Джон Пристли - Salt is Leaving

"What do you make of it, Bertha?"

"Well, it's obviously written by a girl, probably quite young, who works at the Lyceum Cinema, and not in the office, though she's used office stationery. She knows your father, but not well, I'd say. What she and your father have in common, so to speak, is this Noreen. And my guess is that she's another young girl. Where this Dr Salt comes in, I can't imagine. Noreen could be a friend of his – or just one of his patients, which I think is rather more likely. But obviously your father's involved somehow in this Noreen-Peggy-Salt business."

"I know. But how? Can you see him being mixed up with cinema usherettes or whatever they are?"

"That's this Peggy Pearson. He went to ask her about Noreen-"

"Yes, but then what? That must have been on Monday. What happened then?"

"You'll have to go and find out, Maggie. At least you know something now. And if you don't want to do it, then let me do it."

"No, of course I must go, Bertha. You'll have to manage without me, this afternoon-"

"Your first duty to the shop, Maggie my dear, is to find your father and bring him back as soon as you can. I think all these bigger cinemas open just after lunchtime. So you have your lunch – and try to eat a good lunch; you"re all excited and using up nervous energy – then take the first bus into Birkden and find this Peggy Pearson."

"That's what I thought, Bertha." She hesitated a moment. "I'll have to tell my brother Alan about this letter of course – as soon as I can; he's at the University all day today, and it's hopeless trying to ring him up there – but I thought I wouldn't worry Mother with it-"

"You"re quite right, Maggie dear. In your place I shouldn't dream of it." Mrs Chapman and Mrs Culworth had no liking, not even any respect, for each other. "Keep her right out of it for the time being, until you know more. You go off to lunch, then to Birkden. Don't go there first – all the lunch places there are always so crowded."

Maggie laughed at her. "Food first for Bertha!"

"You may laugh, but I believe in stoking up – specially at a time like this. And another thing, Maggie dear – be careful."

"Careful about what?"

"I don't know. If I did, I'd tell you. But Birkden isn't Hemton, don't forget. Different sort of place altogether."

"And don't you forget that I'm a big girl who used to live and work in London – the real wicked city."

"Well-" And Bertha left it at that, but gave her a long look.

Maggie could feel the flush that Bertha must be noticing. Annoyed with herself, not with Bertha, she said rather quickly: "All right, I'll be careful."

Just over an hour later, she went at forty miles an hour into the maze and another kind of life.

2

She never did see the manager of the Lyceum, but after talking to two girls and a male attendant in a chocolate uniform, she reached the assistant manager, a pale and melancholy youngish man in a cubby-hole of an office.

"Peggy Pearson – yes," he told her. "One of our usherettes-"

"I'd like to speak to her-"

"So would I," he said wearily. "She was supposed to be here, putting on her uniform, at one o"clock. It's now nearly quarter to three and she isn't here. No message, of course. This happens all the time. You'd think these girls would enjoy wearing an attractive uniform in a picture theatre. The work's not hard. We do everything we can for them. I'm referring to the company now, which owns eleven picture theatres like this one, all in the Midlands. We"re already employing over thirty coloured girls. Why? Simply because these Peggy Pearsons are here today and gone tomorrow. They don't even tell you they"re dissatisfied-"

"Could you give me her home address, please?" said Maggie, tired of this long grumble.

"I could, of course. But if it's anything to do with her work here-"

"It hasn"t. Purely a private matter. And rather urgent."

He opened a filing cabinet. "It's 45 Olton Street."

"Thank you. Do you happen to know where Olton Street is?"

"I'm afraid I haven't the faintest idea. I came here from Coventry only a few weeks ago. And – between ourselves – I'm hoping to be transferred to our Wolverhampton theatre any time now. 45 Olton Street," he repeated as he opened the door to show her out. "And if you find Peggy Pearson at home, you can tell her from me that if she reports for duty at one o"clock tomorrow, I'll forget about today and won't ask her for a doctor's certificate. Between ourselves, of course."

Feeling rather reckless now, Maggie took a taxi to Olton Street, and then told the man to wait. A woman who looked as if she had been both drinking and crying answered her knock.

"I'm not buying anything," she told Maggie, looking her over suspiciously. "And I don't want that caper about what washing powder I use or what magazines I read."

"It's nothing like that. Are you Mrs Pearson? Well, I want to talk to your daughter Peggy-"

"I might have known. What's she been doing?"

"Mrs Pearson, I don't know her. But she wrote a letter to my father. And she may be able to tell me something I badly need to know. It's all quite private and personal."

"You'd better come in." And Mrs Pearson led the way into a room that looked like a corner of a secondhand furniture store. It had a horrid smell. And Maggie could only sit about three feet – if that – away from Mrs Pearson, who was not really old, probably only in her forties, but looked hopelessly crumpled, stained, defeated. Trying to find her father, she arrived at this woman, this room, this street, together representing the first step in her search; and she felt half frightened, half depressed.

"Mrs Pearson, I'm Maggie Culworth," she heard herself saying. "I work for my father who has a bookshop in Hemton. Without telling anybody where he was going, he left the shop at lunchtime on Monday. Afterwards I learnt at the bus station that he took a bus to Birkden. This morning a letter came for him, written by your daughter." Then she checked herself. "But I ought to be talking to her – not to you."

"Well, you can"t. She isn't here. While I was out last night, visiting my friend Mrs Muston, her ladyship comes back from the Lyceum, packs her suitcase and goes off to Birmingham. I know that because she left a note on the kitchen table telling me she'd gone to Birmingham. That's all – not another word. I don't know where she is, who she's with, what she's doing – me , her own mother."

"Oh – how maddening!" But Maggie was thinking about herself, not about the deprived and insulted mother.

Mrs Pearson must have sensed this. "I don't know what sort of a father you've got, but I know my own daughter. And if you"re thinking she's gone off with a man his age – nearer sixty than fifty, I'll bet – you can think again-"

"But I never-" Maggie gasped.

"She can be silly about boys," Mrs Pearson cut in sharply, "like most of "em now. But she wouldn't look twice at a man old enough to be your father-"

"Oh – do stop it. You"re just wasting time and temper. Of course she didn't go off with him. I'd never dream of suggesting such a thing. Besides, as I told you, she wrote him this letter." She fumbled around in her bag. "Here it is. You can read it."

Mrs Pearson not only read it but read it aloud, very slowly, giving it an ominous air that made Maggie want to snatch the letter away. " Dr Salt came here to ask me about Noreen and from what he said I think I was wrong what I told you about her . And now there is trouble so look out but I am in a hurry to write this so cant explain ." She waited a moment before handing back the letter, stared hard at Maggie, then said, still using an ominous tone: "Well, you can see what that means."

"No I can"t," Maggie told her impatiently. "If I could I wouldn't be here. Do you know what it means?"