Who Was Angela Zendalic

by Mary Cavanagh

  She walked slowly back into the house without looking back.

  Half an hour later Ted reported back to Stan and Edie, in the kindest way he could, that Angela ‘needed some time to herself’ and that ‘she would be in touch’. A gentle explanation that he hoped would take the heat out of the boiling situation. Some crumbs of hope that they would be wise to ‘let her be’, and things would resolve in the fullness of time. But their faces showed they weren’t convinced. They wanted her to come home.

  He now sat at the table in Peggy’s back room. She, with a schooner of sweet sherry, and he, with a large scotch. ‘What a shambles,’ he sighed. ‘You know what all this is about, don’t you. It’s not just about enjoying herself. Underneath it all she’s confused, and she wants to know more. The whole story, like. I told her there was no hope – that the law forbids it – but it’s still driving her mad.’

  ‘Oh, Ted. The world’s changed, but has it changed enough? I want to tell her, but how can I? How would Stan and Edie cope with the shock? And then the shock would turn to fury. They’ve made her everything she is. All the care and the worry, and wearing themselves out. All I’ve ever done is shell out money, buying my way into her life. It would be like I was snatching her back when all the hard work had been done. How could I be so callous? And there’d have to be the revelation about Joseph disappearing as well. Another disappointment for her.’

  ‘Ever thought about trying to find him?’

  She nodded. ‘I have tried, Ted. I didn’t tell you in case you thought I was stupid. Holding a candle for a man who’d deserted me.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘A few of years ago I told Piers Penney I’d like to get in touch with an old Tavistock scholar I’d befriended in the fifties. He suggested I contacted the Professor of African Studies, a Dr Estavan. I wrote to him and he got back to me with some news.’

  ‘I take it, it wasn’t good news.’

  She shrugged. ‘Ten years ago he and his family were hounded out into exile, with new passports and identities. They all drifted into obscurity, so he might be alive, he might be dead, but one thing I do know. He never came back for me. We can only pray that Angie doesn’t make the same mistake as I did.’

  ‘She’s assured me she won’t. She said she’s on the pill.’

  ‘I was hoping she was. If Edie knew it’d be another huge shock, but it’s good news.’

  Peggy then put down her glass with a start. ‘Oh, Ted, I’ve kept my mouth shut all her life and I’m sick of it. I’ve always wanted to blurt out the truth, and do you know why I don’t do it now. It’s not all about Stan and Edie’s feelings. It’s because of me! What if she doesn’t want me to be her mother? She’s likely to be having some fanciful thoughts about her real parents, like there’s an exciting drama to be revealed. You know – they’re rich, and important, and glamorous. That they parted in dramatic circumstances, and they’ve spent all their lives thinking about her, and wanting her back, and that she’ll re-unite them, and they’ll all live happily ever after. Don’t you think the bubble would burst when she found out it was only dreary old me and the invisible man.’

  ‘Oh, Peg ...’

  ‘Off you go, Ted. You must be tired.’

  Ted got up and kissed her forehead. ‘You’re not alone, duck. I’m always here, you know that. We’ll get through this.’

  With Ted gone Peggy poured another sherry, and sank back into a small arm chair. Drink had always been for high days and holidays, and never something to hide behind, but just lately it’d become a welcome prop. Her job had become tediously humdrum and Mr Agarowlia, who’d been a quiet, unobtrusive companion for eighteen years, had just been promoted and bought his own flat. She was going through ‘the change’, and she was exhausted. Exhausted with the worry and misery of her darling child’s struggle to understand herself, and the counter misery of seeing dear Stan and Edie, so hurt and battered.

  She sipped her drink and felt the sharp shoot of alcohol course through her veins, as it had on her one night of passionate love. The night when the whole country was drunk with happiness, and with the dawn of a new Elizabethan age, she was on the brink of ‘the rest of her life’. So often, in her younger days, she’d re-lived the touch and feel of Joseph, with longing stares at the dated monochrome of the Worcester College party, and playing her precious disc of Petite Fleur. But now it seemed like a useless ritual. A stupid performance with no romantic attachment or purpose. A page from a book she’d read too many times.

  April 2014

  Monks Bottom

  Howie had (as Sarah imagined) tipped out his new clothes on the bed in the nursery. Jeez. £385 spent, and so little to show for it. What a rip-off. In his better days he’d never paid over the odds for anything; the mantra of a true Scotsman. There’d never been any financial mess in the household, either. Every bill paid on the nail, no debts apart from the mortgage and a modest car loan. No credit cards to his name and regular monthly savings. That was before his life became the black hole of horror that he was only just climbing out of, and what had really got his goat today was the lovely Sarah standing at the tills, like Lady Bountiful, while he stood there, publically penniless, and reliant on charitable handouts.

  But independence was in sight. Within a couple of months he’d have passed the Diploma of Horticulture Course, been assessed by the RHS, and free to apply for a position. Piss poor money, he knew, but he would enjoy a millionaire’s lifestyle, surrounded by green shoots, and sweet brown earth, and plants and seeds, and the glorious smile of nature in his face.

  He looked out of the window to see the magnificent old cedar lit up by the lowering sun. What a fucking beautiful place this was, and how he empathised with Sarah that it was being wrenched from her. Ah, Sarah. Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. How truly stunning she was, and all he could think about was taking her in his arms, and kissing her again, and sliding her into his bed. And here he was, in the first room she’d ever slept in, where she’d first peered out, through the bars of her cot, into the eyes of the gentle, beautiful Merryn and the revered Sir Piers.

  He’d heard of Penney long before he came to the village; his time inside being spent in intense feeding of the brain to prevent insanity. So many years to fill, and all filled in a self-imposed flagellation of achievement. Anything. Music, art, literature, astronomy, and psychology, with two Open University degrees accomplished. Not that he’d become a real expert on anything, but had managed to create a vast general knowledge. Horticulture, however, was the most fulfilling of all, and his pressing duty tonight was to work on his dissertation.

  A shave of both face and head, a vigorous shower, and into his new sweat top and jogging bottoms. With a large cup of tea in hand he walked into the music room where the clutter of sheet music had remained untouched since he’d found the old man in his chair. He switched on the computer and wandered around while it booted up, stopping to stare at a painting of a lovely nude. He contemplated it and then walked nearer for a closer view. An acrylic of stunning talent. Slightly impressionistic and better from a distance of about two metres. A truly beautiful mixed-race girl was lying on a dishevelled bed with a red Roberts Radio at her side. Her long-limbed body stretched out and propped up on an elbow. Her face in three quarter profile and her eyes gently shut. The moon and stars seen through an open window and the use of light was astounding; soft lamplight on her face, and muted shadows from the moon on her legs. A truly stunning work, but there was no signature on the canvas.

  He moved forward, carefully lifted it from the wall, lowered it onto the floor, and turned it round. Again, no artist’s name, but there was a dusty typed label: Angela Listening To Stuart Henry - Aston Street, March 1972.

  Well, lovely Angela, he thought, I’d give the riches of Croesus to own you. His mind now turned again to thoughts of sex, and of what he’d like to do with the lovely Sarah. Something he’d been denied for ten years.

  March 1972

  Aston Street Oxford

  27th March 197
2

  Dear Mum and Dad, (and please show to Auntie Peg and Uncle Ted)

  Uncle Ted will have told you he saw me last night, and what we talked about. I can’t come home at the moment, but I will once I’ve sorted myself out. Maybe in a couple of months or so. I know you’re cross with me, but please try to understand that I need some time and space. Please don’t come and see me either, as I couldn’t cope with the stress of having to explain myself. It’s my problem and it’s nothing you’ve done.

  Please don’t blame Garvie. I know you don’t like him, and you think it’s all his fault, but actually his mother can’t stand me either. Now there’s a surprise. I don’t suppose I can convince you that he loves me, but he does. We’re good together at the moment, and very happy. In the autumn he’ll go up to St Martin’s (he’s been awarded a full scholarship) and I plan to go to London with him.

  I am working mornings at the café in the Covered Market, and Garvie is pulling pints three evenings a week at The Turf Tavern – so you see we’re not just lolling about and living off my savings. I also have a regular gig at The Turf on Friday nights. Vocals at the piano with mostly blues and ballad standards – Diana Ross has given way to Nina Simone!

  As I’ve been writing this letter I’ve been thinking about you, and all the years of happy times we’ve had together. Can you try to understand that I’m not lost forever – I’ve just gone on a holiday to find myself.

  I love you all very much,

  PART FIVE

  Mid-May 1972

  The Turf Tavern

  Dating from the 12th century, The Turf Tavern was one of Oxford city’s historical jewels, hidden down a narrow alley off Tavistock Lane, and nestling in an enclave of high college walls. Edgar Stubbings, the landlord, stood with his hands on his hips, his blue-crazed face and pot-belly a tribute to a lifetime of alcohol overdose, and his wheezing lungs to forty fags a day.

  ‘You look bootiful, Ange,’ he said. ‘Not seen that little number before. Just like that thing old rubber lips ponced about in.’

  Angela, having rediscovered her usual attention to vanity, didn’t need to be told she looked quite dazzling in a cream silk and lace mini dress; a Biba original and a near replica of the famous butterfly dress Mick Jagger had worn at a Hyde Park concert a couple of years before.

  ‘Thank you, Edgar’.

  ‘So where’s your tosser of a bloke then?’

  ‘Didn’t he tell you?’

  ‘If ’e’d told me I wouldn’t be askin’, would I?’

  ‘He’s in London. He’s got an exhibition at an arts centre in Camden.’

  ‘Well, ’is bad memory’s got ’im the sack. Lucky for me there’s a long waiting list for bar staff.’

  ‘I’m really sorry, Edgar.’

  ‘Don’t apologise for the little arsehole. You just sit down and sing your ’eart out. Keep the punters captive, and make an old man very ’appy. And don’t forget to do my favourite.’ He cupped his ear, and posed like the black soul singer, Billy Eckstine, adopting a deep American accent, and attempting a croaky croon. ‘We seem like passing strangers now ...’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’s on the list. Actually it’s my dad’s favourite as well.’

  ‘Well, your dad’s got good taste. More than I can say about ’is daughter’s taste in men. What d’you see in the little gobshite, apart from some action in the trouser department, that is?’

  He didn’t wait for a reply, and shambled off, but Edgar’s question was a troubling one. What did she see in Garvie, apart from, as Edgar so aptly put it, the trouser department? Just lately there’d been some violent rows, with stormings out and makings up, usually in bed. And she had to admit she was even beginning to get fed up with that, now that the thrill of sex had become a speechless routine of habit. But with her heart and mind dreaming of Piers, she would still close her eyes and conjure up her phantom lover.

  The pub began to fill up; mostly with students on a Friday night jolly, seeking relief from looming schools, and she studied her list for the first set. Nina Simone’s Feeling Good, Knights In White Satin, A Whiter Shade of Pale, and Dusty Springfield’s How Can I Be Sure; all classy favourites, some new, some old, guaranteed to hypnotise the young audience to thoughts of love and romance on a warm spring night. The lights lowered, she set the microphone, lay her hands on the piano keys, and her syrupy molasses voice began to sing, ‘Birds flyin’ high, you know what I mean ...’

  The first set ended with loud applause and the odd whistle, but as the last notes fell away the strong, waltzing rhythm of, ‘How Can I Be Sure’ was still spinning in her head. She’d been in Piers’ arms, dressed in a white Cinderella crinoline, looking into his eyes, whirling, and whirling, and whirling, until she felt dizzy. As she came-to and lifted her head the usual crowd of admirers flocked to the magnet, offering to buy her drinks, but being restored as immaculate she excused herself to the damp squalor of the cramped Ladies to repair her appearance in a cracked mirror. A vigorous brush of her hair that now cascaded down her back in a thick waterfall of relaxed, shiny waves, an application of red lipstick, and a spray of Youth Dew.

  When she returned Edgar called her over. ‘Guess what? Lord Fuckaduck’s been on the phone. Said ’e won’t be ’ome until the early hours. I broke the news ’e’s unemployed.’ She slipped back to the piano, not caring a jot what Garvie was, or wasn’t, going to do.

  Her second set included the plaintive All In The Game, the emotional Macarthur Park, George Harrison’s Something, and concluding with Edgar and her dad’s favourite, Passing Strangers. She began to sing, once again losing herself in the searing romance of the songs, dreaming not only of Piers, but of what sort of a life she could make for herself, without Garvie in it, and without going back to No.55.

  Her watch said 10.15pm and the customers were getting noisily drunk, or silent with tiredness. Soon Edgar would shout, ‘Last orders, please,’ and a noisy rush for the bar would follow, so she announced her last song of the night. ‘Goodnight everyone, thank you for listening, and I hope this beautiful song from the past, originally sung as a duet by Billy Eckstine and Sara Vaughan, will remind you of the frailty of love.’ She ran her fingers over the keys, played an eight bar intro, and began.

  No matter how many times she sang Passing Strangers it evoked a time as a child in the late1950’s, hearing it playing out from the old Bush radio in the cosy back room. Her mum with her hands covered in flour, mouthing the words under her breath, and her dad lifting her up into his arms so they sang it together. He with his head to one side, trying like Edgar to be a cool crooner, and she singing out the Sarah part, with her notes rising high.

  She’d just got to the last verse when two hands rested on her shoulders. Momentarily she missed a note, but thinking it was a passing drunk she continued, determined not to be distracted. But the owner of the hands began to whisper-sing in her ear. A classically trained baritone who gave no passing nod to American crooners. Her voice dried, her hands stopped playing, Edgar rang the last orders bell, and the audience weaved noisily to the bar, past caring what the girl at the piano was doing.

  He came round to sit close up beside her on the piano stool. ‘Hello, Angela.’ A block of ice dropped from her stomach to her knees. Her mouth hung open, her hands and jaw shook, heat rose up her neck and face, and her blood pumped with a fizzing roar. A gentle sideways flash of her eyes to see his face – his forever wonderful face – looking at her with a benign smile. His cheeks were leaner, with slight lines down his jowls, and an occasional grey strand now peppered his hair.

  ‘Dr Penney.’

  ‘Piers, please. I haven’t been called Dr Penney since I left Oxford’, but darling, darling adored were the only words on her lips. Her heavenly man was brought back to her. Close touching her shoulders and velvet brushing her bare legs. A power surge roaring up her thighs.

  He began to softly sing.

  There were three ravens sat on a tree,

  Down a down, hey down, hey down,
<
br />   They were as black as black might be,

  With a down.

  With a breaking voice she joined in with the second verse.

  The one of them said to his mate,

  Where shall we our breakfast take?

  With a down, derry, derry, derry down, down.

  He stared hard at the piano keys. ‘I’ve often thought about you.’

  ‘And me you,’ she whispered.

  ‘The little girl with the voice and beauty of an angel. The little girl I wanted to turn into a world famous mezzo.’

  ‘I’m going to disappoint you,’ she stuttered. ‘I left school in February. I’m a waitress in a café.’

  If he, too, was disappointed he didn’t show it. ‘It’s not too late. I can still help you. I’ve just been appointed Regius Professor of Ancient English Music, so I’m back in Oxford for good.’

  ‘I heard you have another child.’

  ‘No. Merryn lost our little boy at late term.’

  She faltered. ‘Oh, Piers. Oh, that’s so sad. And where ...where are your family.’

  ‘Merryn and I have separated. She and the children are living in Wales. With her parents on their farm.’

  An electric shock of delight now rigoured her body. She gripped her knees, and let out a small agonised sound. ‘I’m really sorry,’ she said softly, trying to sound credible, but concealing a gulp of joy.

  ‘It would be nice to talk, wouldn’t it? I’ve got a new set of rooms in Tavistock. Will you come back with me for a drink?’

  She nodded, her lungs so tight she could hardly breathe. ‘Yes. Yes, I will.’ She gathered up her bag, and turned to him. ‘I’m really sorry about the baby.’

  He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. ‘You’re very sweet. But you always were.’ As they left he placed an arm firmly around her shoulders, un-noticed by anyone except old Edgar.