George Grundy’s name is mud! And his lies about the great Borsetshire car crash have caused heart attacks and near-death by chainsaw. But even that couldn’t stop a cosy crime subplot worthy of Richard Osman
Mere prose seems insufficient to map the latest rifts and schisms in Ambridge: an infographic, a diagram, possibly an interpretation in the form of expressive dance seem better suited to the task. But to offer an attempt: George Grundy’s name is mud, now that everyone knows he lied about causing the great Ambridge car crash, and is anything but a hero. Brian Aldridge gave himself an angina attack even thinking about him, and police officer Harrison nearly beat him up. Lilian gave her sister-in-law Pat an earful for offering to be his character witness. (Pat, a known Guardian reader, has dangerous progressive views on whether Prison Is the Answer.) Emma has left the tea shop because she and Fallon can no longer be in the same room (this after a ghastly “mediation session” run by the ever-pompous Tom Archer). Emma and Ed had a row while doing a tree surgery job (one of them is bound to sever a limb with those damn chainsaws, or be crushed to death by a falling branch). George stopped speaking to Emma (though a rapprochement has been effected). Eddie stopped speaking to Susan. Formerly super-close siblings Emma and Chris may never speak again. At the Bull, Jolene and Kenton threw George’s special beer mug, presented to him for his “heroic” rescue actions on the night of the fateful crash, in the bin. I’d like to say that covers everything, but I don’t suppose it does.
What to think? This column has tended to take a dim view of George Grundy. But, as Pat said, he is complicated. Venal and amoral he may be; selfish and a bully, certainly. Would he be cured by a spell inside? I think not. Will some seed of goodness – his occasional bouts of hard work, his ambition – pull him through to some brighter future? I guess you never know.
George Grundy adapts to life in prison, and someone has already wet his bed. There’s been quite the terrifying crime surge in Ambridge lately
Well then, George Grundy was sent down. The prisons system being what it is, there’s no room for him among the young offenders. He’s with the big lads, in proper grownup jail, and someone has already pissed in his bed. It sounds … awful. George has promised he’ll come out of this experience better than he went in. Good luck with that: I’m unsure how he’ll survive without getting sucked into The Gang That Runs the Wing.
Brad Horrobin has been to visit him, George understandably preferring to see his undemanding mathematician cousin than his spiralling-out-of-control parents. George has historically got Brad in trouble – the affair of the vandalised bench in Grey Gables springs to mind. Maybe Brad will be the steadying influence who helps George survive his ordeal. Or maybe – I can see this all too clearly – Brad will end up the introverted but ruthless bespectacled accountant running the money-laundering side of George’s future criminal empire, the seeds of which will be sown during his time banged up.
While her family roast their own turkeys, bitter Emma calls a halt to festivities, what with her son being banged up. Then Joy’s mystery daughter arrives, fresh from a … cult?
The wheel of fortune has turned. This Christmas, the Aldridges – finally on an even keel after Alice was exonerated from involvement in the fateful car crash on the Am – spent a day of familial bliss dining on Scandinavian themed treats, like so many Norse gods in a Wagner opera, under the elegant awning of one of Kate’s yurts. The Grundy/Carters, by contrast, are in a state of schism, broadly along the lines of who was willing to grass George Grundy up to the police and who wasn’t. Various festive lunch combinations were mooted in a bid to circumnavigate the great Eddie Grundy/Susan Carter rift (Susan having definitively broken the code of the Grundys when she insisted the police handle the crimes of her grandson). The Grundy festive table was all about turkey, of course, since they raise the birds; the Carters were planning a typically upwardly mobile affair of salmon en croute and a baked ham, with the lower branches of the family expected to shuttle between the two households. Emma Grundy (née Carter) called a halt, though. With her son George banged up she couldn’t face the pretence of joy and celebration.
Emma: what a fascinating package of human qualities she is. She is filled, very often justifiably, with class resentment. She is chippy, yet – what with her recent excursions into studying English literature – aspiring. She can be malicious – as when she posted anonymous remarks to the stables website denouncing her ex-sister-in-law Alice. She can be self-regarding and oddly blind (is it any wonder that, having concealed a crime from the police, someone might have objected to her presence on the parish council?). Amid all that bitterness, though, is a woman who loves her son and wants better for her family. Perhaps, what with the new arboricultural business, she will attain contentment yet. If she doesn’t accidentally chainsaw off her own limbs first.