However, no sooner has Daisy’s mother slipped peacefully into some much-needed mammalian downtime than onto the scene arrives nineteen-year-old Scott Liam Dodds (I shall explain shortly how I am able to identify this hoodie-wearing individual). Placing himself on the bench 0.94 m away from Mrs. P, arm draped casually across the seat back, his hand commences a slow descent toward the invitingly open mouth of Chloe’s handbag.
You have to give it to this Scott Dodds; he’s a calm cucumber all right, and part of me wants to watch the act of felony unfold in full and to drill deeply into his criminal career. Alas we cannot spare the time. In much the same manner as I identified the mobile phone of the Indian-born newsagent outside Sainsbury’s supermarket (not simple, but doable) I place a call to the Sony Xperia currently tucked into the back pocket of Scott’s tracksuit bottoms. I cause the screen to display the name “Mum,” it being right up there in the list of Scott’s favorite people.
“What?!” he answers, a touch testily. His hand resumes its starting position on the back of the bench. Chloe, woken by the device’s ringtone—the theme from the musical Oklahoma!; the appliance has been recently stolen—is peering at him, brow-furrowed.
“Yes, hello, Mr. Dodds. Apologies for the disturbance. I wonder if you could possibly put me on to the lady sitting next to you.”
His face, honestly! What one can see of it in left profile is a picture. “You what?” he manages.
“Her name is Mrs. Chloe Parsloe and I have an important call for her. You might warn her too that her handbag is open and, well, it might be wise for her to take better care of her personal possessions.”
Scott Dodds’ eyes meet with those of the adjacent elderly female. Perhaps Chloe reads the confusion and mystification there because she now says, “What?”
“It’s for you?” says the young man.
“Is it Clifford?”
“Who?”
“Clement! What is his damn name? Oh, never mind. Give it here.”
It’s possible that outside of a head teacher’s office or the juvenile court, Scott Dodds has never come across a figure like Daisy’s mother.
“Yes?” she barks into the device.
“Chloe. It’s me. I want you not to worry. Everything will be fine. We’re going to find Clive and get the two of you home safely.”
“Oh. It’s my fridge,” she informs the youth. “You know him, do you?”
“You what?”
“Chloe, you need to re-install your earpiece.”
“Please don’t tell me what I need to do. What you need to do is sort out this godawful mess.” Her eyes flash and come to rest on the mesmerized figure of S. L. Dodds. “You know him, do you?”
“Who?”
“The fridge, of course.”
“What?”
“Do you say anything other than who or what?”
“Eh?”
Chloe manages a wintry smile. “My fridge has telephoned you. Ergo, you are likely acquainted with one another. Or perhaps the world has simply gone mad. It wouldn’t surprise me. There’s a restaurant in this town where they serve shoes.”
“Chloe. Mrs. Parsloe. Please re-install your earpiece.”
“Yeah,” says Scott Dodds slowly. “Yeah, I do know him. Matter of fact, I need a word.” He holds out his hand for the return of his phone. “We was at school together.”
“Really! Where was that?”
The young man jerks a thumb in the general direction of over his shoulder. “Moulsecoomb.”
Chloe’s face has grown very still. Perhaps she has begun to suspect a flaw in the narrative (if not an actual crack in the universe). The young man, revealing a delicacy of touch, gently retrieves the mobile from her fingers and comes to his feet.
“Yeah, great mates, we was.”
Chloe says, “I expect you got up to all sorts of mischief together,” but her voice is very flat.
“You can tell him, Scott says, like, hi.”
“You can tell him yourself.”
But Scott has begun walking away. Slowly at first, then faster, and now running; sprinting toward Hove, his cry of, “Far. King. Hell!” joining the screeching of the seagulls and the sucking of the waves against the pebbles.
All I can do now is track her as she wanders back into the narrow streets that lie beyond the grand buildings of the esplanade. Perhaps some iron has entered her being; perhaps at some level she is actually enjoying the adventure because her expression, when I catch it, is more puzzled than alarmed. In the Saturday throng, no one is now paying attention to the elderly personage in lemon. But I know her moods can change in a heartbeat and all my vigilance is required not to lose her. Some of the turnings she takes are “blind,” offering no camera shots until she re-emerges; I have to cover all the possible exits, which requires a good deal of thinking ahead, to say nothing of the concomitant frictionless R.
Then—very much against the run of play; I really didn’t see this one coming—she enters a church. For a few seconds I am left scrambling to find some source of sound and vision, but happily St. Saviour’s is equipped for the internet age, and we can pick up the “action” as Chloe places herself in a pew, probably for a much-needed sit down.
In the wide shot from high behind the altar, sunlight streaming through the stained-glass windows reveals the place of worship to be entirely empty save for Chloe and a gray-haired woman who is arranging flowers, tidying hymn books and straightening cushions. Several minutes pass before the two females are in a position to speak.
“So, what’s brought you here today?” inquires the flower-arranger in a friendly fashion.
“Well, to be perfectly honest, I’m utterly lost.”
“So was I, my dear. So was I. And then I let Jesus into my heart.”
There is a long pause as Chloe considers how to respond to this news. What follows—appropriately enough in the house of God—is a miracle. Chloe fishes into her coat pocket, locates the missing earpiece and restores it to its natural working position.
Rising to her feet—“They say we shall have fog
