52. A JOURNEY ON A TRAIN

52. A JOURNEY ON A TRAIN

A Chapter by Peter Rogerson
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A look back on a murder on a journey to a premiere

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Somehow it had come to pass. Somehow the film of The Bedroom Bonanza had been launched on to an undeserving world and Ursula was taking Primrose to the big city for its premiere. They were travelling by rail and the journey promised to take over an hour. Time, thought Primrose, for a little light personal conversation...

I’m feeling odd about this,” she told her mother, “for a start I typed it up for you when it was merely a novel, and that seems ages ago, and you might even say I edited bits when your grammar was out of kilter with the English language! I feel almost responsible for part of it.

And I will be for ever grateful,” acknowledged Ursula, “I hope they haven’t turned it to something the book never was,” she added thoughtfully. “And it’s taken an age for the thing to be released.”

Have you told your Inspector about it?” asked Primrose as a prelude to her little light personal conversation.

A little,” acknowledged Ursula, “my Inspector, or Ian Brougham as I know him, can be very supportive.”

It’s an odd arrangement, though,” prodded Primrose.

What is, darling?”

A lady such as yourself who no one could call a spring chicken without being actually cruel, and a detective Inspector who is…?”

Slightly younger?” added Ursula, frowning.

Mother, how would you define slightly?

Tush. It was all because of those dreadful murders that I met him,” said Ursula to her daughter, “do you remember him from then?”

Mum! He was more like my age than yours!”

Maybe, but you’re showing signs of being ageist, which ought to be as illegal as being racist,” admonished Ursula. “I might be a smidgen lover seventy but it is the nineteen nineties and ladies of my age are allowed to have a life these days!”

But I caught him at your breakfast table that time!” protested Primrose.

He likes his full English,” smiled Ursula, teasing her daughter.

So he stayed the night?” prompted Primrose.

He came round to ask me to fill in some background on the church in Swanspottle when he learned that Jude had lived here for a spell,” sighed Ursula, “he thought I might know more than most about the local church, maybe something that is peculiar to here and nowhere else, and the people in it. I told him that I don’t, that I’d not been into the church for anything but funerals and weddings since my childhood when I’d had God crowbarred into my brain by parents who believed blindly in what I considered to be the impossible, and a teacher who thought the best way of ensuring Christianity in eleven years old innocents involved corporal punishment, or rather the fear of it. Suffer the little children … the words rebounded in my head during some of my formative years. I told him that, and suggested that as it was getting dark outside he might like to join me in a glass of red wine. It was my red wine period, the one that came after whiskey and before gin!”

And did he?”

Like a glass of red? You can bet your life he did! He explained about the vengeful Angela and the way she opened up with the truth when she realised the lipstick found with the bodies in the pulpit could be proved to have come from her. She said she hadn’t planned a confrontation but just saw red when she came looking for her husband and found him trembling exactly where he was. After all, they were only living separately because her work involved irregular hours miles from Swanspottle. And there he was, in his pulpit of all places, with a woman, a rather plain woman, she said, kneeling in front of him and fellating him, and he moaning as if he was face to face with the angels he purports to believe in!”

That’s all a bit torrid,” shivered Primrose, “So she saw red and killed them both?”

So Ian said. He said that there was a weapon conveniently and stupidly at hand, a rather sharp sword used as a prop by the silly vicar when he was preaching, trying to rouse his congregation into seeing themselves as a Christian army out to defeat the devil and his wily ways...”

I’d heard about that,” nodded Primrose, “the girls at the mother’s group thought it as daft and dangerous as it turned out to be.”

Silly man,” sighed Ursula.

Anyway, he had a glass of red,” further prompted Primrose, “At what point did you invite him to join you between the sheets?”

Ursula grinned wickedly at her. “You know what it’s like,” she said, “one glass leads to a second glass and the conversation becomes both deeper and shallower at the same time...”

That’s a contradiction,” protested Primrose, “and I don’t go in for those.”

Well, it happens. Like when he asked me why I thought a vicar might take his housekeeper into the most sacred bit of the church, the elevated platform that takes him closer to the deity he’s preaching about. He wondered, is it because he believed that having someone’s mouth round his naughty bits is particularly favoured by the spirit upstairs, which might be looked on a deep philosophical point? And I replied something along the lines that it was probably no more than because it gave him a thrill. See: deeper and shallower.”

And what did he make of it?”

Make of what?”

The deeper bit. Did he have an opinion? Or was the flowing red wine giving him a very different idea?”

Now you’re prodding into your mother’s private life, and that’s hardly the right thing for a loving daughter to do,” Ursula told her.

So you went upstairs with him and practised what the preacher preached?”

Firstly, darling, he’s a free agent and unmarried. Secondly, what sort of an old lady do you think I am, child? He stayed the night, yes, but I let him sleep in the spare room, where he stayed all on his own all night. Which is why he could be found at my breakfast table next morning!”

You missed out, then...”

I’ve had a lot of love in my life, Primrose, and two magnificent lovers, and now I’ve left the biggest part of my time on Earth behind I’m determined to end up leaving life with no personal regrets. Save one, that is. Your father, Primrose, always believed that I’d been unfaithful to him and that he had always been incapable of fathering you, so somebody else must have. He did, you know. But in all truth he was your father. There were no other candidates, but he accused me of sleeping around, and my regret is that I couldn’t find it in my heart to forgive him for even suspecting such a thing because he was a truly magnificent man in bed...”

Mother!”

But he was, and I won’t deny it. Mind you, Cardew was just about as good. So I’ve no complaints there. But even I’ve got to admit to myself that I’m getting on in years, Primrose, and when and if I find myself in bed with another man it’s got to be one who can match my first two thrust for thrust, if you see what I mean...”

Have they been the only two, then?” asked a curious Primrose ignoring the thrust word.

What do you think, darling?” asked Ursula.

Primrose shrugged. “Probably; after all I’ve only had...” she began.

Just the one, I suppose. How is Graham doing, by the way?”

He’s fine. Steady but fine, and he works a lot. I like steady but fine, mum. I don’t want big adventures either in or out of bed. So I’ve only had the one and that’s all I want.”

Ursula grinned. “And I don’t want big adventures either, love.”

There are plenty in this film we’re going to see, from what I remember of the book. A lady in search for love but without committing herself to anything. That’s a recipe for sleeping around.”

Which, as I have said times many, is something I’ve never done. But what would be nice, darling, is the joy of knowing that I’m being loved without having to worry about next week or next year or forever. I’ve had that, and what starts off as permanent ends up fragmenting. I’ve had two glorious lovers, as I said, and all I really wanted was one. For ever. But that wasn’t to be. Hence the book, a surrogate me seeing what might work.”

And did anything work?”

Ursula smiled. “Of course! There’s Ian Brougham, my lovely Inspector. He’s meeting us in London this very day, and escorting me and my daughter to the premiere!”

He is? You never said!”

So wait and see, darling, wait and see and maybe some of your questions will be answered!”

© Peter Rogerson 31.08.18




© 2018 Peter Rogerson


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Added on August 31, 2018
Last Updated on August 31, 2018
Tags: murder, Detective Inspector, pulpit, premiere, retrospective of love

A WOMAN OF EXCELLENT TASTE


Author

Peter Rogerson
Peter Rogerson

Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom



About
I am 80 years old, but as a single dad with four children that I had sole responsibility for I found myself driving insanity away by writing. At first it was short stories (all lost now, unfortunately.. more..

Writing