‘Keep your fingers on the keyboard, keep your eye on the screen, and keep your disapproval till it counts,’ sang Jelly Lamb to herself, to the tune of ‘Seven little girls a-sitting in the back seat, a-kissing and a-hugging with Fred’, dabbing her Ram-roughened cheek with a damp tissue. This morning there was a scrawled letter from Congo Warby in the post, the decrepit but valiant husband of Tully Toffener’s even more decrepit, even more valiant grandmother-in-law Wendy, once Lady Musgrave, now Mrs Warby.
Jelly opened the letter which was marked ‘Personal and Private’.
Dear Moss, it read, in a quavery hand.
My wife and I are puzzled by your letter. We have no intention of going into a home, certainly while I have life and limb left to fight the ghosts. I am sorry to hear of Mr and Mrs Toffener’s difficulties in finding suitable accommodation. As he is, I believe, a Minister of the Crown, albeit a junior one, couldn’t the Crown provide? As he is well aware, Wendy and I are Republicans. We don’t see that Lodestar House would be a suitable residence for the Toffeners, if that’s what they’re after. Sara always told Wendy that she hated the place, and you have to have a clear mind and a good heart to fight the ghosts, and Tully has neither, as the poor people of this country know to their cost. From the look of him on TV, the fact that Lodestar Avenue is within walking distance of Westminster would not be helpful to him – two yards at a brisk walking pace would kill him. Does he think we’re senile? Sara was always a greedy, heartless little bitch, worse even than her mother – it seems she’s married a man just like herself. Please stop bothering us; we are old now and need some peace.
Jelly copied the letter for the file she would later take home to The Claremont for deeper perusal, and put the original in the ‘Today’s Post’ folder for Mr Moss.
‘I’m tempted just to pass Warby’s letter to Tully,’ said Brian Moss as Jelly sat poised with her shorthand pad. ‘Not bother to construe tactfully.’ Most middle management these days, including solicitors, compose their letters and memos directly on to the word processor and have them checked over by others for compromising statements, but Catterwall & Moss still preferred to work in the old way. ‘Then Toffener would have apoplexy and we’d be free of him.’
Dear Tully, continued Brian Moss,
We’ve received a letter from Mr Warby. He and Mrs Warby are apparently reluctant to vacate the premises. Mr Warby is seeing ghosts, and is demonstrably not of sound mind. Under the 1983 Mental Health Act he would need to display this mental unsoundness in a public place. He could then be taken by police or social workers to a place of safety; and thereafter, should Mr Warby be certified in that place by a doctor as being what we call incapable, a Document of Protection could be activated. Mr Warby’s nearest and dearest would then take control of the old man’s property, and for his own safety place him in a residential home. Perhaps he could be persuaded to pursue his so-called ‘ghosts’ out into the street?
In the sad event of Wendy Warby’s death, Lodestar House would then not pass to Mr Warby but to your wife Sara. Mr Warby could argue his entitlement as ‘a family member’ but not if already declared incompetent. The provenance of the property is complicated, as you realise. There are two years of the original tenancy agreement to run, and under new legislation the long-term tenants have the right to sell the freehold at will. Mr and Mrs Warby show no interest in selling, though this unusual, prime property would fetch in the region of one-and-a-quarter million.
My best regards to your wife.
Brian Moss.
Jelly White put the letter to Tully Toffener, which seemed to her to amount to incitement to murder and false imprisonment, into the computer, printed it out, had the printout checked through by Brian Moss and signed by him; then, in his presence, she slipped the letter into a stamped, addressed envelope and sealed it. And then left it to Angelica to go down into the powder room and tear envelope and letter into little pieces and flush them down the lavatory pan. It took three flushes before all the shreds were gone. Angelica did not see why Tully Toffener should be given information it was better he did not have. Atmospheres come off letters. She liked Congo Warby: his scratchy, impetuous letters, his spidery but definite handwriting. The Toffener file exuded something sour and seedy. Angelica was happy to take a risk on Congo’s behalf: she did not have the scruples Jelly did.
Sometimes Jelly felt she was the only moral person left in the world. ‘I don’t know what came over me,’ she could always say, if challenged.