Chapter 4

Party time

TIM COLLECTED Patty from her mother’s house early on Friday evening. He had his raincoat over his arm and handed a bunch of flowers to Babs to brighten up his sister’s living room. Patty polished up even nicer than Tim expected, coming into the sitting room where he had waited for only about 15 minutes, although it seemed a longer time to him. When she arrived he considered the wait was well worth it. Her shoulder-length hair was piled up high, studded with sparkling cosmetic jewels. Patty was nicely made up by the beauty salon, quite conservatively as befitted the occasion, so she emerged classy rather than brassy. The little black dress fitted her to perfection, showing a subtle hint of cleavage and finished just short of her knees, her stockinged feet neatly squeezed into shiny high-heeled shoes, which made her calves look very shapely. Around her neck she wore a simple thin gold necklace with a tiny heart-shaped locket.

Babs gushed, “You look fabulous, dear, don’t you think, Tim?”

Tim, however, tut-tutted saying, “This wouldn’t do at all,” and paused a moment.

Babs protested, “But the dress and hair are perfect!”

Patty shrieked and tottered on her new heels heading towards checking her appearance in the mirror in the downstairs bathroom. Just before she exited the living room, though, Tim told her to stop, that he had the solution. Pulling from his raincoat pocket a long oblong jeweller’s box instantly caught the attention of both females in the room.

“Don’t get too excited,” Tim said, “These are borrowed only and I will collect them from you tomorrow to take back to the jewellers, but they are yours to wear for tonight.” He opened the box to reveal a beautiful gold and diamond necklace and matching diamond earrings. The squeals of delight from both his sibling and niece were a pleasure to him and, once they had been donned, Babs insisted she take lots of photos of Patty on her own and then Patty and Tim together. Old man Macari, proprietor of the classy jewellers of the same name, buys a new top-spec Jaguar from Tim every two years without fail; he loaned the jewels to his friend on request as a favour.

Tim’s own classic 1963 E-Type Jag, painted in British racing green, had been polished to perfection in the body shop earlier in the day and Tim drove Patty to the party in style. The hotel had a large car park and he made an effort to park it well away from both entrance and exit in a remote corner where it would remain unnoticed, or as little as such a vehicle could be. He had already dropped Patty off at the entrance to the venue before parking and, after he caught up with her, he held her hand as they went through to the party.

The senior partners of the company, with their wives and husbands, welcomed Tim and Patty as the couple were announced and shook hands with them. Of course Roger and Jenny were there almost at the very end of the line and Patty and Tim were greeted with hugs and kisses, which drew a good deal of attention to them from the other senior partners as well as many of the guests. Nobody else present appeared to know either of the new arrivals from Adam and Eve. A youngish couple standing just behind Roger and Jenny were introduced to them next by Roger as, “Our son Geoffrey and his wife Lesley, Geoff is also a partner and will no doubt be kicking me out in a few years, and the lovely Lesley is mother to our two grandchildren”.

Geoffrey was clearly hewn from the same towering redwood that his father came from, built like a prop forward, with broken nose and slightly cauliflower ears to match. He appeared to be Tim’s age, he thought, or maybe a couple or three years his junior. Geoffrey’s face cracked into a wide grin and he pumped Tim’s hand vigorously and slapped him silly on the back and shoulders as if he had known him for years. Once he had finished shaking Roger’s male guest’s teeth loose, he grabbed little Patty and gave her a huge bear hug, causing her to giggle.

“Call me Geoff, won’t you guys,” he insisted with a booming voice, then toned it down to add, “Mum and Pop’ve filled us in on what you did for Abbey, so any time either of you need anything, you just call us.”

Lesley was a little more refined than her larger-than-life husband. She smiled very sweetly and pulled Tim into a warm cuddle, saying quietly in his ear that although Pop had only mentioned Tim’s involvement in her sister-in-law’s life just the day before, Abbey had confided what had happened at the night club to her way back in October and Lesley had been looking forward to thanking Tim personally ever since. Lesley greeted Patty just as affectionately, saying that any member of Tim’s family should consider themselves her dearest friend. She was so complimentary about Patty’s little black dress, her hair, make-up, shoes and she made no attempt to disguise the fact that she absolutely adored the necklace and earrings set. Lesley pulled Patty to one side of the line to continue their chat while Geoff rolled his eyes at Tim with a grin and returned to the job of pressing the flesh of more guests coming through. Patty was made to feel so relaxed and confident in her appearance that they spoke at length, while new guests shuffled by unnoticed. Tim stood quietly to one side until Lesley had exhausted her welcome, happy to see Patty enjoying herself.

Tim and Patty made quite an attractive couple, despite their disparity in age and relationship as uncle and niece, as they stepped across the dance floor, directed to a large reserved table by the far side that Lesley had pointed them towards. Sitting at the table was the very beautiful Abbey, accompanied by her tall, fresh-faced date, who she introduced as Fraser Findlay. Once more, the couple were welcomed with affectionate hugs and kisses by Abbey, which fully included Patty, who was informed in no uncertain manner how wonderful her dishy uncle was. Tim realised from Patty’s startled glances in his direction that Patty was now regarding her formerly boring old uncle in a completely new light. Meanwhile Tim was getting more and more embarrassed, and you probably know by now that he doesn’t embarrass easily. He was certain that his sister Babs would be ringing him in the morning to grill him for more info. He was wondering just how much information he would have to divulge to his eldest sister.

The boy Fraser was also a little non-plussed by the open showing of affection to Tim by his young date for the evening, but Tim gave the youngster’s hand a good firm shake and engaged him deeply in conversation while Abbey and Patty became much better acquainted. From what Tim could overhear in snatches they were now discussing the jewellery Patty was wearing that he had borrowed for the occasion. Tim turned back to Abbey’s date. Fraser was a tall, gangly, pasty-faced lad. Like Abbey, he was also in his first year at Newcastle University; only he was studying for a degree in mechanical engineering. A native of Scotland, he quietly confessed to Tim that he had only been out on a couple of dates with Abbey, and was very surprised when she invited him down to stay with her family for Christmas at quite short notice. He really didn’t know anyone at the party and Abbey had already warned him that she would probably have to spend time this evening with the wives or daughters of her father’s co-workers.

“She says she’ll make up for it between now and New Year,” Fraser said.

Tim tried to make him feel comfortable by getting him to talk about himself. In so doing Tim was able to get Fraser to reveal a good deal without appearing to grill him too closely. After a few minutes’ talk the Scot calmed down somewhat and appeared visibly more relaxed, whereupon Tim found they were getting on quite well. Tim thought Fraser was a nice sensible lad, not exactly handsome, but when he filled out his frame fully in a few years’ time he would probably look all right. ‘Who am I to be critical, Tim thought, ‘I’m no oil painting am I?’ Despite that shortcoming, he supposed, he did more or less get by. Tim glanced over at Abbey and Patty, seeing how well they were getting on together, with only a couple of years’ difference in age between them. They were now surveying other partygoers and commenting on dresses and hairstyles, giggling at the comments each were contributing to the conversation. Fraser and Tim listened for a moment before exchanging looks and grinning. There was wine on the table, but Tim preferred a beer, so apparently did Fraser, so they made their apologies to the ladies and found their way to the bar. The girls appeared to be happy with the wine supplied on the table, Abbey pouring Patty a glassful as the men folk left them to their conversations.

It was a free bar, which was a huge relief to Fraser. He admitted to Tim that he had been due to work in a supermarket local to his mother’s house over the Christmas break, as he had every school and college holiday for a number of years, but abandoned his plans when he got the call from Abbey to come and stay with her over Christmas and New Year. He had paid for his flight down on credit card and would have to budget very carefully until he could get some work at Easter, hoping he hadn’t alienated the supermarket. Tim made a quick decision, after all Fraser had already told him that he had a widowed mother as well as younger siblings at home, and like Tim was from a working class family. Tim slipped him three hundred quid in fifties, twenties and a ten, all he had spare in his wallet at the time. Half that total was contained in a re-used envelope that Tim had only received earlier in the evening on his way out of his house to pick up Patty. It was part of an irregular payment from his brother Jeff, who Tim had helped financially to get his HGV licence a year or so earlier. Jeff’s job as a forklift driver had been under threat and initially asked Tim if he could pay for the lessons. Tim hadn’t been happy with the way he had been asked but agreed to loan him the money to pay back when he could. Jeff made a lot of unsanctioned deliveries using the firm’s lorry, which paid in cash, and he passed on what he could spare from his beer money to pay Tim’s loan off eventually. This had only been the second repayment in two years, so Tim wasn’t sure if the debt would ever be paid off in Jeff’s lifetime. He was reluctant to release Jeff from his obligation, though; because he felt his young brother needed the lesson of meeting the responsibility of his debts.