“Oh.”
“Anyway…” Jude’s brown eyes twinkled as she waved her hand, wiggling Socrates, Spinoza, Descartes, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein in front of her neighbour’s face. “Do you think these’d be suitable?”
“Suitable for what?”
“As presents.”
“For whom?”
“For Stephen or Gaby?” Jude replied innocently, precisely aware of the response her words would attract.
She was not disappointed. “Don’t be ridiculous!”
“Well,” said Jude, full of mock-penitence, “you know them so much better than I do. I was just thinking something like this” – another wiggle of philosophers – “might appeal to their sense of humour.”
Carole wondered momentarily whether her son had a sense of humour. Gaby did, she felt sure, and Stephen had relaxed so much since their marriage that maybe by now he had developed one too. Maybe a sense of humour was contagious, like chicken pox.
“I think,” she said, “I’m going to do better sticking to the M and S shirts for Stephen.”
“Well, all right, but you still can’t give Gaby toilet water.”
Carole grudgingly conceded that there might be some truth in that. She looked around at the display of discounted knick-knacks with something approaching despair. “But I still haven’t a clue what would be right for her.”
“It’s always struck me,” Jude began tentatively, not wishing to be too pushy with her suggestions, “that Gaby’s full of fun. She’s got a very bubbly personality.” Carole agreed that this was the case. “She’s also very girly in some ways.”
“Ye-es.”
“So I think you should give her something to put on.”
“Clothes, you mean? But I don’t know her size.” Carole anxiously surveyed the hanging garments in Eastern silks, crumpled linen and PVC. “I wouldn’t begin to know what Gaby would like to wear.”
“Oh, come on, you’ve seen her enough times. You know the kind of stuff she likes.”
Carole tried to focus on what her daughter-in-law did actually wear. Jeans and sweatshirts mostly these days, as she spent most of her time at home looking after the baby. While she was still working as a theatrical agent, Gaby had had a couple of dauntingly businesslike trouser suits, but those hadn’t seen the light of day since Lily’s birth.
“She likes sparkly things,” Jude prompted.
Yes, now Carole came to think of it, a lot of Gaby’s tops did have glittery designs on them. And she wore quite a bit of costume jewellery in what her mother-in-law would have described as diamante. “So you’re saying I should get her a brooch or something?”
“No, I’m saying you should give her something frivolous. Something like this perhaps?” Jude’s hand, by now denuded of Socrates, Spinoza, Descartes, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, reached up to pull something down from its hook. It was a six-foot long stole formed by sprays of feathers alternately white and silver.
Carole scrutinized the object. “Well, it wouldn’t be very warm, you know, as scarves go.”
“It’s not a scarf, it’s a boa.”
“Maybe, but what for?”
“For fun!” Jude replied with something approaching exasperation. “For when Gaby wants to glam herself up a bit. For when she wants to forget that she’s a wife and mother and remind herself she’s a girl.”
Carole continued to look dubiously at the boa. “Do you think she’ll like it, though?”
“I’m sure she will. And I can guarantee that Lily will like it too. In a few years’ time she’ll be using it for dressing up.”
The granddaughter argument swayed Carole, and when she looked at the cost of the boa, she was won over completely. Originally, it had been twenty-five pounds, which would definitely have come under her definition of overpriced. But that had been slashed to ten pounds, and then a further reduction had been made to four pounds fifty. Carole decided she had found Gaby’s present.
Emboldened by this success, she started wavering about the Marks and Spencer shirts for Stephen.
“You could still give them to him,” Jude suggested, “so that he doesn’t die of shock at not getting them after all these years. But then you could give him something else as well.”
“What kind of ‘something else’?” asked Carole suspiciously.
“Something frivolous.”
“Stephen’s never going to wear a feather boa.”
“No, I know he’s not,” Jude replied, though she couldn’t deny that the image was quite amusing. “But there are other frivolous things in here.”
Carole looked around the shop. In her view, a Santa Claus Willy Warmer was simply in bad taste. And she wouldn’t have dared to be present when Stephen opened such a thing. Nor was she attracted by a key ring with a small Rubik’s cube attached. The combined digital stopwatch and bottle opener didn’t do much for her either. And as for the thought of giving anyone a sumptuously boxed, gold-plated Belly Button Fluff Extractor…
“Maybe I should just stick to the shirts…” she announced uncertainly.
“No, Carole, don’t give up so easily. Put yourself in Stephen’s shoes for a moment. What would he like? What are his interests?”
“Work, mostly.”
“And his work involves…?”
“Money and computers, in some combination which I have never quite worked out.”
“Well, I’m sure Lola stocks something for computer buffs.”
“I doubt it. This isn’t a technology shop.”
“Ah, look, the very thing!” Jude swooped on a basket full of wind-up toys. “A Glow-in-the-dark Computer Angel!”
“What?” asked Carole weakly, as the package was thrust towards her. Under a plastic bubble there was a translucent green plastic figure of an angel. Printed above it were the words: “Your Computer Angel deals with all your computer problems, glitches and viruses. Just wind her up and her flapping wings will spread her protection over your desktop or laptop. And when you turn the lights off, your Computer Angel will glow in the dark.”
“How does it work?” asked Carole.
“Blind faith.”
“No, I mean how does it work as anti-virus protection?” After long resistance to the idea of computers, Carole had recently become something of an expert on the subject. “There isn’t a software CD with it, as far as I can see. And it doesn’t have a USB plug.”
“Carole,” said Jude patiently, “it’s a joke. It’s just a fun thing. To bring a smile on Christmas Day to the face of a computer obsessive like Stephen.”
Her neighbour still didn’t look convinced. But then she saw the price tag: ?7.50 reduced to ?4.00, then reduced again to ?1.50.
As she paid for her purchases, Carole and Anna at the till exchanged half-smiles, as if to say, “Yes, we have seen each other before.” But neither took the opportunity to embark on conversation.
And so Carole completed her Christmas shopping. Which meant that, as well as the Marks and Spencer shirts, Stephen Seddon would shortly be the proud owner of a Glow-in-the-dark Computer Angel.
? The Shooting in the Shop ?
Five
Carole at first demurred at Jude’s suggestion they should lunch at the Crown and Anchor. Some atavistic instinct told her it was self-indulgence to go out for a meal so near to Christmas. But, as it often did, Jude’s more sybaritic counsel prevailed, and so they made their way from Gallimaufry to Fethering’s only pub and the lugubrious welcome of its landlord, Ted Crisp.
A large man with matted hair and beard, he nodded acknowledgement of their arrival and started pouring
