With the help of the nurse, I sat up. The room swam dizzily.
‘I’ll contact the Churchill’s Gynaecological Department and ask them to make an appointment for you as soon as possible. In the meantime, please go back to your local surgery if you need further help. Good day, Miss Deacon.’
And followed by his white-coated coterie, he swept out.
The Churchill. Women’s problems – everyone knew that’s where you went with women’s problems. Another hospital… more tests. Gingerly, I slid my feet to the floor.
My mum, all fly-away hair and big glasses and her nose, as always, in a book, was waiting for me outside in the Radcliffe’s grounds, sitting in the sun by the fountain.
Still feeling very wobbly, I sat beside her and told her what had happened.
‘That’s a shame, Stell,’ she squeezed my hand. ‘I’d really hoped we’d get to the bottom of this today. Your dad and I hate seeing you in so much pain… never mind, love. The Churchill is a wonderful hospital, they’ll get you sorted out. How do you feel?’
‘Sore round the middle where the belt went. But they gave me pethidine, so not too bad – although I’m still a bit squiffy. And I’m cross that no one seems to know what’s wrong with me. And I’m hungry – and I’m not allowed to eat. Apart from that, Mum, I’m hunky-dory.’
She laughed and hugged me. ‘We’ll take it nice and easy walking back to the station, then. Oh, Stella, I do hope they can make you better soon.’
‘So do I,’ I said, groaning as I stood up and the Banbury Road dipped and swayed. ‘I’m so fed up with feeling ill.’
And I wasn’t the only one, I thought as, arm-in-arm, Mum and I took a slow stroll through Oxford’s sunbaked streets back to the railway station.
Mike, my boyfriend, was getting pretty tired of me cancelling dates or having to go home early because I felt ill. Mike, I thought, as Mum and I walked down Hythe Bridge Street with the heat bouncing from the pavements, was going to be pretty cheesed off that yet another hospital appointment hadn’t discovered what was wrong with me – and more importantly, what was needed to make me better again.
Mike… sometimes I wished Mike was more understanding – but then, what 20 year old boy wanted a girlfriend who had out-of-the-blue chronic stomach pains, occasionally fainted when they got really bad and – when the pains were at their worst – looked like a haggard old crone and had to go to bed and stay there?
Mike was my first proper boyfriend. Of course I’d had dates with the local boys before, and been walked home from youth club, and got off with the boys at Oxford dances and clubs, and things like that, but they were all casual and short-lived, and studying for my 3 A levels, and being at an all-girls’ grammar school, meant that – well – having a proper boyfriend had come pretty late in my teenage life.
Mike and I had met at a dance last Christmas at the end of 1967. I’d left school that summer, after the A levels, and was a few months into my job in the civil service, and he was doing a mechanical engineering apprenticeship.
My job, as a clerical officer in the nearby Atomic Energy Research Establishment, was a lot less grand than it sounded. I worked in the claims department with two other girls – Debbie and Sally, who I’d been at school with – one older lady, and a middle-aged man, checking, calculating and authorising subsistence payments to the employees who needed to travel or work away.
Even though – much to my mum and dad’s delight – I’d been offered a place at college in London to read English, I’d opted to go out to work after A levels because honestly, I’d had enough of studying. The college had said I might change my mind and they’d keep the offer open.
This seemed like the best option and Mum and Dad had agreed it had to be my decision, but they hoped I’d reconsider in the future. Mike hadn’t.
When I’d told Mike about it, he’d said they needn’t bother keeping my place open. Girls didn’t need to be educated and certainly not get degrees, he’d said. Girls always wanted to get married and then they’d stay at home and look after the house and their husband and their children. Like his mum.
I’d hooted with laughter and said there was no way on earth I’d be tied to a house and a husband and kids – even if I did get married – which I doubted, and that I’d do whatever I wanted to do in my life and no one would stop me… then I’d realised this was possibly insulting to his mum, so I’d trailed off and changed the subject.
My mum, who was a teacher at our local infants’ school, and both my nans, who worked in our local shops, had never given up going out to work, and were all fiercely independent, free-thinking women. But when Mike was around, I felt it was probably better to keep my opinions on women’s education and emancipation to myself.
Mike was tall and good-looking in an athletic sort of way, with very short brown hair and brown eyes, he played football for our local team, and he had a car. Lots of the Harbury Green girls fancied him and envied me. I knew that.
Now, I was pretty sure that Mike was getting fed up with me. It bothered me, of course, but being ill bothered me more. Sometimes I just wanted to shut myself away and cry.
‘Nearly there,’ Mum’s voice cut through the memories, and she grabbed my hand as we crossed the road by the railway station. ‘We should be in plenty of time for the quarter past two train. Shame it’s a stopper… but we should still be home by three.’
I nodded. The train could take forever as long as it meant I could sit down for a while.
The stopping trains from Oxford chugged along slowly between half a dozen rural stations. The journey, in summer, always reminded me of Edward Thomas’s poem, Adlestrop. The fast trains – directly from Birmingham to London – also stopped at our small market town before rushing onwards to Reading and Paddington because Harbury Green, tiny as it was, was a Great Western Railway junction with lines that led westwards to Bristol, Devon and Cornwall. You could get a train nearly anywhere from Harbury Green, and practically everyone in the village relied on the railway for work, play and holidays.
Queuing at Oxford station, we handed our tickets over for clipping, and I felt so wobbly Mum was almost holding me up. People stared at us. They probably thought I was drunk.
‘Stella?’ she looked at me. ‘You’re not going to faint, are you?’
‘No… sorry… I’m ok. Just a bit shaky. And I was thinking about Mike earlier – and being ill. He’s not going to like it that I have to have more tests…’
‘Don’t be silly, Stell,’ Mum guided me gently on to the platform. ‘He’ll want you to be well again, however long it takes. If he loves you, he’ll understand.’
I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t even sure that Mike loved me anymore. He had at first, of course. And I’d been crazy about him.
But now…
Renza’s Diary
June 22nd 1968
The past few days have been like a dream, like a movie, or one of those wonderful books Daphne du Maurier writes so well. Romantic. Unbelievable.
Mum must be developing a split personality or something – spooky. She’s allowed me to go out for walks with Scott nearly every time he asks me, whenever he has been home, which hasn’t been a lot because the band have been busy talking to some famous songwriters about recording some of their songs. And of course most nights they gig all over the country. But we have spent a few lovely afternoons and evenings together, on the odd occasion he hasn’t been off somewhere glamorous and she hasn’t stopped it. I keep waiting for the axe to fall.
A couple of evenings we have walked to the college, around the lake, and on the way back we’ve stopped at the phone box so he can ring his mother in Jersey. I’ve spoken to her a few times, and his little sister, who is about four and a bit of a handful by the sounds of it. His mum said I can go over and stay with them whenever I want.
Fat chance. Nice of her to ask though. I wonder if Jersey is a bit like the Isle of Wight where Yvette and I spent Cowes Week once, staying with my dad’s aunt. Ivy, who owns an in
n on the Medina River.
Yvette and I had to earn our keep and helped out cleaning the rooms and making beds and sometimes we even got to work in the bar. Dad and Mum didn’t mind me going to Cowes because great aunt Ivy would be keeping us under control.
It was a really exciting time, the inn was near the river where the floating bridge came across, and so there were people walking past all the time. People on holiday and others attending The Cowes Week Regatta which was on just up the road, past the hovercraft hangars, and near the Royal Yacht Club. We could see it all.
There were so many rich people about, coming into the inn, or on the beaches. It was so exciting. We spent most afternoons walking up and down the sea front watching it all. Of course, we also watched the boys.
It was great being away from home – from Mum especially – and, dare I admit it, the kids. I was free and able to be myself instead of having to be a good daughter and the helpful big sister all the time; the very first time I’d been away from them all since Simon’s birth. I remember really not wanting to go home.
Not long after we got back home, Yvette’s middle brother Jacob was killed in a road accident, and she didn’t speak to me for ages afterwards. We were meant to go and see Traffic at the Finsbury Park Astoria, but she couldn’t come, so the rest of us from school went without her. It was miserable and so sad. But Traffic were amazing, and the other bands were great as well. Not long afterwards there was that terrible disaster in Wales – in Aberfan – when the coal tips collapsed on the village and the school – 1966 wasn’t a great year really.
No, on second thoughts, perhaps I don’t want Jersey to be like the Isle of Wight, too many weird memories. I can’t see Mum and Dad ever letting me go all the way to Jersey anyway, it’s near France apparently, far too far away. I haven’t mentioned it.
Mum did ask me if Scott’s parents were rich because to live in Jersey you have to be a millionaire. As if I would ask him! Now I knew why she had changed her opinion of him – she was on the hunt for a rich husband for me again. Well, I was never getting married, so she can plot all she likes. I want to be an independent woman, like Katherine Hepburn is in her movies and in real life too, so I’ve read. I want a career and to travel, not a kitchen sink and nappies.
Scott and the band are coming round this afternoon to paint the garage door and to do some gardening. Rich has been chatting to Mum a lot and getting quite friendly with her; she thinks he’s sensible and mature, possibly because he is a bit older than the others. She has even made sandwiches and cakes to have with their tea later on. Mum has definitely gone a bit funny in the head. I feel like I’m treading on egg shells, waiting for the real Mum to suddenly reappear and then what?
I’ve been invited to one of their gigs in Wiltshire next week, on Salisbury Plain, and Scott is going to ask Mum if I can go. I feel sick with worry in case she says no and gets mad at me for letting him ask her. But I really want to go.
The band had my transistor on in the back garden as they dug the vegetable patch and Rich painted the garage door. So far Radio One’s played all the songs I love and the band’s been singing along to them. When Otis Redding’s ‘My Girl,’ played Scott kept winking at me. I couldn’t help smiling but then I remembered crying for days when Otis died last year, and I felt sad.
The younger kids have been hanging around, getting in the way. Jasper tried to fight Scott and the others whenever he could get near enough to head butt them, or generally annoy them. Lucy kept getting in the way of Rich and the paint pot, but thankfully the others were still at school and wouldn’t be back for ages.
I’ve spent the afternoon trying to keep the peace. Mum’s been upstairs packing stuff, but every now and again I caught her watching us all from the back bedroom. Keep watching all you want, Mum, I thought, because there’s nothing to see.
Eventually, she came downstairs and into the garden with the tea and cakes. I still can’t believe it – but I guess she still thinks they are all millionaires so she’s going to suck up as much as possible.
‘Mrs Rossi, these cakes are wonderful, just like my mum makes.’ Rich was on his third piece of ginger cake. Mum absolutely radiated pleasure at his compliments. I knew he had her just where he wanted her, crafty devil.
‘Did you know we’re playing at Merryhill, on Salisbury Plain – you know – in Wiltshire – next week at the big army base there? It would be great if you and Renza could come,’ Rich said as he popped another piece of vinegar fruit cake in his mouth.
Scott and I exchanged horrified glances.
Mum stared at Rich for a few seconds. ‘That’s nice of you to suggest it, but I’m afraid I couldn’t, much as I’d like to, it’s hard to get babysitters for all the kids.’
Get her! I nearly choked.
‘In that case, how about Renza coming with us?’ He smiled at her and then sighed, and put his head on one side. ‘These are the best cakes ever, I think they might even beat my mum’s you know.’
And he put yet another scone on his plate.
Before Mum could answer, Scott said, ‘that would be great, we’d look after her and you know she’d be safe with us, Mrs Rossi.’
‘Yeah, all those soldiers as well, Mrs R, safe as houses.’ Mo said, grinning widely.
I held my breath unable to move, waiting. She glanced at me briefly and then turned to Rich. ‘If you can guarantee her safety and her arrival home at a decent hour, I might be inclined to allow it. But of course, I need to ask her father first.’
‘Of course she’ll be home safe and sound about an hour or two after the gig, I promise.’ Rich smiled at her. ‘You have my word.’
Scott winked at me.
‘We’ll sort the details later, Mrs R.’ Rich nodded at her.
‘Well, as long as she doesn’t get home after the milkman.’ Mum smiled, but I knew she was deadly serious. But, astonishingly, I thought she’d just said yes.
Later on, when the kids had had their tea and all the washing up had been done and shoes polished, Scott came round for me. Mum said we could go for a walk as long as I was back before ten, because she had an early morning start at work.
We didn’t want to go as far as the college this time, instead we headed in the opposite direction under the railway bridge past open fields and farm cottages, and out of sight of prying eyes much to my relief.
We walked hand in hand and chatted easily now my nerves had settled down and I’d discovered Scott was really nice, as well as being sex on legs. I wasn’t in such a state every time he came near me. He still got me all of a quiver, but I could control it now, thankfully. It was worrying me. I really wondered what he made of me being such a pushover whenever he touched me. Maybe I ought to play a bit hard to get.
He started talking about the gig at Merryhill and I was so excited – I’d never been to a concert where my boyfriend was in the band! I guessed I could call him my boyfriend now. My boyfriend. Wow.
Scott laughed when I asked him what I should wear. I didn’t want to let him down by looking like a country bumpkin. He said, ‘nothing would be nice.’ I blushed to my roots. One day, I promised myself, I will stop blushing.
Stella’s Diary
22nd June 1968
‘We’re going to meet up with Sam and Patsy at the pub,’ Mike said as I scrambled into his car outside our house. ‘Then we can decide what to do after that. Ok?’
He leaned across and kissed me. Briefly. The evening sun dazzled through the Wolseley’s windscreen. For once, I felt ok. No pains, and I’d managed to get my hair to go just right which was nothing short of a miracle because my hair drove me mad.
For ages now it had been fashionable to have a Cathy McGowan waterfall of sleek, straight hair – preferably blonde – and mine was brownish-red and naturally curly. Not nice curly like Marsha Hunt’s – no, left to its own devices it looked like my Nan’s perm. So embarrassing.
Eventually, I’d decided that if I couldn’t have the same hair as everyone else, then I’d go all out
to be different. So, I’d chopped it very short, razored it into haphazard layers, dyed it coal-black, then backcombed it so that it was a huge mass of spikes with a long dead-straight fringe which, if it all went right, tangled with my false eyelashes.
Anyway, tonight it had behaved really well and even my false eyelashes had gone on first time. Mind you, I hadn’t gone the whole hog: I hadn’t done my eyebrows.
Last year, after A levels, I’d shaved my eyebrows off. It had been really trendy to be eyebrowless during 1967’s Summer of Love. Free at last from the shackles of the sixth form, we’d become Flower Children, and spent our days and nights in Oxford’s Fantasia Café high above Carfax, inhaling Gauloises fumes, drinking coffee and listening to ‘All You Need is Love’, or sprawled by the Isis in Christ Church Meadow re-enacting ‘Itchycoo Park.’.
My eyebrows had never grown back, so using eyelash glue, I’d stuck an arch of multi-coloured sequins where my eyebrows had been and dusted my eye-lids and cheeks with smaller sequins and glitter. My sparkly face and brows had become a bit of a trademark, but this year, since I’d been feeling so ill, I hadn’t bothered with them much.
Not that Mike would mind – he’d never been a fan of my glittery make-up. I suspected he thought it was a bit hippy-ish.
Anyway, tonight I was wearing a new navy and white polka dot coat dress with white collar and cuffs. I’d made it myself, like I did with most of my clothes, and it had been quite tricky. I’d hoped Mike might say I looked nice.
He didn’t. He didn’t even ask if I felt ok. Maybe he didn’t want to know the answer. He’d certainly gone very quiet earlier in the week when I’d told him about being referred to the Churchill.
As we drove towards the pub he just talked about work and football and his car – all the usual topics – and I sort of stopped listening to him and listened instead to The Herd singing ‘I Don’t Want Our Loving to Die’ on the radio. How apt!
We reached the pub. Sam and Patsy were sitting at one of the trestle tables outside and smiled at us.
Only One Woman Page 6
