It Started With a Kiss (24 page)

August blew into the city with a freshness welcomed by everyone. Blue cloudless skies presided over comfortably warm days, kissed by bright sunlight and soothed with cool breezes. For once, I didn’t mind not being able to afford a holiday, instead taking the opportunity to spend as much time out in the glorious weather as I could. I cycled into work twice a week, went for long walks, rides and runs along the towpath by my house and lazed in various back gardens, beer gardens and restaurant terraces with my friends.

I also took the impromptu break from our gigging calendar to consider my next move for the quest. Following the shock and fallout of ‘Cayte-gate’ last month, I had been so thrilled to receive the photo of PK that enjoying its existence had been the extent of my interaction with the search to find him. But now, with only four months of my quest remaining, it was time to step up the search.

I booked a week off work and spent a couple of days aboard
Our Pol
in my aunt and uncle’s ultra-compact single-berth spare bedroom. It had been years since I had stayed on the narrowboat and it was a treat to be able to hang out with them. We went for long walks in the beautiful water park next to the canal, Uncle Dudley pointing out all the varieties of waterfowl from cosy pine-scented hides amid the reeds and lakes, while Auntie Mags read her book with Elvis curled happily around her feet. We spent lazy afternoons in their makeshift canalside garden chatting with the other narrowboat owners over homemade lemonade in the bright sunshine. We lay on
Old Pol
’s roof stargazing up at the breathtakingly bright constellations in the indigo blackness. And we talked –
lots
– about everything and anything under the sun. All the time we spent together, I soaked up the constant positivity that seemed to shine out of them.

Auntie Mags was thrilled with the enthusiasm my blog followers were showing for her recipes and I persuaded her to start a blog of her own, posting the recipes for the world to see. Each one was rapturously received, much to her surprise.

‘This was such a good idea of yours,’ she said to me one afternoon, as we were enjoying generous slices of sticky fruit bread spread with real butter. ‘It’s almost like my own little baking circle.’

‘Your recipes are too good not to share.’ I smiled and pointed at a comment from someone in Michigan. ‘This lady thinks you should open a chain of English tea shops!’

Uncle Dudley placed a new pot of tea on the table and paused to kiss the top of her head. ‘Now there’s an idea, Magsie! You could be one of those
entrepreneurials
, like that Richard Branson. My Magsie, taking on the world!’

‘Don’t be daft, Dudley. I can’t be starting empires at my age.’

I smiled at her as a thought occurred to me. ‘You could always start with one tea shop. If the reception on here is anything to go by, I reckon people would flock to it.’

Auntie Mags wrinkled her nose but her eyes were twinkling. ‘You’re very kind, but I can’t see myself baking for a living. It’s a lot of hard work.’

‘And since when have you ever been put off by hard work?’ I asked her. ‘Your cakes are like therapy – that’s a skill that should be shared with the world.’

Uncle Dudley hugged her. ‘Magsie, if you put your mind to something you always do it. That’s why I love you!’

The thing that I loved hearing my aunt and uncle talk about most was the story of how they met and fell in love. In many ways, what they went through in order to be together made sense of why they believed so wholeheartedly in my quest. It was impossible not to draw parallels between their experience and what I hoped would be mine.

Uncle Dudley had been working as an apprentice at the Longbridge car plant when he first laid eyes on the shy but beautiful girl in the admin office. He was twenty years old and Auntie Mags had just turned sixteen – barely out of school and making her first tentative steps into the world of work. For my uncle, it was love at first sight: he lost his appetite and took every opportunity to visit the teak-clad office where Mags worked, trying unsuccessfully to talk to her.

‘I wanted to be all Clark Gable or Cary Grant, but every time I opened my mouth, I turned into a gibbering wreck,’ he laughed, tickling Elvis behind the ear as we relaxed in their old striped plastic folding chairs on the edge of the towpath throwing bread for the ducks. ‘Your auntie was so gorgeous she took my breath away. It was like I was staring at the rest of my life, daft as it sounds.’

However, when Dudley finally summoned enough courage to ask Mags to a works’ social, she politely refused. Devastated, he vowed to cease his pursuit of her.

‘She broke my heart, that Magsie of mine. I went off to lick my wounds and didn’t speak to her again.’ He gave my aunt a hangdog expression, to which she responded with a sharp tut.

‘I was sixteen years old, Dudley, and scared of my own shadow, let alone a handsome boy. First day I started work at the plant my mother told me nice girls didn’t date factory workers. You know what she was like – I was terrified of letting her down. That’s the only reason I said no, and you know it.’

Two years passed, during which time Uncle Dudley had a string of girlfriends, creating a bit of a reputation for himself as a ladies’ man within the car plant. He heard from a friend at his local pub that Mags had married the heir to one of the city’s large baking firms (a match more or less arranged by her social-climbing mother) and had quit her job in order to keep his home. Uncle Dudley met and married Eilish Quinn, a strong-willed girl from a large Irish family who worked in the staff canteen and stole his heart with her black hair and emerald eyes. Unfortunately for my uncle, she also attracted the attention of several other men after they were married, and within a year she had left him for someone with a bigger car and more money.

Then, a chance encounter with a friend of Mags, seven years after Dudley had last seen her, led to them meeting again on Christmas Eve in The Old Contemptibles, one of Birmingham’s historic pubs. The transformation of Mags from the shy schoolgirl he had fallen in love with into the twenty-three-year-old woman she was now shocked my uncle. Mags was almost unrecognisable, painfully thin with eyes hollowed out by years of pain. His heart breaking over what she had become, Uncle Dudley gently coaxed her into a conversation, slowly gaining her trust. They began to meet on Saturday afternoons at the pub, talking for hours at a time, before she had to catch the train home to her husband. The details of her life that transpired during these conversations revealed the extent of my aunt’s unhappy marriage – and made my uncle determined to help her escape.

The man Auntie Mags married had turned out to be a vicious abuser, taking out his frustration at the world on my aunt’s fragile body. Terrified to confess the abuse she was enduring to her family – who all thought her husband was a wonderful man – Mags closed her mouth and accepted the blows in silence. When she discovered she was pregnant, her ‘loving’ husband took her to a backstreet abortion clinic, the complications from which left her in agony and would eventually lead to her remaining childless for the rest of her life.

It was hard for me to hear what my lovely, inspirational aunt had gone through, but the very fact that she is still here, strong and beautiful, is testament to what an amazing woman she is.

‘I was too scared to leave, but still I woke every morning planning my escape,’ she said, when I asked her about it. ‘It was only when your uncle came back into my life that I started to believe it was possible.’

Almost a year to the day since they had met again, Uncle Dudley pulled his aged Austin Seven up outside Auntie Mags’ marital home while her husband was out playing darts, bundled her scant belongings into the car and drove my aunt to her freedom.

Their decision was roundly condemned by both their families – my dad’s parents refusing to acknowledge Auntie Mags for the first ten years they were together. Her former husband divorced her with no financial settlement and for quite a few years they struggled to make ends meet. But despite all of this, one thing remained, as Uncle Dudley put it: ‘We had each other – and we were richer than Midas for that.’

‘Which is why you have to try harder to find your man.’ Auntie Mags winked at me, serving up a slice of what she called her ‘spontaneity-encouraging’ fruitcake. ‘If he’s the man for you, don’t let anything stand in the way of being with him.’

After much discussion, it was agreed that we would post PK’s photo on to the blog page, encouraging my ardent band of followers – now almost two-hundred strong – to help me track him down. Looking at his face half-smiling up at me from my blog, a renewed sense of determination welled up within me.

‘PK, your days of elusiveness are numbered. I’m going to find you!’

Towards the end of August, my new tactic initially appeared to be bearing some fruit, with several of my blog supporters claiming to have seen him in and around the city. Two people independently reported sighting a man who closely fit PK’s description in Harborne – ten minutes away from where I worked – and, while I couldn’t be sure whether this was Mark, the Encounters impostor or not, I was greatly encouraged by the shimmering possibility that he might be almost on my doorstep.

Jack and Sophie had insisted on walking around Harborne on the last Saturday of August ‘just in case we bump into him’. This led to Jack thoroughly embarrassing himself by chasing one man down the High Street, believing him to be PK, only to discover his mistake and have to frantically concoct a cover story. It meant a lot to me that they wanted to get involved though, especially at this late stage.

However, the early signs of progress began to quickly wane and, by the beginning of September, the trail had all but gone cold once more. Undeterred, I decided to leave the blog crowd to their searches, reasoning that these things obviously took time to filter into people’s consciousnesses. After all, PK’s photo had been found long after I had abandoned hope of having a clear image of him, so there was still time for someone to discover his identity … wasn’t there?

Charlie’s sister’s wedding took place on the second weekend in September and was something I had been looking forward to for months.

From the moment we pulled on to the grand drive that led to Combermere Abbey, I knew this was a special place. I’m a big believer in first impressions, and this venue seemed to be infused with romance from first sight. Driving in the van with Charlie and Wren, I noticed that we all fell silent as we drove along the winding drive towards the Victorian gothic house with its fairytale-turreted cottages in the converted stable block.

The wedding planner, Ellie, was waiting for us when Charlie pulled Jack’s van into the cobbled courtyard. Slightly stiff after our journey, I was relieved to be able to stretch my legs. The first thing I noticed was how fresh the air was – so startlingly crisp that it almost hurt my lungs as I inhaled. The stillness of the place was remarkable, surrounded by romantic rolling fields with a stretch of silver lake that snaked away into the distance. Birdsong was the only sound around us, a blessed relief after two hours of droning road noise and Radio 2 playlists.

Charlie discussed the arrangements for setting up with  Ellie as Wren and I made a brief exploration of our  immediate surroundings, unashamedly girly in our enthusiastic reactions to everything we saw.

‘It’s just so peaceful here,’ Wren breathed, ‘and those turrets at the entrance – they’re like something straight out of a Disney film!’

‘If you think this is impressive, wait until you see the Glasshouse,’ Ellie grinned, approaching us to introduce herself. ‘In fact, it’s probably best we head there first, so you can see where you’ll be playing.’

We followed her out along a wide gravel path the colour of clotted cream towards an ornate set of gates that led into the Victorian walled garden. It was as if we had stepped into another world. Roses of all sizes and colours were everywhere – adorning the high red brick walls, rising in beautifully tended bushes from the lawns and nestling amid lavender-edged borders. Honeysuckle dripped from the arches and arbours that arced gracefully over the path, while lilac bushes imbued the garden with their scent. Beyond the walls, tall ancient cedars spread their dark green branches wide in the pale blue sky and, through another set of white gates, apple, pear, plum and apricot fruit trees had been trained into a maze in front of the focal point of the garden – a restored, half-moon-shaped, iron-frame Glasshouse.

‘At night we have thousands of white fairy lights in and among the fruit tree maze, along the pathways and around the walls,’ Ellie explained, as we slowly navigated the gardens. ‘It’s quite a magical place, I think.’

Considering all the different venues we had played in over the past three years, I had never experienced anything like this before. The high walls enclosing the space bestowed a sense of seclusion and safety – making me feel as if I had stumbled upon a secret garden all of my own. As we walked, I noticed Charlie’s eyes straying to me whenever he thought I wasn’t looking. Wren noticed it too, and raised her eyebrows at me.

Ellie then led us into the large white pavilion marquee where we would be playing for both the afternoon and evening receptions next day. Wren and I gasped like eight-year-olds when we saw the draped ceiling dotted with hundreds of tiny white LED lights, sparkling like magical stars. Everything inside the pavilion was white: tablecloths, chair covers, huge sparkling chandeliers and even the ceramic dance floor on the other side of a curtained partition. The overall effect was breathtaking – simple yet elegant, with a touch of magical glamour sprinkled into the mix.

‘There’s no event this evening, so feel free to set up as you want to,’ Ellie told us. ‘If you need any help loading in, just give me a shout. There should be people around until six. I’ll take you to see the accommodation and then you’re free to do whatever you want.’

It isn’t very often we have our accommodation provided for us, but because Charlie’s family were our clients this week, we were being spoiled. Setting up the day before and loading out the day after the wedding was a fantastic luxury and made the whole weekend seem incredibly relaxed: knowing that we wouldn’t have to pack the van and drive home at stupid o’clock was simply bliss.