The Excitements: A Novel

One

London, Spring 2022

John Betjeman was right. Nothing bad could ever happen at Peter Jones. Thus thought Archie Williamson as he sipped his cappuccino and looked out over London’s rooftops from the Sloane Square department store’s sixth floor café. The café was Archie’s happy place. Even on a grey day the atmosphere was sunny as people took turns at the window tables, understanding that one did not linger for hours over a single latte in front of this fabulous view. Archie nodded with satisfaction as a young woman with a laptop ceded her place to a frazzled mother with two small children, saving him from having to do the same.

With his own lunch companions still en route, Archie shook out the copy of the previous evening’s Standard left behind by his table’s last occupant and turned to the puzzle pages. Codeword was his favourite. He was getting faster each time, though it would be a while before he was able to crack the puzzle as quickly as his great-aunt Penny could.

As he pondered whether the number twenty-four represented an “a” or an “o,” Archie’s phone buzzed with a message. It was Arlene, Penny’s housekeeper, letting him know that she’d put Penny and her older sister Josephine into a taxi which should reach Sloane Square at any moment. Archie thanked Arlene for letting him know. She really was a treasure. But after forty minutes more there was still no sign of Archie’s beloved great-aunts. Then, just as he was about to call Arlene and ask her to check the taxi’s progress on her app, a managerial-type with a Peter Jones partner’s badge came flying up the escalator, calling out as she went, “Mr. Archie Williamson? Is there a Mr. Archie Williamson in the café?”

“Right here,” said Archie, standing up and giving her a wave. Two customers seated on the first inner row of tables stood up at the same time, ready to take Archie’s place by the window the very second it was vacated. They eyed each other like Olympic athletes at the start of the hundred metres and would move just as quickly the moment Archie stepped out of the way.

“Thank goodness,” said the woman, whose name, according to her badge, was Erica. “It’s your great-aunts. The Misses Williamson? I need you to come with me.”

Archie was immediately worried. “Are they OK? Are they hurt?”

There had been an incident the previous month when Josephine slipped on a discarded burger outside McDonald’s on the King’s Road and took Penny down with her as she fell. They’d both had to spend the night in the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital with suspected concussion.

“No, no,” said Erica. “They’re both fine. At least physically they are.” She dropped her voice. “It’s something else. Something . . . Mr. Williamson, I think it might be easier to discuss this somewhere private. Would you mind?”

Archie followed Erica back down the escalator. When they reached the ground floor, Erica led Archie through the shelves of neatly-stacked towels and bed linens to a door he hadn’t previously noticed. She pushed the door open so that Archie could go ahead of her.

“Your great-aunts are in here,” she said.

Archie found it difficult, letting Erica hold the door for him when manners dictated it should have been the other way round, but he nodded and stepped inside all the same. He still didn’t know what to expect.

In a plain room decorated with tasteful pastel prints (available for sale on floor four), Archie’s great-aunts sat side by side on two chairs opposite a very tidy desk. Though it was a balmy spring day outside, they were both well-muffled in coats and scarves. Josephine was wearing a blue fisherman’s cap; Penny, her favourite mohair beret. Archie was always surprised by how small his aunts looked when he saw them out of the context of their South Kensington home but this time they looked tinier than ever. Perhaps it was the contrast with the two enormous men flanking them like sentries. Plain-clothed security officers, Archie realised with growing concern.

“Oh, Archie. Thank goodness you’re here,” said Josephine. “There’s been a terrible misunderstanding.”

“What’s going on?” he asked.

Auntie Penny looked down at her size three-and-a-half feet in their neat Velcro-fastened shoes. When she looked up again, her face wore the expression Archie recognised from every photograph of his younger great-aunt taken between 1924 and the beginning of World War Two. She’d been up to something. What on earth was this “misunderstanding” about?

“Archie, dearest, I’m so sorry to embarrass you like this,” Penny began. “I only picked it up to have a look but I must have let myself get distracted and before I knew what I was doing I had put it in my handbag and closed the zip quite without thinking.”

The “it” in question was a small Swarovski-style crystal elephant, now standing on its hind legs in the middle of Erica’s desk.

“Are we calling the police?” asked one of the security guards.

Lovely Erica chewed her lip. She looked from the guard to the sisters to Archie and then back to the guard again. Her discomfort was palpable.

“I don’t think calling the police will be necessary,” Archie interjected quickly. “As you can see, my auntie Penny is . . .”

How to not say “ancient” in front of her?

“Well, I’m sure she won’t mind me saying that there are occasions when she becomes a little forgetful, but she does not have a dishonest bone in her body and she would never have sought to deprive Peter Jones of its property by stealth. She’s as honest as the day is long. It’s just . . . it’s just, she has . . . you know . . . she’s got . . .”

No. He couldn’t say the “d” word either, even if it might help keep Penny out of jail.

“It’s just that she’s recently turned ninety-seven.”

Penny nodded wretchedly, suddenly looking every one of her years.

“I was in The War,” she said.

“So was I,” said Josephine.

“In fact,” Archie continued. “I came here today to meet my great-aunts in the café to discuss their taking part in the VE Day celebrations at the Royal Albert Hall. VE Day? To mark the anniversary of the end of World War Two?”

“In Europe,” Penny qualified. “The War didn’t end in the Far East until much later the same year.”

“That’s absolutely right, Auntie Penny.” Archie turned back to Erica. “They’re going to be meeting Prince Charles in their capacity as representatives of the women’s services.”

The security officer who wanted to call the police seemed unmoved but Archie could see that the younger man and Erica at least were impressed to hear they were in the presence of real live World War Two veterans.

“I was in the Wrens,” said Josephine.

“Women’s Royal Naval Service,” said Archie.

“And I was a FANY,” said Penny.

“First Aid Nursing Yeomanry,” Archie quickly explained.

“Thank you for your service,” said the younger guard.

It was a platitude that Archie knew both his aunts hated but that day they had the grace (or the sense) to simply thank the young man for his kindness.

“I’d be very happy to pay for the elephant,” said Archie, in an attempt to bring the situation to a conclusion. “Perhaps then we can put all this behind us and let you get on with your day.”

“Store policy . . .” the older officer began.

“Is that every incident like this has to be processed in the official way,” Erica jumped in. “I know, John, I know. But perhaps in this case since, technically, Mizz Williamson hadn’t exited the store . . .”

Archie smiled gratefully and handed over a credit card. “For the elephant.”

“You don’t have to,” said Erica.

“But I’d like to,” said Archie.

He reasoned that Penny must have wanted it.

“Well, if you really want to. We’ll have to take it to one of the tills.”

“Are we not calling the police then?” asked John.

“We’re not calling the police,” Erica confirmed. “Not today. Ladies?” She opened the door to let Penny and Josephine back out onto the shop floor.

Archie parked Penny and Josephine in the cushion aisle while he paid for the hideous crystal knick-knack. It was astonishingly expensive. Excruciatingly so for something so very, very ugly. Who on earth bought these things out of choice? Who would ever bother to steal one?

“I think we’ll have lunch at Colbert today,” Archie told the sisters when he rejoined them. He felt the need to be outside and well away from the scene of the crime. The two security officers had headed in the direction of the main doors which opened straight onto Sloane Square, so Archie ushered his great-aunts out via the scented candle department onto Symons Street instead, making it clear by his body language that this was no time to stop and sniff the Cire Trudon Abd El Kader candle that reminded Penny of her time in Algiers.