David Peace: 1974

Seven odd miles, chanting the copy like a mantra:

A mother made an emotional plea.

The mother of missing ten-year-old Clare Kemplay made an emotional plea.

Mrs Sandra Kemplay made an emotional plea as fears grew.

Emotional pleas, growing fears.

I pulled up outside my mother’s house on Wesley Street, Ossett, at ten to ten, wondering why the Rollers hadn’t covered The Little Drummer Boy , thinking get it done and done right.

Into the phone:

“OK, sorry. Do the lead paragraph again and then it’s done. Right then: Mrs Sandra Kemplay made an emotional plea this morning for the safe return of her daughter, Clare, as fears grew for the missing Morley ten-year-old.”

“New para: Clare went missing on her way home from school in Morley early yesterday evening and an intensive police search throughout the night has so far failed to yield any clue as to Clare’s whereabouts.”

“OK. Then it’s as it was before…”

“Thanks, love…”

“No, I’ll be through by then and it’ll take my mind off things…”

“See you Kath, bye.”

I replaced the receiver and checked my father’s watch:

Ten past ten.

I walked down the hall to the back room, thinking it’s done and done right.

Susan, my sister, was standing by the window with a cup of tea, looking out on the back garden and the drizzle. My Aunty Margaret was sat at the table, a cup of tea in front of her. Aunty Madge was in the rocking chair, balancing a cup of tea in her lap. No-one sat in my father’s chair by the cupboard.

“You all done then?” said Susan, not turning round.

“Yeah. Where’s Mum?”

“She’s upstairs, love, getting ready,” said Aunty Margaret standing up, picking up her cup and saucer. “Can I get you a fresh cup?”

“No, I’m OK thanks.”

“The cars’ll be here soon,” said Aunty Madge to no-one.

I said, “I best go and get ready.”

“All right, love. You go on then. I’ll have a nice cup of tea for you when you come down.” Aunty Margaret went through into the kitchen.

“Do you think Mum’s finished in the bathroom?”

“Why don’t you ask her,” said my sister to the garden and the rain.

Up the stairs, two at a time like before; a shit, a shave, and a shower and I’d be set, thinking a quick wank and a wash’d be better, suddenly wondering if my father could read my thoughts now.

The bathroom door was open, my mother’s door closed. In my room a clean white shirt lay freshly ironed on the bed, my father’s black tie next to it. I switched on the radio in the shape of a ship, David Essex promising to make me a star. I looked at my face in the wardrobe mirror and saw my mother standing in the doorway in a pink slip.

“I put a clean shirt and a tie on the bed for you.”

“Yeah, thanks Mum.”

“How’d it go this morning?”

“All right, you know.”

“It was on the radio first thing.”

“Yeah?” I said, fighting back the questions.

“Doesn’t sound so good does it?”

“No,” I said, wanting to lie.

“Did you see the mother?”

“Yeah.”

“Poor thing,” said my mother, closing the door behind her.

I sat down on the bed and the shirt, staring at the poster of Peter Lorimer on the back of the door.

Me thinking, ninety miles an hour.

The three car procession crawled down the Dewsbury Cutting, through the unlit Christmas lights in the centre of the town, and slowly back up the other side of the valley.

My father took the first car. My mother, my sister, and me were in the next, the last car jammed full of aunties, blood and fake. No-one was saying much in the first two cars.

The rain had eased by the time we reached the crematorium, though the wind still whipped me raw as I stood at the door, juggling handshakes and a cigarette that had been a fucker to light.

Inside, a stand-in delivered the eulogy, the family vicar too busy fighting his own battle with cancer on the very ward my father had vacated early Wednesday morning. So Super Sub gave us a eulogy to a man neither he nor we ever knew, mis taking my father for a joiner, not a tailor. And I sat there, outraged by the journalistic licence of it all, thinking these people had carpenters on the bloody brain.

Eyes front, I stared at the box just three steps from me, imagining a smaller white box and the Kemplays in black, won dering if the vicar would fuck that up too when they finally found her.

I looked down at my knuckles turning from red to white as they gripped the cold wooden pew, catching a glimpse of my father’s watch beneath my cuff, and felt a hand on my sleeve.

In the silence of the crematorium my mother’s eyes asked for some calm, saying at least that man is trying, that the details aren’t always so important. Next to her my sister, her make-up smudged and almost gone.

And then he was gone too.

I bent down to put the prayer book on the ground, thinking of Kathryn and that maybe I’d suggest a drink-after I’d written up the afternoon press conference. Maybe we’d go back to hers again. Anyway, there was no way we could back to mine, not tonight at any rate. Then thinking, there’s no fucking way the dead can read your thoughts.

Outside, I stood about juggling another set of handshakes and a cigarette, making sure the cars all knew the way back to my mother’s.

I got in the very last car and sat in more silence, unable to place any of the faces, or name any of the names. There was a moment’s panic as the driver took a different route back to Ossett, convincing me I’d joined the wrong fucking party. But then we were heading back up the Dewsbury Cutting, all the other passengers suddenly smiling at me like they’d all thought the exact same thing.

Back at the house, first things first:

Phone the office.

Nothing.

No news being bad news for the Kemplays and Clare, good news for me.

Twenty-four hours coming up, tick-tock.

Twenty-four hours meaning Clare dead.

I hung up, glanced at my father’s watch and wondered how long I’d have to stay amongst his kith and kin.

Give it an hour.

I walked back down the hall, the Byline Boy at last, bringing more death to the house of the dead.

“So this Southern bloke, his car breaks down up on Moors. He walks back to farm down road and knocks on door. Old farmer opens door and Southerner says, do you know where nearest garage is? Old farmer says no. So Southerner asks him if he knows way to town. Farmer says he don’t know. How about nearest telephone? Farmer says he don’t know. So South erner says, you don’t know bloody much do you. Old farmer says that’s as may be, but am not one that’s lost.”

Uncle Eric holding court, proud the only time he ever left Yorkshire was to kill Germans. Uncle Eric, who I’d seen kill a fox with a spade when I was ten.

I sat down on the arm of my father’s empty chair, thinking of seaview flats in Brighton, of Southern girls called Anna or Sophie, and of a misplaced sense of filial duty now half redundant.

“Bet you’re glad you came back, aren’t you lad?” winked Aunty Margaret, pushing another cup of tea into my palms.

I sat there in the middle of the crowded back room, my tongue on the roof of my mouth, trying to move the stuck white bread, glad of something to clear out the taste of warm and salty ham, wishing for a whisky and thinking of my father yet again; a man who’d signed the Pledge on his eighteenth birthday for no other reason than they asked.

“Well now, would you look at this.”

I was miles and years away and then suddenly aware my hour was at hand, feeling all their eyes on me.

My Aunty Madge was waving a paper around like she was after some bluebottle.