*
“Why don’t you fly out to New Zealand with me for a break?” Ethel suggested to Greg, “When the funeral and everything is over.”
“Sweet of you, but no. It’s the beginning of the season and I can’t leave the tomatoes to grow themselves.”
“Why can’t your brother cope for a few weeks?”
“Afraid he hasn’t been well, lately.” No point in telling her that Andrew was in a semi-permanent state of intoxication.
“What are you going to do, then?”
“Oh, Richard and I will muddle along together for the time being. One doesn’t want to make any hasty decisons one might regret later.” He continued to feel dazed, walking through each day like a zombie.
St Sampson’s Church was full to the door on the day of the funeral, in spite of the pouring rain. After the interment the family and close friends went back to Les Mouettes for tea; Marie and Ethel tended to be a bit weepy and tried to console each other, while Sue and Aline kept themselves occupied playing hostess, pouring teas and handing round plates of sandwiches and cakes.
Everyone remained very solemn until old Alice, who had not been taken to the funeral, asked, “When is the cake going to be cut?”
“What cake, Mother?” Greg bellowed into the infamous ear-trumpet.
“A fruit one, I suppose, with icing. Come to think of it, who’s birthday is it, anyway?” Unlike the sombre clothes of all the mourners, the ninety-six year old had appeared in bright green and red chiffon and the same delapidated old hat she always dragged out of a box from the attic for Special Occasions.
“No one’s birthday, Mother. We’ve just come back from Sarah’s funeral.”
Everyone sat in embarrassed silence.
Except Alice. “Come back?” she frowned at him. “Where from did you say? I didn’t know you’d been away. Off gallivanting again?”
Sue accidently caught Ethel’s eye and their lips twitched. Richard snorted in his effort not to laugh.
The bosom of Marie’s black dress, heavily draped with pearls, began to quiver. “If Sarah can see and hear us now, she’ll be helpless with giggles,” she commented.
Which somehow broke the ice. Everyone started laughing and chatting . . . much to Greg’s relief. They all remembered how full of merriment Sarah had been, how tickled she was by her dear, deaf mother-in-law’s misinterpretations.
“Was it something I said?” Alice asked innocently.
No one could think of an answer.
*
Like everyone else who had witnessed Sarah’s suffering, Sue had prayed for to her die. Yet the fact that she was gone remained unreal. Impossible to assimilate. “I keep thinking of things I want to tell her,” she said to Aunt Filly, when her mother’s old friend came to help repair some of the hotel sheets. “I feel perfectly normal and emotionally in control, then suddenly it hits me below the belt.”
“Me too. And I felt the same when my own mother died.”
“Does it get better?”
“In time. Gradually the body blows become more infrequent.” She bit off a last thread. “There, that should look a bit better. By the way, how is Jonathan, lately?”
“Okay.” The reply lacked enthusiasm.
Filly raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
Sue had always had a special affection for this bouncy little blonde woman and, longing for a confidante, was tempted to tell Filly at least some of her worries. She wanted to talk about her marriage, if it could be called that; her husband and his coldness. She felt the need to share some of her miseries. But would poor Filly want to be burdened with her problems? Or might she be so shocked that she would never want to come to the hotel again? Dared she reveal that when he heard that Sarah had died, Jonathan had merely said, “That’s a relief. Now perhaps you’ll get on and finish restocking the bar.” What was the point in making Filly hate him?
Filly listened to the silence, guessing what was going on in Sue’s mind. Finally she spoke out. “Bottling it up isn’t good for one, you know. You need to talk it out of your system. Doesn’t have to be with me, but do find someone. He’s getting worse, isn’t he?”
Sue lifted her head, frowning. “How do you know?”
“Silly girl. I wasn’t born yesterday. It is perfectly obvious to anyone with a grain of sense.”
Sue got up and looked out of the window. “Please don’t think I don’t want to confide in you. I cannot imagine anyone better but why should you have to listen to my woes?” She sighed. “You know, though half of me wants a shoulder to cry on, the other half doesn’t want to even think about it, let alone talk about it.”
“Playing ostrich? Burying your head in the sand?”
Sue turned round and shrugged. “Something like that.”
“Next fine day, why don’t you and I take a trip to Herm?”
Sue grinned. “Love to, if I could think up a good lie to tell Jonathan.”
“Would he mind you going?”
“Mind! He’d use it as an excuse to drink and shout abuse for at least a week,” Sue replied, voice thick with resentment.
Filly packed up her sewing box. “We’ll say next Tuesday. That will give you time to dream up some story.”
*
The hotel profits for 1955 were no better than the previous year. “Hardly get any repeat bookings like we did at first,” Jonathan remarked as he pored over the ledgers on his desk.
Sue had been aware of the fact for the past couple of years – not even Gordon’s cricket team came anymore – but what could she say? “If only you’d stop making embarrassing scenes in front of the guests? If only you weren’t so rude to the staff that most of them walked out by mid-season, to be replaced by the useless drifters who’d been sacked by at least three other hotels in the first three months?” No one could tell him that he should stay out of the bar and thereby stop upsetting the local trade with his sarcastic remarks. Unfortunately. The hotel’s reputation had slumped, not even Norton and Jonathan’s other service friends used the bar, nowadays.
“Trouble is, you’re never around to keep an eye on the staff. And you know I can’t get upstairs to check what is happening.” Jonathan glared at her. “If you don’t want us to go bankrupt, you’d better stop playing with the kids all day and do some work.”
Sue had heard it all before, but since her wonderful day in Herm with Filly at the beginning of the season, she had felt much calmer. More able to ignore the perpetual jibes. But nevertheless, she was depressed. Life was miserable; Jonathan’s moods unpredictable; the children overhearing his furious outbursts, which always upset them. She left the office without speaking, going out to sit on the bench overlooking Port Grat.
Why? She kept asking herself. Why is this continuing to happen year after year? She didn’t notice the sunshine or the view. Her mind’s eye was focused on images she had created during the war, of home and family. And afterwards, when the atmosphere between Sarah and herself had been so bad, there had been the dreams, the determination to marry David and build a home and family of her own . . . David! Dear God, David? Was this some kind of Divine Retribution for abandoning David?
*
Molly was off, sick, so Sue agreed to man the bar for the evening, as soon as the children were in bed. She ran along the path through icy November rain and stomped the wet from her boots on the kitchen floor, hung her mac over the door and left the brolly open to dry out. The first person she saw in the bar was Stephen. “Hallo, stranger! Haven’t seen you for a while. What brings you here?”
“Aunt Jessica told Mother that Molly was away so I thought I might make myself useful.” The only group of customers were at the far end of the bar with their glass tankards of bitter.
“Terribly sweet of you, but don’t tell Jonathan. That will put Jessica back in the doghouse again!”
Stephen scowled. But when his cousin wheeled himself up to his usual bar table, likewise querying his presence, he said, “I hadn’t seen you all for a while so I thought I’d p
op down for a drink.”
“Excellent!” Jonathan beamed. “What will it be? A G and T? Sue! Fix the man’s drink, will you?”
The group of customers were discussing the appalling weather, then started complaining of the approaching Christmas.
“My old lady loves dressing up and waltzing off to dances and parties,” one volunteered, and it was obvious he didn’t share her passion.
“Most women do,” another observed. “Isn’t that right, Jonty?”
“I wouldn’t know,” he responded. “You’d better ask the wife.” He tilted his head towards Sue.
“Well, Mrs M, what do you reckon?”
Sue grinned at the man. “Definitely. Most women love to take off their pinnies and put on their glad rags. Makes a girl feel human.”
“Right.” He nodded at his friends. “And how often does Jonty take you out and show you off?”
There was a horrible hush.
Jonathan took a swig of whisky. “Trouble is, old man, I’m not much use on the dance floor. In fact there are precious few places without step and stairs that I can get to without a crane – or an attentive team of navvies.” He finished with a laugh, so his audience joined in.
“So,” the talkative member of the group persisted, “When Mrs M wants to go off for a jig, who takes her?”
“Whoever she likes!” Jonathan’s hands were spread with great bonhomie. Adding with a wink, “Or whoever will have her! Talking of which, I see we are invited to some do at the Royal next Thursday, darling. Why don’t you get someone to take you? What about you, Stephen?”
Stephen and Sue were both flushed with embarrassment, not least because of the lie Jonathan was acting.
“Er, yes. Yes I’d be delighted, if Sue would like to?”
“Of course I would.” Sue’s mind was spinning. She had not attended a social function for ages . . . months . . . years? It would be wonderful, even worth the inevitable snide remarks and reprisals later? “To be honest I’d love it,” she declared boldly.
*
It was a Charity Dinner and Ball in aid of displaced persons and refugees. On hearing of the forthcoming event, Filly had ‘discovered’ the ideal dress in her wardrobe – an unlikely story as she was half Sue’s size, but Sue overcame any scruples when she saw it. The deep coral lace dress had cap sleeves, a low neckline, nipped waist and a full skirt which flared to her ankles. And with it was a matching bolero-length jacket fastened with pearl-cluster buttons.
“It’s fantastic!” Sue exclaimed. “But what on earth was it doing in your—”
“Sshh!” Filly interrupted. “Ask no questions and you’ll be told no lies! Now, what about shoes?”
“I have some plain gold courts.”
“Perfect. And evening bag?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. And you must use your mother’s squirrel coat. She would want you to,” Filly added, seeing the doubt cross Sue’s face.
Stephen was quite overawed when he saw her. “Suzanne! You look marvellous,” he exclaimed.
“You don’t look so bad yourself!” He was immaculate in dinner jacket and black tie, his straight black hair combed flat for once. He had a strong, square chin which contrasted with the gentleness of his eyes. There was no doubt he was extremely handsome.
Jonathan saw them off, Sue waiting in dread for some biting sarcasm. But there was none. “Enjoy yourselves, you two! I won’t tell you not to do anything I wouldn’t, or there would be no point in you going! Look after her, Steve, and bring her back in one piece. She’s not a bad cook when she puts her mind to it and might be hard to replace.”
They all laughed, and Stephen’s sports car did a mild wheelspin as it roared off into the dark.
Stephen knew nearly everyone there. Sue did not. He introduced her to several of his friends and they split up for a while as waiters circulated with trays of cocktails and canapés.
They were seated opposite each other at dinner, at the long flower-decked tables arranged in the dining room.
“I’ve always been very fond of the Royal,” remarked the bald, overweight gentleman who sat on Sue’s left. “Do you come here often?”
“No. But my mother did, in her day.” Realising her gaffe immediately, and seeing Stephen cough explosively into his table napkin, Sue spent the next ten minutes trying to avoid eye contact with the latter. She turned to the young man on her right, saying, “The pate is delicious; how were your roll-mops?”
“Simply super. I say, don’t you think you should let me help you pin your corsage?” Every lady had had a little spray of carnations waiting on her napkin.
Sue wanted to tell him to keep his lecherous hands off her bodice; instead she murmured “It really is terribly sweet of you to offer, but I think that that particular shade of pink would look simply ghastly against the coral, don’t you?”
He nodded reluctantly. “Yes. I suppose you are right.”
When they returned to the ballroom after dinner, Uti and Tilly Walgrave, friends of Stephen’s, asked them to share their table near the tall, curtained windows, and no sooner were they seated than Uti asked Sue for a dance. He was shorter than herself but an excellent dancer.
“Why are you called Uti?” she asked as he whirled her round the floor in his firm clasp.
“For some God forsaken reason my parents elected to christen me Uhtred, after some ancestor I believe. It’s been the bane of my life. I hope you think Uti sounds fractionally better.”
Sue giggled. “Quite definitely,” she assured him. She liked him, and his wife: very bright, happy, natural people. They continued dancing through several breaks.
“Mind if I cut in, Uti?” Stephen took Sue’s hand while they stood in the centre of the ballroom. “You’ve commandeered my partner for long enough.”
“I’ll relinquish her only if I can claim another dance later!” Uti said, pouting playfully.
“Hey! Doesn’t the lady get a say in this?” Sue asked indignantly.
Both men peered round the room, straight-faced. “I see no ships,” Stephen quipped.
“You rotten beggar!” she exclaimed. “You wait!”
“Willingly,” Stephen laughed as he swept her away, leaving Uti to find out who had claimed Tilly.
They were natural partners: Sue found she could read his every touch. He loved the way her skirt flared out as he twirled her through the old-fashioned waltz. She loved his gentleness, even when he was teasing.
Stephen let his gaze wander over her hair, down her neck to her shoulder. She had left her jacket on the chair with her purse, so he was able to watch the small muscles ripple under the golden skin of her arm. He bit his lower lip, trying to control his thoughts.
“Funny to think we’ve known each other for years, yet this is the first time we’ve ever danced together,” Sue commented, just for something to break the silence . . . and quell the dizziness which threatened to throw her off balance.
“You’re wrong, you know.”
She glanced up, one eyebrow raised.
There were smile lines at the corners of his deep grey eyes. “You don’t remember the Hall’s Christmas party in ’forty-seven!” he accused.
“Oh, yes I do. Were you there?”
He feigned indignation. “How could you forget the gangly youth in a suit several sizes too big for him, who stood in a corner most of the evening . . . until a beautiful princess took pity and asked him to dance.”
“Oh? And who was that?”
“You can’t guess?”
She gave a shy smile, and nodded.
Apart from a lively foxtrot with Uti, Sue danced all evening with Stephen. They shared extra bottles of wine with the Walgraves, and when the girls went off to powder their noses, Sue took the opportunity to explain to Tilly why Jonathan couldn’t take her to dances. “I’m afraid he bullied Stephen into bringing me here tonight.”
Having watched the pair dancing together, Tilly wondered if Jonathan had a clue what he was doing.
T
he lights were dipped low for the last waltz. Sue felt Stephen’s mouth against her forehead, and pressed closer. Her mouth filled with saliva, her knees trembled. His lips were kissing her hairline. Their feet scarcely moved.
The orchestra signalled the end of the evening with the National Anthem, as the lights went up. Sue and Stephen stood side by side, fingers entwined, secretly, within the folds of her skirt, both flushed with excitement . . . and alarm.
Tilly and Uti waved the little sports car out of sight, then turned to stare at each other, heads to one side, questioning.
“Why are we coming up here?” Sue asked as the car wound round the bends of the Val de Terre – in the opposite direction from home.
“I need time,” he replied briefly.
“What for?”
“To think. And perhaps tell you how much I have loved you for years.”
Huddled into the fur coat, Sue could feel her heart pounding. His words were sweet, dangerous music. “Stephen!” her voice shook.
The car sped along to the turning off to Jerbourg Point and swung into the car park at the monument, facing back towards the lights of Town. Switching off the engine Stephen turned to stare at her in the silent darkness. Reaching for her hand he kissed the tips of her fingers, then they were in each other’s arms.
Chapter Nine – Accords and Discords
Jonathan turned over in bed with a vigorous snort and Sue was grateful for the gentle breathing which at last replaced the heavy snores. Not that the snoring ever woke her but when, unable to sleep, she lay gazing up into the darkness hour after hour, the racket became unbearable. What did she feel for Jonathan, now? It was very difficult to assess for her moods changed, like his. There were times when she hated him, wanted to get away as far as possible from the snarls and sarcasm. There were also times when she felt she still loved him . . . or was she only in love with a memory, of the way he used to be? It seemed she had being living on hope for years. Hope that he would get better, mentally if not physically. The latter she could cope with, the moods were different. There were those precious moments when he was loving, caring and thoughtful and she dared to let herself believe that this was it, the beginning of the rest of their wonderful lives, together with their three children. Which made it all the more painful when the sweetness ended abruptly in a volley of curses, for no apparent reason. So what else did she feel? Pity. Lots of pity which frequently turned to anger. And pity was no replacement for love.
The Guernsey Saga Box Set Page 46
