Who Was Angela Zendalic (17 page)

‘Alright, then,' she said shyly. ‘That would be fine.' Alright, then? More than alright, and she could hardly stop herself from leaping up and punching the air.

‘Terrific,' he replied. ‘I'll be arranging it for oboe and cello accompaniment, but you can practice with me on keys.'

Angela's heart danced. He loves me. He really, really, loves me. Lunch together, and a whole afternoon of just him and me. No bonkers wife. No snotty child. Just his heavenly undivided attention.

But any thoughts of bliss were suddenly dashed when a breathless lodge porter rushed into the chapel. ‘Dr Penney, sir. Your mother-in-law's on the phone in the lodge. Your wife's – you know – started a bit early. They've called an ambulance.' Piers ran off without saying goodbye.

May 1968
Milham Ford School, Oxford

A
black
gown flapped like a bat's wings as Miss Gray the headmistress, swept into the room. Silver–haired, and with a lined, baggy face, she made no eye contact as she placed herself behind a large oak desk. No words of welcome or re-assurance followed, and Stan and Edie, unsure why they'd been summoned, sat awkwardly. She started with no preamble, mumbling as if she had a fused jaw.

‘Angela's fourteen now, and there are some issues I need to discuss concerning her future.'

Edie sighed audibly. ‘It's not her ...you know ...trouble with her being ...? We do worry a bit, sometimes.'

‘If you mean because of her ethnic origins, of course not. There's certainly no ignorance like that here. She's a very popular girl and in all the top sets. On those strengths she was selected to take Latin.' She looked up and peered myopically. ‘That means I would expect her to enter the sixth form in the fullness of time, and would currently tip her for a place at a top University.'

Stan and Edie turned to gape at each other. ‘Blimey,' said Edie. ‘We knew she was bright, but we never thought University was on the cards.'

‘Then what's the problem,' asked Stan.

The headmistress, it seemed, was concerned with her extracurricular activities. It was commendable she'd passed Grade 4 piano and violin, was a member of the Tavistock College Choir, and about to play Lydia Languish in the Oxford Youth Theatre's production of
The Rivals
. However, she was highly displeased, nay furious, to learn she'd taken several days off this term to take part in a television advertisement for frozen fish fingers, and would be doing the same next week to model for a clothing catalogue.

Stan and Edie exchanged glances. ‘Are we in bother?' said Stan. ‘It's just that these people came to the St. Paul's School looking for child actors and they picked her up straight away. The modelling offer came afterwards – we didn't put her up for it.'

‘Mr and Mrs Zendalic. Can I make myself quite clear? Places at this school are competitive and hard won, and it's my duty to ensure that my pupils take the privilege seriously. In September she'll go into the Lower Fifth and will be expected to concentrate on preparation for her ‘O' levels. Thus, it's your duty to guide her to a solid academic future and curtail some of her activities, especially these blatant commercial ventures. Attendance is compulsory by law, apart from illness of course, so any more missed days and she'll be asked to leave. I'll be writing you an official letter, of course. Oh, and one more thing. Her hairstyle. It might suit the needs of trashy fashion but it's what I would describe as rather common. Do get her to tone it down, please.'

The couple, both now nearing sixty, and irredeemably overweight, lumbered wearily back down the long school drive, unable to articulate the issues set before them. ‘We'll have to talk it over with Peg and Ted,' they said.

With the poise and look of an adult, Angela was now a good few inches taller than both her mothers, and was growing more striking every day. Willowy and graceful, beautifully spoken with impeccable manners, and an air of confidence well beyond her years; such a joy, they all said, from the stereotype moody teenager. But, as Miss Gray had also commented, her current hairstyle was actually detested by her parents as well. The headstrong teenager had declared that she wanted to be part of ‘the scene', and although some black women in the media (they insisted now that they were called black) were learning how to straighten their hair, the pop music world was dominated by The Jackson Five, who all wore an overlarge fuzzy dome called ‘The Afro'. Thus, her lustrous silky ringlets had been cut, furiously back-combed and teased out with a lethal looking spiked comb.

The letter that arrived from the esteemed headmistress (minus the comment about her hairstyle) was duly shown to Angela who received it with a rare display of fury. ‘I work really hard,' she shouted. ‘I do everything right. I do my homework and I get good marks. I know for a fact I'm in the top three in my class, and they end up being this mean. Well, I won't be forced to give up a thing so they can go to blazes. OK. I'll leave rotten Milham and go back to Barnie. I don't want to go to University anyway. I want to go on the stage.'

But the following day, whilst she was at the, Critchlows the issue was solved by Peggy, with no reference to Ted and his wisdom. ‘Why can't we send her to Bevington House on the Banbury Road? Being private it's bound to treat her talents as part of her education, and look more kindly on any time taken out.'

Edie and Stan both tutted loudly. ‘Don't be daft. Where are we going to find the money?'

‘I'll pay,' said Peggy, smiling with a surge of joyous altruism. ‘I can well afford it, and it'll give me more pleasure than you realise.'

After protesting heavily that they couldn't possibly accept, they capitulated. ‘Oh, Peg,' said Edie. It's so generous of you. What a lucky little girl she is. Mind you, she's a right madam these days, and if she plays up we might be back to square one. If she does go private, though, she can stump up any earnings she makes to go towards the fees.' Peggy had a better idea. Her future earnings could be put in a high interest Building Society account, and given to her when she became of age.

Angela re-acted by dancing round the room, and giving her darling Auntie a surfeit of hugs and kisses. Yes, please. She'd be more than happy to attend Bevington House. Diana Cumberledge, her best friend from choir, was a pupil there, and it sounded alot more fun than Milham Ford. But her terms also included that ‘in view of the fact that I'll be able to accept more ‘gigs' I'll need three pounds a week from my earnings as expenses'. The trade off, firmly stated by Peggy, was that she kept up her Latin classes in case she decided she would go to University after all. ‘No problem,' she said. ‘I knew more Latin than anyone in my class before I started it. Dr Penney always talks us through the translations, so we know the meaning of what we're singing about.'

But in the quiet of her own time Edie began to worry that this Bevington House place would be full of snooty debutantes, and her lovely, trusting brown girl, from old down-at-heel Jericho, would end up being a fish out of water.

July 1968
Ripley Court School, Surrey

G
arvie
Warlock, with cast-down eyes, and a wry smile of amusement, trailed three steps behind his mother as she viewed his prizewinning ‘O' level art exhibition. He was waiting for an explosion to come, and although silence reigned, he knew it wouldn't be long.

A huge-breasted woman was lain on her back, giving birth to a skyscraper, giants with bare-skull faces stalked through poppy fields, the prime minister hung crucified onto Big Ben, while the cabinet, depicted as goblins, swung on his legs. A pair of chimpanzees, with giant erect penises, examined the genitalia of a naked, black girl, who was vomiting bank notes. Having frequently stopped to turn and gasp open-mouthed at Garvie, her reaction was narrow-eyed and loud. ‘It's absolutely disgusting!'

His art master, who was also following cautiously, swallowed. ‘Lady Warlock. Garvie is supremely talented in the school of the
avant-garde,
and we're sure he has a brilliant future. He's captured the anarchic undercurrent of post-war Britain with brilliant technical ability. The post-modernist movement is ...'

Dulcie Warlock held up her hand, addressing the art master as if he had no knowledge of the art world, or qualification of any kind. ‘This isn't art, Mr Harrison. I pay the extortionate fees here to have my son educated. To be guided into remedial work that will counteract his deficiencies. Not to spend his time daubing pornography. I'm a volunteer guide at The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and if you want to see true art then I invite you to accompany me ...'

‘Lady Warlock, let me explain. Postmodernism in contemporary culture is characterised by objective truths and suspicions. It emphasises the relations and motivations of global culture, and the post war backlash of society, such as good against evil and colonial domination. It influences not only art but literary criticism, sociology, architecture and music ...'

‘It's utter filth! His father was a world famous research scientist, and he would be deeply ashamed to see this hideous display of decadence. How dare you allow him to waste his time on this tripe.'

‘Oh, please, Lady Warlock. Open your mind to Garvie's talent.'

‘Be quiet! My mind's made up. I'm withdrawing Garvie from Ripley Court.' An hour later mother and son drove out of the school gates with the Morris Minor Traveller laden to the gunwales.

Despite the fact that she was still muttering with fury, something very useful had come out of this exercise for Dulcie. Her husband's death had been a huge financial shock, and it was going to be a serious struggle to find the fees for another two years, anyway. In her own terms she was teetering on the brink of the workhouse, and lately she'd had the awful thought that she might be forced to earn her own living, or throw herself on the state for a handout.

Garvie, sitting scowling beside her, was more than thrilled he'd been yanked out. Apart from his art work everything else on the curriculum (despite his so-called intense therapies) showcased him as an absolute dummy. Hooray to the end of all that. His mother would never grasp that his problems were permanent, and his artistic talents were a great deal more than sticking huge dicks on apes. Freedom from Ripley Court was brilliant, but what other humiliations would the fucking cow make him suffer now?

‘I've never been so embarrassed in my life,' Dulcie puffed out, weaving her way through heavy traffic, and crunching the gears. ‘Lord knows what I'm going to do with you.'

‘I want to study art,' he said. ‘There's nothing else I want to do or be any good at.'

‘Well, I haven't got the funds to indulge you,' she snapped.

Suddenly, to the sound of loud horns, she yanked the car over to the kerb and turned off the engine. ‘Look, Garvie. I've tried to keep the facts from you, but you've got to know. Our financial situation is absolutely dire. Your father was earning a very large salary, and once he died it ceased, of course. I got a modest lump sum from a life insurance policy, and the University will pay me a small stipend for life, but I've got three years to wait before I get a state pension, and even that will be miniscule. The worse news is that the small print of his private pension stated I had to be over sixty when he died to scoop up anything as his widow, even though he'd paid in a small fortune.' She sighed deeply and paused for breath. ‘And that's not all. Tavistock wrote to me a few months ago to say the original lease was nearly up on St. Veep's, and they offered me the freehold for a bargain price. I mean a real bargain – a quarter of its market value – so I've been forced to spend every penny of capital I had on it. It was either that or move out and end up somewhere grim, like Jericho.'

‘Then why can't I go to the Oxford Art School on the Cowley Road,' he snapped. ‘It's free.'

‘Don't be ridiculous. Nothing's free.'

‘The council run it. Of course it's free.'

‘The council! Well it can't be very ...you know ...'

‘'You know, what?'

She waved her hand in the air. ‘Well ...up to much.' She sighed again and made a resigned wrinkled face. ‘I suppose we can look into it.' But despite a ‘hmmph' of disdain, and a face of distaste, she was more than keen to investigate.

April 2014
Monks Bottom

W
ith
the boys exhausted from Tai Kwon Do, the bedtime pantomime was easier than usual, so after sleepy goodnight kisses I sat down to pour a welcome glass. But my body still fizzed with the Howie scene, and my mind was far too busy to relax. I'd loved every second of it, but I had to make myself promise that, ‘it would never –
must
never – happen again'. I swigged deeply, and tried to clear my mind (surely something of an oxymoron).

I'd been staring into space for ages, asking myself copious questions about the Angela mystery, when there was a light tap on the doorknocker. A smiling Carrie stood on the doorstep. ‘I had to drop Gerry off at High Wycombe station,' she said ‘He's off to a boys jamboree in the West End. Thought I'd swing by and surprise you.'

Her presence only caused me to wobble on the verge of tears again, but she poured herself a drink, and sat down beside me. ‘I've actually come to tell you the good news. Well, bad news, really. Gerry's agreed an asking price of £4.5 million on The Hall with Hyatt Varley, but they said it's suddenly a seller's market and we can expect the asking price, or more.'