Remembrance Day. Brian Aldiss

At lunchtime, he sat under the poplars, resting in their shade and eating a pasty from Mrs Bligh’s shop which Ruby had provided for him.

      Gregory Yarker came over, grinning under the brim of his hat, his deep-set eyes in shadow. He was wearing Wellington boots, jeans, and a tattered old multi-coloured pullover his wife had knitted. ‘His looks are against him,’ Tebbutt always loyally proclaimed.

      Yarker plonked himself down on the bank beside Tebbutt, saying, ‘How’re you going on? You’ve got something on your mind, that I know. Your wife hasn’t left you, has she?’

      ‘Nothing like that,’ said Tebbutt, laughing at the idea.

      ‘’Cos if so, I’ve got a nice piece of crumpet lined up over in Swaffham.’

      ‘No, no. Thanks all the same.’

      ‘I shall have to see to her myself, no doubt of it. What’s up with you, then, Ray? It’s nothing catching, I hope.’

      Ray took a swig from his can of Vimto. ‘It’s nothing catching, Greg. It’s just I’ve been a bloody fool. I lent someone some money and he isn’t inclined to give it back.’

      ‘Ah.’ A pause. ‘Perhaps we could creep up on him one dark night and sort of incline him.’

      ‘It’s an idea.’

      ‘Do I happen to know this fly gent?’

      Letting a little more of the liquid run down his throat, Tebbutt decided to tell his boss everything. Yarker listened intently, sucking a long grass from the hedge behind him.

      ‘Pity you was carrying that credit card,’ he commented, when Tebbutt finished. ‘They’re a trick of the banks to get you in their power. If you’ve got money, carry it round in fivers. If you haven’t got money, go round with empty pockets. You’re a townee, that’s your problem.’

      ‘I love the way you blunt countrymen see everything in black and white. What if you’ve got too much money?’

      ‘Get married.’

      ‘Or buy a pig?’

      ‘I’d like to see this bugger Linwood’s eye in black and white. He got you over a barrel proper, didn’t he? Tell you what, go and confront him tomorrer, that’s Saturday, demand your rightful money back, and tell him if he don’t hand it over by Monday we’ll beat him up. That’s straightforward, isn’t it? He should understand that.’

      He stretched himself out on the dry ground, hands clasped at the back of his head, satisfied with his own plan.

      Tebbutt tried to explain his latest thoughts. ‘I’m afraid the poor sod may not have the three hundred to give back. That’s what I’m afraid of. Having worked with him, I know his problems. If I press him, it may only get him in trouble with his father. I was wondering if it wasn’t better to go and have a word with his bank manager. I know he banks—’

      ‘What? I must have been falling into a light doze here. I thought for a moment as you uttered the dreadful words “bank manager”. No, you’ve got to have it out with the bugger straight. No other party involved.’

      ‘I suppose you’re right.’

      ‘’Corse I am, boy, and don’t you never doubt it. Now, time’s up. I ent paying you to lie about drinking Coke. See if you can make an impression on this here soil, and I’ll give some thought to your problem.’

      ‘Thank you, Uncle Greg.’ He sat where he was for a moment, listening to the second-rate music issuing from Pauline’s radio before returning to his work.

      On Saturday mornings in season, Ruby worked and Ray did not. He drove her into Fakenham to the cake shop, keeping the car to a crawl, to the annoyance of other drivers, so that they could talk over anew the problem of the debt. He had hoped for a cheque from Linwood in the morning’s post. It had not arrived.

      ‘You’ll have to go over to Hartisham and confront him,’ Ruby said. ‘It’s our money. We’ve got every right to get it back. But keep that goon Yarker out of this. You don’t want to be had up for GBH.’ She laughed.

      ‘Supposing he’s even now preparing to drive over to us and return the money. He did say he’d pay it back by the weekend. Then he’d be offended if I showed up there this morning. It would look as if we didn’t trust him.’

      ‘We don’t trust him.’

      Agnes had been let in on their problem over breakfast since they could not keep it to themselves. Agnes had her own indignant opinion.

      ‘What you should do, Ray, is get on to your bank and cancel the payment. Don’t let it go through. Three hundred pounds is three hundred pounds, I mean to say. It was a year’s wages when I was a young girl.’

      He frowned. ‘Forget about Victorian times. This is now.’

      Agnes said no more, withdrawing hurt from the discussion.

      It’s no fun stuck in this chair. He ought to understand that. Your bottom goes numb after a bit. Of course I hark back to the old days. I was properly alive then. It’s very rude of him. I reckon it was because of his way of behaving that Jenny ran off and joined the CND. She couldn’t stand her father any more.

      Still, all families have their differences, I suppose. I was lucky. Good husband, nice couple of girls, Ruby and Joyce. Well, Joyce was nice till she married that builder. All through the war, I was terrified Bill was going to be killed, him being at sea, but he came through safely. Never torpedoed.

      First thing I ever remember was the war. I’d be, let’s see, about seven. That was the Great War … And I was asleep when there was this terrific bang. I remember sitting up in bed. We were living down in Southampton then, of course. I got up and went through to Mum’s room and the far wall was missing. There was the sky and our garden where the wall used to be, and the early morning sun shining in. Mum and Dad were sitting up in bed looking surprised. And what I thought was … sounds silly now … ‘How beautiful!’ I was clutching my golliwog.

      So we went to live with Auntie Flo down the road from us. Poor old Auntie Flo, I liked her. She was fun. It would be 1917. Yes, that’s it, because she had lost Uncle Herbert the year before, fighting in France, so there was plenty of room in her house. I was as proud as punch, telling the kids at school as we’d been bombed out.

      Years later, perhaps that was after I married Bill, Mum heard me telling someone we’d been bombed out when I was a kid, and she corrected me, saying it was a gas main blew up and not a German bomb at all. But I always somehow connected it with the Germans. The entire wall, gone like that, and the sun shining in, lighting up the room …

      Bill and I had a lot of fun … Purser on a P & O liner, so he was away a lot of the time, and I pretty well brought up Ruby and Joyce on my own. But when he came home, well, we always had parties and presents. The thirties … Looking back, I reckon they were the best time of my life. Somehow, after the war, the second one, Bill wasn’t quite the same. He used to be very depressed at times … I suppose we were getting older by then …

      Ruby was always our pet. We ought to have made more of Joyce, but she was more difficult. I suppose she’s paying us back now by never having me to stay with her and her husband in their posh house in Norwich … Still, things could be worse. It’s quite nice here, and Ray really isn’t such a bad chap. At least Ruby likes him, and that’s half the battle …

      Although Ray had dismissed Agnes’s remark over breakfast, he took her advice and went to his bank.

      He always felt apologetic in the bank. Even the modest Fakenham branch oppressed him with its pretence that money was easy to acquire, easy to spend. He looked at the posters on the wall, offering him huge loans so that he could buy a new car or house, or take a holiday in Bermuda; immune to such seductions, Ray nevertheless felt that he was the only man banking here who could not afford to take advantage of such offers.

      It had to be said, however, that none of the other customers