‘But she says she has medical proof,’ said Aunt C. ‘It appears that one mystery leads straight to another.’
Before we could talk any more, the doorbell went and there were lots of visitors in want of a host.
‘We’ll have to talk more in the morning,’ said Aunt C. ‘It is all somewhat bewildering.’
But it was the cusp of 1987, and a New Year was heading our way. The candles were flickering, the glasses shone, and Mrs Bunion was back in the kitchen.
‘You know my Group,’ said Aunt C, showing off Mr O’Carroll, who she’d successfully convinced to come along.
‘And this is George Buchanan, Meriel Stock Ferrell, Daphne Podger, Mr and Mrs Rodriguez …’
‘How do you do,’ said Mr O’Carroll, taking the best chair, which had been left out specially for him.
Outside, though it was dark, Delia had lit one of her bonfires. She’d been up in her room writing letters to herself while Admiral Gordon tried to persuade her down. It seems to be the way she manages when she is stressed these days.
She took me aside in the kitchen earlier in a profusion of apologies.
‘I am so sorry Sue. Loudolle’s very sorry about the Gala and fully intends to apologise to you. I don’t know what got into her. But in the meantime, I just wanted to say I’m so sorry – and well done.’
Aunt C took the seat next to Mr O’Carroll, to settle him in. He is a reserved man for someone so successful; he is serious and has a depth.
‘Mr O’Carroll would like to speak to you,’ she said, when I came over with the voller vongs. ‘Let me take those.’ Then she moved off to mingle, giving me her chair.
Mr O’Carroll took off his glasses exposing his two small eyes, placing them on his lap. ‘Your story was very good,
very
good. It’s not everyone who can write comedy.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, feeling truly disappointed that such a great man could miss my mark.
‘I wanted to ask if you might be interested in a place on my next writing course?’ he said. ‘I’ll waive half the fee.’
‘Thank you so much, I’d love to. Where will it be held?’ (I was hoping he was going to say London.)
‘Greece,’ he said, ‘on the island of Crete.’
‘Well thank you so much,’ I said, trying to appear normal.
‘You’ll just need five hundred pounds to cover you. We go through from January to April.’
‘It’s a long course,’ I said, not knowing what else to say.
Then Aunt Coral caught my eye from her position among her guests, and came to join us, overwhelmed.
‘Excellent Sue, isn’t it excellent?’ she said.
‘But I can’t,’ I said, ‘I’m so sorry, but I can’t afford it.’
‘Excuse us, Mr O’Carroll,’ she said, quickly pulling me into a private area while making an excuse about the snacks.
‘What do you mean you can’t afford it? Your mother left you ten thousand pounds!’
‘I used that to pay Glenn,’ I said. ‘I wanted to surprise you.’
‘Sue!’ she said, in flabberghast. ‘I can’t let you do that.’
‘Of course I’d love to go, but I’d be just as happy to stay here.’
‘But there’s a world of difference between happiness and joy, and it would give me such joy if you go.’
‘But you need the money for the house; it could mean another room for you.’
‘I would have lost this house if it weren’t for you.’
‘It was your shoes that saved you.’
‘Let me put it another way. I
insist
you go on that course.’ She put her hands on my shoulders, like heroes do in the films when they want to persuade heroines to marry them.
‘Imagine I am in bed with a book,’ she said, ‘I who have read all the greats, twice, and the author of the book I am reading is not Dickens, or Defoe or Austen, it is
my very own
Hampshire-born Sue. Nothing could give me more pleasure, nothing, not even a boyfriend. My darling Sue, if there’s one thing I’ve learnt in this life, it is that we must drink the wine while it’s red.’
She kissed me, and it wasn’t just a cocktail kiss, but a strong kiss of devotion. There was just no arguing with that.
We walked back to tell Mr O’Carroll.
‘Thank you Mr O’Carroll, I would love to,’ I said.
The rain made a noise like strings of pearls falling on the parquet. Perhaps it was a shower of fortune.
‘You shall go,’ Aunt C mouthed from across the room amongst the elite of her salon, nearly stumbling into the Ad with an excitement that made her tipsy much quicker than anyone else.
Loudolle had gone to Mrs Fry’s with Icarus after the gala, but halfway through the evening I turned and saw the three of them coming into the drawing room. It was as though the saloon doors had swung open, and the baddies had come in.
‘Ah, Loudolle,’ said Aunt Coral. ‘How nice of you to come.’
Then she ushered Loudolle and Icarus into the conservatory and called the entire EHG in too.
‘Won’t be a moment, Mr O’Carroll,’ she said, leaving him with Mrs Fry.
Loudolle looked the picture of innocence, sitting in the conservatory window, Icarus beside her.
‘When did you swap the pages?’ said Aunt Coral, getting straight to the point.
‘Straight after Group,’ said Loudolle.
‘But we were all at home,’ said Aunt Coral.
‘You were out looking for the Bentley,’ said Loudolle.
‘So you seized the opportunity to swap titles. It’s too fantastic!’ said the Admiral.
‘Yes, I know,’ she said. ‘Sorry . . . will that be all?’
‘Not quite,’ said Aunt Coral. ‘I want to talk to Icarus.’
Icarus looked to his side to make sure there was no one else called Icarus sitting there.
‘Tell me, Icarus, have you passed your driving test?’ said Aunt Coral.
‘For my bike, but not for a car,’ said Icarus.
‘But you managed to drive the Bentley?’ said Aunt Coral.
Loudolle coughed unserenely and Icarus sat still for a moment of struggle as Loudolle tried to guide his reply with her eyes.
‘Sorry,’ he said finally, ‘I was only going to take it for a spin.’
‘Voila! The thief of the Bentley!’ said Aunt Coral.
‘Twirling moustaches!’ said the Admiral.
It is staggering. So Icarus created a diversion to get us out of Green Place, giving Loudolle a chance to swap the title page of my short story with hers. But she didn’t bank on being asked to read aloud, something a mind with some brains would have thought of.
Icarus and Loudolle were mortified and made their escape through the conservatory doors, offering up hasty excuses as to the reason they had to be anywhere else. Delia was cringing, because she’d invited Nigel from the
Herald
and it was too late to stop him from hearing. What a scoop.
Once we got back to the drawing room, the party began to get going. A complete stranger – well, a friend of Aunt C’s called Poseidon – congratulated me on ‘Brackencliffe’ and said that she was a fan. The Nanas raised their glasses of special fruit cocktail, resolved to wait until midnight to have ‘just a drip of champagne’. George Buchanan the dentist and Daphne were in discussion about fillings. The Ad was talking to Aunt C about the latest legislation on parking in the town centre. In spite of this she looked happy.
After a while Mrs Bunion came in with a gold trolley, laden with shimmering drinks and we did the countdown with a Scots man on the news. ‘Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one …’
‘Happy New Year!’ said Aunt Coral, with great rhythm.
‘Happy New Year!’ said Joe.
But I was still thinking about the gauling behaviour of Loudolle.
‘I was just wondering if it might have also been Icarus who left me those flowers,’ I said, ‘all as part of their plan?’
‘Could be,’ said Joe, ‘Green Place is very easy to get into.’
‘I think they wanted to add to my belief that there was a tramp here, so I would believe it was a tramp that stole the Bentley. I’m starting to believe that there was never a tramp here at all.’
‘Maybe you might have been . . .
Sue
ifying things,’ said Joe with great compassion and a small rakish grin.
I looked at him and the goosebumps on my forearm indicated I had undergone a transfusion of love.
1st January 1988
‘Please come quickly Aunt Coral,’ I said, ‘and bring your key.’
It was two this morning and the locked room light was turned on again. Aunt C was still on a high from the soiree, so I didn’t have to drag her.
‘There’s somebody in there,’ I said.
‘I think it’s the wiring,’ she said.
But this time I was determined. The gala and Joe and the scholarship, all had played their part.
‘Hello, it’s just Sue,’ I said, knocking. ‘Happy New Year.’
All was quiet, and then the light went off. There was definitely somebody there.
‘Please don’t be alarmed,’ I said. ‘I just want to know who you are.’
The light went on and then off again, and shadows played under the door.
‘Give me your key,’ I said to Aunt Coral, and she went to the keyhole in the
dividing
door on the landing.
‘It’s not there,’ she said. All along she’d kept the key just there in the keyhole of the other door! But I didn’t have time to interrogate her on the matter.
‘Hello,’ I said and knocked again. ‘It’s just Sue Bowl.’
Then, very slowly, the lock clicked and the handle began to turn. Then the door swung open and there stood an old man with long hair lit by the moonbeams.
‘Good God,’ said Aunt Coral, collecting herself as though she had seen a ghost.
‘Johnny?’
She had to summon all of her senses before the following conversation took place.
‘I’m sure that you’ll understand if I come straight to the point. What I’m wondering is, what on earth you are doing here?’
The man looked from Aunt Coral to me. He must have been in his sixties, but he still had a frolic in his eyes.
‘My wife died, I was down on my luck, so I got a place in the Egham …’ He was hesitant in his approach and spoke with emotional difficulty.
‘Go on,’ said Aunt Coral.
‘I remembered my days at the house, and I wondered if you were still here. I wanted to come back to see it all again, they were happy days.’
‘How long have you been staying here?’ I asked, my mental calendar was spinning.
‘On and off since June,’ he said, vindicating Joe’s theory that a family of six could live in Green Place and you wouldn’t know they were there.
So there before me stood the likely explanation for the sausages, lights, shower, and ceilings.
‘But why should you stay here so long? Didn’t you have anywhere else to go?’ said Aunt C.
He seemed reluctant to answer, but with a small struggle he continued.
‘You see I dreamt there was some evidence of me in this room and that someone was waiting. But my dreams are not what they were, and they’re not always so clear. But it kept on coming back to me, there was something – somebody waiting. Please forgive me, I wasn’t intending to stay.’
‘I don’t deny you’re a prophet,’ said Aunt C, ‘I remember that well. But what I’d really like to know is,
how did you know where the key was kept to get into Cameo’s room?
’
‘Yes, I’d like to know that too,’ I said.
And then his expression went into a small anxious frown covering one half of his forehead. It appeared that Aunt Coral’s question had gone straight to the heart.
‘Please forgive me,’ he said forlornly, ‘I know that I was unsuitable.’
Aunt C reacted calmly, though I sensed that her feet were paddling madly under the surface of troubled waters.
‘On the contrary, a man with the soul of a poet is totally suitable to Cameo,’ she said.
She was already level with his revelation, although I had yet to quite catch up.
‘But did you find what your dream meant?’ I asked. ‘Was there something – or someone?’
I was imagining ghosts of sad ladies in linen nighties crying in the locked room. But he pointed at a black smudge on the bed cover, as though
that
was the evidence he sought.
‘It is forty-year-old coal,’ he said. ‘Please forgive me.’
‘Forty-year-old,’ said Aunt Coral. She was looking at me in the code way she has when she hopes I will catch on to her drift. Something was too hard for her to say and so she had to say it with her expression. And we stood in silence for some time, while nine months of maths crossed three generations of untold things.
‘My mother would have been forty,’ I said.
The man’s face was a picture.
‘And I think what Aunt Coral is trying to tell you, if I’m correct, is that you are my Grandfather.’
‘I think that’s right,’ said Aunt C.
He reeled and swayed with the shock of it. He held on to himself for support. I don’t know who was the more astounded, Aunt Coral and myself for discovering him, or he, for the drop of the bombshell that was telling him who he was.
And then as his frown became more serious, I recognised Mum’s expression in his. It was there in his eyes, like a glimpse of her, and I found it was not inappropriate for me to rush into his arms, even though he was in a poor state of repair and smelt like old turnips. He cried too, in fact words failed us both and tears took over; not only tears of joy and sorrow, but tears of awe. It was unique and overwhelming to embrace a stranger who was my blood.
‘You’re the key to my dream,’ he said.
He cupped his hand gently to my cheek and almost fell under the weight of old sorrows and profound surprises. ‘You look like me!’ he said, in flabberghast, though he was half blind from sobbing.
‘I do!’ I said, and I do. It was like what I imagine to be the moment when a Doctor holds up a new-born baby.
‘She looks just like the Father,’ the Doctor might say, only here there was a missed generation.
‘But where is she? Where is Cameo’s baby?’ he said.
‘I think we could do with a drink,’ said Aunt Coral.
We went downstairs to talk, for there was life and death itself to catch up on. It was very hard for him to discover the baby, the girl, and the woman that he had missed. In just one brief moment he celebrated the birth and mourned the loss of a daughter he never knew.