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“I suppose that’s it for another day then, chaps,” Douglas said, looking at his watch and throwing down his cards.
Martin stretched, throwing down his own hand. “What did you have?”
“Two pair.”
“Damn it!” Martin exclaimed. “What did you have, Arthur?”
“Uhm…” Arthur examined his hand. “Jack of hearts, and Mrs Bun the baker’s wife.”
Douglas roared. “Ha! You win, Arthur.”
“I do?” Arthur looked up, his eyes bright and hopeful.
“Oh yes,” Douglas said, wearing his best impression of sincerity, “Mrs Bun counts as a queen, you’ve got a straight.”
“Really?!”
“Definitely,” confirmed Martin, “Mr Pots the painter is a king and Master Grits the greengrocer’s son is a jack.”
“And sweet little Miss Mug the milkman’s daughter is an ace.”
“Brilliant!” Arthur cried. “Mum! I won the poker!”
“So I heard,” Carolyn grinned at her smirking pilots. “What were you playing for?”
“Those pretzels that you found on G-ERTI,” said Douglas.
“The ones that were four months past their use by date?”
Douglas nodded. “I don’t think they’ve suffered too much,” he picked one up between thumb and forefinger, “are they supposed to bend?”
“I don’t think so,” Martin put in. “Not that it’s stopping Arthur.”
Arthur had a mouthful of his winnings and opened his mouth to speak, spraying the table with soggy pretzel crumbs.
“Oh, lovely.”
“Arthur darling,” Carolyn trilled, “remember, swallow before you speak.”
Arthur swallowed audibly. “Sorry mum. Hey, what’s this parcel?” He picked up a box from his mother’s desk.
“Oh, I don’t know. It was delivered this morning. Open it.”
Arthur tore the brown paper off the parcel and discarded it on the floor. Martin picked it up. Inside was a box with a note attached. “Dear MJN,” Arthur read, “Thanks for a memorable trip, Mr. Gedney & company.” He looked up with a slight frown. “He’s underlined ‘memorable’ three times. Do you think that means something?”
Carolyn and the pilots exchanged glances.
“It was quite memorable…”
“Memorable is a kind way of putting it.”
“I can think of other words.”
“Brilliant!” Arthur’s voice pulled the others from their memories of Mr. Gedney’s trip to Cologne. He held up the box so they could all see the front. Seven bottles in the colours of the rainbow. “Schnapps!”
-
“But why can’t we drink them?” Arthur whined.
“You know why,” Carolyn was stern, “need I remind you of Martin’s black eye?”
Arthur looked at the ground. “I am very sorry about that, Skip,” he mumbled.
“I know you are, Arthur, it’s fine,” Martin said kindly.
“But mum,” Arthur brightened and began talking at top-speed again, “it won’t happen again and the Skipper would know not to get too close and look there’s a blueberry one!”
Carolyn sighed heavily. “Fine.”
“Brilliant!” Arthur began tearing open the box.
“Not now! You are about to drive home and these gentlemen,” she indicated the pilots, “have a plane to fly in the morning.”
Arthur’s face fell. He looked up from beneath the errant curls falling over his forehead. “Tomorrow?” he asked hopefully. “We’ve got the next day off and we can invite Skip and Douglas over and we can have cheese footballs!”
Carolyn sighed and turned to the pilots. “Are you intrigued by these culinary delights?” She paused, and Douglas opened his mouth to speak. Before he could she added, “Do bear in mind before you answer that you will be stuck in a metal tube for most of tomorrow with either a happy or very disappointed Arthur.”
“I suppose we’ve no other plans, then.”
“It’s a very long time since I had a cheese football.” Martin grinned.
“BRILLIANT!”
-
“Post landing not-fallen-apart checklist complete.”
“Mm-hm. Plane broadly not fallen apart?”
“Affirmative.”
“Jolly good.” Douglas stretched out, feeling his back and hips crack into more appropriate positions. He yawned and closed his eyes. Martin sat quietly, enjoying the comforting feeling of his plane safely on the ground, ready to go again next time.
Arthur exploded into the flight deck. “Ready to go chaps!”
“Bloody hell Arthur!” Douglas startled, jumping in his seat. Martin smiled mildly across at his first officer, the older man’s fringe flopping into his scowling face.
“Sorry Douglas,” Arthur sang. “I’m just so excited!”
“Of course you are,” said Douglas drily, pulling himself to his feet. “Let’s go then.”
The pilots followed Arthur down G-ERTI’s steps onto the tarmac, stopping to lock her up. Arthur ran at full tilt past the portakabin to his little car, and jumped in. “Last one to mum’s is a mouldy lemon!” he cried before slamming the door shut and pulling off.
Douglas and Martin exchanged glances.
“Do you think he realises we have paperwork to do?”
“Not likely.”
-
“What flavour do you all want then?” Arthur demanded, pulling the brightly coloured bottles out of the box. He had lined up four tumblers on the table, in front of the bowl of cheese footballs and another of what appeared to be nik-naks.
Douglas rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath as he pulled of his shoes. Martin stifled a laugh. “Give us a minute to get our coats off, Arthur.”
They followed Arthur’s voice into the front room, Douglas flopping into the chair nearest the door and Martin going to sit by Arthur’s side. Douglas gave Carolyn a pointed look across the room, a look that did not fail to convey that he was unimpressed.
“What’s this dark purple one?”
“Blackcurrant.” Arthur replied, twisting the top off and pouring a suspiciously purple-tinged liquid into one of the glasses.
“I thought schnapps was meant to be colourless,” said Douglas.
Carolyn made an agreeing noise. “Despite Mr Gedney’s absurd wealth, he seems to have sent us the cheapest and most suspect gift he could lay his hands on.”
“Perhaps only fair, since we provided him with the cheapest and most suspect aircraft in the country.”
“Only in the country, Douglas? Why that’s quite complimentary coming from you.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
“Which one do you want, Douglas?” Arthur asked.
There was a pause, as the pilots and Carolyn looked at one another, wondering who was going to be first to say it or if Arthur would remember.
“Dear heart, you remember that Douglas doesn’t drink,” Carolyn finally reminded him.
“Yeah.” Arthur looked to his mother, his face open and relaxed.
“Schnapps is alcoholic, Arthur,” Martin said.
“Yeah.” Arthur nodded.
“Oh dear lord.” Carolyn muttered, before taking a breath and leaning towards her son. “Douglas can’t drink it,” she said gently, looking deep into his eyes and wondering if there was a way to make this any more clear.
“But… but it’s fruit-flavoured,” Arthur protested. Carolyn looked across at Douglas, who observed from a distance, a smirk on his lips and an eyebrow raised.
“Yes… Nevertheless.”
Arthur looked sadly down at his little bottles. “I could make you a cup of tea?”
“Oh terrific, you can all get pissed and I’ll sit here drinking tea.”
“Well you could have some schnapps but when I suggested that Mum’s jaw did that thing it does when I talk about her and Herc getting married - look! Like that!”
“Douglas will have tea,” Carolyn almost shouted.
“Oh, will he? Jolly good.”
-
“Good god that is awful!”
“Oh wow,” Martin choked out, half laughing in between coughs.
“I really liked it!” Arthur pouted, grabbing the bright red bottle from Martin’s hand. “What do you think Douglas?”
“Oh bloody hell,” Carolyn muttered.
“I admire your attempts to get me off the wagon, Arthur, but I assure you that should you succeed my first drink would not be cheap cherry schnapps.”
“Oh. What would it be?”
“Arthur!” Carolyn admonished.
“What?”
“We are not going to plan Douglas’s horrific relapse into alcoholism.”
“Why not?”
“Oh jesus christ.”
“It would be Talisker 25, obviously,” Douglas grinned at Carolyn’s increasingly weary expression, the alcohol not helping.
“Don’t you do that,” Carolyn pointed a finger at her first officer. “It’s not funny.”
“I beg to differ. The expression on your face is positively laughable.”
-
“Alright, who’sh for the lemon one?” Arthur slurred.
“No, no, I’m finished,” Martin waved away the yellow bottle. “If I have any more Douglas won’t let me in the car.”
“I’m considering not letting you in the car anyway.”
“Why?”
Douglas shrugged. “Spite?”
“You wouldn’t abandon me here,” Martin said, shaking his head slowly back and forth.
“Don’t tempt me, Captain.”
“Mum?” Arthur thrust the bottle in the direction of his mother. She jumped.
“Wha-? Who’s that?”
“Oh dear, I think someone’s had a little too much,” Douglas grinned across at the bedraggled and confused woman.
“I have not,” Carolyn insisted, her authority more than slightly diminished by the puzzled expression she wore and her spectacles sliding off her face.
“It can get harder to hold your drink as you get older…” Douglas teased.
“Glass houses, Mr Richardson,” Carolyn warned.
Douglas smirked.
Arthur slipped sideways, falling against Martin.
“Arthur?”
Arthur’s eyelids flickered slightly. “Hello Skip.”
“Do you know how much you’ve had to drink?”
Arthur shook his head, still leaning against Martin’s shoulder. “Finished it.”
“You finished all of them?” Douglas jumped up and gathered up the bottles. They were all empty. “Bloody hell.” He knelt in front of Arthur. “Arthur, I think you need to go to bed.”
Arthur shook his head violently and sat up again, wobbling slightly from side-to-side. “No! I can stay up!”
“Do you want Martin to give you a direct order?”
Arthur stuck his lower lip out in an exaggeration of a pout. “No.”
“Alright then. To bed.”
Arthur stood, and immediately fell into Douglas. If Douglas was a decently-built man, Arthur was a positively enormous man. He wasn’t fat, by any definition, but at 6’5” with a wolf’s appetite he was certainly sturdy. Douglas stumbled backwards but managed to remain upright.
“Team effort, I think,” he addressed Martin, who stood and stepped over to flank Arthur. They supported Arthur’s almost dead weight, trying to avoid colliding with his limbs each time he decided to try and make a break for it. Martin flinched, trying to avoid a repeat of the infamous black eye incident.
“Douglas, Douglas,” Arthur stopped and grabbed Douglas’s tie.
“Don’t strangle me, Arthur, what is it?”
“I want to go to Wichita.” Arthur leant into Douglas’s face, the sweet chemical smell of cheap schnapps swallowed straight emanating from his open mouth.
“Witches, obviously.”
“And a guitar?” Martin suggested.
“Exactly!”
-
“Please tell me we don’t have to put her to bed as well,” Martin muttered, looking at Carolyn slumped on the sofa, all traces of her dragon-like demeanour vanished.
“No you do not.” Carolyn spoke without opening her eyes.
“Alright, we’ll get off then. Do enjoy your day off tomorrow, Carolyn. I’m sure the headache will be entirely worth it.”
Douglas rummaged in his pockets to find his car keys and turned to Martin, who was absent-mindedly rubbing at his jaw.
“Are you sure you don’t want some ice for that?”
“No, it’ll be fine. It’s not that bad.”
“Oh god, what happened?”
“Arthur head butted me.”
“Yes, we’d got him settled into bed when he decided to make a last-ditch bid for freedom. Martin here heroically tackled him.”
“Mm. I’m not sure which of us was the tackler and which was the tacklee.”
“Well Arthur ended up in the bed and you’re still conscious-” he paused, letting the words ‘unlike last time’ hang in the air, “-so I’d call it a success.”
Martin sighed. “As successful as any evening with Arthur can be.”
“Indeed. Right then, my gallant Arthur-tamer, it’s time for you to drink a litre of water and go to bed.” Douglas collected Martin’s shoes and threw them at the younger man’s feet. “Cheerio Carolyn, thank you for a lovely evening.” Sarcasm dripped from his words.
A small snore from the sofa indicated that Carolyn wasn’t listening.