by T A Williams
They had lunch in a restaurant near the fine old cathedral. The two girls sat by the window, while Mackintosh disappeared for a short while. Victoria demonstrated that she wasn’t quite as green as she looked by informing Katie of his likely destination.
‘I’m pretty sure he’s gone to the bookmakers. He’s always been one for a flutter on the horses. When he and my father used to go to the local point-to-point, they would always place a few bets.’
‘Didn’t they take you? You love horses after all.’ Victoria caught her eye and gave the now familiar shake of the head.
‘Never. Remember, I was his precious little girl to be sheltered from any possible harm.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Anyway, that’s over now.’
Katie decided she could now ask something that had been bothering her for some days. ‘Victoria, you’re twenty-five, aren’t you? Surely, when you were eighteen, or at the least when you were twenty-one, you would have been able to do as you wished. You could have chosen to fly the nest. Your father couldn’t keep on holding you in the house against your will, surely?’
‘I’m not sure it was really against my will, Katie.’ Victoria set the menu down and transferred her gaze out onto the cathedral. ‘I did escape one day, you know.’ She lowered her voice and still avoided meeting Katie’s eye. ‘When I was fourteen, fifteen, I forget exactly, I ran off. I’d been getting more and more bitter about being cut off from the real world. I must have been really hard work for Mrs Milliner and my tutors. I hated everybody and everything and I behaved very badly. I was rude to everybody, I threw tantrums and I screamed and shouted all the time. I even threw things around.’ She took a deep breath and caught Katie’s eye. ‘I behaved like a real… What’s the expression I should use?’
‘Teenager?’ Katie smiled at her. ‘I’ve spent the best part of a decade teaching teenagers. There’s nothing particularly unusual in a teenager throwing tantrums and rebelling against authority.’
Victoria nodded. ‘Well, I got to the stage when I decided I had to get out. I couldn’t take it any more. One autumn afternoon I climbed the wall over by the far woods and set off down the valley, hoping to find a train to take me away.’ She managed a small smile. ‘It didn’t occur to me to take money with me. Even if I’d found the station, I wouldn’t have been able to buy a ticket.’
‘So what happened?’
‘It got dark while I was still in the woods. I got hopelessly lost and started to panic. It was freezing cold and I began to shiver. I blundered on until I came to a road.’ She shook her head and sighed as the memories resurfaced. ‘I didn’t know which way to turn, so I headed back uphill, hoping it would lead me home to the manor. Then, about three o’clock in the morning I saw the lights of a car coming towards me. It was Mackintosh. I’ve never been so pleased to see anybody in my life.’
Katie reached over and squeezed her hand. ‘He’s a good, kind man, isn’t he? I felt that the very first time I met him.’
‘He’s a very good man. I hold him in high esteem.’ Victoria looked back and caught Katie’s eye. ‘That’s wrong, isn’t it? Nobody says that any more, do they?’
Katie gave her a smile. ‘Well spotted. I think we just respect people these days or think a lot of them.’
Victoria nodded. ‘Well, I certainly think a lot of him. He wrapped me in a blanket and drove me home. When we got back to the manor, there were cars all over the place, blue lights flashing, even men in frogman suits down by the lake. My father was standing at the front door as we pulled up. I can still see his face now.’ She blinked a few times at the memory. ‘He came running down the steps when he saw me and took me in his arms. He was sobbing his heart out and he just stood there, holding me to him, touching my head, my face, my shoulders, as if he were assuring himself it really was me. He kept repeating over and over again how much he loved me. I’d never seen him cry before. In fact, I’d never really seen anything much in the way of emotion from him before.’
The waitress was hovering, but Katie waved her away. Somehow she knew that the more Victoria talked about her troubled past, the better it would be for her. She sat back and listened, enthralled, as Victoria picked up the story once more.
‘You see, deep down, I’d always known he wasn’t quite right in the head ever since the accident. But up till then, I’d only seen the hard, unbending side of him; the blind refusal to compromise, even when I begged and begged. But seeing him totally distraught like that was a real eye-opener. I think that got through to me more than anything. Anyway, from that time onwards, I knew I had to look after him.’ She caught Katie’s eye. ‘I know it sounds strange, but somehow I realised that it was my duty to look after him in the same way he thought he was looking after me. From then on, I decided to toe the line, for his sake. And, anyway, after the scare I’d given myself in that big, dark, cold wood, maybe I wasn’t ready for the big wide world after all.’
‘It can be a scary place out here.’ Katie found herself thinking about her experiences over the past few months. Life had a way of being both scary and unkind. ‘If I told you all about the year I’ve had, it would make your hair curl.’
Victoria nodded. ‘So I just accepted that things were going to be that way. I suppose part of me liked the idea of being so important to my father and to being protected from all the terrible things you hear about on the radio. And, at the same time, knowing that I was somehow caring for him, gave my life a sense of purpose it had been lacking up till then.’ She paused and caught her breath. ‘And then, a few years later, around the time of my twenty-first birthday, he was diagnosed with cancer.’ She ran the back of her hand across her eyes and looked up at Katie. ‘I couldn’t abandon him then, could I?’
Katie could imagine the conflicting emotions that must have been running through her head. She nodded in agreement. ‘I see the problem. No, of course you couldn’t.’ Determined to cheer the atmosphere up, she gave a broad smile. ‘But think of your life up till now as like being in a cocoon. Now, at last, it’s as if the cocoon’s split open and the butterfly can finally come out. Your butterfly wings are beating, Victoria, can you feel them? Come on, let’s order some food and then hit the shops again. You’ve got a lot of lost shopping time to make up for. Let me show you how retail therapy can be a very real form of therapy. You’ll be amazed at how it cheers you up.’
As they ate their lunch, they chatted, mainly about the people they could see through the window. Katie realised that the experience of observing complete strangers was something new and exciting for Victoria. Women’s fashions, in particular, never ceased to amaze. ‘But that girl there is almost naked.’ Victoria’s tone was incredulous. ‘Her breasts are just hidden by the material, but you can still see everything through it.’ She looked up at Katie, as an idea crossed her mind. ‘Do you think she’s a prostitute?’
‘Ssh, Victoria, keep your voice down. No, she’s definitely not a prostitute. It’s the fashion these days. Look, there are more of them over there.’ Katie indicated a group of holidaymakers wearing tank tops and short shorts. She heard Victoria’s intake of breath.
‘Good lord above. That girl’s trousers are so tight they could have been painted on. I can see her knickers underneath.’
There then ensued a conversation about underwear. In fact, it was more of a monologue by Katie, interspersed by disbelieving oohs and aahs from her employer. Several times Katie had to stop and swear on everything she held dear that she wasn’t making things up. Yes, panties really were that small. Yes, underwear came in other colours apart from white. Yes, that girl’s prominent bust was achieved by the type of bra she was wearing, rather than some freak of nature. Finally, a passing teenager reduced Victoria to incoherent stammering.
‘That boy’s trousers are positively falling down. Look, they’re almost down round his knees. You can see his underpants.’
Katie did her best to explain and clarify where necessary. She found herself doing a lot of explaining.
As the meal prog
ressed, the conversation moved on from clothes to tattoos. The discovery that their waitress had a dolphin tattooed on her bare shoulder sparked off a series of sightings of other tattoos, many far less attractive than the dolphin. ‘That man’s arm is all the colours of the rainbow. It must have hurt awfully, having that done.’
Katie now felt thankful that her mother had steadfastly refused her permission to get any of the tattoos or piercings she had so desired in her teens. And luckily by the time she had got to university she hadn’t been interested any more. As a Goth girl clumped past in black leather boots with a stud in her nose attached to a chain, Victoria was dumbfounded. ‘But, Katie, that must be so unhygienic. Imagine what happens when she gets a cold.’ There was a pause, during which Katie felt relieved to have finished her ice cream. ‘What if she sneezes?’
As they relaxed over a cappuccino after lunch, Victoria remembered what Katie had said earlier. ‘Has this year really been awful for you?’
Katie looked up and nodded. ‘To be honest, it’s been pretty crap the last couple of years, but it all came to a head this spring.’
‘You mean, with your husband…boyfriend?’
‘Him and work. With Dean it was a series of things, mainly drink-related, leading up to a full-blooded shoot-out when he missed his birthday dinner.’ She went on to give Victoria a somewhat sanitised version of the events in the pub with the stripper. Victoria was suitably shocked.
‘That’s awful. I don’t blame you for breaking it off.’
‘The technical term for what happened is that I dumped him, big time.’
Victoria giggled. ‘I like that. You dumped him, just like the dustbin. And what was wrong at work?’
‘I’ve been trying to analyse it. I actually like teaching, but I think it was maybe the cyclical nature of it that got me down.’ In answer to Victoria’s expression she explained. ‘The kids come to you at the beginning of the year. You teach them and then they move on at the end of the year. But you stay there. I started feeling I was just marking time. And then there was all the bureaucracy and red tape. No, I knew I needed a change. Who knows? Maybe if I’d been in a settled relationship with a good man, I might have seen things differently.’
‘So is anybody courting you at the moment?’
Katie laughed. ‘No, Victoria, people stopped courting about a hundred years ago. I think you want to ask if I’m seeing anybody at the moment. Or if there’s somebody after me.’
Victoria acknowledged the correction with a nod of the head. ‘So, are you seeing somebody at the moment? Is anybody after you?’ Katie realised that the question was not as simple as it sounded. So far in her life, Victoria had neither been courted nor had anybody after her. This was all a whole new world waiting for her. Katie knew that she would have her work cut out helping her to navigate her way through these treacherous waters. She wasn’t looking forward to the challenge. She limited herself to short answers to the questions.
‘No to the first and maybe to the second.’ She saw Victoria’s expression. ‘There’s a man called Martin. I hardly know him, though. I’ll tell you about him some time.’
Victoria thought it best to change the subject. ‘I’ve been thinking. You were talking about your car last night, weren’t you?’ Katie nodded. ‘So, you can drive?’
‘Ever since I was 17. What about you? I’ve seen you drive the tractor. I was very impressed at the way you backed that huge trailer into the yard.’
Victoria snorted. ‘Tractors are easy. But, no, I can’t go out on the road. I haven’t got a licence.’ She gave Katie a wry smile. ‘By now, you can probably imagine why I never learnt.’
‘Your dad.’ She smiled back at her. ‘Well, that’s easy. We’ll get you an application for a provisional licence at the post office this afternoon and we’ll fix you up with a course of lessons. We’ll have you out on the open road by the end of the month.’
‘Oh, Katie, that’s amazing!’ Victoria was beaming, then a thought struck her. ‘We’d better get another car, then. Somehow I don’t think the Rolls is quite the vehicle to learn on. Or any of the cars from my father’s collection really. And, if we get a car now, you can drive it as much as you like. Didn’t you say you wanted to come down to Exeter to see somebody next weekend?’ She caught Katie’s eye. Katie had finally been able to speak to Jenny that morning from the toilet in John Lewis and they had provisionally arranged to meet up next Saturday. If Katie had the use of a car, that would make things much easier. ‘I’m sure it would be expedient if you had a car.’
‘That would be fantastic.’ Katie couldn’t believe her luck. ‘By the way, I would say that expedient is probably not really common parlance nowadays. You could maybe try suitable or handy. Anyway that would be really handy as I’m afraid my old car failed its MOT last month and I sold it to a scrap merchant for fifty pounds.’ It was now becoming automatic for her to explain acronyms and “modern” words. ‘That’s the test all cars need to have every year to prove they’re safe to drive. Anyway, that’s a great idea if you’re sure.’ At that moment they both spotted Mackintosh loitering on the pavement opposite the restaurant.
‘Finished? Anything else you want to eat?’ Katie shook her head and Victoria stood up. ‘I’ll just go to the lavato…the loo.’ This was another recent addition to Victoria’s vocabulary and she was still getting used to it. She gave Katie a proud smile. ‘You see, I’m learning! I won’t be a minute. Maybe you might like to ask Mackintosh to pay the bill for us.’
Katie beckoned Mackintosh in and he paid the bill, adding a scrupulously calculated tip. Victoria reappeared and they went out into Cathedral Close. Katie looked across at Victoria.
‘What’s next on the agenda?’
Victoria had no doubts. ‘Mackintosh, we need to buy a car.’
He didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘Certainly, Miss Victoria. What sort of car did you have in mind?’
‘Well, Katie needs a car for getting about and I’m going to learn to drive, so maybe something a little smaller than the Rolls.’ She caught the Scotsman’s eye. ‘And something modern, I think.’
Mackintosh allowed himself a smile. ‘A capital idea, Miss Victoria. A nice new car sounds very sensible. Did you have anything in mind?’ Seeing the blank look on Victoria’s face, he transferred his attention to Katie. ‘Any preference…Katie?’
Katie gave him a broad smile. She had been working hard on all the staff at the great house to get them to call her just plain, Katie, rather than, Miss Katie. ‘No preference. To be honest, I don’t know the first thing about cars. As long as it starts, that’ll be fine.’
Mackintosh nodded to himself and checked a few details. ‘Two seats or four?’
The two girls looked at each other for a moment. After a pause for reflection, Victoria suggested, ‘Two? Oh, I don’t know, maybe four is more sensible.’
‘Either is fine by me.’ Katie had never been very interested in cars.
‘Something sporty? Maybe with an open top?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose that would be nice, but nothing too big.’ Now that she had decided to learn, Victoria wanted something of a manageable size.
‘My thoughts entirely.’ Mackintosh gave it a few moments’ thought. ‘Definitely nothing too big. Those Ferraris and Lamborghinis are just too wide and low for our lanes.’ Katie almost tripped over as she heard these legendary names. Mackintosh caught her elbow and steadied her. ‘The Germans make some very good cars these days. Your father, Miss Victoria, was very much against anything made in that particular country, but if you don’t have any such convictions, I think German will make the best choice.’
‘Whatever you decide, Mackintosh. In fact, if there’s a garage here in Exeter, maybe we could go and see one this afternoon.’
‘Certainly, Miss Victoria. Would you like to leave now? I can go and get the Rolls.’
‘You go off, Mackintosh, but don’t hurry. There is a bit more shopping I need to do first. Will you pick us up from the same place at, say
, three o’clock?’
Mackintosh nodded his agreement and headed off up the road. Katie turned to Victoria and raised an eyebrow. ‘What would you like to buy now?’
‘Underwear, Katie. Definitely some new underwear.’
Chapter Five
The TV aerial was installed in the great house the very next day. In the space of a few hours the technician put up a new aerial and ran connections to the main rooms. It was exactly one o’clock when the big television in the lounge was switched on, just in time for the news. The signal was good and clear, and the newsreaders’ faces looked out at them in high definition. Katie thanked the technician, who handed her the remote control and left. She went out into the hall and called up the stairs to Victoria, who was in her room, still trying on the host of new clothes she had bought. She appeared on the landing wearing the short denim skirt they had found. She pulled on a pale blue top and ran down excitedly, barefoot.
Katie spotted the face of Mrs Milliner, peering through the crack of the kitchen door. She looked surprised, but far from disapproving. That morning at breakfast, Katie had told her about the previous day’s shopping trip and the housekeeper had been delighted.
‘Best thing she could have done, Mis… Katie. It’s not natural for a young woman to be cooped up in the house all the time.’ She glanced at the door, but both of them knew that at that hour Victoria was out on her morning ride. ‘Sir Algernon loved her deeply, or at least, he thought he did. The car crash fifteen years ago did him much more damage than just the broken bones.’ She shook her head. ‘He came out of it mentally scarred; seriously mentally scarred.’