Chapter 33

Charles Adamson was extremely gratified to learn of his offspring’s success in Banking, particularly as he had always felt somewhat concerned by the fact that he had rather pitch-forked his son into the profession, without allowing him time to look around at other options. Mary, too, was very pleased to see how well Toby was doing, although she immediately bewailed the fact that she would be losing her little boy when he moved away from home.

‘Gosh, Mum, I’m not going far,’ laughed Toby, ‘You’re not really getting rid of me anyway. The twins and Emma have decided that I’m going to be their taxi service back to the Cotswolds most weekends, so you’ll hardly notice that I’ve gone at all. Especially when it comes to my er ... washing.’

Mary thought that was highly amusing and said that she would be more than pleased to continue to wash his shirts, underpants, and socks, as well as the sheets off his bed in Bristol, provided that he remembered to change it from time to time. Most tactfully, Toby also said that he would be looking forward to coming home to get some proper food. This remark went down extremely well, as he knew that it would.

The next morning he found that the news was already out at the Bank. Beevish told him that the Regional Staff Manager had telephoned Mr Anchor after their meeting to discuss a date when Toby could be released from the Branch.

‘When am I going then?’ he asked.

‘At the end of next week,’ replied Beevish, ‘Though you’ll be back in August.’

‘I will?’

‘The boss has asked for you to be sent on relief while Ernie is on holiday. The boys from O&M Department will be in and I don’t see how we can cope with one short. Scrote ought to be able to do his own job and Fliss’s as well, but of course he still can’t.’

‘Poor old Scrote,’ laughed Toby, ‘When I first came here I thought you were a bit hard on him, but I have to admit that he really is the most pathetic specimen.’

‘Every Branch has at least one Scrote,’ sighed Beevish, ‘I suppose that I should be grateful that we haven’t got two.’

‘I’m going to be back for just two weeks in August am I?’

‘Two with an option on a third as I understand it. It depends on how long the inspection takes. They won’t cause us a lot of work, but enough to be a nuisance.’

‘You had better give me the dates for my diary so that I don’t book my holiday. It’ll be a nice profitable job, because I’ll be able to live at home and charge travelling back and forth from Bristol. Mr. Williams at the Staff Manager’s office says that it’s not strictly ethical but apparently if I get jobs up in this area they’ll turn a blind eye to it. I think it’s cheaper for them than putting me up at a hotel.’

‘Sounds like quite a cushy number, this relief work,’ observed Beevish, ‘Perhaps I might apply. It would get me away from the wife. Where are you going to live in Bristol by the way? Have they made any suggestions?’

‘I’ve got that all sorted out already, as a matter of fact. Some friends of mine are at Bristol University and another is at the College of Art studying Graphic Design. They have a spare room in their flat and I’m going to move in with them. I’m really looking forward to it actually, because they are my very best friends and two of them happen to be extremely pretty girls.’

‘How is your Amber going to take to this?’ enquired Beevish with a twinkle in his eye.

‘Amber?’ Toby was surprised to realise that he hadn’t given her a thought, ‘Gosh, I don’t know. She should be fine about it though because they were her friends too.’

‘Well I’m very glad to see you so cheerful,’ said Beevish, ‘I wondered how you’d feel when I heard what they had in mind for you.’

‘I’m hoping that it’ll be fun. I’ll get to meet a lot of new people, that’s for sure. Perhaps I’ll find the girl of my dreams lurking behind an adding machine somewhere.’

‘You never know your luck,’ agreed Beevish.

‘I say Beevish, can you help me do an application for a loan? I’m going to have to buy myself a car and Mr Smythe said they’d sanction virtually anything, providing that I don’t treat myself to a Rolls.’

Beevish twirled round on his swivel chair and fished several forms out of the filing cabinet behind him.

‘There you are,’ he replied, ‘Fill in one of each. Do it in pencil and I’ll correct your cock-ups afterwards. Good staff training that.’

Toby sharpened his pencil and set to work.

At the weekend he took his father out car-hunting. What he could afford turned out to be either a second-hand Hillman Minx or a Ford Anglia. What he fancied, however, was an immaculate ex-demonstrator Ford Capri. It was metallic blue and came complete with alloy wheels and a stereo cassette player. He took it out for a test drive and fell in love with it. Unfortunately it was rather out of his price range, so reluctantly he thanked the salesman and said that he would have to go away and think about it. That evening, as he was getting ready for bed, there was a knock on his door and his mother came into the room. In one hand was a pile of bank notes.

‘Toby, you know how you’ve insisted on giving me something towards your keep ever since you started work?’

He nodded. She had been most reluctant to accept his offerings at first, but after a while had received them without demur.

‘You know I’ve never wanted it, because it’s been such a pleasure to have had you at home while all your friends went off to college. I decided that what I would do would be to save it all up and give it back to you when you got married and left home. Well I know you’re not getting married, but I think there might be enough here to help you get the car that your father tells me that you really want.’ She held out her hand.

‘Oh, Mum, no,’ he protested, ‘That was meant to be to help with the housekeeping.’

‘Yes, and I really appreciated the gesture, particularly as you made it without being asked. Your father hasn’t given me any less because of it though, so I want you to have it back.’

She put the money down on his bedside table.

‘You really are terrific,’ he said and hugged her fiercely. He found that he had a large lump in his throat.

‘You’ve always been a very good son,’ she replied and left the room quickly before he noticed the tears in her eyes.

Toby sat on the edge of the bed and counted what she had left him. There was more than enough to enable him to make the purchase. On Monday, after he had contacted the garage and told them that he wanted the Capri after all, he went out and bought a large bunch of flowers and a bottle of his mother’s favourite perfume. This time he did notice the tears that she blinked away when he gave them to her.

On the following Friday at lunch-time, with very little ceremony, Toby said farewell to his friends at the National Marbaloyd Bank in Nalchester. Beevish had given him the afternoon off as he had a busy weekend ahead of him before reporting to a small Branch in the Bristol suburbs, which was to be his first relief job. After lunch his mother drove him down to the Ford garage to pick up his new car and the look of pride on his face as he showed it to her, parked gleaming outside the show-room, made her very glad that she had helped him to buy it.

The remainder of the afternoon was taken up by going through his possessions and deciding what to take and what to leave behind. Many of the choices were hard to make and Toby realised that he could do with two of a lot of things to save carting stuff back and forth constantly.

On Saturday morning, with both the boot and the back of the car packed full to bursting, he said his goodbyes to his family, promising to phone sometime over the weekend, several times from work during the week and that he would be home the following Friday evening.

The journey to Bristol was uneventful, except that Toby relished every moment of it and thought to himself how much nicer his new car was than the faithful Morris 1100 which had served him well for the three years that had passed since his seventeenth birthday.