Fourteen
Mark Easterbrook’s Narrative¹
I“So now we’re quite sure,” said Ginger².
“We were sure before.”
“Yes—reasonably so. But this does clinch³ it.”
I was silent for a moment or two. I was visualising Mrs. Tuckerton jour-neying to Birmingham. Entering the Municipal Square Buildings—meetingMr. Bradley. Her nervous apprehension… his reassuring⁴ bonhomie. Hisskilful underlining of the lack of risk. (He would have had to underlinethat very hard with Mrs. Tuckerton.) I could see her going away, not com-mitting herself. Letting the idea take root in her mind. Perhaps she wentto see her stepdaughter, or her stepdaughter came home for a weekend.
There could have been talk, hints of marriage. And all the time thethought of the MONEY—not just a little money, not a miserly pittance—butlots of money, big money, money that enabled you to do everything youhad ever wanted! And all going to this degenerate⁵, ill- mannered girl,slouching about in the coffee bars of Chelsea in her jeans and her sloppyjumpers, with her undesirable⁶ degenerate friends. Why should a girl likethat, a girl who was no good and would never be any good, have all thatbeautiful money?
And so—another visit to Birmingham. More caution, more reassurance⁷.
Finally, a discussion on terms. I smiled involuntarily. Mr. Bradley wouldnot have had it all his own way. She would have been a hard bargainer.
But in the end, the terms had been agreed, some document duly signed,and then what?
That was where imagination stopped. That was what we didn’t know.
I came out of my meditation⁸ to see Ginger watching me.
She asked: “Got it all worked out?”
“How did you know what I was doing?”

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