33
I’d Like to Talk to You About a Sensible Investment Plan

On the return journey I tried to have a sensible discussion about finances, which I saw as part of my responsibility as Pip’s tutor.

I talked at some length about budgeting and making wise investments for the future. I may even have raised the issues of Inheritance Tax and various fiscal obligations. But the young lovers on the seat beside me were not giving these issues the attention they deserved.

We had counted the bundle of notes by the riverside and, to my amazement, found a little over $28,000. In 1963, that would have comfortably bought a fine house and left enough to cover a college education besides. By any standards it was an awful lot of dollars for a young fellow who had walked out of an orphanage with nothing in his pockets but holes!

You can understand why I was a little anxious about driving around with a cookie jar stuffed with banknotes. Pip was more than a little discombobulated, and I had visions of him pulling open the lid and all those banknotes fluttering and flapping about on the highway. Then there was the possibility of getting stopped by the law and having to explain why I was travelling with two ‘aliens’ plus the kind of cash you’d expect from a mid-range bank heist.

In the end I had stuffed the jar deep into my suitcase and pushed it as far as I could into the boot of the Spider.

I couldn’t get Pip interested in the topic of pension schemes either, but the one thing he comprehended well enough was that someone like Erwin could rob him of his money, in the same way as his father’s store and the schoolhouse had been taken from him after his parents died. I managed to convince him that he shouldn’t tell a soul about his good fortune – not even Lilybelle or Zachery.

‘Pip, this money can change your life or it can wreck your life,’ I told him gravely. ‘That’s your future in that cookie jar! Your parents left it for you. They loved you very much and they would want you to be wise, now, wouldn’t they? Tell me, Pip, what would they want you to do with the money?’

‘Get an education,’ he said sheepishly.

‘Exactly right.’

‘An’ a house with a swimmin’ pool . . . an’ a car like this one . . . an’ a sharp suit like Smokey Robinson . . . an’ a pair of Ray-Bans . . . an’ a stereo player . . .’

‘Now, wait . . . wait! This money could run through your fingers like sand; and think how hard your parents worked to save it. Listen, Pip, the best thing you could do is to put the money somewhere very safe, then invest some of it so it grows . . . like a little pip or a seed – you understand that, don’t you?’

‘I want you to hold it, Jack. I don’t trust no one else.’

‘I’m flattered that you trust me, Pip. I’ll hold onto the cookie jar until you decide where to keep it, but . . . well, I won’t be around for ever. The money is yours and you must take your future in your own hands.’

For a moment Pip looked terribly vulnerable. ‘I don’t ever want you to go, Jack,’ he said. I’d told him nothing about my troubles at the university or my thoughts of returning home.

‘Ah, now, don’t look so sad!’ I replied. ‘What has happened is more than wonderful! You realize you’ll be able to leave Dead River and go to school or college? Soon you’ll be able to rent your own room and—’

I heard a peculiar noise and realized that Hannah was sobbing again. We had reached the outskirts of a scruffy town with old men playing chess outside cafés, groups of laughing Latinos and street kids leaning against cars. I pulled over to the pavement.

‘Hannah, what is it?’ asked Pip gently.

We had stopped outside a music store with shining instruments in the window and the deep bass notes of Blues and Soul drifting from the doorway.

In a fragile voice, Hannah said, ‘Jack’s gonna go. Pip’s gonna go. I ain’t got nothing – not a mama or a daddy . . . I ain’t even got a birthday! I reckon Hannah’s gonna die at Dead River Farm.’

Pip was kissing the tears from her face. ‘Hannah, I swear to you – everything I got belongs to you too. I ain’t going nowhere without you. You’re my girl, Hannah, and always will be. You hear me, Hannah? You hear me?’

But she would not be comforted. At last Pip said, ‘Listen, I got an idea . . .’

He asked if I would wait a while as he had a surprise for Hannah. I told him I gladly would, but I was less keen when he opened the boot and pulled out a bundle of banknotes, which he stuffed into his pocket, his head bobbing about like a turkey to make sure no one was watching. Pip had no understanding of money and I was worried about what he had in mind; on the other hand, the cash belonged to him – there was no arguing with that.

I waited in the car on the busy pavement, listening to the rolling rhythms from the music store. Someone was playing that record again – that eerie, haunting song called ‘Strange Fruit’, which I’d heard Hannah singing so beautifully on that moonlit night. Then I must have drifted off, because it was a long time before I heard their voices again . . .

Hannah wasn’t crying any more. In fact she was laughing with delight, and when I looked up I barely recognized the handsome young adults with their arms around each other’s waists. Pip had bought himself a new shirt and jeans and a red fedora hat with a little feather in the band, and to my amazement he’d bought an identical one for me. I couldn’t believe how grown up he seemed now that he had money in his pocket. But it was Hannah who surprised me most – I had never seen her in anything but an old T-shirt, but now she stood in front of the car in a beautiful yellow dress with a wildflower pattern, a pair of stylish leather boots on her feet, and she was holding something large and heavy in one hand.

I was still half asleep, but Pip was saying, ‘See, Jack, I told Hannah she was lucky she didn’t have a birthday – cos that means she can choose any day she wants! So I said, why not today? 30th August, ain’t it? That’s a good day for a birthday! And if it’s Hannah’s birthday, why, she has to have presents, don’t she, Jack? That’s what you told me . . .’

Then I realized what the young woman in the wildflower dress was holding: it was not a bag, it was not a suitcase. Hannah was holding a guitar case, with a brand-new guitar inside.