Authors: Jonathan Gash
The TV offices were ultra-modern.
Some aspects of publishing, Lottie thought, gazing round, were truly obnoxious. More so than TV, perhaps. It was the people in the trade as much as anything. Tropical plants, madly naff paintings, scruffy notice boards. Swish receptionists, that Continental indifference showing, and males grumbling into straggling beards, you’d run out of adjectives in a school essay. Today’s colours were designer lime and yellows, as horrid as you could get. Blonde, it seemed, was in, and trad skirt suits were back. Hello olde tymers, she thought cattily, here’s redundant over-the-hill Lottie Vinson trying to sell eccentric kiddies’ tales scribbled by a no-hoper in a shed. Jesus.
“Lottie Vinson?” a nasal girl asked.
Lottie said good morning and got the predictable response.
“Would you wait, please? Mr Heilbron will be with you directly.”
Smarting, Lottie sat. As ever, deodorant never quite managed to overcome the tang of Peptic City’s bad coffee. She was eventually admitted to where five of the TV junta
waited, each exhibiting various degrees of animosity. Lottie’s sure instincts for determining pecking order were still there: Heilbron and Moiya Laudrup mattered. The rest were mere number lumber.
Heilbron was a glossily rotund man. Lottie wondered if he’d visited L.A.’s famed Black Tower and was desperately copying Hollywood ethnicity. He wore an unconvincing Van Dyke, surely the butt of office jokes? The Moiya Laudrup woman looked varnished, hair dyed the requisite blonde, teeth a-dazzle. She came round the desk to shake hands, hey, us women against male swinishness.
Her effusive introductions were gilded malevolence. Lottie was clearly a seabed feeder, whose sole purpose was to provide them with profit or get the fuck out. Lottie warned herself to relax, because antagonisms always showed. She went brightly into foils-before-sabres, talked of traffic, this and that.
Lacquered minions, carefully less glamorous than La Laudrup, served coffee then withdrew. A woman launched into a grim account of the difficulties of adapting children’s books to the screen. She had false teeth that didn’t quite stick. With every word, Lottie’s spirits rose. How fortunate, she thought, that I’ve heard this patter a hundred times before. If the next minion moans about costs, I’m in without a shot fired.
“Thank you, Melie,” Mr Heilbron beamed. “Frank?”
A crusty old pinstriped man ahemed his way into a dithery monologue all about pre-production funding ratios. Adaptations were ruinous to any TV company, especially one with a superb production record.
“Downtable stuff.” Heilbron gave Lottie a rueful beam, sorry how the meeting is turning out but let’s press on. “Freda?”
Freda was a skeletal lady quivering under gorgeous hair. She delivered a saga of trade union setbacks and calamitous markets. Lottie listened with increasing optimism. Moiya would promote Freda, for we ladies infallibly pick out ugly limited-cortex sisters. Quickly she told herself,
Lottie, just remember smiles and quiet confidence
.
“So you see, Lottie, it’s a pret-ty sorry outlook!”
For a moment Lottie wondered if Heilbron had marked her card, knew that they were angling to give KV a tryout. This wasn’t a conference. It was a haggle.
“Questions,” Ms Laudrup put in briskly. “The material?”
“Written by an American lady, seriously infirm,” Lottie said. “I’m her sole agent.”
A minion stacked KV copies on the table. Nobody glanced there.
“Strange history, don’t you think, Lottie?”
“I’ve seen stranger, Ms Laudrup. There was one writer who —”
“Sure, sure.” Heilbron held a hand out. Melie thrust a file into it. Heilbron deigned to peruse the page. “Your graph’s bald. Verifiable?”
“All data is available. I won’t disclose marketing devices.”
“We can’t do without those.” Frank coughed apologetically. Heilbron and Laudrup laughed in synchrony, programmed.
“If anything did get green-lighted,” Moiya said, her smile vanishing so swiftly that even Lottie didn’t perceive the change, “the question is adaptation.”
“The authoress won’t do the TV script. She’s too busy.”
Heilbron and Laudrup didn’t swap looks, but Lottie felt loads lift.
“Conditional or not?”
“Of course. Sharlene’s drawn up a list of essentials,” Lottie said. The next thing was an outrageous guess. “Fifteen details, and screenwriters have complete discretion.” She could have said three or twenty, but what the hell.
“Open discretion suits TV best.” Lottie had never exactly worked the TV end. Open discretion meant they could do whatever they liked to Bray’s stories. This team must think Christmas had arrived. Now was the time they realised that Christmas also brought winter.
“No, sorry. I fought Sharlene tooth and nail.”
“We could meet with Sharlene…”
Lottie heard him out before refusing. “I have no route round her doctors. Getting the next book out of Sharlene is difficult enough. Any option will be non-renewable, three months.”
“It’s never less than six!” Heilbron exclaimed, agitated.
“I had to battle for three. Sharlene’s definite.”
“Soonest being…?”
Lottie smiled. It was time to arm, load, aim. Fire?
“My agent’s instinct is to pretend I’ve a million TV offers. Truth is, I have no more screen appointments.” She let it drag a second. “Sharlene will give me hell if I dawdle over contracts. First come gets served.”
“Our parent company is American, Lottie. Has textual approval been sought from educational authorities in US of A?”
“Already negotiated,” Lottie said smoothly. Inclusion of the KV stories in the Cannon Endriss political lobby was the one concession she had squeezed out of those new enemies, once her old friends. There would be a price, but
she was in too far.
“Time scale?”
“No idea,” she said, stone-faced. “I already have got approved USA certification.”
Moiya Laudrup almost smiled, learning the calibre of her visitor. “We’d like you to hold on until it came through. Otherwise…” She sighed to show a perfectly good deal would be ruined.
“No. That would give you a free pending option.” Lottie suppressed the temptation to say that some TV companies might not care whether the stories were approved in America or not. It did matter to Bray and, she admitted with growing frankness, to herself.
They banished the three acolytes after a while, sent for more coffee, and talked until early in the afternoon. Lottie declined lunch.
That evening, she wrote to Officer Stazio.
Dear Officer Stazio,
Forgive this intrusion into your retirement. You may recall that we spoke on the telephone soon after I became acquainted with Mr Charleston.
Might I ask your advice? How much would it cost to hire some reliable investigator, to see if there have been any advances in tracing missing children? I know agencies are only rarely successful, but I do not want to miss any chance of helping Mr Charleston who, incidentally, does not know of this letter.
I enclose International Reply Coupons for return postage. I trust that you are enjoying retirement.
She gave her home address and phone number only. After all, Officer Stazio might only seem sympathetic. She herself had only just earned Bray’s grudging trust. Even
sending the letter was taking a risk. Stazio knew nothing about Bray’s books.
A whole week she deliberated, then Friday evening posted the letter, her hand shaking.
Bray knew that events can arrive already at war with each other, the pandemonium leaving you limp as a rag. It happened on the Saturday he received the latest KV book from George Corkhill – a courier, Buster rushing out barking. Only at eleven o’clock did Bray realise that his friends opposite were in their garden looking at his house. He went to the window and signalled disappointment. Courier or no courier, there was no news.
The new book,
The Rescue of KV
, showed his imperfect drawings on the dust cover, the kites made of purple leaves, the motor car leaf engines looking rummer than ever. But all authentic, exactly as Davey had first drawn them. Bray started reading. Words looked totally different in print. George’s note said how pleased he was at the work Bray’s series was generating.
The doorbell rang. Bray concealed the little book under a cushion, thinking it was probably Lottie back for some reason. He opened it to Mr Walsingham, standing there with a woman. Bray kept hold of Buster.
“Mr Walsingham!” Bray looked from one to the other. “It isn’t bad news?”
Walsingham was rueful. “No, nothing serious. I felt I should call. This is Kitty.”
Bray asked them in, wondering.
“We won’t stay, Mr Charleston.” They sat together on the couch, Bray glimpsing his book as the cushions were disturbed.
“Nothing’s wrong, is it? I haven’t seen Kylee since Wednesday.”
“No, nothing like that.” Kitty glanced about the room. Her gaze touched on some flowers Lottie had left as Walsingham went on, “I want to apologise. I must have created a terrible impression. I’m sorry.”
“There’s no need.”
“There is, you see. Kylee’s never looked back since you came on the scene.”
Bray considered the words. “I don’t quite know what to make of that, Mr Walsingham. Kylee’s behaviour is exemplary.” He smiled awkwardly. “Sorry if that sounds a bit like a probation officer’s report…” He petered out at the gaffe.
“She’s a new person.”
Kitty spoke for the first time. “Our lives were impossible until she started work for you, Mr Charleston.” She gave a half-laugh. “She’s actually stopped her deranged attacks on us. All right, on
me
.”
Walsingham said frankly, “We’re going to marry soon. Kylee doesn’t mind. And the job you arranged.”
“I only put them in touch.”
“She lays the law down, as usual,” Walsingham added. “She’s content.”
“It’s been a transformation. We have you to thank.”
“Not at all, er, Kitty. Kylee’s merely growing up.”
“It’s more than that,” Walsingham said. “My daughter’s been in trouble as long as I can remember. She’s nothing like she was.”
“Can I ask what exactly it is she does?”
“Oh, just computer work. She rigged up a shed. Kylee does it all. I’m the most electronically useless cabinet maker on the coast.”
Walsingham asked, “Can I offer my own expertise?”
“No, thanks, Mr Walsingham.” Bray felt the man’s unease. “Kylee is enough. I couldn’t have done a thing without her.”
“I just hope her language doesn’t bother you!” Kitty said.
“Not at all.” Too stiff, too reserved. Bray struggled. “Kylee deserves the very best chance in life.”
“It’s been the making of her.”
The couple left after a few minutes, still exchanging reassurances. Bray felt that Kitty was pleased by Lottie’s flowers.
He let Buster out into the garden before resuming his reading of
The Rescue of KV
. It was a slight story, brief as ever, involving some giant who stole the colour essential for the kites, was one of the first tales Davey had ever made up. The rescue was nothing more than a timely change in the wind direction, causing the foe’s escaping balloon to disintegrate. Bray’s eyes filled as he remembered Davey’s face glowing with delight as he’d drawn the leaves floated down to the sea. Bray had retold the saga over and over while Davey listened, vigilant in case a word was missed.
Everything was essential in Davey’s stories, every word, every phrase. It had to be word perfect, even to the intrusion of a passing duck that tried to swallow a leaf and kept missing.
Two good things, then a tax document requiring information about Bray’s business. Payments were due, and accounts had to be rendered within days.
Before the afternoon was out, two more bombshells. Shirley suffered some sort of relapse, and Geoffrey faced redundancy.
Late one evening Retired Officer Jim Stazio phoned. “That you, Bray? No news, just making a how’re y’doin’ call, no reason.”
Bray took it. He’d walked Buster and the retriever was now asleep in his pit. That night was months into the search. Bray could think in those terms now without anguish, though counting the days renewed his anger every single time.
He was becoming frightened. So many things happening – sales, the first TV episode in production, Lottie’s determination wrestling deals in the American market, a part-time lady in Gloucester taking over local distribution. But the old question remained, was it progress? Kylee had changed Bray’s computer for swifter devices, still mouthing off, still abusive, but less furious and more certain than before.
For the past two months he’d driven himself to the point of exhaustion, until George Corkhill, Kylee, Lottie and Geoffrey, not to mention Suzanne and Harry Diggins at work, everybody in fact tried to tell him to take it easy. Only when Loggo had taken hold of a piece of mahogany
to steady it while Bray worked did he acknowledge that he was worn out.
He went through preliminary courtesies with Officer Stazio.
“Can I call you back? I’m just —”
Stazio chuckled. “Hey, Bray, I’m retired, not broke! I can still afford a call.”
“Sorry.” It was Bray’s cackhanded attempt to save the other’s call charges. “Old age creeps on. Retirement suiting you?”
“Love it. Miss everything, though.” Stazio sighed. “I called to ask about you, truth to tell. Still doing that sawing? Feller I bowl with midweek mentioned your firm. Gilson Mather? I said nuthin’, just listened up. Has an old sideboard and stuff, right proud of them things.”
“My firm’s doing some USA promotion.”
“I hear it’s pretty famous.” Stazio paused while Bray wondered. “How’s Geoffrey and his lady?”
“Going to live in the Midlands. The doctors thought it might be less difficult. I’m minding their house. It’s adjacent. And I get the dog!”
“That liaison officer, whatsername, she keep in touch?”
“I ring her once a fortnight.” It was hard to admit the uselessness of Jim’s replacement. She always wanted to get him off the line. “Just saying I’m still here.”
“More hurt than dirt.” Again that pause. “You on your own there, Bray?”
“You mean now? No. A lady helps…with my hobby. Just nonsense.” Bray watched his words.
“Does romance blossom?”
He felt embarrassed. Was this the reason Stazio was ringing? “Not really. She’s a friend, works part time at my firm.”
They spoke of Shirley, Geoffrey’s promotion, Bray’s possible journey to the USA. They mentioned the possibility of meeting. Stazio rang off, and that was that.
Bray looked at himself in the mirror. He had talked with Shirley’s psychiatrist, learned much about bereaved parents’ ominous temptation to construct shrines. Their house was virtually as it had been all these months. So was Bray’s. It is no shrine, Bray firmly told his reflection. And, in Geoff’s house, Davey’s room was still untouched, simply waiting. It had merely been temporarily vacated. Status quo, as it were. Shrines are for what’s gone for good. Davey hadn’t done anything of the kind.
Lottie picked up her bedside receiver and heard the gravelly voice of Officer Stazio.
“I just called Bray. He seems fine.”
It was she who had suggested he ring Bray, to convince the retired policeman she was not some ghoul.
“Right. Can I ask now?”
“Look, lady. Don’t go hiring some P.I. shyster. I’ll help in any way I can. I’m retired.”
“I understand, Mr Stazio. All I want is information. It would take months if I tried to sieve it from libraries or wherever. It’s to help Bray.”
“Maybe you’re a reporter?”
“If you harbour doubts, ring off now and I’ll look elsewhere. Or you can ask Bray outright.”
“All off the record, right?”
“Of course.” She hesitated. “Mr Stazio, about the 50,000 missing children —”
“Hold on right there. Numbers get pulled out of the air. Way back in 1983, a US senator said that 50,000 kids were abducted annually in the US of A. The Justice Department
worked on it, and corrected the number to just 5,000. The jury’s still out. But hey, 90,000 kids under sixteen run away from home in
your
country every year, right?”
She kept him to it. “Is there any way of narrowing a search? There’s so much written about porn rings and social agencies I don’t know where to turn.”
“Police have shit lists, excuse me, but nobody’s saying names.”
“Then there are definitely known suspects?”
“Sure are.”
“Could I acquire such a list, say by hiring someone?”
“You’d be wasting your money. There’s plenty of P.I.s willing to accept your bank draft and do sweet nothing. You’d get glossy reports, o’course, keep your hopes up while they reel your dollars in. That’s as good as it gets. Bray hinted the same. I told him like I’m telling you.”
“Do you know
any
successes, Mr Stazio?”
“For local abducted kids? A possible three, in thirty years of police work, all traced close to home, and all Americans. Runaway children are different. Higher percentage for runaways – they return of their own accord, or some church network finds them. Anti-drug agencies, police tracers, there are systems for runaways.”
“Thank you, Mr Stazio. I appreciate your frankness.”
They arranged to ring periodically.
She sat watching the dark estuary until dawn came over the shore. She felt she had only reached the point where Bray had actually begun, all that time before.
Except his lone quest had gone a distance. Erratic, certainly. Bumbling and with setbacks, inevitably. Yet he had kept going. Never quite knowing what he was doing, he had ploughed on through the nightmare, and he was still there.
Her heart was close to breaking for him. She ran a hot bath and got ready for the new day. Lots to do.
They took the limo, with a strange driver who kept looking all around and talked into a phone. He had a black hook thing with a blob in front of his mouth, and he kept signalling to another man in the mall. Clint wanted to ask if he’d got kids too but Pop said not to because he was busy.
Thanksgiving was a great holiday. Clint liked it, with people talking about so many Thanksgiving dinners and Mom laughed and said how can we get through all this? Pop was in a great mood and said they’d throw a party and they did, with Manuela and Maria and several of Manuela’s friends coming to scream in the kitchen because somebody hadn’t delivered stuff.
Clint got to say who was coming to the Thanksgiving party so he said all his friends from school and it was great. Thanksgiving was one day but spread out each side to make a bigger holiday. Everybody was pleased.
They had games. He wanted to invite the Kim the kite boy and his daddy who had a round hat but Pop said no they were just casual people and Mom said that’s right honey.
Still they had a great time and Pop said Mom must get real good presents for the kids not tacky stuff from Wealstone and Biggelmod’s shop that only sold cheapo Puerto Rican. Mom had special people called caterers. Pop had entertainers come, like clowns and big plastic creatures that made Clint shiver. He went into his room from the garden – yard – shivering and his hands went all cold and shaking for nothing when he was having a great time. Mom told Pop he shouldn’t be so and Pop said how the hell was
he expected to know. They phoned Doctor.
Pop made it okay. He sent the creatures away and all the kids said are you okay Clint and Clint told them sure and they had a great party and firework colours spread about in the sky. Clint didn’t really like them either. Other kids’ moms and pops said well they could make you jump so they’d better cool the fireworks.
They played great games and the entertainers were great and two were faces Clint had seen on the new TV cartoon show and the kids got real excited and clapped whooping. Pop said it cost a fortune and Mom said it was worth it just to see Clint’s face.
Next day they went to the mall. Clint’s friends Carlson and Leeta were there with their folks and Clint shouted and they came over to do shopping with them. They had a great time. The limo driver followed Clint. Pop had a hard time keeping up. Mom didn’t like the crowds. Carlson said the black hook thing was a microphone. The limo man was there even when they saw computers that Carlson liked. Leeta said it was kinda boring though she liked the characters on screens all round.
Leeta made everybody laugh because she held her hands on her head like one of the hats the carved people wore in new books she was reading that were on bookstalls now. Leeta was funny, and did the squeaky voices she’d heard on adverts for programmes that were coming on children’s TV. Carlson’s daddy was a secret in the State Capitol and said they were going to be real popular at Christmas and Leeta’s mom said oh dear that’s another fortune and toys didn’t last a single minute. Pop said hey that’s the Christmas spirit.
Clint saw the purple scenery on the book fronts and said there’ll be a floating balloon come soon. Carlson said
bet you a dollar there isn’t. Clint said bet you a dollar there is. Leeta hated the purple snow thing and the badgers were the wrong colour anyway. Then the bookstore’s screens suddenly showed a floating balloon come right in the picture just like Clint said. The man in the shop laughed and said hey kid can you do that any time or did you just get lucky. Carlson said sure Clint can do it any time and the man said go on then let’s see it. Mom and Pop came over and said what’s the big attraction. Carlson got mad because the shop man wouldn’t believe him. Leeta said come on let’s go somewhere else because computers were boring and her daddy was a preacher and said they were Sodom and Gomorrah.
So they went to Zeemer’s Coffee Sprawl. Carlson’s and Leeta’s folks were fun. Clint hadn’t even known that Leeta had a baby brother who was seven months but couldn’t do much. Carlson said you’re lucky I got a big brother and a sister and they stop me doing things.
While they were in Zeemer’s Coffee Sprawl one of the big mouse characters came playing mall music and Clint was sick. Mom and Pop said it was time to go and everybody said sure it’s kind of airless in these places. Clint and his folks went home with the driving man who kept looking everywhere.
At home Clint was sick a couple more times and Manuela said see I told you too much rich food and Mom got mad at her. They called a new doctor who asked questions that Linda Hunger answered making Mom worse mad. The doctor said Clint got himself overtired with Thanksgiving and all. Clint would be fine.
And that was the end of the Thanksgiving except the next day they went to Carlson’s for a barbecue. They
played games. Clint kept a lookout but there were no big cartoon characters like that mouse and that dog so it was okay. Mom and Pop said it was a really great Thanksgiving.
That night Clint dreamed of kites and wrong-colour badgers. He wasn’t scared any more because in the dream there was an old man who wore a thick apron stiff with paints and it had pouches bulging with rags and brushes. He had thick rag gloves, and filed wood so the surface was ready for the next thing you did to it. He held it up and said see, it was beautiful all the time inside and we’ve made it show isn’t that real cool.
Only he didn’t say real cool. He said…
splendid
.
He always said
splendid
.
Clint slept well. It was school next day.