As the Crow Flies

Twenty minutes later he declared the meeting closed.

CHAPTER

49

It was Jessica Allen who told the new chairman that a Mr. Corcran had phoned from the Lefevre Gallery to say that he accepted her offer of one hundred and ten thousand pounds.

Cathy smiled. “Now all we have to do is agree on a date and send out the invitations. Can you get Becky on the line for me, Jessica?”

The first action Cathy had proposed to the board after being elected unanimously as the third chairman of Trumper’s was to appoint Charlie as Life President and hold a dinner in his honor at the Grosvenor House Hotel. The occasion was attended by all Trumper’s staff, their husbands, wives and many of the friends Charlie and Becky had made over nearly seven decades. Charlie took his place in the center of the top table that night, one of the one thousand, seven hundred and seventy people who filled the great ballroom.

There followed a five-course meal that even Percy was unable to fault. After Charlie had been supplied with a brandy and had lit up a large Trumper’s cigar, he leaned over and whispered to Becky, “I wish your father could have seen this spread.” He added, “Of course, he wouldn’t have come—unless he’d supplied everything from the meringues glacés to the bread rolls.”

“I wish Daniel could have shared the evening with us as well,” Becky replied quietly. A few moments later Cathy stood and delivered a speech that could have left no one in any doubt that they had elected the right person to follow Charlie. Cathy ended by inviting the assembled company to toast the health of the founder and first Life President. After the applause had died away, she bent down and removed something from beneath her chair. “Charlie,” she said, “This is a small memento from us all to thank you for the sacrifice you once made in order to keep Trumper’s afloat.” Cathy turned and handed over an oil painting to Charlie, who beamed in anticipation until he saw what the subject was. His mouth opened and his cigar fell on the table as he stared in disbelief. It was some time before he could let go of The Potato Eaters and rise to respond to the calls of “Speech, speech!”

Charlie began by reminding his audience once again how everything had begun with his grandfather’s barrow in Whitechapel, a barrow that now stood proudly in the food hall of Trumper’s. He paid tribute to the colonel, long since dead, to the pioneers of the company, Mr. Crowther and Mr. Hadlow, as well as to two of the original staff, Bob Makins and Ned Denning, both of whom had retired only weeks before he himself had. He ended with Daphne, Marchioness of Wiltshire, who had loaned them their first sixty pounds to make it all possible.

“I wish I was fourteen years old again,” he said wistfully. “Me, my barrow, and my regulars in the Whitechapel Road. Those were the ’appiest days of my life. Because at ’eart, you see, I’m a simple fruit and vegetable man.” Everybody laughed, except Becky, who gazed up at her husband and recalled an eight-year-old boy in sho

rt trousers, cap in hand, standing outside her father’s shop, hoping to get a free bun.

“I am proud to ’ave built the biggest barrow in the world and tonight to be among those who ’ave ’elped me push it from the East End all the way into Chelsea Terrace. I’ll miss you all—and I can only ’ope you’ll allow me back into Trumper’s from time to time.”

As Charlie sat down, his staff rose to cheer him. He leaned over, took Becky by the hand and said, “Forgive me, but I forgot to tell ’em it was you what founded it in the first place.”

Becky, who had never been to a football match in her life, had to spend hours listening to her husband on the subject of the World Cup, and how no fewer than three West Ham players had been selected for the England squad.

For the first four weeks after Charlie had retired as chairman, he seemed quite content to allow Stan to drive him from Sheffield to Manchester, and from Liverpool to Leeds, so that they could watch the early rounds together.

When England won a place in the semifinal, Charlie used every contact he could think of to obtain two stand tickets, and his efforts were rewarded when the home side won a place in the final.

However, despite those contacts, a willingness to pay over the odds, and even writing to Alf Ramsay, the England team manager, Charlie still failed to get even a standing ticket for the final. He told Becky that he had come to the reluctant conclusion that he and Stan would have to watch the match on television.

On the morning of the game, Charlie came down to breakfast to find two stand tickets wedged in the toast rack. He was unable to eat his eggs and bacon for sheer excitement. “You’re a genius, Mrs. Trumper,” he said several times, interspersed with: “However did you manage it?”

“Contacts,” was all Becky would say, resolved not to let Charlie know that the new computer had revealed that Mrs. Ramsay held an account at Trumper’s, and Cathy had suggested she should join that select group of customers who received a ten percent discount.

The four-two victory over West Germany, with three goals scored by Geoff Hurst of West Ham, not only brought Charlie to the edge of delirium but even made Becky briefly wonder if her husband had now put Trumper’s behind him and would allow Cathy a free hand as chairman.

Yet within a week of returning home from Wembley Stadium Charlie seemed perfectly content just to potter around the house, but it was during the second week that Becky realized something had to be done if she wasn’t to be driven mad—as well as lose most of her domestic staff at Eaton Square. On the Monday of the third week, she dropped into Trumper’s to see the manager of the travel department and during the fourth week tickets were delivered from the offices of Cunard to Lady Trumper—for a trip to New York on the Queen Mary—followed by an extensive tour of the United States.

“I do hope she can run the barrow without me,” said Charlie, as they were driven down to Southampton.

“I expect she’ll just about scrape by,” said Becky, who had planned that they should be away for at least three months, to be sure that Cathy had a free hand to get on with the refurbishment program, which they both suspected Charlie would have done everything in his power to hold up.

Becky became even more convinced this would have been the case the moment Charlie walked into Bloomingdale’s and started grumbling about the lack of proper space allocated to view the goods. She moved him on to Macy’s where he complained of the nonexistent service, and when they arrived in Chicago he told Joseph Field that he no longer cared for the window displays that had at one time been the hallmark of the great store. “Far too garish, even for America,” he assured the owner. Becky would have mentioned the words “tact” and “subtlety” had Joseph Field not agreed with his old friend’s every pronouncement, while placing the blame firmly on a new manager who believed in “flower power,” whatever that was.

Dallas, San Francisco and Los Angeles were no better, and when three months later Becky and Charlie climbed back on board the great liner in New York, the name of “Trumper’s” was once again on Charlie’s lips. Becky began to dread what might happen when they set foot back on English soil.

She only hoped that five days of calm seas and a warm Atlantic breeze might help them relax and allow Charlie to forget Trumper’s for a few moments. But he spent most of the voyage back explaining his new ideas for revolutionizing the company, ideas he felt should be put into operation the moment they reached London. It was then that Becky decided she had to make a stand on Cathy’s behalf.

“But you’re not even a member of the board any longer,” Becky reminded him, as she lay on the deck sunbathing.

“I’m the Life President,” he insisted, after he had finished telling her his latest idea for tagging garments to combat shoplifting.

“But that’s a purely honorary position.”

“Poppycock. I intend to make my views felt whenever—”