Sunday Best (17 page)

‘I am holding nothing back,' she said. ‘I want to see my
husband as much as you. My husband was not a secretive man. He told me everything. I have never heard him mention Mr Parsons in this house, and he certainly never came here. My husband is a meek and gentle man and he would not hurt anybody. He must be ill. It's the only explanation I can think of.'

‘You contradict yourself, Mrs Verrey Smith,' the Superintendent said. ‘You say your husband was not secretive, yet he managed to keep women in his room of whom you knew nothing. You have said your husband is in the best of health, yet you offer the suggestion that he might be ill. I am entitled, Mrs Verrey Smith, to feel that you are withholding something from me.'

She had to invent something that would satisfy him. She had to allay his suspicions. ‘Well, frankly, Superintendent,' she said, ‘my husband sometimes got very depressed.'

‘Was he violent?'

‘Oh, no,' she protested. ‘Nothing like that. He retired into a shell. Sometimes in such a mood, he would go out and not return till the morning. He would walk for hours and hours. I never knew where he went.'

‘Does his doctor know of this?'

‘No,' she said quickly. ‘He didn't want treatment. He didn't want anybody to know. He thought he might be going mad, and he was worried about his job. He had no friends. No one close, that is. I didn't want to tell you all this. Somehow it's private between me and George. There's a history of insanity in his family,' she elaborated, ‘we've always been frightened of it. That's why we had no children.' She felt she had acquitted herself rather well, and the Superintendent, making copious notes, seemed satisfied. She had put him on to the scent of an innocent and gentle lunatic, and in order to authenticate her story, she added, ‘Superintendent, I hope that what I'm telling you is confidential.'

He smiled, gratified that yet again, that warm and human telly understanding of his had won the day. She saw him going back to the station, ringing his good wife to tell her yet again that he'd be late for dinner, calling in his trusted lieutenant, and together sorting out his jigsaw of notes. ‘You know, Mrs Verrey Smith,' he said, and she'd heard the script a hundred times before, ‘we've got to be a bit of the psychiatrist in this job, and it was clear to me from the start that you needed to
tell me something. That's why I sent my men away. We'll find your husband. Mrs Verrey Smith, don't worry. We'll check all the hospitals. He might have been picked up with a lapse of memory. He obviously left with every intention of coming back, if not immediately, then in the near future. His passport, his cheque book prove that. I do not attach all that much importance to the open study door. If he was in a state of depression, he would be too apathetic to cover his tracks. And as you say, he had nothing to hide. I will be in constant touch with you, Mrs Verrey Smith. Here is a number that will get to me direct. If you should hear anything, a letter, a phone call, any piece of information, no matter how trivial it may seem, please be in touch with me right away. And you can be more than sure it will be absolutely confidential. You may have the newspapers calling, and that is something I can do nothing about. It is best to say as little as possible. They will distort it anyway. You've had a very worrying time, Mrs Verrey Smith,' he said, putting his hand on her arm, ‘and perhaps in the next few days there will be greater strain. People will talk, and people will give advice and make suggestions. Some of them will not be pleasant. But you must try to weather them. Tell me, Mrs Verrey Smith,' he said, almost in the same breath, his hand still on her arm, ‘would it surprise you if some of those people suggested that your husband was a homosexual?'

She tried to move away from him, but there was the slightest suspicion of a tightening on her arm. ‘Nonsense,' she said. ‘George? Impossible.' She tried to laugh, but deep inside her she knew it was not such a remote possibility. But she must not protest too much. Instead, she forced a smile.

‘Why do you ask?' she said.

‘Your husband told you about the Parsons affair, I presume?'

‘Yes,' she stammered. She had said that George was not secretive. He would have to have told her.

‘Are you sure he told you?' the Superintendent said, noting the hesitation.

‘He mentioned something,' she said. ‘I've forgotten now what it was all about.'

The notebook came out again, a sign of the discovery of yet another piece of the jigsaw puzzle. ‘Mr Parsons,' he said, ‘before his murder, had been suspended from the school for
interfering with little boys. Did your husband not mention that?'

‘No. He said there had been some trouble. That's not the kind of story my husband would ever discuss with me,' she said, on her dignity. ‘In any case, what has that to do with my husband?'

‘Nothing perhaps,' the Superintendent said, putting his notebook away with unconcealed satisfaction, ‘except that your husband was the only member of the staff who defended him.'

‘He must have had his reasons,' she said timidly.

‘Exactly, Mrs Verrey Smith.'

‘My husband is a very sympathetic man. He would understand certain human failings.'

‘According to the headmaster, and Miss Price in particular, he seemed to show a very personal understanding of Mr Parsons's problem. Now all this may mean nothing at all, but it must all be taken into consideration. Now, Mrs Verrey Smith,' he said, relaxing for the first time his hold on her arm, ‘would it surprise you if someone were to suggest that your hushand was a homosexual?'

‘I think it's a nonsensical suggestion,' she insisted. ‘I know my husband very well. You couldn't be married to a man for seventeen years without getting to know him a little. It's a preposterous and ridiculous idea,' she said. ‘There can be no truth in it whatsoever.'

He picked up his hat from the desk. ‘I hope you will keep in touch with me,' he said again. ‘Any information that comes your way. I shall come again tomorrow,' he said.

‘Why?' she asked angrily, ‘I've told you all I know.'

‘I accept that, Mrs Verrey Smith,' he said, ‘but by tomorrow, I may have something to tell you.'

She followed him down the stairs, and let him out of the front door. Across the road and along the street, she could see a line of half-raised net curtains. She slammed the door in front of them, and went herself into the front room, drawing her net curtains wide, and opening the window to see what they expected to view from theirs. Together they watched the Superintendent's car, with the legend POLICE, blatantly on its roof, take off down the road and turn into the main street.

She returned to the kitchen. The Parsons story had been a
great blow to her, not only for its matter but for the fact that George had not mentioned it. It seemed that every finger pointed towards him. She saw him hunted, and she prayed that he trusted her enough to contact her somehow so that she could protect and conceal him. He might phone. If he were alive, he had to contact her.

When the phone rang, she knew it was he, and she sprang to it with a burst of love. ‘George?' she panted into the receiver.

It was Mrs Bakewell. ‘Are you all right, dear?' she said, having no doubt witnessed the departure of the police.

Mrs Verrey Smith gritted her teeth, and totally mindful of her strait-laced upbringing, she screamed with passion into the receiver, ‘Mrs Bakewell, you interfering old bitch, you'd do me a favour if you'd kindly piss off.' She slammed the phone down, and sat again at the table not knowing whether or not she felt any better.

Emily Price woke up to the eleven o'clock chimes and a knock on her door. She knew that for some reason, it would take longer than usual to become conscious of who, where and why she was. Yet she knew that the knocking on the door demanded attention. As she got out of bed, she noticed that she was fully dressed and the manner of her dressing startled her. ‘Who is it?' she called, and she heard a man's voice emerge from the crumpled silk. So she coughed as a cover, and then repeated the question a pitch or so higher.

‘You're wanted on the phone, Mrs Price.'

‘Can you take a message?' she said almost squeaking. ‘I'm still asleep. I'll phone back.'

She heard the maid going downstairs and she sat on the bed. She had to have a few moments to acclimatize herself. The shock of her dress was sliding away, and there was instead a growing familiarity with her name and whereabouts. There remained only the phone call, and who possibly could know her name and where she was. Then she remembered the man at the station. Possibly it was his mother. She would get the message when she went downstairs, but now she had to wash and tidy herself. She looked very crumpled and there were dirty streaks in her make-up. Somehow she had to go out and buy replacements, and perhaps arrange to have her dress ironed. But with all the small worries, she could not ignore a rousing feeling of well-being. She thought of London, the school and her wife, and all, except for the latter, without a tinge of regret. For her wife, she felt a slight pity but an undeniable affection. She convinced herself that things were better this way, that Joy, a woman, a woman one could have as a friend, would in time, get over it, and begin a new life somehow. She wondered without much curiosity what had happened to Parsons and little Tommy. But the distance between herself and their problems gave her relief, and she
knew that in time she would forget them. She was fascinated by the way in which her thinking patterns had changed, and she marvelled that it could make such a difference to one's attitudes. As Emily Price, and she had almost forgotten what her name had been once, she saw Joy as a woman would see her, in anguish and in sorrow. This feeling of compassion came quite naturally. What was strange, and more difficult to accommodate, was the anger she felt towards the person who had been the cause. For Emily Price, who embodied both cause and effect of the situation, harboured in herself and at times in himself, both pity and rage. And yet, as she thought about it, she felt neither witness nor participator, but rather as a catalyst. She saw Joy at home venting her grief on poor old Spit and Polish, and the man who had caused it all was nowhere pointable, not in London, and certainly not in Brighton, but perhaps in the earth with her father. She trembled. Supposing she ever wanted to return? In what form could she stand against the blackboard or in the marital bed? The trousers and jackets lay in her suitcase, but now they could only clothe a ghost, and for a moment she thought of returning, quickly and trousered, before the ghost was finally laid. The decision to become Emily Price had not positively been taken. It had grown on her over the years, and finally in that little chapel, had fixed itself. Now she had to have the courage of that involuntary decision, and she was torn, not knowing what she wanted or needed, and only aware of the perils of both. She half decided that a decision was no longer possible. The making of it had been involuntary, and so had to be its execution. So she smoothed down her dress and tidied up her face, and went downstairs with a little excitement to collect the telephone message.

It was from a Mrs Jumble, and she remembered that that was the name on the card the young man had given her. The young man had lost no time, she thought, in effecting an introduction, and there was something suspicious about his haste. But no matter. Mrs Jumble wished Mrs Price to call on her that afternoon at Hove to take tea. She folded the card in her hand and felt that she already had a job and accommodation, and so she decided to rig herself out a little more smartly, not forgetting a handbag, to present herself to Mrs Jumble as a prospective employee. She passed by a newspaper stand, and having passed it, hesitated. In the old days, long ago in her
psyche, a morning paper on the way to school was part of the ritual. Now it seemed inappropriate to buy a paper. Ladies, and especially widows, had their morning papers delivered, and she would arrange it for Mrs Jumble if such arrangement were not already effective. She had tea in a small café without drawing anyone's attention, and she spent the morning adding the necessities to her sparse wardrobe. On her return to her hotel, she ordered her dress ironed, had a bath and thoroughly rehabilitated herself. She regretted that she had not bought a newspaper, for she had nothing to do until the afternoon. And it was uncomfortable for her to be unoccupied. She would question the decision that had come upon her. Again she would wonder whether she should reverse it. She even thought that she might write a letter to Joy to say that she was at least alive, but she knew that that kind of action would be equivocal, would betray an infirmity of purpose. To refrain from action was sometimes more positive.

She picked up a Bible that lay on the bedside table. She had not opened a Bible since her childhood, when it had been very much opened for her, night after night, and every Sunday, and thundered into her frightened ear. Now the book evoked an aching nostalgia, but she was unable to outline the participant of the childhood experience. Yet she remembered the joy of being a chorister, and the pretty clothes that she had to wear. She put the Bible down. She could not bear its uneasy promptings. She thought she might take a walk, but the sea unnerved her, and she wondered why she had chosen Brighton to reside, which was, after all, only the sea's interruption. It was perhaps because of the mention of Parsons's fiancée, if she ever existed, but more probably it was because it was not far from the decision that had overtaken her, and therefore more easily reversible. She decided to sleep until the afternoon. In sleep, no decisions nagged, and besides, she wanted again that joyful feeling of awakening, of collecting one's identity out of the dark, of realizing slowly, that you were what you wanted to be.

‘Yes, you will do very nicely,' said Mrs Jumble, as she opened the door. It was a greeting that Emily Price had hardly expected. She had waited for a full five minutes at Mrs Jumble's door before ringing, unaware that she was being fully inspected by Mrs Jumble through field glasses fixed on the bedroom window. She had passed the test through a
glass darkly, and Mrs Jumble had opened the door to give her the result.