Going away.(Short Story)

The taxi fare from his flat to the Club was always about five bob. It seemed to stay at that for years. And then with metrication (of was it decimalisation?) it started to creep up and up and then it was about five pounds. He had started taking the tube a long time ago: much cheaper. And for ages now, it had cost him nothing at all as he had his pensioner's Travel Pass. And the subscription to the Club had gone down too, as he was over seventy-five and had been a member for such a long time. Just as well, too, with interest rates being so low and the Stock Market at rock bottom, seemingly for ever!

The walk through St James's Park from the Underground station to The Mall was really most pleasant. He always stopped on the bridge over the lake and looked first to the left at the fountains and the Palace, and then to the fight. And when he turned to the right he always thought of Churchill and the war. And now there was that funny wheel thing in the sky, called for some reason "The Eye". Quite nice, really. But in the spring and in the summer, as it now was, there were all these tourists messing up the park. Hardly another English person to be seen. And smelly hot dog stalls; even though there was a big notice saying they were unauthorised and you were likely to get food poisoning from them. Funny that people still are from them. It was because none of them could read English, he supposed. And their dress was appalling. For instance, baseball caps worn back-to-front, funny T-shirts and flappy shorts below the knee for the men. And all the females had on either jeans or tight black trousers.

One had to keep up appearances in spite of what the test of the world was doing. In the old days he'd always worn a bowler hat, of course, and when they went out of fashion, a trilby; never a panama, not to the Club. And the only concession for a heatwave, as was now the case, was to leave off the waistcoat. And a rolled umbrella always.

An Indian girl in a very low-cut top and the usual tight black trousers rushed across his path, laughing and giggling with two small Indian children. For a moment he was reminded of his divorce those long years ago. He'd been so stupid to defend it; even though it seemed so unfair. Accused of cruelty. In those days, everything had to come out in open court and he'd been terrified; but the barrister had fortunately said to the judge, "There is, I'm afraid, some bad sexual evidence here, m'lud. Perhaps I could hand it up to you rather than read it out in open court. I gather that part of the evidence is not contested." Even though there'd not been much about it in the papers, he'd felt for years that people in the Bank had looked at him strangely. Nowadays!--well it would have been quite different. Nobody would care. And after Maxion's departure and her money no longer available, it had been a sad do. But there was the MBE for his charitable work. The medal stood in its open case in the china cabinet in his flat.

An interminable wait at the traffic lights in The Mall and then up to the Marlborough Gate and into St James's Street. Goodness, it was hot. He mopped his brow discreetly as he deposited his hat and umbrella in the cloakroom and again in the bar as the barman poured him his usual dry sherry.

"Be closed in another week. Where are you going away to?" the other man at the bar enquired.

He had forgotten that the Club would be closed for an ...