Chapter 27: Farewell

THE train left the station in a cloud of white steam, taking Mary away from me forever, it seemed. She was about to throw herself back into the charged atmosphere of make-believe adventure and romance that is the movie business, as a single, unattached, desirable and very beautiful woman, in my mind to be surrounded by slavering wolves in the guise of leading men used to getting their way with any women they temporarily desired. While I returned to my life as a single and seriously unattached bachelor, who had been touched by love twice in my lifetime and already resigned to coping with the loss I felt heavy in my heart.

It would be hard to get over Mary, the lovely girl behind that highly public persona.

I know my pain was self-inflicted, but it would be all my own fault this time. I chided myself for being such an old fool, especially as Mary had warned me at the outset not to fall in love with her.

I know why she warned me, but who can really help having any significant influence over how we feel about someone special who has drifted into one’s life only to be snatched back again in the realities of the different lives we lead?

I tried my hardest to be brave, to straighten my back, hold my head high and cheerfully wave her on her way home with God speed.

I tried, but at the end I was left confused and heartbroken.

Now she’d gone and I was alone once more, my shoulders slipped into a slump of depression that I had fallen into and I felt wearied by the effort of simply going on, however much I knew I had to. We both of us had obligations which kept us each side of an ocean.

She had slipped a brown envelope into the inside pocket of my jacket, I had noticed, immediately before we embraced on the platform.

I had already been paid well enough for my detective work and neither expected nor needed a bonus, but it would have been churlish to raise any argument at our emotional time of parting.

If it was in the form of a cheque or banker’s draft I could always tear it up or ignore it. I really wanted for nothing that money would buy.

I didn’t even feel like going back to the office after a week away, although I thought there might be some post there to deal with. Instead, I decided to go back to my digs to retrieve the magazine I borrowed over a week ago and return it to the library as soon as they opened at 9.30 this morning. Thus severing my last personal involvement with the Gold case.

With my recall to New Scotland Yard, confirmed to start next Monday, I had a few days yet to close down the Mile End office and get everything in order before commencing my new role as a Chief Superintendent of Detectives.

The young librarian was there in my local library as usual and she blessed me with one of her rare smiles when she returned my battered library card in exchange for the returned magazine, whispering, “Did you know that one of Marcia la Mare’s newest films, from 1938, a Cowboy and Indian adventure romance, “The Western Frontier”, was on at the Roxy all this week and they have a special matinee on early closing Wednesday afternoon?”

“Are you going to see it?” I asked quietly.

“Well, Mr Onslow,” she leaned over the counter and I imagine she must have spoke in hushed tones, “yes, although I’ve seen it twice before when it came around the circuit the first time, but I would love to see it again. Wasn’t it a shame though, what happened to Miss la Mare’s husband? I think a lot of people will go to see it in sympathy of her losing her hero. And he wasn’t just playing a hero, Brad Gold was a true real life hero, I think. I am going to go with my friend Mavis, would you like to come and watch it with us?”

The statement from both authorities of New Scotland Yard and Gold’s family, was that Brad Gold was a hero, who returned from a bombing mission over Germany, and shortly after died of his wounds. There was a short private ceremony in a synagogue close to his birthplace in East London, which made the front page of all the national newspapers, before his body was flown back to his family in California.

I whispered back, that it was indeed a pity about Bradford Gold, but that, “I have trouble watching flickering films, as they give me such terrible headaches and I haven’t been to the pictures for over twenty years. Besides that, I’ve perforated by eardrum and need to keep it covered up. Probably won’t here a thing for another month.”

I pointed to my discrete cotton wool bud in my ear.

“Oh dear, Mr Onslow, that’s such a shame, but the new colour pictures are so much smoother and less flickery than the old black and whites used to be and the sound is like actually being there where the action is happening. Tell you what, Mavis and I normally go to the tea bar just around the corner immediately after the main feature finishes,” she told me, “If you want to join us after the film for tea we would tell you all about the movie.”

I agreed that that might be quite enjoyable. I probably needed to be more sociable and it would be nice to hear young people talk about Mary and her performances, and speaking honestly about their opinion of her, not knowing of my once tenuous connection with the movie star.

Out of habit, I collected a couple of the newspapers from the library stand, to start searching the gossip columns for possible clients and sat in the otherwise deserted reference section, thinking instead that I would check for any crime and court news instead.