sharply, ‘but I hope her soul rots in hell.’

  ‘Mother!’ he reproached with surprise showing on his face for he had never known her to make such a malicious remark before. ‘She’s made her bed, Let her lie in it!’

  Judith Waverley stared at him solemnly, ‘Well you know what they say,’ she muttered quietly. ‘What goes around, comes around. I know I’m your mother and particularly biased in your favour but all I can say is that you’re a real catch. She’s so blind she’ll regret passing you up. She will... I’m telling you! However, there’s one blessing that’s come out from all this.’

  Her son stared at her bleakly. ‘What’s that?’ he enquired racking his brains to find the answer.

  ‘There was no child born of the marriage. If there had been, the outcome would be very messy and it would have brought lots of heartache and problems.’.