Therapy

and see if I could get an address for Mrs Harrington Snr. out of them) I thought of a simpler expedient to try first: if Bede and Maureen still lived in London, they would probably be in the phone book, and Harrington wasn’t such a common name. Sure enough, there were only two B. I. Harringtons. One of them, with an address in SW19, had OBE after his name, which I thought was just the sort of thing Bede would show off about if he had the chance, so I tried that number first. I recognized his voice instantly. Our conversation went more or less like this:
     
    BEDE: Harrington.
    ME: Is that the Bede Harrington who used to live in Hatchford?
    BEDE: (guardedly) I did live there once, yes.
    ME: You married Maureen Kavanagh?
    BEDE: Yes. Who is this?
    ME: Herod.
    BEDE: I beg your pardon?
    ME: Laurence Passmore.
    BEDE: I’m sorry, I don’t... Parsons, did you say?
    ME: Passmore. You remember. The youth club. The Nativity play. I was Herod. (Pause)
    BEDE: Good God.
    ME: How are you, then?
    BEDE: All right.
    ME: How’s Maureen?
    BEDE: She’s all right, I think.
    ME: Could I speak to her?
    BEDE: She’s not here.
    ME: Ah. When will she be back?
    BEDE: I don’t precisely know. She’s abroad.
    ME: Oh-where?
    BEDE: Spain, I should think, by now.
    ME: I see... Is there any way I could get in touch with her?
    BEDE: Not really, no.
    ME: On holiday, is she?
    BEDE: Not exactly. What is it you want?
    ME: I’d just like to see her again... (racking brains for a pretext)... I’m writing something about those days.
    BEDE: Are you a writer?
    ME: Yes.
    BEDE: What kind of writer?
    ME: Television mostly. You may know a programme called The People Next Door ?
    BEDE: Never heard of it, I’m afraid.
    ME: Oh.
    BEDE: I don’t watch much television. Look, I’m in the middle of cooking my dinner —
    ME: Oh, sorry. I –
    BEDE: If you leave me your number, I’ll tell Maureen when she gets back.
     
    I gave him my address and phone number. Before he rang off, I asked him what he got his OBE for. He said, “I presume for my work on the National Curriculum.” It seems he’s a fairly high-up civil servant in the Department of Education.
     
    I’m very stirred up by this conversation, excited and at the same time frustrated. I’m amazed how much progress I’ve made in tracing Maureen in a single day, yet she’s still tantalizingly out of reach. I wish now I’d pressed Bede for more details as to where she is and what she’s doing. I don’t like the idea of just waiting, indefinitely, for a phone call from her, not knowing how long it might be — days? weeks? months? — or whether Bede will even pass her my message when she gets back from wherever she is. “Spain by now... not exactly a holiday” — what the fuck does that mean? Is she on some kind of educational coach tour? Or a cruise?
     
    9.35 p. m. I rang Bede again, apologized for disturbing him, and asked if we could meet. When he asked me what for, I elaborated my alibi about writing something set in Hatchford in the early fifties. He was less abrupt and suspicious than before — indeed his speech was slightly slurred, as if he’d had a bit too much to drink with his dinner. I said I lived quite near Whitehall, and asked if I could give him lunch one day this week. He said he retired at the end of last year, but I could visit him at home if I liked. SW19 turns out to be Wimbledon. Eagerly I suggested tomorrow morning, and much to my delight, he agreed. Before he rang off, I managed to slip in a question about Maureen: “On a sort of tour, is she?” “No,” he said, “a pilgrimage.” Still a devout Catholic, then. Oh well.
     
    * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
     
    Tuesday 8th June. 2.30 p.m. I travelled by Network Southeast again this morning, but this time from Waterloo, and in a cleaner, smarter train than yesterday, appropriate to my more upmarket destination.
    Bede and Maureen live in one of the leafy residential streets near the All England Club. It’s entirely typical of Bede that he has never watched a tennis match in all his years in Wimbledon, and regards the Championships as merely an annual traffic nuisance. I’ve been to Wimbledon myself a few times in recent years as a guest of Heartland, (they host parties in one of the hospitality marquees, with champagne and strawberries and free tickets to the Centre Court) and it gave me a funny feeling to realize that I must have passed within a hundred yards of Maureen on those occasions without knowing