Quite Honestly

A few weeks went by after that dinner (I never dreamed seaweed could come so expensive), when I didn’t see Lucy and I never rang her. I suppose I was a bit shocked when she told me she’d stolen something, like I was shocked when she told me to ‘fuck off’ all that time ago. Of course, you’ll say I stole things and said fuck off, which is true, but it just didn’t seem to me to be in Lucy’s character. She’d shocked me again, I suppose that’s what it was. For whatever reason, I never fenced that old green coin she gave me, but I kept it on the table by the side of my bed, to make sure she hadn’t really become part of our business.

Which was growing all the time. I mean our business was. Chippy had taken on more part-time workers, who did the smaller odd jobs for us, and a character known as ‘Screwtop Parkinson’, who, Chippy said, drove a getaway car so fast no one would ever catch it. It may be that this talent came from the fact that he was slightly mad, as his name indicated, but Chippy said he could rely on Screwtop to get us out of any nasty situation and not stop to argue about the questions on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

Chippy, as head of a successful organization, was quite cheerful and continued to let me stay at the maisonette. He also told me what he thought was a good joke about another organization.

Chippy gave me his one-sided smile. As I say, he was in a cheerful sort of a mood. ‘Do you not?’ he said. ‘I think I know a good deal about young cons, like you yourself, Terry. Anyway, the lady from SCRAP’s coming to call on me. She wants me to help in her drive for funding.’

That’ll include me, I thought. I couldn’t sit in the maisonette and tell some unknown woman that Chippy had persuaded me to choose the straight and narrow. I really couldn’t. And then Chippy further amazed me by saying, ‘Reckon if you do a job like that you get made a “sir” in the end. Play your cards right and you get knighted by the Queen.’

I don’t really know why but this chat with Chippy made me reluctant to ring Lucy. Although part of me wanted to, another part didn’t want to have to tell her that her precious organization was going to be taken over by Sir Leonard ‘Chippy’ McGrath, one of the master blaggers of our times. So although my hand went to the phone in the maisonette from time to time, I didn’t lift it up, as though it was something too hot to hold. But then, once again, everything changed.

It was a Sunday and I’d got up late. I was in my bedroom in the maisonette and I was wondering what I’d do that particular sunny morning, when I heard a furious hooting in the square below my window. I looked out and there she was, standing beside this clapped-out Polo, with her hand through the window beeping away on the horn.

‘I ought to go down and see my dad,’ she told me when I joined her in the square. ‘And I thought we might have another picnic on the way down. Dad would be thrilled to see you.’

‘Because you’re the one sinner that repented,’ she told me. ‘Of course we both know that you haven’t repented at all, but we needn’t tell Robert that. Hop in. We’ll go and buy the picnic.’

She seemed very cheerful and as though she didn’t expect any trouble from me. I had nothing much to look forward to except a long and boring Sunday with Sir Leonard in the maisonette. So I hopped in. We went round a Greek shop that was open in Queensway and bought kebabs and pitta bread, taramasalata and hummus and all that stuff including olives, all things Lucy knew about. Then we found an off-licence and got a bottle of Rioja like we’d had at our first picnic. Lucy said we were off to Folly Hill, where we went for the last picnic. ‘But this one’s going to be better than ever.’

So we got round the M25 and turned off down the M3 towards woods with spiky trees and sandy soil. Although I’d been driven by Lucy before, I hadn’t remembered that the experience was, well, I’ve got to admit, frightening. Lucy’s idea of driving was to put her foot down on dangerous corners, although she did slow down a bit when the road was clear. When the road wasn’t so clear she not only raced into corners but passed fast cars and lorries without any clear idea of what was going on ahead. I had to bite my tongue to stop myself saying, ‘Hang about! You’re not Screwtop Parkinson in the getaway car, let’s go a bit slower and admire the scenery.’ Of course, I didn’t say this. I didn’t want to spoil her day. All the same, I thought to myself, I’m the one who’s meant to live dangerously with Leonard and his gang of blaggers, and yet Lucy’s the one who’s taking all the risks on the M3.

So it was a bit of a relief when we turned off on to the country roads and we got to this spot looking out over woods and fields. She parked the Polo not far from a farm gate and she set off, with a rug, plates and glasses. She called out at me to bring the lunch and follow her. What was she like? For a moment I remembered the way the screws would tell you to come out and take exercise, but I didn’t mention that to Lucy. As I say, I didn’t want to spoil her day.

Lucy had laid out the rug not far from the road, where an occasional car or a van did pass by. Once again it was her day and I didn’t argue. I joined her and we sat down. I opened the Rioja and we took big swigs out of plastic cups and I agreed that the Arab stuff we bought tasted much better in the open air than marinated seaweed or whatever. The sun was shining and there was a bit of a breeze stirring the pointed trees and lifting Lucy’s hair occasionally. She was smiling and laughing, chewing and gulping wine and looking happier, I thought, than at any time since we met.

When we’d finished eating Lucy produced another plastic bag from somewhere, this time it had ‘Tesco’ or ‘Waitrose’ written on it, I can’t remember. It was heavy and clinked a bit as she handed it over to me with a big smile and she said, ‘It’s for you, Terry.’

I looked into it. Then I put the things out on the rug. I can’t remember it all now, but there was a silver cigarette case, a couple of snuff boxes which I knew, from working with Chippy’s experts, were quite valuable, an expensive Rolex watch, a gold pen and a pair of binoculars. It seemed to hurt her feelings when I laughed at this collection.

Well, all I can say is that it didn’t make me feel close to her. But she looked that much pleased with herself and proud of what she’d done, she seemed so bubbling over with it, that I just couldn’t bring myself to say it. Anyway I’d explained it to her before, thieving is for men. They may do it to help their wives and their girlfriends, I suppose, but they didn’t need their help when they were working. And then, just when I was wondering whether it was right to call her a girlfriend, even in my head, I suddenly found her mouth was on my mouth and her fingers were after the zip in my trousers.

I’m sorry if you’ve been waiting for it, but I’m not going to describe what went on then in any sort of detail. The bits in the books I used to read in the Scrubs about sex were never very convincing and often quite embarrassing. I’d gone without sex anyway over those three and a bit years and managed to avoid the buggers on my particular landing.

When I got out, I couldn’t break the habit of not doing it I’d got into in prison. I steered a bit clear of Diane, Leonard’s secretary, although she made definite signals she was available. Then I met Lucy and after a bit of a rough time at first, when she wanted to change me into someone else, we began to get on together and her face hung about in my mind. Although I suppose I could have picked up some of the brass that hung around in the Beau Brummell Club, I didn’t bother myself, and gradually it came over me that Lucy was the one I really fancied. I won’t say that I didn’t hope that something like this might happen when I got into the clapped-out Polo, but I wanted to make the suggestion and now there was obviously no need to do so.

So there we were together on the rug and occasionally I caught sight of the things she’d stolen, the gold pen and the binoculars, but I tried not to think about them. I heard a car stop and then go on again on the road above us, but after that, apart from the birds twittering in the pointed trees, everything was quiet.