Campari for Breakfast (32 page)

But I’m actually very grateful that they protected me from the stigma of illegitimacy. They were still my parents because they behaved as such, so in that sense it wasn’t a lie.

But I wish I had known my Father. And my poor Mother. I know so little about her. It is as I say, a gap.

Dearest Coral, I do see that you were an unwilling witness to this, but I wish that there had been truth between us. Love and lies; fascinating misfits, like the terribly uncoordinated little girl next door who is so in love with dancing. As I was once.

I wish things had been quite different. But I don’t blame you at all.

With my love to you always,

Your sister, your niece,

Buddleia

Aunt C did not speak for a while, but just shook her head.

‘It’s too late now,’ she said, ‘to say I didn’t know,
I didn’t know
.’

Her sobs won their bid to be free, and I held her together for some moments.

Then we continued on through the remnants, sewn all over the floor. There was a bill from the film ‘Now, Voyager’. The man on the bill was lighting two cigarettes and giving one to Bette Davis. It was in black and white and lay next to a bundle of letters which were written on intelligent-looking paper and did not have any stamps.

On the back of one of the older envelopes was the first verse of a poem by W. B. Yeats that began, ‘Had I the heaven’s embroidered cloths,’ and ended, ‘Tread carefully for you tread on my dreams.’ At the bottom, in the hand of the letter writer, there was a tender line which read:

‘I would give you all Heaven.’

I recognised the handwriting but could not place it at first. The letters dated back years, and were marked ‘private’ in Biro, which is a red rag to a bull, certainly at times like those.

Aunt Coral was looking at something else at that moment, and so quietly and with some strange guidance from my sixth sense I read the last letter first.

Darling

This is the last I can send you. We must cease all contact.

I shall always be grateful to you for the happiness you have brought me at a time in my life when there were shadows. I do love you, you know I do, but J would not be able to cope.

I’m only sorry it’s taken me so long to be certain I can’t go ahead.

Please understand me. I can’t get rid of my conscience, and I will never be free till I do.

I wish you everything good.

Mick X

The letter was dated September 17, 1986. A week later she was gone.

‘Aunt Coral,’ I said, handing her the letter, ‘I think this is what we’ve been looking for.’

She read it slowly, her hand trembling.

‘Who is Mick?’ she asked, her tone was very cautious.

‘It’s Mr Edgeley . . . It can’t have been for a
man
, it can’t have been,’ I said.

My shocked tears were not of sorrow but plummeting tears of rage. ‘I HATE HER. How could she do this to me?’

‘But this man was just the tip of it.
She didn’t know who she was
,’ said Aunt C.

‘I should have been able to stop her. I should have known,’ I said.

‘There’s nothing you could have done, she must have been too unhappy.’

‘But other people get divorced and lose loved ones and they don’t
kill themselves.
’

‘But she wasn’t other people; so much is a question of character. Just think of all the poets who cannot bear to be alive. Or imagine a spider whose vision extends into the ultraviolet range, they are bound to feel things more keenly, so keenly it hurts so much you will do anything to stop it. You know she was—’

‘Born serious. I know.’

She was trying so hard to make sense of it for me in her own way. She now held me up by my shoulders, for I had become a limp rag, and she looked into my face directly with the kindness of all her days.

‘You made her happy Sue. She said as much in her note. YOU MADE HER FEEL HAPPY. You hold on to that.’

‘I don’t hate her, please don’t think that I do,’ I said, giving all that I had inside me to the expression of undying love.

‘Of course you don’t,’ she said, shivering in her silly little blouse and cardigan.

I laid my head on her shoulder for a long time in the silence, and we sat still amongst the scraps and remembered her. The clock on the mantelpiece, oblivious, carried on with its Westminster chimes.

24 December (Christmas Eve)

This morning there was a letter in the post from life:

Dear Miss Bowl

Please accept my apologies for the delay in replying to you; I have been overwhelmed by letters.

In answer to your question about whether it is better to write from experience or from the imagination, I would say that in the majority of cases, it is better to write from the imagination, most particularly in affairs of the heart.

Although we may not actually know a love in real life, I think it is true to say that the heart knows, and this is because of its close bond with the imagination. The imagination is the best friend of the lover, whether in real or in imagined courtships. You can be your own author in imagination, whereas in real life others have a say.

I’m sorry to hear you’ve known heartbreak, but even a bad experience is copy.

May I take this opportunity to thank you very much for your letter and to wish you every success.

Yours truly

Benjamin O’Carroll

MBA Hons.

They are back! And Green Place is once again buzzing. Admiral Gordon returned from a trip into town this morning saying that a consignment of rabbits is heading for Egham. And he’s ordered one for Delia, to help her to come to terms with the loss of Bertie, who was never successfully identified.

Admiral Ted spent his first few hours home chiselling the front door free from ice, and then sanding it down where it had warped with the rain so it was possible to get in and out normally.

It is just like they have never been away, although I must say, the house looks very different. Gone are the acres of wallpaper, and instead pink plaster glistens, giving off an odour of ointment like Green Place has been sent to the clinic.

I overheard Aunt Coral and Glenn Miller discussing his invoice for works when he popped in today. He was agreeing to wait until she gives him the green flag to present it, which she says will be in the New Year. She told me she has come to the conclusion that it is time to sell off her shares, and what good is rainy day money, if you don’t use it on rainy days?

So without further ado, so she doesn’t have to do that, I have hatched my own plan with Glenn, and I’m going to transfer my ten thousand straight to him after Christmas, so that Aunt Coral won’t have to worry. It is the least I can do for her, and I’m certain Mum would have approved. What a surprise it will be for Aunt C to find she’s in credit for once! I’m not going to tell her until after the transfer’s gone through, and I’ve asked Glenn to keep it under his hat for now too.

Every time I think of my father it is accompanied by a strong feeling of guilt. Aunt Coral keeps on saying I shouldn’t blame myself for not knowing there was a whole other story. The revelation of Mum’s secret relationship has changed everything. I do wish it was all for a more stomachable reason. She has fallen off the pedestal that death had put her on. She is human again, and herself, not the saint I mourned. As soon as they get back from their trip I will arrange to see Dad.

Aunt C hasn’t had time as she normally would to prepare anything much for Christmas, because of the building work. And now that the greater anxiety had been addressed, she has become consumed with making sure we are on time for the Gala. We had a special Christmas Group after lunch, where our stories were handed in. The judges now have one week to read and make their choice.

I worked right up until the final minute, but it was difficult to concentrate on ‘Brackencliffe’. The house was busy, and I felt raw inside. How could Mum’s revenge on Mr Edgeley not feel like revenge on me? As a mother, she had always tried to protect me from fire, drowning, cruelty or fear. So it’s ironic that the one thing she couldn’t save me from was the force of her own despair.

But as there was no more time left for reflection, I had to find an end to my story. I worked in the attic until the deadline, interrupted only by Delia wondering where to teach her Italian to Admiral G. She had changed into a skirt for the benefit of the lesson.

Loudolle got back about twelve, just in time to hand hers in. I heard her taxi pull up through my skylight, but I had nothing to do with anyone until we assembled for Group after lunch.

Egham Hirsute Group

Pre Gala Christmas Special

‘Some days it seems to me,’ said Aunt Coral, ‘that everything sounds like a book title. I was saying to Pat earlier, “I am too short for this chair,” and realised that it sounded like a title. She replied, “It’s not like you to sit down in the afternoons,” and I thought that sounded like a title too, but I think it’s just that I am so excited that we have finally come to this hour. I wish you all the best of luck. Now, why don’t we share a little flavour from our entries?’

We all put our hands up.

‘Sue,’ said Aunt Coral, with a tear in her eye.

Brackencliffe

Yet Pretafer Gibbon was not satisfied, and stole unto the Pasture of Sage and Parsley. Here she placed a knife at the tender throat of Cara, knowing that Keeper was gone for a gamble, and Fiona was in haste to the market. How beautiful she looked in the icy dawn, with her blooms about to burst out.

Pretafer toyed at Cara’s milky throat with a ravaged and shaking hand, when suddenly her death wish was halted by the footsteps of a stranger.

‘Happiness is like a distant cousin I hardly ever see,’ cried Pretafer Gibbon, thwarted.

‘Then you must make happiness your bed socks,’ said Nurse Chopin, who was in full conspiracy with the evil. And they scurried away.

But happiness attends on the good, and in all those in its bosom.

Keeper came home safe, and Fiona, with a basket, and then suddenly, clear from the woodsmoke, the maker of footsteps was made plain. And if Cara had ne’r gone to Brackencliffe, she would n’er have known his dear step.

’Twas Philip, and he held out his man arms and betook a diamond from out of his horsecoat.

‘Marry me, Cara,’ he said.

‘Keeper, my Knight is come home.’

The End

The Group members gave me a small round of applause. Joe and Aunt Coral were beaming like they were my parents.

‘And Loudolle?’ said Aunt Coral.

The Polo Player

By Loudolle Shoot

Argentinean Allain D’Angelo had won more matches than Kitty had even bet on, but he thought she was hot enough for an invite to a private pool party for two.

‘You give the love, I give the booze,’ he growled, knowing the effect this would have on Kitty.

‘Oh Allain D’Angelo!’ said Kitty, ‘I . . . Yes! Yes! Ye—’

‘Why don’t you come over here and let me show you how to play polo?’ he said, pulling her on to a sun bed.

‘What? Here?’ she said.

‘Yes here, you hussy, I want to show you my rod.’

‘Thank you, Loudolle,’ said Aunt Coral, cutting her off to save the Admiral having to excuse himself. There was again polite applause, though her clip was absolutely awful.

‘And Avery?’

Controversially, the Admiral
still
hadn’t quite finished writing, but paused to read some out.

‘We are all trains arriving at the station, and some arrive sooner than others,’ said Aunt Coral in his defence.

The Socialites

By Ad miral Avery John Little

There was a vast array of dresses, so many pretty things. In the fast-moving world of fashion, they had to keep up with the looks.

Debs was late to the catwalk because she had got into a dispute; she was going to take it up with the council very first thing the next day. Apparently, her car had been contravening a white line, and she’d had a heated exchange with a warden, before being issued with a paper ticket which he said she would have twenty-eight days to appeal.

‘Writing about our favourite things. Well tried Avery!’ said Aunt Coral on full beam. After his applause died down she resumed. ‘And Joe?’

Roger Mead

By Josef Fry

Roger Mead may have had the wool over Vienna’s eyes, but he never had it over Hawley’s. Had Hawley the money or a plane, he would have taken Vienna far away. Instead he returned to the office, where she was photocopying the letter.

‘I still don’t believe you. You’ve made it all up, where’s Roger?’ said Vienna.

‘Does it matter?’ said Hawley.