Tell Tale: Stories

“Stop nagging, woman,” said Dennis, but not loud enough for his wife to hear.

Dennis Pascoe would have got divorced years ago, but couldn’t afford to. He’d been married to Joyce for thirty-four years, and assumed it must now, unfortunately, be till death do us part.

She hadn’t been his first choice, but then he suspected he hadn’t been hers. Dennis used to tell himself they’d stayed together because of the children, but that was no longer convincing, as both Joanna and Ken now lived abroad, so the truth was they remained together because of inertia.

Dennis had recently retired as the deputy station master at Audley End, a branch line for Saffron Walden. It hadn’t exactly been an earth-shattering career. He’d left school at fourteen, with no qualifications, and failed several interviews for other jobs before he signed on as an apprentice with British Rail. He told his mother Audley End was no more than a stepping-stone for something bigger. The problem was, Dennis had no idea what that something bigger might be, and never found out.

Dennis progressed from apprentice, to ticket collector, to booking clerk, finally ending up as deputy station master in charge of a team of five. Only three of them on duty at any one time. In reality, “deputy” meant he couldn’t afford to join the local golf club, and was unlikely to be invited to become a Rotarian.

However, the real problem came when Great Eastern took over the franchise from BR and Dennis opted for early retirement on a full pension at the age of fifty-five, convinced he was still young enough to find another job to supplement his meager income. Wrong again, because there weren’t many jobs in the private sector for retired deputy station masters, other than as a night watchman or a lollipop man, both of which Joyce wouldn’t allow him to consider.

Within days of retirement, Dennis also discovered that marriage may well have been ordained for better or worse, but not for seven days a week. Joyce, who had never done a day’s work in her life — other than to keep the house clean, do the shopping, feed him, handle all the household bills and bring up the children — didn’t appreciate Dennis getting under her feet while she was trying to do the housework. Housewives don’t retire, she often reminded him.

The other problem Dennis had to face was that his pension didn’t allow him to indulge in many luxuries and, with inflation, that was only likely to get worse as he approached old age. He had a season ticket for Norwich Football Club at the wrong end of the ground, which he could just about afford, and their fortunes were not much better than his. They were either trying to survive in the first division or attempting to reach the playoffs in the second. And then there was the love of his life, not Joyce, but his stamp collection — a hobby that had begun at the age of seven, when his grandfather had given him a packet of “Commonwealth Specials” to celebrate the Queen’s coronation. Dennis now had over a thousand examples of stamps from all over the world, proudly mounted in five separate albums.

His only other extravagance was to subscribe to Stanley Gibbons’s monthly newsletter and catalogue, which he then spent hours perusing, aware that he would never be able to afford the rare examples he would have most liked to add to his collection.

Dennis tried to fill his day with long walks, not always possible when it was raining, and a visit to the local pub, where he sat in the corner drinking a half pint of bitter slowly, while reading the Sun. He made sure he was back in time for lunch, after which he migrated to the sofa only to fall asleep while watching afternoon television or turning the pages of his stamp albums.

It was while Dennis was reading the Sun and Joyce was vacuuming the front room that he spotted the advertisement for a package holiday on the Costa del Sol, which sounded a lot more exciting than their annual visit to Skegness. Dennis studied the advertisement more carefully, while Joyce attempted to vacuum around him. They were offering bed and full board, flights included, for £200. Too good to be true, thought Dennis, but would Joyce even consider the prospect? During his morning walk, he thought about how to convince her the time had come to be a little more adventurous.

Dennis waited until the end of lunch before he said, “Damn good sausage and mash, luv.” Joyce looked suspicious, as praise didn’t often flow from that side of the table, so she could only wonder what he was after. She didn’t have to wait long to find out. “I was thinking you might like a change from Skeggie this year,” he suggested.

“What did you have in mind, Dennis, a fortnight in Venice perhaps? A leisurely drive along the Corniche? Possibly a trip down the Nile before stopping off in Cairo to see the treasures of Tutankhamun?”

Dennis ignored the sarcasm and pushed his newspaper across the table to show her the photograph of a villa on the Costa del Sol. Before Joyce could offer an opinion, Dennis added, “And don’t forget, even the train journey to Heathrow will be free.” A deputy station master’s perk, he reminded her.

Joyce actually thought it was one of his brighter ideas, just a pity she would have to spend the fortnight with Dennis, but nevertheless she agreed he could look into it.

Mr. and Mrs. Pascoe set out from Audley End for their summer vacation with mixed emotions, so were pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be, as stated boldly in the advertisement, the holiday of a lifetime. They both enjoyed joining the jet set, even if it was only Ryanair, and landing in a country where the sun only left the sky at night; something you couldn’t always guarantee in Skegness, even in the summer.

Their room couldn’t have been described as luxurious, but it was clean and comfortable, and the three meals a day never once included sausage and mash. Joyce may have been past her bikini days and her husband had bulges in all the wrong places, but at least the beach was not littered with empty beer bottles, while stepping into the sea was like taking a warm bath, and, an added bonus, they made lots of new friends. Whenever Joyce was asked what her husband did, she told them he was a retired station master.

Two weeks later, Mr. and Mrs. Pascoe returned to England tanned, relaxed, and already looking forward to repeating the experience in a year’s time; possibly, Joyce suggested, they might even consider going further afield.

The perfect holiday might have been ruined at the last moment when they had to hang around in the baggage hall at Stansted waiting for Dennis’s suitcase to appear on the carousel. It didn’t. But all was not lost, because when Joyce read the small print on the holiday brochure later that evening, it claimed all losses under £50 were covered by insurance, and as the suitcase had belonged to her mother, and contained little of any real value, she could not have been more delighted when a check for thirty-four pounds, ten shillings, and fifty-five pence dropped on the mat three weeks later.

Joyce, being a frugal housewife, waited for the January sales before she bought a new suitcase and a handbag she wouldn’t have considered in normal circumstances, and even felt a little guilty about. That was until she discovered Dennis had purchased a set of Prince of Wales commemoration stamps without telling her.

All would have been well in the Pascoe household, if the missing suitcase had not been found in lost luggage and later returned to Railway Cuttings. Dennis immediately wrote to inform the insurance company, who replied with a standard letter addressed to “Dear Sir or Madam,” above which were stamped the words “CASE CLOSED.”

Joyce was relieved that they wouldn’t have to return the £34 that she’d already spent, but it did make her wonder...

Dennis spent the following month writing to all the leading travel companies, and the next six studying the different brochures they all sent by return of post. He took the task seriously, as if he was preparing for an examination, Joyce being the examiner. But it was still some time before he was ready to suggest to his wife where they should spend their next summer holiday.

Joyce also sent away for several brochures, and studied them just as intently, so that by the time Dennis was ready to present his findings on when and where they should go that year, she was equally prepared to tell him what she’d been up to for the past six months.

After a long discussion they settled on Lanzarote, and that was when Joyce shared with her husband a refinement that she felt would make the holiday even more rewarding. Dennis listened in disbelief to what his wife had in mind, and immediately dismissed the idea out of hand. After all, he said, it’s dishonest. However, a week later, after several long walks and too many lingering half pints in the local pub, he asked Joyce to talk him through the idea once again. But it wasn’t until he’d studied the latest Stanley Gibbons’ catalogue and spotted a Penny Black he coveted, that he agreed to go along with her suggestion.

Joyce had clearly given the matter a great deal of thought, and took Dennis carefully through what they would have to do, minute by minute, while allowing her husband to ask questions and point out any weaknesses in her plan. Dennis could only come up with one problem he considered was insurmountable, but was surprised to find that his wife had even thought of a way around that. Dennis was impressed, and even though he still had his doubts, he allowed her to go ahead and fill in all the necessary forms.

When Mr. and Mrs. Pascoe stepped onto the train for Heathrow they were both looking forward to the second “holiday of a lifetime,” and indeed, the break might have gone even better if Dennis had stopped fretting about the consequences of something going wrong with Joyce’s plan. But by the time they returned home a fortnight later, they both agreed Lanzarote had turned out to be even more enjoyable than the Costa del Sol. And whenever the subject had arisen, Dennis didn’t deny he’d recently retired as a director of Great Eastern, which sounded quite convincing in Lanzarote.

After everyone on their flight had collected their luggage from the carousel, Joyce burst into tears and Dennis did everything he could to console her. She then explained to a sympathetic young baggage handler that one of her suitcases had not appeared on the carousel. An extensive search was carried out, but no one seemed able to find the missing bag. Joyce continued to sob.

Once they were back in Saffron Walden, Joyce waited for a couple of days before she posted two claims for a lost suitcase to two different insurance companies, listing the contents as three dresses, several items of underwear, two pairs of shoes, a bottle of perfume, a washbag, and even a lucky charm bracelet (photo attached).

Two checks, one for £84.20 and a second for £110, arrived within days of each other. The checks were deposited in two different banks in two different names.

During the Christmas sales, Joyce purchased half a dozen new suitcases of varying sizes from several different department stores in central London, while Dennis acquired an unperforated set of Penny Reds, which he proudly added to his collection.

Cunard couldn’t have been more apologetic about mislaying one of Mr. and Mrs. Pascoe’s large suitcases — green and clearly labeled Joyce Pascoe, she insisted — while it was being taken off the ship after their third voyage. The purser assured Mrs. Pascoe that everything would be done to find it.

A few weeks later, the first of several checks arrived to cover the loss, while further payments for the same suitcase began to appear at regular intervals over the next six months, as did rarer and rarer, mint and franked, stamps from Stanley Gibbons.

“We mustn’t get too greedy,” said Joyce after returning from a winter break in the Caribbean, a holiday that yielded nine further checks.

So successful were their “holidays of a lifetime” that after five years, they had accumulated more than enough to make it possible for them to move out of their rented semidetached in Saffron Walden and buy a small thatched cottage, which they named The Sidings, in Steeple Bumpstead, where Joyce felt they were more likely to come across the sort of people they met on vacation.

When the Pascoes sat down to plan their next summer holiday, Joyce warned her husband she was beginning to run out of insurance companies, as she couldn’t afford to make a claim to the same one twice. Dennis was disappointed by this news, because he’d recently joined the local golf club, acquired a season ticket for Norwich City FC, quite near the center line, and been invited to become a vice president of the Rotary. He’d also begun to stick rarer and rarer stamps into his eighth album. Dennis would have been the first to accept that none of this would have been possible had it not been for his newfound wealth. He realized that he’d climbed onto a bandwagon that he didn’t want to get off.

Joyce woke her husband in the middle of the night when she came up with her latest idea. Dennis listened intently and couldn’t get back to sleep. If they pulled it off, he might even consider standing for the parish council.

“It will have to be our last job,” she warned her husband, “because there are only three major insurers left.” She didn’t add, whom we haven’t robbed.

Joyce wrote out a list of jobs Dennis had to do before they embarked on their summer holiday, including taking out any spare cash they had in their bank accounts. She checked the small print of the three insurance companies where they hadn’t made a claim, while Dennis told his friends at the golf club and Rotary that he and Joyce were planning a trip down the Nile to celebrate their fortieth wedding anniversary, because his wife had always wanted to see the Pyramids and visit Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Once Joyce had filled in all the forms, and the letters and checks had been dispatched, everything was in place by the time they set off for Southampton.

On July 17, 2001, Dennis and Joyce boarded the SS Balmoral, which was setting out on a voyage to Salalah, Port Said, and through the Suez Canal, before returning to Southampton via Istanbul.

Author’s note