Sunday Best (22 page)

‘You're fired,' the director shouted, still reigning down in Elstree.

‘I'm sorry,' the Superintendent said. ‘But nothing is broken. You film people always make such a fuss.' He was out of the room before the director could reply. The crash had brought him sadly back to a parlour in suburban London, to a set that was barely documentary. His job was a mere piece of reportage, that needed only to be in focus, and required no direction whatsoever.

The Superintendent returned with Mrs Whitely. ‘You didn't tell me about your mother-in-law,' he said accusingly.

‘But she's only just arrived,' Joy said. ‘There's no particular significance in her coming. She is anxious for her son. Her arrival, Superintendent, is not information.'

The director was quick to catch the antagonism between these two, and it heartened him a little to feel that he was dealing with a temperamental leading lady.

The Superintendent ignored her. ‘I think perhaps I would like Mrs Whitely in the interview,' he said.

The director sat down, overcome by the vicissitudes of his craft. He sighed with the burden of his creativity. ‘Perhaps you would like to reposition them, Inspector. Kill the lights,' he ordered. ‘We're back to square one.'

And so it started all over again. Mrs Whitely sat next to her daughter-in-law. ‘I found him,' she whispered. ‘I made an appointment for tomorrow. We must take some of his clothing.'

‘Relax, relax,' the director directed his increased cast. He studied Mrs Whitely to see what he could make of her. She had taken off her hat and he decided that she looked more worried with it on. In his book, an anxious mother was hatted, and he asked her to replace it.

‘You don't wear a hat in the house,' the Superintendent objected.

‘Worried mothers,' the director said with authority, ‘wear hats wherever they are.'

‘But this is not a – er – movie.'

‘Even a straight piece of reporting must carry its own inbuilt appeal, Inspector. Relax, this will take a little while.'

The Superintendent placed himself in the set between Mrs Whitely and Mrs Verrey Smith.

‘I can't light the set if you're in it, Inspector. D'you mind sitting just here? Behind the camera.'

The Superintendent moved obediently and, squatting on his haunches, he indulged in a wild fantasy of arresting the whole film-director profession on a charge of mass murder and hanging each one personally. This one, he decided, would drop twice.

It took the rest of the morning to light the set and to prepare for shooting. Then after a hot-dinner break, insisted on by the sound crew, quoting Article 17b of the Union Rules, the cameras started to roll. It was six o'clock before the ‘Wrap' order came. The director had enough film in the can for three hours' viewing. The Superintendent had booked television time for five minutes.

As the crew were leaving, the Superintendent lagged behind. ‘I don't suppose, Mrs Whitely,' he said, ‘that you have any extra information about where your son would be hiding?'

‘We can only pray for guidance,' Mrs Whitely said. ‘I pray that we will find him in the bosom of the church. He has much business to do there,' she said, looking at Joy.

The Superintendent shrugged. In his mind he recapped Mrs Whitely's sermon before the cameras, and he wondered whether he could make an extra bob or two by selling the off-cuts to religious broadcasting. It wasn't a bad business, film-making. As he drove off in his car, he thought he might suggest a possible career for his son.

When he got back to the station, the night-shift had already taken over. He thought he would take a train down to Brighton. There'd been no news from there, but he was restless sitting around in London, when he knew, though now with less conviction, that Brighton was a more promising hunting-ground.

He crossed over the foyer to his office. A coloured woman was standing at the reception desk. Her head was pressed on her hand. Her body was shaking; she was obviously in deep distress. The policeman behind the counter was trying to get her particulars, but she was obviously so overwrought, that only a few unintelligible words could escape her. ‘I'll handle this, Officer,' the Superintendent said, and he helped the
woman into his office. He sat her down, gave her some water and tried to calm her.

‘Now what can we do for you?' he said.

‘It's my son,' she stammered. ‘He's lost. He hasn't come home from school.' She gathered momentum as the information flooded out. ‘He's never late. Always back from school at half-past four. He's a good boy. Wouldn't go anywhere without telling me first. He's ten, and he had on a green pullover. His name's Washington. He's my youngest. You've got to find him.'

‘Washington,' the Superintendent said. ‘Washington what?' He was prepared for an equally exotic surname.

‘Jones,' she said flatly, starting to cry again.

The Superintendent could see the last train for Brighton leaving without him. He rang for the senior officer, and instructed him to see to the woman, and if necessary to start a search for the boy. He tapped her shoulder as he left. ‘Probably playing football somewhere, Mrs Jones. Nothing to worry about. We'll find him.'

She broke into a new burst of sobbing. He looked at the senior officer and nodded to the jug of water on the desk. When in doubt, or playing for time, use water. He wondered why the film director hadn't used a glass on the set. And that reminded him. He must ring up home to check that his sons were back from school. He decided to do it from the railway station. He was anxious to get away from his office. There was something about this woman that disturbed him deeply. It was always painful when a child was lost, but this woman was sobbing as if already bereaved. He called the senior officer over and whispered to him, ‘Get an all-out search for that boy. For some reason or other, I don't like it. Keep me informed. I want him found, and quickly.'

The Superintendent's trusted lieutenant had ferreted Brighton for a week, and had come up with nothing. He'd covered all the large hotels, and most of the boarding-houses. There were far too many to cover them all. In any case, Mrs Price was far more likely to be staying as a lodger somewhere, or with friends. ‘They've gone underground' was his phrase to cover his failure, and it was his greeting to his chief when he arrived from London. ‘Gone underground' was less final than ‘totally disappeared'. It held hope for eventual discovery.

The Superintendent was not impressed whatever the phrasing. ‘Have you scoured the beaches?' he said. ‘They could have taken a boat. Did you make all inquiries?'

The trusted lieutenant, now feeling himself slightly less trusted, nodded. The boat possibility hadn't occurred to him, but he dared not confess to it. He would do it quietly and on his own, in the morning.

‘Brighton's not such a big place,' the Superintendent was saying. ‘The woman's bound to come out to do her shopping. Are there men in the markets? Have you no leads at all?'

The lieutenant was bound in truth to shake his head.

‘I'll patrol myself tomorrow,' the Superintendent said. ‘Though they've had a week to slip out of our hands. I should have come here immediately,' he said, almost to himself. ‘We've got to find Emily Price,' he said aloud. Now that he felt her slipping from his grasp, he became more and more convinced that she was harbouring a murderer. ‘There's a television appeal going out tomorrow,' he said. ‘There's bound to be a response,' he almost shouted. He was very tired, and he knew that if he talked much longer he would lose his temper. He went back to his hotel, and early in the morning he was sniffing the streets, his confidence partially returned.

But Emily Price was firmly indoors, or in-tent, as it were, for
she had returned to Mrs Jumble's. Sitting in that Worthing cave almost a week ago, shivering, and trying to dismiss the sea's ham-fisted symbolism, she had decided that she wanted to live. In what guise, and where, was secondary and preferable to dying from cold and exposure on the English coastline. So she had taken the last bus back to Brighton and offered some excuse to Mrs Jumble for being so very late. But time meant nothing to Mrs Jumble and she had welcomed her. The week had passed smoothly. Emily enjoyed the simple cooking, and tending to the in-tent plants. Privacy was available whenever she wanted, and sometimes, when Mrs Jumble was asleep, she would wear George Verrey Smith for a while. It was always a relief after her woman-day to feel the rough tweed on her skin, and the solid safety of her lace-up shoes. She wondered whether Mrs Jumble was cheating too in her blue chiffon nightie underneath the donkey blankets. They were both, after all, entitled to their fumbling uncertainties. Sometimes Emily was depressed, especially at night, and then, in her tweeds, she counted her blessings of three meals a day and a roof over her head. Mrs Jumble always did the shopping, so she was safe, but eventually, when she received her wages, she would have to go out and buy another dress. She felt she was beginning to smell and she dreaded each morning on waking that, during the course of the day, Mrs Jumble might refer to it. And the following day, while the Superintendent was prowling Brighton for Emily Price, and the senior officer was scouring London for Washington Jones, and Clive Wentworth, in Stamford Hill, was divining George Verrey Smith, Mrs Jumble noted Emily's sparse wardrobe and offered some clothes of her own until Emily's mythical boxes arrived from London. ‘We're practically the same size,' she said. ‘You can try them on after supper.'

They were sitting in the tent round a makeshift table, their plates on their knees. Mrs Jumble had put the television on for the news, and it spouted a warming-up hum. Emily worried less about the television. The news of her disappearance was stale, and obviously they had uncovered nothing more. Yet whenever the set was turned on, she tried to mask it or drown it in conversation. But as Mrs Jumble could neither read nor write, it was unfair to cut her off from one of her only means of communication.

‘I like to know what's going on in the world,' she would say,
turning the switch prior to every news bulletin. She had shown no special interest in the disappearance of George Verrey Smith when it had been announced at the beginning of the week. Even a picture of the man had elicited no comment, though Emily had watched her for the slightest reaction. For herself, she had to grip the arm of her chair. When it appeared on a second bulletin, Emily even ventured to comment on the man's very ordinary appearance. Her vanity prompted her. She could not let her face fill the television frame and remain wholly unnoticed. Mrs Jumble had said that she was quite right. There were a million people who looked like that one, and they'd never find him, an observation that Emily found both a relief and an insult. A later bulletin had suggested Brighton as the man's whereabouts and Mrs Jumble had shown only slightly more interest, to the effect that they should both be careful when they went out. Emily had decided, in any case, to lie low until her disappearance had blown over, and now with the promise of Mrs Jumble's clothes, there was even less reason for her to risk the streets. She began to look forward to trying them on, and hoped fervently that Mrs Jumble would leave her alone as she did so. She would have to pretend to be shy and change alone, and then model each garment in front of her. She trembled in anticipation of this new pursuit. Emily Price as a model. She flushed with excitement. She went on eating her salad, though now more daintily. The person of Emily had come much closer to her in the last few days, as the risk of Verrey Smith had worn away. She took more care with her manners and her voice, for being Emily was once more, as in the beginning, enjoyable. She sliced a tomato thinly, and held it daintily on her fork. And as she raised it to her mouth, she heard a familiar voice. It did not belong to Mrs Jumble. She looked at her and that good lady was stuffing her lettuce into her mouth with her hands. She listened intently, and though she could not immediately pinpoint the voice, she felt Emily turning sour inside her once again, and all the joyful anticipation of her after-dinner modelling evaporated. Then she knew the voice as Joy's, but the shock of recognition was too sickening for her to assimilate at the same time the matter of her words. So she had to look squarely at the screen to understand it at all, to see her wife in synchronization before it could mean anything
to her. And there Joy was, filling the screen in her indispensable little black, in prepared mourning as it were, talking right at her, begging her to come home. Emily's first reaction was to spit fair and square into her wife's face. She looked at Mrs Jumble out of the corner of her eye, and that lady had stopped lettuce-stuffing and was staring at Joy Verrey Smith. ‘Poor woman,' she said, taking advantage of one of the very few pauses that Joy allowed herself in her plea. ‘She must be suffering, poor thing.'

‘Yes, she is indeed,' Emily agreed, and suddenly felt so too. She could hardly bear to look at her wife's face and its puckered pain. So she listened to what she was saying and tried not to believe that it was she to whom she spoke.

‘Dear George,' Joy was saying. ‘I don't believe that you have done anything wrong, but I beg you to come home to prove to everybody that you are innocent.' The camera held on her pleading face for some while, and it was clear that she was close to tears.

‘Poor woman,' Mrs Jumble said again. ‘Pity for her she wants him back. Men don't run away for nothing.'

Emily opened her mouth to deny it, but instead she muttered, ‘Poor woman,' as an echo to Mrs Jumble and for a moment she decided that she must go home. It was an irrevocable decision when it was taken, but it lasted only for the span of its consideration. She looked at Joy's face and felt for it a disturbing love. She was glad when the camera started to pull back, but what it revealed was even more disturbing. That old eyesore of her childhood, that once-weeping victim, and now the eternal sucker of God-drops. There she sat in her stupid old hat, on Emily's uncut moquette, salivating homilies. It took a while for Emily to take in what she was saying. She hadn't seen her mother for ten years, and there was a certain curiosity in seeing her now, and noticing how little she had changed. She was a weakling still, a victim still, the whipping-boy. All she had done over the years was to swop whippers. Now, after Emily's father, it was the church, and that made whipping almost respectable. She watched her mouth her words without listening to her matter, and she knew by the polite shape of her lips and nostrils that, whatever sermon she was preaching, it was assuredly elocution. Emily looked at Mrs Jumble. ‘Poor woman,' she was saying again in the pauses, and Emily thought she was highly indiscriminate.