‘Lend you my ring?’ She stared at him in horror. ‘No, I wouldn’t, Sidney.’ He raised her hand so they could both see it. ‘This is my wedding ring, and it—’
‘It should be a plain gold band.’
‘Well, it isn’t, so there! It’s better than a plain gold band, and I’m never going to take it off. Never!’ She folded her arms and gave a defiant toss of her head. ‘I promised on my honour, if you must know. Anyway, what d’you want with it?’
He glanced down at his fingers and then began to scratch at a greasy spot of butter on the crumpled tablecloth. ‘Don’t you want to know if it’s real? I know this man who—’
‘What d’you mean real? Course it’s real. You’re as bad as my ma!’ She peered at it closely, almost squinting at the stone. ‘It’s a diamond. Satisfied.’
‘But this man, Arnie . . .’
‘Arnie? Who’s Arnie?’
‘A sort of friend. I could show it to him. See what he says.’
‘What is he, a jeweller?’
‘Sort of. You don’t have to come with me. I could take it and then bring it back straight away. He might have conned you – Don, I mean. Might be glass. He might be making a fool out of you.’
‘Conned me? His own wife? What a nasty mind you’ve got, Sidney. I thought better of you. Now drop it or I’ll tell Don what you said.’ She fiddled lovingly with the ring, then kissed it. ‘You’re a troublemaker, Sidney Wickham.’
‘Or you’re too gullible! Ever think of that?’
‘What a dreadful way to talk about your own brother!’
He got up, staring at her as though about to say something else.
‘What?’ she challenged.
‘Nothing. You’ve made your bed, now you’ll have to lie on it! Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
With hands on her hips, she watched him go, then stuck out her tongue at his retreating back. ‘Make my own bed? What’s he talking about?’
For a moment the exchange had distracted her, and she frowned, trying to recall her plan. Ah yes! She was going to collect her marriage lines – and to do that she must hunt down Reverend Willis Burke.
After a longer walk than she expected, Dolly found herself inside the Rose and Garter talking to the barman – a large man with a florid face who wore a dirty apron over a collarless shirt and moleskin trousers. There was a button missing from his braces.
The bar was empty except for one man, but a small, elderly woman was wiping down the tables.
‘Reverend Burke?’ The barman grinned. ‘The Very Reverend Burke?’ He winked at the solitary man who was standing near Dolly, drinking his way through a tankard of porter and following the conversation with apparent interest.
Dolly looked at him hopefully. ‘He married us a few days ago,’ she told him proudly. ‘I’ve come to collect my marriage lines.’ The two men exchanged glances.
The barman said, ‘Private, was it? One of those?’
‘Yes, it was, actually. Simple, but nice. No music or anything because of the licence, but very . . . discreet.’ She smiled, pleased with her choice of word. ‘Because we held the ceremony here I thought you might know where he lives.’
The porter man coughed loudly. ‘Gone away, hasn’t he, Bert? Our very own “Very Reverend”!’
‘Gone away? Has he? Oh, I see! Yes. Most likely.’ For some reason the barman found this funny.
‘Do you know when he’ll be back?’
Another exchange of glances. The barman said, ‘I reckon he’ll be gone some time.’
The drinker said, ‘Gone to Timbuctoo.’
‘Goodness!’ Dolly smiled. ‘Never mind. I’ve written him a note in case I missed him. I’ll just give it to his landlady, and she can give it to him when he gets back. If you just give me his address . . .’
‘His address? Ah!’ The barman pursed his lips. ‘Blowed if I can remember it. He moves around a bit.’
‘Whenever his rent’s overdue!’
They both burst into loud guffaws, and it finally dawned on Dolly that they were mocking her. Timbuctoo had been the clue, of course – she knew it was hundreds of miles away. Annoyed with herself for being taken in so easily, she took a step back and straightened her back. ‘I don’t think it’s at all funny!’ she snapped. ‘But I can manage without you two.’
Robbed of their fun the two men fell abruptly silent and regarded her sheepishly, but she turned on her heel and walked out. To her surprise soft footsteps followed her, and she turned to see the cleaning lady, still holding her damp cloth.
‘Never mind them, lovey,’ she said, trying to see Dolly’s face through dirty spectacles. ‘Men are all the same. Their brains are in their trousers!’ She patted Dolly’s arm. ‘Mr Burke lives at seventy-three Dart Street. Down there, turn left and left again.’ She sniffed. ‘Timbuctoo indeed.’
‘Thank you, Mrs . . .?’
‘Mrs Magg. I had a daughter like you. Pretty and bright. Nora. Lives in Ireland now with her hubby and five children. All boys. Can you believe that? All she wanted was one girl. But no. All boys. Course, he was a navvy. Nice enough chap in his way, but couldn’t seem to give her a girl.’ She looked at Dolly’s swelling belly. ‘Little one on the way?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, let’s hope it’s a girl and won’t grow up like those two oafs in there!’
There was a shout from inside the pub, and Mrs Magg rolled her eyes and scuttled back inside.
Slightly comforted, Dolly found her way to Dart Street and then to number seventy-three. Despite ringing the bell and banging with the knocker there was no reply. Frustrated, Dolly pushed the note under the front door.
‘Please,
please
bring the marriage lines round,’ she whispered to the absent Mr Burke before turning homeward.
As she walked home she found it hard to keep up her spirits. Sidney had been horrid to her, Don was away again on one of his trips, the two men had made fun of her and she still had not collected her marriage lines. She had not expected disappointment to feature quite so early in her marriage.
George stood in the middle of the store and gazed around in surprise. It was more than a store, he thought. It was more like another world – crowds of people, counters groaning with enticing goods of all kinds, a murmur of constant chatter and movement on a grand scale. He had been standing there for a long time, or so it seemed, and he was unsure how he came to be where he was. Glancing around him he could not see his daughter, whose name he knew was Lydia, so maybe he had come here on his own. But why?
‘Can I help you, sir?’
He turned to find a young woman in a smart uniform.
‘I don’t know,’ he answered truthfully. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Miss Ebdon – a saleswoman on the cosmetics counter. I’ve been watching you and—’
‘Watching me?’ It was an alarming thought. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong, have I?’
‘No, no! I’m not suggesting you have, but you seem to be waiting for someone and you’ve been here for nearly an hour.’
She smiled, and he saw that she was very pretty in a modern sort of way.
She went on: ‘I thought perhaps you were waiting in the wrong place.’
George thought about it. Was he waiting for someone? It was possible . . . but if so he had forgotten who it was.
‘I have a daughter,’ he began. ‘Lydia. And a son, Robert—’
‘Perhaps we could find them for you. They’re probably around somewhere. Were you planning to meet up?’
Dammit. She had interrupted his train of thought. ‘—Robert, who’s dead, and Lydia, who . . .’
‘Perhaps your daughter is looking for you right now.’
‘I
think
he may be dead – or is that Adam? And we have a lodger. He’s a sturdy sort of chap. A policeman . . . Ronald . . . No, Leonard.’ Desperately, he studied the faces of the passing shoppers, hoping to see a familiar face. ‘Can’t remember his name, but he’s a decent sort. Got his head screwed on the right way, as they say.’ He nodded.
‘Did you come here on your own, sir? You seem a bit confused.’
George gave her a sharp glance. She was beginning to annoy him with her stupid comments. If only she would keep quiet he might be able to remember. He noticed that her expression had changed from polite enquiry to one of dismay as she began to understand the problem.
‘Would you like to talk to one our managers?’ she asked with false brightness. ‘They could help you. I could take you to the manager and find your—’
‘No!’ For some reason the idea frightened him, and at that moment he became aware of a disconcerting rumble somewhere in the region of his stomach. ‘I need to go to the lavatory!’ he cried, and in a sudden panic he began to push through the crowd, arms flailing, elbows digging into flesh as he wove an erratic way through the startled shoppers who began to protest and complain.
‘Lydia!’ he shouted fearfully. ‘Lydia! Where are you?’
An elderly lady, laden with shopping bags, wandered across his path, and with a rough swing of his arm he pushed her aside and hardly noticed that she tottered and fell. A young man with an armful of parcels then tripped over the fallen woman and also went down.
George shouted, ‘Lydia!’
At that same moment someone grabbed his arm and shouted, ‘I’ve got him!’
Some time later – was it hours or minutes? – he found himself sitting on a small leather armchair in what seemed to be a large office, and the young woman he had met earlier was trying to explain to a policeman that they were ‘not prepared to charge him’.
‘We’re satisfied that it was an accident,’ she insisted. ‘The poor man is very confused, but we found out his address from something in his wallet and someone has been sent to collect him and take him home.’
The constable, young and eager for some ‘action’, glanced up dubiously from his notes. ‘But how is the old woman who was knocked over? A Mrs Cope. And wasn’t there a young man involved?’
George felt that things were getting out of hand. He did not recall knocking anybody over, but . . . wasn’t he on his way to the lavatory? ‘The lavatory!’ he said loudly. Yes, that was it.
The young woman beamed at him. ‘You’ve been to the toilets,’ she told him. ‘Mr Robbins took you five minutes ago. There’s nothing more to worry about. It was all a mistake. We understand that now. Your daughter Lydia will be here soon to take you home.’
The policeman, obviously satisfied, closed his notebook and put it away. He looked sternly at George. ‘So you’ve had a bit of a fright, Mr Meecham. Took a ride on a bus and ended up here. You’d better not do that again. Caused a bit of a rumpus.’
George thought by his manner that he should show a little contrition, although he did not remember a bus ride. ‘I’m sorry, Constable,’ he said meekly.
The policeman tapped the stripes on the arm of his uniform and said, ‘Sergeant Fisher!’
By the time Lydia and Adam reached her father she felt sick with anxiety. Her father’s disappearance was what she had dreaded for months, and now it was playing out in reality and her husband was away on business. She would have to deal with the problem on her own, and she was shocked at how helpless she felt. Busy with a lamb casserole, she had assumed her father was still immersed in
The Times
as usual while Adam played with his toys on the floor beside him. Even when Adam had joined her in the kitchen to ask where he was, she had not immediately suspected the worst. Only after a search of the house, and a quick glance up and down the road, had she tumbled to the fact that he was missing. A further search in the adjacent streets and many frantic enquiries resulted in failure, and she and Adam had called in to the police station to ask if there was any news of him. While she was there a call had come in from the store, and they had taken a bus to the store to claim him.
‘We’ve been looking everywhere for you,’ she scolded as she rushed forward to hug her father. Turning to the sergeant, she asked, ‘I heard that someone had been hurt.’
‘No, ma’am. The lady concerned was saved by falling on to her various bulky parcels . . .’
The sales lady lowered her voice. ‘And the young man swore rather unpleasantly, but it was only his pride that was hurt. Fortunately, neither is making a formal complaint.’ She patted Adam on the head. ‘Your grandpapa has had a little adventure, but now he is quite well, young man, so you and your mother can stop worrying and take him home.’
Quite well? If only that were true, Lydia thought despairingly as her father followed them into the taxi and settled on the back seat where she took his hand and kissed it.
‘I’m so sorry, Liddy,’ he murmured.
‘You didn’t mean any harm, Father, but you must stay off the buses in future or we might lose you altogether!’
‘I will. I promise. I just don’t recall . . . That is, I have no idea how . . .’ Frowning, he shook his head. ‘It’s all a blur.’
‘We won’t talk about it then, Father, but please don’t frighten us like that again.’
Thoroughly abashed, George said he would do his best not to, and Lydia realized that in future she must watch him like the proverbial hawk.
Six
After supper that evening Leonard sat back and patted his stomach. ‘That was a very nice casserole,’ he told Lydia. He glanced at George, who was toying with his food and still showing signs of agitation.
Thus prompted George said, ‘Very nice, Lydia. You may one day cook as well as your mother, God bless her!’
Lydia laughed. ‘I’m not sure how to take that, Father!’
Leonard said, ‘He meant it kindly, I’m sure.’
George nodded. He looked very tired, Lydia thought, and somewhat subdued. Probably the anxieties of the day had tested his strength. He had promised, without any arguments, to go to bed after his meal.
Adam was finishing his rice pudding, and as soon as his plate was empty, Lydia took him upstairs to prepare for bed. For once the boy did not complain or insist that he was not tired, and Lydia realized that the events of the day had exhausted them all. She read him a few nursery rhymes and settled him down.
‘When can I have an adventure?’ he asked sleepily.