Three Things About Elsie(81)

Mrs Honeyman. The woman from number four. Round face. Never speaks. Not very good with stairs. For a few minutes, none of us spoke.

‘So what happened to Gabriel?’ said Jack.

Agnes sat back and her gaze returned to the window. ‘Vanished,’ she said. ‘Not long after they were married. She lost the baby, and he just disappeared on one of his tours. Never came back.’

‘What happened?’ said Elsie.

‘Did he never come back?’ I thought of the man with the gentle eyes. ‘No one ever heard from him again?’

‘He never came back,’ she said. ‘People thought he must have had a big win on the horses, or met another girl in another town.’

‘And what do you think?’ said Jack.

‘Gabriel Honeyman might have been a fool and a gambler, but he wasn’t a bad man. He may have disappeared, but I don’t for one second think he had any choice in the matter.’

The room waited for us in silence, but no one spoke. The only sound was the cat, washing at its paws. I looked at Jack, but he didn’t look back.

‘What did the police say?’ I was getting quite good at ignoring silences, but I couldn’t stand this one.

‘That he was a grown man,’ said Agnes. ‘That it was his decision.’

‘I wonder,’ Jack said, but his wondering didn’t find itself any words.

Agnes looked at each of us in turn. ‘Is there some other part of the puzzle I’ve yet to hear?’

‘Nothing we can prove. Some things sit so far back in time, it’s impossible to see them clearly any more.’ Jack picked up his cap and his walking stick. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of a Ronnie Butler?’

Agnes said the name back and shook her head. ‘No. I can’t say as I have.’

‘Just a shot in the dark.’ Jack moved towards the door, although the room was so small, he didn’t really have to move very far. ‘We’d probably better leave you in peace to your television programme.’

I stood up as well, but I must have done it a bit too quickly because I felt the room sway to one side, and all the blood rush from my head. I reached out for the back of a chair.

‘Are you all right, Florence?’ said Jack.

‘Sit down again,’ Agnes said. ‘Before you fall.’

I said that I was fine, absolutely fine. I let go of the chair, but I knew I was as pale as paper, even without looking at myself. ‘I just stood too quickly,’ I said. ‘And I can’t stop thinking about Mrs Honeyman losing her baby. I can’t imagine anything more awful.’

Agnes shook her head. ‘I don’t think there can be,’ she said. ‘My Frankie went missing when he was little, and it was the worst few hours of my life. Thank God someone kept him safe until I found him again.’

I looked back at the room. The photographs on the mantelpiece. Weddings, grandchildren, holidays. All those moments of happiness, held behind glass, like treasure. Elsie seemed to know I was looking because she turned back when she got to the door. And we smiled at each other, over the ticking of a mantelpiece clock.





HANDY SIMON


‘I’m not sure this is a good idea.’ Handy Simon looked through the box of cassettes. They were all people he’d never heard of. Sing-Along-a-Wartime, one of them said. Twenty Songs That Made Britain Great. ‘It feels too much like a celebration.’

‘It’s not a celebration.’ Anthea Ambrose was up a stepladder with a string of bunting. ‘It’s called carrying on as normal. Old people like routine. It makes them feel safe.’ She wobbled on the ladder and held on to a pelmet for support. ‘I did it. On a course.’

Handy Simon didn’t say anything, because he was certain he’d ended up in Miss Ambrose’s notebook over the Joan of Arc conversation, but he wasn’t entirely sure what normal was any more. He didn’t think it would ever be possible to feel homesick for Cherry Tree, but he felt as though he actually wanted to be back there in the staff room with his Pot Noodle, and not a glimpse of a seagull in sight.

‘Does Miss Bissell think it’s a good idea?’ said Simon.

Miss Ambrose drove a drawing pin very violently into the wallpaper. ‘The hotel always has a dance on a Saturday night, so we might as well make the most of it. Who knows, Simon, you might actually enjoy yourself.’

It was something his mother always used to say to him when he was younger. ‘Who knows, Simon, you might like it if you give it a try.’ He didn’t, usually. Like it. He’d tried lots of things. Spanish guitar. Judo. Chess. Once, he spent a whole afternoon trying to get on a horse, but the horse was having none of it. His father suggested rugby, but just being in the changing room made him clammy. ‘Bell-ringing?’ said his mother, but Simon just shook his head. Nothing he had a go at seemed to fit. Life sometimes felt like trying on the entire contents of a shoe shop, but all of them pinched your toes.

‘Perhaps I’m just not good at anything,’ he said to his mother. ‘Perhaps I’m not a hobby person.’

‘Nonsense. Everyone is good at something. You just haven’t found yourself yet.’

She died whilst he was still searching.

Simon put the cassette back.

‘Unless …’ He sniffed the air and did a little finger wave at the ceiling.