The Stone

by Graham Adams

  He scanned the sweeping beach line for any sign of Tim and Murphy the black Lab., or John and Mollie the swimming Border, but it was completely empty but oh so very inspiring. Although it was wintertime, and the northerly wind was biting into his overcoat, there was a sense of pride that came over him. He had the whole beach, about three miles of it, to himself. In a heavily populated country like this one, such peace and solitude was becoming a very rare commodity.

  As he looked towards the horizon, he perceived a large band of very black cloud, laden with rain. ‘Time to get back girl’, and they headed back to the pickup truck, hopefully to miss the worst of the weather as it rushed towards them.

  It started to rain as he clambered into the Toyota’s cabin. Zowie jumped inside this time. Heading back through Christchurch the radio was playing ‘Inchworm’ by Sinatra. He recalled how imitating Frank, many years ago, still made him smile today.

  10: Can this be Love?

  Folkestone High Street

  After Paul had received such a horrible beating in Cannes, it had left him with a bit of a complex, and so it wasn’t difficult to persuade him that it was time to head north. Paul left it to Edmund to change the remaining dollars to Francs at the local bank exchange counter and buy two tickets for Paris, and together they made their way to the station. Paul kept looking over his shoulder, expecting the thugs to return, but soon they were on their way out of the place. Edmund had paid for better seats this time, and SNCF didn’t let them down.

  The journey was a bit of a blur for Paul, A comfortable seat had relieved the tensions, and Edmund didn’t feel like talking much anyway. He was thinking about Ben, who was only a year older than himself and Paul, and yet Ben had achieved so much. At the time looking back there was perhaps a lost opportunity. Still he had his card, ‘and you never know in this world.’ He thought to himself.

  The next morning they were on the ferry to Folkestone, and they disembarked from the boat and into customs. Paul passed right through, and waited on the other side whilst the officer scanned Edmund’s passport photo against the person standing in front of him.

  ‘What the hell is up?’ He thought. ‘After coming all this way, now they won’t let me back in the country!’

  ‘Could you please state your date of birth, and where you were born?’ The customs officer said as he looked at Edmund gravely.

  Edmund reeled the answers off, which seemed to appease the officer, and he stamped the passport and let him through without apology. Paul was laughing his head off. Edmund looked again at the picture in his passport and compared his reflexion in a car window. The passport displayed a white faced pasty boy, and in such a short time had changed into a healthy, bronzed, and fuller faced young man!

  ‘Who can blame him’ he thought.

  Their great adventure in France was now officially over. They both breathed in the Folkestone air and crossed the road heading towards the High Street. The street itself did not reflect what its name depicted. It was in fact a very narrow cobbled street with tourist shops and the like flanking both sides. The road was quite steep and as they reached the top they stopped for breath. To the left, along the side of a wall there was a white frieze of some kind depicting ancient warriors and their horses prancing. Above this was one word ‘Acropolis’.

  There was an aroma of freshly brewed coffee coming out of the open door, so they turned and automatically walked in. It took a few moments to adjust their eyes to the very dark atmosphere. To the left was the bar that was lit by the huge ‘Gaggia’ coffee machine. Looking around the room, there were wooden carved tables spread out, and above them there was a low ceiling covered in plastic vines and hanging bunches of grapes suggesting the atmosphere of the Mediterranean. In the middle of the room a huge jukebox was emanating red and green lights.

  The music that was playing Edmund did not recognise at all. He later found out it was Howling Wolf’s ‘Little red rooster’, one that the Stones were to copy soon after. Only one table was occupied. In fact two tables had been drawn together and about eight figures had turned around looking at the newcomers.

  A smiling face below a shock of black curly hair shouted ‘Hello!’ to them, and they approached the bar.

  ‘We would like two coffees but we only have this, Paul said, pointing to a handful of small denomination francs. ‘We have just come off the ferry and it’s all we have.’ Paul looked at him and smiled one of his disarming smiles.

  ‘I don’t understand you sir, are you French?’

  ‘No we’re not French. We have just come from there.’ Edmund said, standing on tiptoe, and smiling at him.

  ‘Well, we are Greek Cypriots here.’ The man smiled back at him. ‘Look, never mind about the money, we trust you, and have two coffees on us.’ The two visitors were amazed at such generosity, shook his hand and turned to find somewhere to sit.

  The group of people at the tables near the doorway waved them over and so they pulled chairs from elsewhere and joined them. It wasn’t long before they got an invitation to the latest party, an address of a lodging house, even a chance of a job at Stricklands, the local bakery. To top all that, Paul started a relationship with one of the girls called Rosalind. They certainly had arrived home.

  Paul handed over the handful of small change in Francs to Rosalind, and she persuaded the owner to exchange them for a couple of Greek style sandwiches. It was the best welcome to England they could have wished for. After securing the job at the Bakery, they went to the digs, and the landlady was happy to let them pay their rent when they were paid, at the end of the week at the bakery. They were overwhelmed by the trusting attitude of the people of Folkestone, when they compared it to the attitude of the French.

  The job at the bakery was no picnic. Edmund was put in the bread production department which was in constant heat, reminding him of the Coke Ovens plant, except you could eat what the bakery produced. Paul was working upstairs in the confectionery department, predominantly staffed by women, who of course suited him, but he had just arrived from Cannes, and the film festival, so filling doughnuts with jam just didn’t compare.

  As expected, Paul soon got the sack for larking about and, even worse, putting an extra squirt of raspberry jam in all the doughnuts, a cardinal offence. In all, they lasted three weeks.

  ‘But hey, it’s still summertime; let’s get a job outside somewhere.’ Paul said irrepressibly.

  Edmund showed Paul a job advert in the Folkestone Messenger. ‘Staff wanted at Maddiesons Holiday Camp at St Margaret’s Bay, urgently’

  ‘I reckon we might be able to stay there in one of their chalets if we’re lucky.’ Edmund said.

  ‘Let’s go for it, mate, it looks a breeze.’ Paul agreed. So they did, and got set on straight away. Paul wangled himself a job cleaning the entertainment area, and Edmund became a breakfast chef assistant.

  ‘Bet you don’t get a job on the stage Paul. If you do, you could do your impression of Frank Sinatra, singing ‘A new kind of love’ like you did at Stricklands, and get us the sack again’ Edmund laughed.

  Edmund did not like working in a kitchen environment, it was just about the lowest of the low for him, but Paul was better suited to the stage, even though he was cleaning it.

  ‘You never know mate, I might get a chance to shine.’ Paul said.

  ‘Yeh, like the shine you’re giving to the stage floor.’ Edmund laughed.

  The season had two months to go, so Edmund packed up his unsuitable job in the kitchens, took the wages owed him and caught the bus to Deal, just down the coast from St Margaret’s bay.

  It was midweek and the local jobcentre was advertising for staff at the shoe factory just north of the town. He originally applied for a vacancy on the factory floor, but the woman who interviewed him was impressed with his level of education and where he had worked before. She offered him a job in the Purchasing Office, which he grabbed with both hands. Before he left the personnel office he asked the woman if she knew of any digs nearby. What a str
oke of luck; she had an aged aunt who lived in a cottage in nearby Sholden and was looking for lodgers.

  Edmund was settling down for a while; nice digs and a lenient landlady, a steady job where he quickly excelled and was allowed free reign to improve the system where he saw fit. And on top of that there was Pauline.

  Pauline was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Her father owned a chain of ice cream parlours of which two were on the Deal beachfront. The name of the chain was Divito’s. Saturdays were spent drinking coffee in the cafe where she worked; usually he sat at a table near the window, hoping for a chance to speak to her, but up to now, nothing.

  Deal was famous for one thing. Julius Caesar was expanding his empire, and it was soon time for him to conquer Britannia. But he hadn’t bargained on Deal. It was at Deal, that the invasion fleet was turned back. By the blue painted warriors from this area! Not only that, when he did succeed in getting a foothold, he had to move further down the coast to do it.

  There must have been a very clever cartoonist who had come to Divito’s in the past, as on each table there was the result of his work, depicting Julius’s failure. For example, the table where Edmund usually sat depicted Julius eating one of Divito’s Knickerbocker Glories, and in the process of spitting it out. The caption then said:

  ‘Let’s go back to Italy where we can get real ice cream.’

  The Divito family were half Scottish and half Italian; they could be summed up as ‘Tight shouters’, but that was a local joke of course.

  Pauline, the result of this union, had long black wavy hair, a dark smooth complexion and dark eyes that could flash at the least little thing. She was, in Edmund’s eye, ‘poetry in motion’ At this time there was one singer of the day who was copied quite a lot by British singers like Sandy Shaw and Cilla Black, though to him they could not match her voice. That singer was Dionne Warwick. Her version of Bacharach and David’s ‘Walk on by’ was played a lot in the cafe, and the words were very poignant to Edmund, as they matched his feelings of unrequited love for Pauline.

  A few weeks had gone by and Edmund wondered if he would ever get the chance, but come it did. She was chatting to people on the next table, and he overheard that she was going to Canterbury on the next Saturday, so when she returned to the counter, he took his chance. On the pretext of ordering a sandwich, knowing that he would have to wait for her to cut the cheese from the huge block behind her, he casually said,

  ‘I’m going to Canterbury next Saturday, and would you like some company?’

  He leant backwards a little away from the counter in anticipation of a large slab of cheese being thrown at him.

  ‘Yes that would be nice Edmund, can you be at the bus station at about ten; the bus leaves at ten past’

  ‘Did you say yes?’ He wanted to hug her but was too scared.

  Someone on a table behind him chirped up. ‘Are you deaf mate?’

  He walked away from the table with his sandwich, ‘Edmund!’ He turned around, wondering what she wanted, was it that she wanted to sleep with him as well?

  ‘You haven’t paid for the sandwich yet’ Pauline retorted.

  ‘Sorry, I was miles away’ Edmund blushed.

  ‘Yeah, in Canterbury.’ piped the voice from the table, making all and sundry laugh at Edmund, but he didn’t care.

  Paul had finished the season at Maddiesons Holiday camp, and to Edmund’s surprise, he did get a chance on the stage, but in a supporting song and dance part. He had apparently impressed the Entertainments Manager at the camp. Edmund used his influence with Sheila, the Personnel Officer at the shoe factory to give him a job on the factory floor, sticking soles on shoes. As usual, he was entertaining the factory girls with the newfound song and dance act he’d learnt at the holiday camp. Working at Strickland’s Bakery also taught him a lesson too; not to lark about when authority was watching. However he did escape with the skin of his teeth on a few occasions.

  During most of the weekends and evenings, Paul spent at either Rosalind’s house, or rehearsing a play with the Deal amateurs. He was introduced to the group by Rosalind’s parents who were avid thespians themselves. Edmund often smiled to himself, realising that her parents had called her Rosalind after the character in the Shakespeare play ‘As you like it’.

  The East Kent Mercury ran an advert about a forthcoming play that Paul was in: Terrance Rattigan’s ‘Separate tables’. Paul made a point of showing Edmund his name advertised as one of the cast. This was his first real play and everyone was going to know about it.

  The following week dragged interminably, Saturday took so long to come around, and then finally they were sitting together on the bus on their way to Canterbury. Pauline smelled like wild flowers, and she was actually smiling at him. She was a little detached, as he tried to make conversation. As they approached Canterbury bus station he realised that no matter how hard he had tried during the journey, he couldn’t get her to start a conversation, even though he did his best to find out what she liked to talk about.

  They separated in town, her on a pretext of meeting a relative, and only at the persistence of Edmund did she agree to meet up outside the cathedral about three-ish and go for a coffee.

  ‘She never actually said that she would walk around with me’ he thought to himself. But walking on his own was not what he had hoped for. ‘I know’ looking in an antique jeweller’s shop window, ‘I’ll buy her this diamond ring, and when we meet, she’ll be so overwhelmed that she’ll marry me at the Cathedral! I’m a stupid idiot.’ He thought to himself. To think he had been longing for this day to come all week long, and it turned out a damp squib.

  Around three o’clock, he was standing outside the black gates to the Cathedral looking across the Butter Market and up Burgate. It was very crowded with shoppers and tourists, yet from a long way off he caught a glimpse of her jet-black hair bouncing as she walked. As she got closer he could see she was not alone, and she was holding someone’s hand.

  ‘I’ve got to get out of here before she sees me’ he thought, and quickly dashed into the thronging crowd. He stayed within view of the cathedral gates, wondering if they would stop and wait for him, but they didn’t. They walked straight on by, looking and laughing at each other.

  He then headed back to the bus station. His heart was broken!

  ‘She never promised anything Edmund’, he thought to himself. ‘It’s not her fault that I still love her with all my heart.’

  It was only four o’clock by the old clock on Deal Town hall as he alighted from the bus, and the pubs were not open until six. ‘Paul is getting ready for the last performance of Separate Tables tonight, so he won’t want to be bothered by my problems’, he thought to himself.

  His thoughts wandered to Canterbury, visualising what she would be doing now.

  ‘No. It’s over! I can’t go on torturing myself like this’ he said out loud. ‘What would Paul do in this situation? For a start he wouldn’t be as timid as me. I suppose if I told him, he would just laugh, he wouldn’t understand, I bet.’

  Edmund was walking on the shingle beach; the sea was grey and lifeless. One of the fishing boats was moored near the esplanade and he sat close to it trying to figure out what to do next. The biggest enigma was that he couldn’t seem to get into a real relationship here in Deal, when most of the local guys never seemed to have any problem.

  ‘Sometimes we can’t get everything we deserve in life. Except we have to recognise the opportunities as they pass by. Maybe tomorrow is my day!’ he thought to himself.

  11: The Breakwaters

  View of Bournemouth from Breakwaters

  ‘Hello, can I speak with Mr Clive Jameson please!’

  ‘Can I say who is calling?’

  ‘Mrs Monks’

  ‘Putting you through now’

  Ellie had left it until after the weekend to ring him, as she didn’t want to give the impression she was too eager. If the inheritance was, in fact a small one after all, she felt that she could th
en handle the disappointment much easier.

  ‘Mrs Monks?’ A strong south-western accent came through to her.

  Ellie tried to be as professional as she could.

  ‘I am ringing to arrange a meeting with you in Salisbury. Has Alex Macduff contacted you?’

  ‘Indeed he has Mrs Monks; I am at your service and can comply with any of your requests as instructed. Have you a day in mind madam?’

  ‘Would you be able to make this Wednesday Mr Jameson?’

  ‘Certainly Mrs Monks, may I suggest the Courtyard suite at the Red Lion Hotel on Milford Street, at eleven in the morning? Mr Macduff has instructed me to offer you lunch afterwards.’

  ‘Yes that would be fine.’ Ellie was most impressed.