But she didn’t feel young. She was nearly twenty-three, ancient. Fun was something she didn’t do; drink and smoke, yes; the odd joint, yes; but fun … what was that? Someone like her didn’t deserve fun.
OK, tonight she would get out the mini-dress in green and turquoise swirls, put on those kooky sandals, even though it was freezing, and do a Twiggy on them. Thank God for coloured tights and long scarves. She’d not let the side down.
By the time she got her Mini parked up, she could hear the sitar music blaring out and the lights of The Silk Route blazing a welcome to a crush of young professionals, old school friends and family. Everyone was shuffling around examining stock while Auntie Su, in her traditional national dress, was keeping an eye they didn’t spill their wine on the fabrics. She was bemused by the whole craze, whispering in Connie’s ear, ‘Who wants pictures of elephants on their curtains? All these clashing colours. It makes my head spin.’
‘Take no notice of our chintzy lady,’ laughed Jacob.
Rosa’s sister, Serafina, was serving drinks on a tray, looking grown up, and Rosa was enthroned in her wheelchair, surrounded by a coterie of old school friends and cousins. There were some old school faces Connie recognised but she was in no hurry to join them.
Joy had such flare for colour and style. The shop would be a great success with the young couples wanting to set up home cheaply.
‘Nigel helped her with the layout and décor,’ Neville whispered proudly. ‘It’s very now, isn’t it, all this junk … very Biba.’
Would Joy’s store be as famous as the celebrated shop in London?
‘So you dragged yourself away from the television then?’ Neville teased.
‘I’m not that bad. I have reports I should be doing.’
‘Pull the other one. I bet you’re doing your scrapbooks. You’ll be playing solo patience next.’ He was not going to let her lack of social life drop.
‘How did you guess?’
‘Why do you bother? They’re not exactly historical records, are they?’
‘I’m recording our family life … a snapshot of our times,’ she said.
‘Because?’ he continued.
‘One day we can look back and laugh, see ourselves and remember how it was.’ That was the only explanation she was going to give anyone about her compulsion. They were there as a record so her children might look and learn … if she ever had any.
‘Hello, stranger. Long time, no see,’ a voice whispered and she turned to find Paul Jerviss at her side. ‘Where have you been hiding?’
‘Have you an hour or two to spare and I’ll tell you?’ she laughed.
‘Saw you got a degree in sociology. Well done.’
‘Better late than never.’ She gripped her glass, blushing. ‘I’m doing my CSWQ. Would you believe me, a social worker?’
‘You’ll be excellent. So what do you think of the latest Winstanley enterprise?’ he smiled, in no hurry to pass on into the mêlée.
‘You have to hand it to my sister, she’s ahead of the times. I hope Grimbleton is ready for innovation and all things ethnic.’
They laughed, picking up two more glasses as they wafted past them. ‘Isn’t Rosa doing well?’ Paul nodded in her direction. ‘After all she’s been through, what a star. You know she’s trying to get back into dance teaching? There’s a lift in the building, so it’s possible … She’s amazing. In fact, I think you’re all amazing!’
‘Do you?’ Connie felt hot at this compliment. Her tongue stuck to her teeth for a second. ‘Do you work around here?’
‘In general practice, buying into Doc Unsworth’s practice. I’m a trainee.’
‘In Green Lane?’ Connie said, thinking about the big farmhouse where Diana’s father had a surgery.
‘No, they’re building a new surgery and health centre on the allotment field.’
‘Not on my mama’s plot? She’ll turn in her grave. We grew courgettes and garlic, green peppers when I was little. I still have an urge to get our plot back but if it’s going to be dug over …’
‘No, on the wasteland. The bit they used in the war but don’t need now. It’s been derelict for years.’
‘I’m very pleased to hear it.’ They laughed again and Connie felt strangely squiffy after two glasses of plonk. He was just being polite and friendly, and yet in no hurry to leave her side.
‘I was hoping you’d be here. Joy said she’d invited you. I’ve been wanting to catch up with you for ages but I know you’re very busy.’
So that was Joy’s little game, setting them up together. If only she knew how impossible that was.
‘Fancy a drink when this show’s over? I’d like to know how things are going.’ He paused and gave her the right-on full-impact Jerviss stare.
Why not? Her heart leaped at this unexpected invitation. Thank God she’d made a decent effort for once. Why not? She wasn’t his patient or a victim any more. They were equals, and hadn’t she promised herself all those years ago that when the right time came she’d let him into her life a little.
‘Thanks, I’d like that,’ she smiled. ‘Better circulate first, though. I must see Rosa and the others. See you later then?’ she said, wobbling her way into the crowd. Why were her feet six inches off the ground?
Neville and Rosa winked across the room as Connie and Paul sidled out of the door together. Thumbs up to Joy, thought Neville. The doctor had fancied the pants off his cousin for years. God knows why, but he knew the score. Connie had told him Paul was there at the baby’s birth. Connie had been living like a nun for years. She deserved a break.
Marty and Rosa lived for each other and Joy was too busy making money to have time for romance, while he, Neville, still couldn’t believe his good luck in finding Nigel. There was no end to his creative talents: dressing windows, floral displays, cooking, homemaking. They fought like cats over details, each being as fussy over décor as the other, but Nigel fitted into his life and business and he felt content for the first time in his life.
It still wasn’t easy being pointed out as the odd couple. There’d been the odd brick thrown through their window and they were easy targets to be picked on until Nigel suggested they go to the judo club and train up to defend themselves. Now they were competing against each other for who would be first to a black belt. Not all queer couples looked like wilting pansies, and once word got round, no one bothered them.
Sometimes when they were sitting on the sofa with the lights low and the wine chilling, the smell of a perfect supper in the oven, Neville felt as if life couldn’t get any better and wondered what he’d done to deserve such a gift.
Rosa waited for Marty’s trunk call. She hated it when they were apart, but each separation made her more determined to manage as much as she could on her own. One of the blessings of a large family was the extra hands for pram walking when she was tired, picking up Amber when her back gave out on her and the pain made her wince. However bad she felt, one look at her beautiful daughter and she was filled with hope and energy. How could she have produced such a miracle?
The Gormans had adapted one of their show house chalet bungalows to take her wheelchair. There were rails to negotiate corners, a picture window straight out onto a patio with the best of views onto the hills.
Sometimes she wept at how cruel fate had been, but then she wept for all the blessings of family and friends and how she was back in the studio training up hopefuls as best she could. On good days she could stand and demonstrate some port de bras and attitudes, some days nothing moved freely. This was the nature of the injury but the more she tried to keep active, the stronger those weak muscles might become.
Rest also helped, but how could you relax when Christmas was just round the corner and there were so many preparations to make? She was no invalid, and chewed off the ear of anyone who tried to help without her consent.
She smiled, thinking how Paul and Connie had slinked off on their first date and sensed it wouldn’t be their last. How Rosa had chased hi
m all those years ago as Connie had chased Marty and lived with him in a van!
It was about time Connie let her hair down. She lived life like a clenched fist, so tense, so serious, as if she carried the worries of the world on her shoulders. Something had happened while Rosa was cruising the high seas, no one knew what it was, but it had soured Connie’s life. Now she prayed her friend might trust herself with Paul. He was the best catch going in Grimbleton, hers for the asking and always had been, no matter how many hearts he’d broken on the way.
She picked up her rosary to say a special prayer for her friend that whatever hurt she’d suffered in the past might be healed.
Esme watched Connie putting the final touches to her toilette. This was more like the old Connie. There was life in her face again. She was going to a New Year’s Eve dinner dance at the Country Club with Paul Jerviss and his friends. It was a black tie affair and Connie had treated herself to a long lavender evening dress that Esme surveyed with surprise and approval. Time to dress it up a bit.
Her legs were tired and stiff as she made for her bedroom, but she brought out an old box containing a string of beautiful pearls to finish off the neckline. They belonged to her mother, worn on her own wedding day. ‘That’s better. Now you look a proper Winstanley at last!’
Connie smiled. ‘Thanks.’
‘Don’t thank me. They’re yours to wear on your wedding day.’
‘Gran! I’m only going out to a dance.’
‘I know, but you have to start somewhere, love, and he seems a nice young man. No one refuses a doctor in the family.’
‘Gran! Don’t embarrass me.’ Then the doorbell rang and Connie brought her beau in for inspection.
Esme eyed him up with interest. ‘You take care of this lass, young man or you’ll have me to answer to,’ she teased Paul, who had brought a corsage of orchids for Connie’s dress.
‘I’m glad to see young men haven’t forgotten how to treat a lady,’ she smiled, nodding at his tall presence. ‘You know you remind me of someone … Now off you go and shake a leg for me.’
‘I’ll call you at midnight and we’ll come first footing, so leave the door unlocked,’ Connie ordered.
‘I’ll see how I feel. I do like to watch Andy Stewart do his stuff on Hogmanay. Edna might call in with a dram and shortbread. Her hubby was in the Black Watch. We’ll be fine. You go off and enjoy yourselves.’
She stoked up the fire and put the glasses on the table with some of her mince pies. It had been such a busy Christmas, comings and goings, family teas and chapel services, and now she was bone tired.
Seeing Connie looking flushed and excited lifted her spirit, but underneath was always the guilt of what had happened between them. It was never spoken about but there was an undercurrent of guilt on her own part and reticence on Connie’s to stir up the past.
She’d tried to make it up to her as best she could. She’d given her a home and made good provision for her grandchildren when the time came. You can’t turn the clock back and put things right, she sighed, but seeing Connie tonight had lifted a burden from her. That young man would be good for her. He had kind eyes and a flirtatious spark, just like Redvers all those years ago when he had come a-courting.
Esme watched the flames flickering in the fire and looked at the clock. A great wave of tiredness washed over her, seeping into her aching limbs. Time for forty winks before the Big Ben chimed in 1969.
It had been a magical night, dancing and singing, ‘Auld Lang Syne’. The more Connie saw of Paul, the more she was beginning to relax in his company, but when they phoned Gran to wish her Happy New Year from the hotel there was no reply and Connie had that strange feeling, the one that came and went over the years. ‘I have to go home,’ she said, and Paul drove her back without a murmur.
The door was unlocked and Connie leaped into the sitting room. The fire had gone out, the glasses untouched. The television was blaring out. Edna hadn’t been. Esme had simply sat down and fallen asleep. There would be no waking her now.
‘Oh, Granny!’ Connie cried, looking down at the grey face.
Paul checked her pulse and shook his head. Connie stood in shock.
‘What a way to go, at peace with the world,’ Paul whispered, wrapping the tartan blanket over the body. ‘Come on, Con, let’s go … There’s nothing to be done at this hour. This is no place to spend the first day of year.’
‘I can’t just leave her like that. I’ve seen too many old people. Let’s do it properly, put her on the bed. I wish I knew how to lay someone out.’
‘I do,’ Paul smiled. ‘You’re right. We’ll put her into bed and leave her there till the morning. You’re coming home with me.’
Connie had no energy to protest.
27
By the Wine-Dark Sea, July 1969
Connie hung over the rails of the ferry boat watching the harbour lights at Piraeus drifting far into the darkness. She couldn’t believe they’d made it so far, hitchhiking through Europe; through France, Italy, taking the train to Brindisi across to Patras, camping under the stars by the Olympic grove and now, after many detours around Athens, they were on their way to Crete.
Paul had wanted to do the straight route by plane but this was their honeymoon and she wanted it to be an adventure. They would never get a month off again, she was sure, and the unexpected legacy from Gran, combined with some royalties, meant they could go where they pleased and then fly home.
Who would have thought ‘War Baby Blues’ would turn up a minor hit in the States as a Vietnam protest song? Who would have thought six months after meeting Paul at Joy’s launch they would be married? She’d moved into Paul’s flat the night Gran died and never left. No one batted an eyelid but Paul’s new partners suggested that perhaps a local doctor living over the brush with his girlfriend was not exactly appropriate. They took the hint and booked themselves into the registry office with just Rosa, Neville and Joy as witnesses.
Their families were horrified but neither of them wanted any fuss. Connie wore a striped mini-dress and a huge floppy hat. Paul wore a South Sea Island shirt and flannels. Connie had seen enough formal weddings to want to break the mould.
Neville and Nigel put on a lavish surprise wedding breakfast in their new apartment and they were showered with gifts, no matter how they protested. For the first time in years Connie felt happy and content. She felt safe with Paul. They had no secrets from each other. He knew about Marty, and Lorne, who had been killed in the terrible air crash at Perpignan in 1967. Paul had explained the science of reproduction to her and, much to her relief, assured her that the chances of Anna being Marty’s baby now looked slim.
‘You have to put it all behind you now, Con,’ he ordered. ‘Don’t hanker after what’s not going to happen. We’ll have lots of children. Wherever she is, she’ll be happy in the only life she’s ever known. It doesn’t do to brood.’
He was right but she resented him saying it out loud as if she was his patient. No point arguing that as long as she lived she’d never forget her lost child. None of that mattered now as she stood under the stars watching the mainland disappear. She was coming home. If only Mama were by her side, and yet in a funny way she felt her presence. Her excitement was growing and she didn’t want to miss a second of the journey.
Getting into the country was not so easy now the new regime was in power, but her command of basic Greek, her old papers and her British passport did the trick.
‘I am taking my mother’s bones back to her island,’ she lied, pointing to her bag. The immigration officer shrugged, thinking them just another decadent hippy couple, but waved them through. Now on the night ferry to Chania, they’d kip on the floor in sleeping bags, lulled by the chug of the engines.
They woke to the ink-blue sky and shimmering heat, watching the ship dock in the harbour of Suda Bay, still shelled and cratered from the war.
I’ve come home, Connie thought, hanging over the side to drink in the grey hills, the burned ochre ve
rges, the squat cube houses, nut-brown men on the harbour pulling the ropes. This was foreign soil. There had been unrest and civil war, and a military regime ruled with an iron fist. Strangers were considered suspicious but no one was going to stop Connie finding the village where Mama was born.
Grimbleton, with its cold, damp, smutty red brick seemed a million miles away from the brightness of this landscape.
They trundled down with their rucksacks. Paul’s hair was bleached almost white already, and she wore a headscarf gathering up her hair from her neck, just like Mama used to do, swapping her shorts for a long skirt just in case she caused offence.
By now they knew the score: find transport into the main town but sit respectfully, man with man and girl with female if the bus was crowded, rent a room, take their bearings, buy basics for breakfast – bread, cheese, fruit and water – and then go exploring. They piled into a rickety bus, the object of much staring and comment with their brightly coloured clothes, driving through sandy avenues of eucalyptus trees, past elegant grey houses with balconies and bomb sites towards the town. Soon they reached the capital city of Chania and made for the sea. They found a room overlooking the Venetian harbour, just a bedroom with crisp clean sheets, a wooden bed, and jug and basin for washing. They fled from the heat into the backstreets where a taverna gave them fried octopus and a bowl of mountain green salads and lashings of rough Cretan wine that tasted of liquorice. Drunk with heat, wine and tiredness, they staggered back to their room for a siesta. There were not many foreign tourists and they were the object of much open hostility at first. Some of the children looked poor and unkempt. They crowded round, watching them eat their fruit with soulful eyes. Paul was careful always to drop a few coins as they left, watching the kids scrabble and fight to pick them up.
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