‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Dover easily, having no intention of budging from this warm and comfortable haven till lunch time. ‘I’d like to hear about it. And while you’re up, missus, now about making a cup of tea, eh?’
Mrs Armstrong had little choice but to acquiesce to this delicate hint. While she banged around with the tea caddy and cups and saucers, she grudgingly related how it was that Arthur had become a taxi-driver. Dover, musing happily by the fire, nodded his head from time to time to show that he was still listening.
‘Our Arthur’s never had what you might call a proper chance, really,’ began Mrs Armstrong, having a quick peep into the saucepan to steady her nerves. ‘What with his dad passing over when he did and him never seeming to settle down properly at school. He’s a good lad, clever with his hands, really, but not much good at book-work and me not able to help him, of course, like his dad might have done. Well, when he left school he had two or three jobs but he couldn’t seem to find anything to suit him, really.’
‘Here, Mum!’ Arthur broke in to protest. ‘ I had eighteen jobs in nine months. That woman at the Labour said I was the record-holder for the town. You ought to tell him that.’
‘I’ll tell you something if you don’t keep quiet,’ snapped his mother. ‘These gentlemen aren’t interested in how many jobs you’ve had and it’s nothing to be proud of anyhow.’ She warmed the teapot vigorously. ‘You just go and see if you can find some biscuits in the cupboard. Oh, no,’ – as Arthur jerked enthusiastically to his feet – ‘never mind! I’ll get ’em. We don’t want you knocking this poor gentleman’s leg.’
Dover beamed at this touch of real consideration. ‘Go on,’ he said encouragingly.
‘Well, then he started to get into bad company.’
‘Ooh! I didn’t, Mum. It was all my own idea.’
‘I shan’t tell you again, Arthur!’ warned Mrs Armstrong, pouring out the tea. ‘You young ones are all the same these days. If you ask me,’ – she turned back to Dover – ‘it was that job at the cinema that did it. You know what some of these films are like, and there was the dark, too. Well, that started him off getting interested in things – you know.’
‘What sort of things?’ asked MacGregor, feeling it was about time that he took some part in the conversation.
Mrs Armstrong’s face took on an even rosier hue. ‘Oh, you know, things,’ she said, and began to give the draining board a good scrub.
‘Girls!’ explained Arthur cheerfully.
‘He began bringing home all sorts of those sexy books,’ Mrs Armstrong’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘And then he took to hanging around outside late at night. He used to go up to the nurses’ Home.’
‘They never drew their curtains,’ said Arthur with a chuckle.
‘Well, one night some man – one of their boy-friends, I shouldn’t wonder – caught him at it and gave him a right good thrashing. Blooming nerve, I thought, knocking our Arthur about like that.’
‘Near bashed the living daylights out of me,’ commented Arthur mournfully.
‘No more than you deserved, my lad!’ said his mother, wielding her scrubbing brush with increased energy. ‘Another cup of tea for you, sir? Well, it cured him, I will say that. He gave up his Peeping Tom tricks, but, of course, that wasn’t the end of it.’ She sighed. ‘The next thing I knew about it was a great big policeman coming round and hammering on my door. They’d had complaints, you see, and, of course, it was our Arthur.’ She gave a deeper sigh and wiped her hands on her apron. ‘A warning he got, that first time, and they told him to go and see a doctor. That didn’t do him much good. Told me he’d grow out of it. He didn’t say when, though. Next time they put him on probation and said he’d have to go to one of these physiatrists. Once a week he went, regular as clockwork. I saw to that. It didn’t cure him, though. Then our Arthur went and did it in this doctor’s waiting room in front of all his other patients, so that was that. Well, I didn’t know where to turn. They were beginning to talk about prison and I don’t know what. I mean, prison for a lad like our Arthur! It wasn’t as though he was really bad or anything. It’s just that he would keep on doing it, didn’t seem as though he could stop, somehow.’
MacGregor cleared his throat. He had been hoping that Dover would ask the obvious question but the mastermind appeared too occupied with swilling tea. ‘What was it, exactly, Mrs Armstrong, that your son was doing?’
Mrs Armstrong looked embarrassed. It was not her nature to call a spade a spade, especially when it was such a nasty spade as this one. And, besides, you’d expect an educated young gentleman like this to know, wouldn’t you? ‘Well, he used to sort of – well – show himself,’ she said faintly. ‘ Middle-aged ladies he used to pick. Don’t ask me why. This physiatrist had the nerve to say it was something to do with me. Blooming cheek! I’ve worked my fingers to the bone bringing that lad up decent. Nobody could have done more for him. I’ve devoted my whole life to him, especially with him being a bit on the simple side. Wherever he got it from he didn’t get it from me, that I do know.’ Mrs Armstrong folded her arms and glared with exasperation at her son.
The tap of Mrs Armstrong’s eloquence seemed to have been turned off. Dover was just enjoying the blessed silence which filled the room when MacGregor, as usual, had to go sticking his oar in.
‘What happened then, Mrs Armstrong?’
‘Well, it was like a
