Campari for Breakfast (19 page)

I passed him his helmet and put the visor down for him, which he seemed to enjoy very much. As I said goodbye I had a curious feeling, a strange sort of longing for him to ask me out again, which of course he didn’t. But I felt something a kin to disappointment after he had left. It had been nice, flattering, I suppose, when he had wanted to spend all his time with me, I have missed it. That is to say, I have missed that he made me feel a bit special. But I am still angry with him for making Icarus ask me out and sending me on a wild goose chase with my feelings. And I am guessing that he is still angry about that unwanted attempt of a kiss.

But as usual after one of Aunt Coral’s groups, I was inspired and raced back upstairs to Brackencliffe, where I fell asleep over my notebook.

Tuesday 25 August

At 3am, I woke once again to the ‘Fuck, squeak, thud,’ and a few seconds later there was a step on the gravel, and then another, so I froze. I’m not sure how long I sat there, possibly four, maybe five minutes, but eventually I plucked up the courage to go on to the balcony and look outside. All the night was quiet, lit by a purple moon. There was nothing there, no badger, no ghoul. I reassured myself that old houses make noises and young animals scurry and I went back to sleep singing from the logical explanation school of thought.

I have noticed that sometimes life can throw you a pleasant event to balance a scary one, and later on this morning Delia found a tortoise that was staying in an East Wing bathroom! She has christened it Bertie, though she is not sure if it might be a Betty. It is amazing to see how something so small can be the cause of so much delight to someone. Life never ceases to amaze me in that respect; there really is a lot of pleasure to be got out of small things, and no one better than an old girl to make you see it.

Anyway, after going to the bathroom to have a look at Bertie, I got back to my room and found Loudolle there. It was quite a shock. She was standing by my bed in her airline pyjamas with a nasty look on her face, the sort of look that will eventually swallow up her beauty and leave its print instead. So I hope.

‘What are you doing in here?’ I asked her.

‘Just looking for something,’ she said.

‘What? What can you possibly be looking for in my room?’ I said, itching to give her a bitch slap.

‘Oh, nothing,’ said Loudolle, ‘… or
this
,’ she said. She was holding Icarus’s eye. The world seemed to float for a moment as I thought of all the things she could do with it. She could show it to Icarus. She could tell Mrs Fry about it. She could steal it.

‘How much would you give me to keep this a secret?’

‘Five pounds,’ I said. ‘It’s all I’ve got.’

‘That’ll do,’ she said, ‘for now . . . I’ll hang on to this for you, shall I? We wouldn’t want anyone to find it.’ Then she left my room, taking the eye with her, and I was left alone, like a small sheep on a hill who has been separated from its mother.

Why, why did I play into her hands? What does it matter if she tells Icarus I kept a piece of his eye? (Apart from the obvious humiliation and embarrassment, which might indeed cause my disintegration.) There should be no shame in having liked someone enough to have kept their eye under my pillow; the classics are full of such passion. But if I’m honest I think the reason is that exposure of the eye would be certain to make me look an idiot. And part of me still wants Icarus to love me, as hard as I am trying to forget him.

But these emotional things take t
ime
, and I calm myself with the notion. After all, the Cistern Chapel wasn’t painted in a week.

Brackencliffe

Pretafer was recovering under the Spinster Nurse Chopin.

‘Get off me, woman!’ cried she. ‘I want to make mischief with the maidens. Lah hah! Hah, hah, hah, hah hah, hah.’

‘Missie, come back, you’re not well,’ cried the spinster, preparing her syringe.

‘Funny smell,’ said a footman, as Pretafer passed him by, for she had soiled herself in all her excitement, cruelty and cunning.

Coral’s Commonplace: Volume 3

Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, July 3 1940
(Aged 18 but pass for 21)

The whole of the south coast has been evacuated and occupied by our troops. There’s barbed wire on the beaches and oil in the sea, and they are going to set the sea on fire if anyone tries to come.

Green Place has been requisitioned, so Mother, Father and Cameo had to leave. They have gone to stay with Aunt Fern in Somerset, and I will have to stay here and go and join them in the holidays. Giving up one’s home bears with it a strange feeling of detachment. The day-to-day inconvenience is accompanied by a deep knowledge that to do right we must. I miss silly things, such as the tin cupboard. I asked Cameo to pack my pyjama case, but she couldn’t find it in all the hurry. If I were to go into my bedroom now I would find twenty soldiers billeted.

We had a long phone call during which Cameo told me that they’ve had to shoot Alto, her adopted horse. He had sweet itch, which was getting harder and harder to treat. They can go on and on with sweet itch, so it was a terrible decision. Cameo had been bathing his blisters with geranium oil which she crushed herself. And only a couple of weeks ago she had asked Sayler to drain the pond, so the midges that lived there would head off and leave Alto alone. The vet told her an injection would be too slow on a horse of his size, and that he wouldn’t know a thing of the bullet. I’ll miss the thud of his hooves in the morning when he suddenly decided to canter, and the way he took sugar from our hands and then flashed his teeth in something between a smile and a bite.

They wouldn’t have killed him yet if the soldiers hadn’t come according to Cameo. They are coming to Green Place for the greater good but, oh God, what of the smaller?

I also heard that Daniel-the-Useless applied for a job with the railways in order to escape being called up, but he was turned down, so now he’s got to go. I don’t think it makes him any less brave because he shows he’s afraid. He’s one of those transparent people who can’t hide his emotions.

They reckon on the requisitioning of our house and land for a term of up to twelve months, initially, for the purpose of billeting fresh forces and for food production, as we expect three million Americans to feed on our shores. They are also recruiting for some ‘classified training’ which Father says means that they get candidates drunk and practise interrogating them to see if they give over secrets. He says that most of them succumb to the loosening effects of alcohol, but the ones that don’t become the crème de la crème of special operations.

Cameo wrote from Somerset and told me that our young nephew Oliver is a hero because he discovered not one but three Germans in the trees near their village, who, in spite of their injuries, found the strength to surround him.

‘Which one of you three’s the strongest?’ Oliver asked.

‘
Er ist
(He is)’ they replied, pointing to the big one.

‘OK,’ said Oliver to the tough guy. ‘You and me against them two.’

At least that’s what Oliver says!

It’s so frustrating for me, being away from all the action. My contribution to the war effort is tiny; only some light volunteering at present, digging veggies at Brownscombe Farm. I have hours to spend in pursuit of my studies, but I wish I was doing something more helpful. Maybe I could specialise in military entomology? Eradicate the threat from insects of the trenches? Develop a vaccine to combat lice or stop the spread of typhus?

Study news

Contrary to popular belief, the Daddy long legs is not a spider but a fly. Interesting. But what I want to know, is why are so many spiders called widows? Professor Podger of Evolutionary Biology says we will go into the matter very fully. He has set us a short essay on the subject of ‘highly organised bacteria’ (bacteria with specs, briefcase, and a pie on the go in the fridge?). He states that these organised bacteria are more successful than others that are lazier in multiplication, and claims to be a fan of
lactobacillus
and
streptococci
.

Going to Dicken John’s study for cocoa tonight. I know he has eyes for Consuella, but . . . ‘Don’t let one cloud obliterate the whole sky’ (Anaïs Nin).

Sue

Friday August 28

F
INALLY
,
ON
W
EDNESDAY
, my chance came. A letter arrived from Dad telling me that he and the Dane were in Venice on a mini break, therefore I knew the coast would be clear and I’d be able to search the house in peace. I was very hopeful of finding a note from mum.

I rang in sick, saying that I had a terribly infectious skin complaint, because I knew that would worry Loudolle. Mrs Fry would have to find another dogsbody.

Titford is a relatively dull place, jazzed up by groups and societies: the walking group, the ladies pottery set, the gentlemen’s club for crown bowels. The history group preserve the bones of the town and offer up information about the blue plaque, and maintain for the streets their oldey back drop, by fighting a valiant fight to keep the bus stops thatched. Mum never liked those Titford types much, she thought they were small-minded and pokey hole, but she did have one or two friends dotted about to keep loneliness in check.

The High Street is cut into segments by four sets of traffic lights, with the library right at the bottom. It’s a high street like many other, the only difference being that in Titford they love to demonstrate about things. It’s because the town is so boring that they need to liven it up. I passed the car shoe shop on the left, and by car shoes I mean the sort of backless loafers that mothers keep in the car to ferry children. Ivana had several pairs, though not the reason to wear them.

Nothing had really changed. There was nothing extraordinary, no notes on the ground behind lampposts, no banners saying ‘welcome back Sue’. I passed the bookshop, where Aileen had a Saturday job and the brick used to be tied outside, and Flowers ’n’ Cards and the Titford Gallery and Je T’aime boutique and, finally, the library. I tried to ignore it just then, and turned off the main road and into Addison Drive, where I looked down towards my old house. It was like looking back in time, like I could just walk up to the door and my Mum would be there to meet me. I must have walked down that road a thousand times, maybe even a million. It was such a familiar stranger, or maybe I was the stranger, reborn in the eight short months since I’d left.

I went in and stood in the hall. Standing at the bottom of the stairs, I realised that actually I’d remembered wrongly, I
did
get scared in Titford. Mum made the mistake of telling me that I mustn’t be afraid because the fear attracts things to you, and that made me even more afraid, so I often used to debunk into her bed and Dad would be pushed out and go and sleep in my room and we’d all wake up in different beds in the morning. It was quite chaotic.

Such memories were accompanied by the smell of rain on a Titford morning and of burnt toast coming from the kitchen, and the sound of mum scraping the char off the toast before calling me to get a move on: ‘Quick Sue!’

Her voice filled the quiet of the hall until I tripped on some car shoes and the past was broken away. I picked them up and noticed that they were tied together with a cobblers label which said: ‘This pair should not be together because they are a mismatch. One is a 40 and one is a 42.’

It was clear as day: a message from the other world. I took the label as evidence and put it in my pocket. I knew they shouldn’t be together. Dad was forty and Ivana was forty-two.

Somewhere in the kitchen lurked a cheese that was jumping. I buried it in the garden, so they would not have to return to smells. Further along the counter there was a card on the kitchen pin board, which had two names in gold leaf: Nicholas James and Ivana
Beverley
. I’d forgotten her Nana was English.

I trawlered through some correspondence, and beneath a stack of letters I found a birthday card to Mr Edgeley from my mother. How odd that Mr and Mrs Edgeley had given it back to my Father, but perhaps they thought it was the correct thing to do for posterity. And on closer inspection of the post mark on the envelope, it appeared it was posted
the day she died
. It read:

Dear Mick
,

Happy Birthday. Hope you have a lovely day. I’ll be thinking of you and wishing you well.

Much love
,

Blue xxxx

PS don’t forget the embroidered cloths.

It was galling to know that her state of mind had been good enough to remember a birthday, and only added weight to my theory that she had meant to be revived. I don’t understand why my Dad hasn’t told me about it, how he could
think
that it wasn’t important.

The sight of Ivana’s things round me made me sick; it looked like we had a squatter. I went up to the bedroom, to check it hadn’t all been a mistake, to check I wouldn’t find Mum sitting in bed and so surprised to see me. But of course she wasn’t there, and there was no trace of her on the surface, only Ivana’s face creams and collection of small furry animals gathering dust. Although behind the scenes there were still tracks to suggest mum’s existence; the circle where she put her tea mug and the worn patch on the rug where she stood at her basin that retained the shape of her feet. So many traces of her, beneath that squatter’s top note.