Only One Woman

by Christina Jones

  Mike didn’t say much, just shrugged a bit.

  ‘But, if you had the chance,’ I glanced across at him as we pulled up at a Belisha Beacon to let someone cross the road, ‘wouldn’t you like to do something like that? Change your life? Experience something different just for a little while? Have an adventure? Meet new people… do new things…?’

  ‘No,’ Mike shook his head. ‘Why would you want to do something like that? We should be satisfied with what we’ve got. There’s no point in wanting anything else, that’s what my dad says. A good job and money in your pocket, a few beers on a Friday night and football on a Saturday. That’ll do me.’

  I sighed. ‘But the film… it just showed how different another life could be – even if it wasn’t wonderful all the time, it was still like an adventure – didn’t you see that?’

  ‘What I saw,’ Mike grinned as we drove away from Ashworthy, ‘was that Suzy Kendall has a cracking pair of legs.’

  I sighed and slid down in my seat.

  Renza’s Diary

  July 13th 1968

  The last few days have been really miserable. Mum has been in a mood and is getting stressed about us all travelling to Germany on August 15th. We have to get the train to Gatwick and then fly from there. She keeps telling me that she will be relying on me to help with the kids and the luggage and everything. As if I needed to be told over and over.

  Stephan and Rich have been round helping with the garden and finishing odd jobs for her, so she’s happy with them. They’re happy because she’s feeding them, and I am sort of happy because they’ve been telling me the latest news about Narnia’s Children, and yesterday they took me to London to meet Rich’s family who live in one of those new high rise blocks in an area called Ongar. I can’t say I liked the place, but his parents were really nice and they gave me their address and told me to write to them from Germany.

  Mum shocked me by letting me go with them and she didn’t even give me the evil eye on the quiet when they weren’t looking. She said yes right away. Probably because Scott wasn’t there, or because she liked Rich, or she thought Stephan would make me a wealthy husband. We went in Bessie and drove up past Fuller’s Brewery and I had a good look round the city as we drove. It was exciting and I loved every minute of it. We sang along to the songs on Radio One, and I almost cried hearing The Walker Brothers sing ‘First Love Never Dies.’ We waved to all the girls who stopped to stare at Bessie with all the fan’s scribbled messages covering a large portion of the van.

  The postman came this morning as I was dressing Lucy, and Sophia came rushing in with a postcard for me, from Scott. She announced it to everyone and then read it out loud, shouting so Mum upstairs came on to the landing to hear what it said.

  I wanted to cry. It was for me, not them.

  ‘Dear Renza and Family’, Scott wrote on 11th July, ‘I’m having a wonderful time and I’m afraid I’ve got rather sunburned. We docked at Tangiers this morning and I picked up quite a few bargains. Lisbon was wonderful as you can see from this postcard – huge, really beautiful buildings. The food on board is too much – seriously too much. Seven course lunches and dinners and all you can eat all day with buffets and snack bars and loads to do on deck’. His writing was really untidy. ‘Anyway, see you all in 6 days time I hope, love Scott ‘Narnia’s Children’. Xx

  The photo on the postcard was of three views of Lisbon – Lisbon by night, all huge important looking buildings and fountains lit by coloured lights.

  Sophia shouted to Mum, ‘there are two kisses on it Mum,’ before she let me have it to read.

  Rich told me the boys were having a great time in Lisbon, going ashore during the day, getting drunk before their evening performance for passengers, and then later at night – when they were ‘off duty’ – in ‘The Pig,’ performing for the crew, they really let their hair down and got totally wasted. Not my idea of fun.

  The boys had all sent cards to Rich and Stephan and given them the ‘real’ story of what went on. There were lots of dancers and show-people performing on board and the band were able to mix with them as well as the passengers.

  It all sounded wonderful and glamorous and I couldn’t help wondering about Scott and the rich women on board. But then he had sent me a card. Only one so far, but he had remembered to do that. Or had he sent it to cover up for what he was really up to? My head ached with the worry of it all. Nan came to lunch today and I felt so sorry for her. She looked so unhappy and kept saying she would never see us all again and how lonely she would be when we had gone. She asked Mum about me staying behind with her again but Mum was having none of it.

  All of a sudden Nan looked really old and seemed to have shrunk. I thought she was finding it hard to hear and I told Mum I thought she was going deaf. Apparently Nan had complained of headaches and I had to repeat myself to her over and over. I think Mum put it down to Nan trying to find a reason for me or all of us to stay, but I wasn’t so sure. I knew she was eighty something, but in the last month I swear she’d aged ten years.

  Dad told her, before he went away, that she could come out to Germany whenever she wanted and that she must come for Christmas. Mum kept telling her as well. But Nan seemed convinced she won’t be seeing us ever again. It was heart-breaking. I was really going to miss seeing her every morning after my paper-round, having my breakfast with her, and I’d especially miss our chats.

  Of course she’ll have my cousins visiting when they are in England on leave, and then there’s my uncle and auntie who used to live with her, but she spends far more time with Mum and with us kids, and it was going to leave a huge hole in her life. I was worried for her.

  Every Sunday morning she would walk down to collect me to go to Mass with her at the local Catholic Church across the road, and I wondered what she’ll do when I’m gone. She would always have Sunday lunch with us, and when Dad was here we would go for a drive after lunch and later, on the way home, stop off at a nice country pub somewhere and have a drink in the garden. Nan would have her stout or ‘something stronger’, Mum would have a gin and tonic and Dad had his pint. We kids would have Pepsi and a packet of Smith’s crisps and we all thought we were so grand – it was a treat, as much for her as for us.

  Nan would often take me on one of Crocket’s coach trips down to the south coast in the summer. We’d get the coach early on a Sunday morning and the men on the trip would load crates of beer into the boot and off we’d go. We’d stop at what seemed like every pub on the way down and back – the men leaving the women on the coach with the kids and bottles of pop and crisps. Mum would send us off with packets of sandwiches to eat on the beach – which was usually pebbly – and often in driving rain and wind. Nan loved it.

  Once Jasper came as well. Though given his track record for accidents, I was always a bit worried about him going anywhere with me. Not long before Lucy was born we were out for a drive, without Nan, and he managed to fall out of the car after being told not to play with the door handle. He had insisted on sitting in the front of the car even though Mum was pregnant at the time and needed the room. Dad gave in and Jasper sat up front. We were all crammed into the back and as we went round a bend in a country lane, Jasper managed to open the car door and went flying out.

  All hell let loose with Mum and the kids all screaming and Dad slamming the brakes on so hard we all fell forward. The last we saw of Jasper he was going head first into a ditch and the car was moving away from him as he crawled out and started yelling at the top of his voice, ‘don’t go, don’t leave me.’

  Dad got out and tanned his backside, even before checking he hadn’t broken his neck or worse! The car was full of screaming, deafening, hysterical kids and Mum heaving her bump all over the place trying to get out of the car, screeching like a hyena. She was so mad with Jasper, I thought he’d be better off if he’d knocked himself senseless so he wouldn’t feel her thumping hell out of him.

  About a week later we were going shopping and were on the top deck of the bu
s when he decided to stick his head out of the smallest window on the bus. As the bus sped along the road he was hit in the face by the branches of trees, yelling at the top of his voice all the way as Mum and I frantically tried to get his head back in. For some reason he’d managed to stick his head out of the window but he couldn’t, whatever we did, get it back inside. We had to ask the bus conductor to get the driver to stop the bus, find a phone box and call the fire-brigade. We had a long wait for them to arrive and remove the window – and Jasper.

  Mum wouldn’t go outside for a month because of the embarrassment and poor old Jasper was confined to the house where he managed to get his head stuck in a saucepan, resulting in another session with the fire brigade, and not long after that he stuck a garden fork through his foot whilst helping Dad dig to Australia in the back garden – well, remove the roots of a huge rhododendron which was in the way of the new patio. Poor Nan, even though she probably dreaded taking Jasper anywhere because of his exploits, I knew she’d miss his antics and us all, and would probably put up with almost anything if we’d stay behind.

  The kids have always followed me around, especially Jasper and Lucy, always wanting to come with me to the shops or whatever. Anyway Scott and I soon found out they were being paid by Mum to spy on us because, for some warped reason, she thought there’d be something she needed to know. Fat chance! They’d hide behind the sofa hoping to see us kissing so they could earn sixpence, or they’d trail behind us when we went for walks, hiding behind bushes and walls, but their giggling often gave them away.

  Mum rewarded them with a gold star on the back of the larder door for any information collected and these counted towards more pocket money when added up, so the incentive to spy and make stuff up was overwhelming of course. And that meant more aggravation for me. Simon on the other hand wanted money from me so that he wouldn’t tell Mum anything – not that there’d been anything to tell. How I wished there was!

  It amazed me that Scott was happy to put up with it all. I can’t imagine many boys having five kids trailing behind them every time they went on a date.

  ‘I feel like the flaming Pied Piper,’ he laughed, when he spotted them for the first time. ‘We’ll have to be extra clever or there’ll be no room left on the back of the larder door.’

  Renza’s Diary

  July 18th 1968

  I heard the band come back during the night. Rich told me last evening when he saw me in the garden that he and Stephan were going to Southampton to pick them up and he said that Scott would most likely come round to see me once they had settled in and caught up with some sleep. I reckoned the last ten days at sea had been nothing but a continuous party.

  I couldn’t sleep once they’d woken me up with Bessie backfiring all the way up the road. I tried hard not to allow those horrid little thoughts creep into my head; had he found someone else, did he still love me? The next minute I was excited at seeing him again, bursting with happiness and I knew everything was going to be wonderful. They say you’re the last person to know if you’ve gone mad, but sometimes I really think I’m losing it. He loves, me, he loves me not; how to go nuts without really trying. I’ve even resorted to avoiding the cracks in the pavement, and telling myself that if the next song on the radio is a certain song, it’s a sign he loves me, or that he doesn’t love me. This has got to stop. Today is going to be a happy day. Scott loves me.

  A little later I switched on Radio Caroline and listened to music as I tried to doze. It was difficult lying down with the earphones in but I didn’t want to wake anyone. I had to stop myself singing along with the songs and I hummed quietly to myself whilst jigging around, sort of dancing lying down. I was so happy and couldn’t relax, thinking of Scott being home and seeing him again. Yes, it’s going to be a happy day.

  The other day Rich told me that the band was going to be recording soon and they were going to ‘Tin Pan Alley’ in London to look at some songs the publishers had, which the band might like. Psychedelic Smith had arranged it after-all. Rich said that I could go with them if I wanted. Oh boy, I really want to go with them, every second with Scott is precious to me as August looms over us.

  Apparently Scott would sort it out and then he and Rich would ask Mum if I could go. Even though they write their own songs, Stephan wanted them to record some by famous writers as that would help them get good exposure.

  The Herd came on singing ‘I Don’t Want Our Lovin’ to Die’, followed by Marmalade with ‘Lovin’ Things’. I felt really happy for the first time in ages as I did my horizontal dance; all silly unhappy thoughts banished.

  Scott came round at lunchtime and gave me a camel leather shoulder bag which I have to say smelled really funny, but I didn’t tell him. I was so thrilled he’d thought of me. It was so wonderful seeing him again, all lean and tanned and even more handsome than I remembered.

  As soon as I answered the front door he grabbed me and kissed me so hard and so long I thought I would suffocate.

  ‘I’ve missed you so much,’ he said.

  ‘I missed you too. It’s been horrible without you.’ I kept one eye on the sitting-room door as he kissed me, in case Hawkeye or one of her Mohicans appeared at the wrong moment and caught us.

  I nearly had to give the bag back as Mum put her oar in. She said that if you took gifts from boys they always wanted something in return!

  ‘Mrs Rossi, please let me give her the bag. It’s a present, nothing else,’ Scott had pleaded all wide eyed and innocent, and for some reason she’d shrugged and said it was all right.

  Renza’s Diary

  July 20th 1968

  Narnia’s Children, Rich and Stephan were crammed in Bessie, with me sitting on Scott’s knee for our trip to ‘Tin Pan Alley’. Scott’s arms held me tightly as we lurched along, Bessie was obviously getting too old for all the work she had to do.

  We parked near Soho and went into Denmark Street and up some stairs at the side of a music shop into a little cramped room full of people who looked like musicians, all going through sheet music and chatting to the publishers about songs.

  The person ‘dealing’ with Narnia’s Children had set aside some sheet music and also some records which he called ‘demonstration recordings’ for them to listen to. Apparently singers recorded songs written by the songwriters to demonstrate to other singers what they sounded like, so they could decide if they wanted to record them or not. However, they said that whoever produced the record in the end would probably change things a lot anyway. It was all very exciting.

  We even listened to a song recorded by The Bee Gees, called ‘‘Coalman”, which Stephan wanted Narnia’s Children to record, but no one was keen on it, even though The Bee Gees were apparently considering it for their own long playing record at some point.

  Cilla Black was in there, choosing songs, and I thought she didn’t look that special close up. There were a couple of others, who I knew were famous but I couldn’t recall their names, and Scott frowned at me when I asked him who they were. So I shut up. It was still all so new and rather thrilling for me.

  After a couple of hours the band had chosen some songs and we left with sheet music and recordings for them to keep of songs they were interested in. Apparently they were due back in London tomorrow to have talks with some famous songwriters and record producers, so I wouldn’t be seeing Scott again until Sunday, if they weren’t playing.

  On the way back we stopped off on the London Road and went inside the Little Chef for Coca Cola and a hamburger. I’d never been inside before or had hamburger and fries. Stephan had a pink milkshake – it was very American.

  The band was fascinated when I told them that this Little Chef was the very first ever to be opened in the whole of England. I’m full of these little gems according to Rich.

  Scott stayed behind with me when the others went back to their flat and Mum said we could go for a short walk if we wanted. We wanted. We set off on our usual route around the village and mercifully this time none of the k
ids were stalking us.

  The cruise had been great fun and everyone ate and drank too much and partied too hard, Scott said.

  ‘You’d love it babe, there was so much to do on board and the shops and restaurants were amazing, so cool, so hip,’ he said excitedly, eyes shining. ‘And the people: so much money, so glamorous and sophisticated.’

  We strolled round the recreation ground which was deserted for once.

  ‘Tell me about the places you visited on shore.’ I wanted to know everything. We held hands and every now and again Scott gave me a big hug and a kiss. It was wonderful to have him back.

  ‘Well, the crew were great and we spent a lot of time with them, playing for them at night after we finished with the passengers,’ he beamed. ‘We played in The Pig, and all the showgirls and dancers were there and so were the other entertainers. We played with Jean Kent, remember her?’

  ‘She’s the one in Crossroads I think,’ I said wondering what she was doing on the cruise. ‘Was she a passenger then?’

  ‘No, she was singing on the cruise, as an entertainer. Lots of people from TV and the radio do the cruises apparently, there’s lots of money in it.’

  ‘Sounds wonderful.’ I loved Crossroads, it would be on TV just as I used to get in from school each afternoon.

  ‘We went ashore a lot and went shopping in the markets and had a good look round the towns. Some of the ports were not too great though. All nice and pretty as the ship comes in, but when you go ashore and see the streets behind the facades, it is really horrid and dirty, and the poverty in some places was dreadful.’ Scott screwed his face up as he recalled some of the places. ‘Tangier was filthy and smelly, and the beggars – even little kids – were everywhere. Little kids coming up and trying to sell us their sisters and their mothers for you know what.....you know,’ he said, his eyes all wide expecting me to catch on – and I did.