“And so you should, at your age.”
“Honestly, Sue! Do you think I’m that old?”
“You must be about the same age as Dad and he’s been around forever, as far as I’m concerned.” She was making a serious effort to keep her face straight.
Felicity Warwick’s fading blonde curls flopped forwards as her plump figure trembled into giggles. “Beastly child!”
“You going to have a game, darling?” Stephen called to Sue as he came off the court.
“No thanks. I’m just about to go inside and put on the kettle. Who won?”
“Debbie and Justin, of course. They nearly always do.”
“Why don’t you have another couple of games? Tea won’t be ready for twenty minutes.”
Sue spread a cloth on the table on the verandah and left Aunt Filly to set out the plates and cups from the tray, while she prepared a pile of sandwiches and buttered the sliced gache. When she carried out the loaded plates, the older woman had wandered down the garden to search for another stray ball.
So she sat back on her deckchair to wait for them, shaded from the heat of the June sun by the verandah roof, smiling contentedly. Life was weird. How often, she wondered, casting her mind back to the war years, did things turn out the way one had planned? She would never forget longing for the home and family she had left behind at the time of the evacuation, even though she had been unable to remember what her parents looked like after a while. The excitement as the Allies fought their way back through France, Italy, Russia, Poland and finally Germany to defeat the Nazis. And afterwards the frustrating months of waiting to return to Guernsey, the joy of sailing into St Peter Port Harbour on the Fourth of August, 1945, and the mutual shock of reunion with Dad and Mum.
It had been so hard to understand, after five years in an emotional desert, that an essential ingredient of family life was the give and take, the accepting of responsibility towards the family unit. Mutual respect and understanding. And, unfortunately, Dad and Mum, in particular, having parted with a child of ten, took over the reins where they left off. Whilst she, having had sole charge of her own destiny for five years, had returned to the island a comparatively mature young woman, although only fifteen. The same age as her own daughter, Stephanie, was now.
Yes. And was their relationship any better than hers had been with her own parents? One could only work on it!
“Oh, beauty, Stephen! Lovely shot,” Sue called as her husband powered a forehand drive down the tramlines past his stepdaughter. What a happy coincidence it was that, like Debbie, he was so keen on tennis: keen enough to be enthusiastic about buying this house with a court in the back garden.
Stephen hadn’t tried to persuade her to sell the property overlooking Port Grat, the beautiful old family farmhouse that she and Jonathan had turned into a charming hotel. He had not needed to: the joy of its conversion had turned to such anguish after Jonathan’s accident, which had changed his character almost overnight from the gregarious, loving man she had married into a morose bully. And although when he had learned he was terminally ill Jonathan reverted to the sweet, loving partner he had once been, nevertheless to live in a place filled with such memories would be too painful.
And anyway, Stephen wasn’t an hotelier, he was an architect.
The estate agent had put a lunatic value on the hotel . . . and some lunatic promptly paid the asking price! She still hadn’t got over their good fortune though she and Stephen had been married now for six years.
Aunt Filly waited till the current game ended before throwing the ball back over the wire, then she bounced back across the narrow strip of lawn to the house. “Debbie is phenomenally good,’ she commented. ‘Her timing is brilliant.”
“Yes. That’s what her coach says. Thank goodness we were able to find him: he’s done wonders for her. Completely changed her grip for a start.” Sue turned her head at the sound of footsteps scrunching on the gravel and waved a greeting as Justin’s parents appeared round the side of the house. “Hello! Welcome. You’re just in time for tea!”
“Hoped we’d judged it right. Got anymore of that gorgeous chocolate sponge?” Johnny Tetchworth guffawed. He was tall and pompous, adopting an unconvincing Oxford accent which became louder with the level of alcohol he consumed, lapsing into the vernacular more frequently. Sue and Stephen found him hard to stomach at times, but the Tetchworth’s were neighbours and Hilary, his wife, was genuinely upper crust, charming and unassuming. Sue had often speculated on how such a nice woman had ever come to marry Johnny. And stuck it out for so long. Justin was a first-class tennis player and despite the fact that Deborah was only fourteen, they made a splendid pair on court.
“Come and sit down.” Sue indicated the empty chairs. “Afraid you will have to put up with a cream and jam sponge today, Johnny. Made this morning.”
“I guess we’ll survive. What?” he turned to Aunt Filly, hand extended. “So nice to see you again, Mrs Warwick.”
The players left the court; Roddy and Debbie to sprawl on the verandah steps while Stephen handed out sandwiches and Sue poured tea.
*
Stephanie drifted in the front door and headed through the house to peer out of the dining room window at the assembled company. Only one person interested her – Justin. At almost twenty he was nearly five years her senior, which definitely added to his attraction, which was already considerable: blond wavy hair, intensely blue eyes which devoured one, he was the handsomest creature she had ever seen, and the sight of those long, tanned muscular legs lured her out to join the party.
Sue glanced up and smothered a sigh. If her own mother had still been alive she would undoubtedly have said that Stephanie was “asking for it!” Tall and skinny, the girl’s soft amber eyes squinted through a long curtain of brown, wavy hair. The siren look. The tops of her thighs emerged from the pelmet which masquarded as a skirt. “Hello, dear. Are you joining us for tea?”
“That’s why I’m here, Mother dear.” The reply was as sarcastic as it was untrue.
Sue watched her sit beside Justin on the rail, and turned to glance at Debbie. Justin was the younger sister’s idol.
Fortunately Debbie was occupied with fondling Troilus, nuzzling her short red curls into his neck. The dog grunted happily and rolled onto his back for more.
‘Have you done your prep yet?’ Roddy asked the younger girl.
“No. It’s only history and geography revision. I’ll do it in bed tonight.”
Her brother frowned at her, sweeping the straight, platinum-blond hair off his forehead impatiently. “Really, Debs, you are hopeless. You don’t give yourself a chance in the exams.” Set in his thin, pallid face, his pale blue eyes were almost hidden under serious brows.
“And if you practised a bit you might be able to hit a tennis ball over the net occasionally,” she snapped back. Deborah was really very fond of her siblings, but Roddy could be far too stuffy and intense at times.
“Anybody home?” a voice rang through the house.
“It’s Richard!” Sue put down the teapot and jumped up to greet her brother and his wife Anne, Aunt Filly’s daughter, and baby Derek. Sue grinned happily, always pleased to be surrounded by family and friends.
“Heard the news?” Richard demanded, emerging through the French windows. “Frank Chichester is nearly home with Gypsy Moth.” He lived and breathed the sea. Boats were his business, his life, and he was totally awed by this senior citizen’s achievement, the first yachtsman to sail single-handed around the world. “Don’t forget to watch it on the early evening news. A huge flotilla will go out to meet him. Don’t you just wish you could be there?”
“Not as much as you do,” his brother-in-law commented.
“Are you into sailing?” Stephanie asked Justin, trying to draw his attention.
“Sure. As long as someone else does all the hard work. Though I do prefer power boating.” He helped himself to another slice of gache, the local sweet bread full of mixed, dried fruits. “I n
ever see you on the tennis court. Don’t you play?”
“Far too energetic for me,” the fifteen-year-old drawled, sweeping aside a lock of hair, with studied nonchalance.
“Want another game, Debs?” Justin asked.
Deborah crammed the last mouthful of sponge into her mouth and jumped up, eagerly.
Stephanie ground her teeth and drifted upstairs to her bedroom.
*
Built a short distance inland from L’Ancresse Common, La Rocquette de Bas was a very ordinary Edwardian house to which two or three generations of owners had done some extraordinary things: things which the authorities would doubtless ban, nowadays. The wooden verandah for example, which ran across the entire width of the rear of the building. And the miscellaneous wings either side that had probably begun life as garages or sheds. One was now an extension of the sitting room in the front while the rear was partitioned off as a study leading from the dining room. The other wing, through a door from the kitchen, served as both conservatory and utility. A simple family house built of plastered stone with a pantiled roof, it was painted white with black window frames and doors, and black chimney pots that made Sue think of housemaids’ stockings. Not that people had housemaids any more. Just dailies.
Suzanne Martel had loved the house from the moment she first saw it, and had no difficulty in convincing Stephen it would be a perfect home for them and her children. With fresh paint and wallpaper, carpets and curtains they had imposed their own characters and lifestyle on the old place. And now they had a little boy between them, Bobbie, who was, at this moment, at a friend’s birthday party. Sue glanced at the kitchen clock as she carried in the tea things: she would have to leave in ten minutes to collect him. Darling little chap, so like his Daddy.
Sue moved gracefully around the kitchen, putting the remains of the cake away in its old Quality Street Toffee tin, stacking the dishes in a plastic bowl of hot water in the sink. A tall woman of thirty-seven, she had inherited her mother’s attractive high cheek-bones, and dark brown hair together with her father’s sea-green eyes. They were lively, humorous eyes, full of fun and the laughter which often bubbled to the surface in solemn moments; overly serious people, pompous, full of self-image and importance, invariably sent her hastening for cover to hide her amusement and avoid offence. An accidental glance at Aunt Filly, or at Stephen, or Debbie, could set them off into gales of laughter. Never with Roderick of course: he found all matters in life very serious and toilsome. Even as a small child playing with his train set he tackled the layout of track and stations with an earnestness which sometimes troubled his mother.
As his sisters troubled him. Stephanie was an ardent fun-seeker: she surrounded herself with friends, at least half of them male, and squandered her considerable brain power on pop music and Beatlemania. And recently her clothes . . .! He was sometimes so embarrassed he would pretend he didn’t know her. Of course the feeling was mutual, but he couldn’t help regarding her as a total let-down to the family. He was sure his father would not approve if he was alive today.
Roddy was very fond of his younger sister, Deborah. There was no doubt she was a brilliant tennis player for her age, for any age in fact, but he did wish she would work a bit harder at school. The trouble was she could not bear the mildest criticism; every time he suggested she study a bit more her grin would fade, often to be replaced by a sudden rage. A typical redhead’s temper.
“Shall I fetch Bobbie?” Stephen asked from the doorway.
“Would you, my darling? It would be a great help if I could finish the washing up and get on with preparing supper.”
He crossed the room to stand behind her at the sink, circle her waist with his arms and plant a kiss on the back of her neck. “Happy?” he asked.
She turned her face to rub her cheek against his. “You know I am.”
*
Sue finished reading about Noddy and Big Ears and put the book down on Bobbie’s bedside table. She was sure he was asleep, lying there with his small fist curled under his cheek. According to Stephen’s mother, Julia, the child was the spitting image of his father at this age. She stroked the black hair from his forehead, kissed him and tiptoed to the door.
“Can we go on the beach tomorrow, Mummy?” a small, sleepy voice begged as she switched out the light.
“Depends on the weather, darling. The forecast isn’t too good.”
“Please, Mummy?”
“We’ll have to wait and see if it’s raining in the morning. We can’t sit on the beach in the rain, can we?”
“We won’t feel it if we’re swimming.” It seemed a perfectly logical argument to a six-year-old.
Sue could never remember it raining on L’Ancresse during her childhood: throughout the war years in North Wales her precious memories of L’Ancresse and Bordeaux beaches, of the sweet dry scent of purple common vetch and yellow meadow vetchling they called Lady’s Slippers, which sprawled, short and stunted, over the mounds and hillocks of L’Ancresse Common, buffeted by sand on the salt breeze, never included a drop of rain. She’d recall only lying on hard, dry sandy tussocks, peering at the distance view made weird through the wavering heat haze. Strange how selective a child’s memory could be. She mustn’t forget to ask her father, sometime, if his memories of childhood were similar.
*
Greg Gaudion, Sue’s father, watched his friend’s second at the long fifteenth hole on L’Ancresse golf course skim low over the fairway, skirt the treacherous hollow on the left and finish nicely teed up fifteen yards short of the green. He hissed in disgust. “George, that was a real daisy-cutter, and just look where it’s ended up!”
“Yes, I thought it best to aim for that mound,” George said, loftily.
“Liar,” Greg commented, wondering if his third shot would reach the green with a seven iron. He couldn’t see any justice in this game. When they took up golf together six years ago, he had paid out a fortune in lessons. Tall, broad-shouldered and muscular despite his greying hair, he knew he was a natural sportsman, had been all his life, and he also knew he had a good swing, kept his head down and a straight left side . . . and yet his lifelong friend, George Schmit, who had only ever had one lesson, held his driver like a axe, crouched and swung at the ball as though attempting to hack down a tree, and achieved far better score cards.
George, short, stout but rugged, fought to keep a straight face. “I repeat, I’m willing to give you some lessons any time, and I won’t ask a penny for them.”
“I hate to think of you wasting your valuable advice on me,” Greg said sarcastically. “Why don’t you make your offer to the pro. I’m sure he’d appreciate it.”
“Greg, you’re all heart. Oh dear,” he stopped beside Greg’s ball nestling in a hole, “You’ve put it in a divot.”
Greg stooped to snatch up a few strands of vetch and tossed them into the wind, not that the information they gave would do him much good. “Gone round to the west, I see.” He eyed the dark front filling the sky from the Atlantic. “Reckon we’ll make it back to the club before that gets here?”
“Depends on how many more times you have to hit the ball.” This time George couldn’t prevent a grin speading over his weathered features.
“Fortunately L’Ancresse Common is one of my most favourite places on earth. Otherwise I’d never come out here with you, you old beggar!” Greg truly loved the place: the wildness of it, the winds you had to lean into at an angle to avoid being blown off your feet, the bracken and brambles, the old rocks and dolmen covered in lichen, the scent of gorse . . . sadly over-powered at the moment by the stench of oil on the beach from the Torry Canyon disaster.
“Beggar, possibly,” George conceded. “But not old, surely?”
“They say you’re only as old as you feel, and right this minute I feel ninety.”
“I wonder how old Frank Chichester felt when he finished his trip? Wasn’t that great?”
“Shows there’s life in some old dogs.”
*
> “I’ve packed a picnic lunch, Steps. We are all going down to L’Ancresse for the day,” Sue announced. It was a perfect Sunday in August, only a slight heat haze softened the shadows cast by the sun and hid Alderney from view.
“Oh. But I don’t have to come, do I?” Stephanie was lying draped across an armchair in the sitting room, legs dangling over one arm.
“The whole family are coming, darling.”
“Well then you’ll have lots of company. Couldn’t, you leave my sandwiches in the kitchen?”
Sue groaned inwardly. “Why don’t you want to be with us? You used to love the beach.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to be with you all,” her fingers were crossed behind the straggling hair, “I just don’t feel like going out.” She wished her mother would leave her alone. She was old enough to make up her own mind what she wanted to do, and going on the beach and making sandcastles with Bobbie was not her first choice. Nor even her fiftieth choice.
Sue found it so difficult to understand her elder daughter sometimes. She was going through a very awkward phase at the moment. At least she prayed it was just a phase. Should she try to persuade the girl? It would be very easy to lure her along by saying that the Tetchworths were going to join them, but hardly fair. Justin was Debbie’s friend, though of course that was all; just a friend. Neverthless, it would be a shame to distract him away from his tennis partner which would undoubtedly be Stephanie’s intention. “You don’t want to spend the whole day alone here. Would you like to invite Caroline along?” Caroline was an off and on friend, spoilt daughter of wealthy English settlers, who appeared only to want Step’s company if nothing more interesting was on offer.
“She’s going to Herm for the day on her father’s boat.” The girl sat up, tossing her magazine onto the floor. “I wish Uncle Stephen would get a boat.” Though her three children were very young when her first husband died, Sue had never suggested they referred to Stephen as their father.
“Boats are too expensive to run, especially when you have a large family to support. Are you sure you don’t want to come?”
The Guernsey Saga Box Set Page 52
