Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War by Coleman Vernon

Author:Coleman, Vernon [Coleman, Vernon]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Chilton Designs
Published: 2014-01-28T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It was never really clear exactly who told the local television station about Mrs Caldicot's dramatic exodus from The Twilight Years Rest Home.

It was certainly not Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor.

He had spent the rest of that fateful day gloomily jabbing at his calculator with a podgy finger, trying to work out how he could possibly stay in business. Publicity was the last thing he wanted.

And it wasn't Mrs Caldicot either.

Prior to her time at The Twilight Years Rest Home she had always regarded the television set as something that was useful for standing flowers on. During her time at The Twilight Years Rest Home she had regarded the television set primarily as a sedative for Mrs Peterborough. She would have no more thought of telephoning the TV station than she would have thought of taking scuba diving lessons.

It could have been one of Mr Fuller-Hawksmoor's staff members, rejoicing in his discomfiture and anxious to share his discomfort with as wide an audience as possible; it may have been someone from the Mettleham Grand Hotel; or it might just have been someone who had seen Mrs Caldicot's straggling procession trooping along the roadway between The Twilight Years Rest Home and the hotel.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter who tipped off the television station. The fact is someone did and as a result that afternoon a whole television crew turned up at the Mettleham Grand Hotel and asked to speak to the leader of the group of elderly people who had booked into the hotel earlier that day.

***

By the time Mrs Caldicot had responded to the telephone call from the assistant deputy duty manager and had made her way downstairs, the camera crew had set up their equipment in the reception area and a man in the patterned sweater was re-arranging a vase of dried flowers so that they satisfied his acute sense of aesthetic perfection.

`Mrs Caldicot?' said a tall, statuesque blonde with piercing blue eyes, shoulder length hair and a smile that had persuaded politicians in all major parties to say far more than they had ever intended.

`What can I do for you?' asked Mrs Caldicot, nervously eyeing the camera crew.

`My name is Jacoranda Pettigrew. I'm a reporter from the local television station,' said the statuesque blonde, she indicated the chair that she wanted Mrs Caldicot to sit in.

`That's nice,' said Mrs Caldicot, obediently sitting down. Jacoranda, who wasn't easy to ignore or disappoint, sat down opposite her. As she settled herself down and waited for Jacoranda to speak Mrs Caldicot vividly remembered her last encounter with the media. It had been 55 years earlier. She had seen a milkman save a small girl from drowning in a local river. Despite the success of that meeting (which had resulted in her photograph appearing on page seven of her local newspaper) she was modest enough not to consider herself experienced in the matter of news interviews. She felt a frisson of uncertainty running up and down her spine.

`Will you talk to me for the camera?' asked Jacoranda, turning up her smile a couple of hundred watts.

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