Sunday Best (18 page)

‘Come in,' she said. ‘The kettle's boiling.'

If the nature of the greeting had been a surprise, it was nothing to what met Emily Price when she entered Mrs Jumble's living-room. The room itself was unimportant, except in so far as it existed to house a large tent which was the living-room proper. What remained of the room was for comings and goings, that were negotiated between four fans, placed at regular intervals around the tent, turning on a cold north-easterly at full tilt, so that once you had stepped out of the tent, you had the impression that you were already in the open air. Brighton on the sea was apparently not real enough for Mrs Jumble; she had to have her own Brighton in her living-room.

Emily Price instinctively held on to her wig and decided at that moment that her next purchase must be a hat, to give some justification to her head-holding. ‘I've just had my hair done,' she said, by way of apology, and she made for the tent opening to get some shelter.

Mrs Jumble followed her inside, and they sat down, both for some reason out of breath, and for the first time, Emily Price was able to get a full front view of her prospective employer.

She looked at her as a woman sometimes looks at another, with an estimation of age, income and education. As to the first, Mrs Jumble looked younger than Joy, but there were indications that she had worn better. Emily was slightly disturbed by her constant thoughts of her wife. Since arriving in Brighton, she had thought of her more often than during their whole marriage. It was as if Joy had become the standard of comparison for all women. Yes she looked younger than Joy, and had probably during her life been much happier. She was slightly built, with what seemed a deceptive frailty about her person. Her face was ruddy-complexioned and very thin, almost emaciated, as if she had not eaten for a long time. Her black hair hung in separate strands, and looked as if it had been combed, if at all, by a fork. Through the strands over her ears were gentle movements of long gold ear-rings. She smiled. ‘What you thinking then?' she said. ‘You're thinking I'm a gypsy aren't you? And so I am. A gypsy born and gypsy to die. But in between,' she laughed, ‘my husband was good to me, God bless his soul, but it wasn't like a gypsy marriage. He
was in insurance. Fancy. I learned lots of big words. Collateral, premiums,' she laughed, ‘but between you and me, I still don't read nor write.'

‘How long were you married?' Emily asked, feeling she had to contribute something.

‘Twenty-two years. Mind you, I loved him. I was a good wife to him, he'd tell you that himself.' She smiled, recollecting the throttled happiness of their years together. ‘But when he passed on, I've got to admit it, I was free again. You can't keep a real gypsy down, Mrs Price, and the day my husband went, I don't mind telling you, I started to live.'

Emily felt an uneasy recognition in her story. Their similar rebirth excited her, but though tempted, she was in no position to give in exchange such intimate confidences. But she warmed to Mrs Jumble. She was a woman who knew exactly who she was, and who had totally and happily concurred with her identity.

‘I was brought up in caravans and on commons,' she was saying, ‘and when he passed on, God bless him, he left me the house. So I made it my home as best I could. In fact when I was very small, we used to live in a tent from time to time, when they came and took the caravan away. I liked it best of all then.' She stared past Mrs Price without looking at her, and Emily let her be with her memories.

Emily was grateful for the interval. She had been so absorbed by Mrs Jumble's story, the gypsy who had returned to the fold, or tent, as it turned out to be, that she'd had no time to look around the tent itself, though it was evident on first entering, that this was no ordinary camper's site. Being cornerless, it had no set-piece, except perhaps for the green baize table in the centre, dominated by a crystal ball. And it was to this ball that the eye first gravitated and remained, for the whole of the tent and its furnishings were mirrored distortedly in the glass. On top, from the centre pole, swung a bird cage, and a single mournful bird swung with it, having given up the battle for stability long ago. Spit, Emily thought, though again it was a thought of Joy, Spit without his Polish, or vice-versa. Draped in the curves of the circle, were old armchairs, that in reflection took on a deceptive elegance. Spanish shawls draped the backs and arms and astonished red roses bloomed in the glass. There was even a small upright piano, and its two candlesticks curtseyed into the crystal.
There was no temptation to look around the tent at the reality, for their distorted reflections seemed to be right and proper. Then her eye fell on her own eye staring into the glass. She felt herself flushing, an entirely new experience for her, and once again she marvelled at the organic difference her dress had made to her bodily functions. And then she caught the reflection of Mrs Jumble, staring too, not into the glass, but into her own reflected eye.

‘Now tell me a little about you, dear,' Mrs Jumble was saying.

Emily was totally unprepared, and she hoped that Mrs Jumble would ascribe her hesitation to reticence. She had been called upon without notice to invent the story of a dead husband and for some reason, she thought of the Cloth. If you thought about the Reverend Richard Baines as dead, it was very comforting. ‘My husband was in the Church,' she said. ‘We were not happy together,' she whispered. It would have been a sad reflection on any human being if they had been happy with the Cloth. ‘He was rather a bullying kind, in a Christian sort of way, intolerant and without a great deal of understanding. But he did his best' – it was not done to speak ill of the dead, especially to gypsies – ‘but there was a basic incompatibility. He died only six months ago and I sold up in London and decided to come here. My pension is very small, and I have to make a living. But there is a certain freedom without him,' she mused, ‘a certain returning to one's real self, as you have done.' She would say no more. She had given a handful of facts that she could contain and remember. Liars had to have good memories, and she knew that hers was shaky. ‘I visit his grave twice a month,' she added, more for her own enjoyment than as an extra confidence. The thought of a bi-monthly trample on the Cloth's remains was too tempting to resist.

Mrs Jumble was more than satisfied. ‘We have lots in common, I can see,' she said.

The kettle was steaming on a little primus on the floor and Mrs Jumble brewed the tea. They drank it out of tin mugs and she offered biscuits from a packet.

‘Tell me about your son,' Mrs Price said, anxious to divert the conversation from herself.

‘Bobby's like his father. He's in insurance too, and his life is all planned. He has liver for dinner every Tuesday, and he
goes to the pictures every Friday. Things like that. He thinks I'm a bit odd, but I think he's a bit odd too,' she laughed. ‘You're looking at my ball,' she said. ‘Yes, it's what you think it is. I'm a fortune-teller. Always had a talent for it. My grandmother taught me. I used to do the fairs with her. They say the gift always skips one generation, and it's probably true because my mother had no feeling for it at all. I didn't do it much when my husband, God bless him, was alive. He was against it, called it mumbo-jumbo. But when he died, I built up a small clientele. Regulars, you know. Maybe one day, I'll do yours.'

‘I think I'd be rather afraid of that,' Mrs Price said. To tell her fortune would be an acid test of Mrs Jumble's powers, and she was too suspicious of her talent to take the risk. ‘Well, one day, perhaps,' she said, ‘simply as a friend.'

It was difficult to drink the tea, for the tin mug retained its heat, as well as giving off its own, so Mrs Price could only sip hers slowly and she watched Mrs Jumble as she swallowed hers down and refilled her mug again and again.

‘Would you like to stay with me?' she said. ‘Share the house, a little company. I couldn't pay you much, but there wouldn't be a lot to do, and I would help you with the cooking.'

Emily wondered how long she could hold down such a job without being discovered. She would be taking many risks. She would actually be living with a woman and there would be little chance of privacy. She hesitated.

‘I can give you a lovely bedroom,' Mrs Jumble was saying. ‘It was Bobby's room, and it has a bathroom to itself.'

The private bathroom decided it for her. ‘Yes,' she said, ‘I think I'd like to.'

‘Come with me. I'll show you the house,' Mrs Jumble said.

They went first to Mrs Jumble's bedroom. The large marital bed on which Mrs Jumble had been strangled with collaterals stood in the centre of the room, but was easily ignored. For alongside it, strapped to a steel hook on the wall, swung a hammock, attached to the side wall by another hook. A few donkey blankets were draped over it, and as a hangover from her lie-life, a pale blue chiffon nightdress. Mrs Jumble darted towards it, obviously caught out, and stuffed it hurriedly under the blanket, rather as Emily might have hidden her trousers, for both were betrayals of their alien selves.

‘This was my mother's bed,' she said, swinging the hammock a little. ‘She told me I was born in it, and there, God willing, is where I'm going to die. Now I'll show you your room, or apartments, as my Bobby calls them.'

They walked down a long corridor, and Emily was pleased to note the distance between their two quarters. Bobby's room was very simply furnished, with the bare necessities. It was very much a boy's room, and his school pennants still hung on the wall.

‘Needs a woman's hand,' Mrs Jumble said. ‘You could make it look very pretty.'

The possibilities of the room thrilled her, though the fact that it was still very much of a boy's room gave her a curious feeling of security. The male room and its female potentialities totally reflected the ambiguity of her own feelings. She would feel very much at home there. She expressed her approval and delight to Mrs Jumble, and they arranged that she should move in on the following morning.

‘You would like sheets, I suppose,' Mrs Jumble said doubtfully.

‘If you would,' Emily said. ‘Just until my boxes arrive from London.' She would deal with those complications later. At the moment, she was content to look forward one day at a time.

On her way back to the hotel, she stopped to buy a London evening paper. She would spend the evening in her room, and she needed a crossword to while away the time, as well as to keep up with what was happening in a world into which she had been newly-born. Was it possible that the world had changed, and that the wars that raged it would touch her differently from before? She had always read the woman's page, even in her other world. Would she now view it with a more critical eye? The newspaper was going to be an exciting adventure, and she wanted to savour it a long time, so she folded it without even scanning the headlines, and hurried back to her hotel.

She took off her shoes, as she had seen Joy do, when she came back from a long and tiring day. She locked the door and took off her wig. It was beginning to feel heavy on her. She was glad that she would have privacy at Mrs Jumble's, and she thought that perhaps occasionally, but only very occasionally, she promised herself, that she would try on her trousers and jacket, just for the bygone feel of it. So she settled
herself on the bed, and spread the newspaper wide. The photograph was familiar, too familiar for comfort. She shivered before she recognized it, and wondered why it had made the papers. People disappeared every day without comment from other people, leave alone the Press. She did not want to read about herself, if it was indeed herself, and her abject fear withheld her certainty. She wanted first to study the picture, so she folded the paper round, framing the photograph on its four edges. Now it was less familiar, and she was able to see it as a woman might see it, with approval or otherwise. There was a strange look about the man, a haunted look, pursued as it were, from within. It was a wrong face, as a bull's face on a cow's would be wrong. It was a face full of disturbance. The man was frightened. From both inside and out, he was being pursued. In terror, she had to conclude that it was a face that was wanted for murder. She felt her bowels weaken, and wondered at her panic. Fearfully she spread the paper, and forced herself to read what she had done.

She had merited a sub-headline, but large enough, and direct. ‘Have you seen this man?' it challenged, and cold fear swept through her. Underneath, she had earned a paragraph. ‘George Verrey Smith, who disappeared from his home in North London yesterday, is wanted in connection with inquiries into the murder of Samuel Parsons, whose body was found in a school playground in London late last night.' There followed a description of his person, and she was relieved to read that there were no distinguishing marks. Yet the fear gripped her, with a certain incredulity. So she read it again and aloud, and what came out of her throat was the George Verrey Smith voice, and for a moment she panicked that Emily Price had fled for ever from fear. She went on reading as if in self-inflicted punishment. ‘He is forty-two years old,' she missed the lack of hesitation, ‘with brown eyes and black hair. He is slightly built and was wearing grey flannel trousers with a sports jacket. Any information of his whereabouts should be given immediately to your local police or to Scotland Yard.'

She dropped the paper and stood up, outraged. ‘How dare they,' she said to herself, and she saw with undeniable certainty how earnestly the fingers were pointing at her, Miss Price's, the Cloth's, the Staff's, even Joy's. And at the thought of her, she knew that she had to contact her. Having made
that decision, she gave her first thought to Parsons, and she pitied him. She had no notion of how he had met his end. She recalled seeing him behind the shed – it was probably shortly before he died – and she hoped that Washington Jones had gone and that Parsons had died at least buttoned. She had much to tell the police, much that would have helped them. She and Washington Jones were probably the last to see him alive. But she couldn't go back, yet the implications of her continued absence were perilous. She had, in any case, to contact Joy. She put on her wig again, her hands trembling.