‘Oh, Faye, there you are!’ Miss Campbell exclaimed. ‘Junior Mr Fiske is looking for you.’
Guiltily aware that her fifteen-minute tea break had stretched to nearer thirty, Faye moved quickly towards the door but was soon stopped by Miss Campbell’s genteel voice.
‘Actually, he asked me to let you know that he was on his way out to see a client and should be back in an hour or two.’ Miss Campbell walked towards the coffee machine. Aware of the younger girl now hovering awkwardly in the doorway, she added cheerfully.
‘Since your boss won’t be back for some time, dear, why don’t you keep me company while I have my coffee.’
Faye perched on the edge of the faded chintz sofa that took up one side of the room and watched Miss Campbell’s precise movements as she made herself a cup of extremely sweet coffee and selected several biscuits from the biscuit tin in the cupboard.
Barely five feet tall with dark skin whose smoothness was only now beginning to show signs of the encroaching years, Miss Campbell reminded Faye of a neat little mouse. Her clothes were all of the same style – a simple A-line wool skirt reaching just below the knee, a pale blouse that tied at the neck in a loose bow and a soft cardigan that matched the colour of the skirt. In the summer the wool skirt was exchanged for one in brushed cotton, while the cashmere cardigan was replaced by lacy cotton.
Settling herself on the sofa beside Faye, Miss Campbell placed her coffee and the saucer of biscuits carefully on the glass coffee table and turned to Faye.
‘So, how have you been, my dear?’ She peered at Faye through the small gold-rimmed bifocals she always wore. Miss Campbell’s voice still held more than a trace of her native Jamaican accent, although the years spent working with upper middle class English lawyers had added a clipped precision to her words.
Despite the age gap, a warm friendship had developed between the two women since Faye had come to work at Fiske, Fiske & Partners. Miss Campbell tended to keep to herself and had precious little time for the other secretaries in the company.
‘No sense of decorum, my dear,’ she would say to Faye, tutting in distaste. ‘Most especially the younger ladies – just look at those short skirts and showy necklines. As my mother used to say, “A woman who shows her geography tells her history!”’
Rarely exchanging more than a nod with the younger admin staff, Miss Campbell had been nevertheless charmed by the tall, slightly gawky Faye with her compulsive good manners and ready smile. Having worked for his father for many years, Miss Campbell knew only too well the poor opinion the older Mr Fiske had of his son. But she had always had a soft spot for the clumsy younger lawyer whom she had known since his school days. Seeing how kindly Faye handled him had brought her up in Miss Campbell’s estimation.
Faye watched the older lady cautiously sip her sweet coffee.
‘I’m very well, thank you, Miss Campbell,’ she said, suppressing a smile at the look of sheer bliss on the older woman’s face as she took a sip of the syrupy warm drink. ‘Are you having a busy day?’ she added politely.
‘Oh not too bad, you know. These days the work is nowhere near as busy as it was in Senior Mr Fiske’s day. And what about you? Although I probably don’t need to ask if you’re busy,’ she chuckled. ‘How are things with that young man of yours?’ she added with a conspiratorial smile, taking a delicate bite of her biscuit.
Miss Campbell had also met Michael at the staff party and while, in her private opinion, she’d thought him to be an ill-mannered and extremely self-centred man, she had treated him with the same formal courtesy she extended to everyone.
‘He’s fine, thanks.’ Faye answered automatically. Glancing across at the placid figure seated next to her, she asked impulsively, ‘What made you decide to come to England, Miss Campbell?’
Startled by the suddenness of the question, Miss Campbell choked slightly on the coffee she had been swallowing. Turning to look at Faye, she asked curiously, ‘Why on earth would you be interested in the details of my unexciting life?’ The gentle smile robbed the words of any sting.
‘It’s just that I had a cultural clash, for want of a better word, with a friend of Michael’s at the weekend and now I can’t stop thinking about what he said to me,’ she admitted with a sigh.
She narrated the events of the previous weekend to Miss Campbell, who listened intently and without interruption. By the time Faye had ground to a halt, the older lady had finished her last biscuit and was sipping the dregs of her coffee.
‘So he said you were culturally disconnected,’ Miss Campbell summarised in her slightly clipped tones. ‘But, even if you choose to believe him, what does that have to do with my coming to this country?’
‘Well, I suppose I’m just curious about why you chose to leave Jamaica,’ Faye said. ‘I came to England because my father brought me here as a child. But you once mentioned that you were a grown woman when you emigrated from your country.’
The older woman nodded slowly and settled back as best as she could on the overstuffed sofa. ‘You’re quite right, Faye,’ she said with a small smile. ‘I was a grown woman when I came here. So you want to know why I left?’
She paused thoughtfully and her eyes were unfocused as her gaze wandered over the slightly tatty striped paper covering the walls of the small room. In a low voice and with her Jamaican accent suddenly more marked, she continued.
‘Well, I was born and raised in Kingston, as I may have told you. My family had a very successful small business in town – they printed stationery and business cards and sold all kinds of office equipment. My mother would work out front in the shop while my father spent most of his time in the printing shed at the back. Now, Mummy was a woman who just loved people and loved to trade gossip. She must have known half the town. From the salesmen who came to have cards made up with big titles to impress their clients, to the buyers for the big companies who came to order their office stationery. They always knew that at our shop they could get good prices as well as a fresh cup of coffee and some juicy tidbit of gossip!
‘My sister Millicent – we are twins, you know – and I would help Mummy out in the shop whenever we were on holiday from school. And when we finished school, we both came to work full time at the business. We got used to seeing many of the successful people in town and, it’s fair to say, we also knew more than our fair share about the goings-on in Kingston society!’
She laughed and patted Faye’s knee gently.
‘Now, you see Faye, my sister and I took after my father in looks. Daddy was probably one of the shortest men around and as dark as toasted molasses. He had fallen in love with Mummy right from when they were in school and he pursued her like crazy until she just gave up and said yes. It took everyone by surprise, because Mummy is from a light-skinned family and nobody had expected her to end up with this short, dark man.
‘Anyway, they were married before her family had time to finish telling her all the reasons why she was making a big mistake. Daddy’s business grew quickly and Mummy was soon able to boast to her sisters that at least she had a man who earned enough money to buy them their own house right in the centre of town!
‘Anyway, to answer your question, I never thought I would leave Jamaica. I loved my home and my sister was my best friend. I wouldn’t have imagined living anywhere without her close by. But then, you see, things changed after I met Harry Coleville-Smith.
Miss Campbell’s voice tailed off and, shaking her head slightly, she carried on.
‘The Coleville-Smiths were a very rich family, Faye, and very well known in Kingston. Mr Coleville-Smith – Harry’s father – was the son of a half-Jamaican, half-Irish woman and an Englishman who had been sent out to the island by his father (if you believe the town gossips, he was an aristocrat of some kind) after running up a pile of gambling debts. Anyway, the man must have mended his ways when he got to Jamaica because by the time Millicent and I were teenagers, the Coleville-Smith family owned a large sugar processing factory on the island and
Coleville’s, one of the most popular department stores in town. Harry’s mother came from Bermuda and she and Harry’s father were both very light-skinned people. Harry’s mother managed the department store and because they bought their office supplies from us, she would occasionally come to the shop herself to place an order.
‘Harry was the youngest of their three children and most definitely the apple of his mother’s eye. It was easy to see why. I tell you, Faye, he was so handsome he could stop traffic! His complexion was like a girl’s – all soft and creamy. He had lovely wavy light-brown curls with little gold streaks everywhere and looked just like an angel. Sadly, though, he had the most terrible stammer I’d ever heard and it took him the longest time to say the most simple sentence! His family tried everything to help him get rid of it but nothing worked. Once in a while his mother would send him over to our shop with an order and, if Millicent or I happened to be working, we would fight like cats to be the one to serve him!
‘Anyway, one day I was in the shop alone when Harry came in. Millicent was down with a bad cold and Mummy had refused to let her leave the house in case she passed it on to a customer. Harry was in no rush to leave – in any case, with that stammer, it usually took him quite a while to place his orders – and we chattered together for ages. Before he left, he asked me out to a dance that weekend. I said yes, of course! I was so excited and I couldn’t wait to tell Millicent. That Saturday night I wore my best dress and even though Millicent almost died of envy, I went to the dance on his arm. Oh boy, we had a marvellous time…
‘Thinking about it now, Faye, we must have looked quite a funny pair. There he was, so tall and fair-skinned, and then me, so small and dark. But we had fun together, you know. After that first dance, he asked me out again and again. He felt so comfortable with me that he would hardly stammer at all when we were alone together.
‘In those days, my dear, when you went out with a man on a regular basis, it was expected that you were heading for marriage. Even though Millicent and Mummy had warned me that the Coleville-Smiths were out of our league, I knew how Harry felt about me and I refused to listen. Harry and I talked about a life together and how happy we would be.’
Miss Campbell paused again and Faye leaned forward eagerly, totally absorbed in the story.
‘Well, things came to a head one afternoon. Clarence, the clerk from Coleville’s, came to our shop to collect the stationery supplies they had ordered earlier. I had been helping Daddy in the back and was coming into the front of the shop when I heard Clarence saying Harry’s name. Clarence was so busy sharing his gossip that he didn’t hear me come through the door. I went back quietly behind the door when I heard Harry’s name mentioned and was horrified to hear him tell my mother that Mrs Coleville-Smith had secretly arranged for Harry to go and stay with her family in Bermuda, to work in her brother’s business. Clarence – Lord! I can just see him now with his big eyes rolling and his round head weaving while he drank his coffee – then told my mother how he had overheard Mrs Coleville-Smith on the telephone to her brother planning how to get her son away from “the social climbing dark-skinned mouse Harry has taken up with” and that “if she thinks she has hooked my boy, she had better think again!”
‘After that, Faye, everything happened so quickly, I couldn’t believe it. Before I could blink, Harry was in Bermuda and I was on my own, with everyone staring at me wherever I went. Oh, child, I didn’t mind the gossips too much, but I did miss my Harry!
‘Mummy was furious. She soon got fed up with everyone gossiping about us for a change and decided that I should come to England to stay with her younger sister who was studying in London. To be honest, Faye, I didn’t care where I went. Nothing about Kingston made any sense any more and I was happy to come over here. So I stayed with Auntie Angela and went to secretarial school. Mr Fiske hired me shortly after I got my qualifications and I have been here ever since.’
Miss Campbell stopped speaking and there was silence for several minutes. Visibly shaking herself back into the present, she smiled at Faye.
‘You see, my dear, even an old lady like me was once in love. Just like you are with your Michael!’
Faye had been listening in fascination to the older woman’s story and trying to reconcile the prim little mouse before her with the image of a passionate young Jamaican girl pining for her lover. Now, as she stared into Miss Campbell’s twinkling eyes, she wondered wryly, and not for the first time, if what she felt for Michael could really be described as love.
Miss Campbell looked at her watch and tutted as she realised the time. Rising nimbly to her feet, she brushed the biscuit crumbs from her coffee-coloured cashmere cardigan, pushed her glasses back onto her nose and quickly rinsed out her coffee cup.
Having said a gentle goodbye to Faye, she was just about to leave the room when the younger girl asked suddenly.
‘Miss Campbell, since I’ve been so nosy already, can I ask you one last thing?’
‘What is that, my dear?’ Miss Campbell asked indulgently.
‘What does the T. in your name stand for? I’ve always wondered,’ Faye said curiously.
Miss Campbell’s eyes twinkled as she turned the handle of the door.
‘After what I’ve told you today, Faye, I would have thought you could guess.’ With a final wave to a mystified Faye, Miss Campbell said as she left the room, ‘Actually, I was named after my mother’s family, Faye. The T. stands for Truelove.’
4
Pigfoot or Pasta?
Travelling on the London Underground during the evening rush hour is, at best, a test of human endurance. On a Friday evening, however, Faye thought moodily, the rush hour made the most hideous picture of hell seem pretty acceptable.
It had been one of those rare days when Faye and her boss had genuinely been under pressure. With two of the other partners away, Junior had been called upon to handle far more than his usual negligible workload and, as a result, Faye had been swamped with documents to produce, check and update.
When she had finally managed to escape her exhausted boss, the hands on the large clock in the reception area showed it was past six o’clock. Oblivious to the cold, she’d raced along the dark cobbled streets to the tube station, feeling the sweat prickling her skin under her wool coat. Once again, Michael had arranged to meet her at the tube station in Brixton and she had less than two hours to get home and prepare for the evening.
To her annoyance the Edgware bound tube she wanted was sliding away from the platform just as she galloped down the stairs at Tottenham Court Road station.
‘Crap!’ Panting hard from the unaccustomed exercise, she watched in frustration as the train moved off, the red lights at the back disappearing into the dark tunnel. A quick glance at the platform indicator showed that the next train was due in twelve minutes.
Pacing up and down the platform, Faye mentally ran through her wardrobe and tried to remember where she had last seen her favourite black jeans.
Five minutes later, in true London Underground fashion, the platform indicator still showed a twelve-minute wait for her train. Glaring at a cheerful busker in a woolly hat who seemed determined to serenade her, she elbowed her way through the fast-thickening crowd to stand further down the platform.
Despite the twelve minutes still showing on the indicator, a sudden rush of air accompanied by a distant rumbling signalled the arrival of another train. Faye stood as close as she dared to the edge of the platform, determined to get onto the train even if she had to push someone under it first. With a loud rumble, the train rolled into the station and she positioned herself directly in front of the double doors, bracing herself for the rush of the descending crowd.
‘Stand clear of the doors, please. Stand clear of the doors!’
The mass of people crushed inside looked in dire need of oxygen as the train ground to a screeching halt. As soon as the doors swept open, the cooped up occupants spilled out, gulping in the semi-fresh air. Faye stood firm against the mass
of passengers streaming out from the congested train and those pushing her from the rear. Then, seizing her moment and ignoring the outraged cries of the tube prisoners still waiting for release, she nipped smartly through a small gap in the human traffic and into the overheated carriage. She spotted a row of recently vacated seats and sat down on the one nearest the door.
The tube moved slowly between stations, disgorging bodies and replacing them immediately. Faye’s frustration increased by the minute and turned to fury as people getting on and off the train trampled on her ruinously expensive Russell & Bromley leather boots, still an outstanding item on her credit card bill. Finally, the train pulled into Hampstead station, releasing her from the stuffy carriage.
Relieved to see the lift to street level was working, she resisted the temptation to give the doors a helpful push as they slowly slid open.
Almost dropping her keys in her haste to open her front door, she dashed in and cannoned straight into a tall blonde figure standing in the hallway.
‘Oof! Sorry, Lucinda… Hi.’ The apology-cum-greeting was delivered between gasps as Faye attempted to struggle out of her coat and kick her boots off at the same time.
‘Hi to you too,’ was the amused response. ‘No, wait, don’t tell me – you’re supposed to be somewhere in ten seconds from now and you’re late. Am I right?’
From Pasta to Pigfoot Page 7
