‘Memorabilia,’ I said. ‘There are packets of them as well.’ I pointed to boxes under the counter, where hundreds of photographs wrapped in cellophane waited to be reclaimed.
‘Perhaps we’re in there somewhere,’ said Elsie.
‘I doubt there will be any of us. We weren’t fancy enough, I don’t think. Despite Gwen’s best efforts.’
Jack walked closer to the photographs. ‘Al Bowlly again,’ he said, and pointed to the top row. ‘He gets everywhere, doesn’t he?’
‘Clacton-on-Sea, 1939.’
The voice appeared from the back of the shop. I gave a little start. When we turned, there was a man standing in the shadows, watching us closely from behind a tuba.
‘Britain’s first pop star. That’s what they called him.’ The man walked into the light. Short. Round. A pencil moustache so thin, it made me wonder why he’d bothered in the first place. ‘Quite the heart-throb in his day.’
‘I remember when he died,’ Elsie said. ‘We were all quite beside ourselves.’
‘The war claimed far too many, far too soon.’ The man clasped his hands together in a little prayer. ‘Although made even more tragic, given the circumstances.’
Jack turned on his walking stick. ‘What happened?’
And so the shopkeeper told us. How Al Bowlly had been reading in bed when the air-raid siren had sounded, and he’d chosen to stay with his book, rather than go to the shelter.
‘They found him after the all-clear,’ he said. ‘Head injury from the blast. Barely a mark on him.’
‘It makes you want to go back, doesn’t it?’ I said. ‘Tell him to get to the shelter. Tell him there will be a lifetime of books, if he just changes his mind.’
We all stared at the photograph.
‘Small decisions,’ Jack said. ‘It’s always the small decisions that change a life.’
The man coughed and unclasped his hands. ‘Was it Al Bowlly you were particularly interested in?’
I looked around the shop. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘No. To be honest, I’m not even sure.’
The man pursed his lips, and the moustache did a little shimmy across his top lip. ‘Not sure?’ he said.
Jack stepped forward. ‘We’re trying to trace someone. Someone called Gabriel Price. We think he might have a connection with this shop. Or Al Bowlly. Or perhaps he might have no connection at all, and we’re barking up the wrong tree.’
The man smiled and his moustache straightened itself out again. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Gabriel Price. Not the wrong tree at all. In fact, very much the right tree, if you’ll allow me.’
HANDY SIMON
The park gates were clearly Barry’s pièce de résistance. He began telling the story of a severed hand, waving his cane around and putting on different voices, but by this time the wind had got up and Simon found himself wishing he was back at the hotel with a crème de menthe and a bit of central heating. He wasn’t the only one, by the look of it. The group was beginning to fray at the edges. A couple of people had stayed behind to look in the window of a shoe shop, and someone else had wandered over the road and was staring at a bus timetable.
‘Can we all stay together?’ Miss Ambrose shouted down the street, but her words were swallowed up by a pub door. She turned to Simon. ‘Do you think we ought to have a head count?’
Simon took a deep breath and pulled the clipboard from his rucksack. He had hoped, in the absence of Miss Bissell, to have a few hours free from counting heads, but he should have known that the influence of Miss Bissell was always far weightier than Miss Bissell herself. Sometimes, it felt easier when she was actually there.
When he was done Miss Ambrose took the clipboard from him and scanned the names. ‘Trust Florence to be involved in the mystery.’
‘They’ve probably just been waylaid by a public lavatory,’ said Simon. ‘Or a charity-shop window. They’re probably further down the pavement.’
Miss Ambrose stepped into the road to look.
‘Watch out!’ Gabriel Price pulled her from the path of a moped, and back to the safety of the kerb. ‘You want to be careful, Miss Ambrose. That could have been a nasty accident.’
‘Mr Price.’ She looked up and tried to steal back her breath. ‘I was just checking. We appear to have lost Florence and her friends.’
Gabriel Price picked up Miss Ambrose’s bag, which had dropped into the gutter, and he handed it back to her. ‘I do believe,’ he said, ‘you’ll find them in the music shop.’
‘I didn’t know Miss Claybourne was musical,’ said Simon.
Gabriel Price smiled. ‘I really couldn’t comment on that,’ he said.
‘I do wish they’d all stay together.’ Miss Ambrose seemed to have found her breath again. ‘I would have expected more from Mrs Honeyman at least. She’s not usually so difficult.’
‘Mrs Honeyman?’
‘Yes. She was with them as well, wasn’t she? We can’t find her either.’
‘Oh I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘I haven’t seen Mrs Honeyman since the West Cliff.’
Simon felt his mouth go dry and a ball of unease roll into his stomach.
FLORENCE
‘A musician?’ The three of us spoke in a little chorus, and waited in a row for our verdict. Jack gripped the handle of his walking stick, and my hands found the belt of my coat.
‘Indeed he was. And a Whitby man, too.’ The man with the pencil moustache was buried deep in a drawer of photographs, and his voice trailed up from beneath the counter. ‘A travelling musician. Drifted from band to band. There was a lot of it after the war.’
‘How do you mean?’ Elsie peered down and spoke to the top of his head.
‘People were displaced. They felt untethered, I suppose.’ The man appeared with a box of cellophaned pictures. ‘They wandered from job to job, place to place, trying to find out who they were again.’
‘Like modern-day minstrels,’ said Jack.
‘You could say that.’ The man searched through the photographs. ‘Only more drums than dulcimer. Although I do believe Gabriel Price was a pianist.’
I stopped twisting. ‘I remember watching the pianist at the town hall, seeing his hands on the keyboard. He wore a ring. On his little finger. It was very distinctive, very delicate. Not a ring you’d expect a man to wear at all.’ I paused. ‘Did Gabriel Price wear a ring?’ I was scared to ask. Sometimes, my thoughts can lead me so far up the garden path, it’s difficult to find a way back again.
The man pulled a photograph from a sleeve of cellophane and laid it on the counter. ‘Let’s have a look, shall we?’ he said.
HANDY SIMON
They covered the whole of the West Cliff. All the way from the whalebones to where a stripe of coastal path disappears its way to Sandsend. There was no sign of Mrs Honeyman. Barry volunteered to keep the rest of the group together, although he’d run out of ghost stories and had to herd them towards the whalebones, where they had a half-hearted sing-along and three verses of the national anthem. Miss Ambrose called Miss Bissell, and Miss Bissell appeared at the side of Captain Cook clutching a Gideon’s Bible to her chest.
‘I’m sure Mrs Honeyman is around here somewhere,’ said Miss Ambrose, although her face didn’t look as certain as her words. The veins in her neck beat the same rhythm as Miss Bissell’s swearing and Simon could see lines appear on her forehead, even from where he was standing. One of the residents said she remembered seeing Mrs Honeyman go into the public conveniences but didn’t recall her coming out again, and it was decided that Simon should investigate just in case a door needed breaking down.
‘But they’re ladies’ toilets.’ He stood at the entrance to the building with his arms folded. ‘And I’m not a lady.’
In the end, Miss Ambrose agreed to lead the way, and they found themselves staring at three empty stalls, and surrounded by the smell of sand and wet concrete.
‘How could she just disappear?’ Simon pushed at one of the cubicle doors, even though it was at its maximum pushing.
‘People don’t just disappear.’
‘She was seen going in, but not coming out,’ said Miss Ambrose. ‘Although being as there’s only one exit, it beggars belief where she could have got to.’
They both studied the tiny windows, which were decorated with cobwebs and a collection of specimens that would have made a lepidopterist’s chest swell with pride.
Simon put his hands on his hips and took another breath of wet-sand air. ‘Two hundred and fifty thousand people go missing each year,’ he said. ‘Which is the equivalent of the entire population of Plymouth vanishing every twelve months.’
‘Simon, I really don’t think it’s helpful—’
‘Seventy-four per cent are found within twenty-four hours.’
‘Well, at least that’s reassuring.’
‘Only one per cent are found dead.’
They listened through the postage-stamp windows, as the North Sea threw itself on to the rocks below.
‘Maybe we should call the police,’ said Miss Ambrose.
FLORENCE
We all studied the photograph.
Even though we knew it wouldn’t be Ronnie, it was still a shock to see a stranger staring back at us. Gabriel Price was not what I expected. Perhaps I was searching for shades of Ronnie Butler, something I could hold on to and dislike, but the man who looked back at us from the photograph had kind eyes and a soft smile. His hands rested on piano keys, and he looked straight into the camera, as though he’d been waiting for us to arrive. He was a little older than Ronnie. A little thinner, and although I never knew him, I felt as if he was someone who could be trusted.
‘It’s not Ronnie,’ I said.
‘No.’ Jack sighed. ‘But we never really expected it to be, did we?’
‘We didn’t, but I was hoping they would look like the same person. Isn’t it ridiculous,’ I said, ‘to hope that you might be losing your mind?’
I stared further into the picture.
‘He has a ring, though. Look.’ I pointed. ‘I told you I remembered. I just couldn’t think of the person wearing it.’
‘It’s a very unusual ring, isn’t it?’ Elsie said. We tried to get closer, but the image blurred into a swarm of dots.
I felt very pleased with myself.
‘Perhaps it was his wife’s,’ said Jack. ‘A kind of keepsake, whilst he was travelling.’
‘Oh, I don’t think there was a wife.’ The man began sorting through the other photographs and putting them back into their box. ‘I don’t think there was any family. At least none I’ve ever heard about, and I’ve done quite a bit of background recently. You’re not the first ones to ask about him.’
Jack narrowed his eyes. ‘Is that so?’ he said.
‘Oh, yes. There was a gentleman who rang only a few weeks ago wanting to buy any sheet music Gabriel Price might have owned. He was very interested.’
‘I bet he was,’ said Jack.
‘Not that we had any to sell to him.’ His little moustache curved down at its edges.
I heard Elsie sigh.
‘This photograph.’ Jack tapped on the counter. ‘Is it for sale?’
The man’s moustache cheered up a bit and did a little dance all the way across his top lip.
‘You drive a hard bargain,’ I said as we stepped back on to the pavement. ‘I thought he was going to charge us a small fortune.’
‘Fifteen pounds isn’t cheap.’ Jack tucked the paper bag under his arm. ‘But it could have been a lot worse, and it might come in useful.’
We stood on the kerb and looked down the street.
‘Where the bloody hell have they all gone?’ he said.
We walked all the way up to the park gates. We found a hen party and an alternative ghost walk. It confused us for a moment until we realised it was being conducted in Chinese. There was no sign of Barry, or his bowler hat. After Jack consulted an itinerary, it was established that at that precise moment, we should have been enjoying a light supper and cassette music in the residents’ lounge. It was on the way back to the hotel, as we walked across the West Cliff and watched the evening sunlight settle itself into the water, that we found Miss Ambrose and Handy Simon outside the ladies’ toilets, having a conversation about statistics.
‘There you are!’ Miss Ambrose shouted, and a family in cagoules turned and looked at us. ‘I was wondering when you’d show up.’
Jack’s eyes were misted with age. His hands shook with the tremor of a life long lived, but his voice was still steady. ‘We are on holiday,’ he said, very quietly. ‘We were enjoying ourselves.’
‘We’ve been searching all over the place. We have to have rules,’ she said, ‘regulations. We can’t have people just wandering off all over the place.’
Handy Simon was standing behind her, but he turned away.
Jack’s gaze didn’t leave Miss Ambrose. ‘We were enjoying ourselves,’ he said again.
Miss Ambrose’s face flooded with scarlet. ‘We were worried,’ she said. ‘Especially about Mrs Honeyman.’ She peered around Jack’s shoulder. ‘Where is she?’
Jack frowned. ‘Well, she’s not with us,’ he said. ‘Is she not with you?’
Miss Ambrose’s face moved from scarlet to white, and Handy Simon began looking on his mobile telephone for the nearest police station.
9.46 p.m.
I can’t remember the last time I ate anything. I know I didn’t eat at the funeral. I can’t be doing with little bits of nonsense on a paper plate. I can’t remember the last time I drank anything either. You can manage without food for weeks. I read about it. In a magazine. Look at all those poor people in prison, starving themselves because no one listens to them. I’m fairly sure it’s just the drinking that matters, though. Simon would know. See! I remembered his name.
Sometimes I remember, and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I say the right thing, and sometimes I don’t. Everything makes sense in my head, it’s only when I let it go that it gets in a muddle. I can see it in people’s eyes when I haven’t said the right thing, and I never really know it’s happened until I’ve spoken and looked at them.
Eileen Everest was the wrong thing. We were in the car, on the way back from Cyril’s barge.
‘Poor little Eileen Everest,’ I said. ‘I think about her a lot.’
I knew Elsie was staring at me. You can tell sometimes, can’t you, without even looking.
‘What do you mean,’ she said, ‘poor little Eileen Everest?’
‘Getting run over like that. Never growing up.’
I looked at her eyes. It was the wrong thing.
‘In Llandudno,’ I said.
‘She never went to Llandudno, Florence. If Miss Ambrose catches you talking like that, we’ll almost certainly never hear the end of it.’
‘So where did she go?’ I said.
Elsie looked at me and smiled. ‘She went to Whitby, don’t you remember?’
I don’t remember anything. I just remember standing on the town-hall steps with my mother, and looking up at the clock.
‘Did she?’ I said.
‘You saw the long second, Florence. You told her to go to Whitby. Eileen Everest never went to Llandudno in the end. You stopped her.’
FLORENCE
The policeman held up his hands. He was clearly an optimist, because it hadn’t worked the last three times he’d tried it, so there was really very little chance of it working now.
‘If you could all just be quiet for one second,’ he said, ‘we’ll try to establish a system for speaking to everyone individually.’
But the second half of his sentence fell into a shouting match between two residents about whether a chief inspector was higher up than a superintendent.
‘Perhaps we could borrow one of the rooms?’ said Miss Ambrose.
The woman who owns the hotel was called Gail. Gail with an ‘i’. Each time she introduced herself, she explained to us it was spelled with an i, despite no one ever finding the need to write it down. Gail gave a little sniff. �
��Another one?’ she said. Miss Bissell had experienced a fainting episode next to the whalebones, and had already been taken into the kitchen with a police sergeant and a bottle of brandy.
‘Maybe the television room?’ said Miss Ambrose.
‘That’s out of the question. It’s Tuesday,’ said Gail, rather mysteriously, but she didn’t elaborate. ‘I suppose I could let you have the staff rest room. Although you’ll need to be out by eight, because I’ve got a new shift coming in and I’ll need to change my slacks.’
We sat in a row, waiting our turn. For a rest room, it wasn’t very restful. The chairs were wooden and mismatched. Some of them had clearly escaped from the dining room and clung to their usefulness with glue and Sellotape. People appeared and ignored us. They banged locker doors and turned keys, and they put on layers of uniform and turned themselves into someone else. I tapped my feet to pass the time, but Elsie kept glaring at me, and so I tapped my fingers on last night’s menu instead.
‘Where do you think Ronnie is?’ I kept saying. ‘Someone should be keeping their eye on him.’
‘He’ll be outside.’ Jack nodded towards the door. ‘Along with everyone else. He can’t get up to much with all these policemen around.’
‘Why don’t we play a game?’ Elsie said. ‘Why don’t we try that shelf over there?’
I studied the shelf. ‘Clock. Postcards. Dying plant.’ I hesitated. ‘Candle?’
‘Bigger,’ she said.
‘Candlestick?’
‘Wonderful!’
‘Professor Plum, in the conservatory.’ Then, ‘Why did I say that?’
‘Because it’s a board game,’ she said. ‘Do you remember? You play it in the day room sometimes, after small amounts of persuasion.’
‘Do I? I don’t remember. Where do you think Mrs Honeyman has gone?’
Elsie paused. ‘Perhaps she just got a little confused. Wandered off. People do from time to time.’
‘She’ll be back,’ said Jack. ‘You’ll see.’
I wasn’t sure if she would, but I didn’t say anything. Old people disappear all the time. We allow them a moment of sympathy, and then turn the page of the newspaper. Do we ever know if they’re returned to where they belonged? I’m not entirely sure that we do. Elsie started talking about how the plant on the shelf needed watering, and so I clung to that thought instead. Sometimes, you need to hold on to a small worry, to stop you from reaching out for something bigger.
Three Things About Elsie Page 20