Looking For Lucy

by Julie Houston

  ‘If they’re so great, why don’t you wear them anymore?’ I didn’t know whether to be pleased that Emily reckoned I could get into what must be her size eight jeans, or be offended that my own clothes didn’t pass muster.

  ‘I’ve had them a year and they’re a bit out of date now. They’d be great for you though.’

  ‘Hey, hang on. I’m not as old as your mother, you know. I’m young. I’m a student.’

  Ellie didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘No, no, it’s a compliment. I know you’re nowhere near as old as Mum: God she’s ancient. You’re really pretty and slim. And Mum doesn’t care about what she wears—she’s only interested in reading and getting to be an MP. And can you persuade her to do something with her hair, Clem? Put some colour on it or something? It’s embarrassing having a mother with grey hair.’

  ‘God, the confidence and egotism of youth,’ her mother exploded. ‘Get back to your homework, girly, or at least go and lay the table.’ Izzy turned to where I was now starting a béchamel Parmesan cheese sauce for the leeks that Declan had brought in earlier from the garden. ‘Do I look old, Clem?’ she sighed, running a hand through her hair. ‘And do I mother you? I’m sorry if I do—I don’t mean to.’

  ‘Hang on,’ I smiled, ‘it’s me making your Sunday lunch, not the other way round. And you’re what, nearly forty? Ten years older than me? Hardly old enough to be my mother: my big sister more like. And if you do mother me a bit, I’m grateful, you know that.’ I began to feel a bit tearful again and turned to the gas hob, giving a good beating to the flour I now spooned into the melting butter.

  ‘I worry about you, Clementine. You hide so much and rarely drop your guard. I can’t bear to think of you spending so much time alone down on Emerald Street. Why don’t we look for somewhere round here for you?’

  ‘You’re mothering me again, Izzy. Allegra and I are fine. She loves her school and it’s dead easy for me to walk to college. Once my course finishes and I begin to earn some money, then of course I’ll think again. At the moment I just can’t afford anything different—you know that.’

  ‘Fine, fine. I’ll get off your case with regards to where you’re living—but not about this date. I mean it, Clem. You need to get out and see life.’

  I laughed. ‘And being a camp follower on a muddy field somewhere with some history nerd I don’t really know is seeing life?’

  ‘Camp follower? Is that what they’re called? Bloody hell, great stuff. Do it, Clem. Do it.’

  I looked over my shoulder to the sitting area of the kitchen where Allegra and Sid had just come up from the playroom and were now intent on jumping off the back of the sofa onto Robbie, Izzy’s elder son, who, despite being under attack calmly carried on reading, totally and wonderfully engrossed in the last of the Harry Potter novels. I took in the shabby chintz chair covers with their split piped edges, the excess books that were towering, Pisa-like, from the threadbare Persian rug and the slumbering tabby cat that slept on despite the shrieks and laughter from an overexcited Sid and Allegra. My eyes moved to the French windows and the huge garden beyond where Declan, one booted foot resting on a rusting wheelbarrow, was lighting up a crafty cigar.

  And I wanted to cry. Cry with frustration and longing for a family such as this. The family I’d never really had, and which I’d give my all for Allegra and me to have.

  3

  ‘So, are we all set then, Clementine?’ Peter Broadbent’s beaming smile as I opened my front door didn’t quite mask his obvious surprise—dismay even—at finding me down on Emerald Street. I’d given him my address the day before when he’d been seemingly overwhelmed with joy when I’d told him, if the offer was still open, I’d like to go with him to his re-enactment thingy.

  ‘All set. My friend Izzy picked Allegra up ten minutes ago so ready when you are.’ I felt ridiculously nervous: my first date in four years, letting Allegra go off without me, wondering what the hell I was letting myself in for. Izzy had hung around for a good five minutes hoping to catch a glimpse of ‘the pikeman’ as she’d dubbed him, until Declan had shouted for her to get a move on, that they’d hit the traffic on the M1 if they didn’t get off that minute. I’d reluctantly fastened Allegra into the borrowed car seat, but she was off without a backward glance, eager to be part of Izzy’s noisy, busy family once again. I’d felt quite bereft when they’d all gone, leaving me alone on my doorstep on this quiet Sunday morning. It was a beautiful morning, quite spring-like and, as a couple of daffodils nodded their heads optimistically at me from the bottom of the pebbled backyard, I’d berated myself for my lack of enthusiasm at being taken out for the day. It would be a laugh, I told myself; something to tell the other students about for once when, every Monday morning, they dissected every little event, every drink imbibed, every man slept with over the weekend.

  ‘Car’s down here,’ Peter was saying over his shoulder as I locked my front door. ‘I couldn’t quite get it down this narrow street so thought it best to leave it up on the main road.’ I understood his sentiments once we’d walked the few hundred yards to where his car, a Porsche Cayenne, stood haughtily like some grand dame, between the Khyber Tandoori and John’s—Ring For Attention—Adult Books shop. It was huge, black and gleaming and, once Peter had opened the door for me and helped me up, the smell of new leather hit me head on.

  I was relieved to see he was in mufti—jeans and a soft red cashmere sweater rather than the Roundhead outfit I’d been terrified he might have been wearing as I’d opened my front door to him. In fact, he really did look rather nice. Smelt nice too. As we left the town centre and headed for the motorway and York, I took a sneaky glance at his profile: pleasant clean-shaven jawline, fair, wavy hair just beginning to curl over his ears and, as he turned to me for a second, aware no doubt that I was giving him an appraising once-over, I saw that he had blue eyes. Nothing amazing, nothing to shout out about … but solid, dependable, pleasant.

  ‘So where are your children today?’ I asked. ‘With your wife?’ I assumed, because he was only ever with his two children and never with any sort of wife or partner, that he must be divorced or separated.

  ‘They’re with my wife—ex-wife I should say. Sophie, my eldest, is away at school and, even when she’s here, is really of an age when she doesn’t feel she has to be with her father every Sunday for the obligatory visit to the zoo or McDonald’s.’

  ‘Or The Black Swan?’ I smiled, recalling the different permutations of one or sometimes both his children who, at different times, had accompanied him to eat at the pub.

  ‘Well, I’m not the best of cooks,’ he said ruefully, ‘so when they are with me we do tend to eat out quite a lot.’

  ‘’And do they never come with you to this…’ I was momentarily stumped for words, ‘… this history thingy?’

  Peter winced slightly. ‘History thingy? I can see I’m going to have to educate you, Clementine.’

  Hmm, bit pompous, I thought, noticing for the first time the receding hairline and the rather hooked nose.

  Peter smiled and patted my hand. Oh dear, condescending too.

  ‘Well, in their time, both the children have accompanied me. Max, my eight-year-old still does when he’s not playing football at the weekend, but Sophie is no longer interested.’ He looked sad for a moment but then smiled. ‘But it’s always great when someone new wants to come along.’

  I didn’t like to tell him that my interest level was probably that of, or below, his daughter’s: that I was only along for the ride and that I’d have been, at that very moment, screaming from the heights of some death-defying rollercoaster if Izzy hadn’t banned me from going with them—'for your own good’—as she’d put it.

  ‘What about your wife? Your ex, I mean?’

  ‘Well yes, Vanessa is very much into it, particularly the mustering and skirmishes. We actually met at the Battle of Naseby.’

  Right.

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now, I’m afraid, she’s batting for the other side.’ />
  ‘Oh you poor thing.’ I felt immediately sorry for this man. ‘That must be so hard. Bad enough being left for another man, I guess, but another woman… Another camp follower, was it?’

  ‘Another woman?’ Peter frowned as he pulled out into the fast lane, his upmarket Porsche dominating the other vehicles on the road. ‘No, she didn’t leave me for another woman. Left me for a bastard Cavalier…’

  Sod ‘The Laughing Cavalier,’ it was me on the verge of hysterics. I glanced across at Peter. There was no humour whatsoever on his face. ‘Right,’ I said with a straight face, ‘I’ve got you now.’

  ‘… Yes,’ he said gloomily, totally unaware that I was biting the inside of my cheeks to stop the laughter that was threatening to erupt. ‘Married Prince Rupert himself.’

  Jesus, what was I getting into? We were just passing the York Designer Outlet and I had a sudden insane urge to ask him to pull up at the next junction and jump ship. Six hours trying on stuff in L. K. Bennett and Ralph Lauren—stuff I didn’t have the money to buy even at outlet prices—suddenly seemed a much better option than spending Sunday standing in a muddy field watching men charging at each other with sticks.

  ‘Won’t be long now, Clementine.’ I could see he was beginning to get a little excited, a bit like an over-eager puppy raring to be off the leash. ‘And, I’ve taken the liberty of bringing some clothes for you. They should fit you—I borrowed them from one of the good wives.’

  A good wife? Blimey, this was getting worse. I had sudden visions of Kelly McGillis in that film about the Amish. Mind you, it had Harrison Ford in it as well. Maybe being a good wife wasn’t all bad.

  ‘Erm, Peter, I think I’d rather just watch. Seeing as how I’ve never done this sort of thing before. I’ll just watch this time and take it all in.’

  His face dropped. ‘I was really hoping you’d join in with it all, Clementine.’ He was suddenly shy. ‘I’ve told everyone about you, you see. How pretty you are and all that, and… and you see it’s the first time I’ve brought anyone along after, after, well you know, after my divorce.’

  He looked so crestfallen I suddenly thought, what the hell. ‘That’s fine, Peter.’ I smiled, ‘I’ll put my frock and shower cap on and join in.’ Peter beamed. He really did have a lovely smile—almost cherubic. ‘So, just fill me in a bit about what it’s all about and what I’ll have to do.’

  ‘Well, this is the first meeting of the annual campaign season. We don’t really get together much during the winter months apart from meeting up for a Christmas do in early December.’

  ‘Hang on a minute. I thought your leader cancelled Christmas once he was in power?’

  Peter looked slightly uncomfortable for a moment. ‘Well, yes, there is that, but we tend to exercise a bit of poetic licence over the Christmas period as it were. So, as you know, I’m a pikeman. The pike is referred to as “The Queen of Arms” and was originally wielded by only the strongest and fittest of men.’ I could sense Peter visibly preen, proud, obviously, of his ability with his pole. ‘Our main job is to protect the musket from the cavalry.’

  Right.

  Peter did a sharp turn down a muddy track and the Cayenne bumped along for a couple of hundred yards until he turned once more into a field busy with people erecting tents, or just standing chatting and laughing while children ran around, excitedly greeting long lost friends. As a little girl, I’d been taken on a school trip to the Jorvik museum in York and, while today this configured history of the Civil War was at least seven hundred years on from that Viking village of my school visit, I suddenly felt the same sense of excitement I’d felt as an eight-year-old as we were shown and experienced an age long since gone.

  ‘What do you think?’ Peter asked, half anxious, half proud.

  I looked at his eager face and smiled. ‘Well, it’s certainly different,’ I said.

  Peter relaxed. ‘Honestly, Clementine, I promise you, you will have such a good day. Now, I’ll just park up and then show you to one of the tents where you can change.’

  *

  ‘So who’s this, Peter?’ Any enthusiasm I’d mustered earlier had begun to wane as I stood, dressed in some loose, grey, cast off good wife’s dress and mob-cap, shivering in the sneaky March wind that was intent on showing my knickers to a whole load of Roundheads. The early morning’s spring sunshine was a distant memory and clouds were gathering ominously. Jesus, what was I doing here when I could be at home with Allegra, curled up together on the sofa watching Shrek and eating cheese on toast?

  ‘May I introduce Clementine Douglas?’ Peter said proudly to the man who’d spoken. ‘Clementine, this is Oliver Cromwell, our leader.’

  I didn’t know whether to curtsey or howl with laughter. What I really wanted to do was to say, ‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Peter, enough. Enough already. Take me home, or at least let me get back into the warmth of the car with a good book and a Twix. Pick me up in a couple of hours when you’ve piked and poled each other senseless.’ But I didn’t because, well-brought-up girl that I was, I’d had it instilled into me by my mother not only not to avoid saying ‘fuck’ in polite society but to defer to my betters and elders. And Olly here must have been seventy if he was a day.

  ‘Very pleased to meet you, my dear,’ Oliver Cromwell said, taking my now very cold hand and holding it a lot longer than was absolutely necessary. ‘You were right, Peter.’

  I glanced across at Peter, dressed to kill in jacket, breeches and some sort of woolly tights on his rather shapely legs. His feet were firmly entrenched in sturdy leather boots and a helmet—a morion, as he corrected me later—sat atop his fair curls. He reddened slightly at OC’s words but, intent on the agenda for the morning’s muster that his leader was now explaining, Peter turned his full attention away from me and I never did get to find out what it was that Peter was right about.

  ‘Now, Peter,’ Oliver Cromwell was saying as I continued to shiver and long for home, ‘the Royalists appear to be having a “capture the flag” exercise, regiment against regiment. Somewhat facile, I always think. So I suggest, as it is the first muster of the season, you round up the pikemen—’ here Peter reddened further at the honour bestowed on him by Ollie ‘—and do a bit of pike block drill.’

  ‘Erm, what do I do?’ I asked. ‘I’m happy to go back to the car and watch from there.’

  ‘Gosh, no, Clementine.’ Peter’s eyes scoured the Roundhead crowd anxiously. ‘Just give me a second until I can find… Ah, there she is.’ He raised his pole and waved enthusiastically, almost decapitating a passing Cavalier into the bargain.

  ‘Oy, watch it, Peter. We’ve not started yet,’ the handsome, ringleted man said, coming to a standstill and dodging as he avoided Peter’s pike. Now, he was something else, I thought appreciatively. Dark hair, and blue eyes that held mine for a good few seconds.

  ‘Oh hello, Justin,’ Peter said abruptly. ‘I’m looking for Brenda. She promised she’d show Clementine the ropes. And there she is.’ Peter raised his stick once more and waved as Justin came over to me, drew off his hat with a flourish and whispered, ‘Oh my darling, oh my darling oh my darling, Clementine…’

  ‘How original.’ I smiled through clenched teeth. ‘I don’t think anyone has thought to sing that to me before.’

  Justin the Cavalier laughed. ‘Welcome anyway.’ He replaced his hat before striding away towards his mates who looked to be having a great time ‘capturing the flag.’ Weren’t Cavaliers supposed to whisk themselves away on horseback or was that highwaymen? Was I getting the Laughing Cavalier mixed up with Dick Turpin?

  ‘Come on then, erm… let’s get you sorted.’ A large beefy woman with an impossibly red face towered over me before taking my elbow. I turned to Peter, about to plead a headache, migraine, imminent swine fever—anything to be allowed back in the car and away from this sodding pantomime.

  Peter beamed encouragingly and I had no alternative but to go off with Brenda, following her to where a whole gang of similarly attired women was awaiting
her instructions. ‘Clarissa, is it?’ she asked, breathing heavily as she hurried me along but, before I could put her right, she wiped her brow. ‘Phew,’ she exhaled, panting now as we made our way through a gaggle of excited children playing with a small dog, ‘warm today, isn’t it?’

  Warm? Was the woman mad? I was frozen.

  ‘Now,’ Brenda said importantly, ‘I’m the current Good Wife, sometimes called The Matron of the field. The camp followers here get closer to the action than would have been the case in reality.’

  ‘How close?’ I asked nervously, looking over to where a small skirmish was already underway between a gang of Cavaliers and a corresponding number of Oliver’s lot. The cold morning air was suddenly filled with the rich smell of gunpowder as a plume of black smoke billowed in the bitter east wind like an out of control inkpot.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about the guns,’ Brenda said dismissively, ‘the men all need to get their tools out and give them a good seeing to after they’ve kept them under wraps all winter.’

  ‘Oh, that’s really funny,’ I giggled.

  ‘What is?’ Brenda gave me a strange look and then continued without waiting for a reply. ‘So, we women play a vital role in ensuring all the men survive the battle. Fighting in woollen clothes and armour can be very dehydrating so we have to be on hand with water. How’s your first-aid?’

  ‘Non-existent I’m afraid. I can rub butter on a bump and kiss it better but that’s about all.’

  ‘We have to take this seriously, Clara,’ she barked. ‘We need to be able to spot if someone is in need of assistance or rest. In fact, if necessary, we can overrule an officer. There, what do you think of that?’

  ‘Fabulous,’ I enthused. ‘Great stuff.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it? If we say “off”, off they damned well go. No messing.’