‘Grief!’ was all I could manage as his words sank in.
‘They thought we were a famous band, some called us The Rolling Stones, and followed us everywhere trying to sell us stuff. We had the devil’s own job to get away from the hordes of begging kids and hawkers, we felt like the Pied Pipers of Hamlyn.’
‘It sounds a bit frightening but so different.’ I tried to imagine what it must have been like.
‘It was a bit. We managed to barter our clothes for things, like your bag and bits and pieces. We kept being followed by Arabs who wanted to sell us hashish and stuff.’
‘Hashish? What’s that?’
‘You know, drugs and stuff.’ He looked around furtively as he said it.
I immediately felt guilty and looked around as well. It would be just my luck if Mrs Digby or another of Mum’s spies was listening.
‘Drugs!’ I whispered, ‘cripes’. I stopped and looked hard at him. ‘And did you?’
‘What?’ He tried to look innocent. It didn’t work.
‘No, don’t answer me, I don’t want to know.’ I was worried and couldn’t cope with the answer at the moment.
‘OK,’ he grinned. ‘But honestly, we had such a laugh. Every morning we’d get woken up by our steward – we were treated like the officers on board – with a tray of beer and other alcoholic drinks and he would stand over us in a menacing way until we drank everything. At first we refused but he made it clear that wasn’t an option.’
‘How odd.’ I was flummoxed.
‘Yeah, he was cool though. His name was Vera.’ Scott laughed out loud at the look on my face. ‘Coz, he was – you know – and actually all the stewards are, you know, really camp, even more than Zak when he’s on stage.’
‘What? You mean…?’
‘Yeah they are, don’t look so prissy.’
‘I’m not prissy, just surprised they’re allowed to work there so openly.’
‘They even wear their make-up and some dress in women’s clothes when they’re not on duty.’
We sat on the bench overlooking the fields next to the Rec. Someone was walking their dog in the distance. The cows had already gone for milking.
‘When we went ashore Vera came up to us and said if we had any trouble, to let him know, and he opened his jacket and showed us a gun.’ Scott nodded as I looked at him in disbelief. ‘Seriously. They’re hard nuts, those guys. They used to fight anyone who crossed them. You’d have laughed the night they had a big bust up in the restaurant where the Captain was entertaining the VIP passengers.’
He laughed at the memory and I waited for him to carry on.
‘Do you want me to shut up?’ he asked.
‘No go on, it’s fascinating.’ I was interested and a little shocked, truthfully.
‘Well, the Captain has a special table where he entertains the VIP guests each night, different people are invited and it’s all silver service and posh. Anyway, this one evening we were all eating and chatting – we were on the table next to the Captain’s table – when all of a sudden one of the stewards ran into the kitchen, and started yelling and shouting at the chef. All hell broke loose in there and we could hear lots of people shouting and pots and pans crashing, and crockery being broken, and all of a sudden the door burst open and the steward came flying out chased by the chef who was brandishing a huge meat cleaver, which he was trying to embed in the waiter’s head. Behind them came the whole of the kitchen staff carrying pots and pans and knives.’ He was talking fast, excited at the memory.
I sat open-mouthed and waited for him to carry on. The sun had started to go down and I thought we ought to make our way back in case mum was getting annoyed.
‘It was hilarious, the passengers all yelled and women screamed and the Captain started shouting for security who came and started arresting everyone, and they took them off to the Brig – that’s a jail – they have one on board apparently, and they keep guns on board, too, so they told me after.’
‘Wow, that’s like something out of a film…’ I said trying to imagine it all.
‘It was unreal. And to top it off, after everyone had settled down, Joss went up to the Captain and told him he was a groovy guy and patted him on his bald head – he was such a short-arse and bald as a coot.’
Scott laughed and I giggled at Joss’s cheek.
‘There must have been some lovely girls, in the shows and travelling as passengers I suppose,’ I said hoping it didn’t sound as if I really wanted to know.
‘We met lots. Some of the girls in the shows were stunning. Quite a few of the passengers were old, rich and on the look-out for a new husband mind you, and plenty of the younger women passengers were on the look-out for a rich husband as well. Bit of a cattle market to tell the truth. We had a lot of girls hanging around and got lots of phone numbers and messages from them. On the last night everyone autographed the menus and we got lots of cheeky things written on ours.’
I practically seethed with jealousy, but decided not to push that one for fear of what I might discover, so I suggested we walk back home. We stood up and started heading back.
‘I want you to come down to Brighton to meet my father and his new wife,’ Scott blurted out suddenly, stopping and grabbing me in his arms.
‘Why?’ I mumbled against his chest, the smell of him so familiar now.
‘Just want you to, haven’t seen him in years, not since the wedding.’ He kissed my cheek.
‘Ok but you better ask Mum then. How are we getting there? We’d have to come back the same day.’ Ever practical I always had to have a good plan to set before Mum.
‘We’ll get the train down and can be back the same day. So, how about next Saturday?’
Renza’s Diary
July 26th 1968
The train arrived at the station in Brighton in the late morning sunshine and Scott and I walked to the carpark where his Dad said he would meet us. I think Scott was just as nervous as me. He and his Dad were a bit like strangers he told me, but he did get on with his new step-mother who was only seven years older than himself.
Mum gave in and agreed to let me go without a murmur. I think she has decided to let me see Scott because they will be gone in a few days and that will be that. She’s told me several times not to attach myself to him too much because I would be, ‘out of sight, out of mind’ in no time.
We hadn’t seen much of each other since last Friday because the band had been gigging all over the place and, anyway, Mum had got me spring cleaning and helping sort out the last minute things needed doing before we left for three years. I’d also tried to spend as much time with Nan as I could because she was worrying me.
Scott’s Dad wore a trilby hat and a smart sports jacket and trousers and highly polished brown shoes. He even wore driving gloves for goodness sake. Scott had warned me he was a bit of an old fart, very proper and correct and he wasn’t wrong. He shook my hand formally and we got into the silver Rover – the seats still smelled of new leather, though he said he’d had the car years. It was spotless.
We drove in silence at about fifteen miles per hour, in the centre of the road and I felt really uncomfortable. Scott kept glancing anxiously at me and I tried to smile but my face felt frozen. His Dad cleared his throat several times as if he were going to speak and then didn’t say anything. It was dreadful.
After a while we arrived at a large detached house in a road not far from where Scott grew up, and he chatted about school and his mates and how he’d lost touch with them. He hoped to meet up with one of them, a bloke in a band, later on if there was time. Scott had gone to an all-boys grammar school and had been in the choir at church which surprised me. Apparently choir practice was a bit unruly, paper aeroplanes and darts flying around and he said they did the same during weddings. Very angelic.
His Dad hardly spoke except to agree with him about something or other. A young dark-haired woman – Philippa, the step-mother – came to meet us in the sitting room, which was nice enough I guess, and
made us a cup of tea and we had cake. We made small talk but I wasn’t really paying attention as I felt so uncomfortable and ill at ease, and I let Scott chat to them as he had not seen them for ages.
His step-mother seemed quite bossy for someone so young and Scott’s Dad seemed to do everything she told him to do. She worked as some sort of posh secretary or something. I could imagine her running the place. Soon I was getting grilled about my family, what my Dad did and what Mum did and what sort of school I went to, and what were my plans for my future and stuff like that.
I realised what Scott must feel like when Mum gives him the third degree. Barry McGuire’s ‘Eve of Destruction’ kept playing in my head for some reason. Every now and again Scott would catch my eye and wink. I smiled brightly back at him, my head throbbing from the strain of it all.
After lunch – salad made by Philippa from stuff she’d grown herself with warm bread, also made by her fair hands – we got into the car and took a drive to somewhere along the sea front, where we stopped outside a guest house.
We were visiting relatives – aunts and uncles who owned the guest house and Scott’s ancient grandfather, called Pop. I also met Scott’s cousins, Skaggs and Jools who were very nice and friendly and about our age.
We had afternoon tea with them and my head was reeling from all their questions and information being given to me about individuals present, not present, or who had passed away. I knew I’d never remember any of it and Scott whispered he hadn’t a clue who half of them were either.
Finally we said goodbye and headed back to his Dad’s house and the friend of Scott’s was waiting for us, Cliff, bass player in some band Scott used to play with before he went to Jersey with his mum and joined bands there. Cliff and his girlfriend, whose name I never caught and neither did Scott, had a Robin Reliant – a red one – and when it was finally time to leave for the railway station, we all piled into it, Scott and me in the back with all Cliff’s band gear and them in the front. He’d offered to take us and Scott’s Dad seemed relieved. So was I. Another trip down the centre of the road at fifteen miles an hour with a line of cars hooting behind us was something I gladly passed up. Even if it did mean squeezing into the back of the tiny three wheeler.
Scott said it was great seeing Cliff again and catching up on things. I was happy for him but it had bored me to death sitting with his family and then later with Cliff and his girlfriend listening to all their chatter about people and places and events which meant nothing to me. I’d drunk enough tea to start my own reservoir. I kept having to go and spend a penny and it was so embarrassing. All that tea!
On the way back from the station we stopped at the phone box and Scott rang his Mum and told her what we’d been doing. He put her on the phone to me briefly but I could hardly hear her as his half-sister was airing her lungs in the background again. His Mum wished me luck in Germany and hoped I could spend Christmas with them all in Jersey when Scott and the band were going to be over playing at a club called ‘Lords’.
I said I’d ask Mum, but I didn’t hold out much hope. Scott said he would pay my airfare but Mum would never allow that. Imagine what he would expect in return for an airfare! The leather bag was bad enough!
Stella’s Diary
July 31st 1968
It was nearly 3 o’clock in the afternoon. It was stiflingly hot despite a fan whirling above me, and the air was thick with the cloying scent of mixed antiseptics. Lying on the uncomfortable bed, I had been watching the clock on the wall in the Churchill Hospital’s outpatients cubicle for the last hour. Under my hospital gown I was naked. I had several wedges of cotton wool anchored by sticking plasters fastened to several of my veins. I’d had blood tests and X-rays and two very uncomfortable and embarrassing examinations.
‘Just stay there and have a little rest,’ one of the trio of doctors had said cheerfully. ‘We won’t be long.’
While a nurse busied around just out of my eye-line, clattering metal things into other metal things and humming quietly to herself, I watched the hands on the clock move slowly round.
I hoped and prayed that today they’d have found out what was wrong with me, could give me some medicine or tablets or something to make me better and let me get on with my life.
Mike had said more or less the same thing when I told him I had this appointment. He also kept on about the holiday to Cornwall – less than four weeks away now – because he’d paid my share of the cost to Patsy and thought I really should be paying him back. I’d got fed up with saying that if I was ill, or had a hospital appointment then I couldn’t and wouldn’t go. And that I wouldn’t be paying him for a holiday I didn’t have. And honestly didn’t want… but I hadn’t been brave enough to say that. Yet. Anyway, if today’s results were good I might feel completely different in three weeks’ time. Maybe…
‘Miss Deacon!’ The youngest of the three doctors I’d seen earlier, swept in, followed by a nurse. He’d clearly drawn the short straw. ‘Sorry to have kept you. Can you sit up? Good… Right, now, the news isn’t very good I’m afraid… um – do you have someone with you?’
Oh God! I stopped struggling to sit up and stared at him. ‘My mum’s in the waiting room – but… is it really bad?’
‘Fetch Miss Deacon’s mother, please nurse.’ The doctor said, still smiling. Then he looked at me. ‘It’s complicated, Miss Deacon. It might be better to have someone else here – two pairs of ears and all that.’
I was going to die!
I knew it!
I burst into tears.
‘Oh, lovie,’ the clattering nurse dashed across and handed me a bundle of tissues. ‘It’s not that bad… come on… I know you’ve been through the mill, my love… come on – don’t cry…’
Her kindness made me sob even more. By the time my frantic-faced mum came into the cubicle, I was awash.
‘Oh, Stella!’ Mum hugged me. ‘Oh, good Lord – what have they done to you?’
‘I’m going to die! I howled. ‘I’m going to die!’
‘No, you’re not.’ The young doctor, looking slightly disturbed at my sobbing, said quickly. ‘Of course you’re not.’ He looked at the notes on his clipboard. ‘My dear Miss Deacon, while the results of these tests are possibly what you don’t want to hear, I have at no time hinted that your condition is terminal.’
‘There,’ Mum smoothed my hair away from my face and handed me more tissues. I hadn’t worn much eye make-up – and obviously no false eyelashes or sequins – but I still knew my mascara would have run. ‘Come on, Stell – dry your eyes and let the doctor tell you what’s happening.’
Between my sniffs and gulps – yes, I was pretty ashamed at falling apart so spectacularly, but honestly, I was petrified – the doctor said it all in an unemotional voice.
Again, today’s tests had been inconclusive. It would appear – as far as they could tell – that I had some form of ongoing septic inflammation around the pelvic area caused, possibly, by one or more undiagnosed and untreated abscesses, and probably cysts, which could be ovarian but also may be adhering to my fallopian tubes and uterus. Mum squeezed my hand very, very tightly.
‘It really does mean,’ the doctor said, ‘that I have to refer you upwards to Mr Glendenning’s clinic. You need further exploratory treatment. Mr Glendenning is our top man here in all matters of this nature – one of the top Gynae Consultants in the country – you’ll be in excellent hands. In an older patient I would have no hesitation in recommending an immediate and total hysterectomy, but as you’re only 19…’
Mum and I looked at one another. Hysterectomy? An operation? Major surgery?
‘Er…’ I gulped, ‘I hope I won’t need that…’
The doctor nodded. ‘So do I. And in the meantime, I do appreciate that you are in considerable pain, Miss Deacon, and I hope that we can sort this out very quickly for you. I’ll pass all this on to Mr Glendenning’s team, and also your local practitioner. You do understand all this?’
I nodded.
‘Good. And do you have any questions?’
I shook my head. I had dozens but I didn’t think he’d be able to give me the answers.
‘Good,’ the doctor shook Mum’s hand. ‘I hope we’ll have all this sorted out for Stella very quickly, Mrs Deacon. I’ll make the appointment with Mr Glendenning’s clinic a priority. You should have a date through within eight weeks. In the meantime, please contact your local doctor if you need any further help.’
And he rushed out.
The nurse almost bundled Mum out of the way. ‘I’ll help you get dressed Stella – just take it easy, lovie – don’t dislodge the cotton wool pads, there’s a good girl, otherwise you’ll bleed all over my nice clean floor.’
And for the first time that day, I almost laughed.
Renza’s Diary
July 31st 1968
Scott and I had been out for a long walk after tea and he had to call his Mum.
He asked me to wait outside the phone box which was a bit odd, but then I thought they must have something private to discuss. After about twenty minutes, during which time I’d been tooted at by two group vans passing by, which was a laugh, Scott banged on the window of the phone box. As if it was my fault...I had my purple and green psychedelic silk dress on and my long white lace up boots thankfully, so I knew I didn’t look like a witch for a change. There are so many groups around these days.
I hope he is not turning into my Mum.
When he came out he said he wanted to pop up to his flat for a minute and chat to Rich and if I wanted I could go up with him. I wasn’t too sure, because of what Mum would say. I’d have to creep up there without being seen by Mrs Digby for a start. But I’d never been up there and was curious.
‘You can come and listen to some recordings we made if you want, see if you dig them or not,’ he said as we crept along the path behind the shops heading for the stairs, both keeping an eye on my house and next door.
The flat was a bit of a mess, but clean, and the whole band was there with Rich. Stephan had gone to visit the White Knights, who he used to roadie for, before becoming their manager as well. They were selling their van to Narnia’s Children, since Bessie was on her last legs. Then he was going to find the band a new place to live in Bedfordshire. Apparently the band needed a cheaper place to live and he thought Leighton Buzzard would suit them better and was near to the Knights as well. They needed to move within a week or so. More upheaval… more moving away.
Only One Woman Page 14