“But lots of girls your age are on the pill, nowadays. You really must make the effort, Debs. Honestly, I can’t wait forever.” Abruptly he rolled away from her and started to tug at the rug. “Come on, let’s go before I explode.”
*
Summer ended with sudden thunderstorms and endless rain.
At first Sue hoped that the weather would clear, giving them a lovely, soft Indian summer, late into October. But it never happened. The temperature plummeted and she was soon lighting coal fires, trying to raise their spirits as much as anything. The cold and damp were so depressing.
So, too, were the expressions on the faces of her children. Roddy didn’t appear to be worrying about anything in particular; he simply continued to carry the cares of the world on his shoulders, as ever. He was so serious, worked too hard even during the vacations, and soon he would return to university without appearing to have relaxed and enjoyed his holiday at all. Sue suggested he might like to invite a university friend over to stay, but he said he preferred just to be with the family. There were times when he threw back his head and bellowed with laughter, teased Stephanie, played tennis with Debs and really looked happy but those times seemed all too brief, and she would find him leaning over a book on the dining table, straight blond hair flopped over his eyes as they peered through thick-lensed glasses. Perhaps, because his father was dead and Stephen, however much he might try, could never replace him, Roddy felt an additional weight of responsibility . . . in loco parentis.
So different from Stephanie, who wouldn’t allow such thoughts to cross her mind. She hated responsibility: her bedroom looked like a bombsite and she would wail in frustration when she couldn’t find a clean garment, although she had not put so much as a dirty sock in the linen basket. She gave every appearance of being fond of her siblings, especially Bobbie, but would react angrily if asked to feed or look after any of them. She would laugh and play with them, watch children’s TV on the settee with her step-brother, but seldom with her mother or step-father.
And that hurt. Sue adored her, and watching her with the others Sue longed to feel the warmth of Stephanie’s affection, too, share a knowing smile. Touch. Occasionally it happened, but not often enough to salve the sores of repeated rebuffs.
Being the baby of the original family was possibly the reason for Debbie’s softness and affectionate nature; she looked for Sue’s company . . . when she arrived home from school or from a game of tennis, or when she came downstairs from her room. If Sue was in the kitchen preparing a meal, Debbie was at her side stirring the contents of a saucepan, chopping onions or simply talking over the day’s events. Of course she was by far the most sensitive of the three, needing lots of encouragement and reassurance. She was easily hurt and became very despondent when she was off her game. Being the youngest she had scarcely any memories of her real father and allowed Stephen to fill the vacant role far more than Stephanie and Roddy had done. And what was more, she adored her little step-brother. She loved to take him to the beach, shrimping and swimming, or walking the dogs on the sand. And naturally she loved teaching him tennis, to which he was responding with remarkable success for his eight and a half years.
So, when Sue was feeling glum about her latest failure to communicate with Stephanie or Roddy, doubting her ability as a parent, it was invariably Debbie who lifted her spirits.
*
Actually, Stephanie loved everyone, including her mother, the day she received her A-level results in August, and the euphoria had carried her along on cloud nine right up till her departure to university in October. Art and design had always been her goal, and now she was away to the college of her choice, away from the strictures and suffocations of family life.
She was free as air.
*
It was one of those continuous parties which start at about eleven in the morning and drift on all day.
“Mummy, can I help, please?” Bobbie’s face was smeared with chocolate, his shirt was half out of his pants and he had discarded his shoes.
Sue stopped herself before saying, ‘may I, not can I’, remembering how it used to irritate her when her mother corrected her years ago. “That would be marvellous, dear. I need someone to pass round the crisps and nibbly bits . . . not eat any, of course,” she added. “Come here,” she grabbed the dish cloth, “Let’s get rid of some of this mess.”
“Pooh! No,” the boy spluttered, ducking away as the wet cloth wiped across his face. “You’ve been doing something with raw onions!”
“What time are people asked for, Mum?” Roddy asked.
“Eleven.”
“Are you sure you got the day right? It’s ten past and there’s no one here yet.”
“You only seem happy when you’ve found something to worry about,” Sue laughed. “I told them any time after eleven. Debbie, he’ll arrive whether or not you stand waiting at the back door,” referring to Justin. “Until he does, could you carry on scrubbing those jacket potatoes?”
“Do you think this will be enough punch?” Stephen was stirring the dark, pungent liquid in Sue’s jam-making bashin.
“You’ve plenty more wine to top it up, haven’t you? And there are more cloves and cinnamon sticks in the spice rack.” Sue finished arranging the Coronation Chicken on its serving dishes and placed it on a shelf in the pantry.
“Cooee! Anyone home?”
“Come in, Aunt Filly! Happy Christmas! You lot haven’t had your pressies, yet. Quick, before anyone else arrives.” Sue led them all into the sitting-room, which looked bare with the furniture either removed or pushed back to the walls.
Troilus and Cressida were very excited and insisted on helping to carry the Warwick’s parcels.
Christmas paper was still being torn when the Tetchworths arrived, en masse. Everyone was kissing, shaking hands and spilling punch on the carpet, but nobody cared.
Stephanie was the last to arrive, making her grand entrance down the stairs in long, flowered Indian ethnic garments, and various strings of beads, dangling earrings and bits of leather tied round her neck, wrists and ankles.
Roddy hissed his disapproval; Sue swallowed while Stephen slid his free arm round her in sympathy.
Caroline cheered. “Here she is!”
“Well, what have we here?” roared Johnny Tetchworth in his pseudo Oxford accent. “The harem comes to little Guernsey!”
The unfortunate Hilary Tetchworth was standing near her husband as, having glanced sadly at the ceiling, Stephanie walked towards her saying in a very loud stage whisper, “Dear Mrs Tetchworth, please accept my most sincere sympathy. He is so very gauche, isn’t he?”
The remark was tempered with such a wide smile that Hilary was unsure how to take it.
Vanessa, Karen and Caroline, who were standing nearby with a group of young men, were in no doubt and burst into gales of laughter.
Johnny flushed angrily, and so did Sue who headed for the kitchen for a tray of hot cocktail sausages; Steps had asked for it, dressing up in such weird gear, and Johnny had been out of line, but Steps had no right to speak to a senior guest like that. The moment passed and was forgotten by everyone except Debbie who was deeply hurt on Justin’s behalf.
The invitation had been very open and casual and Sue wondered how many people would leave before lunch, but nobody did, leaving her calculating wildly about slicing the remaining ham, and bringing out the leftover chippolatas from yesterday. Luckily, the canapés eventually took the edge off most appetites, and after the main course slabs of cheese, bowls of trifle and loads of fruit salad and cream filled any remaining voids.
Everyone seemed relaxed and happy, even Roddy. The mildly inebriated young took themselves off into the sitting – room to play soft, moody pop, leaving Richard’s little Derek asleep, Bobbie playing with his Christmas presents and the older generations chatting and dozing round the debris on the dining room table.
The sound of “Gentle on my Mind” drifted across the hallway through the open door.
“That has to be one of the better hits of the year,” Greg observed.
“Really, Dad! I didn’t know you were into pop!” Sue laughed.
“If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!” he grunted.
“Incredible to think of The Rolling Stones wowing them all in Madison Square Gardens.” Gordon helped himself to another glass of port.
“Haven’t we done well with our British films this year?” from Maureen. “Have you seen Richard Attenborough’s ‘Oh What a Lovely War!’?”
“Yes,” Anne said, “We both loved it but I must say I preferred ‘Women in Love’.”
“That was because she was knocked sideways by Oliver Reed wrestling in the nude,” her husband teased. “Which was your favorite, Sybil?”
“‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’,” was the prompt answer, “But I suppose the vote from the other room would be for ‘Easy Rider’.”
Sue stifled a yawn. She had been up since seven preparing food, added to which the wine was making it almost impossible to keep her eyes open. “I’m going to make a pot of tea. How many takers?”
Apart from Richard, Johnny and Gordon who were still circulating the port between them, everyone agreed.
“No!” Sue said sternly as willing hands began collecting up dishes. “If any of this stuff goes into the kitchen I won’t be able to move in there! Please leave it all and go and join the kids.”
No one argued.
*
Debbie had a job as sales assistant in a sports shop in Town – not what Sue and Stephen had had in mind for her, but the girl was so happy, so sweet and cheerful a member of the household, that her parents withheld their opinions.
However there were odd moments when she seemed strangely moody. “I can’t make her out,” Sue told Stephen one night early in the New Year. “She gives the impression she has the weight of the world on her mind, and I ask her if she has a problem.”
“And . . .”
“We-ell, judging by her immediate reaction, I’d say she wanted to unload a whole heap of problems, but she always shakes her head and says ‘no’.”
“You’re sure she’s not pregnant?”
“Stephen! Don’t even think about it!” Sue huddled under the bedclothes and into his arms, adding. “She and Justin don’t sleep together. And anyway, she doesn’t look pregnant.”
Three weeks later, when Sue was sitting alone by the fire knitting one evening and Stephen was in his study, Debbie joined her, and after a while the subject of love and marriage came up.
“When did you and Uncle Stephen fall in love, Mum?”
Sue had never told any of the children of the affair she had had with Stephen while their father, Jonathan, was still alive, thinking it would be better all round for them not to know. And better for her, too. On the other hand, she was more than ever convinced that Debbie was worried about something and surely, if she confided the truth to the girl and begged for her understanding, it would encourage Debbie to do the same. She launched gingerly into the tale, choosing her words very carefully.
Debbie listened intently to the details, the reasons and excuses, watching the guilt in her mother’s eyes. And when Sue finished she stretched out her hand to grasp her mother’s arm. “No need to worry, Mum. We all realised that Uncle Stephen was extra special to you. I don’t remember very much about Daddy, but Stephanie and Roddy say he was very cross and grumpy most of the time.”
Sue gulped. “He didn’t used to be, not when we fell in love and got married. Not until after his terrible accident.”
“You mean, not until he couldn’t have sex any more?”
The knitting needles stopped clicking and three stitches were dropped. “That was certainly part of the reason he was so . . . so angry with life. And with me.”
“Why with you? It wasn’t your fault!”
“No. But I think it helped him to have someone close at whom he could direct his anger.”
“Do you think all men get angry about things that seem unreasonable to us?”
Oh-oh! Was Debbie’s problem about to surface? “Men and women often seem to see things differently, in a lot of ways.”
“But Uncle Stephen doesn’t, does he?”
“Uncle Stephen is a most exceptionally gentle man. But then I suppose he needed to be to take on you lot!”
“How did you know when you were in love, Mum?”
Sue grinned. “Guess work!” she shook her head, “It’s so difficult to say. There are so many reasons for believing we are in love.”
“Like what?”
“Like reaching a stage when one feels the need of a mate. So you meet someone who seems passably suitable and fix your sights on him. That’s the way I was with my first boyfriend and I honestly and truly thought I was in love.”
“And weren’t you?”
“When I fell in love with your father I realised it couldn’t have been the real thing. I mean, you can’t be truly in love with more than one person, can you?”
“Oh no! Absolutely not!”
“Some people have a special friendship with a boy,” Sue went on, hoping this wasn’t going to sound too obvious, “and are so desperate to hang on to it they imagine they are in love. But,” she added quickly, not wanting to linger on that one, “I think the most difficult reason to sort out in one’s mind is lust.”
Debbie’s eyebrows shot up and her jaw dropped: this was not the terminology she expected from her mother. But she didn’t interrupt.
“When our sex glands are fully developed,” Sue continued, desperately hoping she was making sense, “and respond to the sexual attraction of one boy in particular for possibly no better reason than that he happens to be around at the right time, one is inclined to imagine that this is it . . . with a capital ‘I’.”
“What’s difficult about that?”
“The fact that he may be totally unsuitable. Wrong background. Not the sort of person you would easily make friends with, but for the lust. Wrong type of thinking to match your own.”
“But a few minutes ago you said that men think differently from women. How can they ever match?”
Sue wondered whether she wasn’t digging herself a very deep pit. “Well, there are many various areas of thinking. If it is only a matter of simple details like whether to spread one’s marmalade on the toast or put a little on for each bite, no problem. But when you have totally opposing attitudes on moral values, on what is right or wrong, then the relationship can run into trouble. You see, sexual attraction alone doesn’t last. Friendship and mutual respect do.”
Debbie stared at her, frowning. “Hmm. But you still haven’t told me how you know when you’re in love.”
Sue nibbled the end of her knitting needle, thinking hard. “When you know you’ve got all three at the same time for the same person.”
“Friendship, respect and sexual attraction?”
“Yes.”
Debbie sat for a long time fondling one of Cressida’s ears while staring into the fire, watching the wavering flames send thin spirals of smoke up the chimney. Eventually she looked up and gave her mother a relaxed, happy smile. “I’m so glad we’ve had this chat, it really has cleared my mind.” She sighed and gave herself a little hug. “Mummy, please may I go on the pill?”
Chapter Four – Storm Clouds
April showers had been delayed till May, bringing a miserable morass of mud mingling with the building materials.
Hunched in fisherman’s waterproofs, with rain trickling down his neck, Stephen trod carefully in his wellingtons to avoid slipping and falling full length in the mess. There was no sign of any workmen outside. Or inside. He walked through from room to room of the old part of the building, trying to avoid loose planks of wood, pipes and miscellaneous wiring, calling out “Anyone there?” but no one answered.
Back at the car Cyril Blaydon was fuming. “Didn’t I tell you? Your bloody island builders are too damn work-shy to turn up. What’s the matter with them?”
Stephen had given up counting to ten, months ago. “They know they can’t do blockwork in this weather; the mortar would wash away before it had time to set.”
“Then they should cover it up, dammit!”
“You decided against erecting tented scaffolding.”
“Total waste of money in this supposed climate. I was told we were coming to live in sunny Guernsey.”
Stephen laughed politely at the little joke.
“Well, there is plenty for them to do in the old part,” Cy grumbled. “What’s happening in there?”
“The painters and decorators can’t move in till the electricians and plumbers are finished,” Stephen explained yet again. He had been saying the same thing over and over for the past three months.
“Why aren’t they finished in that part? Off on some other job, kidding some other poor sucker along.” Cy was in a filthy mood, not least because the hotel manager had told him that morning that other guests were complaining about the volume of Amanda’s music. When he told her off she wailed to her mother, and Carol had flown into a paddy which could have been heard down at the harbour. The sooner they were in their own place the better, but the date of moving in was receding by the hour.
“They can’t complete the ducting till the extensions are complete or the ducts won’t marry.” Stephen didn’t add that no matter where taps and radiators and electric sockets were sited, Carol would undoubtedly decide to have them moved, adding to the chaos and delay. “You know, one really doesn’t want to finalise details till one has the overall picture,” he said diplomatically.
“Hrmph!” Cy growled. “Take me to a pub, I need a drink!”
It was still quite early and the bar at the Rockmount hadn’t filled up yet. The two men sat at a table with their pints, Cy glaring out of the window at the driving rain.
“Are you beginning to regret coming to live in Guernsey?” Stephen said with a grin, trying to lighten his client’s mood.
“I may well if this doesn’t let up, soon. I imagine the view out there must be pretty good on a decent day.”
“Yes. Cobo is spectacularly beautiful. A very popular beach and fishing harborage. Holidaymakers love it.”
The Guernsey Saga Box Set Page 58
