“Fenny,” he started.
“I wonder if you’d like to buy some tickets for our raffle? It’s just a little one.”
He glanced up sharply.
“To raise money for Anjie who’s retiring.”
“What?”
“And needs a kidney machine.”
He was being leant over by a rather stiffly slim middle-aged woman with a prim knitted suit and a prim little perm, and a prim little smile that probably got licked by prim little dogs a lot.
She was holding out a small book of cloakroom tickets and a collecting tin.
“Only ten pence each,” she said, “so you could probably even buy two. Without breaking the bank!” She gave a tinkly little laugh and then a curiously long sigh. Saying “Without breaking the bank” had obviously given her more pleasure than anything since some GIs had been billeted on her in the war.
“Er, yes, all right,” said Arthur, hurriedly digging in his pocket and producing a couple of coins.
With infuriating slowness, and prim theatricality, if there was such a thing, the woman tore off two tickets and handed them to Arthur.
“I do hope you win,” she said with a smile that suddenly snapped together like a piece of advanced origami, “the prizes are so nice.”
“Yes, thank you,” said Arthur, pocketing the tickets rather brusquely and glancing at his watch.
He turned towards Fenny.
So did the woman with the raffle tickets.
“And what about you, young lady?” she said. “It’s for Anjie’s kidney machine. She’s retiring you see. Yes?” She hoisted the little smile even further up her face. She would have to stop and let it go soon or the skin would surely split.
“Er, look, here you are,” said Arthur, and pushed a fifty pence piece at her in the hope that that would see her off.
“Oh, we are in the money, aren’t we?” said the woman, with a long smiling sigh. “Down from London are we?”
“No, that’s all right, really,” he said with a wave of his hand, and she started with an awful deliberation to peel off five tickets, one by one.
“Oh, but you must have your tickets,” insisted the woman, “or you won’t be able to claim your prize. They’re very nice prizes, you know. Very suitable.”
Arthur snatched the tickets, and said thank you as sharply as he could.
The woman turned to Fenny once again.
“And now, what about …”
“No!” Arthur nearly yelled. “These are for her,” he explained, brandishing the five new tickets.
“Oh, I see! How nice!”
She smiled sickeningly at both of them.
“Well, I do hope you …”
“Yes,” snapped Arthur, “thank you.”
The woman finally departed to the table next to theirs. Arthur turned desperately to Fenny, and was relieved to see that she was rocking with silent laughter.
He sighed and smiled.
“Where were we?”
“You were calling me Fenny, and I was about to ask you not to.”
“What do you mean?”
She twirled the little wooden cocktail stick in her tomato juice.
“It’s why I asked if you were a friend of my brother’s. Or half- brother really. He’s the only one who calls me Fenny, and I’m not fond of him for it.”
“So what’s …?”
“Fenchurch.”
“What?”
“Fenchurch.”
“Fenchurch.”
She looked at him sternly.
“Yes,” she said, “and I’m watching you like a lynx to see if you’re going to ask the same silly question that everybody asks me until I want to scream. I shall be cross and disappointed if you do. Plus I shall scream. So watch it.”
She smiled, shook her hair a little forward over her face and peered at him from behind it.
“Oh,” he said, “that’s a little unfair, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.”
“All right,” she said with a laugh, “you can ask me. Might as well get it over with. Better than have you call me Fenny all the time.”
“Presumably …” said Arthur.
“We’ve only got two tickets left, you see, and since you were so generous when I spoke to you before …”
“What?” snapped Arthur.
The woman with the perm and the smile and the now nearly empty book of cloakroom tickets was now waving the two last ones under his nose.