There was no sign of Scott when we got to the house in Leighton Buzzard; the others were there but didn’t seem to know where he had gone.
‘I told Joss I’d be here on the 6th. Do you think he thought I meant the 5th because when I rang the first time I wasn’t sure which date?’ I asked Rich.
‘Could be, I’ve no idea, Joss says he told Scott the 6th. It’s possible Scott’s forgotten or got the date muddled.’ Rich looked uncomfortable. It all seemed highly unlikely to me, how could he forget, I’d even told Mo.
I overheard Joss and Mo whispering something about him still being in Harbury Green, wherever that was. Rich said he was sure Scott would be back soon and made me tea and showed me to Scott’s room which he usually shared with Mo, but as I was staying, Mo had bunked in with Rich.
I honestly hadn’t thought about sleeping arrangements when I agreed to stay for a few days. Now I was filled with panic at the thought of actually sharing a bed with him. What on earth was I to do?
Not that it mattered, because Scott didn’t appear at all the day I arrived and I couldn’t really get much sense out of the band or Rich. They seemed to be a bit cagey I thought, saying he must be visiting friends or family, as they’d had a couple of gig-free nights, and weren’t playing again until the next night when they were at The California Ballroom in Dunstable, just down the road. So I got his bed to myself.
The band assured me Scott knew I was coming today, and anyway Rich had collected me, so of course he knew. No one could tell me why he wasn’t there to meet me and why he hadn’t come home. I was so unhappy and disappointed – we were wasting so much valuable time.
The doubts started to fill my head again. I’d come all this way, and at considerable expense, and he couldn’t even be there to see me. I cried myself to sleep.
The following afternoon Scott graced us with his presence and made things worse because he couldn’t really explain where he had been or what he’d been doing.
‘Hi babe, great to see you,’ he said, pulling me close and kissing me. Something felt different. He didn’t look me in the eye once.
‘Hello,’ I said, trying not to let my eyes well up in front of him. Disappointment flooded my whole body, like a cold water shower. ‘Missed you too.’
He mumbled something and disappeared into the bathroom and I heard the bath running. Great. I sat on the lumpy bed in his room and tried not to cry. This isn’t how it’s meant to be.
My detective-like brain went into overload and I made my mind up he’d been with a girl. Cross examining him made him angry and sullen, and asking the others just resulted in vague, non-committal answers – which meant I knew I was right.
So, if he’d found someone else, what the hell was I doing there, then? Why let me come home to see only him, if he had someone new?
After his bath he got changed and made me some tea and toast. ‘I need to run through the songs with the guys, so why don’t you check out some of the books we’ve been given by Stephan, there’s Dennis Wheatley and a couple of those Spy thriller ones you like. Won’t be long.’ And he was gone. I heard them in the back bedroom soon after, harmonising, and it was sheer bliss. I looked through the pile of books on the coffee table and picked a Frederick Forsyth novel, but I couldn’t concentrate enough to read and retain any of it. How could anyone read when their life had just ended. Scott was avoiding being alone with me.
We all went to the California Ballroom later in the afternoon to set the gear up and run through the songs before the audience came in about 7pm. Rich managed to shut my fingers in the van door and I nearly passed out with the pain, not that Scott seemed overly bothered. He seemed preoccupied all the time, we’d hardly spoken since he arrived back from Harbury Green or wherever.
I felt miserable, so lonely and unwanted.
We spent most of the time in the dressing room with the other band on the bill that night, Doc Holliday and The Cards. It should have been so exciting meeting such a famous singer whose song, ‘The Egyptians,’ I loved. But all I could think about was that Scott didn’t love me anymore, didn’t want me around… it was like a nightmare.
Apparently Doc Holliday and The Cards were on the same record label as Narnia’s Children and also shared the same management now. Stephan has become the band’s ‘Personal Manager’ whatever that is. I thought he was anyway.
Doc was a funny sort of bloke really, his band didn’t seem to like him much and they argued the whole time. I discovered Doc had several wives and loads of kids and his band kept mentioning them when they had a shouting match about anything – from the songs not being sung right in rehearsal, to the way the microphones were situated. It was mayhem.
Still, I would love to tell Yvette and Selina all about this – their faces would be a sight worth seeing! The venue was heaving; people were still trying to get in when the show started.
Doc’s band were terrible to him on stage, in front of everyone, not just in rehearsals. They deliberately turned his mic off so that when they started their song, no one could hear him. It took him a while to realise that he was not being heard by the audience. Doc’s band fell about laughing but I thought it was cruel.
Backstage, afterwards, they had a massive fight, and I mean a real brawling fight. We thought the police might have to be called as they looked as if they meant him real harm.
Narnia’s Children were amazing as usual and I loved watching them. Zak was so sexy, a bit like Mick Jagger in the way he moved, and he had the girls eating out of his hand from the get-go. Scott had his usual moody stance on stage which really turns me on, and it also seemed to turn all the other girls on too. Some screamed his name out and a couple tried to get on the stage.
Everyone sang along to the songs too, which was groovy. Sadly, though, there was nearly a fight at one point – and this one was nothing to do with Doc Holliday and The Cards. Some weird skin-head blokes dressed in big boots, braces and with really cropped hair got up on the stage and tried to thump Scott and Zak, and accused them of looking at their girlfriends, but seriously, I thought it was the girls who were doing the looking.
And I couldn’t see how the band could help looking at someone at some point since they were facing the audience. But it was nasty, and in the end Zak smacked one of them on the back with the mic stand and twirled it round and round until the skin-heads got off the stage, and some big black guys came and shoved them out of the Ballroom.
After the gig, when we got back to the house, everyone had Spam sandwiches, tea or coffee before they all went to bed. Scott and I went to his room and it was awful. I didn’t know what to do and felt so uncomfortable about it all. He still wasn’t that friendly, and I felt so hurt and confused and disappointed about everything I wasn’t much joy to be with, either.
He went into the bathroom while I got undressed and he was gone so long, and I was so cold – it was a funny house, all dark and dreary, freezing cold and not very homely – I decided to get into one of the double beds in the room – the only one with any bed-clothes, and go to the bathroom when he came back. He was gone so long, almost like he was putting it off, that I was almost asleep by the time he appeared.
After I’d been to the bathroom, I got back into bed and lay there hardly daring to breathe, wondering if he was asleep or not.
‘Scott..’ I whispered after a while.
He never moved or spoke and I didn’t know what to say anyway. My hopes and dreams of a moment like this had all come crashing down and the reality was a bitter pill to swallow.
Here we were, in bed together at last, and it was all so very wrong.
We didn’t touch each other at all, and I soon realised he had gone to sleep and I turned my back and silently wept into my pillow.
The next morning he apologised for being off with me, saying he was tired but he still didn’t want to tell me where he had been and why he had not been there when I arrived. He tried to make it up to me by chatting about the band and their plans and the tour of Germany which wa
s coming up after a trip back to Scotland, but something had changed and it killed me.
‘I just don’t understand why you can’t be honest with me and tell me if you’ve found someone else.’ I tried again when we had a few moments alone, which was difficult in a house full of musicians, always walking into Scott’s room asking for new song lyrics, picks, or to borrow an L.P.
‘There’s nothing to tell, you’re being paranoid. I told you I don’t know how many times, I’m tired, and when I get tired I’m quiet. Sorry, but that’s how I am.’ He looked cross and I don’t blame him, I can’t stand it when Mum gives me the third degree. But I’m usually innocent, he, I’m afraid, was not. I could feel it.
‘I love you, I want to marry you, nothing has changed, really, stop worrying.’
‘Why can’t you say where you were, it’s not a state secret or anything is it?’ I know I’m like a dog with a bone when I get started but who could blame me? He’s always grilling me about Germany and whether I’ve met anyone or not, every time I go back home after a visit, he brings it up in his letters; who have you seen? Where have you been? Are there any blokes at the base who are after you? Like an interrogation and here I am doing the same to him.
‘Trust me, it’s nothing to do with you and me or how I feel about you, it’s, well, it’s something I have to work out and I’d rather not discuss it with you or anyone.’ He snapped at me.
‘Fine, I won’t ask again. Sorry to be such a nag.’ I snapped back. We’d never ever had a row, and now I know what falling out would be like. Me wanting to clear the air and Scott wanting to sulk and keep his feelings to himself.
I softened my voice, ‘I just thought that when you love someone and you’re close to them, you’d want to share everything with them, no secrets. I just want us to be happy, to share everything like you always said we would. I can try and understand whatever is worrying you. I might be able to help.’
‘I’ve told you Renza, it is nothing to do with you. Stop bloody asking me all the time. You and me, we’re good, we’re fine, nothing has changed. There’s just no need to keep asking me.’ He shouted crossly and stomped off into the sitting room and I ran into his bedroom, tears streaming down my face, my throat tight and my chest fit to burst. I didn’t believe him.
I knew I couldn’t stay there any longer with him, remembering how it had been, how insanely in love we had been – and I still was – feeling hurt and resentful I decided to go and stay with my uncle after all, and when I told him, Scott didn’t even ask me to stay!
I asked Rich to drive me to Victoria so I could get the coach to my uncle’s – it stops in the town where he lives. He looked shocked but agreed, he even made me some cheese and Branston pickle sandwiches to eat on the way. Not that I would ever eat again.
The band didn’t seem shocked to see me leave earlier than planned and they all rather solemnly kissed me goodbye for the last time, I was sure. Mo hugged me tightly and said not to worry, Scott loved me and it’ll all be sorted soon, he was sure. I’m glad someone was, I wish I knew what needed to be sorted soon.
I waved to them – choked up with emotion – as the van pulled out of the drive. I’d never see them again. My dear friends whom I’d come to love like family. The feeling of loss was overwhelming. I physically ached with grief.
When Scott and Rich dropped me off at Victoria coach station later, Scott hardly bothered to look at me as the coach left the bay. He waved once and walked away. I watched him until he was out of sight, tears streaming down my face, convinced I would never see him again. Peter, Paul and Mary’s song, ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane,’ kept playing in my head all the way to my uncle’s.
And now I’m back in Germany and watching for the post sergeant every day like a stupid idiot, convinced that there’s going to be a miracle and Scott will be his old self and I’ll get one of his delicious letters full of undying love, but it hasn’t come.
The one phone call on my return was brief and paid for by me. I rang to give him a chance to explain himself, I thought the time and distance between us might have cleared his thinking. And he was almost, but only almost, like his old self, confusing the hell out of me. He seemed pleased to hear from me, not at all surprised in fact. That annoyed me for a start. I’m a pushover obviously.
He chatted about the band and their plans and told me they were going back to Elgin at the end of February and then on to Germany – Frankfurt and Kaiserslautern – which he said wasn’t far from me, if I felt like meeting up. But I’ve looked on the map and he’s wrong. There are several places with the same name as here, and one is not far from Kaiserslautern, but it’s not my village, so I doubt if I shall be going to visit him after all. Part of me wonders what’s the point anyway?
I’m so confused by everything. He hasn’t said it’s over, but I’m convinced he’s acting as if it is – and I’ve given him several chances to tell me – I’ve asked him outright, but he said he loved me and everything was fine. For him perhaps.
We left it that he’d write when he can and if I find a way to get to Kaiserslautern I should let him know. He gave me the name of the hotel Stephan had booked and the address, and told me to ask directory enquiries for the number, he didn’t have it.
The Lovin’ Spoonful are on the wireless with ‘You Didn’t Have To Be So Nice’. Scott loves this song as well – he’s sung it to me on our walks round the village which seem a lifetime ago now. Talk about rubbing it in.
I’m determined to get on with life and just see where it takes me. I’m exhausted by all this emotion, and what with Mum and her craziness, I’ve got to make plans regardless, even with a broken heart, or I’ll end up in the loony bin.
I’ve got an interview for a job at the base the next week, as a sort of secretary or something, so I hope to use my short-hand and typing (at last) before I forget it all. Even better, it means no more kids and housework, well, except evenings and weekends so Mum says. Dad says the job is in Personnel and I will be dealing with Germans as well as Squaddies. I wish I felt more interested and excited, but I don’t. I’m terrified. My first job – well, if I get it, that is.
Mum, me and the Wives’ Club will be going on a trip to Holland at the weekend, to the Keuchkenhoff, where they grow all the tulips and flowers. I’d look forward to it if I wasn’t going with a load of old women and catty young wives.
Still, Holland is supposed to be ultra-cool and Heidi said you can get drugs in shops there, out in the open. Not that I want any of course. She told me there are shops where you can buy sex things and somewhere where prostitutes sit in windows, like goods for sale, waiting for clients. Mum will just love that! I must admit I’m curious; anything for a laugh after all. I hope Narnia’s Children never visit Amsterdam on tour.
Stella’s Diary
January 23rd 1969
Today I went to Leighton Buzzard with all my worldly belongings – well, almost all, well, ok, enough for the couple of days I’d be there – in two pink and orange psychedelic paper tote bags, and dire warnings from my mum and Vix ringing in my ears.
I was wearing the fun fur and my long white boots and the vivid, tight, and thigh-high rainbow-striped jersey dress I’d adapted from another Oxfam-shop-find. I’d at last been able to dump the baggy Biba trousers and wear tights and mini dresses again as Mum had found some flesh-coloured tights in Woolworths with knickers attached where tights usually had the ugly see-through gussetty thing.
Vix and I were very excited about this – me even more so because the pants part, while not being at all sexy, at least came up to the waist – thus missing my mutilated stomach and not sitting on the not-yet-healed scar – and were in black or white and I’d bought loads of them to go with my short skirts and boots.
So, with my tote bags filled with tights and boots and dresses, I caught the lunchtime bus from Gloucester Green in Oxford to Aylesbury, counting the miles as we rumbled through Wheatley, Thame, Haddenham… stopping and starting…
Then, after waiting in Ay
lesbury’s freezing, wind-swept market square, I caught another bus to Leighton Buzzard. This time the villages along the route were unfamiliar and pretty, and I memorised the sequence of names as a mantra – each one taking me closer to Scott: Bierton, Wingrave, Aston Abbotts, Cublington, Wing, Linslade – and I enjoyed people-watching as the passengers got on and off – but the journey seemed to take forever. I just wanted to be there.
Impatiently, I settled back in my seat, watching the bare winter countryside trundle slowly by, and had no doubts at all about what I was doing.
My mum and Vix had every doubt under the sun!
‘And you haven’t asked him anything about Renza?’ Vix had sprawled on my bed in her usual spot, and glared at me. ‘You don’t know any more about her now than you did the night we met him?’
‘No. I haven’t mentioned her and neither has he.’
‘So she could be living at Leighton Buzzard?’
I’d shrugged. ‘She could be, I suppose. But I doubt it. I don’t think he’s setting us up as a ménage-a-trois or anything.’
‘And, after what Mike and Bernice did to you – you still think it’s ok to cheat on this Renza – who is a fiancée not just a girlfriend – do you? Really, Stella – you can’t – you just can’t!’
‘I’m not cheating on anyone – neither is Scott. We’re just friends – and anyway, remember what I said – if I survived the operation and stopped feeling ill and stopped being miffed about being dumped by Mike, then I was going to do something different… have an adventure – and that’s exactly what I’m doing.’
‘Are you mad? You have no idea what you’re getting into!’ Vix had sat up, looking really angry. ‘And don’t keep giving me that nonsense from Nanny Ivy’s – you know as well as I do that it’s all baloney – tall, dark stranger be blowed! He could be a murderer or anything.’
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