Джеффри Арчер - Tell Tale - Stories

“Thank you, sir,” said Joe, issuing him with a ticket before touching his peaked cap. His first customer.

By the end of the day, he’d had fourteen customers, and collected one pound and eight shillings, more than he earned in a week working for the council. By the end of the first week, he’d pocketed £31, and took Molly out for a drink at the pub, where they shared a Scotch egg.

Joe wanted to splash out and go to the Swan, where you could get a three-course meal and a half bottle of wine for £3, but Molly wouldn’t hear of it, saying, “It will only make folks suspicious, and give the game away.” She even introduced him to the words “cash flow.”

On the Monday, when the zoo was closed, Joe could have taken a day off, but instead, he labored away, painting another six spaces, and as each day passed, the rectangles increased along with his income, causing him to grow more and more confident. However, it was on the Tuesday of the third week that he saw Mr. Turner, the zoo manager, heading toward him and assumed the game was up.

“Morning, Mr....?”

“Joe,” he said.

“Could we have a private word, Joe?”

“Yes, of course, Mr. Turner.”

“When I’ve parked here in the past,” said the zoo manager, “I’ve never had to pay.”

“And you won’t have to in the future, Mr. Turner,” said Joe.

“But now the council’s taken over the site, surely I’ll be expected—”

“You won’t be expected to pay a penny, Mr. Turner. In fact I’m going to allocate you your own private space, that no one else will be able to park in.”

“Won’t the council kick up a fuss?”

“I won’t say anything if you don’t,” said Joe, touching his nose.

“That’s good of you, Joe,” said Turner. “Let me know if I can ever do anything for you.”

Joe selected the space directly opposite the entrance to the zoo and spent the rest of the day carefully painting the words ZOO MANAGER ONLY.

When Molly left her job at Mason’s to have the baby, Joe suggested she handle the cash and keep the books.

Molly also opened a bank account with Barclays, and paid in just over £20 a week, the average wage for a council parking attendant, and placed the rest of the cash under a floorboard in their bedroom.

Although Molly kept the books in apple pie order, even she had to take some time off when Joe Junior was born. His birth only gave the proud father the incentive to paint even more spaces, and within a year, all 120 slots were in place, with a special area reserved for coaches.

When the time came for Molly to return to work, she didn’t go back to Mason’s, but joined Joe officially as his bookkeeper and secretary. She paid herself £25 a week. However, it didn’t help the cash flow problem, as they had to take up more and more floorboards, but she was already working on how to deal with that particular problem.

It was Molly who suggested that the time had come for them to take a trip to Macclesfield.

“Macclesfield wouldn’t be my first choice for a holiday,” said Joe.

“We’re not going on holiday,” said Molly, “just a day trip. If you look at your father’s latest ticket machine, you’ll see who the manufacturer is, and I think it’s time we paid them a visit.”

As the zoo was always closed on a Monday, Molly borrowed a van from Mr. Mason and the three of them set off for Macclesfield. The showroom turned out to be a treasure trove of uniforms, machines, and all the other accessories any self-respecting car park attendant needed to do his job. Joe ended up acquiring two outfits (summer and winter) with ZOO printed on the shoulder, the latest collecting machine, a peaked cap, and a small enamel badge that announced SUPERVISOR, which he couldn’t resist, although Molly wasn’t at all sure about it. Her only acquisitions were a large bookkeeper’s ledger and a filing cabinet.

It was on the way back to Barnsford that Molly dropped two bombshells. “I’m pregnant again,” she said, “but at least the council have finally offered us a house.”

“But I thought you didn’t want to live in a council house, and in any case we’ve got enough cash to put down a deposit on a bungalow on the Woolwich estate,” said Joe.

“Can’t risk it,” said Molly. “If we did that, folks might start gossiping and wonder how you earned that sort of money as a car park attendant, and don’t forget, most people think I’m still out of work.”

“But what’s the point of making all this money, if we can’t enjoy it?” demanded Joe.

“Don’t worry yourself. I have plans for that too.”

Six months later, Mr. and Mrs. Simpson, Joe Jr., and Janet moved into their council house on the Keir Hardie estate. While folks might have thought their new neighbors were living in a council house, if they’d ever been invited inside they would have discovered the Simpsons weren’t doing their shopping at the Co-op, but then they never were invited inside.

And as well as tufted carpets, a space-age kitchen, a large-screen TV, and a three-piece suite that wasn’t bought on the never-never, they still had a cash flow problem. But Joe felt confident Molly would come up with a solution.

“We won’t be going to Blackpool for our summer holiday this year,” she announced over breakfast one morning.

“Then where are we going, Mum?” demanded Joe Jr.

“Don’t speak with your mouth full,” said Molly. “We’re going to Majorca.”

Joe wanted to ask “Where’s that?” but was rescued by Janet, who asked the same question.

“It’s an island in the Mediterranean, which not many people from Barnsford will have heard of, and are even more unlikely to visit,” which seemed to silence all three of them.

Joe and Molly always took their holiday in the zoo’s quietest fortnight of the year, and as the day approached, the children became more and more excited, because it would be their first trip on a plane. Joe’s and Molly’s too, come to that, but they didn’t mention it.

To do Joe justice, it was his idea to employ a bright university student, preferably an immigrant, to cover for him whenever he was away on holiday. He always paid the lad in cash, and although he didn’t make much of a profit during that fortnight, the regulars were kept happy, and there were never any questions about why the car park wasn’t manned.

“And if anyone asks where I am,” said Joe, “just tell them I’m on holiday with the family in Blackpool.”

Once the family arrived in Majorca, Molly didn’t waste any time. While Joe took the children to the beach, she visited every estate agent in Palma. When they got back on the plane a fortnight later, Joe had put on half a stone, the children were nut brown, and Molly had put down a deposit on a front-line plot in Puerto de Pollença, overlooking the sea.

The estate agent made no comment when she signed the contract and handed over the £5,000 deposit in cash. By the time they’d visited Majorca six times, the land belonged to them.

Molly then set about looking for a local architect. She chose a German, much to Joe’s disapproval, who also didn’t raise an eyebrow when his quarterly payments were made in cash.

A year later, a JCB rolled onto the site, and the builder licked his lips when rolls of twenty-pound notes changed hands on a regular basis, even if the project manager found Molly a bit of a handful.

So while Joe and Molly continued to live a frugal existence in Barnsford, with Joe’s only extravagance a season ticket for Barnsford Rovers, who still languished in the bottom half of the third division, Molly did allow herself the occasional visit to The Smoke to see the latest musical and have an Indian curry at Veeraswamy. But they always traveled back to Barnsford second class in case anyone spotted them. However, during the summer holidays, the family could always be found residing in their luxury villa overlooking the sea in the Bay of Pollença.