The Gropes by Tom Sharpe Read Free Book Online

on Beachy Head and –’
    ‘Yes, I know he did, don’t I just,’ said Albert, before he had to hear the story again. ‘What I want to know is what you expect me to do about him now he’s gone completely off his trolley. What does the doctor say?’
    Vera sat down miserably at the kitchen table and shook her head.
    ‘I haven’t asked him. I mean, if I call the doctor he may say Horace is … well, not right in the head and he’d lose his job at the bank and then where would we be?’
    ‘Where’s Horace now?’
    ‘He’s upstairs in bed. I rang the bank and said he had a temperature and wouldn’t be in for a day or two. Oh, Albert, I don’t know what to do.’ She paused and looked at the drawer where the carving knife was. ‘I mean, next time I may not be around when he attacks Esmond.’
    ‘Has he ever attacked him before?’
    Vera shook her head.
    ‘And what did Esmond say?’
    ‘He just asked what was wrong with his dad.’
    ‘You mean he hadn’t said anything to annoy Horace?’
    ‘He hadn’t said a word. He’d just come down in his pyjamas to find out why Horace was shouting and carrying on about there being two of himself. The poor boy didn’t get a chance to say anything before Horace grabbed the knife and hurled himself at him. It was horrible.’
    ‘Must’ve been,’ said Albert, who couldn’t for the life of him imagine his brother-in-law doing anything so impetuous any more than he could imagine Horace proposing passionately to Vera at the top of Beachy Head. Bloody hell, he must have been as tight as an owl to go for Esmond with Vera in the room. Even Albert would have thought twice before getting across his sister.
    ‘Still don’t see what I can do about it,’ he went on. ‘I mean to say … well, my advice is to keep him away from the bottle.’
    ‘You don’t imagine for a moment I let him drink in the house?’ said Vera indignantly. ‘Because I most certainly don’t. Only one glass of wine at Christmas but that’s different.’
    Again Albert had to reassess his brother-in-law’s character.
    ‘You’re not telling me he gets tanked up in pubs? Horace in a pub? I don’t believe it. Bank managers don’t go anywhere near pubs. It’s against their religion.’
    ‘Well, he gets mad drunk somewhere, that I do know. He comes home smelling like a brewery. And he’s always late. He gets up at the crack of dawn and comes home so late I have to put his supper in the oven. Anyway, you go up and have a talk with him. I want to know what’s going on.’
    Albert gave in. He might have been a formidable figure in the second-hand car trade in Essex but he’d never been able to stand up to his sister. He went upstairs and found Horace looking ghastly.
    ‘Hullo, hullo,’ he said loudly. ‘What’s all this I hear about you hitting the bottle and going for Esmond with a knife?’
    Mr Wiley shrank down the bed. He couldn’t bear his brother-in-law at the best of times, and now was the worst. He had a fearful headache and the horrors of the night were still with him. To be questioned by a man he firmly believed to be a criminal and probably some sort of gangland leader was the last straw.
    ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he murmured weakly. ‘I haven’t been well.’
    ‘You don’t have to tell me, Horace, you don’t have to tell me,’ said Albert and opened the curtains with a jerk.
    Mr Wiley cowered under the bedclothes and moaned but his brother-in-law wasn’t to be stopped. Albert was getting his own back for years of Horace’s moral superiority. He sat down heavily on the bed and pulled the bedclothes off the sick man’s face. In the bright sunlight Mr Wiley looked worse and felt worse still. Even Albert Ponson was shaken.
    ‘Blimey,’ he said. ‘You’ve got something a bloody sight worse than a hangover, mate. And I don’t mean maybe.’
    ‘I know I have.’
    ‘Know what it is?’ Albert asked, almost sympathetically. This was deathbed