In Loving Memory

by Winona Kent

  “Why?” Mr. Deeley inquired.

  “Read on,” Charlie suggested.

  He did.

  “If I am correctly interpreting these results,” he said, “then Thaddeus Quinn is definitely my son.”

  Charlie knelt down beside the comfy armchair where Mr. Deeley was sitting.

  “He is,” she confirmed.

  “But your mother and Thaddeus have no DNA in common at all. Therefore Thaddeus Quinn is definitely not your mother’s father.”

  “Which means Nana Betty was wrong. Pete Lewis was my grandfather all along. She must have miscalculated the dates.”

  “Or perhaps, she knew the dates perfectly, but preferred not to acknowledge them.”

  “Perhaps,” Charlie said thoughtfully.

  She took the letter from Mr. Deeley’s hand, removed the iPad from his lap, and placed both on the floor beside the armchair.

  “You do know what this means, don’t you?”

  Mr. Deeley’s tender and amazing kiss confirmed the fact that no further explanation was needed.

  “Mrs. Collins,” he said.

  “Mr. Deeley….” She paused, summoning her courage. “Will you marry me, Mr. Deeley?”

  Mr. Deeley smiled.

  “Ask me properly,” he said. “Charlotte.”

  Charlie got to her feet and, ignoring Mr. Deeley’s questioning look, ran into the kitchen. She returned, just as quickly, with two saucepans.

  “Shaun,” she said, getting down on one knee, “will you marry me?”

  Mr. Deeley smiled, and kissed her again. He took the pots from her hands, and helped her to her feet.

  And then, together—and with no further words required—they climbed the stairs, at last, to bed.

  Keep reading for “Easy When You Know How,” an exclusive short story from Winona Kent set in the world of In Loving Memory!

  Easy When You Know How

  “It is mornings like this,” Mr. Deeley said softly, “which I longed for. The rareness of being able to lie in my bed, listening to the birds, who have been awake since before sunrise, chattering to each other, exchanging gossip and scandalous stories concerning families in the next village.”

  Charlie laughed. She snuggled closer to Mr. Deeley, into the hollow between his armpit and his chest, resting her head on his arm as his hand cradled her shoulder, drawing her close.

  “Did you not have any chance at all for a lie-in?” she inquired.

  “Never. The horses needed to be cared for, and although there were stable boys, they were notoriously unreliable. For this I blame the lesser Monsieur Duran, as he had a hand in their hiring, and would never allow me to make sensible decisions. In any case, the servants of the manor were expected to rise at the appointed hour. And as I was not keen to be dismissed, I embraced the expectations.”

  “Well,” Charlie said. “You’re in my world now, and in my world, you’re allowed to lie in bed for as long as you want. Provided, of course, that we put in an appearance at the museum before lunchtime. Expectations, and all that.”

  Mr. Deeley smiled, turned a little, and kissed her. It was a gentle kiss, a good morning kiss, for although they, like the sparrows in the apple trees outside her bedroom window, had been awake for hours, they had not been sleeping. And so it was a kiss that reaffirmed the goodness of everything that had gone on that morning, and the night before, and every day and night before that, since the moment they’d first met on the Village Green.

  She was wearing a nightgown that he had bought her. She had no idea where he’d found it. It was very old, and very simple…a fine white cotton, almost see-through but not quite…the old-fashioned term for it was batiste. It had a plunging neckline and short sleeves, and it was trimmed at the bottom with beautiful Ile d’Aix lace—she’d looked it up.

  He had presented it to her one afternoon, after he’d mysteriously disappeared for two hours, without any sort of explanation.

  “It is French,” he had said simply. “Worn by the Empress Josephine herself.”

  Charlie had laughed. “That would make it an absolute antique, Mr. Deeley. And incredibly valuable. What did you do—slip into Napoleon’s chateau yourself and steal it from her wardrobe?”

  She’d meant it as a joke, but in retrospect, Charlie wondered if she had guessed at the truth—or something very close to it.

  Mr. Deeley, like herself, was a time traveller—more accidental than by design. But, unlike her, he had been practicing. She was hesitant to experiment; Mr. Deeley was filled with the sense of adventure, and had no qualms about trying out his fledgling wings…much to Charlie’s consternation.

  “What would happen if you weren’t able to come back?” she’d asked. “What would happen if you got stuck in whatever time you landed in? At least let me know when you’re going to go flying off to whenever…so Nick and I can launch a search party for you if you don’t come back!”

  Mr. Deeley had laughed it off, but Charlie couldn’t dismiss his random adventures so easily.

  “We really should get moving,” she said, kissing the special place on his bare chest that tickled him and made him laugh in the most delighted and wonderful way.

  “I shall make breakfast,” he decided. “Is what we eat for breakfast now the same as what they ate for breakfast in the time of your new display?”

  “Somewhat the same,” Charlie said. She slid out of bed and watched as he climbed out of bed too, fully naked but still a little bit shy about showing her his body, even after so many months of sharing her bed. Old attitudes from 1825 were very hard to break. “But in the Swinging Sixties they were still going to work on a boiled egg…they didn’t have the variety of food that we have now. And especially not Honey Nut Crunch with Milk Chocolate Curls.”

  “My favourite,” Mr. Deeley said, looking at her as she slipped out of her nightgown and, she knew, very much admiring what he saw. “Why was it called the Swinging Sixties, Mrs. Collins? Was there some sort of…suspension involved?”

  “Suspension of old attitudes and beliefs, perhaps, Mr. Deeley,” Charlie said. “It was a time of incredible change in England. All the children who were born during the war, or just after it, had grown up and were looking for something new, something different. My mum was just the right age. She worked in a boutique. She kept a lot of her clothes from that time. She’s sending me a genuine Mary Quant mini-dress. And I’ve got some of her other things…some old magazines and newspapers, and a lot of her vinyl records. Albums and 45s.”

  Mr. Deeley was pretending to understand, but Charlie was certain he had no idea at all what she was talking about. The Swinging Sixties display at the Stoneford Village Museum was still only in the planning stages.

  Her mobile rang.

  “Leave it,” Mr. Deeley suggested, giving her another kiss. “I am impatient for my Honey Nut Crunch.”

  “I must answer it,” Charlie said. “It’s Giles Jessop.”

  • • •

  “And who is Giles Jessop?” Mr. Deeley inquired. He had put on a pair of very worn jeans, and an Italian cotton knit jumper, and he was barefoot. Charlie thought he looked amazingly sexy as he poured milk into their cereal bowls, and tea into two mugs.

  “A very famous singer from the 1960s,” she said. “He was born in Stoneford and was part of the British Invasion of America. He had a band. Brighton Peer.”

  “Named after the very famous pier?”

  “No, though it’s a play on that. His dad was an earl who was originally from Brighton. So, you know…a peer. Of the realm.”

  “Why did he ring you?”

  “Because he’s heard about my exhibit and he’d like to help out,” Charlie said. “I’m quite chuffed, really. He’s asked us to come to London to see him.”

  • • •

  Charlie studied Mr. Deeley’s boots. They were a lovely light brown, scuffed and creased and generally well worn-in. They were cut low so that they ended just above his ankles, but the foot was close enough in design to the sort of boots h
e had worn in 1825 that he felt at home in them. And they went perfectly with his jeans. And his white cotton shirt. And his tailored summer jacket. And his long, somewhat untidy, hair. He was, indeed, a man of many ages.

  They were on the tube, riding from Waterloo to Piccadilly Circus, a short journey but faster than walking—their train from Middlehurst had been delayed, and they were late for their appointment with Giles Jessop.

  It was Wednesday, and on Wednesdays Mr. Deeley was not required at the museum, where, three times a week, he provided horse-drawn cart rides around historical Stoneford for the tourists.

  It was almost a year to the day since he’d arrived from 1825 and become such an integral part of Charlie’s life that she was no longer able to imagine it without him. She remembered his first ride on the Underground—how terrified he’d been. But he’d acclimatized himself quickly after that. He had mastered the cooker in her kitchen—and she no longer lived in fear that he would try to use the fireplace to boil water for tea. He had appropriated her iPad and completely embraced the Internet, employing it to research his ancestors and his descendants, as well as hers; to buy clothes; to listen to music; to watch videos; and even, she suspected, to dip his toes into the curious world of social networking. She wondered if he had a Facebook account, and made up her mind to ask him when the subject next came up.

  They surfaced at Piccadilly Circus, then walked up behind the old London Pavilion, once a music hall, then a cinema, now completely gutted inside and made into a shopping centre. Their route took them, in a few minutes, to Great Windmill Street, and Giles Jessop’s £4-million flat, accessed by way of a completely unobtrusive door beside an Indonesian restaurant.

  “Very apropos,” Charlie said, as they walked up the stairs. “He’s right round the corner from Ham Yard, which is where the Scene Club was.”

  “And the Scene Club was…?” Mr. Deeley inquired.

  “Well known in the early 1960s for its mod subculture. The Rolling Stones used to play there. And The Who.”

  “Who are The Who?”

  “Look them up,” Charlie suggested, amused. “Roger Daltrey. Tommy. There’s a posh hotel around there now.”

  • • •

  Giles Jessop was 73 years old. He had a white shock of hair which had once been bright red, and a cheeky look on his face which was the same as it had been in 1964, when Brighton Peer was climbing the pop charts with songs about unrequited love and the heartache of summer goodbyes.

  His flat was equally cheeky—a guest bedroom on the first floor, a kitchen and sitting room on the second, an immense master bedroom and en suite bath on the third floor, and the entire fourth floor comprised of an open air terrace planted with exotic palms and giant plants that would have been at home in any convenient jungle. The flat itself had bare brick walls that showed off the age of the narrow little building that housed it, an abundance of black and white furniture, and maple wood accents.

  “I was 23 in 1964,” Giles said as they sat in comfortable canvas chairs on the open terrace. “Barely out of nappies. ’Course, we thought we knew it all. More than our parents, at any rate. We were kids in the war, which was one big bloody adventure, truth be known. Bits of hot shrapnel in the road after a raid and barrage balloons up in the sky. Our parents were so worn out and so old-fashioned. We grew up in the ’50s and by the time the ’60s came round we were ready to break all the rules and rewrite everything to suit ourselves. Which is what we did, of course. Have another slice of Battenberg. And some sausage rolls. More tea?”

  “Yes please,” Charlie said.

  “And then, of course, there was Marianne.”

  “Marianne Faithfull?”

  “A wonderful friend. But another. Marianne Dutton. We very nearly married. She had a boutique. In Carnaby Street. Full of all sorts of rubbish and old tat.”

  “Of course,” Charlie said. “Marianne’s Memory. My mum worked there. Jackie Lewis. She’s about the same age as you.”

  “Jackie Lewis. Lovely girl. Whatever happened to her?”

  “She married my dad—Justin Duran.”

  “Ah, yes,” Giles said, “I was at school with Justin. Of course. How could I forget?”

  “It was the 1960s,” Mr. Deeley said humorously. “What is the famous quotation? If you remember it, you weren’t there?”

  “Truer words were never spoken,” Giles replied. He paused, and then looked very keenly at Charlie.

  “You have an older sibling.”

  “Yes. Two of them. Abigail. She was born in 1975. And an older brother, too. Simon. 1971.”

  “No darling, before them. Before your mum and dad were ever married. She had a child.” Giles leaned forward, conspiratorially, and whispered: “Out of wedlock. 1964-ish. 1965.”

  Charlie stared at him, shocked into silence. Mr. Deeley was staring too.

  “Admired her for going through with it. Things were very dodgy back then if you wanted to terminate. But she couldn’t keep the child. Wouldn’t. Said it would be for the best if she gave it up for adoption.”

  “Did my grandmother know?” Charlie asked, still stunned.

  “’Course she did, darling. Jackie was sharing a flat with Marianne, but she was round her mum’s all the time for tea. How could she not have known?”

  “Who is the father of this child?” Mr. Deeley inquired.

  “Don’t know. Never did know. Don’t think she ever said.”

  “Didn’t she have a regular boyfriend that she was seeing?”

  “Not then,” said Giles.

  “Most interesting,” said Mr. Deeley.

  “Yes, we all thought so too. Well. We’ve had a lovely lunch, and I promise if you come back next week I’ll have a compendium of things for your museum display. I’ll ask my mates—the ones that are still alive, at any rate—for some donations as well. Hang on and I’ll give you something for the road.”

  He got up stiffly, favouring an arthritic hip, and collected a tiny silver box from a table just inside the door to the terrace. He opened the lid and presented it to Charlie.

  “There you are.”

  “A plectrum,” Charlie said.

  “Imitation tortoiseshell. From 1964. I nicked it from John Lennon. I reckon it’s worth a few thousand quid. Saw one just like it for sale at Christie’s a few years back. This one doesn’t have Lennon’s initials on it but I can swear to its authenticity.”

  “Thank you,” Charlie said, holding the little silver box in the palm of her hand. “If you’re sure…”

  “’Course I’m sure. I’ve had it for decades…could never think of what to do with it. Now I know. Keep it safe, darling. Put it on display and don’t let on who it used to belong to. Our secret. Will you take some Battenberg with you for your journey…?”

  • • •

  “Where is this Carnaby Street located?” Mr. Deeley asked as they stood outside the Indonesian restaurant, attempting to get their bearings again.

  “A bit further north, I think,” Charlie said, consulting the map on her phone. “Yes, there. Closer to Regent Street. Would you like to see it?”

  “I would,” Mr. Deeley replied. “Would it look much the same after the passage of fifty years?”

  “I’m not sure, Mr. Deeley. I imagine the buildings are still the same, but I think most of the original shops and boutiques are long gone. They’ve done it up for the tourists now. The Swinging Sixties really only happened over a couple of years. It’s the idea that’s survived. The music and the films and the fashion.”

  They negotiated the narrow back streets of Soho, traversing the history of Brewer Street and Bridle Lane, and Beak Street.

  “You’re very quiet, Mrs. Collins.”

  “I’m still in shock, Mr. Deeley. To be told that you have a brother or a sister you didn’t know about…and my mum’s never said anything to any of us. And my Nana—she knew about it too. Nothing.”

  “Perhaps it was not something that could be spoken about. Perhaps to spare the feelings of your
father. And of you, and your other sister and brother.”

  “Back then it wasn’t spoken about, you’re right. But after all this time… I wonder if he or she’s been trying to find us.”

  They had reached the bottom end of Carnaby Street, which had been blocked off to traffic.

  “It seems very…” Mr. Deeley paused as he watched the tourists walking along the red brick paving stones, phones, and cameras in hand.

  “Ordinary?” Charlie guessed.

  “Yes. Ordinary. A very apt description.” He looked up. “But for this archway welcoming us to Carnaby Street, I might be forgiven for mistaking this for any other shopping precinct in England.”

  “Perhaps it’s a bit more…exciting… at the other end.”

  And so they walked, with the tourists, to the upper stretch of the famous street, and the other curved welcome sign.

  “It is still very ordinary,” Mr. Deeley judged, obviously disappointed. “I see nothing which convinces me this was once the hotbed of unbridled sixties swinging.”

  Charlie laughed. “I do love you, Mr. Deeley,” she said. “Try to imagine these little shopfronts fifty years ago. There was a road running down the middle, with lots of cars. And a narrow pavement on both sides. All the women wore little Mary Quant mini-dresses, with Vidal Sassoon hair and Twiggy eyes. All the men had long hair and tight trousers and the latest jackets and boots from John Stephen.” She assessed her companion. “A bit like what you’re wearing now, in fact.”

  “Perhaps you should install me in your museum display,” Mr. Deeley replied humorously. “Where is it that your mother worked?”

  “I’m not entirely sure about the address. I know it was up this end…mum once showed me a picture of it.”

  She paused in front of a tiny shopfront painted bright blue, with wide display windows on either side of a narrow little doorway. Above the windows and door was a wide lintel, out of which was growing a mass of greenery. And above the greenery rose three floors of dwellings, two windows per floor, all of the brickwork painted a pale grey and the window frames white. The sign above the doorway, and below the greenery, read: Easy When You Know How.