Campari for Breakfast (37 page)

Mon Jan 11, 3 days to go

I
WENT TO
Titford today to make amends. The town was basking in a morning of unseasonal sunshine which would no doubt be the subject of many a resident’s diary. Dad said he thought it was because Ivana had brought it out; I had to hold myself back. I felt sad for them after the grandiosity of Green Place, with their little dishes and papery doors.

I didn’t tell them anything about what I found in the locker – I expect they just thought I’d come round – but Dad was relieved and delighted we were speaking again, that was for certain. He kept on and on embracing me, as if I were a long-lost collie who’d been found at a neighbouring farm. He even seemed interested in my scholarship, and asked if I would read them my story.

Remembering Ivana’s comments on my previous efforts I prefaced it: ‘Please don’t interrupt.’

‘I will not,’ Ivana said. ‘I will listen and then I will say something.’

I read them ‘Brackencliffe’, from start to finish, glad that I’d decided to take it – I nearly didn’t, because I didn’t want to be disappointed if Dad hadn’t wanted to know.

‘The End,’ I said as I reached it, and in unison they both decided to clap.

‘That’s wonderful darling!’ said Dad. ‘Why don’t you ring up the bookshop?’

‘What for?’

‘To ask if they want to sell it.’

Sometimes I think that he has
no
idea how the world works.

‘And I have cousin in Denmark,’ said Ivana, ‘who has poem in print in a book.’

I do believe they were trying, but somehow they always manage to put out my fire.

After an eternity Ivana left Dad and me alone and we did some hard talking and fast, assuming she would not be away very long. I said I was sorry for missing the wedding and for rifling through his correspondence. Then he revealed something that completely blew all of my preconceptions out of the water: he had known about Mr Edgeley – but Mum hadn’t
known
that he knew.

How can husbands and wives not know such glaring enormous things about each other? Yet they share the same bed, the same fridge, the same table. Aunt Coral is right that you never really know a person.

‘Does Aileen know?’ I said, jumping ahead into the ripples in the pond.

‘I don’t—’

He mimed zipping up his mouth as Ivana returned with some snacks. It was something Danish on specialist un-bread which Dad found dangerously nice.

We resumed our conversation again later, when Ivana had taken the plates to the kitchen.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I asked.

‘I wanted to, but you wouldn’t talk to me. I did try.’

‘Why did Mrs Edgeley give you that birthday card?’

‘I think perhaps she found out and thought she should let me know. And Sue, there’s something else. Ivana’s having a baby.’

Ivana’s having a baby. It was like being concussed by four little words.

‘She’s having a baby? Are you sure it’s yours?’

‘Of course it’s mine! Come on darling, you’re going to have a sibling!’

‘Congratulations!’ I said, but I didn’t feel like celebrating.

One is expected in such instances to take these things in one’s stride, behave in a grown-up way, at the same time as your whole world turns upside down and you have to re-identify yourself.

‘Congratulations,’ I said when Ivana came back. ‘Dad’s just told me your news.’

‘Thank you. I was worried, you know, because in the last chance salon you must act.’

Their news made me think. It is odd the way that families develop traditions such as age gaps. I’d always wanted a sibling, but of course, one that was born of my Mum.

Aileen rang, very late after I got back to Green Place, and we talked about her father and my mother. Of course Aileen had guessed.

‘Your Mum did that over my Dad. I’m so sorry,’ she said.

‘No, it was a build-up, there were many reasons,’ I said. ‘I’ve accepted as much. And with all the limitations of her seriousness, I know that she did her best.’

‘Yes, of course she did,’ she said, like she was talking about someone who’d just popped out to pick up the milk. I’m almost certain she hadn’t understood what I meant.

Then I told her about Johnny Look-at-the-Moon, and she couldn’t believe it! I have to agree that it’s not often you find your vagabond Grandpa hiding in your dead Nana’s room.

Aileen had her own revelations to tell me about in her love life. She has found a new love, who is, of all things, a bricklayer. (It must have brought back memories.)

I still don’t know why out of all the people on earth Mum would have chosen Mr Edgeley. But Aunt Coral says that one can never really know the secret place that is a relationship.

Everything is new, everything old has gone. Different mother, new sibling, new Grandpa – I feel as though I am walking backwards with my socks on back to front.

Tues 12 Jan 1988, 2 days to go

Aunt C and I had a tussle about mum’s money. She wasn’t very comfortable that I had paid Glenn, and straight after the gala night she apologised to him and asked him to put it all back in my bank account. She insisted she couldn’t keep it. I insisted she must. So, we have now come to an agreement that it is a
loan
, and I am keeping just one kay up front so that I can go on the course. The rest of the money has now been transferred full circle back to Glenn for the works. He is a little confused and bamboozled, and only had two words to say, which were: ‘Blimey!’ and ‘Women!’

Aunt C has since been a whirlwind, planning the reappointments to five of six target bedrooms. If Green Place is going to support itself she will need to use the good suites, and with the nine kay left from mum, which is now officially a loan, she should be able to do it – if she doesn’t paint the walls in gold leaf.

She has yet to do up Cameo’s room, but the door was officially opened as of New Year’s Day. When I went in I realised that there was nothing so mournful behind that door, beyond the usual spots of grumbling plaster and a tan patch of damp here and there. It just looks dingy and tired and smells of sad old dust. A two-seater bench with soft cushions stands empty in the window. It has a bird’s eye view of the buddleia.

My eye rolled round the room, like a camera over the past. The bedcover was bleached thin from the sun, and the coal smudge was as clear as day, which, if you think of it soulfully, heralds the beginning of my creation. Cameo’s dollies were still on the bed and I swear that one of them was looking at me, afraid I might take it to the garden and bury it.

‘You can only shut the door for so long,’ I said.

‘There’s a lot of truth in that,’ said Aunt Coral.

But I think she was actually meaning that while there was a lot of truth in it, there was also a bit of a lie – it could have easily stayed shut for ever, because forgetfulness can be blissful.

‘You’re never going to become one of those ladies who resents sharing her home with strangers are you?’ I asked her.

‘Not even with visitors I didn’t know were here!’ she said.

‘I wonder if Johnny has ever realised what your letter truly says?’

‘He might do some day,’ she said, merrily.

‘I admire your joy de vivre, I don’t think I’d ever be as carefree about Icarus finding out I had a thing with his eye,’ I said.

‘Or Joe,’ she said, flashing me a cheeky wink. ‘Anyway,’ she continued, reversing back to the earlier subject, ‘I like having people around the place, it’s a big empty house without them. We have a Mr Hart from Texas arriving today, a colleague of Mr Tsunawa, and a Hugh from Chertsey has telephoned to say he has recently been divorced.’

‘They all seem to be men,’ I said.

‘Do they?’ said Aunt Coral.

Weds 13 Jan 1988, My Last Day

I woke up this morning with a speck of carrier bag on my face, though how it got there is yet another question.

For leaving presents I bought Aunt C an unnecessary handbag, pink leather with charms. I nearly didn’t give it to her; it would have looked so good on my course, but she loves it because it has multiple pockets to fissel in.

The EHG had a whip-round so that I have some money for unnecessaries.

‘You must do it for Group!’ they said in their card.

Aunt C laid out some things on my bed to pack: lotions, bikini, sarong and some exercises she had designed especially for the Greek climate and written down for me.

There were also some openers for me to finish which I am already eager to start:

She unpacked put on a clean white shirt and fresh lipstick …

‘I always buy my wedding dresses here,’ said Margo Chinnery….

Joe arrived a few hours ago carrying Mrs Fry’s sponge bag with his toothbrush and overnight things, looking for all the world like Atlas, who carried the earth on his shoulders. He is going to take me to the airport early tomorrow morning.

‘Three months is no time,’ he said. ‘It’ll be gone in the twinkling of an eye.’

It was a brotherly thing to say but he is much, much more than a brother.

‘Thank you Joe, go lightly,’ I said. I don’t really know what I meant, but I think I was trying to stop myself spilling the beans on my heart.

Thurs 14 Jan 1988, First day in Greece

Joe put a note in my pyjamas, which I found when I got here. It was written on the unused side of an already written card:

Glad you liked these Sue, it was my pleasure. Joe X

And on the used side it said:

Dear Visitor
,

Thank you very much for the flowers. I hope you have everything that you need.

With all best wishes,

Sue

They were from Joe all along! Ho! I’m so gullible. I am struck by the unknown effect a person can have on someone’s life, maybe I have effected Joe.

It’s easy to see Aunt Coral’s effect on mine; who knows what would have happened without her. One thing leads to another and the consequences are endless. We can be gods to each other and not know it, though I hope that she might guess.

It’s turning-in time now at Taverna O’Carroll, on the beach at Shabany Bay. The upstairs windows of my dormitory are dittled and dottled with the droppings of Grecian seagulls. Creamy stars pop outside in a twilight of pacific blue. ‘Pacific’ is one of my best-loved words, not only because of the colour but because of what it means – a lustrous ocean packed with mermaids, like silk flowing out to paradise, and those words flow out to other words – to briny, white horses and seashore, words you might not be experiencing at the time and so carry a tinge of longing. ‘Joe’ flows out to dinner, candlelight, man and boy . . . ‘Aunt Coral’ flows out to home, to cave, shelter, slippers and nightie …

But how strange, I thought I just saw mum walking on the sea in the sweep of a ship’s searchlight. She was wearing a kaftan made of rainbows and she was giant, like a legend. The sea air plays tricks, I think.

Coral’s Commonplace: Volume 4

Green Place, 15 Jan 1970

Received a telegram from Buddleia and Nick!

Acknowledgements

Warmest thanks to my literary agent extraordinaire, Charlotte Robertson. And also to my editor Katy Loftus and to Linda Evans and the team at Transworld publishers, for all their wonderful advice and encouragement and for everything that has gone into bringing this book to life.

To my husband, Sean Carson, for the great gift of all his encouragement and inspiration, thank you. To my Dad, Allen Crowe, and to Roddy Maude-Roxby, for sharing stories and memories of World War Two. To Lizzie Knight, for reading so many drafts and for unceasing hospitality, inspiration, and roast potatoes. Also to Janet Crowe, Siobhan McCallum and Sue Holderness, for their patience and generosity in reading early drafts. To Robin, Siobhan, Mia and Guy McCallum, for all their inspiration and, not least, for allowing me to include some of their best and most wonderful coinages. To Mark Gatiss and Ian Hallard for all their encouragement and support. To Tamsin and Rick Leaf and to Nat, Jacob and Roxie Leaf for all the funny things that they say.