Tell Tale: Short Stories

After a long discussion they settled on Lanzarote, and that was when Joyce shared with her husband a refinement that she felt would make the holiday even more rewarding. Dennis listened in disbelief to what his wife had in mind, and immediately dismissed the idea out of hand. After all, he said, it’s dishonest. However, a week later, after several long walks and too many lingering half pints in the local pub, he asked Joyce to talk him through the idea once again. But it wasn’t until he’d studied the latest Stanley Gibbons’ catalogue and spotted a Penny Black he coveted, that he agreed to go along with her suggestion.

Joyce had clearly given the matter a great deal of thought, and took Dennis carefully through what they would have to do, minute by minute, while allowing her husband to ask questions and point out any weaknesses in her plan. Dennis could only come up with one problem he considered was insurmountable, but was surprised to find that his wife had even thought of a way around that. Dennis was impressed, and even though he still had his doubts, he allowed her to go ahead and fill in all the necessary forms.

* * *

When Mr. and Mrs. Pascoe stepped onto the train for Heathrow they were both looking forward to the second “holiday of a lifetime,” and indeed, the break might have gone even better if Dennis had stopped fretting about the consequences of something going wrong with Joyce’s plan. But by the time they returned home a fortnight later, they both agreed Lanzarote had turned out to be even more enjoyable than the Costa del Sol. And whenever the subject had arisen, Dennis didn’t deny he’d recently ret

ired as a director of Great Eastern, which sounded quite convincing in Lanzarote.

After everyone on their flight had collected their luggage from the carousel, Joyce burst into tears and Dennis did everything he could to console her. She then explained to a sympathetic young baggage handler that one of her suitcases had not appeared on the carousel. An extensive search was carried out, but no one seemed able to find the missing bag. Joyce continued to sob.

Once they were back in Saffron Walden, Joyce waited for a couple of days before she posted two claims for a lost suitcase to two different insurance companies, listing the contents as three dresses, several items of underwear, two pairs of shoes, a bottle of perfume, a washbag, and even a lucky charm bracelet (photo attached).

Two checks, one for £84.20 and a second for £110, arrived within days of each other. The checks were deposited in two different banks in two different names.

During the Christmas sales, Joyce purchased half a dozen new suitcases of varying sizes from several different department stores in central London, while Dennis acquired an unperforated set of Penny Reds, which he proudly added to his collection.

* * *

Cunard couldn’t have been more apologetic about mislaying one of Mr. and Mrs. Pascoe’s large suitcases—green and clearly labeled Joyce Pascoe, she insisted—while it was being taken off the ship after their third voyage. The purser assured Mrs. Pascoe that everything would be done to find it.

A few weeks later, the first of several checks arrived to cover the loss, while further payments for the same suitcase began to appear at regular intervals over the next six months, as did rarer and rarer, mint and franked, stamps from Stanley Gibbons.

“We mustn’t get too greedy,” said Joyce after returning from a winter break in the Caribbean, a holiday that yielded nine further checks.

So successful were their “holidays of a lifetime” that after five years, they had accumulated more than enough to make it possible for them to move out of their rented semidetached in Saffron Walden and buy a small thatched cottage, which they named The Sidings, in Steeple Bumpstead, where Joyce felt they were more likely to come across the sort of people they met on vacation.

* * *

When the Pascoes sat down to plan their next summer holiday, Joyce warned her husband she was beginning to run out of insurance companies, as she couldn’t afford to make a claim to the same one twice. Dennis was disappointed by this news, because he’d recently joined the local golf club, acquired a season ticket for Norwich City FC, quite near the center line, and been invited to become a vice president of the Rotary. He’d also begun to stick rarer and rarer stamps into his eighth album. Dennis would have been the first to accept that none of this would have been possible had it not been for his newfound wealth. He realized that he’d climbed onto a bandwagon that he didn’t want to get off.

* * *

Joyce woke her husband in the middle of the night when she came up with her latest idea. Dennis listened intently and couldn’t get back to sleep. If they pulled it off, he might even consider standing for the parish council.

“It will have to be our last job,” she warned her husband, “because there are only three major insurers left.” She didn’t add, whom we haven’t robbed.

Joyce wrote out a list of jobs Dennis had to do before they embarked on their summer holiday, including taking out any spare cash they had in their bank accounts. She checked the small print of the three insurance companies where they hadn’t made a claim, while Dennis told his friends at the golf club and Rotary that he and Joyce were planning a trip down the Nile to celebrate their fortieth wedding anniversary, because his wife had always wanted to see the Pyramids and visit Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Once Joyce had filled in all the forms, and the letters and checks had been dispatched, everything was in place by the time they set off for Southampton.

On July 17, 2001, Dennis and Joyce boarded the SS Balmoral, which was setting out on a voyage to Salalah, Port Said, and through the Suez Canal, before returning to Southampton via Istanbul.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

At this point in the story I came up with three different endings, and because I couldn’t choose between them, decided to write all three and leave you to pick which one you prefer.

A

WHEN THE SHIP docked in Istanbul, several passengers leaned over the railings and watched with interest as two police officers climbed aboard the luxury liner, and asked the purser for the number of Mr. and Mrs. Pascoe’s cabin.

Joyce burst into tears when she and Dennis were escorted off the ship and driven to the nearest airport. She didn’t stop weeping on the flight to Heathrow, or when a black limousine drove them back to Steeple Bumpstead.

When the Barrington courtesy car pulled up outside the front gate of The Sidings, Joyce burst into tears once again. Dennis climbed out of the car and said nothing as he stared at the smoldering remains of what was left of their little home.

The local fire chief, a fellow Rotarian, hurried across to join them.

“I’m so sorry, Dennis,” he said. “My men got here as quickly as they could, but once the flames touched the thatched roof, there was little they could do about it.”