Chapter 3  Farewell My Lovely

Ben settled himself in for the evening. He felt completely drained after the mental anguishes of the day. He decided he needed some comfort and so raided the freezer and found a home made fish pie which he had been saving for a rainy day. And this had been the mother and father of all rainy days. On occasions such as this Ben liked to pamper himself. He got out his best china and the antique crystal glass, which always made wine taste so much nicer. He set the small table in the lounge so that he could sit in his comfy leather armchair and watch television whilst he ate his meal.

The microwave pinged, Ben ladled out a portion of fish pie, poured a glass of chilled Chardonnay and took them into the lounge and sank with a sigh into the armchair. He turned the DVD player on with the remote and the television sprang into life displaying another of Ben’s passions, an old American black and white detective film.

The film was one that he had watched hundreds of times before and never tired of. It was ‘The Big Sleep’ with Humphrey Bogarte and Lauren Bacall. Bogarte was cast as Philip Marlowe, private eye. Ben knew much of it by heart and could recite the dialogue along with Bogie and with quite a passable attempt at the accent. This was another area in which Ben was a real anorak. He had a large collection of old black and white movies and

considered them to be of much greater quality than modern day sex and violence films.
He had completely lost himself in the intricacies of the plot when the phone brought him back to the here and now. He paused the movie, not wanting to lose track. For a moment he thought it was Lisa on the other end of the phone about to tell him that Phil had confessed all but it was some call centre trying to tell him that his life would only be complete with one of their products. He settled again into his armchair, having first of all collected the bottle of wine from the kitchen, and continued to watch the film.
The next time that he was aware of anything it was midnight and the television was hissing at him and all it displayed was a blank screen. He couldn’t ever remember having fallen asleep during a Philip Marlowe film before, an indication of how troubled he was. He decided to go to bed and clear up in the morning.

The alarm sprang into life; Ben didn’t quite follow the lead given. Instead he lay dozing, listening with one ear to Radio Four and its news headlines. The weather forecast informed him that he would need an umbrella and a raincoat today. It then went on to interview a prominent politician who did everything he could to avoid answering a direct question with a simple answer. Ben realised that the only way to avoid governmental platitudes was to get out of bed and turn off the radio. As he achieved the vertical position he realised that he had consumed the whole bottle of Chardonnay. He groaned and turned off the radio. The only answer was a large cup of coffee – if he could get to the kitchen and sort it out. Twenty minutes later he sat nursing his third cup of coffee, should he go to work or not? His conscience got the better of him, he showered and dressed in record time and was ready to leave onlyten minutes later than usual. He went down to the garage and said good morning to Min, got into the car, put the key into the ignition turned it and all he got was a very slight and apologetic cough.

‘Min, we’re late this morning, now don’t let me down.’ He turned the key again and this time nothing. He left it for a few minutes then he tried once more. Min did not spring into life; she was very poorly indeed. Here was the answer. He could not possibly go to work and leave Min indisposed. First things first, he phoned the garage, Martin agreed to come round within the

hour. Then he phoned the office. Much to his annoyance Grant Perkins answered the phone, in the office early toadying favour with the boss no doubt. ‘Grant, could you tell Mat I won’t be in today. I don’t feel too good, I think I might be coming down with the flu.’

‘Sorry to hear that Ben. Do you know where, or… who, you might have caught it from?’ Ben didn’t answer this, knowing that Grant was trying to wind him up and would give his own garbled reason to Mat for Ben’s absence.

‘Hope to see you soon Grant. Thanks.’

When Martin arrived and had a look at the car he had some bad news.
‘I’m sorry Ben, I’ll have to take Min back to the garage. She needs a good overhaul and I need some spare parts that I will have to order. It might take a week.’ Martin was an old friend of both Ben and Min and Ben knew that he would only take this course of action if it were necessary. Ben said his goodbyes and went back into the house.

He felt lost without Min and moved from room to room trying to decide what to do. It wasn’t the same talking to an empty room and he couldn’t get his thoughts into any sort of sensible order. Maybe that was why he came up with the idea that he did.
 
He hadn’t come to any conclusion about what to do about Lisa’s problem and didn’t want to speak to her just yet. He began tidying up and took the DVD out of the player. ‘That’s it!’ he thought. ‘I’ll go down to Phil’s office and wait outside and see if he gets up to anything at lunchtime. But what if he sees me? I know, it’s raining, I’ll wear my old raincoat and that trilby I had for the fancy dress party I went to with Leo. If I put on some dark glasses and carry my umbrella, which I’ll probably need anyhow, he’ll never recognise me. And how about a false moustache Min?’ For a minute he’d forgotten that he didn’t have Min to advise him. He decided to put the moustache into his pocket just in case.

To get into town where Phil worked, Ben had to get the bus. He very rarely used public transport and was unsure of the system. By the time he managed to get his money out of his pocket and into the box there was a queue behind and lots of disgruntled noises.

He was quite enjoying this new experience in spite of it being a little like a sauna on the crowded bus and with a slight smell of wet dog wafting through the air. The bus gave him a different viewpoint and he saw things he’d never noticed when driving Min. He thought he might retrace the route with Min, stopping off at places he’d noticed. He was so interested in what he could see through the window that he gave little thought to what he would do when he got into town. Before he knew where he was the bus had reached the terminus and was unloading its passengers.

It was too early to go and lurk outside Phil’s office so Ben decided to go and get a cup of coffee at Starbucks. He made a very strange figure. He was wearing a belted and very old fashioned raincoat with the collar turned up, a trilby pulled down over his eyes, and an unlit cigarette hung from his lips – even though he didn’t smoke. He’d decided on this when he’d looked in the mirror at home, thinking it made him look more like Bogie.