Isabel smiled. ‘She was human then.’
‘She was human, and we all have our foibles.’
‘You said you met twenty years ago when you spoke about your friendship with her during the service.’
‘Oh yes it was when she bought a cake, carrot cake it was with proper cream cheese icing, to the manse not long after I took over the parish after Father Samuel retired. She’d clashed once or twice with him, something to do with the flower arrangements I think. I never did get the full story, but she was hoping to get off on a better foot with myself. Father Samuel didn’t have a sweet tooth like myself.’ He patted his girth resplendent over the purple belt. ‘Carrot cake with cream cheese icing is the fastest way to my heart.’ His laugh was low and rumbly like an engine starting, and Isabel couldn’t help but smile.
‘We two sat together and put the world to rights over a cup of tea and many a generous slice of her cake over the years. I know she missed her son, Teddy dreadfully I’m afraid; he was her only child which made it worse. I know she would have liked more, but it wasn’t meant to be. I used to tell her, “Your children are only on loan, Ginny, they’re not yours to keep.” He spoke very well today, Teddy I mean, don’t you think?’ He cast his gaze around the room as though seeking him out.
‘Yes, he did. I liked the story he told about the height of his mum’s pavlovas and how she lost the title of being a ten-pound pom.’
‘Having earned the respect of the local farmers’ wives by winning the Biggest Pavlova competition at the annual country fete,’ Father Joyce finished for her chuckling at the tale before snaffling his slice of banana cake.
Teddy’s hair, Isabel had noticed as he spoke, still whispered of the ginger, sandy colour of his youth, despite his years. The only clue to his age was in the wrinkles fanning out around his hazel eyes when he smiled and the way his hair had receded ever so slightly. There was a greying too around his temples. He was a tall man but lean and obviously kept himself in shape. There was a gentleness to his features, and he looked, she decided her inventory not quite done, like a nice man.
His suit even to Isabel’s untrained eye was obviously tailor-made. It was clear by his confident manner that he was used to public speaking and he’d peppered his eulogy about his mother in a way that had managed to be humorous and eloquent at the same time. Isabel had been rather taken aback at the sight of his wife, as he sat back down though. She’d leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, a glamorous vision who was at least half his age. A young girl sat by her side.
She’d passed by them as the congregation trailed from the church into the hall and the family of three stood at the entrance of the hall shaking hands, accepting condolences and thanking people for coming. She hadn’t the heart to say who she was and how she’d encountered Ginny and so she’d simply said, ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ to which she’d received a sad smile and nod.
‘I’ll miss Ginny’s pavlova almost as much as her carrot cake, and I think it’s always a good thing to laugh at a funeral. A person’s life should be celebrated.’ Father Joyce said finishing his sarnie. ‘Yes really, rather good,’ he mumbled despite his mouthful.
Isabel was unsure if he meant laughing at a funeral, or if was referring to the sandwich once more. She saw his eyes flit in the direction of the trestle tables where the plates of food were slowly being depleted.
‘I rather fancy one of those ginger gems before they all go,’ he said.
‘Is a ginger gem like gingerbread?’
‘They’re a little crustier on the outside than gingerbread, but they melt in your mouth on the inside.’
‘Sounds rather delicious.’
‘Are you tempted my dear because if you do, then I can. Raewyn Morris, she’s my secretary has been keeping an eye on the afternoon tea proceedings, and she’ll slap my hand if she sees me going back for thirds. I’m supposed to be trying to lose a few pounds.’
‘I am partial to all things ginger.’
‘Oh go on Isabel,’ he urged conspiratorially.
There was nothing else for it.Who was she to deprive Father Joyce of a ginger gem? Isabel returned after nearly sending the contents of her plate flying thanks to the stray foot she tripped over on her journey back from the trestle table. Thankfully she was righted by the owner of the stray foot’s helpful hand and returned with the two ginger treats intact.
‘You almost lost those,’ Father Joyce said in a tone that implied that would have been sacrilege indeed as he helped himself to one of the gems.
‘I’m a proper klutz—always have been,’ Isabel said as he looked furtively over at an angular woman standing near the cheese roll-ups. Her hawkish gaze was elsewhere.
In two bites his little cake was gone. Father Joyce wiped the crumbs from his robe and Isabel listened to him describe the woman whose gaze she had held until she passed, while she ate hers at a much slower pace than the priest.
Chapter 2
‘I rather think Ginny looked upon me as a stand-in for Teddy given we’re of a similar age. He’s a mover and shaker in the world of finance; does something or other in banking and lives in Hong Kong. I must say he strikes me as one of those men for whom retirement is a foreign word.’
It was a bit pot calling the kettle black, Isabel thought given the priest must be somewhere in his early seventies himself.
‘His wife Olga is Russian, and they have a daughter, Tatiana who’s about to turn fourteen. I had the most hear-warming chat with her before the service; she’s a charming young lady you know. A credit to her parents.’ Father Joyce looked around making sure none of his parishioners were within earshot, but the hall as the afternoon wore on was slowly thinning. Nevertheless, he leaned in closer to Isabel in a conspiratorial manner and said, ‘Between you and I it was a cause of consternation for Ginny when her son married Olga. That he should marry a woman he not only met on the Internet but who was half his age and so late in life too. Well,’ he tapped the side of his nose, ‘let’s just say Ginny had rather a lot to say on the subject. I told her she should be happy he’d found love. Not everybody gets a second shot at it.’
‘Had he been married before then?’
‘Yes, his first wife passed away from a prolonged illness ten years after they were married and there were no children. He, as I understand it, threw himself wholeheartedly into his finance career and did not come to terms with his grief for a long time. On the occasions I’ve met with him over the years when he’s been home visiting his mother, it was clear to me he was devoted to Olga and Tatiana. They both gave him a new lease of life.’
‘She’s very beautiful.’ Isabel said spotting Olga, a willowy brunette across the room in conversation with a woman who looked very staid by comparison in her tunic top and leggings.
‘Yes, she’s a beauty all right. That didn’t impress Ginny though. She felt that at his age he should be retiring and spending his time on a golf course, a golf course preferably somewhere in the South Island of New Zealand near his mother. She didn’t approve of him embarking on fatherhood along with the trials and tribulations of keeping a younger woman happy when he was of pensionable age. She was heard to mutter more than once, “Who did he think he was—Donald Trump?”’
Isabel suppressed a smile. Melania and Donald had sprung to mind when she initially saw them together.
Father Joyce finished his remaining savoury before continuing. ‘Do you know Ginny remarked to me the last time Teddy, Olga, and Tatiana had been to visit that she didn’t fancy Tatiana’s chances of becoming the prima ballerina her mother seemed to have her heart set on. In her words, the poor sod who had to perform the pas de deux with her granddaughter would surely be left bowlegged were he to attempt a lift! A little unkind but humourous nonetheless, and I knew that at the crux of the comment was a wish for what was best for Tatiana.’
Isabel looked around until she spied Teddy. By his side was a solidly built young girl standing with the awkwardness of an adolescent who doesn’t know where she fits
in the world yet. Isabel knew that feeling well, except she no longer had the umbrella of her teenage years to hide under. The young teen standing next to her father looked like she’d be much more at home in a pair of jeans than the frilly ensemble she was currently decked out in. Isabel watched her as she tugged at her skirt with obvious irritation. It was hard to imagine the poor girl in a tutu.
‘Ginny felt her daughter-in-law was trying to relive her childhood dreams through her daughter and that it was ludicrous to push a style of dance on poor Tatiana that required one to be a silhouette. She wondered whether perhaps with her granddaughter's sturdy frame, she might be better suited to women’s rugby. “The New Zealand Black Ferns were doing ever so well on the world stage,” she was fond of saying. Ginny loved her rugby; she felt it made her a proper Kiwi when she wrapped her All Blacks scarf around her neck and cheered the boys on.’ Father Joyce looked off into the distance lost in his memories for a moment before lamenting, ‘Funny that she should feel the need to be a ‘proper’ Kiwi given she spent more of her life here than in your part of the world.’
‘Do you know where she hailed from in the UK?’ Isabel recalled the traces of an accent, the slight rolling of an ‘r’ and dropping of an ‘h’ she’d picked up as Ginny spoke her last words.
‘Southampton originally.’
Goosebumps prickled her arms; she wasn’t surprised she was from the South East she had managed to say that she wanted to go back to Wight, but the same city as her? The coincidence sent a shiver coursing through her. ‘I’m from Southampton.’
Father Joyce sensing he had a captive audience was only too happy to continue with his musings. ‘Well now isn’t that a coincidence, and it was definitely Southampton because I remember she mentioned it in conjunction with her being the city from which the Titanic sailed forth. She didn’t talk much about her life before coming to New Zealand. Although we got onto the subject of the war one day and she did remark that she’d gone to live in the town of Ryde on the Isle of Wight at the outbreak of World War Two. Ginny said it was deemed safer than the port city, and she married a local lad while she was there on the island.’
If Isabel had had antennae, they would have been quivering. Here was the connection Ginny had to Wight.
‘She never told me his name, but she did tell me she was pregnant when the news arrived that her husband had been killed in battle. The poor fellow, like so many other young men of the time, didn’t get to celebrate his twentieth birthday or the birth of his son.’ He shook his head, and the wisps of hair floated up briefly before settling back down on his scalp with a silent sigh. ‘After his death, she felt she couldn’t stay on Wight with all its ghosts of what might have been, so she returned to the mainland with her son. It was there she met Neville who adopted Teddy. He was still a wee babe, and the three of them immigrated to New Zealand in the mid-forties along with the rest of the ten-pound poms wanting to put the war years behind them.
‘They bought land upon arriving here and farmed it until Neville died. It wasn’t an easy life she was always quick to mention, but it was a good life. She tried to run the farm on her own for a while after Neville passed but it was too much, and she sold up. I think it always saddened her that Teddy didn’t come home and step in where his father left off, but he had a different path to follow. She’d downsized and moved into Timaru shortly before I arrived in town.’
Isabel seized the break in his story. ‘Father Joyce, just before she passed she asked me to promise her something.’
He peered closely at her. ‘I can see whatever it was she asked of you is weighing heavily on your mind, Isabel.’ Then, he did a little jiggle ridding himself of the crumbs that had settled on the front of his robe before turning his attention back to Isabel. ‘You’re welcome to share that promise with me if you think it might help.’
‘She asked me to find someone called Constance and to tell her she was sorry she should never have left. Those were pretty much her words, and the only clue she gave me was that she’d wanted to go back to Wight herself to say sorry.’
‘Now that is interesting,’ he rubbed his chin, ‘because there was something on Ginny’s mind of late. She wouldn’t allude to what it was other than to say she needed to go back to Ryde—there was someone she had to see. She must have been referring to this Constance she mentioned to you. She wouldn’t tell me why she wanted to go back, but there was a desperation about her this last while which I can only put down to her age and the realization that nobody lives forever. In fact, the day she died a suitcase was in the car as well as a return ticket to the United Kingdom. Did you know that?’
Isabel shook her head; she’d been in too much shock at the time to pay attention to anything other than Ginny.
‘No, why would you? Teddy, told me he was most perturbed by this as he knew nothing of her plans.’ Father Joyce laid a hand on her arm once more. ‘Isabel, Ginny, for all her endearing attributes was also a woman with a stubborn streak. I believe it was this unwillingness of hers to listen to those who knew better that saw her continue to get behind the wheel. This was despite being told she was endangering others each time she did so. It’s a blessing that nobody else was hurt in the accident as she wouldn’t have been able to rest in peace had she done so.’ He nodded and raised his hand in a wave to signal goodbye to one of his parishioners who’d paused as though wanting to interrupt but had thought better of it. ‘Mrs Mercer, a gossip of the highest order if you give her an in,’ he mumbled out the corner of his mouth.
Isabel watched in amusement as the older woman in a pair of black trousers that fitted a tad too snuggly— and would cause concern were she to attempt to bend over—scuttled over to join a small party also making their way toward the exit.
‘You do realize you’re in no way obligated to fulfill your promise to Ginny, don’t you my dear?’
Her attention turned to Father Joyce once more.
‘You did more than enough by being there and offering comfort in her final moments, and it was very good of you to come today.’
‘It wasn’t really; I think my reasons might be rather selfish. I was hoping by coming that I’d be able to move forward from what happened that afternoon. I haven’t been sleeping well, you see.’
‘Oh, dear, dear. Nightmares?’
‘No, I thought I might have bad dreams, but I feel like I haven’t been dreaming at all. It just takes me forever to drift off because my mind keeps replaying Ginny’s last moments over and over.’
He patted her arm. ‘It will get better. It might just take a bit of time. Do you think coming to the funeral today has helped?’
‘I don’t know Father Joyce. I really just don’t know.’
Chapter 3
Isabel poked her head out from under the duvet like a turtle stretching its neck from its shell before rubbing at her eyes; they felt puffy and gritty. It was a sure sign she’d slept heavily, oh, and the spot behind her knees was driving her mad. She reached down and scratched it, knowing it would make it worse but unable to resist the burning itch any longer. It had taken her forever to get to sleep something she was getting used to, but it didn’t help that her body clock was up the wop, and it had felt like the bed was rolling thanks to the thirty-plus hours flight home she’d stepped off yesterday.
She looked blankly around at her surroundings. Unfamiliar plush claret curtains with gold tassel tie–backs, a faux Louis-whatever-he-was chair in the corner of the room with yesterday’s clothes draped over its seat. The striped wine and gold duvet she was wrapped up in was not one she’d seen before either.
It took a few ticks for her to register that she was home in her old bedroom. Gone was the pink everything and white princess dressing table that had lived here for as long as she could remember. It was the framed artsy black and white print of Princess Diana on the wall opposite her that gave the game away. Her mum’s attempt to make her only child’s room look like the guest room she’d hankered after most of her married life. The two- up two-d
own where Isabel had grown up did not allow for an attic extension even if the finances had, so her daughter’s empty bedroom was the next best thing! Her parents had worked hard all their married life, and she’d never gone without a thing, but her mum had, and a guest room at long last was the silver lining in Isabel packing her bags and leaving home.
Barbara Stark or Babs as she liked to be called was a staunch royalist. Isabel had only been five when the Princess of Wales had died, but she could still recall the histrionics and her mum’s insistence on wearing black for the best part of a month. These days she was a regular commentator on Kate Middleton’s latest look, and the birth of George and Charlotte had been akin to the arrival of her own grandchildren. The breaking news of a new baby had warranted an urgent middle of the night in Australia Skype call. For her part, Isabel was grateful to the young royals. She’d sent a silent thank you to Wills and Kate for taking the pressure off her to settle down and provide her parents with a grandchild as she flitted over to the other side of the world in search of adventure.
Well, she was back now, and she’d told mum the print had to go as she dropped her pack on the bedroom floor yesterday afternoon. Her mum’s face took on the pained expression that Isabel knew meant she’d already lost the argument. She’d then insisted it was a well-known fact that to remove a photograph of royalty from one’s home was bad luck—especially a late member. Oh yes, Babs had stated knowingly, patting her freshly blow-waved hair the trip to Heathrow Airport had warranted, to do so would invoke the ancient curse of the House of Windsor.
She’d gone on to play the, and you had left home card saying that she didn’t need to invoke any curses given her age. Isabel had eyed her suspiciously. She was fairly sure she’d made the whole curse thing up, and her mum was only nudging sixty. Nevertheless, she dropped her case on the grounds of knowing it was pointless to protest. Hence the beaming Diana that was here to greet her the moment she opened her eyes.
The Promise Page 2