behind him. It worried Wilkinski, and eventually he plucked up his courage and went to speak to Ox-Banham.
‘We shared the office since 1960,’ he said, and Ox-Banham looked at him in astonishment. ‘It isn’t very nice to call it “Mulvihill’s Memorial”.’
‘Mulvihill’s dead and gone. What d’you expect us to do with his goodies?’
‘Maybe put them down Mr Betts’ incinerator.’
Ox-Banham laughed and suggested that Wilkinski was being a bit Hungarian about the matter. The smile that appeared on his face was designed to be reassuring, but Wilkinski found this reference to his origins offensive. It seemed that if Mulvihill’s wretched pornography brought solace to a recalcitrant advertising manager, then Mulvihill had not died in vain. The employees had to be paid, profits had to be made. ‘It isn’t very nice,’ Wilkinski said again, quietly in the middle of one night. No one heard him, for though he addressed his wife she was dreaming at the time of something else.
Then two things happened at once. Wilkinski had a telephone call from Miss Mulvihill, and Ox-Banham made a mistake.
‘It’s just that I was wondering,’ Miss Mulvihill said. ‘I mean, he definitely made these little films and there’s absolutely no trace of them.’
‘About a dog maybe?’
‘And a little one about the scouts. Then again one concerning Purley.’
‘Leave the matter with me, Miss Mulvihill.’
The telephone call came late in the day, and when Wilkinski tried to see Ox-Banham it was suggested that he should try again in the morning. It pleased him that Miss Mulvihill had phoned, that she had sought to have returned to her what was rightfully hers. He’d considered it high-handed at the time that Ox-Banham hadn’t bothered to divide the films into two groups, as he had done himself. ‘Oh, let’s not bother with all that,’ Ox- Banham had said with a note of impatience in his voice.
Wilkinski hurried to catch his train on the evening of Miss Mulvihill’s call; Ox-Banham entertained Bloody Smithson in the television theatre. ‘No, no, no,’ Bloody Smithson protested. ‘We’ll stick with our Virgins, Ox.’
But Ox-Banham was heartily sick of ‘Virgins’ Delight’, which he had seen by now probably sixty times. He thought he’d die if he had to watch, yet again, the three schoolgirls putting down their hockey sticks and beginning to take off their gymslips. ‘I thought we were maybe wearing it out,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d better have a copy made.’
‘You mean it’s not here?’
‘Back in a week or so, Smithy.’
They began to go through the others. ‘Let’s try this “Day in the Life of a Scotch Terrier”,’ Ox-Banham suggested, and shortly afterwards a dog appeared on the screen, ambling about a kitchen. Then the dog was put on a lead and taken for a walk around a suburb by a middle-aged woman. Back in the kitchen again, the dog begged with its head on one side and was given a titbit. There was another walk, a bus shelter, the dog smelling at bits of paper on the ground. ‘Well, for God’s sake!’ Bloody Smithson protested when the animal was finally given a meal to eat and put to bed.
‘Sorry, Smithy.’
‘I thought she and the dog –’
‘I know. So did I.’
‘Some bloody nut made that one.’
Ox-Banham then showed ‘Naughty Nell’, followed by ‘Country Fun’, ‘Oh Boy!’ and ‘Girlie’. But Bloody Smithson wasn’t in the least impressed. He didn’t care for ‘Confessions of a Housewife’ any more than he had the first time he’d seen it. He didn’t care for ‘Nothing on Tonight’ and wasn’t much impressed by anything else. Ox-Banham regretted that he’d said ‘Virgins’ Delight’ was being copied. This tedious search for excitement could go on all night, for even though Smithson continued to say that everything was less good than ‘Virgins’ Delight’ Ox-Banham had a feeling that some enjoyment at least was being derived from the continuous picture show.
‘You’re sure there isn’t another reel or something to that dog stuff?’ the advertising manager even inquired. ‘I wouldn’t mind seeing that dame with her undies off.’ He gave a loud laugh, draining his glass of whisky and poking it out at Ox-Banham for a refill.
‘I think that’s the bloke’s sister actually. I don’t think she takes anything off.’ Ox-Banham laughed himself, busy with glasses and ice. ‘Call it a day after this one, shall we?’
‘Might as well run through the lot, Ox.’
They saw ‘Come and Get It’, ‘Girls on the Rampage’, ‘A Scotch Terrier Has His Say’, ‘Street of Desire’, a film of boy scouts camping, scenes on a golf course, ‘Saturday Morning, Purley’ and ‘Flesh for Sale’. It was then, after a few moments of a film without a title, that Ox-Banham realized something was wrong. Unfortunately he realized it too late.
‘Great God almighty,’ said Bloody Smithson.
‘You opened the filing-cabinet, Wilkinski, you took the films out. What did you do next?’ Ox-Banham ground his teeth together, struggling with his impatience.
‘I say myself it’s not nice for the sister. The sister phoned up yesterday, I came down to see you –
‘You didn’t project any of the films?’
‘No, no. I think of Mulvihill lying dead and I think of the sister. What the sister wants is the ones about the dog, and anything else, maybe boy scouts, is there?’
‘You are absolutely certain that you did not project any of the films? Not one called “Easy Lady” or another, “Let’s Go, Lover”? Neither of the two untitled ones?’
‘No, no. I have no interest in this. I get the box from Mr Betts –’
‘Is it possible that someone else might have examined the films? Did you leave the filing-cabinet unlocked, for instance?’
