Camellia (3 page)

Perhaps later tonight she'd discover if all the stories about Bonny Norton were true. Surely no woman of thirty-six could've done quite as much as she was credited with – turned down a Hollywood contract to marry John Norton, widowed six years later, then squandered half a million. Seduced half the male population, drank the pubs dry and finally ended it all by slinging herself in the river! Why stay in a sleepy little backwater like Rye if she was all she was cracked up to be?

As they arrived at Rowlands Bakery, Bert felt his stomach tighten. He could see Camellia behind the counter, chatting as she served a customer with cakes. Somehow the contrast between this plain, fat girl and her beautiful, slender blonde mother seemed even more poignant now Bonny was lying in the mortuary.

Camellia was tall, perhaps five foot seven, and at least twelve stone. A pale moon face, with dark almond eyes almost concealed by greasy flesh. Her lank dark brown hair was pinned back unflatteringly with a hair slide, advertising a big forehead. Her pink-and-white checked overall did her no favours either. It was too tight and there were bulges of flesh wherever it clung.

Camellia's face broke into a wide, warm smile as he came in the door. She was always pleased to see Bert. She'd continued to see him as a special friend throughout her childhood, but today her welcome cut him to the quick.

'Hullo, Mr Simmonds. What's it to be today? We've got some lovely chicken pies, just out of the oven.'

It was fair play to the girl that she tried to rise above her mother's reputation. She worked hard, she was always cheerful and according to Mrs Rowlands she was very honest too. That seemed to surprise the baker's wife more than anything.

'Nothing thanks.' Bert blushed. Until this moment he hadn't considered how he would get her away in private. 'Is Mrs Rowlands about?'

As he spoke, Enid Rowlands came through from the bakery wiping floury hands on her white apron. She fitted her job perfectly, as fat and round as one of her own doughnuts, a permanently flushed face surrounded by grey curly hair.

'Hullo, Bert,' she said, bright shoe-button eyes lighting up at the prospect of a gossip. 'What's been going on down at the river this morning? I've been hearing all kinds of rumours.'

Enid thrived on gossip. Nothing happened in Rye without her knowing the intimate details. Bert couldn't help suspecting she'd only taken Camellia on for the summer holidays in the hopes she might get some inside information about Bonny.

'Actually I want a word with Camellia,' he said, lowering his voice and praying that she would catch on it was something delicate. 'Could I take her out the back. WPC Carter will explain.'

Enid's eyes were instantly suspicious. She glanced across at her employee filling a box of cakes for a customer, then looked back at Bert. 'What's she done?' she mouthed.

Bert put his finger up to his lips, his eyes entreating Mrs Rowlands to use some tact.

Enid looked puzzled, but she stepped over towards the girl and took the cake box from her hands. 'I'll finish that off. Mr Simmonds wants a word with you, take your break now and go out in the yard.'

Camellia clearly didn't suspect anything, smiling at Bert for rescuing her from the stifling shop. She led the way, up a couple of steps, through the big, hot kitchen, and out through a side door into the yard.

'It's
so
good to get out of there,' she gasped, flopping down onto a small wooden bench in the shade and fanned herself with her hand. 'Do you know it's eighty-five already and I've been working since seven this morning.'

Looking at her now with a heart full of sympathy, Bert could see beyond the overweight body. She had a certain poise which even the humiliation her mother had dumped on her hadn't weakened. If someone could just get hold of her, make her lose that puppy fat, buy her some decent clothes she could do all right. She was bright, with a lovely smile, and she even spoke well. All she needed was taking in hand.

'No wonder Mrs Rowlands couldn't find anyone else to work in her shop this summer,' she laughed, showing small very white teeth. 'I was so pleased to get a job I never considered why no one else wanted it.'

Bert was used to people looking nervous when he wanted to speak to them. At any other time he would've found her open manner heartening. 'You're good in the shop,' he said, to reassure her she was there on merit alone. 'I'm sure Mrs Rowlands picked you because she knew you'd work hard.'

There was a moment's pause. Camellia continued to fan herself. Bert stared at a piled-up heap of bread trays and wished Carter would join him and help.

'What did you want me for, Mr Simmonds?' she asked suddenly.

Bert took a deep breath. All his experience of breaking news of death was to older people. He didn't know what to say. 'It's about your mum.'

Her face clouded over. Her expression was that of a mother with a troublesome child, expecting the worst as soon as its name was mentioned. 'What's she done now?'

Bert felt like screaming for Carter to come and help him out. She should be right here at his side to give the sort of comfort only a woman could give. But he knew she was staying in the shop purposely, believing him capable of breaking it more gently than they could together.

Bert got up from the bench, then crouched down on his haunches in front of her and took Camellia's hands in his.

'I'm sorry, Melly,' he said. 'There isn't an easy way to tell you, so I'll just have to come right out with it.' He paused, his mouth was dry, his stomach churning. 'Your Mum's dead, sweetheart. I'm so sorry.'

There was no reaction at first. Her fat pale face was entirely expressionless, as bland as one of the iced buns in the shop window.

'She can't be. She's in London.' She put her head on one side, looking right into his eyes, then dropped them to look at his hands holding hers.

'She died here, in Rye,' Bert said, wanting to blurt out everything in one big breath. 'She drowned here in the river, early this morning.'

To Bert's astonishment she laughed, her double chin quivering. 'Don't be silly, Mr Simmonds,' she said, showing all her teeth. 'You've got the wrong person. She wouldn't go near any river. She's in London.'

Bert had heard of people going into denial when faced with something they didn't want to hear, but he hadn't expected it from Camellia. 'Melly, it was me who pulled her out. Don't you believe I know her well enough to identify her?'

Silence. Not a word or even a flicker of movement from her. Her eyes were focused on something above his head, blank and unblinking. He hoped she was remembering their close friendship when she was just a little girl, the cricket matches when she and Bonny came to watch, clapping him and John equally. But it was more likely she was remembering the times she saw her mother flirting drunkenly with him, or the times he called in an official capacity to get her to turn her music down. He wished she would say something, anything. He didn't know if it had sunk in.

Slowly her face began to crumple. Her wide mouth drooped first, her eyes closed, then tears crept out from under her lashes. As Bert watched, they formed into tiny diamond-bright droplets on her oily cheeks, rolling down one at a time.

'Who did it?' she croaked. 'Who did this to her?'

All Bert could do was take her in his arms, hold her against his chest and hope he could find the right words. "We don't think anyone was involved/ he whispered into her hair. 'We believe she jumped in, sweetheart, because she was unhappy. No one had hurt her, she wasn't forced in there.'

'You're wrong.' She shook her head violently, pushing back against his chest. 'Mummy was happy when she went to London and she was afraid of water. She wouldn't jump in a river, not for any reason.'

Bonny had been very fond of speaking about the time she nearly drowned as a child. Bert had heard the story from her himself. He could visualise the wide, icy, swollen river in Sussex and the heroic rescue by her childhood sweetheart. Bert had put her fear of water to the police doctor as a reason why she wouldn't end her life that way. The doctor had disagreed, saying it was a further pointer to her depressed state of mind.

'People sometimes snap suddenly.' Bert tried to explain what the doctor had told him. He was aware that Carter had come out through the kitchen door, but he didn't turn to look at her. 'Sometimes lots of little worries build up together and make one huge problem that they can't solve.'

Camellia leaned against him sobbing into the front of his shirt and he just held her, signalling for Carter to tell her all those other details he couldn't manage.

Bert winced as Carter gently spelled out all they knew. The time of Bonny's death had been set at around two in the morning, at high tide. Her suitcase and shoes had been found under a bush. Camellia didn't react to hearing she would have to go to the mortuary to formally identify her mother, but when Carter mentioned a post mortem, she reared up, eyes wide with shock.

'You mean they cut her open? They can't do that!'

'There isn't any other way.' Carter came closer, putting one hand on the girl's shoulder soothingly. 'You see, they have to look for drugs, for drink, anything to build up a picture of what happened.'

As Bert held Camellia in his arms in that quiet little backyard, he shared her grief. Bonny to him was as much part of life in Rye as the old-world tearooms, the Napoleonic prison, and the quayside. Tomorrow he might feel anger that she didn't consider what her death might do to her child, but today he would just mourn an old, troubled friend.

Carter brought them tea a little later. Mrs Rowlands peered anxiously round the door, wanting to come out and offer some words of consolation, but like Bert she couldn't find the right words.

'Have you got a friend you'd like to have with you?' Carter asked. She looked very hot, sweat stains on her white shirt and her short fair hair sticking damply to her head. 'I' could call them for you.'

Camellia drew herself up, wiped her damp eyes with the back of her hand and looked right into the well-intentioned policewoman's eyes. 'I don't have any friends,' she said, a new hard look in her dark eyes. 'Didn't you know? I'm like a leper. Mum saw to that.'

All Bert's good memories of Bonny faded at that moment.

I'd like to be on my own for a few minutes, if you wouldn't mind,' Camellia said a little later. 'I mean before I have to identify Mum.'

Bert nodded. He had intended to say that tomorrow morning was soon enough for that, but he had a feeling Camellia would rather take all the shocks in one day. 'I'll come back for you in half an hour,' he said as he stood up. Then turning on his heels he ushered Carter away with him.

Once she was entirely alone, Camellia leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes, remembering the day she was told her father was dead. It was 14 March 1956. She was just six then and it was also the day her snug, predictable world started to fall apart.

Aside from it being a particularly cold, windy morning, it started just like any other school day. She had porridge and a boiled egg for breakfast in the kitchen, and, while she ate, her mother plaited her hair and tied a neat ribbon bow on each end.

She had been so proud of her mother then. Many people likened Bonny to Marilyn Monroe because of her identical blonde wavy hair, and her glamorous pencil skirts and tight sweaters. Camellia thought she was even prettier. Even now, at eight in the morning, she was dressed in a pink wool two-piece and high heels, her hair just perfect.

'I hope this wind drops by tomorrow,' Bonny said as she adjusted the second ribbon. 'Daddy isn't a very good sailor.'

John Norton was in Brussels attending a meeting about the unrest in Egypt which it seemed could close the Suez Canal and prevent oil tankers getting through. He had taken the car ferry from Dover on Monday morning and was due back on Friday.

'I wish Daddy didn't have to go away all the time,' Camellia said wistfully. 'It would be nice if he came home every night.'

Bonny smiled and ran one hand over her daughter's hair affectionately. She was sure that this trouble in the Middle East was just a storm in a teacup. But John was afraid it might end in a war and he'd been very tense and preoccupied for some weeks. Bonny thought her daughter had picked up on his anxiety and this was what had prompted her remark.

'He'll be back for the weekend. If the weather's better, I expect he'll take you out on the marsh to see if there are any new-born lambs yet. I know Daddy would much rather be home with us too every night, but this is the way he earns his money, darling. He's a very important man.'

When Camillia reached the top of Mermaid Street she turned. Bonny was still in the doorway, ready to wave one last time. Camellia waved and plodded on. The shops were just beginning to open, Mr Bankworth in the greengrocers waved and shouted for her to hold her hat on, and Mr Simmonds her special policeman friend rode past on his bicycle and tinkled his bell at her.

All day the wind grew even stronger and it rattled the classroom windows. They learned the eight-times table and had a spelling test. Miss Grady gave them another ten words to learn by tomorrow morning, and said 'Woe betide anyone who couldn't spell them'.

It was something of a surprise for Camellia to find mother wasn't waiting for her at the gates at half past three. She met her most days, and sometimes they went down to Norah's tearooms by the Landgate for crumpets and tea. But Camellia didn't mind, it gave her a chance to look in Woolworths. Bonny didn't like Woolworths much, she said the wooden floor made it smell funny, but Camellia overlooked that as she loved to look at all the sweets and lemonade powder in their glass compartments and watch the assistants weighing them up in cellophane bags. It was her ambition to work there when she was grown up, though Daddy always laughed when she said that and said he thought she could aim a little higher.

As she walked down Mermaid Street, sometime after four, she sang Alma Cogan's 'Never do a Tango with an Eskimo'. It had been playing in Woolworths and she was determined to learn all the words so she could sing it to Daddy when he came home from Belgium.