suddenly flooded with images of June Whitfield, Spike Milligan, Richard Briers, Thora Hird. People from a yesteryear that was stable and solid, one flavoured with jam sandwiches and Vimto. When he was a little boy who had no idea of what was lying in wait for him, around the corner.
‘Sir Colin of Castle Street was recorded in front of a live studio audience,’ announced a plummy male radio voice as a vintage tinkly tune revved up to cheers and voracious clapping from the audience’s hands.
Bridge, who was preparing herself to audibly block out a load of unfunny old duffers performing stuff about the war, found herself pleasantly surprised at the antics of Sir Colin, a pensioner who ‘had it on good authority’ he was descended from royalty and acted as such. He was also tight as the proverbial duck’s arse and got his words horribly muddled up. On paper, it was about as humorous as an anal abscess but the actors breathed magic into the script and the audience were in fits. Mary’s bubbling brook of laughter as she tarted up the tree infected the others. Tears started to roll down Charlie’s and Robin’s faces as Sir Colin was mistaken for the vicar at a children’s church nativity service. Luke, warming himself by the fire with Jack and Robin, secretly watched Bridge chuckling away to herself as she looped the strips one around the other. She looked like a different woman when she laughed and didn’t scowl. They’d laughed so much in the early days. Laughed at their empty pockets, laughed at their attempts to make meals out of the barest ingredients in their food cupboard. They’d laughed out of bed and in it. When had they stopped?
At the end of that half hour of hilarity, the six of them all broke into applause along with the live studio audience who were probably not very live any more, their laughter preserved, pinpointing a moment in their personal history when they were squeezing every drop of enjoyment from the here and now like the big juicy orange of time that it was.
‘What a tonic,’ said Robin, his cheeks aching.
‘Did someone say gin and tonic?’ asked Charlie.
‘No they didn’t,’ said Robin, shutting him straight down.
‘Or one of Radio Brian’s mulled wines, maybe?’ Charlie suggested. ‘Ever since he mentioned it, I’ve been fancying one.’
‘I make a cracking mulled wine,’ said Mary. ‘It’s laced with port. Shall I go and make some? We can all sit around the fire and listen to carols and fill ourselves with Christmas.’ She draped the last snake of tinsel around the bottom branches of the tree, nudging it into shape.
‘I’ll come and help you,’ said Robin, pressing his hand towards Charlie as if he had offered instead. ‘You have a rest, love. You must be exhausted sitting in that chair and passing decorations to Mary.’ Then he winked at him.
‘Mind if I make some of that chain with you after we’ve had the mulled wine?’ Luke threw across to Bridge.
He expected her to tell him to bugger off. Was pleasantly surprised when she said:
‘If you want.’
Chapter 15
Robin took three bottles of red wine and one of port from behind the bar and he and Mary went into the kitchen. He looked around for some spices and found some in a well-stocked rack. Mary put a large stewing pan on the stove and poured the wine in and a generous slug of port, adding some brown sugar, cinnamon sticks and cloves, while Robin, at her request, was zesting an orange.
That done, Robin checked his watch, started talking to himself in a low voice.
‘Just making sure I know where I am with Charlie’s tablets,’ he explained, picking up a wooden spoon and beginning to stir the slowly warming wine. ‘Good job he has me.’
‘Yes, it is,’ said Mary, her voice soft, thoughtful.
‘This rich food will do nothing for his indigestion. Or his wind. And it’s me that has to suffer during the night if he overdoes it.’
Mary reached behind her, pushed the door shut to give them privacy.
‘The tablets in the green bottle,’ she began. ‘The ones I gave Charlie when you were outside at the car. The Oxycophine.’
‘Yes, love. What about them?’ said Robin.
‘I know what they are.’
‘Charlie has dreadful heartbur—’
‘My dad had the same ones,’ Mary cut him off. ‘He was one of the first people to get them. They’d just rolled them out after successful trials.’
Robin stopped stirring, turned his head towards the wall shelves. ‘Now I’m