Missing Person

by Mary Jane Staples

  Frank thought she was joking and he forgave her for her unkind wordage. Tilly wasn’t joking, and nor was she in need of being forgiven. She left home a week later, moving to Walworth, having found two upstairs rooms in the house rented by George Rice in Brandon Street. She also left her job and started up on her own with the aid of a sewing-machine, a dummy and a lot of natural talent. She had to work hard because Walworth customers never had too much money to spare for new clothes, but she got by, and in any case hard work had never discouraged her. She was a strong young woman.

  George Rice had been breezy, pleasant and friendly for the first few months. Then he began to get ideas. Tilly recognized the symptoms – those of a man who thought he had to be God’s gift to a woman living on her own. He’d made several passes at her, all of which she rebuffed. Tonight, just as she was about to get undressed for bed, he’d invaded the room. What an ’orrible villain. Tod Slaughter could have taken him off all right. Tod Slaughter had played the part of the fiendish squire, William Corder, in that Victorian melodrama.

  Well, George Rice had finished up with a cracked head, and she had finished up resolved to depart his door and never return. She’d look in the newsagent’s window tomorrow and see who had rooms to let.

  Cassie spent most of Sunday morning trying to extend her parrot’s vocabulary, but all it said in that time was a terse ‘Gertcher’. She tried again after dinner, with the cage on the kitchen table. Her dad, Harold Ford, known as the Gaffer, sat watching her, a grin on his face. For the umpteenth time she begged Cecil to say something. Cecil simply looked supercilious. The Gaffer, a widower, suggested she’d got herself a dud parrot.

  ‘No, I ’aven’t, Dad, he’s just not used to us yet.’

  ‘What made yer call ’im Cecil?’

  ‘Well, there was a Lord Cecil once, wasn’t there?’

  ‘It’s familiar, Cassie, familiar, I’ll say that much. Try callin’ ’im that, and see if he answers up.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Cassie. ‘Here, Lord Cecil, say ’ello, Your Ladyship.’

  Lord Cecil tucked his beak into his plumage and fiddled about.

  ‘He don’t seem to be much of a lord,’ said the Gaffer.

  Cassie frowned. Her eighteen-year-old sister Nellie was entertaining her young man in the parlour. Her sixteen-year-old brother Charlie, along with some of his mates, was making life burdensome for everyone in King and Queen Street. Cassie suddenly realized she hadn’t seen anything of Freddy all day. A parrot was all right, but it wasn’t the same as Freddy. Crikey, he might be giving some other girl a ride on his bike this minute, he might even be up the park with her, when he could be helping to get Cecil talking.

  Putting the cover on, she picked up the cage and darted from the kitchen.

  ‘Where you off to, Cassie?’ called the Gaffer.

  ‘Round to see Freddy,’ said Cassie from outside the door.

  ‘Well, you be back by teatime, pet.’

  ‘All right, Dad. Can I bring Freddy to tea?’

  ‘Course you can. And yer parrot as well.’

  Cassie scampered through the passage and out of the house, carrying the cage.

  ‘What yer got there, Cassie?’ bawled one of several street kids.

  ‘Me dad’s dustbin!’

  ‘You’re daft, you are, Cassie Ford!’

  Cassie, turning at the corner of the street, whisked out of sight of the kids. When she reached Caulfield Place, she made straight for Freddy’s house. Pulling the latchcord, she let herself in.

  ‘Freddy, you home?’ she called.

  ‘No, not now,’ called Freddy, ‘I’m out.’

  ‘Come on, Cassie, come through,’ called Sally, Freddy’s sister, ‘don’t take any notice of young Clever Clogs.’

  Cassie was at the kitchen door by then, anyway. In she went, with the cage. Sally, a typically lively cockney girl when she wasn’t putting on the style as a shop assistant, had a friend with her, Mavis Richards from Cotham Street. Both girls were in their Sunday best, ready to go out.

  ‘Oh, ’ello, Sally, how’d you do, Mavis, don’t you both look posh?’ said Cassie, rarely less than a blithe young spirit, even when her eyes were at their dreamiest. ‘Freddy, where you been all day?’

  ‘Well,’ said Freddy, ‘I was in bed till quarter-past eight, then I got up and ’ad a wash, then I got dressed and ’ad me breakfast, then I ’elped with the washin’-up, then I cleaned me bike – ’old on, is that that parrot you’ve brought?’

  ‘Yes, it’s Cecil, ’e wanted to come,’ said Cassie.

  ‘I suppose he asked to, did ’e?’ said Freddy.

  ‘Well, ’e didn’t exactly ask,’ said Cassie, ‘’e just looked as if ’e wanted to.’

  ‘Show, Cassie, show,’ said Sally, so Cassie placed the cage on the table and took the hood off. Cecil perked up at the sudden onset of light and did a cheeky one-step on his perch. His colourful plumage drew admiring cries from Sally and Mavis.

  ‘Oh, ain’t he pretty?’ said Mavis.

  ‘Gertcher,’ said Cecil.

  ‘Crikey, he talks,’ said Sally.

  ‘Yes, but ’e hasn’t said a lot today, not a tremendous lot,’ said Cassie, ‘so I’ve come to let Freddy ’elp me with ’is talkin’.’

  ‘Cassie, I ain’t keen on spendin’ me Sunday afternoon talkin’ to a parrot,’ said Freddy.

  ‘Come on, Cecil,’ said Sally, clicking her fingers, ‘say something else, like who’s a pretty boy, then.’

  ‘Gertcher,’ said Cecil.

  ‘Oh, stuck-up, are we?’ said Sally.

  ‘I think ’e’s got royal blood,’ said Cassie, ‘I think he’d say a lot to the King and Queen if me and Freddy took ’im to Buckingham Palace.’

  ‘Can’t he say some of it ’ere?’ asked Mavis.

  ‘He better ’ad,’ said Freddy, ‘because I’m not takin’ him to Buckingham Palace, and that’s a fact.’

  ‘We can take ’im on the bus,’ said Cassie. ‘Sally, d’you know if the King and Queen’s in today?’

  ‘Well, no, I don’t,’ said Sally, ‘they don’t always let me know about what they’re doin’.’

  Mavis giggled.

  ‘Cassie, I ain’t goin’ on any bus with that parrot,’ said Freddy.

  ‘I wonder if that lady that’s moved into the ’aunted house takes ’er parrot on the bus or for a walk?’ mused Cassie.

  ‘It might surprise you,’ said Freddy, ‘but lots of people don’t take their parrots for a walk or a bus ride. And I’ve told yer, that house ain’t ’aunted, it’s only what the kids say.’

  ‘Still, I wouldn’t live in it meself,’ said Mavis. ‘What’s yer parrot doin’ now, Cassie?’

  ‘Just a shuffle,’ said Freddy.

  ‘Well, that won’t get ’im very far,’ said Sally. ‘Come on, Mavis, let’s go now.’

  ‘Where you goin’?’ asked Cassie, who never liked to be in an uninformed state.

  ‘Round to Mavis’s,’ said Sally.

  ‘What’s at Mavis’s?’ asked Cassie.

  ‘Mavis’s brother,’ grinned Freddy.

  ‘You said it, I didn’t.’ Sally smiled and off she went with Mavis.

  ‘Freddy, where’s yer mum and dad?’ asked Cassie.

  ‘In the parlour, ’aving a quiet life,’ said Freddy.

  ‘All right, I don’t mind,’ said Cassie graciously. ‘You and me can stay in the kitchen and teach Cecil to talk a bit more, then you can come ’ome and ’ave tea with us.’

  ‘Cassie, I ain’t sittin’ in here with the parrot,’ said Freddy.

  ‘Yes, you are, you’re a nice boy really,’ said Cassie. ‘Come on, you can sit next to me and we’ll teach Cecil together. Let’s first try and make ’im say – Freddy? Oh, where’s that blessed boy gone?’

  The blessed boy was sneaking out through the front door. Hearing him, Cassie gave a little yell and went after him. She caught him as he reached Browning Street. Freddy, however, was adamant that he wasn’t going to talk to a daft parrot
all afternoon. But five minutes later, of course, he was sitting with her at the kitchen table, and Cecil was giving both of them the once-over out of a beady eye. Freddy, not a bad loser, grinned at the bird.

  ‘Watcher, mate,’ said Cecil.

  Cassie gave a girlish yelp of delight, then frowned a little. Well, it sounded as if Lord Cecil was more of a cockney parrot than a royal one.

  Crack! Mrs Lizzy Somers, thirty-one years old, the wife of Ned Somers and the mother of two girls and two boys, hit a blinder with the willow cricket bat off the bowling of her eldest brother, Boots. The red leather ball soared over his head and landed in the vegetable bed far up the garden and well beyond the long lawn.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Boots.

  ‘Yes, who did that?’ asked Rosie.

  ‘Me,’ said Lizzy. Well, she’d played street cricket in Walworth when a schoolgirl, proving a natural terror with a bat, even if she’d never been able to bowl for toffee.

  ‘A six, Mum, you ’it a six!’ yelled her eldest son, nine-year-old Bobby.

  ‘Sacre bleu,’ said Boots, showing off his French.

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ said Lizzy. She wasn’t dressed for cricket, she was dressed in fine printed cotton, colourful and summery, but once she had a cricket bat in her hands she gaily reverted to tomboyish thumping, whacking and smiting. She and Ned and their family had been invited to tea at her mother and stepfather’s large house in Red Post Hill, off the south end of Denmark Hill, and Boots had said come early for some garden cricket. Lizzy, Ned, thirteen-year-old Annabelle and Bobby were all playing, along with Boots and family, and Miss Polly Simms. Lizzy’s younger children, seven-year-old Emma and five-year-old Edward, were sitting at the garden table with Chinese Lady, playing snakes-and-ladders with her. ‘Come on, bowl up,’ said Lizzy.

  ‘Do it again, Mum, smash another six,’ said Bobby.

  ‘Watch your legs, Mum, I think Uncle Boots’s blood is up,’ said Annabelle.

  ‘Some hopes he’s got of hittin’ my legs or my wicket,’ said Lizzy.

  Boots did a lazy-looking run, deceptively lazy, for when he delivered the ball it whizzed through the air and fizzed off the turf. Lizzy did a little scream of outrage and swung her bat vainly at the ball. It broke the stumps.

  ‘Oh, dear, Auntie Lizzy, what a shame,’ said Rosie, ‘I think you’re out.’

  ‘Not likely,’ said Lizzy, chestnut hair gleaming in the sunshine, brown eyes defiant and challenging. ‘I wasn’t ready.’

  ‘Who said that?’ asked Ned.

  ‘I did,’ said Lizzy. Boots stood with a grin on his face.

  ‘But, Auntie Lizzy,’ said Tim, ‘your stumps are all knocked over.’

  ‘Lizzy, you’re out,’ said Polly, long-standing family friend.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ smiled Mr Finch.

  ‘Not likely,’ said Lizzy again, ‘I wasn’t ready for that sneaky cannonball. It was supposed to be a slow one. Stand the stumps up again, Tim.’

  From the garden table, Emma called, ‘The phone’s ringing.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Mr Finch, and entered the house through the kitchen. The telephone in the hall was ringing its demanding note. He answered it. ‘Hello?’

  ‘I wish to speak to Mr Finch,’ said a man’s voice.

  ‘You’re speaking to him.’

  ‘Good. You are Mr Edwin Finch?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Formerly Herr Paul Strasser of Frankfurt-on-the-Maine in Germany?’

  Mr Finch stiffened, then said quietly, ‘That’s an odd question. I think you have the wrong man.’

  ‘Ah, so sorry. Goodbye.’ The line went dead, but Mr Finch hung on for a few seconds before replacing the phone. He was too experienced an agent not to accept that espionage held its surprises, alarms and dangers for all who engaged in it. Someone knew he had once been a German agent, someone he was certain did not work for the British Government. Well, what would come next? Another phone call, probably, and then a suggestion relating to blackmail? He wondered about that, but had a smile on his face as he returned to the garden.

  ‘Who was it?’ asked Chinese Lady.

  ‘A colleague,’ said Mr Finch.

  ‘On a Sunday?’ said Chinese Lady, who had always thought he worked for the Foreign Office in a kind of diplomatic capacity.

  ‘Some colleagues can’t leave work alone, Maisie, not even on a Sunday,’ said Mr Finch. ‘What’s going on out here now?’

  ‘Bedlam,’ said Chinese Lady.

  Boots had foxed Lizzy so diabolically with his bowling that she’d knocked the wicket over. By falling on it. Now she was chasing Boots all over the garden, trying to hit him with the bat. But that kind of thing was all part of the game when the Somers family were playing Boots and his family at garden cricket.

  Rosie, shrieking with laughter, thought how spiffing it was to be alive. Mr Finch thought how fortunate he was to have acquired a ready-made family with so much zest for life. Odd phone calls were by the way.

  Cassie was getting just a little fed-up with Lord Cecil or just plain awkward Cecil. She complained to Freddy that the blessed bird hadn’t spoken a word since saying hello to him. Freddy remarked it hadn’t been hello, it had been watcher, mate. Yes, fancy a royal parrot saying that, said Cassie with a frown. And then nothing else in over an hour, she said. Freddy said she’d got to face up to the fact that Lord Cecil wasn’t much of a talker. Cassie had a thought. I know, let’s take Cecil along to that lady that’s got a parrot of her own, she said, I bet she’d know how to get Cecil to talk lots. Freddy said they couldn’t go knocking on her door on a Sunday afternoon.

  ‘Course we can,’ said Cassie, ‘it’s what doors are for, to be knocked on.’ There was something in that. Well, there was as far as Walworth front doors were concerned. Walworth front doors were neighbourly, they liked being knocked on, except by rent collectors or tallymen. ‘Come on, Freddy – oh, ’ave you met the lady yet, Mrs ’Arper?’

  ‘I’ve seen ’er, I ain’t exactly met ’er,’ said Freddy. ‘Me mum spoke to her this mornin’, just to be neighbourly, and she said she was unexpected polite for someone from the East End, considerin’ all the tea leafs that ’ang about there. Mind, Mum didn’t mean she looked like a tea leaf ’erself.’

  ‘Well, then, you ought to go and say ’ello, Freddy, it’s only what you should do with new neighbours,’ said Cassie. ‘I’ll come with you, and Cecil as well. You’d best brush your hair first, before you put your cap on.’

  Freddy stood his ground as far as his hair was concerned, but he did put his cap on. It wasn’t much use trying to tell Cassie he wasn’t going, it would only help to turn him grey a bit quicker. Along they went to the house in question, two doors away, with Cassie carrying the caged parrot. It was Cassie who knocked on the door. It had an old latchcord, but she thought she’d better not use it.

  Mrs Harper opened the door. She was in quite a nice blouse and skirt, a woman in her late twenties with fair shingled hair. She wasn’t bad-looking, it was her rather florid complexion that was slightly spoiling.

  ‘Yes?’ she said, but not unkindly.

  ‘Oh, how’d you do, Mrs ’Arper,’ said Cassie. ‘This is me friend, Freddy Brown, ’e lives at number four, and wants to say ’ello to you. Go on, Freddy.’

  ‘Afternoon, Mrs ’Arper,’ said Freddy.

  ‘Afternoon,’ said Mrs Harper.

  ‘We thought we’d come and tell you I’ve got me own parrot now,’ said Cassie.

  ‘So you ’ave,’ said Mrs Harper, with a bit of a smile.

  ‘Yes, it’s Cecil,’ said Cassie. ‘He’s a talkin’ parrot, but ’e’s hardly talked at all today.’

  ‘Well, girlie, I don’t go much on parrots that don’t talk,’ said Mrs Harper. ‘Percy keeps me company.’

  ‘I told Freddy you called ’im Percy,’ said Cassie.

  ‘That’s ’is name all right.’

  ‘D’you think you could let Percy meet Cecil?’ asked Cassie. ‘That’s if you’re not terri
ble busy and Mr ’Arper wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Me ’usband and ’is brother ’appen to be out,’ said Mrs Harper, ‘so all right, you can come in for a bit. Mind, I don’t entertain much on account of me ’eadaches, which catch me something chronic at times.’

  ‘Oh, ’ave yer got one now?’ asked Cassie.

  ‘No, I’ve been all right today, so you can come through, you don’t seem the kind to kick up a racket. What did yer say yer names was?’

  ‘I’m Cassie and he’s Freddy. We’re mates.’

  ‘All right, come in.’

  They stepped in, Mrs Harper closed the door and they followed her through the passage into the kitchen. It was sparsely furnished with a table, four chairs, a dresser and a built-in larder. The range wasn’t alight, but there was a gas oven in the scullery. On the dresser stood a birdcage, in which a parrot was perched. It cocked an eye at the boy and girl.

  ‘What’s up, Fred, what’s up?’ it said.

  ‘There, that’s Percy,’ said Mrs Harper.

  ‘Lovaduck,’ breathed Cassie, ‘did you hear ’im talk to us, Freddy?’

  ‘Made me Sunday afternoon, that did,’ said Freddy, who felt he’d be a lot better off taking a ride on his bike. Cassie placed her birdcage on the table, and Mrs Harper brought Percy from the dresser to say hello to Cecil.

  ‘Let’s ’ope the feathers don’t fly,’ she said.

  The birds, actually, seemed quite uninterested in each other. Percy, however, cocked a flirtatious eye at Cassie.

  ‘Hello, sailor,’ he said.

  ‘Crikey, ain’t he quick to say something?’ said Cassie.

  ‘Gertcher,’ said Cecil.

  ‘Well, listen to that, they’re both talkin’,’ said Cassie. ‘Freddy told me they would if they met, Mrs ’Arper.’

  ‘I don’t recollect that,’ said Freddy.

  ‘Mind, I thought of it first,’ said Cassie. ‘Cecil, ask Percy what ’is name is.’