Free The Gropes by Tom Sharpe Page A

think. At least Esmond was going to the Ponsons’ and obviously she would have to … No, she couldn’t let a psychiatrist see Horace. He’d lose his job at the bank if he was sent to a loony bin or even if it got out that he had had a nervous breakdown. Loony bin was not the politically correct term she’d have used in polite society but in Horace’s case it seemed entirely appropriate; he was loony.
    So with these thoughts turbulently rising in what there was left of her own mind, it was hardly surprising that her driving was even more dangerously erratic than usual, leaving Esmond in a state of nervous exhaustion and terror.
    By the time they reached the Ponsons’ bungalowhe was practically speechless. They were greeted by Uncle Albert, bubbling with false bonhomie. In the background, Belinda was far less enthusiastic, eventually offering them tea in a tone of voice that suggested it was the last thing she wanted to offer.
    ‘Now come on in and make yourselves at home,’ said Albert, but Vera was too upset to accept.
    ‘I’ve simply got to get home to poor Horace. He’s in a dreadful state,’ she said, and clasping Esmond to her ample bosom promptly burst into tears. Then, tearing herself away and kissing Esmond, much to his embarrassment, on his lips, she turned away from her darling boy and a moment later was driving back to Croydon and to her evidently demented husband.

Chapter 12
    In Vera’s absence, Horace had had a marvellous day. She had been so distraught at the prospect of losing her darling son to that awful Belinda that she had forgotten to take the key to the bedroom out of the door and Horace had managed to push it through onto a sheet of newspaper and pull this into the bedroom. Five minutes later he had found his razor in the bathroom where Vera had hidden it. He shaved and then, dressed in his best suit and carrying a hastily packed suitcase, he locked the door of the bedroom, pocketed the key and hurriedly left the house with a smile on his face.
    It was more than a smile; it was a look of triumph. For the first time since his marriage, Horace Wileyfelt a free man, a new man, a man with none of the ghastly emotional encumbrances his bloody wife had foisted onto him.
    Spending the week in bed feigning madness – walking the floor at night and laughing maniacally whenever he thought Vera might be listening – had given him time to think. He’d decided that, finally, enough was enough. He was done with Vera, with her horrible relatives and with his lurking beast of a son. He wasn’t going back to his job at the bank. He didn’t need the salary now that he had escaped his responsibilities. For years he had been putting money into a private pension fund and an even larger amount he’d made on the stock market into a numbered account in Switzerland, both without telling his damnable wife. From now on she could fend for herself and for her wretched son.
    Horace strode down Selhurst Road and, finding himself passing the Swan & Sugar Loaf, a pub he’d never frequented and where he wouldn’t be recognised, went in and ordered a large whisky by way of celebration.
    Horace took his drink to an empty corner and considered his next move. It was going to be a radical one. Going abroad was the obvious answer: Vera would never imagine him doing that. She was too scared of flying and until this moment he hadn’t been too keen on it himself. But now he was a free man, a new man, he no longer cared how he travelled, only that he got as far away as possible.
    Because of their fear of flying the Wileys had never been abroad, and Horace realised that his first priority was to get a passport. He wasn’t at all certain, now he came to think about it, just how one went about it but he had an awful feeling that it involved filling in lots of forms and having photographs signed by doctors or fellow bank managers. He was sure that he had had to sign, in an official capacity, a photograph of a very dodgy-looking